Education
EPISODE NOTES In this episode, Claire talks over the internet with Steve Bladon, headteacher at Horncastle Primary School, a large 3-form entry school in Lincolnshire. Steve talks about his background in education and his route into teaching from undertaking an NVQ after leaving school and, at the same time, working as a teaching assistant before moving into teacher training at what is now the University of Cumbria. After gaining his degree, Steve worked as a reception teacher before becoming Early Years and Foundation Stage leader, then assistant headteacher and headteacher during his time at several schools in Lancashire. He relocated over to Lincolnshire and took over the headship at Horncastle Primary School. Throughout the episode, Steve discusses the challenges that he and all school leaders have faced over the last two terms with schools closing to most pupils and, more recently, the seemingly ever-changing and sometimes contradictory government guidance on returning to full-time schooling for all children. As a part of this, Steve talks about his recent open letter to Gavin Williamson, the Education Secretary at the time of recording and how his school is preparing for the start of the new academic year in a time of significant educational upheaval. Steve shares his thoughts on the many complications and concerns around reopening schools in a time of a global pandemic and what steps he and his staff are taking to keep everyone as safe as possible. KEY TAKEAWAYS Do what will work best for your school based on what you know. Remember that guidance is written by civil servants – many of whom will probably not be educationalists or have any significant experience in the field. Every school is unique and the staff are best placed to know what will work best for them and their setting. It is also important to remember that these documents are guidance and very little is statutory. Make bespoke plans for your school that are workable using your judgement, common sense, your collective experience and the knowledge you have of your community. For example, taking the temperatures of children regularly in some schools might be practicable and a reasonable measure in some places, but not necessarily workable or necessary in other settings. Expect unpredictable complications and changes of plan. Ultimately, everyone will have to start somewhere with plans for reopening. Even well thought out plans and the best preparation can unexpectedly come unstuck when put into practice. This isn’t necessarily reflective of a shortcoming of the planning process, more a reality that what transpires in action cannot always be foreseen. It’s important to be flexible and not be afraid to start again or rethink things if you’re not totally happy with them or if they can be improved. This is an ideal time for creativity and rethinking approaches. The upheaval and changes to our lives and ways of working brought about by the pandemic does actually provide a useful time for schools to rethink the status quo. School routines and ways of working – which for many will have been unchanged for a long time – could now be re-examined as we begin to return. An example is assemblies which, for almost all schools, involve a time consuming process of moving the whole school to a single room. From September, doing this would be almost impossible as it would involve bringing a large group of people and ‘bubbles’ together. However, time can be saved here with doing assemblies remotely into classrooms, creating videos or materials or discussing a common message. BEST MOMENTS “I'm thinking rationally, by the end of September and early October, we'll be in a situation where some children are ill and we've got to make a decision. Are they ill with something which is a potential risk which is too serious to ignore? Or are their symptoms something else which, actually, we've got to live with going forward? Because to stop school for every cough, temperature and potential case of COVID-19 could be really problematic.” “That's where we've got to with schools because on the one hand schools have been tasked with reopening. But on the other hand, it's not really business as usual. It's everybody in, but there's this whole load of 'what if' questions.” “It's about being dynamic. You can have protocols and plans and theories and you can have opinions. But what you've got to do is be able to adapt and change and see what happens and then see what's workable.” “I believe that education is the most important profession in a civilised society. Things like dropping guidance on a Friday night, or in the middle of the night, or on a Bank Holiday Monday. That's not the way to treat a profession.” “Our profession has been saying for months, 'Please can we have the guidance. What's plan B?'… I can't think of an excuse for things not being done more timely.” “Part of my job this year has been to try and reassure parents. Even when sometimes that's been an impossible job because we're trying to reassure people about things that we're not always certain about ourselves.” “I think communication has been really important in my school in lockdown.” “I can't use the term ‘COVID secure’ because I think that's a misnomer.” “Things will keep changing, and goodness knows how long we're in this for. I think we reserve the right to change what we're doing, and to change our minds and to change our schools to keep them as safe as possible.” “In twenty-one years in schools, whether I've been an NQT or an experienced teacher or a key stage leader or a head, it doesn't matter whether you work in a town, or a city or a rural place, it's a hard job and it's a time consuming job. I don't think we should ever pretend we can make it really easy or a lot less time consuming. I think it just could be different.” VALUABLE RESOURCES Steve Bladon’s open letter to Gavin Williamson: https://stevebheadteacher.wordpress.com/2020/08/29/a-letter-to-gavin-williamson/ Steve Bladon on Twitter: https://twitter.com/bladon_steve Classroom Secrets Kids: https://kids.classroomsecrets.co.uk 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.