Barry Smith - Learning about Learning

The loss of the Community Liaison Team Active Steps outdoor education provision from our ALPs programme due to funding not being renewed will be a major blow.  Sally Harris and her team have done a fantastic job working with our youngsters in the past year and it will mean a re-think of our programme at the school.  I know that the team have done similar, excellent work throughout East Lothian in the past few years with many different groups of young people and their provision will be sorely missed.  A great shame.

Today’s debt of gratitude goes to all of the inspirational and wise people I’ve met in my life, as well as to all the setbacks and defeats I’ve had. 

Every one has been and excellent opportunity to learn about myself and my direction in life.

I’m grateful that I live in a society  in which I’m able to express my thoughts and opinions, even if other people do not agree with them.

I am grateful for being able to learn from my experiences.  Somebody somewhere once said, “there is no failure, only feedback”.  Very true in my opinion, but not always easy to see.

I’m grateful babies go to sleep…….sometimes, even sometimes at night!! 

I am currently on paternity leave after the birth of our second son, Myles Richard, last Monday.  Thankfully everything went well, albeit 2 weeks late, and we are all now adjusting to life as four!  Sleep currently at a premium.

I happened to read an article about gratitude and how it has positive effects on mental health ie if you can positively identify things in your life you are grateful for then it follows, it would seem, that you are more likely to have a positive mental outlook.  I think this is probably quite an intuitive idea, but although I regard myself as someone with a ‘positive’ outlook I’m not sure I take the time on a regular basis to really think about all the things in my life I’m grateful for. 

So here is where my learning log comes in……

I have been posting less over the past few months which has been due to a combination of factors, work(ironically), family and african drumming commitments.  I have decided therefore to try and keep a sort of gratitude diary as well as continuing with my SQH postings when appropriate.

I’ll try and post every day if possible, detailing the thing I’ve been thinking about on that day.  I figure it is a win/win situation, put myself in a positive mental state and the return to posting regularly to my learning log will hopefully spark further posts as the race to the end of SQH hots up!

 So here goes:

The first one is going to be easy, seeing as I’ve been thinking a lot about it!  Top five currently…

I am grateful for:

The safe arrival of Myles

My family

My wife’s incredible control during her labour(otherwise I might have struggled!!)

Our home and sense of community in the local area

The support of my work colleagues while I’ve been on paternity leave(chocolate biscuits aplenty for everyone next week!)

Let’s see how it goes with the gratitude diary. 

We are about to develop at our new ALPs programme and there will be some changes to the format of the programme based upon our experiences and successes.  We are also taking into account the views of the current participants and facilitators. 

A full report of the new structure and any changes will appear in the coming weeks and months.  I’m particularly keen to build upon the enormous success of our outdoor education activities as well as developing the ALPs website further to make it even more interactive and ‘live’.   I think there is scope for collaborating with other local secondaries too, especially as the cost of some outdoor education activities can be limiting.

If anyone else has been doing anything similar in other schools I’d be interested in hearing about your experiences. 

As we are on the home stretch of SQH I am now focussing upon meeting all the elements of the standard for headship.  It has thrown up an interesting challenge for me and no doubt for other participants.  As a principal teacher of pupil support I have responsibility for managing projects but not for managing people directly, i.e. it is not part of my immediate remit and I do not conduct EDR or have any responsibility for the appointment of staff.   Obviously on a day-to-day basis, deploying excellent people management skills are essential, but this is not quite the same as having direct responsibility for staff. 

Therefore, I have been presented with a challenge is in evidencing a knowledge and understanding of the recruitment and selection process.  Yes, I have had my training and understand the theoretical aspects and possible pitfalls involved, but without actually taking part in a ‘live’ recruitment and selection process my skills remain purely theoretical.  It has become necessary to seek an opportunity through my headteacher to be involved in the appointments procedure.

There are others taking part in SQH who are in a similar position to myself, primary teachers and other PT Guidance/Pupil Support.  I have found myself asking the question, is it the right time for me to be undertaking SQH if I will have difficulty evidencing one of the fundamental aspects of the course?  I understand that the participants are selected based on both their experience and potential and perhaps part of the challenge is to ensure that you can be resourceful enough to engineer opportunities to fulfil all of the criteria.  Or maybe the course itself does not fully reflect the experience of participants from a pupil support background, where the ‘flatter’ structure can mean no direct responsibilty for managing staff until reaching the position of SMT.  The diversity of the structure of pupil support teams throughout the country means that people have a very different experience of pupil support from authority to authority.

This may feed the criticism I have heard levelled by some that the course is too heavily based in theory, too academic, and doesn’t fully prepare applicants for the reality of the job.  I have thought about this a great deal since starting the course in April ‘05 and my conculsion is that the academic rigour is fundamental to the qualification.  Headteachers are now expected to have a ‘vision’ for their school which is based on sound judgement.  I would argue that such judgement be based upon evidence from current research and academic thinking as well as the context in which he or she works.  

An unfortunate consequence of this  is the incredible expectations we have of the knowledge and abilities of the headteacher.  I say unfortunate because it can drive headteachers to work increasingly long hours to ’stay on top’ of things.  It is not possible for any person to ‘know all’ and ‘be all’ but we seem to expect this from from those charged with running schools. 

When I discuss working hours with colleagues who are on SQH, very long hours can be seen as a ‘badge of honour’ by some and this seems, in some instances, to be coming ‘from the top’.  A culture of working incredibly long hours exists in some schools and there may be a perception that progression is predicated upon fitting into this mode of working.  I do not believe this is healthy and I am glad I do not experience it in my own school.  It is one thing to have a calling and be committed to the work you do,  entirely another to be consumed by it.

However I digress from my initial point, the challenge of being fully conversant and experienced in the recruitment and selection process.  I am concerned that in becoming invoved in and R&S process it may be seen as tokenistic and may feel that way too.  But in order to fulfil the criteria for attaining the Standard for Headship it is a neccessity.  So I will seek opportunities to increase my working knowledge in this area, while having one eye on what is acceptable and reasonable in terms of my time commitment.

I also think my time of life has a significant bearing on my view.  At the moment I am in a very ‘busy’ time in terms of my home life and perhaps in a few years I’ll see things differently and want and need to commit more time to the job.

I’ve just completed the interim evaluation of the ALPs programme, reporting on progress thus far.

In summary:

The programme has improved links with partner organisations, particularly Telford College.  There has been siginificant benefit to the young people on the programme as a result of this, providing opportunities on the Sports Leadership course that almost certainly would not have come along without the work done in S3.  There has also been very close working with the Integration team, Active Steps and Mobex.  In particular the links with the Integration team have helped with work being done in the community as the Integration Team are ‘well kent faces’ with the youngsters.

Incidents in school have reduced by more than half for the group, compared with the preceeding 15 week period.

Exclusion statistics were too small to make a meaningful comparison, they remained constant as compared with the preceeding 15 weeks.  What is significant is that there was no third term ’spike’ as in previous years for this cohort.

Attendance was not improved overall, due in large part to the statistics being heavily influenced by the poor attendance of a couple of individuals.  Attendance on programme activities was very good overall.   Two youngsters have left the programme because of family re-location.

The youngsters involved and outside agencies working with them were positive about the experience thus far.  Each youngster has an idea of their desired destination beyond school and is working with the school’s career officer to establish their own individual pathway.

Work experience opportunities are being taken up by the youngsters to help build their portfolio of employability skills.

Every youngster has had the opportunity to undertake a college placement this year.  So far four youngsters are involved in college programmes of one form or another.

In conclusion, we are well on the way to reaching our goal of having each youngster leaving school for a ‘positive’ destination.   It has for me re-inforced the notion that in terms of the school curriculum more choices does mean more chances.

If you would like further information about any of the above or a copy of the interim evaluation please get in touch.