About

In this episode, Claire talks over the internet to Haylie Saunders, deputy head academic at St Swithun’s Preparatory School in Hampshire. Haylie shares with Claire how, after leaving school herself, she had little interest in being a teacher. However, this changed following a conversation with an honest member of her family who pointed out how much she enjoyed teaching dance as a part of a local group. This prompted Haylie to enrol on a Bachelor of Education degree course and, having some experience of teaching through her dance class, Haylie excelled and qualified after only three years via the accelerated route the course offered. After gaining her degree, Haylie taught in several different settings including spending several years in a small New Forest school and becoming the head of games in a very sport-focused top preparatory school in Hampshire. This role, in particular, was invaluable in gaining leadership skills which led to a deputy headship in an all-girls school in Surrey. Following this, Haylie moved to St Swithun’s Preparatory School where she is now deputy head academic leading curriculum development and assessment. In this episode, Haylie and Claire discuss the challenges Haylie’s school has faced preparing and organising home-learning for their pupils, some of the issues that have arisen, and what might be around the corner for all schools and the education sector in general. KEY TAKEAWAYS Preparation Although school closures came about very quickly, and there is still no real idea of when things will return to ‘normal’, whatever preparation can be done using the information to hand is essential for leaders. Considering what can and cannot be realistically accomplished is important – particularly with so much relying on technology and busy working parents being able to organise things at home. This is also important for the future. While there is little indication of when schools will return, there will likely be areas that can start being considered and planned for ahead of time. The importance of routine A key aspect for success with home-learning is having some sort of routine in place for children. However, it is equally important to allow for flexibility within any routine as all of this is taking place in real-life, where the unexpected occurs and things don’t always run to plan. Parents have reported that getting children started on tasks one of the most challenging parts of the day, so consider starting the daily routines earlier on, building in periods of down-time and breaks and using the afternoons for other less intensive tasks and family time. Focus on covering just the key pieces of learning Full lessons are just not possible to achieve at home in the same way they are in school, even with a teacher remotely teaching a full lesson. What can be accomplished in a classroom environment cannot be effectively replicated via video or though bringing people together virtually with conference technology. It is far more valuable to make sessions shorter – maybe around twenty minutes of quality learning time – and have smaller achievable goals. This is particularly useful for parents and teachers who will likely have their own personal circumstances at home and who could, if the goals are too ambitious, end up feeling demoralised and as though they’ve failed. Take time to consider what’s working and what’s been less successful As all of this is uncharted territory for schools, things will not always go to plan. However, do take time to consider what has worked well and where small adjustments could be made to fix issues rather than opting for wholesale revamps. This can be particularly important for schools who get complaints. While these will generally come from parents who want to do the best for their children, it is always worth keeping in mind how many complaints there might actually be versus any silent majority who will, probably, be more than happy with what is on offer. Technology While technology has been incredibly useful during this time, it is important to be mindful of problems that can arise – especially for non-technical parents and individual home circumstances. Schools make great use of computers and tablets during their usual teaching weeks, but the amount of screen-time many children are currently getting could likely be greater than they might normally have and, with this in mind, building in breaks and down-times away from screens is important. Keep a focus on essential skills In and amongst everything that schools, teachers and parents want to achieve, it’s always good to have some daily focus on maintaining essential skills wherever possible: regular reading or phonics activities, fun times-tables games and conversations during down-time are essential for all children’s development. BEST MOMENTS “If you allow for the fact that the parents and children have had to up-skill to a degree on these new platforms, or they’ve had to adjust to this way of reading plans that are designed for educators, really, and then you’re sat down with your daughter or son trying to get through this, you can very quickly, as a parent, end up feeling like a failure.” “Remote learning is not twenty-four hours a day. Teachers have still got to have their PPA time, their administration time and also breaks from the screen so they don’t get screen fatigue. So we had to make sure it was manageable for them as well.” “So far we’ve been well-staffed. In fact, probably, over-staffed. So, another problem for leaderships is actually assessing how many children you have in and what is a safe ratio of teachers to be in. Is it absolutely necessary?” “You’ve got to be flexible in all areas. Look after your teachers. Look after your parents. It’s a highly stressful situation.” “What you don’t want is parents to be panicking that [they] haven’t got the ingredients for a recipe or they haven’t got this, because again it just makes them feel that they’re inadequate.” “It’s okay for kids to be bored, and I think we’ve forgotten that sometimes and they actually have to occupy themselves. It’s a really valuable life-skill as well… to be able to occupy yourself and be independent.” “It’s about not being too hard on yourself when you’re in school and demanding too much of teachers.” “It was quite alarming how long I spent on the screen last week. And I think everybody’s feeling that… we talk about wellbeing but are we actually encouraging our staff to get out for the afternoon. It can be easy as a leader to just expect them always to be there answering those e-mails straight away, and yet that’s not the case in school.” “What’s really difficult is, if you are in school managing stressful situations - and there’s plenty of them - you’re not doing that in front of an audience. Now we are opening our teaching up, and that’s nothing to be scared of because they do a really, really good job, but I think it’s quite intimidating for teachers to suddenly be in a room of 18/20 children and their parents.” “There’s going to be gaps in the learning. The children will have experienced different things at home so I think we’re going to have to be really mindful of that and, again, make sure that we can identify those gaps in learning pretty quickly and bridge them as quickly as possible so those families don’t feel as though they’ve done anything wrong.” “I always love a brave teacher. One thing that makes a class exciting is those risk-takers that will do that science experiment that could result in slime everywhere all over the laboratory but that’s what kind of makes school fun.” VALUABLE RESOURCES St Swithun’s independent preparatory and boarding school: https://www.stswithuns.com/ Haylie Saunders (LinkedIn): https://www.linkedin.com/in/haylie-saunders-56b685186/ Classroom Secrets website: https://classroomsecrets.co.uk/ The Teachers’ Podcast: https://www.facebook.com/groups/TheTeachersPodcast/ Classroom Secrets Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ClassroomSecretsLimited/ 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.