¶ Documentary Introduction and Authenticity
How you doing, mate? You all right? Yeah, very good. Very good. How are you? Yeah, good. Looking forward to discussing this documentary. Yeah, I think this will be great. Partly because, obviously, I was heavily involved with the documentary. Project managed the whole thing or produced it, as it were. And I was in all of the lessons.
And any all of the interviews that took place and you've watched it and you've got some thoughts. So I'm hoping I'm very interested to hear what you think and what you want to discuss. And I'm hoping I can sort of shed some insight on just what.
what I learned while being there, while it was all being recorded and put together and the many edits we went through to get the finished product. Well, this is like someone... recording a documentary for me because i i i just love this this is this is you know no no bs is it this is just three teachers who are different but are all quality yeah um
And then them having the time to have their lessons picked apart and you've seen their lessons. It's not that classic thing of, oh, yes, I do this and I do that. We've seen it. We saw the video. I do believe, knowing Steplab and knowing you, that they are just lessons. You just turn up and film. It's not scripted. Pepsi McRae says it's not scripted. Do you want to say anything about that?
Just that that's absolutely correct. I mean, we should also say, like, just in case anyone doesn't know what on earth we're talking about. This is all available to watch for free. You can go to steplab.co slash film or steplab.co slash watch, either one. And you might have to put in an email address just to prove that you're not a bot.
But then it's all available to watch for free. And there's four parts, four episodes, each about 45 minutes long, called Great Teaching Unpacked. Yeah, absolutely. And you're absolutely right. None of the lessons, nothing was staged. None of the lessons were staged. It was all as it happened, real stuff. And I think that's one of the things we're most proud of. Like we didn't, we managed to get in there and film business as normal.
And this is what it's all about, isn't it? If you're going to put out a documentary that's going to hopefully be seen by lots of people, lots of StepLab users and other people, it's got to be... what you get when you go to a school, which is, can I go and watch one of your English teachers teach? Yes, you can. She's in room four, and then you just go in, don't you? That's how it is when you visit a school, or that's how it should be.
And that's what this is. It can't be anything else. It can't be staged. It can't be these three kids can't be there. And can we just do that bit again? It's brilliant. And I know that that's what you guys do because you film me. You came to film me doing it and we did it like that, didn't we? Yeah. So brilliant. Yeah, absolutely brilliant. Really enjoyed it. And people that we know and trust doing the...
work around it. I mean, not only yourself, but Pepys McCray, we know him, we know his work. Josh Goodrich, I'm a Step Lab user. I've watched a lot of stuff and listened to a lot of stuff with him. We've had him on the pod as well. These are people who I want to hear from.
¶ Complexity and Articulating Pedagogy
um it's great stuff great stuff yeah so um i think i think the first thing that i i thought was very good about it is very early on in peps's bit he talks about effective teaching being complex yes and It just is. And I'm going to say that it's only been the last few years that I've probably given it the credit that it deserves. I'm quite lucky that I was kind of raised, I mean, teacher raised in an environment around.
effective teachers. I had some more materials myself and I probably was okay at getting up in front of a group of kids and speaking. And so I've been around a lot of people that make this look easy.
But the more and more that you coach, the more and more that you visit schools, the more and more that you move into a leadership position or whatever, you see that a lot of people don't. And I have my own kids as well and seeing them go through school and seeing teachers they have struggle a bit with things.
It is complex because there's a lot going on, isn't there? And he references that. Yeah, and I think that's absolutely right. The analogy I would draw is, or point to, you know, you watch a great sports player... or sports team, they make it look relatively simple. You know, you watched Arsenal back in 2005 or whenever it was, when they were at the height of their prowess. They just look like they're knocking the ball around in the park.
It's not that simple. You've got to get to a certain level before you can make it look simple. Yeah, or another analogy, I like to watch a lot of stand-up comedy. I've been to like you know stand up open mic night not done it myself by any means but go to it and when you see someone who's just very good
You know, I've been getting into a bit of John Bishop. Have you heard of John Bishop recently? I haven't. No, check him out. Sort of live a puddle in. And he's just telling stories, just like a guy in the pub. But it's not easy. At all. So, yeah. Anyway, that's very good. I'm actually going to put up one thing, and it's probably the only thing that I wasn't sure about in it. I didn't really get the kids stuff.
early on where kids are sort of saying like yeah I really like this school it's very fun and teachers make it fun because I kind of felt that was a little bit that was like They weren't really encapsulating what actually is good about their school. They were just sort of saying stuff that a lot of kids say, like, yeah, I really like this, he's really fun, or he tells jokes, or, you know, he always explains it really well. I don't know. I felt like, ah, okay.
Yeah, I watch a lot of private school sort of, what do you call them, montages or videos, and they're always a bit like that. You know, I really like coming to Brookfield, Brook Shield School because the teaching's so fun. I think there's a lot more...
to it that's why i don't know i i didn't know if getting their perspective was was um as effective as what i then went on to watch for the next 43 minutes if that makes sense right yeah well no that's that's an interesting point i mean one of the things we wanted to include was student voice a student perspective and but there was i know there was just so much we wanted to do and we yeah it was just not going to fit into um 45 50 minute episodes so
We had to make quite a lot. We had to cut a lot. We would love to have done much more. on the science of learning, to have gone much deeper on some of the routines or techniques, really dug into pair talk or response, things like that.
We had to trim so much of that back. And with the student voice, I think we're trying to think like, how does this, how do we fit this in to... what we're trying to show which is breaking down something that as you've said already is incredibly complex and technical when the kids don't The kids don't know that. They don't see that necessarily. They're just the end user, the client. And so we wanted to get something across from them. And actually, to go back to my standout comedy analogy...
It would be the same if me and you went to see someone who was just very, very funny. We'd just say things like, he was very, very funny. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, I get that. And also, we've had pupils on the pod, haven't we? We know that they don't... They know when they're being taught well, but they can't always articulate it. Yeah. We've experienced that, haven't we?
And in the end, the thing that came out of the student voice, because we did quite a lot of it, and like with any film, you know, there's a lot of stuff that gets left on the cutting room floor, but we did a lot of it. But invariably, one thing that came out was the kids. were incredibly positive about those schools. Oh, yeah, absolutely. And, you know, they enjoy being there.
They enjoy being challenged. They enjoy working hard. They enjoy the intensity of their lessons. They don't get bored. They feel like they're learning a lot, but also becoming more polite, respectful. They're proud of the way that they speak in full sentences, that they speak like adults. And so in the end, we wanted to convey as much of that as possible because I think it would be very easy to watch.
It's very easy to watch a school like Arxone and, you know, Michaela would be quite similar and just be critical. I don't, I don't like that. I don't like the, you know, it doesn't, it looks too intense. It looks too regimented. Let's get to that. Because I thought that was very well articulated by Peps when he talked about the emotional response that watching some of the lessons might trigger. And I think it was very sensible.
for him to speak to that and not just leave that as something that we don't discuss because it does. I've seen... one of my colleagues i'm not on twitter anymore for this reason basically yeah one of my colleagues um i think she probably watched all of it now but when i spoke to her she'd only watched episode one
And she said that on Twitter there was some heat given to some of the lessons of Pritesh and all that, you know. Where's the joy in teaching like that? Oh, it's teaching by numbers. It does. I think when people see something that is very different to what is their norm...
Even if there are stats behind it that show how effective it is or pupil voice or whatever it is or visits to the school. We do see this emotional response a lot in teaching, don't we? Oh, yeah, all the time. And I think you're right. It was very astute from peps.
And one of the things that I think Peps does brilliantly, and I've always thought this long before I knew him personally, was he articulates the things that you and I often... were battling people about in our early days from a a very sort of clear scientific rationale and explains why why it's better
to do this and why if you you know if you don't do things this way you're actually letting kids down and he doesn't do it with with force he's very you know articulate and measured and logical in in how he's conveying the information and i think you know you see that in his evidence snacks he he he calls he calls he calls out what needs to be called out but without really
and not in an aggressive way or not a combative way. And so often, I think in our early days, we were coming up against people who wanted us to do things like group work or discovery learning. And we were... struggling to find ways to articulate to those people why those were not the best things to be doing.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're quite right. I've tried to do that in some of the stuff that I've done. I've talked about when I've talked to live groups about don't be typical teachers. I told you about my typical teachers thing. What do teachers do? when they first see or hear something that's different to what they currently do, they either say, I already do that, in which cases, are you sure you do? Or they say, well, that's just teaching. Everyone does that.
No, they don't. Or they say, well, that wouldn't work in my subject. Yeah. And that's really common, isn't it? That people will do one of those things. But I'm not saying I articulate it as well as Peps does. But I think it is good to try and... you know uh to try and reference that directly no yeah i like it and i think that that the way that you front load that don't be typical teachers is um
It's great. I mean, that's what we would do with the kids, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Right, okay. Let's get on to some of the teachers, right? So first of all, we come to this lady, Nina Sharma. Correct. Nina Sharma. And...
¶ Nina Sharma: Voice and Visualiser
I've got a lot of time for a lot of the stuff that she does in her lesson. I do have a lot of time for a lot of the stuff she does in her lesson. She is very slow and deliberate and she uses pauses. beautifully she really does I know we only see a few minutes of it but one thing I've written down about her and her lesson is you do have to sell
what you're teaching very well to the kids. And if I was going to pick on one thing, well, it's probably more than one thing, but one thing that I see a lot in lessons that I visit, it's you've got to sell this. Like they haven't...
They haven't asked to come and learn about this. You know, you may have a degree in geography and want to teach about rivers, or you might think that sort of 3D Pythagoras is fantastic, or you might not think any of it's fantastic. You might just be doing it to get paid and to get to pay the mortgage off. But they haven't asked to...
learn it and you've got to sell it and she just does that really well there's one bit where she says um uh william wordsworth is one of the most famous poets ever and she says it slowly And she says it clearly. And she says it like she believes it. She says it like it's actually a fact. And I was a teenager who didn't really enjoy English.
I saw it as if I could write a CV and I could, you know, write an email or whatever, why do I need to know? And I would have leaned forward to hear more about Williams Wordsworth. And that is, you can't buy that. It's vital that you can do that. And then she says, he and his friends, who also wrote poems, were called the romantic poets. And I really liked the simplicity of just saying, him and his friends. This is nothing technical, guys. Back in the day, I think.
back in the day this is someone who was a really famous poet and he had a couple of friends and they wrote some and they were called the romantic poets do you want to learn more about them yes i do actually you know there's something in that Yeah, she, she, one of the things that jumped out to us about Nina was straight away was just her, her use of voice and tone and pacing. You know, you said you opened by saying that she, she speaks, she's sort of very slow and deliberate, but she was.
she also it should be noted like she's very good at mixing things up she can pick up the pace and speak quickly with pace and then really slow it down and um again she's got quite a naturally loud You know, she's got a very strong presence. You see her with her year group out in the courtyard. She's, you know, she's a big figure, but she, so she can, she has that as a sort of default, but she can go right down to.
Kind of the telling a secret, you know, drawing people in voice. And so, yeah, we really wanted to use her to exemplify that aspect of the art, really, of teaching. There's a great Simon Sinek. video that I watched recently about the difference between Apple and other other computer companies where other computer companies say we make really good i don't know um mp3s they do this they do that they do this whereas apple was saying we i can't remember what he says now
we are at the heart of what you want and what you need. We want an MP3 player to do that. Do you want to buy one? And it's like, yeah, I do. Yeah. And that's, that's what she's doing. She does it later on as well. When she says, she says, But why was he called an analytic poet? Long pause. And you're like, come on, why was he called that? I want to know. And again, I was that kid who had the ability to do it.
Got an A in GC English, but didn't have a lot of interest. Make me have interest. Well, I have got interest thanks to you, Miss. And there's something in that. It's vital. I don't see enough of that. Yeah, great, great. Visualiser usage.
I just think there's something in getting an exercise book, writing something down and popping it under the visualiser as being a more interesting way of learning than some sort of... company-made PowerPoint with a logo in the corner that you know wasn't made by Miss and she's clicking through it.
You know, something in that as well. You know, we didn't, interestingly enough, we didn't see it. There's no, well, you just don't see PowerPoints at Arc Zone. I don't know if I can say that categorically, but on the... what 10 times i've been there now um the various lessons i've been in yeah i've i've never really seen someone clicking through a powerpoint they might use them to put up
put up slides with a photo on i suppose i think i have seen that but generally speaking it's the visualizer and um you know one of the things that's that I think is striking about that. You know, she sticks up the exercise book and she writes a short sentence in there. about romantics. She also writes, she writes romantics with a capital R and underlines that as opposed to romantics with a small r. That's right. And it would be easy to watch that, I think, and think, well...
She's just winging it, you know, no PowerPoint. She's just got an empty page on a visualizer and she's writing down the random words. But she will have very carefully planned that and thought about what is the key word? What is the key thing? I see time and time again. It's kids, when they're writing about romantic poets, not capitalising, not understanding that that is a noun. So she will have done that very deliberately. And the same thing with the sentence that she wanted them to...
¶ Classroom Performance and Readiness
to understand. And just, you know, hopping on, we're going to come on to it in a minute properly, but Pritesh, I noticed with him, his skill at manipulating the visualiser and... you know, going from this page in the booklet to this page to a blank bit of paper is very impressive because that is also one thing that I see a lot is lessons lost.
Just because people are just faffing with tech at the wrong time. Don't get me wrong, you can do it. I'll give you a little anecdote on that. I've got quite a tough year 11 class, bottom set year 11, and haven't had a great deal in year 9, year 10.
And the day that I knew I had them was the day when I was teaching with my iPad, as you know I do, right on the screen. And I accidentally kicked... um the cable out of the wall and it like bent the the thing so it wouldn't then go back in and i was like that and they just sat and they just waited for me
And I faffed about a bit more. And I never do this. I never faff. This was very, very rare. But it was just one of those things. Damn it. It could happen any time. And I faffed. And I got it sorted out. It probably took me about...
50 seconds to get it I managed to kind of bend it back with my fingers and just push it and it just about worked you know and I thought I've got them now because I could faff for 50 seconds and I didn't lose the room but you can't initially And I see lessons lost because people are just not ready or they can't.
They've tried to go from the register to the PowerPoint, but they're on the wrong thing, and it hasn't quite worked. Or they've forgotten how to share the screen or to mirror, and they have to ask one of the kids. And it's just like, you can't do that. It's just such a... I mean, I want to say like low performance, you know.
attitude or approach and what i mean by that is it's the opposite of high performance you know you you it is a performance teaching in some sense yeah like just like if you go to see someone at a theater you you can't you don't see someone on stage who sort of in between two lines has to stop and check the script, you know, or something like that. Like everything has to be ready when that curtain comes up.
That's it. Like the show is on and you have to perform. And I feel like that with teaching, like, you know, your room has to be ready before the kids come in. I gave an action point to someone I was coaching a couple of weeks ago, and it's basic, but I said, right, you can imagine the lesson. It's the classic kind of, they come and they do the starter in silence, right? And I said, right, next week, when I come back...
you are going to get everything ready to go through the starter while they're still working. So that when you say, right, class, let's go through it, you are then completely ready to then begin. Because she's an ECT1, right? Because what she was doing is she was saying, right, class, let's go through it.
And then walking over to her lectern and then turning on the visualiser and then making, and it's like, you can't do that. You can't. It sounds small. And she was like, really? Is that what you want me to work on that for a week? Yeah, I do.
Because that's what lost your lesson today. The fact that you said, right, let's go through it. And you made them sit for 11 seconds while you've hafted about. Yeah. At the stage she's at, that's enough to lose the class. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Good stuff. Right.
¶ Clear Communication and Literacy
last thing i want to say on her economy of language yeah she talks about this this is huge isn't it It's worth saying that one of the things that they do, this style really at Arc Zone and at Reach Academy, which is the other school that was featured in the documentary, well, yeah, it's very much like...
It's explicit direct instruction, which is coming from a booklet, essentially. So everyone's working from this booklet, which they read together. But the way it works is that... they'll read just a couple of lines, get that piece of information, then the teacher will do a little bit more exposition. And that would be adding some depth to it or just recapping it or pushing and pulling it around. And then it's into a cycle of questioning.
to consolidate what they've just learned. And they do these cycles of learning like that. And the economy of language is so critical because the move through so many... cycles in the lesson but each one is very short you know very very specific piece of knowledge that they've got to they're going to tackle understand um you know in it
Yeah. And she says, this is a quote from her, she says, economy language is very important so that the kids can hone in on what's important. And again, I see this a lot in lessons I've seen over the years. You're sat there at the back and you're watching and you're thinking, I've got a degree and I could pick out the important bits. But how are they supposed to know what is key in what you've said? Because you've said loads of stuff. It was all kind of okay. It was all fine. But...
And then what they do is they say, right, they ask a question about one of the things they've said and one kid can remember it. because you've got 30 kids there so you've got 30 opportunities haven't you for someone to remember it and then they take that as being like oh yeah that means i'm doing really well carry on but it's not so yeah economy language is huge and she's she's very good on that so i thought that was great yeah yeah good good
And then we come on to, honestly, if I get this right, Isla Iago, is that right? That's right, yeah, yeah. I mean, that's quite a name. And she's quite a person, isn't she? She's quite a character. Yeah, she's fantastic, yeah. So she's teaching... year six and they're doing reading yeah yeah um
Yeah, I mean, do you want to say, I mean, you were there. I don't want to just tell you about... Well, no, but I'm interested in what your observations were and your thoughts, because I can take you through, you know... that lesson in tremendous detail yeah i've i've even mapped out the sort of cycles of um techniques that she runs through across
There's a segment of lesson, I think, that's shown in the documentary. It's about six minutes long. And she basically asks four questions. And she cycles through things like paired talk. Everybody writes, whiteboards.
you know cold call she uses some call response um it's fascinating stuff when you actually sort of map out what she does in those four questions but it's all there to be to be seen and i'm interested in your thoughts and observations well a couple of things here the first is i i love how she reads to the class she reads with real passion i'm trying to convince someone who i was speaking to last week to come on the pod and talk about this because they they lead
literacy in their school and i'm like oh gosh i roll what do you do you get me you know but actually she she actually really knows about literacy And she ripped what I do to shreds in terms of literacy with my tutor group and said it's rubbish. I'll tell you more about that another time. But she talks about one of the best ways that children learn to read with passion is to hear adults read with passion.
And you must do that. You must model it to them. You cannot do what I do in my sugar group, which is say, right, who's going to read today? And someone reads, you go, okay, now that word wasn't quite right. You've got to show them. You've got to read to them with passion. Otherwise, they won't know what they're trying to move towards.
and they'll think that their kind of monosyllabic slow reading is kind of the gold standard and she's a great reader isn't she she reads with real passion I think that's really good yeah she does and I don't know if this I don't think you see it in the documentary but one of the things she does later on in the lesson You see in the documentary a little bit of the vocab practice that they do. But later on, they also do some reading.
practice where they actually she gives them some targets they've got to read with you know speed accuracy prosody and they they take turns uh reading out loud to their partner so it becomes quite noisy I don't know. Have you seen that clip yet? No, I haven't. But it's one of the things that my ex-colleague was advising me to do in my tutor group as part of literacy. Right.
So that's interesting that they're both... So she models it by reading this paragraph, you know, out loud. And then she gets them to do it. And they just listen to their partner do it. And, you know, in theory, they give them a... you know, a little bit of feedback. They each give them a little bit of feedback. How effective that is, I don't know. But what is effective is the fact that they're having a go, they're reading it out loud.
And they're working on specifically trying to be accurate first readers. Okay, well, from next week, that's what I'm doing in my shoot group. Because I've just been giving that advice. That's really cool to hear that she does it. And I will watch her do it before I do it. Yeah, you should. Because I haven't watched the full lesson. I've only watched the documentary episodes. Yeah, and we may have that clip.
on StepLab, I'll certainly dig it out for you one way or another. Okay. So you can see it modelled for you. Yeah, absolutely. Right. Well, yeah. I guess I could find it quite easy underneath the reading. There'll be a reading step. Yeah, I think it'll be in there, yeah, in the backup practice. Right. I love the whiteboard hover. Okay.
¶ Whiteboards and Teacher Observation
The number one issue I see with the whiteboards done badly is I sit there and I think, what is the flipping point in this? Not in her lesson. I'm talking about lessons that I've been to. Yeah. Because the kids are just copying each other. They are waiting until everyone else has written it.
And someone has just thought, oh, I've heard that mini whiteboards are fashionable. Or, you know, the classic thing when I was a head of maths was, yes, I will be coming to interview. Can you please make sure the mini whiteboards are available? Sort of wink, nod. I'm a good teacher. see them do it it's just rubbish um and this this idea of the hover is simple like most good ideas
And if done well, of course they're going to do that because they're going to just wait and then we're going to all lift together. So I thought that was really, really effective. That's whiteboards done well. Maybe we're going to get some whiteboards out, which I don't really use them.
but I might do now I've seen that because I've been waiting to see it done well, basically. I tried to get to Adam Boxer's school to watch him do it. Anyway, go on. Well, I just think it speaks to one of the things about all of these techniques, as it were. The execution is so important. small details are so important in the routine like you know whiteboards um for a lot of teachers are just a complete nightmare because they haven't you know
the amount of lesson time that's lost while they're faffing around either giving them out or sorting out pens that don't work or, you know, kids are doodling on them when they need to be listening. Or as you say, they're just not being used effectively because they're not... you know, they're not properly being hovered and then shown all at the same time. Like it seems, it seems quite intense to say, okay, it's really important that we all show our whiteboards on one, not after one.
you know, and not before one, on one. And you make a class do it again if they're not doing that. But these are the keys to success. These are the keys to making it work.
I think if you're going to adopt whiteboards or anything else, you have to adopt, you have to really understand that and go the whole hog. Yeah, absolutely. And she certainly does that. Now, also... there's a point in it where she says turn to your partner and go because she wants to doing some kind of paired talk i think yeah and she really watches them really carefully to see is this going as i want it
And I've written down here, there's not enough watching in teaching. What I mean by that is, you know, again, I've been doing some work with some of the guys that I coach around starts of lessons. And I've been saying to them, look, you've asked them to come in.
and all begin the work on the board immediately, which is our school policy, and it's what you do, it's what I do, right? You know, come in and there's words too immediately. You've got to be seen looking at these guys. You cannot, you can't, you can't say that. and then go and sit on your computer, or faff around in the cupboard, or faff around with one kid individually, you've got to look and see, is this what I want?
Do you know what I mean? A bit like a plumber saying, right, I think I've now stopped this leak. I'm going to start the water at the mains, main bit that comes into the house. And I'm now going to flip a look, and I'm going to make sure I've done this properly. No, I'm going to start it, and then I'm going to just sort of say, well, I think that should be all right. I'm going to shoot off now. You know, and...
There's not enough looking in teaching. No, I agree. And Hugh would say, get the kids away from you. And I think it's the same thing, you know, with possibly also encompassing the idea that... you know when during the start of the lesson you can often get
sidetracked by one kid who's got some need of a pen or a ruler or hasn't got his book or whatever like some issue that and that prevents you watching the whole class i've often thought of that this is a weird analogy but i've often thought of that like i don't know how much overtaking you do in your in your car and i don't do that much in mine but um i used to do more on the motorbike yeah and like if you're preparing to overtake a line of cars the place to do it is to drop back?
quite a long way so that you can see you've got that visibility around right around the whole line yeah if you're real close to the the car in front of you or the van in front of you you you can't see you don't know when you can pull out because you can't see around them And I feel like it's that same thing. You need to drop back. You need to have this overview of the class in order to go forwards. Yeah, I like that analogy. Yeah, that's quite right. The other thing I think...
The other example of when she does this... is when she's going around looking at what they've actually put on their mini whiteboards. Because again, another reason why I've never been particularly impressed with what I've seen with this is people aren't actually looking at what they've put. They're sort of like, I use mini whiteboards, you know, come and watch me do it. But they're not actually looking. And there's a wonderful bit where she goes,
goes around the room and she just says that's not the right quote correct it please yeah because as you know i've been in debates with people where i've said No, when I sent them one or two questions to do, they do it in their books. And I just walk around the class looking at their books. And I can get around my class and look at all books in about 20, 30 seconds. Oh, yeah, yeah, but many white boys, you can see everyone, you can hold it up. Yeah, but I actually look.
I'm not saying I'm better. I'm not saying I'm better than her or anything. But I do actually look. And when I go up aisle one and then down aisle two and up aisle three, I have looked at everybody. So are you sure you have?
Would there be whiteboards? Or do you just go, oh, interesting, and then move on to the next question? Because that's not looking. Yeah. I mean, there's a lot to that, because having supported people who... were circulating but not looking not really looking yeah like sort of appearing to be looking you know you'd think they were looking if you were watching them but then they seem to not really have seen anything
I think a lot of it comes down to cognitive load and working memory. Like if that teacher has actually got a lot going on in their head because... They're just at the limit of their capability of running this class. And what am I going to do next? And how's my next bit of explanation going to go or questioning? And they're kind of walking around.
looking at kids writing but often they're only able to really process the most basic thing which is is someone doing something is the kid actually working or not and and the quality of the work and the actual content is they're blind to it in a way so it is a more advanced skill for sure it is i i say it took me two three four years before i actually looked at what the kids were doing in my classes i just i just before that was
Up the front, direct instruction, class were quiet. When I said try these five, they all went heads down, they tried them. But it took me a couple of years to actually be able to see, like, right, fine. And the master of that is, well, she's very good at it, but the master that we know is Simon King. brilliant at moving kids on brilliant at knowing exactly where his kids are and what they can do he could come out of a lesson
And he can tell you basically what each kid did as if he's had 20 private tuitions going on. It's incredible. Yeah, he is the master of that for sure.
¶ Pritesh's Intentional Pace and Mastery
and then it just moves on but we then come on to something she says at the end because there is one difference between her and Pritish who we're going to talk about in a minute She likes to go no hands up, ask a question, pause. She does her pointing at her head thing to sort of get them to think and then pick someone. I am more in that camp.
than the all hands up that Pratesh talks about. But I do recognise the fact that either done effectively leads to good outcomes. So I'm not going to sit here and I don't want to. But I... I kind of get what she was doing more, and it's closer to... It sits more comfortably with me, and I understand it better. But that doesn't mean what he's doing is not effective, because it...
Bloody is. Yeah, it clearly is. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. That's right. I mean, it just goes to show there's more than one way to skin a cat. Yeah. I think the thing with Pratesh that I quite liked, you know... He obviously has thought deeply about what he's done. He's not doing anything there by accident. What he does is very intentional. And he says, I think this is in episode one, he says...
you know, everything I do, there's a, there's a pedagogical reason and there's a cultural reason. Yeah. And I think that's a, great bar to set, you know, like, okay, I'm going to start doing something new in my class. Can I identify the pedagogical reason? Presumably I can, because otherwise why would I be doing it? Can I also identify a cultural reason for doing it? And I like that. That's a higher bar or a further development than I was ever thinking about those kind of things.
Yeah, I think me too. I think me too. I've heard him say that before, and I think it's very good that he thinks in that way. Very impressive. Pace. We'll move on to him. We'll move on to Pritish right now. I've talked about it already, actually. His pace is good. And pace is used a lot in teaching. I need to get more pace. I want to be really clear what I mean by that. And I've said it already, really, with him. It's his ability...
to not waste time on things that don't matter. So he's doing a lot up the front, but quickly, so that they're not having to wait for him, and that's important. Yeah, right. That's what I mean by pace. In his case, his ability to switch between images, nothing gets in the way of the teaching, does it? No, it's very slick. It's very slick. And you, I mean...
Yeah, I was in those lessons, two of his lessons that we filmed. One thing that's, he's very comfortable, very relaxed. You know, it really comes across that. This is a guy who's mastered this art. He's not... He's not having to think very hard about what he's doing. And I mean that in a positive way. I don't mean that as a criticism. I mean, it's embedded. It's in there. He knows very intuitively at this point.
when he's going to get them to do a turn and talk, when he's going to do a bit more direct instruction, when he's going to ask a question, when he's going to move on and when he's going to stick with something. And that's come from... many years of being very deliberate about that stuff. I'm not saying he hasn't done the hard work. He certainly has. But one thing that comes across is just how fluid he is with those decisions. And that leads to the pace, I think.
A marker that I often use for that is how well would a teacher cope if a clock fell off the wall? Do you know what I mean? So if they're teaching and something that you just can't expect to happen just happens.
Are they just able to go, oh, that clock's full off the wall. I have to get that sorted out by the site team. Right, let's get back to our work. Or does it become like the whole biggest thing that's ever happened in the world? And he's just so skilled that he would just own that, wouldn't he? He would just handle that and he'd be back to you. again in within seconds yeah that's the best teachers are aren't they yeah yeah yeah for sure yeah i mean the things that are irrelevant to the lesson
You know, it's like, again, it's like, it's one of Hugh's lines. Like they care about what we care about. And again, I think that applies here. If you've set the tone that what matters are all the details of the thing we're learning. What doesn't matter is everything else. And when the clock falls off the wall, it doesn't matter really. And the kids respond accordingly. That's right. Absolutely. There's a lovely bit where a boy gets something wrong.
¶ Merit System and Student Motivation
It's something about this idea that protons balance electrons. Yeah. And then he gives him another go. Yeah. And he messes it up again. Yeah. And I love this. If you watch it, maybe you've seen this. The boy next to him just shakes his head and says, oh, I did. But not in a patronising way. Oh, that's not right. And I just love the fact that they're all thinking.
Oh, they want to get it right. They want to get it right. If anything, the guy that shakes his head will never know what's going on in his brain, but was a little bit...
Sad for the boy. Again, mate, again, you screwed it up. It's great. It's a lovely bit of a lesson. I really enjoyed that bit. It's incredibly human. And I think you see it in his body language. I think that... the kid is called Khaled and he um yeah if you watch that bit again I think you'll see like there because they all sit very straight you know slant and um quite right and
when he gets it wrong, he's sort of slumps momentarily and then he like pulls himself together and he sort of sits back up. And he, he obviously is a bit disappointed to get it wrong in that moment. Yeah. Yeah. It's the way he'd like. Right. Pull yourself together, man. There's a bit of that goes on. Yeah. And I know, you know, I know Pratesh will have will have pulled him back in.
later on in the lesson with something else and giving him some praise and he would he would he will leave that lesson like the other kids feeling good about themselves yeah better better for it better for it yeah yeah yeah for sure Right. I want to talk now about these merits, these demerits, because this is electric, the way he's doing this. And I'm, I'm, we talked about it in a recent pod. Isla too, Isla too, actually. But yeah, it maybe isn't so obvious. Merit to you for a spire. Yeah. I'm...
We talked about this in the previous part. I'm rubbish at this. In all six schools that I've worked in, I've basically never really given out house points, merits. ads point, whatever they're called. Because I'm just kind of like, well, what do you mean? I'm teaching. I'm a bit like Pritesh. I'm on it. I want to get the work done. I want to get my explanations. I want to get you working, heads down. Kids care about what I care.
care about so I've never really done it but he's got this ingenious way where he's just got someone to one side who's just making a note for him of who's getting merits and who's getting demerits and it just means that he could just kind of say it And then there it is, it's done.
And that's what I didn't like about it before. I don't want midway through my teaching in Pythagoras, when someone says, sir, wouldn't you need to split it into two triangles? Very good, Matt. I don't want to let me, oh, let's go over to the laptop, but I want them to be getting on. And that's why I haven't done it. got this way where he solved that issue hasn't he yeah and I think it is you know for me it's the way forward I
I don't think that putting merits on the board is pretty clunky, you know, it gets in the way of high paced teaching for sure. Like definitely does. demerits on the board is a huge no-no i don't know why people are still doing that yeah it just does so many bad things and yet you that's not not to get too detracted from the documentary here but that i've seen some schools recently where the slt are
requiring that stuff do that as part of their behavior policy. And it's like, come on guys, let's join the 21st century. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway. So what Pratesh has got, yeah, just a student who's got a list of the class list, a list of names and just does a, you know, a tally chart next to each name and keeps track of it. I do find one thing that he said interesting, though. And I'm not saying it's wrong. I just say I found it interesting. He said that when he first started teaching...
he had this view that, well, I'm only going to give out merits if they kind of supersede my expectations, which has kind of been my view, if I'm honest with you. And then he says, and I noticed that after a period of time... the class, he says something like they became quite demotivated. And he sort of suggests that his merits system is what keeps them motivated. And like, I don't give merits.
And my classes work bloody hard. And yours the same. And Simon King. So I don't know if we could come to that conclusion quite like that. What's your view on it? Well, I wonder if he was saying... that maybe not just limiting it to merits, but his, his praise generally, because I would say the thing that I still do or did do a lot of, and certainly Simon's the master of this and you do as well.
is still do a lot of praise. Yes. Even if we, even if we're not giving merits, we're, we're going around all the time saying, oh, that's top quality. Good. Love this. Well done. This is great. And I think that's. I think what Pratesh was probably saying was like, he was feeling like he couldn't give any praise unless they were stellar, you know, unless they'd really smashed his expectations. And that...
probably would lead to that situation where, you know, class sets out trying to, trying hard to please and then realises it's just not, not that easy and gives up. Yeah. It can't be that. It's going to be that moment when, um, I don't know, someone.
drops their pen and then the guy on the chair but in front just picks it up for and has it back that's that's well done good not big not a big deal but he has to be given a little tap on the shoulder for that yeah and a little because that's that's about us being a community us working together us getting the you know
Us together is bigger than us on our own. But I wouldn't do that with a merit. But, yeah, okay, yeah. I get that better now, I think. But I wouldn't – go on. Well, the other thing that's – there's a cultural – issue here at play as well it's like the value of merits you know and i suspect certainly in schools i've worked in they've been of mixed value. Like maybe when they first get there, the year sevens have thought that these merits are great, but they don't.
actually end up translating into anything really um other than maybe you know one one choose group or one one house wins something at assembly or yeah something like that and whereas i think In Arxone, it's so steeped in the culture. It's such a deep part of what they do. They make a big deal about it. The kids know that these merits have value. They can tell you what the value of the merits is. But we mustn't have schools...
We don't want lethal mutations here, do we? We don't want schools just thinking, oh, okay, brilliant. The way that he's got his class also set on, they've got a merit and demerit system. We'll launch that after Easter because there's far more to it than that.
and what doesn't happen in his lessons is any like oh sir oh there's none of that is there no it doesn't at all because because you can see that happen sometimes as well and that's rubbish that's not helping at all if they're if they're if they're obsessing with the merit or the demerit they were given or not given because that's going to take away from what you're teaching and he doesn't have that at all does he
Yeah. Yeah. And there's more, I mean, maybe we'll discuss this more when we discuss episode two, because I think episode two gets more into merits and routines and behavior and sanctions. I don't want to make... We're already running at sort of...
¶ Deep Learning vs. Surface Coverage
48 minutes. Can I just say one more thing about his lesson? Yeah. One thing I picked up on. He's not teaching them very difficult stuff. Okay. And I think that there are science teachers...
around the country who would look at that and they would say, oh, yeah, well, we do that in year seven with ours. You know, they learn that. Or even we, I think, are they year eight in his class? They're year eight, yeah. So, oh, we do that in year seven. So there we go, we're better. And I want to make a really quick...
clear distinction between what he's doing there and what i was seeing lots of science departments he he is making sure that he is the last person that ever has to teach them that versus we do that in year seven and we kind of you know some of the kids get it some of the kids know it anyway because it's kind of common sense some of them never get it and some of them don't even know what we're talking about but where we and then we move on they are all getting that aren't they
yeah i mean there's two things i would say three things i would say to that okay so so one one to your point yes i i do think you're right like that um he's making sure he's the last person who has to teach them that versus uh what's happening in most science schools is oh yeah we covered that and we got so much to get through yeah but we're gonna have to get them back in the evenings throughout year 11 to do revision sessions where they'll reteach that because
you know it wasn't made secure so that's definitely the case but i would also say i don't think it is that simple what he's teaching them and i don't think other schools are doing that in year seven because the although the recap that you see in episode one, which is essentially just recapping some stuff that came up in the drill, is fairly lightweight stuff. What that lesson was really about was...
The exchange of electrons between atoms and ions so that as they form compounds. So it's about the different types of bonding. Full out to show it, isn't it? Say again?
Full outer shell, I think, isn't it really? Yeah, full outer shell is a core concept that's essential to the lesson because he's trying to get them to understand that that's a more stable situation for the... atom to be in and I think that's actually quite a high level concept I don't think many people are looking at that in year 7 or even would claim to look at that in year 7 maybe I'm underestimating what's done in that case and the other thing
i would say you just just to your point though about him being the last person i i said this when we interviewed pratesh i said this before we interviewed him when we talked about that lesson um because i was i was there in the lesson one thing that i struck was struck struck me straight away was the kids could do it the kids could do it like they were able to do it they they whatever had been taking place in the last um 18 months of their education had
taken root in their brain. And that is often not the case when I go into lessons. So you're saying that there'd been a change to long-term thinking, long-term knowledge or long-term thinking. Had been changed to long-term memory. Memory, that's it, yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
¶ Shared Traits and Classroom Foundations
Fantastic. Well, I made a couple of notes on things that these guys shared, and it's only a couple of things. Can I just go through? Yeah, yeah, go for it. Okay. Because they're not all the same, are they? They're different teachers. Yeah, absolutely. Different styles. So the things I wrote down, they all act as if they 100% want to be in that class with the pupils. Yeah.
And I know that you were there with the three or four cameras filming, but I believe that they always do that. I believe so, yeah. It's this idea of there's nowhere I'd rather be than with you teaching this material right now. Yeah. And that's so flippin' huge. It's so important.
um well isn't that isn't that yeah i agree i mean it's 100 but also that is it is sort of like central to any kind of if you want to have a quality relationship with anyone yeah then then when you're in their presence want to be there you know enjoy enjoy being there that's that's true of your classes just in the same way it's true of your mates you know and we all we all know the difference when we go and book a hotel the guy that comes out and says
Yeah, hi, how can I put you in? And the guy that comes out and just smiles and says, how are you doing? How have you guys been? It's just straight away, you see it, don't you? You know. It relaxes you, doesn't it? And it also makes you more forgiving.
To him, if he messes up, if he's done something wrong, you're straight away, don't worry about it, mate, all good, no problem, because you realise he wants to be there. He's working with you. But it's also, just not to get too derailed on this point, but are you going to... From the point of view of the person, if you're the person who's working in the hotel or you're the teacher or you're the person on that end.
Are you going to live your life being someone who would rather be somewhere else in each of these interactions? Or are you going to live your life being the person who's... pleased to be in the moment that they're in and then if you're the other person if you're the customer if you're the child in the lesson or the person visiting the hotel do you want to be in the presence of people who want to be
in that place and time with you yeah or do you want to be in the presence of people who would rather be somewhere else like it's a no-brainer if you want to be a happy person then then then be the person who wants to be in the situation that they're in at that moment in time. Absolutely. Quite right. Quite right. I've got two stories. I'm not going with either of them. I'm not going with them. Right. OK. 100% participation. Yeah. Yeah.
achieved through a number of different techniques and a number of different ways. But all those kids are participating in the lesson in the way the teacher wants them to do it. And I say that I don't mean they're participating by they've kind of checked out for the lesson. And they're now just making their own notes. I wouldn't class that as participation. I'm talking about in the way the teacher wants them to do.
Yeah, we used to talk about 100%, 100, 100, didn't we? I don't know if maybe that was with Simon after you left, but 100, 100. 100% of the kids, 100% of the time. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and you can get that. Yeah, you can. You can. You can get it. Get it in those videos. Right. Okay. And the last one.
There's others as well. But their answer, because Josh basically asked all of them in different ways and at different parts of his interview, how do you get that to relate to whatever they were talking about? And their answers were... universally the same and they said they basically said it's how you set it up at the start and this is key isn't it this idea that i know exactly how i want my lessons to run
I know exactly what I want them to do, and I set it up in that way so that I can crack on with my lessons in the way that I want them to run. And this is why it's excusable.
in trainees to not have that or new teachers because you haven't got a way that you just want it to be so you hopefully spend time working with effective people till you get one but what isn't good enough is i've been teaching a number of years and i still haven't really got a go-to way or or i've done what what douglamov calls what does he call it the agreement and the agreement is our way is i don't really expect you to learn or remember anything
but you don't kick off. That's no good. And that's not their agreement at all, is it? They're not having that. The critical piece that you've left out there is... to explicitly teach that thing as well so you you've you've got a clear picture of how you want the kids to come in the room or how you want your lesson to start and then you explicitly train the kids as to how to do that you've got a clear picture of what you want
head talk to look like you know Pratash goes into this and you explicitly teach them when you first pick them up This is what good paired talk looks like. This was a really good example. This was great. This wasn't so good. This could be improved in this way, modeling it and teaching it. And, you know, you can't just expect things to, even if you have a clear way.
that you want things to run, you want your lessons to start in a particular way, or you want your explanations to take a certain form. You can't just expect that to happen without telling the kids what that looks like. That's right. And how often do you see teachers, Lesson 1, September, putting on like book covers and going through the curriculum?
bit by bit showing them showing them that silly snake thing everyone loves at the moment that's a curriculum map as if they care as if you know and not doing any not doing any training of how this is going to be and how you're going to get the most out of your time with me mr smith or me mrs clark or whoever it is i i dare say i'll take some flack for this but i think that that like
first lesson putting on book covers or sticking things in or um like you say going through the curriculum map it sets the tone of like okay this is going to be a long sludge And I'm going to just try to get through one lesson at a time. And I haven't really done that much preparation versus like, right, we're in.
There's a starter on the board. This is how I want you to do it. Okay. We're learning something new today. Here it is. Now you're doing some work now back to me now. And we're off, you know, I've got an intention. I've got a lot to get through and we are learning in this room. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.
yep quite right um great documentary that was our that was our half an hour um exceeded but yeah loved it brilliant and we'll we'll meet back for for um episode two yeah i look forward to it i look forward to it take care thanks Yeah.