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Posted By Chris Yapp,
08 September 2021
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NACE patron Dr Chris Yapp explains why he believes real change is needed to the assessment system, with potential benefits for learners at all stages of life and development.
Given the significant focus on assessment in education that has followed the two years of the pandemic so far, the question for me when thinking about the future is: “How radical a change is needed?”
Whether it’s abolishing GCSEs or changing grades from A-Z to 1-9, the real issue at the heart of the future system is whether the new system reflects the individual’s efforts, aspirations and capabilities better than the system I grew up with, still largely intact. Importantly, can the system be more inclusive and less stressful to teachers and students alike?
So, what do I want to replace 10 GCSEs and four A-levels with?
For reasons I won’t bore you with, my wife and I have used the pandemic to learn Portuguese on Duolingo. We now have a 304-day streak, unbroken. We have around 55,000 points and now we achieve 300 points a day from a slow start.
I don’t want to talk about the pedagogy behind Duolingo. I have some criticisms there, but I think there are some really interesting lessons on assessment and, above all, feedback.
The lessons are structured in levels around topics. There are tips for each section. A typical lesson takes around 10-15 minutes. At the end of each session points are given. After a number of topics, stories are opened. There are also timed lessons. Today we reached 74% of the course. We have found some topics harder than others. Each question has a discuss button and people can raise concerns and ask questions. Some phrases are ambiguous, or the English translation is tortuous. There are examples where there are multiple correct answers that generate debate. We find some of the discussions around Brazilian Portuguese particularly fascinating. There are leagues with relegation and promotion.
For children raised with gaming, the idea of levels and points comes naturally. Retrying a level until you get it right is part of the experience, not evidence of failure. So, instead of a Grade C, why not produce a system with 100,000 points available in 10 levels, with the ability to see areas of strength and weakness?
Importantly, the scoring follows stage, not age. Many parents are quite happy when their offspring are doing Grade 4 piano and Grade 2 violin at the same time. It is not evidence of failure that different skills develop at different paces for different children.
Why shouldn’t a child leave school with, say, five million points scattered across a wide-ranging curriculum?
Let me illustrate with some examples of how the assessment system could be adapted to support more personalised learning built around a child’s interest and capability.
Khalid is 12. His hobby is photography. He wants to understand colour better. He wants to do that now. Unfortunately, the physics curriculum covers that when he’s 13 and the art curriculum at 11. Here, his interests outside school could motivate his development across multiple subjects at a pace and direction of his choosing.
Amanda is 13. Her mother is Italian and they speak Italian at home. The school does not have an Italian teacher. If they did, she might get an “A”, but instead will get a “C” in French. Here her A grade may reflect less on the school than a C grade does. The school “fails” if she gets a C, but “succeeds” if she gets an A. Here, the rigidity of the curriculum and assessment models reflect neither the individual nor her teachers.
Hazel is 8 and a bookworm. She devours books and loves to talk about them, be they stories, science, geography or history. How does assessing her reading against a narrow range of books tied to specific topics demonstrate her strengths and interests? She is fascinated by space and is reading teenage books on the subject.
Every teacher I’ve met could tell me similar stories about the children they have taught.
I think it’s important also to think about what this might say about professional development of teachers.
Geoff teaches French. He speaks a little Spanish and has picked up some Greek on holidays. Using my Duolingo example above, why would it not be possible for him to develop language skills in other languages as part of his own development? It could be built around his personal responsibilities for family and leisure activities – again stage, not age. For the school, the ability to widen its language portfolio could be a valuable asset.
Similar models might help a chemistry teacher improve his understanding of, say, biology. Imagine a personal development plan where teachers agreed to 5,000 points a year of personal development, rather than 10 days, which may be difficult to manage and pressure of time may make ineffective.
None of this would be easy, or quick. But building assessment into the learning, rather than a bolt-on much later, could free teacher time to better use.
So many children are let down, in my opinion, by the current system that I will be disappointed if all we end up doing is replacing one set of exams by another with a rigid exam system and season. I’ve known children affected by divorce, hay fever, asthma and death of a parent, as just a few examples, whose grades did not reflect either their abilities or effort, or the ability and commitment of their teachers. Even worse, the month a child is born still has effects on grades at secondary school.
So, the real challenge is whether this would be more inclusive or not.
Here I can sit on both sides of that argument and remain undecided on how to optimise the system. My one observation is that from a young age, gaming is part of children’s lives across a wider social spectrum than is current societal expectation of schools. When a child gets stuck at Level 7, their friends will often help or share ideas. There is both competition and collaboration at work. Both are valuable adult skills.
Finally, the rich data from this approach could enhance the role of teachers as researchers and create a stronger culture of action research within education at school and college level. For me, this allows the creation of a record of achievement that allows for “partial” subjects, not just a few. A school visit to a museum, for instance, could have a quiz that is incorporated into the child’s records. After-school activities might also benefit from this approach. I visited a school some years ago that had an astronomy group. They were sharing topics and materials with other schools. That collaborative learning between teachers and schools was interesting to observe. Yet, there was limited recognition within the current system for that personal development.
A new year begins after two of the most difficult times any of us have experienced in our adult lives. Thank you all, for your effort and commitment.
Change is coming: let’s make it work for all learners, be they teachers or students.
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Posted By Sandy Paley,
08 September 2021
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Sandy Paley, NACE Associate and Executive Headteacher of Toot Hill School, shares key lessons learned from the teacher assessed grades (TAG) experience of summer 2021.
The teacher assessed grades (TAG) experience initiated deep curriculum dialogue and work scrutiny in our school, which turned into a valuable learning experience for all. Unsurprisingly perhaps, it highlighted staff and students’ long-standing overreliance on specifications and mark schemes – often limiting the development of wider knowledge and understanding, and its confident flexible use in a range of situations, not just in specification-driven assessment tasks and examinations. The impact of such focused professional dialogue clearly showed that school leaders should seek to hold more explicit curriculum and pedagogical conversations with subject leaders, particularly focused on true cognitive challenge within a transformative curriculum, as a vehicle to ongoing teacher development.
Key lessons learned from the TAG experience:
- Greater empowerment and training of teachers to be confident owners and enactors of their curriculum, rather than implementors of a specification, is required. Left underdeveloped, this is so limiting for all, particularly the most able at KS5, before embarking on more expert undergraduate study. Brave decisions should be encouraged around what is considered ‘important knowledge and understanding’ in a subject curriculum, with teachers improving their clarity on what should then be assessed and why.
- More able students benefit greatly from frequent learning checks beyond that of surface, recall knowledge, including application and depth of understanding, often well beyond an examination mark scheme.
- Flexible thinking and cognitive resilience should be deliberately developed, through the skilful selection of deeper learning opportunities for the most able students. This must move beyond ‘more of the same’ and additional ‘surface knowledge’, to deeper understanding of and diverse application of knowledge through wider lenses and study beyond set content; and should subsequently be assessed as such, not narrowed in its assessment by adhering to examination board mark schemes. Best practice involved assessment opportunities with a truly enriched focus on ‘doing so much more with less’. This was particularly evidenced with the most able at KS5.
- Increased levels of home/school contact, particularly focused on subject-specific information, wider opportunities and support, should be maintained and further considered. This will continue to improve parental awareness of their children’s ability and the unique challenges encountered by the most able students, as well as the opportunities available to them.
The perfectionist attribute that we see in many of our more able students did lead to additional worry during this period. Common concerns included:
- Periods of uncertainty about the nature of the exam season and evidence-gathering opportunities, fuelled noticeably by over-analysis of online speculation and over-scrutiny of exam board materials when released, revealing a real fear if teachers appeared to veer away from this.
- Course content that was perceived as ‘missed’ or not taught live in school, and the impact that would have not just on final grades but on student ability to be successful in further study.
- Grade inflation and the potential impact on university offers and the perceived validity of grades this year, and in the future.
This does highlight the need for us to focus on explicitly developing more able students’ self-awareness, regulation and confidence, and workload and wellbeing management, through our more able programmes.
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Posted By Claire Robinson,
08 September 2021
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Claire Robinson, NACE Associate and Challenge Award Assessor, and Headteacher of Holme Grange School, calls for recognition and celebration of the achievements of young people completing GCSEs or other qualifications in 2021.
As GCSE and A-Level results were released this year, it was inevitable that there would be publicity and opinion around them. Criticism often came from those outside the sector, passing judgement on a system which they have never experienced themselves, as educator or student.
Schools all over the country were put through possibly a more rigorous process of testing and evidence gathering this year, because it was inevitable that the validity would be questioned. Evidence required to justify grades was collected and the random inspection by examination boards that schools were subject to, meant that there was no place for complacency.
We should not underestimate young people. They know if they deserve their results and they also take responsibility for the efforts they put in. If they have been given a grade, it is because they deserved to be awarded it. Allow them to celebrate and let’s recognise the time and energy that teachers gave to make sure the results awarded were fair and beyond reproach.
A year like no other… yet much the same
A student’s success at GCSE is not reflected solely in their grades. GCSEs open the door to the next stage of a young person’s educational journey. If grades awarded result in gaining access to courses which would not otherwise have been accessible, a student will not succeed. No school is going to set their students up for future failure.
Pupils may not have sat official public examinations this year, but were arguably put through a more rigorous ‘testing’ system, and teachers continued to do what they always do: challenge and support their pupils to allow them to achieve the best they possibly can and meet their potential. Had visits been permitted to schools, many would have possibly wondered whether the examinations were in fact still being held, as we continued to provide an environment that allowed students to experience the examination system for which they had all been prepared, and would benefit from in the future.
In previous years, where ‘mock’ examinations are usually held just before or just after the Christmas break, students have made considerable progress as the time between mock examinations and the ‘real thing’ provides opportunity to work with focus and deep analysis of what is required to improve. This continued this academic year, yet was sometimes questioned as being unfair as teachers guided, challenged and supported students – as was ever thus.
Teachers are professionals and this year their professionalism was recognised as their judgments were valued and under intense scrutiny. Switching between online and onsite teaching and quite often a hybrid of both, teachers continued to ensure their students’ needs were met – academically, socially and emotionally.
Opportunities to thrive – not just survive
Teachers know their students well and good teachers always know at what level their student is achieving and what they need to do to improve. Ongoing monitoring and evaluation also provide students with an opportunity to take greater ownership of their learning and apply metacognitive skills, nurturing self-awareness and developing skills for life.
Learners construct knowledge using cognitive strategies, and they guide, regulate, and evaluate their learning using metacognitive strategies, which is where real learning occurs. Students have applied a wider range of independent learning skills over the past 18 months and ‘thought about their thinking’ in a way which possibly they may not have done in ‘ordinary’ times. The pandemic opened opportunities in our schools for students to become more skilled at using metacognitive strategies; many gained confidence and become more independent as learners. Our able learners strengthened and when the correct pastoral support was given, academic success followed.
Let us also not forget, our young people are far more than a set of grades and we should not be defining them by these anyway. It is simply just one step along the journey they make. Let us take time to say well done for a group of people, who, if we allow them, could be the healthiest, the safest, and potentially the most resilient of any generation in modern history. Pupils have learnt how to manage life’s uncertainties and we should give them credit for that.
The world of education is one which has always, and is likely to always be, one which is open to others' opinions and ideas on how to make it better – from within the sector and from outside of it. We may have all been to school but not many have experienced school in a global pandemic! Most schools grew stronger; pupils did not simply 'survive' – many thrived because they were taught within communities that care, where professionals worked beyond all expectations to ensure children in their care continued to grow during these most testing of times.
“Just waiting to get out there and take our place in the world”
Yes, results are different this year, but let's not devalue the efforts our young people have made or that their teachers have given in order to support them. Teaching is a profession filled with people of integrity and it is also a great vocation. We have all come through one of the most challenging times in educational history; we have done so with great resilience, perseverance, professionalism and humour.
And has anyone asked the students about their thoughts and how they value their GCSEs? I finish with a quote from our head of school, a Y11 pupil in his final address to the school:
“We have been nurtured into citizens who are rounded and grounded, eager to make a positive contribution to the outside world… Not even a global pandemic can dampen our spirits, as a community we pulled together. The hours of live Zoom lessons, emails and Google Classroom notifications enabled us to continue our education in the comfort of our own homes.
“We are so much more than an educational establishment with a focus purely on academics – we are a laboratory filled with budding scientists, the next generation of ‘Michelin Star Chefs’, we are the ‘Steve Jobs’, ‘Shakespeares’, ‘Flemings’ and ‘Monets’ just waiting to get our there and take our place in the world.”
I think this is one example where expectations continued to be high, pupils continued to be challenged and to aim high, to be aspirational in their goals and supported and challenged to achieve them – as I have no doubt was echoed in schools across the country. Again, let’s celebrate what has been achieved, instead of picking fault in the young people and devaluing their efforts. This year’s GCSE students should be truly independent learners for life, as their future success will undoubtedly show.
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Posted By Ann Dwulit,
08 July 2021
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In July 2021 St Luke’s CE Primary School in Islington, London, attained the NACE Challenge Award for the first time. Executive Headteacher Ann Dwulit explains why the school continued to work towards this accreditation throughout the trials and tribulations of the past 18 months, and what attaining the Award means for the school.
St Luke's has been working with the NACE Challenge Development Programme since early 2019. We decided to pursue the Challenge Award accreditation because there was a lack of consistency in children achieving greater depth at the end of KS2. The NACE process helped us to get to the root causes and develop and implement an action plan to address these – even throughout the pandemic.
Our NACE consultant worked alongside us, even during lockdown, and this support was invaluable. Together we identified that children and the staff team gained valuable skills through home learning, such as independence and improved IT skills. Like many schools, we now have a lot more devices available for children to flexibly use in the classroom. We realised that some children's education did not suffer as much as we thought it would during lockdowns. Some children caught up faster than others too.
It was the improved independence that we saw amongst more able children, as well as others who had/have the capacity to be more able, that we hooked onto when the children returned to school each time from the lockdowns. We had to fill the gaps in children's knowledge, understanding and skills, so the staff team agreed to pitch learning higher and to be more enquiry-led so that more able children could fly, enabling us to do catch-up interventions and work with those who needed it. The NACE process also enabled us to develop the role of subject leaders to a deeper and broader level as we un-picked how to catch-up learning in different subjects.
The NACE Challenge programme – the Challenge Framework, the website, the resources, the lesson observation format, doing the case studies, and following through on our action plan – kept us focused and support was always there from our consultant. It was a whole-school commitment.
No school has stood still in the last 18 months and our setting a higher bar has had an impact upon all learners. More able children are now leading learning more, being great role models even within their individual bubbles, and they are more able to articulate their views, their feelings and their aspirations to each other and to anyone who asks. Talented children and those who have the capacity to be talented have opportunities to develop their talents. We use existing staff to facilitate this; we are not paying for additional specialist teachers and tutors to come in, we are just using the team we have more efficiently. In many respects, Covid has made us stronger, more resilient and more determined to ensure every child really does achieve their potential.
By the time the NACE final accreditation came around, working differently was well embedded as we had achieved the goals we set out to achieve since 2019 – one of which was to improve reading across the school. We have also raised the profile of subjects that had been more dormant during lockdown and we know we need to see through curriculum development. Our end of KS2 teacher assessment showed a marked improvement in scores for more able children and even though this does not count as statutory testing, it counts to the children and it counts to us. This is something we will strive to maintain. I do not think this would have happened without our NACE consultant and without us going through the process of working towards the Challenge Award. Even if we had not achieved the Award this time round, I would still have said the process was worth doing and would just have re-applied to achieve the Award itself.
Hearing that we had achieved the Award and had gained this external verification means the world to the team. Being told this by our consultant who we all know has really high expectations of us and for us – that what we are doing is working – means so much. The process will go on as we have our reviews, and all of this sits well alongside the Ofsted framework. Our work is never finished in schools, but it helps to know that what we have set up is working and is having a positive impact on outcomes for children and making a difference to their lives.
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Posted By Tony Breslin,
07 December 2020
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Tony Breslin outlines three of the key headlines emerging from his new book, Lessons from Lockdown: The Educational Legacy of COVID-19, and explores the implications for able children and those working with them.
Headline writers, media pundits, parents and politicians may not agree on many things but on one aspect of lockdown they are united: the closure of schools is the lockdown strategy of last resort. Notwithstanding the growth in home schooling, evidence of a new relationship between the home and the school, and a new embrace for online pedagogies, few in education would disagree. However, the assumptions that underpin this unity need to be unpicked, and the experience of learners explored, if we are to learn some of the most important lessons of lockdown.
Based on conversations with over one hundred pupils, parents and professionals in special, primary and secondary schools, my new book, Lessons from Lockdown: The Educational Legacy of COVID-19, is an attempt to capture these experiences, and the emergent reality is much more nuanced than the headlines suggest. In respect of supporting able students, I identify here three themes that I believe are especially pertinent and elaborate on these below.
1. The need for curriculum catch-up varies enormously within and between schools, and between individual students.
Behind the widespread panic about school closures – whether that be close to total, as was experienced in the spring and summer or ‘bubble by bubble’ as it has been since September – lies the assumption that children have been ‘missing out’ and missing out, in particular, on curriculum content. This fear of missing out – and the consequent need to ‘catch-up’ – sits at the heart of many media headlines and politicians’ pronouncements. There can be no doubt that some children have missed out enormously, and that the socio-economically disadvantaged and those living in challenging domestic circumstances have suffered most. Nor can it be denied that those in examination cohorts have had to navigate their courses through a choppy and much varied landscape, and here the variability of experience is the critical issue. Since the stuttering re-openings of first June and then September, no two schools in the same locality have had the same route from lockdown. But claims of a universal educational Armageddon are wide of the mark. In this mix, and in almost every setting, some young people have prospered: the children who have blossomed as a result of the previously scarce family time afforded to them, those who have valued the freedom of home-learning, those who have enjoyed pushing on through an examination specification at their own speed and have consequently gained ground. In this regard the re-introduction to school of these ‘lockdown-thrivers’, as I identify them in Lessons From Lockdown, is not without its challenges, especially when the ‘disaffected-able’ form a part of this cohort.
Against this background, the smartest ‘catch-up’ strategies have started with diagnosis of need, not its presumption, and proceeded to offer highly personalised support that is particular to the learner, the group and the bubble. This, of course, is strongest when it is informed by exactly the methodologies modelled by those working either with the most able or those facing particular learning challenges.
2. The social purpose of schooling has been underlined as never before.
Whatever the challenges of curriculum ‘catch-up’, what might be termed social catch-up is far more complex. But, if this challenge is not addressed, it will feed through into reduced wellbeing and lower educational attainment. The reason for this is straightforward: inclusion is not the poor relation of attainment; rather, and especially for those young people at either end of ability and motivational ranges, it is the pre-requisite for educational success, howsoever measured. Provided that we have the resources (a pretty big ‘provided’), we have the skills and the knowledge, especially within networks such as that provided by the NACE community, to advise on and deliver curriculum catch-up: booster classes, revision modules, targeted interventions, personal study plans and so on. Not so, social catch-up: how do you address the gaps left by virtually a year without play dates for the seven-year-old, or by several months of those evenings and weekends usually spent with friends, often not really doing anything, as a teenager?
In short, whatever the educational purpose of schools, their social (not to mention the socio-economic) purpose has been underlined by the pandemic, and with it the vital contribution that this makes to the development of the young. It may be time to give far more status to the social purpose of schools and to appraise their success against a much broader scorecard. At risk of repetition, wellbeing is not a nicety to be considered after good grades have been assured; it is the foundation block on which achievement rests.
3. The challenge lies not in getting back to where we were, but to deciding where we want (and need) to go.
Towards the close of our focus group and interview-based discussions, I posed one key question: what can’t you wait to get back to, and what can’t you wait to leave behind? Highly structured systems (or ‘total institutions’ as Erving Goffman termed them over fifty years ago) tend to reproduce themselves over time and are remarkably resilient of change. The military, hospitals, prisons, our public service bureaucracies and, of course, schools, are such institutions. Their tendency is to maximise the feeling of change while minimising its impact. How else might we explain why generations of educational reform have delivered a curriculum that still mirrors that offered in the post-war schools of three-quarters of a century ago? Why else might we have overseen the building of a swathe of new schools at the turn of this century constructed on the exact template of their predecessors? Highly structured organisations such as schools (and there is no doubting the need for such structure) usually change only as the result of a profound system shock. The pandemic has provided just such a shock; so, the question is straightforward, even if the answer is far from simple: where do we want and need to go from here, and how are we going to get there?
Schooling will be different after all of this. As a profession, and as a community of interest – one particularly committed to identifying, supporting and unlocking potential in able children – we need to ensure that we work with colleagues, and their specific communities of interest, to shape the schooling of the future. If we don’t, it will surely be done for us, and to us (again).
A teacher by profession, and a former Chief Examiner and Local Authority Adviser, Dr Tony Breslin is Director at Breslin Public Policy Limited and a Trustee of Adoption UK. He works extensively in the spheres of curriculum development, citizenship education, school governance and lifelong learning. His new book, Lessons from Lockdown: The Educational Legacy of COVID-19, is published by Routledge and available to pre-order now. A 20% discount is available for NACE members on this and all purchases from Routledge (log in for details of all current member offers).
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Posted By Sue Riley,
22 October 2020
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Sue Riley, NACE CEO
Many of you will have seen the open letter to the Sunday Times from the recently formed Rethinking Assessment group. Born from issues raised this summer, Rethinking Assessment is a broad coalition of state and independent schools, universities, academics, employers and other stakeholders, which aims to value the strengths of every child. At its heart lies four fundamental principles:
- Many young people find the way our exam system works increasingly stressful and not a true reflection of what they are good at.
- Many employers complain that exams do not provide them with good enough clues as to who they are employing.
- Many headteachers feel that high-stakes exams distort priorities and stop them from providing a well-rounded education for their pupils.
- Many who are passionate about social mobility believe that any system that dooms a third to fail is a system with little sense of social justice.
We want to add our members’ voice and our research to this debate. There are immediate questions to be answered and longer-term opportunities to recalibrate the assessment system so that all learners have their full range of strengths recognised. As a membership organisation we can share and build on the decisions school leaders are taking now and over time provide perspectives that will inform longer-term changes.
Assessment is of course an integral part of learning and teaching. It facilitates daily ongoing review of individual progress and impacts on planning and target-setting. It supports personal learning targets. But we must not let the tail wag the dog. Not everything needs to be assessed, or indeed can be assessed, or needs to be independently assessed. We must consider too the timing of assessment – even more pressing as schools focus on tier 2 rota planning.
Whilst a decision over summer exams has been made in principle, “fall-back” detail remains unclear and learners are picking up on this, increasingly questioning the reasoning behind assignments, and the part they will play in assessment. All of this detracts from the richness of a subject.
The Early Career Framework and Teachers’ Standards have done much to support the teaching profession’s development in recent years. We must trust teachers with assessment, but teachers must be clear on what they are assessing and why.
What can we therefore now do in our schools to readdress this balance? One response lies in thinking about what we assess on a day-to-day basis in classrooms, how we build on low-stakes testing, and how we position effective challenge. How effectively do your teachers use retrieval practice for example? Deliberately recalling information forces us to pull knowledge “out” and examine what we know. The “struggle” or challenge to recall information improves memory and learning – by trying to recall information, we exercise or strengthen our memory, and we can also identify gaps in our learning.
NACE has recently undertaken a literature review of retrieval practice – looking at the theoretical framework and considering emergent related classroom practices and practical amendments and applications for more able learners. To access this review, click here.
Beyond the here and now of assessment, we need to return to the longer-term focus of the Rethinking Assessment coalition. Against the current backdrop, what could we do to improve the assessment system more broadly? How would we do it differently, allowing us to show non-traditional talents – making assessment more effective for employers, individuals and supporting the practising teacher? Fundamentally, how can we assess the child in front of us?
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Posted By Rob Lightfoot,
13 October 2020
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Rob Lightfoot, NACE Associate and R&D Hub Lead
How can you engage colleagues across your school to develop a whole-school approach for more able learners? This is a common question, and a critical issue to address: for provision to be effective, it needs to be embedded as part of whole-school policy and culture.
1. Make time, even during challenging times
There is no doubt we are living in unprecedented times, and time is in especially short supply for colleagues in schools. In normal circumstances, you would spend time finding your advocates and working with them to display the benefits of enhancing provision for your more able students. There is no doubt that when your provision is strong for more able students, then the achievement of all students improves too. In the end this is not creating additional work for staff; it will just mean doing things differently. Though it may be hard to make time to review what could be improved for the more able, ultimately this will be worthwhile and have a positive impact for a much wider group – as set out in the NACE core principles.
2. Involve your school leadership team
Lead teachers for more able students must understand they cannot make the necessary changes on their own. The SLT has to be a central part of the process. Some lead teachers will already be part of the SLT, others will not. It is critical that the provision for more able students is discussed at a senior level so necessary procedures can be put in place across all departments or year groups. Consistency is the key if you are to create the biggest impact for students in your school.
3. Start work behind the scenes
Every school is in a different place. If you have been given the role of lead teacher for more able students but the staff around you cannot consider any changes at present, then there is plenty you can do behind the scenes, starting with an audit of your school’s current provision. If you do have advocates in your school already, then you can give them the same access to the NACE resources that are available to you (read more here). As I said previously, an advocate within the SLT is crucial.
4. Share the benefits of your NACE membership
Finally, consider how you can share the benefits of NACE membership with colleagues. Engagement in the NACE R&D Hubs would be a great opportunity for other teachers in the school with a passion for providing the best possible outcomes for your more able learners. The webinars are also a great source for whole-school CPD. Please be aware that all these resources and opportunities are available for every member of staff in your school, not just the lead teacher or the SLT.
For additional guidance and ideas, take a look at our “getting started” guide.
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Posted By Jon Murphy,
12 May 2020
Updated: 11 May 2020
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As UNICEF reports that 700 million days of education could be lost this academic year in the UK, Jon Murphy, NACE Associate and recently retired headteacher of Llanfoist Fawr and Llavihangel Primary Schools Federation, reflects on the need to focus on social and emotional wellbeing as schools prepare to return, and asks if the focus on health and wellbeing in the new Curriculum for Wales could be helpful to all schools.
Over a shockingly short timescale we have become all too familiar with a vocabulary that was most certainly not part of our daily conversation only a few months ago. “Lockdown”, “social isolation” and “social distancing” have become common parlance regardless of age, occupation or the part of the world in which we live. The coronavirus has undeniably changed the world as we know it. As we learn to live with the consequences of COVID-19 and the “new normal”, and as we start to contemplate a return to school, we will be teaching children to use and apply these new concepts to ensure the continuing safety of all. Like no other period in history, we will be sharply focusing our work to ensure the health and wellbeing of children and young people is secure. Not an easy task when children are naturally gregarious and demonstrative, and when their basic instinct is to be tactile with their peers, particularly the youngest of our charges.
Backed by support and resources from schools, commendable efforts have been made to home educate children. Anecdotally we know there has been considerable variance in the provision made, and there has been a very definite re-affirmation that there are few substitutes for a classroom staffed by qualified professionals. As children return to school, they will be at very different stages in their readiness to learn.
Backed by support and resources from schools, commendable efforts have been made to home educate children. We know there has been considerable variance in the provision made, and there has been a very definite re-affirmation that there are few substitutes for a classroom staffed by qualified professionals. The DfE last week published school case studies presenting a range of emerging practice. As children return to school, they will be at very different stages in their readiness to learn.
Layers of trauma and “the unseen monster”
Without doubt, young people will relish the social interaction of being with peers again. However, there will also be challenges after an unprecedented prolonged period spent out of school. For months many children have been kept at home, told that this is a safe sanctuary and the world beyond is not. Children are incredibly perceptive. Some will have absorbed the stress and fear of their parents and carers, adding to their own insecurities. Some could be painfully aware of the financial impact the virus has had on family income, adding yet another layer of trauma.
When children are integrated back into society and school, many will be taking tentative steps filled with trepidation, re-entering a world which was for so long seen as a place of danger. As they leave their families for the first time, some will fear for their parents or carers, many of whom are employed on the frontline as key workers.
Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget, renowned for his work on child development, simply but very profoundly stated: “children think differently to adults”. With this in mind, we should be aware of how children might perceive COVID-19 and what role we can play in school to mitigate any negative impact on their emotional wellbeing. More able learners may well be able to grasp and understand at an abstract level what the virus actually is. Meanwhile for learners still operating at a concrete level, particularly the very young, the virus is a mysterious thing that they can’t see, smell, taste or feel. It remains something that in their imagination can be conjured up in so many manifestations. Film directors of the horror genre are very aware that the unseen monster is far more terrifying than anything that is visible.
Preparing for a safe return to school
This week the DfE released plans for a phased reopening of schools in England from 1 June at the earliest. Meanwhile Welsh Government has launched the Stay Safe Stay Learning initiative, with Education Minister Kirsty Williams setting out five principles to guide thinking about a safe return to education. The first principle, quite rightly, is the health, safety and emotional wellbeing of children, young people and staff.
COVID-19 has dominated life all day every day for the past few months and we should be under no delusions about its long-term impact; as such we need to be prepared to plan long-term. Safeguarding the health, safety and emotional wellbeing of all in our school communities will be both an immediate and long-term priority; school doors will not open again without planning and preparation for what will be a carefully considered and measured transition back to school life.
Children’s experience of school life is going to be vastly different to what they were used to before school doors were forced to close so abruptly. When schools recommence, we will have to teach them a whole new set of sophisticated behaviours and values relating to social distancing and peer interaction. As stated by the Welsh Minister, physical, mental and emotional health is more important than anything at the moment – an area which had already been brought to the fore in the new Curriculum for Wales.
Bringing health and wellbeing education to the fore
Previous to the pandemic, schools in Wales had been charged with reimagining the educational offer for children and young people through development of the new curriculum. One of the six Areas of Learning and Experience (AoLEs) that will constitute the new orders is Health and Wellbeing, an area that will take centre stage when schools return. Welsh Government sees this AoLE as an area that “will help to foster a whole-school approach that enables health and well-being to permeate all aspects of school life”. The component parts of this AoLE – development of physical health, mental health, and emotional and social wellbeing – must be core to the education of all children on their return to school. Initial provision will need to focus on transition activities that support social and emotional literacy; we cannot even begin to teach the academic subjects until emotional wellbeing is secure.
Currently, alongside the task of teaching, education professionals in Wales are planning for the new curriculum and testing new ways of working for the future. It would seem prudent, considering the current health crisis, to bring their vision for the new curriculum into sharp focus now and to prioritise and even accelerate the development of the Health and Wellbeing AoLE. There is an urgent need to plan for a series of activities and experiences that rebuild children’s confidence and resilience in light of what has now become a part of their daily lives. We must teach them how to live with the pandemic and the part they must play to keep themselves and others safe. Now is the time to be innovative and to reimagine this element of the curriculum because now is the time that it is most needed.
Moving forward: a stronger, wiser generation
It is said that stopping the pandemic is “the most urgent shared endeavour of our times”, and one thing is for sure: when children return to school their health, safety and wellbeing is being placed in the capable of hands of a workforce that will help them learn to interact and exist in a changed world. Schools who made the investment of training staff in emotional literacy initiatives such as Thrive and ELSA will reap the benefits of being able to provide support for the most fragile of those returning to a world that can now seem especially frightening and uncertain. We can take heart in knowing that most learners are innately resilient and will adapt with few problems as schools evolve. We have the tools with the Wellbeing AoLE to be able plan and offer the best provision for keeping all in school safe. The principles and rationale behind the AoLE are sound and the present is the time we would benefit most from the best practice it advocates. As we help children to adapt to a different way of life, who knows, we may even nurture a generation of learners who will be inspired to go onto careers of caring for others or even to be the innovators that prevent such a crisis happening again.
The shadow cast by COVID-19 has forced children to grow up very quickly. It has already stolen a significant portion of their schooling, and we must not allow it to rob them of their precious childhood. As educationalists we are in the privileged position of guiding children as positively as we can through this unprecedented period of history, so they emerge stronger, wiser, safer and more conscious of health and wellbeing than any generation that has gone before.
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curriculum
lockdown
remote learning
resilience
Wales
wellbeing
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