Education
In this episode, Claire talks over the internet to Ben Cooper, vice-principal of GEMS Wellington Academy in Dubai and founder of the WAGOLL teaching and Literacy WAGOLL websites. Ben talks about how he began developing his Literacy WAGOLL (What A Good One Looks Like) website ten years ago in England just after the key stage two writing assessments were adapted to use moderated evidence. After creating a range of example texts for his class and publishing them online, other teachers began contacting him to share their example texts and his site grew. After moving to Dubai about six years ago, Ben soon became the head of teaching and learning in the primary school at his academy and is now vice-principal for the primary phase. During this time, Ben blogged about his experiences of everyday teaching beyond the subject-specific skills, focusing on elements such as the humanistic side of educating children. Although this blog started out as a part of his Literacy WAGOLL site, Ben felt that as it was more about teaching in general, it didn’t gel with the site’s literacy focus so he created a new WAGOLL Teaching site to share his ideas and observations. Ben also talks about the approaches his school has taken as a result of the impact of the coronavirus including how, ahead of local school closures, they liaised with other international schools to share ideas and discuss successful or innovative approaches being taken in places where restrictions were already in place. Ben also discusses his school’s arrangements for home-learning including how they are currently delivering four live online lessons a day for maths, English, science and story-time. Along with this, Ben also discusses the benefits of technology, the importance of social connections now more than ever, and shares some tips for parents trying to balance home-learning alongside work. KEY TAKEAWAYS Moving to teach abroad is easier than you might think. While moving to another country to teach is an attractive proposition for many teachers, some people might be put off expecting the process to be complicated and full of paperwork. While there is indeed a need for forms to be completed, if you are successful in being appointed at a school in another country, in almost all cases, most of the processes will be handled by the school who will be well placed to make key arrangements on your behalf. However, there can be a perception that teaching at an international school can be ‘easier’ than teaching in England. While there can be less work to complete outside of school hours, there are different types of pressures and expectations which can make it equally challenging but in different ways. The humanistic side of teaching is important. Teaching can sometimes feel almost solely focused around academic expectations and progress and it is important that we don’t forget the people at the centre of everything we do. This is particularly important during this time of increased isolation and restrictions. Maintaining and developing social connections for the children as well as the teachers is vital. Don’t forget to dedicate time to yourself. As the coronavirus has restricted us to being at home almost all of the time, many people have found that they have more time to themselves. This can be an ideal opportunity to try and find new interests and different things to do with one unexpected positive being that many people – children included – could emerge from this experience being more aware of themselves and wellbeing. Try to maintain some normality. Even though we are in extraordinary times it can be helpful, for children as well as ourselves, to try and keep aspects of our lives as ‘normal’ as we can. This can help to reduce feelings of being overwhelmed or anxious about the ongoing situation which, as it continues, can be unsettling for everyone but particularly for children Make the most of opportunities to upskill on technology. For teachers, the current situation is ideal, for those who can, to undertake more professional development. As schools are now reliant on technology to reach their children, researching and upskilling ourselves on the possibilities afforded by computers and digital devices will almost certainly be advantageous in the future of education. BEST MOMENTS “Story time is fifteen minutes where the teachers just sit and read a novel as they would do in school and we see some lovely pictures from the kids sat on their beds or sat on the sofa curled up with a cuddly toy just listening to the teacher read a story. And it’s those types of moments, really, that I think are the most important about remote learning because it’s that humanistic element. Learning is really portable. The children still need to develop that understanding of connection and make connections with people. It’s really lovely to see.” “It’s really important we allow for flexibilities. We offer support in terms of making sure they have time off from live sessions. We’ve introduced things like wellbeing-Wednesdays where there is no screen-time. We set the children wellbeing activities like yoga or mindfulness or treasure hunts. The idea is that they turn off their iPad and they spend the afternoon off doing things. That’s the same for teachers. We want them to enjoy wellbeing-Wednesdays with their families as well.” “We adopted a mentality of saying just take every day for what it is, just accept it and then move on and try not to plan too far ahead.” “This new way of living… we’re getting used to it. So it’s just being patient, going along with it [and] taking every day as it comes.” “To start off with, parents were fearing that the children were going to fall behind, they were going to find it difficult. What happens if they just can’t access it? They’re just not going to learn for 12 weeks until the end of term. And we did say ‘no they will start to learn, they will pick up, and they will start to access the learning and be more effective because they will get into those routines.’” “Just be patient and just see how it goes. Do what you can. Your child is not going to not go to university because they’ve missed three or four weeks of year 3.” “We were speaking to parents on the phone, just reassuring them because they were getting worked up that their child was missing subjects. We just said, ‘look, at the end of the day you do what you can for your family in this time and we’ll support you though that. As soon as your child is back in school, we’ll make sure that they are catching up and back to where they need to be.’” “There is a reason why we have classrooms in schools. If remote learning was as effective as it is school, we wouldn’t have school buildings. But we do because we know that that’s the best place for our children to learn.” VALUABLE RESOURCES GEMS Wellington Academy, Dubai: https://www.gemswellingtonacademy-alkhail.com/ WAGOLL teaching: https://www.wagollteaching.com/ Literacy WAGOLL: https://www.literacywagoll.com/ WAGOLL teaching on Twitter: https://twitter.com/wagollteaching The Teachers’ Podcast: https://www.facebook.com/groups/TheTeachersPodcast/ Classroom Secrets Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ClassroomSecretsLimited/ Classroom Secrets website: https://classroomsecrets.co.uk/ LIFE/work balance campaign: https://classroomsecrets.co.uk/lifeworkbalance-and-wellbeing-in-education-campaign-2019/ ABOUT THE HOST Claire Riley Claire, alongside her husband Ed, is one of the directors of Classroom Secrets, a company she founded in 2013 and which provides outstanding differentiated resources for teachers, schools, parents and tutors worldwide. Having worked for a number of years as a teacher in both Primary and Secondary education, and experiencing first-hand the difficulties teachers were facing finding appropriate high-quality resources for their lessons, Claire created Classroom Secrets with the aim of helping reduce the workload for all school staff. Claire is a passionate believer in a LIFE/work balance for those who work in education citing the high percentage of teachers who leave or plan to leave their jobs each year. Since February 2019, Classroom Secrets has been running their LIFE/work balance campaign to highlight this concerning trend. The Teachers’ Podcast is a series of interviews where Claire meets with a wide range of guests involved in the field of education. These podcasts provide exciting discussions and different perspectives and thoughts on a variety of themes which are both engaging and informative for anyone involved in education. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.