behaviour

Confession. Guilt exposed by THAT teacher look

/ Mr J Dexter / Leave a comment

I’m not sure if this happened to other colleagues but it happened to me often and I wonder if it’s an Roman Catholic schools thing. Read on…

I’ve blogged about Bus Duty elsewhere and so this is what happened. I was just waving a bus off and thanking their driver when a distant shout back down the path alerted me to stop the bus “Oh hold on Driver” and down the road came Liam (we’ll call him Liam because that was his name). The bus driver waited and Liam got on and I thanked the driver, waved him off BUT he didn’t leave and beckoned me on. That only means one thing, bus troubles.

“Mr Dexter please do something about that lad, he is so badly behaved on the bus”

“Oh like what?”

“Well yesterday he had a packet of polo mints which he broke into small pieces and threw around the bus at people.”

So I go on board ask a few other pupils who confirm the incident and all I can do is ask Liam to see me next day at break at the staffroom door – you know sternly, teacher look, teacher face.

If any of you are senior staff reading this you’ll know what I’m about to say very well. By the time morning break came around I had done or not completed a thousand tasks with hundreds of people. As one colleague said until you meet yourself going backwards you’ve not understood school leadership. An evening of emails, marking, preparation, a morning of assembly, cover issues, and lesson one taught  – ‘good lesson” I’d say – not sure ofsted would but then they just observed at that time they didn’t deliver 20 lessons a week and do all this !

So the bell goes for break I, like many other staff, head for coffee and the staff toilets. Just as I turn around someone says “Mr Dexter Liam at the door for you”. Do you know in all honesty I couldn’t remember what it was about. I answered the door remembered he was in some trouble ( polos and buses) and so we went into an office (doors open of course).

Me “OK Liam thank you for coming to see me. Why did I want to speak with you?” [Teacher look, teacher voice, disappointed ‘you’ve let yourself down’ eyes.]

Liam “ I know Mr Dexter, I’m very sorry.”

Me “Go on”

Liam “ Its about French isn’t it, and my behaviour with Mrs C. I really shouldn’t have spoken to her like that ….”

Me “ Mmmm thank you Liam, that’s important but actually it wasn’t about that”

Liam “ Oh is it about the incident in Biology, it wasn’t really my fault the scissors slipped, I don’t honestly know how they flew across the lab and hit Ashraf, it was an accident but I do need to apologise. Oh hang on is he ok?

Me “ Mmmm thank you Liam, that’s bad isn’t it  but actually it wasn’t about that, Ash is fine”

Liam “ Oh Sir it’s not about English homework, I just didn’t understand it and that’s why I copied off Heather, I didn’t think Mrs W actually noticed but nevertheless it was wrong.

Me “ Mmmm thank you Liam, that’s helpful to know  but actually it wasn’t…”

BELL

Break over 15 minutes up

Me quickly “ actually Liam it was about the polos on the bus”

Liam “Oh that , that’s nothing really Sir”

…..and that’s why our heads of year and form tutors got loads of detailed referrals 

I thought it was exceptional but it happened over and over. On another occasion I had to speak with a sixthformer about an incident at the drinks machine. We had a number of problems with a vending machine and made no progress in solving what was happening. So we put up and told the students about a temporary CCTV. I think Rick has been away or not paying attention when we told the students and day one a colleague sent me a video clip of Rick not just shaking the machine but obtaining three drinks and then selling two onwards. 

Once again I called Rick to the office and asked him if he knew why I wanted a word

  • Is it all my lates?
  • Is it all the referrals from my Business Studies teacher?
  • Was it because I skived off Maths?
  • Is it my incomplete UCAS form with only a few days left to the deadline?

The great thing here was me nodding and just waiting. [teacher eyes, teacher expressions, teacher timing.]

  • Oh Sir has someone complained about my lengthy excuses for not meeting deadlines?
  • Oh No don’t tell me you are kicking me out ( We didn’t really do that!!)

That’s escalation for you and again another lengthy set of confessions to sort. He was all the more mortified when I showed the video and just as he reverted to character – ‘are you sure that’s me Mr Dexter?’

My dear teacher friends you remember raising that eyebrow using that voice and condemning those actions if not the student and many of you do so thousands of times to great effect. Thank you

England expects – Do your Duty, Teacher

/ Mr J Dexter / 1 Comment

Duties. Teachers have to do them, sometimes paid sometimes for love ( which we do a lot): bus duty, playground duty, detention duty, dinner duty. Schools run these on rotas – in my time we did one break a week (no extra pay), we volunteered for detention, bus and others but were paid for lunch. I did all of these once a senior leader but I never took any pay. Duties matter to keep children safe and happy BUT can they help teachers too?

As a young teacher I disliked break duty

  • I missed the break which I often really needed
  • I missed the staffroom gossip and adult conversation for those short 15 min moments
  • Playground duty often brought more work, behaviour referrals or someone’s quiet words needing a safeguard referral
  • I needed max time to prep for my science lessons – setting up etc

But once mentored by an older colleague I started to see the value. For me this was most stark for bus duty. I did bus duty on and off irregularly when asked as a young teacher. Seven buses lined outside our school, staff saw children onto the bus and sent the bus on its way when everyone was on board. Some of our buses were the public bus ( No 76) which slightly diverted to collect our children, but wouldn’t hang around. 

How many times had I heard  – “let the children out promptly at 3.30pm or they might miss a bus” and then as a senior leader how often did I say the same. You try cajoling a local bus driver already stressed to “please hang on a moment”. BUT my big error came week one of being a new assistant head and now firmly on the bus duty rota. My teaching lab was close to the gate, I did not want my lessons finished ‘early’ even by a few minutes as other SLT did – mmmm my mistake.

“Sir, sir that’s my bus leaving early!!”

So that first week as a new AHT I was busy and often stressed but on Friday worse was to come. An A-level group deep in conversation with me and each other about global warming, greenhouse gases comparisons to the Ozone hole ( yes we taught all that) and suddenly I realised it was gone 3.30pm I mean only 3.35pm BUT I WAS LATE – I flew out the lab and sprinted to the gate to see the first two buses departing and leaving a load of children running down from lower school “Sir, Sir that’s my bus”. Disaster and about 30 pupils missed their  bus or rather their bus left them. Some took other routes, but there were about 5 left and so it was to the school minibus…. I never did that again, my lessons finished early. 

Other days I dug in my pocket and lent the £1 OR £1.50 etc with a promise you’ll pay me back tomorrow – promises kept and unkept but favours done and won other favours. Other times I waited in the rain, snow and even nice summer days for 20 minutes for a bus  to show up, but I came to see it as a safeguard and a privilege. Initially I must admit I resented all this, as other colleagues had those moments to sort themselves out at the end of exhausting days or coffee with a colleague and opportunity to unwind, even a chance to escape quickly before a rush hour. Some staff ( maybe cover staff) still kept children behind who I had to arrange to get home. But like many aspects of the teacher role eventually I really enjoyed the duty.  I made it my place to wish the children well to ask those in the queue how their day went, ask if they had had any good lessons, what they had learnt. Had the chance to say to the odd youngster who was struggling, well done. To someone I had to sort out in the day, to say have a good evening, tomorrow is another day. And yes sometimes used the moment to create the bridge back for them. For others they might just call out on the way “Thanks Sir” or “ Can I chat to you tomorrow?”

Even better I watched children grow up – I remember many many like the little girl in Y7 who struggled with a violin, a school bag and once a week her basket of cooking, running, worried she might have to sleep at school if she missed her ride home. She told me she wanted to be a journalist one day when the bus was late and 7 years later having taught her in y10 and y11, I gave her that infamous brown envelope which took her to Leeds University to study broadcast journalism and start her now considerable career in the media

I talked to parents who occasionally intercepted their children to take them to the doctor or dentist, or who had news ( good or bad) to share, and news shared with me.

On a few odd occasions,  behaviour was awful and we always told the driver to return to the school. Children marched to the hall, and asked who did what. Rarely any confession but a sheet of paper each to write anonymously what happened , esp under the pressure of 5 mins or the bus leaves you here and we had all the names and info needed.

Apart from my lungs full of diesel fumes I grew to love those duties simply because I used them to help make me be a better teacher and halep develop an ethos and culture in a school.

And here are two special moments – one when Sheku Kanneh-Mason had a surprise as Nottingham City Transport generously named a bus after him when he won BBC Young musician – though he did on occasion slightly oversleep, run for (his) bus and miss it! Secondly the kind of letter you just love to see


Sheku Kanneh-on has an NCT bus named in his honour. Seen with Mum Kaddie and Mr Dexter and Mr Manderson of Trinity school

Monday Period 6 – Extra curricular? NO – vital lifeblood

/ Mr J Dexter / 9 Comments

A previous Headteacher at my school set out our 1265 hours (in the days that it applied) he carefully calculated that after teaching supervision and meetings we all had 65 hours left and announced to us to “do something with children” clubs, sports, music trips. It began a culture of what was then called the ‘hidden curriculum’ is now called extended day or extra curricular.  I’ve come to see it as part of an essential and vital oxygen supply to the life of our school.

0913-230913-23Clubs activities and trips and visits have huge value in their own right. Great wonderful opportunities: Places visited, skills learned, social mixing and making new different friends, role modelling and aspirations, teamwork, independence, curiosity spurred, performance demands recognised and celebrated. But it is much more than that – most activities bring ‘volunteer pupils’ along, well maybe some arm twisted pupils but the keen and enthusiastic. Then of course there is no   the activity, no league table pressure on pupils or staff. I’m not saying sports teams don’t have some pressure, we all know it’s not the taking part but the winning. It’s not as if we would accept a sloppy musical performance so we still have standards but not exams, not grades.Then at the heart of these activities just as at the heart of the school are relationships and they are somehow a bit different. I don’t know I can describe the differences:

  • Teachers still monitor behaviour
  • Teachers still work with parents ( they get cross when parents turn up late to collect their children and forget the old “thank you)
  • Teachers still do health and safety checks
  • Teachers still plan and think of the worth of the details drawn from the activity (hey and some activities take so much planning and paperwork we all wonder that they ever happen)

0913-23But there is something magical about this relationship, pupils often really love those activities and therefore their teachers. Older pupils do for the most learn to genuinely appreciate the effort, the time and the contribution and so too do their parents ( OK not always I know). I wonder if we (me) as SLT appreciate the effort , energy and contribution. It’s not just about publicity, the head being able to say we do DofE and sport and yoyo club…and …and…..obviously that does happen and should do with a huge pride, because it is a source of rich cultural endeavour. It’s not just about the school website looking attractive with photos of trips and music and sport ( you can check ours!) In my view it helps with a much deeper question.

0913-23A lot is written about behaviour and behaviour management and we all have to learn our own ways to keep discipline. I sometimes disagree with SMW but he is right about discipline and low level disruption he just doesn’t articulate his complaint so well or the media distort it.

If children like school and like the staff and like the activities surely they are beginning to like school to such a point that they are therefore less likely to disrupt, to mess about to skive or be absent. The extra curricular life blood is critical. Pupils begin to appreciate their institution because of the people, not the building.  So those caught up, attend school and then when they find themselves in a geography lesson, well they might try and might just learn, a skilled teacher can exploit their commitment to the school. So we all benefit from the contribution of those who run after-school, or lunchtime clubs or weekend trips. Recently SMW and OFsted have published materials about low level disruption and if you have ever had to work out which ‘benefits to remove’ or ‘punishments to give’ to a pupil – an after school detention, or isolation, or even lines, there is nothing to compare with the statement “you can’t go on the trip, you can’t play football this week” Express this morality will have a powerful effect.  Even if you have to explain the vitality of taking these opportunities by spelling it out to pupils and parents do so and some poorer behaviour will become less of an issue.

0913-23I often look at our pastoral staff, and they are good, very good I think and they can be excellent with some potentially difficult pupils getting them to conform. Why? Often because they took the same pupils in y7 in a sports team, or encouraged them to learn an instrument and congratulate them on successes within the school day but beyond it too. They went with them on the battlefields trip or the trip to France or organised a trip to LIncoln, hey supported their interest in the HET visit to Auschwitz. Or just maybe stand alongside them digging in our allotment, or….

0913-23Our old head was spot on. Don’t use teacher hours in endless meetings, encourage them to do things with children. After all for most of us doing things with children is why we came into this job in the first place. It makes for a rich experience, and it helps pupils learn to really love school and love teachers and that done behaviour will be better and then learning improves and teachers can get on with that other job – teaching and learning.

Some links:

Sutton trust articles on extra curricular consequences

BBC on tuition and hobbies helping richer children

Some questions to consider

Q1 How can we share and highlight the importance of extra curricular opportunities to parents, pupils and teachers?

Q2 Is it right that the worth is greater than the intrinsic value of the activity?

Q3 What do schools do to ensure staff have the energy and resources to sustain extra curricular activity, when they are under enormous pressure already?

For those in a church school

Matthew 5:40

if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. 41 If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles. 42 Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.

Galatians 6:10

Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people

Ephesians 5:16

Making the most of every opportunity

Ecclesiastes 7:27

“Look,” says the teacher, “this is what I have discovered: