Pivotal Podcast

Ollie Frith gives an exclusive insiders’ viewpoint on Pivotal’s Recent Instructors’ Conference this week. There are clips from some of the sessions and lots of inspiration from delegates and organisers.

Ollie encourages us all to Stop, Collaborate and Listen, rather than blindly following ‘what we have always done’.

The video Paul uses in his session:

Tweet of the week:

So happy to have brought this into my classroom after seeing the positive impact it is having in the rest of the school😁 @NewtongrangePS #meetandgreet #positiverelationships pic.twitter.com/FopuLpNYYU

— Becca Hunter (@missBChunter) 1 December 2018

Siobhan has been  headteacher of a Primary school in Morecambe, Lancashire for 14 years. Morecambe is a coastal town with pockets of extreme deprivation from which the school’s intake is drawn.  The school has established outstanding Pastoral Support systems and makes excellent use of links with other agencies and sectors. Siobhan works as a member of the County LSCB on projects to improve multi-agency practice, and on her local mental health transformation plan steering group. She  contributes articles for TES on mental health and educational issues and gave written and verbal evidence to  the recent joint Education and Health Parliamentary Inquiry into the role of schools in promoting positive mental health for children and young people.

This week, Mike talks to Siobhan about her experiences of working in this environment and how the school she leads seeks to ‘close more than one gap’.

How does poverty affect your children and families?

Siobhan points out that you  can’t get away from poverty – it pervades everything. She believes that the concept of ‘closing the gap’ is unhelpful because it appears to be suggesting that there’s only one gap. It’s as if the right intervention or support will suddenly ‘magic away’ all of the issues. There is a constant pressure from poverty and the gap widens all the time.

Siobhan mentions the children who have access to a cultural experience bank and social capital that others simply don’t access at all.

“…just going on walks with their parents and talking about the Autumn leaves – these are daily experiences our children don’t get…”

Their vocabulary is severely limited, their life experiences are limited, their ability to take turns and socialise with people is limited but on top of all this, they are hungry and tired, they may have lived with several adverse childhood experiences – all of these things add up to an absolute chasm for these children.

There is a growing group of in-work parents who are struggling financially, particularly because of the complex way benefits are worked out.

What can educational provisions do to help families who are living in poverty?

Siobhan believes we first and foremost have to have hope and optimism.

“The way out of poverty is through a high quality education.”

Siobhan’s school has a set of 5 values which she uses to help all the children. This means that when you visit her school, you will see happy children who are engaged by their teachers and their lessons.

Ashley Mclaren is a criminologist who has recently completed her Master’s thesis. Tara spoke to her about unconscious bias but Ashley has also been influenced by Dr. Karen Graham who has worked on the ‘School to Prison Pipeline’.

Ashley’s thesis is entitled, ‘Black and Blue – an exploration of the work and identity as a civic shield. ‘ She concentrates on the issues of black men versus the police, particularly the use of stop and search from black men’s perspective. Ashley felt there was a lot of research on the numbers of stop and search but not really any on how the black men felt about how they were being treated. There is also some very interesting work  around how  ethnic minorities are likely to behave when stopped by the police. However, this was US research and all hypothetical – Ashley wanted to see if it applied to the UK and also if it was borne out in reality. So she interviewed 8 black men from 18 – 40 years old. Ashley describes what she found out.

How schools prepare kids for prison

Ashley heard Dr. Karen Graham speak as a guest lecturer on her course. She spoke about how schools are inadvertently preparing ethnic minority and other marginalised kids for prison life.

“It was interesting to see the correlation between schools and what was happening in prison life.”

In the US, 50% of men in prison are black compared with 20% in the population while in the UK, the situation is actually worse – 1 in 10 prisoners are black compared with 2.8% of the population. This is alongside the fact that the highest rates of exclusion in the UK are amongst Gypsy, Romany, Traveller or Irish heritage and Black Caribbean students are more than three times more likely to be permanently excluded.

Some of the themes which emerged in Ashley’s research included:

* Family environment – if all you see is crime there is an increased chance you will go into that world (although some react against it of course)

* Arbitrary school practices – e.g. having to do PE in silence

* Experience of violence – from parents or teachers

* Segregation – educational exclusions, school exclusion and physical isolation

Ollie Frith guides us through some of the earliest episodes of the podcast which cover aspects of the Five Pillars of Pivotal Practice:

* Consistent, calm adult behaviour 

* First attention to best conduct

* Relentless routines

* Scripted interventions

* Restorative follow up

The episodes he refers to are:

Restorative Practice – PP3

Scripted Behaviour Interventions – PP10

Managing Your Own Behaviour – PP12

Rules, Routines and Rituals – PP25 

We also mention the audio book version of Paul Dix’ book as our Tweet of the Week:

Today we are very excited to launch the audiobook for #AdultsChange, narrated by @pauldixtweets and available exclusively from our website! https://t.co/mpXHeBh4Wd pic.twitter.com/Px1SveYNQs

— Crown House Publishing (@CrownHousePub) November 12, 2018

When The Adults Change, Everything Changes: Seismic Shifts In School Behaviour (Abridged Audiobook)

Tara Elie  welcomes Emma Brown back shortly after her previous visit to answer some questions about autism from podcast listeners.

Emma is a Practice Development Coach working in Social Care with clients who have learning disabilities and/or Autism. The answers to the questions posed are equally applicable to those in mainstream settings who come into contact with children with learning disabilities and/or Autism.

Emma works with the teams who support people with learning disabilities in their homes, to help them to live as independently as possible. She provides training and coaching for the teams.

The Classroom Environment

Emma begins with practical tips about the use of classroom space for teachers who work with autistic children. These include the fact that adults are part of the classroom environment themselves and aspects of our classrooms such as lighting are not usually considered – but they can have a dramatic influence on the learning experience for children on the Autism Spectrum.

Listener Questions

Glenn Martin from Manor School asks: As a classroom teacher how can we support students on the Autism spectrum to be in mainstream education?

Jonathon Piltcher from Brompton Academy asks: How can we encourage creativity and unlock it when some autistic children don’t think they can be or have been told they can’t?

Restorative Practice for those with Autism

Emma shares some remarkable insights in this area including the concept that the best restorative conversations are often with the staff, rather than with the students.

Social Stories

Finally, Tara explains the idea of Social Stories which can help those with ASD enormously.

This week, Paul speaks to Elaine Halligan. The London director of The Parent Practice, Elaine has been a parenting facilitator since 2006, teaching parents in the Wimbledon and Clapham centres.

She works in schools and nurseries, coordinates our corporate and business seminar programme and works with special educational needs such as dyslexia, dyspraxia and dyscalculia.

Elaine came into parenting thinking she should instinctively know how to parent.   She sought parenting advice when she felt guilty when she thought she had done a ‘bad job’ and ashamed when she saw someone else parenting the way she wished she could. Being a parent is the most demanding job she has ever done but equally it is a role filled with joy.

Elaine has helped hundreds of families to understand their child’s unique temperament and motivates parents to bring out the best in children and teenagers to ensure they have the opportunity to lead fulfilling lives and be able to cope with life’s knocks.

One of the most powerful aspects of the interview with Elaine is when she tells the remarkable and shocking story of her own son’s experience in education. From the moment he entered nursery school, he had difficulties. Elaine had to move him between private and state schools as well as special school settings until finally finding a school which could give him what he needed. He was initially labelled as ‘the naughty one’ and it was a long time before Elaine realised that her son was not the problem – he had problems. He was ‘hard wired’ to get attention from people, which led to some very difficult situation. It was these experiences which led Elaine to leave her job and devote her time and talents to helping her son and his teachers – and then to helping other parents.

“If you have a child who is different, you are judged.”

Elaine also had to cope with a plethora of bewildering diagnoses. She was told her son had all kinds of different conditions:

* Autism

* Asperger’s Syndrome

* Attention Deficit Disorder

* Sensory Integration Dysfunction

* Oppositional Defiance Disorder

* Pathological Demand Avoidance

* Dyslexia

* Dyspraxia

* Pragmatic Semantic Language Disorder

What can teachers do to help?

Eliane explains one of the concepts she thinks is useful in helping children to raise their self esteem – which is based on an understanding of a function of the brain referred to as the Reticular Activating System.

“Once you start looking for the positives, you’ll find them.”

The RAS searches for what you are focussing on. So, when you buy a new car, you see lots of the same model each time you go out. Similarly, if you start actively looking for the positive in learners, you suddenly find you see it all the time. The brain filters out what it sees as unimportant to you. Humans are hard-wired to look for mistakes and point them out but we can subvert this by training yourself to look for positive things.

Elaine’s book – My Child’s Different

@ParentPractice on Twitter

Ruth McKay is Headteacher at Portobello High School, a large comprehensive in the east of Edinburgh.

Ruth began her career as an English teacher and quickly moved into Guidance and Pastoral Care. Following a national secondment looking at new ways to measure progress and improvement in education, she spent time working in a local authority as a Quality Improvement Officer before returning to school as a Depute Head Teacher. This is her second headship.

With a particular interest in responses to Adverse Childhood Experience (ACEs), Ruth co-organised the highly successful Portobello Learning Festival on this theme in June 2018. A second Portobello Learning Festival will take place in June 2019 on the theme of ‘Changing Relationships, Changing Lives’.

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/portobello-learning-festival-2019-changing-relationships-changing-lives-tickets-50085404794?aff=erelexpmlt

Victoria Tait is Education for Sustainability Coordinator at Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge.

As EfS coordinator, Victoria’s role is to ensure that sustainability is an integral part of both staff and students’ experiences and learning whilst at our University. Victoria works with staff to explore how sustainability links to the curriculum, and supports individual staff members to carry out a funded learning project on a sustainability themed topic of their choice.

Before joining Anglia Ruskin, Victoria spent two and a half years as a Project Manager at SEEd – a Sustainability and Environmental Education charity which helps educators to embed sustainability into young people’s learning.

Now Victoria works with our students to ensure that they feel prepared for the future and are equipped with the relevant sustainability skills. Our aim is for all students at Anglia Ruskin to be offered the opportunity to experience learning based on and around real-world issues, especially those related to environmental sustainability and social responsibility (ethics, well-being, social justice, global citizenship, moral responsibility).

The SEEd campaigned to change the education act to realign to purpose of education around the ethos of ‘care’. Althpough initially unsucessful, the campaign has now been taken up by environmental campaigner, Chris Packham in his manefesto.

Care for one’s self

* Food – start your own ‘Edible Playground‘ and produce food for the school or for the local community

* Exercise – University of Copenhagen study links exercise to learning retention – the effects can last up to 4 hours so try out things like the Walking School Bus and organisations like sustrans

* Outdoor learning – being outside can improve your mental health according to a study by Mind – also check out Forest Schools

Care for others

* Think about people on the other side of the world and how what we do affects them

* Think about the impact of the products you choose to buy – have they been produced sustainably?

* Link up with others via The World’s Largest Lesson and learn about the Sustainable Development Goals

Care for the environment

* Recycling is important but there’s so much more

* Reduce the energy we use and consider how we are getting the energy we use – is it a sustainable source and if not can we change to a more sustainable source?

* Investigate Ashton’s Less CO2 schools energy reduction programme

* Make sure everyone in the school is involved

Andy Oliver was appointed as an NQT at Holte School, Lozells, Birmingham in 1998. Holte was graded ‘Outstanding’ in 2009 and 2012, is an Inclusion Quality Mark Flagship School and also recently achieved the Equalities Award.

Andy undertook a variety of pastoral posts at the school including Head of Year, Assistant Headteacher and now Deputy Headteacher. He has also been the the school’s DSL for the last 10 years.

Andy spent a year as an Acting Headteacher for a Primary School in Walsall in 2012 that had gone into Special Measures which then became ‘Good’ within 7 months. He was also part of the ‘Senior Leadership Team of the year’ in the TES Awards in 2012-2013 and recently won a Midlands Education Award for ‘Transforming Lives through Partnerships’.

In this episode we meet Andy and some of the NQTs at his school.

Holte School has just been made a Pivotal Regional Hub School. Andy tells us that when he went on his Pivotal training it wasn’t to revolutionise the behaviour management in the school because they already had an Ofsted outstanding rating. Rather, it was to help the school improve further and to change the school’s approach. Now, all senior staff have been through Pivotal training, Andy runs whole school sessions and all NQTs are inducted into the Pivotal approaches.

The school is now very positive about behaviour management and this is borne out by the comparisons in data between now and before the adoption of the Pivotal ways of working. For example, there have been 10 permanent exclusions in the past 7 years in a school which has a significant amount of behaviour challenges with gang issues in the local community and high levels of mental health problems and crime.

Andy agrees that this success is based on a whole school emphasis on warmth and kindness, right from the initial meet and greet to every lesson.

What has the school been doing with the community?

The BBC and ITV have recently been in Holte to cover the launch of a Police anti knife crime initiative. The school uses metal detecting wands a random sessions every week to ensure the school is a safe environment and this has been championed by the Police across Birmingham. The school has arranged for many outside speakers to come in and talk to the pupils about knife crime including mothers who have lost their children to knife crime and ex-gang members. University criminologists have run staff training sessions on how to divert children from the path to knife culture and the school has an excellent relationship with the Police leading to cross promotion of work. There is a confidential online reporting system for pupils and the combination of their approaches has helped them to tackle the issues.

The school has managed to create a robust, safe environment combined with their caring, kind, warm approach.

“I think that the pupils will work harder and respect people more if they see that we care about them – that we’ve got their interests at heart and that we want the best for them.”

On the basis of this work and other initiatives, Hoilte school have recently won the Midlands Education Award in the category of Transforming Lives Through Partnerships.

Holte’s NQTs: Sameya Bi, Jennifer Campbell and Christina Sutcliffe

Sameya, Jennifer and Christina all agree about the importance of setting high expectations and clear boundaries right from the start – ‘right from the door’. Once these are established, you can start to build relationships with the pupils.

What processes do you go through to keep yourselves grounded and preserve your enthusiasm?

Positive people around you are essential and at Holte there is a great support system – other NQTs, your department. Weekly NQT Programme meetings help where problems can be shared and the realisation that everyone else has similar ones,

For Mike’s last episode of the academic year, he speaks to the remarkable Clare Erasmus who shares her insights around wellbeing – what a great end to a great year!

Clare is Head of Faculty for Mental Health and Wellbeing at Brighton Hill Community School and describes herself as very fortunate to have experienced unconditional love in her upbringing in South Africa. When she arrived in the UK, she didn’t have the urge or the desire to teach until she had her own children and she realised that it was such a privilege to teacher other people’s children.

Having seen discrimination in South Africa, Clare became a champion for equality and leading anti-bullying, anti-racism, anti-xenophobia and aniti-homophobia campaigns. Her passion was for finding ways in which young people could speak about and lead work in these areas. This lead her to the world of mental health.

She found a lack of resources in the UK for mental health in the 1990s and 2000s and she found herself championing mental health and wellbeing in schools.

When you are teaching do you adopt different personas?

“When I first started teaching I was trying too hard to be someone else.”

Quite quickly, Clare realised the only way which would work was for her to be herself and the students be themselves. The only differences between her and the learners were:

* she had experience

* she had insights into the institution they were in

* she had good communication skills

Authenticity is vital, for Clare and since she realised this people have gravitated towards her. She also thinks it’s important to share a little bit of vulnerability with students – for example she let them know how nervous she was about doing a recent TED talk.

Why is wellbeing so important to you?

Despite having a wonderful childhood, Clare realised that wasn’t a ticket to having a wonderful life. Everyone has challenges and sometimes everyone can be hit quite hard – which can be a huge shock and you can find yourself crumbling. She discovered resilience which for her means the ability to recognise when things aren’t working and you aren’t feeling great. Even if you look like you should be able to cope, you can’t but you can – and do – ask for help.