Teach Middle East Podcast
Welcome to the Teach Middle East Podcast, the ultimate audio hub where educators find inspiration, share innovative ideas, and grow together! Brought to you by Moftah Publishing—the minds behind the premier Teach Middle East Magazine—this podcast is your gateway to the latest research-based practices, cutting-edge classroom strategies, and the heartwarming stories of educators from the Middle East and around the globe.
As the only podcast that interviews school leaders from across the Middle East and beyond, we offer unparalleled insights into the challenges and successes that shape educational landscapes in diverse settings. Join us as we dive deep into the fascinating world of education, where every episode promises a treasure trove of insights designed to connect, develop, and empower the brilliant minds shaping our future. Whether you’re seeking fresh perspectives, practical tips, or a dose of inspiration, the Teach Middle East Podcast is your must-listen resource. Tune in and transform the way you teach!
Teach Middle East Podcast
From Classroom Practice to Thought Leadership: Tom Sherrington's Journey
Join us for an enlightening conversation with Tom Sherrington, a trailblazer in school leadership and teacher development. From his early days teaching physics and maths, Tom discusses how he became a thought leader. The episode dives into the transformative impact of his blog, TeacherHead, which has opened unexpected doors and enriched his teaching philosophy.
Tom shares insights on establishing a genuine presence in the digital education sphere, balancing personal experiences with engaging content for educators. The discussion also tackles the nuances of teacher influencer culture, the evolution of teaching observations, and the art of constructive feedback. Highlighting Tom's journey from blogger to author, the episode explores his works like 'Learning Rainforest' and 'Rosenshine's Principles in Action', culminating in his latest, 'Learning Walkthroughs'. This episode is packed with rich stories, practical advice, and inspiration for educators at all stages of their careers.
Connect with Tom: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tom-sherrington-teacherhead/
Read Tom's blog: https://teacherhead.com/
Teach Middle East Magazine is the premier platform for educators and the entire education sector in the Middle East and beyond. Our vision is to equip educators with the materials and tools they need, to function optimally in and out of the classroom. We provide a space for educators to connect and find inspiration, resources, and forums to enhance their teaching techniques, methodologies, and personal development. We connect education suppliers and service providers to the people who make the buying decisions in schools.
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Hosted by Leisa Grace Wilson
Connect with Leisa Grace:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/leisagrace
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leisagrace/
Hey everyone, welcome to the Teach Middle East podcast. My name is Elisa Grace. Today I have Tom Sherrington as my guest on the podcast and we're going to be talking about his career. We're going to be talking about his work, his books, his love for teaching and learning, and we're going to dive in somewhere around the end. We're going to be talking about feedback and walkthroughs and lesson observations, which is something I've read extensively on his blog, so I won't blab on. I just want to welcome Tom to the podcast.
Speaker 2:You are listening to the Teach Middle East podcast connecting, developing and empowering educators podcast connecting, developing and empowering educators.
Speaker 3:Well, thank you very much for inviting me. I'm really delighted to be talking to you.
Speaker 1:Thank, you so much, tom. Where did it begin this whole career in education that you have going?
Speaker 3:well it's. It's kind of the only career I've ever had, because I started teaching when I was straight out of university in 1987 I got my first job. I didn't really know I'd spend the rest of my career teaching, but I enjoyed it so I just thought I'd do it. To start with and that was a long time ago physics and maths teacher and then in the 90s I got interested in sort of school leadership and working a couple of comprehensive schools in London. I spent a stint in an international school in and work in a couple of comprehensive schools in london. I spent a international school in in jakarta in indonesia in 2005 to 2008 and when I came back from that I was a head a head teacher for about 11 years, but that's around about 10.
Speaker 3:11 years ago I was nearly 12 years ago I started writing a blog about teaching teacherheadcom just reporting on everyday stuff in school, and I found the mate. To my amazing, people read it. So I started sort of finding, well, there's an audience for people talking and exploring what happens in schools and in lessons. So I sort of developed a kind of an audience for writing and then and since then I've written various books and last seven years I've been training teachers mainly. I think of myself as a teacher trainer. I visit a lot of schools, I watch a lot of teachers teach and do training, so that's my main career now. But that's you know, going 30, 35 years or so.
Speaker 1:I read. I'm a reader of your blog, so I've read Teacher Head for several years. What would you say is one of the biggest things you've gained from having started that blog?
Speaker 3:I think the main thing I mean a lot of bloggers would say this is it helps you clarify your own thoughts. So knowing you have the blog to write and a kind of audience for it I it makes me think hard about things because I I don't I can think in my own head and like everybody does, but I think I'm gonna. I know that this is a common issue. So I feel like I've learned that whatever I think about teaching, lots of other people also have the same challenge because they're quite common. So I feel like I think hard about how do I communicate that, how do I express that challenge so that it kind of relates to other people? And then what do I think the answers are. So because I know the blog is there and people will read it, I kind of channel that.
Speaker 3:That's the main thing. I've've learned that we have a lot in common and I've gained a lot just by having that kind of audience of people engaging with it. So I've met lots of people through it and some other fellow writers, bloggers, teachers. That's the main thing you're sort of thinking like when I'm in a lesson. I'm thinking, oh, this is an interesting challenge as teachers having. I bet loads of other people have this challenge and you know, a couple of weeks later, sure enough, that appears in a blog post. Because I think, well, if it was tough for them, it would be tough for lots of people and that often resonates and then you have the audience that you've already sort of curated and built up.
Speaker 1:But what about people who are just starting out in this whole blogging and maybe even video? How would you encourage them to get on that road if they're like a little bit hesitant?
Speaker 3:so I get asked that a lot. You know, I feel like sometimes people will ask me because they think I've got a reasonable number of followers and so on. So you know, but I actually think that's a bit overwhelming when I first started. There are people I used to look up to and think, wow, how do you ever get to be that sort of well-known? And I was thinking, well, you don't really, you just start by doing it. So you have to be sort of very kind of unassuming about it to begin with, just doing it. So you have to just say, well, the blog is mine, I'm going to write it for me, I'm going to curate my stuff so that you feel like the sense of pride in it and think it's, it's mainly yours, and then promote it to others because you think you're pleased with it. And I do think this is something that sometimes people are weirdly kind of half-hearted about it because they're so sort of anxious about coming across as over promoting. Now, rightly or wrongly, I've never had a problem with that. So I feel like this is my honest view. I feel like if you've written something about school, it's inherently interesting to other teachers and people will want to know what you thought and you should feel confident that it's worth sharing your perspective, as long as you couch it in that terms. This is just what I think. You know. I'm not telling you to believe me, I'm not selling this to you. I'm just saying this is what I think and people will find that interesting. But you do have to keep telling people it's there. This is the thing I find sometimes people are weird. You have to let people know like so I.
Speaker 3:I adopted this attitude right from the beginning, and when I'm tweeting links to my blog, I'm not saying, hey guys, come and look at me, aren't I great? I'm saying I've got this thing here. It is, have a look, because if I don't do that, you're not going to know it's there. So how else would anyone know it's there unless you tell them? So you have to sort of it's like a sort of information service, and I find other people who tweet links to their blogs. So I think, thank god, thank you, because if I did, if you hadn't, if I hadn't seen that tweet with that link, I'd never know you'd written that. So how else could I have? You've helped me come across your work, thank you, and I really, I really see it in that way.
Speaker 3:I'm quite sincere about that, like I feel like I'm sharing access to something and but yeah, I think you have to get over that bit. I know people find it painful, but, um, you just have to kind of say, well, I think it's okay to read it, have a see what you think and and keep going. And then the last thing to say keep doing it. I feel like if people sort of blog and then three months later they do another one, it's a bit hard to get a rhythm. So all the bloggers I know that I know off the top of my head are people who write something every month at least, and when you look on their blog there's a kind of catalogue of things that they've produced over time and you can say, oh wow, look at all this stuff they've done. There's a frequency to it. So I'd say keep, keep it, keep it up, be very honest, keep down to earth and keep writing bits, and people will find it interesting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm going to stay on that topic for a little bit. How do they decide what to write about? Because that's another question to get asked a lot.
Speaker 3:I think that's so interesting. I think it's quite useful to have a thing that you're known for a bit if you want to build an audience. So over the years I've written about curriculum, about assessment, about teaching stuff. You know various things and I think there are people I know of who are the writers about reading, the people who I know, who really get into some cognitive science stuff. I know people who are history bloggers, people who write about school leadership.
Speaker 3:So I feel like you need to find a kind of groove that you think you've got quite a lot to say and then keep it quite tight to something. So you know, you don't have to sort of write a great state of the nation address every time you write a blog. You just go well, here's a little thing I've observed and then I make. What I do is I make a list of ideas every couple of months. I sort of think, well, I've got some ideas brewing, these are things I might write about. I make a list and then I think, yeah, I'll do that one. And then when I write a specific blog, I always think, well, what are the main things here? And I make a list within that of the things to say and then I start writing it. So I always sort of plan what I want to say and I feel like that's always worked for me. But I think it's something you have to feel like it's something that's a challenge that then needs a solution. But that's one type of blog. So here's the thing I found difficult. Here's what I tried.
Speaker 3:Other blogs I love are ones about a lesson. So here's a lesson I taught. Here's the resources I used. Here's some outcomes I had. I'm not sure if this worked, but I tried this or it could be a kind of honesty thing.
Speaker 3:You know, like some people saying, this is how it feels to me at the moment in my career with my leadership role or, you know, wanting to be a middle leader or, if you're a senior leader, thinking these are some of the problems we're experiencing in our school at the moment and this is what some of the things we're trying. So you're sort of reporting to the world what's going on and trying to make it as useful as possible. So that those are my lots of suggestions. I've asked, been asked this a few times.
Speaker 3:One of the things I find I often say is try to make it useful and interesting. So useful means it's got practical suggestions for things to do. You know, at least in some of your posts. Interesting is when there's a bit of personality in there and find a voice where you sort of you know, say what you think, you know, just be kind of opinionated. I think that's okay to say I really hate that or I really love this. As long as people know you're expressing an opinion and not sort of telling them how to think. I think people will find that interesting.
Speaker 1:You don't have to be sort of super balanced the whole time yeah, here's the other thing, though when people are opinionated, say what they think, they might get some hate. How do you deal with hate, especially on twitter, and I follow you, so I know what's up. How do you, how do you handle it?
Speaker 3:I feel like there's kind of people who critique you what you say and don't agree with you, and I I'm just mentally scanning through some of the people who I think, yeah, I know, that person doesn't agree with me, but we get on fine, you know? Because they just say, yeah, tom, no, I'm not sure about that, I think you're too this or you're too that or whatever, and they just tell you and they and that's fine. Then there are other people I think are just rude, like they just, and sometimes it's the way they do it, like sometimes they sort of quote, tweet you and say this is the most ridiculous advice you'll ever hear, or something whoa, now, as soon as someone does that to me, I just mute them completely. I just never hear from them ever again, because I just think I'm not interested. I'm not interested in sort of people who are going to be rude, so I just block them out, so I kind of delete them from the twitter world, so their lives carry on and I never hear from them. I'm happy about that. So that's my perspective and I just think, if you want to disagree with me, just just reply to me and say oh, tom, I'm not sure what you're saying here.
Speaker 3:I've never found that to be true, or you've oversimplified this, or yeah, interesting, you say that in my experience it's not that, it's like this, and you know there's a. There's a. There's a kind of adult way of disagreeing with people without it being yeah, yeah, look at this, isn't this rubbish? Or people saying things like I'm so disappointed in you, tom. You know how dare you agree with you, know, tom Bennett, about behavior or something you think, oh my gosh, I can have no time for that either.
Speaker 3:So I've learned to be a bit sort of selective about so. I follow thousands of people. I have lots of interactions all the time, so I feel like I get enough discussion in my world without needing these sort of people. But if you're listening to this and you're thinking I'd like to write something and that puts you off, I'd say no, honestly, don't. Most of the time, 95% of the time, people are just really kind. People are so supportive and kind and egg each other on and reshare your stuff and welcome people into the world of sharing blogs and stuff. So I really the kind of negativity is as much.
Speaker 1:It is on the edge definitely what do you think of, like the teacher influencers who are all about just the content and just trying to get popular without any depth or any real experience. You know like they go from pgce to ect to influencer all in five seconds. How do you rationalize that?
Speaker 3:because I I see that a lot oh, I don't know, I don't believe these people exist. I think, to be honest, I mean I feel like a bit of an old man saying this, but I think sometimes you have to sort of think well, why, why does it bother me? And and I do I do sometimes have a word for myself, because my gut feeling sometimes is oh, come on, do some time, earn your spurs a little bit, you know, respect your elders. But then, but as soon as you're saying that, you're sort of thinking, listen to how old I sound, you know it. And I think I I do have to filter out that sometimes, I think is it takes some courage to be so strong in your opinion so soon. But I don't know. I'm so glad I didn't have twitter when I was 30.
Speaker 3:I think I'd have been an absolute nightmare and actually in my career I did take time. So you know, I became a deputy head only of a small school. It was only had year seven, so it was out of one form entry, so it's like a sort of learning job and there's only 10 11 teachers. So I was deputy head of a tiny school and it grew each year it's. So that was a really great learning curve for me, but I always, you know, I didn't become a head teacher till I was 40 or something, so that seems to be like a reasonably sort of steady time scale and I certainly was just a mainstay and a full classes, full timetable for a long time before I would have felt I was having to say to other people, you know. So I do think there is a kind of thing of like cutting your teeth, teaching a few exam classes, trade, do, committing to it, and I feel like I did that and it does.
Speaker 3:I do know the thing about influences, though I feel like, you know, there's a double-edged thing, because I also think it's important to amplify people's voices. So I always feel like when someone is amplifying their voice they've done a talk at research ed or they've written a book, teacher books go for it. You know, why shouldn't you? You should feel like I've got something to say and as a teacher I want to share that with the world. But I guess you have to be prepared for other people to say you know there is a bit more to it, to this and so on. So some of the books I see and so on, I feel like they sound like someone who's only been teaching for five years, but fair enough. I mean they, they want to put their voice out there, yeah, so I feel like you need to be a little bit sort of sympathetic. It would be much worse, for example, if you felt like you had to wait 10 years before you're allowed to say anything. That would be even.
Speaker 1:That would be terrible it's not that you know what, because I see it and I'm like, are you serious? Like if I dropped you in my school in Haringey you wouldn't even last a minute. But but but it's not that they're young and they're trying to become teacher influencers. That bothers me. It's when they come at it not from a I'm learning standpoint and this is what I'm learning to the I'm the expert and I'm like, really, in five minutes, you, you're the expert. That's the part that gets me. But anyway, yeah, everyone has a space.
Speaker 3:I think that's true. I feel, like you know I I probably fall into that trap from time to time of being sort of communicating sort of false certainty. I'm sure I do, and there are things where I feel quite strongly about them, definitely like, and I and I sort of feel like sometimes in teaching we get a bit too woolly. You know, we, we can sort of be saying, oh well, you know, this works here and that works for me, and I'm someone who you hear this phrase sometimes you know something works and anything works somewhere, and I just think that's it. Though I think there are some things which are just really not good ideas and if you do them and you think it works, you're probably not, they probably don't work. It's just that you get away with it. You don't it doesn't, you don't notice the damage it's doing because your children probably don't need it. And there are some situations where you teach, where it doesn't really matter what you do too much, because the children will will kind of be all right, because they're supported by the world they're in, and you might think that activity is working, but it probably isn't really. It's just not harming. So it's sort of not visibly harming, and I've done that myself. I've done some sort of ridiculous sort of experiments, if you like, which I feel like I enjoyed them, but I wouldn't claim they worked as a sort of general thing to advocate to other people with more difficult situations to work in. So I feel like you have to be careful about saying I remember I used to teach in the selective school, which has had some very high achieving students, and I did some really interesting things with them, but they used to teach a lot of the lessons with me and so on, and they got amazing results.
Speaker 3:Though we in our gcsc you know they, we got something like they all got is that when they had a stars, they all got a stars, except one for something. It was just crazy. I mean that was and I blogged about it saying like we did these amazing lessons and they did really well. But somebody I think it was Greg Ashman, who some of you will know he replied to me saying that's like wearing lucky socks on exam day Just because you wore your lucky socks on the exam and you did well doesn't mean that you did well because you were wearing the lucky socks.
Speaker 3:And I was thinking, and I've always remembered that as a bit of a kind of burst my bubble a bit, thinking no, he's right, it's an effect is hard to prove and just because I did those things doesn't mean those are the reason why I got good outcomes. Necessarily, I'm sort of hoping that's true, but I might not know that, yeah. So I think everyone definitely needs to be cautious about over-asserting cause and effect in in the way what they're doing, especially if you're suggesting other people do it, which is which is obviously a different thing altogether no, you're so right, especially if you're prescribing it and you know going.
Speaker 1:This is advice for this set of people and you're going context everyone's context especially, you're saying everybody now has to do it.
Speaker 3:That's even worse. And you do come across that. Don't you sort of start saying I think this is a good idea. Now, everybody in the school, you all have to do x? You think, oh gosh, you've got to be so careful about anything where you make people do the same thing because, uh, that you've got to be very confident, that's a really good idea yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1:How did you make the transition into writing books?
Speaker 3:well, I I, when I left teaching, I'd be a head teacher for a whole host of reasons. I had some some time to start with, because I wanted to build up being a consultant and start working in schools. And I thought, well, suddenly, you know, freed from the day-to-day, every day in school, high pressure I just thought I'll write a book now because. But then I thought I had all this blog. I had five years of blogging behind me by that point, so it was almost like the book of the blogs and I pitched it. I had this quite beautiful exchange with the publisher, john Catt, who the publisher? This is an amazing phenomenon, which is I emailed them one day in February 2017, saying I've got this idea for a book based on my blog. It's called Learning Rainforest. And then I sent the email. And then I looked at my emails and there was this email from John Catt saying hey, tom, we'd really like your blog, we think it would be great if you wrote a book. And I was going. But I just emailed you and they and they just emailed me literally in like a tuesday morning, totally randomly, on exactly the same moment. He emailed me and I emailed them. It's like amazing. So I was just saying I had to double check and going this is so bizarre, like I've literally just asked you and you've literally just asked me, and then we exchanged and like, yeah, so that was a great thing, but that happened because I had already written quite a lot and that's the thing. The blogging was my kind of practice bed, you know sort of what works, what's interesting, finding a way of doing it. And then the Learning Rainforest yeah, I wrote that and that's now seven years ago. The next one that I did quite well was the Rosenshine Principles in Action, and that was a fluky thing as well. So I was I've got it in front of me here.
Speaker 3:I was doing a talk, a research event, so I was really interested in rose and shine's principles and I did a talk. I said that here's, here's a really amazing document. It's such a simple summary of lots of great ideas and I just it was like a half hour talk and the end of it this publisher came up to me and said that would be really useful to summarize what you just said in a sort of little pamphlet, like a short book. That how do you fancy writing a short booklet, pamphlet almost about the principles, to go to that people could access with them, and I said okay, so I tried it and then they decided to publish it and that's where this book rose and shines principle action came from. They literally asked me to make it as short as possible, so I wrote the sort of shortest book ever written about teaching.
Speaker 3:This we had to make, we had to stick the rose and shine principles in it, to beef it up, so it was thick enough to sort of stand up. That was really amazing and I think because there was a kind of time five years ago where a lot of schools were finding this set of ideas is so helpful, it kind of took off. Yeah, so those, and then the walkthrough was oliver kevigyodi approached me. He said this was a brilliant insight. He just said isn't it amazing just how many brilliant ideas there are out there in education?
Speaker 3:There's so many aren't there and but the problem is that we'll lose them. You know we'll. We have to hold on to them. So how do we? Why don't we curate, like the ideas that we know people are talking about and and then make it a visual guide? Because that's obviously his his thing, making things visual. So we agreed to sort of try it and you know, the walkthroughs took shape from there, the sort of step-by-step guides. But that was again him suggesting to me that to collaborate. So yeah, it's always. Each of the books I've written has had this sort of fluky sort of start point which is you know how life goes sometimes and what's your writing process like?
Speaker 1:Like when you sit to put your I know the blogs help because you said you had that backlog of work, but something like Walkthroughs, which was done in collaboration with somebody else. What's your process like?
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, the Walkthroughs is a particular style of writing which suits me well because it's short chunks. So what we do is then we sort of scope out the whole book first. So we just say, okay, so we, you know, you sort of talk a little about what's the whole theme and who is it for and who's going to read it, and then you think, okay, so what are the main areas that we want to cover? And that's. We came up with six areas curriculum, explaining how do we learn, a kind of why section, and so on. So we came up with some broad ideas and then we just made a list okay, so let's go to the next level. What would we have in each of those sections? Then you just break it down so you end up with a sort of skeleton of almost like the contents page of your book.
Speaker 3:And I always find that's really helpful, because then you know you can sort of sequence the order and say we'll start here, then we'll go there, and when you're writing one bit you know you don't have to stray because the next bit will be done, so you can always see what's coming. And then when I'm in one of the walkthroughs it's just because it's kind of mechanical. There's five steps. So I always think, okay, so I'm going to think, I focus totally on that idea and I just think, how would that work, what do you need to think about? And I've got to come up with five things. So I write down you do that and that, then that, then that five things, and I'm happy with the five. I go okay. So let me describe each step and it's very broken down like that and it's quite quick in a way, because you just.
Speaker 3:But then when you write something a bit longer, a bit more prose, like you know, you, I feel there's a different, slightly different style, which is to be a bit more opinionated, a bit more talk. So write a little bit how you talk and have examples. Sometimes everyone has a different style. I know some other bloggers, for example, who their blogs are sort of like semi-academic papers. They sound like they could be in a journal. I could never write that way. I'm not. I'm far too casual and colloquial and I'd like to sort of not I don't know avoid being sounding too sort of academic. But so you have to find your style of a sort of way of writing that you feel is yours.
Speaker 3:But yeah, that's what I'm doing very the recent book, for example, I wrote my most recent one is about leaders that I've encountered and what they, what I think their characteristics are. So I was thinking I meet all these amazing people. They're so buzzy and everyone's got this energy and but they really know their stuff and I was thinking, let me write this. I just thought one of the three features of them and I wrote down headings and described the headings and then it kind of writes itself in that way. You just you have to be clear what it is you want to say in advance and then deliver the writing afterwards.
Speaker 3:Other people I've met say they just sort of feel their way through the whole piece and I've never done that. I've never felt that that worked for me. You end up writing way too much waffle and then editing it. I'm terrible at editing. So, yeah, people who, if you talk to someone like peps mccray he's like a he writes like 200 000 words and then pairs it down and pairs it down and pairs it down until it's just exactly the words he needs. So he starts huge and then goes, shrinks it down to the bare minimum and that's an amazing process, but it's totally opposite to me. Mine is start with the skeleton and fit it out, and then that's it.
Speaker 1:So it's very lean right from the beginning yeah, I'm like a bit of both, but I think I really I enjoy the editing process. So I do write and write and write, and then I go back and I challenge myself how much can I get rid of? And I just try to chop, and I chop, and chop and chop until I get right to the heart of what I want to say. But if you know, the issue is that a lot of the writing that's going on now in education seems to be pitched at more the classroom level and very few are being written, in my estimation, at school leaders. Who are you reading now that you think would be interesting for people who are maybe aspiring for school leadership or currently in school leadership? Who do you find interesting now?
Speaker 3:oh, wow, that's. That's depends, I think it depends slightly what aspect of school leadership that you're interested in, and I can turn around to my shelf here and see books. So there's things to do with, say, there's a great head teacher called Matthew Evans, for example. Matthew Evans, who's right, writes brilliantly about the whole big challenge of running a school and the complexity of some of the challenges. His blogs about leadership I think are excellent. The challenges his blogs about leadership I think are excellent. And, more broadly, sort of think pieces, think pieces um, someone like ben newmark, similarly you know, great sort of challenging think pieces about how how do we frame the big challenges in education, about special needs or, you know, teacher recruitment, so that people like that I think are very good at giving a broad view of leadership that was a very selfish question, my listeners, I do that because I want to know who to read next and what to check out, and there's also a culture.
Speaker 3:So you know, lekha Sharma has written a fantastic recent book about school culture. It's brilliant. It's a really clever sort of dive into what culture means and different strands. So I mean Lekka sharma's book on on school culture is is really good, and so you know there are various people like that. I would say I recommend to read and there's a really really good. I mean some slightly more focused books like leverage leadership, for example, paul banbrick santoyo, because in there you've got all the stuff about coaching, which is, you know, feedback to teachers, which which is about the classroom and sort of how you create a culture where teachers are receptive to feedback, and so on. So he's also excellent, brilliant.
Speaker 3:I'll tell you what a book that hasn't come out yet well, it has come out, but I haven't received my copy yet, so I'm sort of waiting for it to come in is a book called Responsive Coaching by Josh Goodridge. He's been working on coaching in schools for 10 years. He's one of the most intelligent, thoughtful people I've met in education and he runs StepLab, which some of you have heard of. But his book Responsive Coaching is probably. A lot of people who've seen it already are really raving about it. So if you want it, I would really recommend getting that.
Speaker 1:I'll see if I can find links to these that Tom's mentioning and also Tom's book to put in the notes. Tom, you wrote recently about feedback on your blog, so I really want to dive into that, because it's such a hot topic here on the international scene and in your article you made this really strong case about co-constructing feedback rather than delivering it top down. But tell me from your experience, right, what was that turning point for you? When did you begin to kind of really hone in on advocating this approach?
Speaker 3:well, I I've been. It's sort of been a journey. I mean I used to do the whole observation, feedback and judge lessons when I was ahead years ago and even then I used to feel like why do we do this? You know what's? It's so weird. And I've been in sort of meetings with people going let's triangulate our judgments and we'd be saying I thought it was good, but it was this and it feels so, felt like we were making it up like this feels like we're making this up. And you'd hear all these sort of you'd meet head teachers say, oh, you just know a good lesson when it's good, and they had a sort of badge of honor that I know, you know, and I think I just think, but I feel like I'm guessing. So what does everyone else really know? Because it felt like it was so subjective so I always had my doubts about it. And then I feel like getting rid of graded judgments is the first thing. Now it's just about judgments.
Speaker 3:But even then I used to find that I would have this workload thing of watching a lesson and then feeling I had to write it up because that was what you're supposed to do, and then I'd be typing into the night thinking what was that lesson and what do I say? And then right fit in this beautiful pro forma and I, and then I'd look at it and I'd I remember being in my office as a head and looking in this filing cabinet, thinking what is this for? Like I wrote this here, it is in this filing cabinet that teacher is still doing half of the things that that I thought they to change. And it's hard to get them to change all of that because they've got habits, and I just thought it was the side of it. This just doesn't work. It's sort of who's it for, who's it? Who's benefiting?
Speaker 3:More recently, I just work with schools all the time, really frenzied. I sit at the back of a lot of lessons, hundreds and hundreds of lessons and more and more. I just see how complex it is. I just think this isn't easy and I've worked with lots of schools now on helping them move teaching forward and I've come to the conclusion from my own practice, as well as reading other things, that a thing which really does work is when the teacher is driving it, when they themselves are saying, yeah, I need to do this, this is what I'm going to do, I need to. Instead of doing that, I'm going to do that. I'm going to drop that stupid thing and do this much better thing. And they're really the energy in their own improvement.
Speaker 3:So how do I get that teacher to feel that I have to involve them? I have to ask them. After I have to, I can suggest things, but they have to own it. And if they don't own it this is what I've learned they don't change, they just don't. It's like a brick wall, an intelligent brick wall, because an intelligent teacher is saying look, mate, don't come at me with your intelligent suggestions. I'm fine, I've got my agenda, I know what I'm doing and I don't need you to tell me stuff. And I've come across that resistance so often.
Speaker 3:So what I found is this is to sort of say I've kind of, I've had a look at what's happening in your lesson. Boy, you're working hard, isn't it challenging? Here's some things that I was thinking about what, what do you think about this and what do you think about that and how do you see it? And they're telling me their challenge. And then we agree, we saw problems on, and say, yeah, so that's interesting. So what might work there then? And we have a reference point with of common ideas, but always leave with them saying so.
Speaker 3:My parting thing is always so, what are you, what are you going to do, what are you going to commit to them of all those things? And they say this okay, okay, so, okay, so, that's great, so focus on that and that's what we, that's what you're going to do great. But they're kind of nearly always the driver of that, and then and then you find that they're they're working on it because they feel like it's their agenda. If I wrote all that down and emailed them, it wouldn't get anywhere close to that, nowhere near. So it would be a waste of my time as well as annoying to them. So why would I do it? I mean, have you ever had feedback from someone who just emailed you or sent you a form and you just went? Well, don't come to me with that.
Speaker 1:So you know sometimes I don't even read the thing. If I'm honest, if I look back at my career and I'm thinking sometimes I got the feedback, I scanned it and I didn't really read it properly. But it takes a certain kind of leader though, tom, because, yeah, if you're coming in from a point of I know you all things, what is the importance then of being humble, watching out for your own biases as a leader, going in to make those observations?
Speaker 3:well, I always think this is that's a really good question. I think you have to be very aware of your biases, and so what you do is you, you sort of hypothesize. You don't judge or make absolute assessments. You ask questions. So, and, for example, you can, you can coach someone or observe someone where they're teaching something you have no idea. I'm not.
Speaker 3:So recently I was watching, say, a hockey lesson which I thought was great. I thought it looked good to me because there were some features of it I thought I could look for. I don't really know if it was good. So I was with the head of PE who was watching it with me, and I said to him so I mean, I've got some views, but what was your sense? Was that strong practice? Were you thinking that's excellent? Or were you thinking, oh you know, there's some things there which that teacher could have been doing? And I listened to what they had to say and we kind of agreed with most of it, because I was actually pretty strong, and so it was like questions. I had some questions and that could be about other lessons.
Speaker 3:So recently I was in a in a school where I was watching some teaching. I was thinking I had some doubts about it. I was thinking this teacher's sort of I'm not sure I won't say too much about it, but they, I asked, I said so what are the outcomes like in this department? Because does that teaching lead to strong outcomes? Because we really need to know. Because they said no, so I just thought okay. So that's interesting, because I'm sort of triangulating because I'm thinking the outcomes aren't strong and that's what I'm seeing. So that makes that means that my hunch, that there's some issues there is, is perhaps worth exploring. And this is what I had to say. But I was asking, I wasn't assuming, because if I'd said to me, well, no, to be honest, I get great results, and I'd be thinking, okay, so what does that mean then? And it would make me think slightly differently about it.
Speaker 3:So, anyway, I feel like you have to be humble, so you focus on what you can observe, and what I observe is things like really functional things like when you said to the class turn to your partner and talk about. You know why the character you know did this thing, or why the water freezes in this scenario, whatever they've been asked, or why the answer is 6.2. You listen to the children in front of you and hear what they have to say and you just listen in and it's like your reality check. You can then feed that back to the teacher later and say do you know what the children said when you asked them that? This is what they said. And sometimes it's hilarious, sometimes it's like nothing to do with what you asked, sometimes it's mind-blowing. They're going wow, the insight of those children is amazing. Like you asked that question and the discussion they had was amazing. But often it isn't amazing. Often it's really bad. It's like they're just sort of talking. They think you think they're having a discussion. They really aren't. One of them is talking saying nonsense.
Speaker 3:The other one's going yeah, yeah, yeah and then and then it's over and you're thinking, hey guys, great, we had a good discussion, but it wasn't great there. It was quite poor. So you're not you're not critiquing the teacher or anything. You're saying kind of blooming hard is that you, you're setting something up which has a potential to be great, but for those kids it wasn't so, and I noticed that. So we talk about that and it's a reality. It's, it's a thing I've observed. It's not a judgment, it's a thing I've observed and I think that's more and more how I focus it. But of course, the teacher might be well aware of it. And I think it's so important to say and I'm not saying I'd have sorted that out if I'd been teaching the lesson like you would you're doing all the work. It's so easy to observe a lesson. You just walk in, you sit it down. It's kind of cushy. You just watch the teachers having to think about everything. So you have to be so, so aware that just because I could notice something doesn't mean I would have done if I was teaching at the same time. So we have to sort of couch it as. So that's an interesting challenge, isn't it?
Speaker 3:The challenge that we've identified in your lessons is that some of the children don't quite have the knowledge that you might hope to run a conversation that's that sophisticated without some support. So what sorts of supports might be useful then? You know, do you have them? What else could you have done? And we approach it with a sort of problem solving sort of mindset. I find that teachers really respond to that yeah, because they don't feel told off. You know, it's kind of annoying, isn't it, to have someone walk into your lesson and kind of like say what you could have done differently when the lessons already happened. It's like, yeah, but I didn't do that, did I? Like I can't go back in time and do the thing you said. I did the thing I did, and well, all I can do is think I want to do next and so help me plan that. And so you have to have ideas for different things. So all these things that lead me to feel like co-constructing feedback is. It's essential.
Speaker 1:It's essential, it's how schools should be yeah, yeah, you are so right, and I was. You know, what I was thinking about as you were talking is how do we rationalize the gap between the lesson that is being observed because someone's there and the lesson that takes place normally when no one's there? How do we rationalize that gap? Because what you're seeing is probably not even what takes place on a normal basis, and so you going in with a judgment, you're not really learning anything, nor is the teacher learning anything, because you're talking to them about what you've observed and kind of bringing in your judgments, your opinion, and they're just there with a defensive wall, normally invisible maybe to you or visible depending on how forthright that teacher is, and then they're just wishing that you would disappear and then there's no help there.
Speaker 1:So I wanted to, before we kind of wrap up the podcast, I need to help some leaders move forward in that journey of just going in and handing judgment. How would we co-construct? I know you gave some clues, but just walk me through a scenario. How can a leader go in and co-construct that feedback with the teacher post observation? What does that conversation sound like?
Speaker 3:simulate one for me okay, well, the way I would frame there's a couple of things to stage to start with. So the first thing is I would set up a system. Before I know if I'm going to do this with a teacher and I'd say leaders should do this is we have a process we know is going to run for months. So when I'm talking to a teacher or observing them, it's one of many interim of such interactions. It's hard to achieve this with just a one-off thing. So that's the first thing. And what we talk about is time scales of the order of, say, three or four weeks maximum, like two weeks even sometimes, but just say that sort of scale. So when I let's say I was also coaching you and I was saying I'd observe you first and I'd say here's some general things and I'd ask you what sorts of challenges you felt were useful, I'd ask you, what are you working on in your department? What's the thing your agenda's around? So I would focus my input around the thing you feel is a challenge you have and I'd check that against my observation and I would. Usually I would say yeah, that's a good idea Because observation and I would. I usually I would say yeah, that's a good idea, because I think that's definitely something to look at. If I thought you were picking something to focus on which I thought, having observed you, was like not really even the main thing, I might suggest something else. I'd say that's interesting that you think that my perspective was that maybe there's quite a lot of mileage to work on this and we discussed the goal setting in the first place. But then the first meeting would just be okay. So have a let's have a think about this, try this thing. Then let's, let's see how we go. And I would then come in to the lesson about three weeks later and say let's see how that's going. Then, are you doing the things you say you're going to do? And that's a really important kind of lens. It's a teacher effortfully trying to use those questioning techniques that they said they were going to try. And if, at least if you see a teacher making an effort, that you're making a start, now the way I would do it, I mean I would, I would use my walkthroughs, materials which have got steps, but I I'll make this, this, rather more generic. Yeah, I'd say, that's what they said they were going to do, are they doing it? And then I have this frame, which I borrowed from the paul banbrick sansoyo work, which is you use precise praise, probe and then the problem and the action step. So precise praise.
Speaker 3:I'm looking for specific things the teacher's doing that are good. It could be a change I've made since the last time I observed them. It could be an example interaction with a couple of students I thought was really interesting. So you're trying to do that, that modeling, and I was with a student the way you model that. They followed it perfectly and they did that example exactly right, just like you showed. It was fantastic. So you explained it really clearly. They got it exactly straight away, you nailed it and like I've got an example of a specific instance where the thing they were working on works, or you know at least partially work, so precise praise.
Speaker 3:Then I'd say okay, so let's probe now let's let's talk about the challenges, because there's always challenges. So we don't I don't give negative feedback, I just say so there's good stuff happening. What are the challenges? And I might say to them you good stuff happening. What are the challenges? And I might say to them you know what sorts of things are you for? We're finding hard there, or was there any part of that lesson where you thought, oh no, it didn't go as well as I would have liked.
Speaker 3:And I asked the teacher to tell me what they thought. And I'm doing that for two reasons. One of them is because it is their lesson, as they owned it. But also I'm hearing the way they express the problem and if they, if they say the same things I would have said, it tells me, hey, this teacher's got great self-awareness and self-judgment and I, I can really work with that. If they don't see it tells me something else. If a teacher says, well, I thought it was great, no, I didn't see any problems, or I worked, I thought it was just fine, and I'm thinking, oh no, well, and then I start throwing in my reality check and I start saying, okay, it's interesting, because what I noticed was a couple of things, and do you mind if I share that? What actually I observed was this happening. So you know, that's an interesting challenge, isn't it? That from your perspective, it was all fine, which is fine, which is, you know, no problem with that, but what actually happened over here was something else. So it's just really important to be aware of. So let's talk about that.
Speaker 3:So we, we throw in the channel. We're quite honest about those things. I just but I'm using information that I have had, so I'm not using a judgmental language. It was good, bad it was. That seemed to be effective for these reasons, and here's some challenges I observed.
Speaker 3:And then we, we then turn around and say so, so what might you do next time, then? Or work on over the next three weeks to really work on that? And again, I'll invite the teacher to share that with me and I'll say, okay, that's interesting, and we rehearse it a bit. So that would mean, instead of doing this, you'll do that. So when you do the think pair share, you're going to get everyone to think for themselves, and then literally half the class shares their thoughts with their neighbor and then they take turns and the other half shares that. So it's like, really quite deliberate, is that what you mean? Yeah, okay, so let's just run it through for me. What are you going to do? I'll hear the teacher then tell me. I say, okay, have a go at that a few times. Then I plan when I'm coming to see them next and I tell them so they know they're working on that for the next couple of weeks and so the time I come back in next, that I've practiced because they don't want to just suddenly me turn up and not do it. So it's a. It's a planned process. It's very explicit.
Speaker 3:None of that is like I thought you were good or bad or anything. It's. This is what I thought. These are some instances which are working. Here's some challenges. What's the solution and when are you going to act it?
Speaker 3:Without this being a super long answer, if, when I return, say the second or third time, and the teacher's still doing all the things we talked about right at the start, I'll start having a different conversation and say, yeah, I still notice that's still happening, though, isn't it? So why do you think that is? Is it? Is it? Are you finding it hard to do this, or is it something blocking what's happening? And how do you feel about it? And they'll sometimes also say, well, I just didn't get around to it and we just say, okay, well, let's talk about that. You know, do you? Is it something you really think you should do, or are you resisting it, working on and we?
Speaker 3:You kind of have to be open with people and talking that way, because if you don't allow them to be honest with you and say I don't agree with it. I find it awkward, I've just felt too busy and all those sort of things. They can't be honest about that. They're gonna feel that way anyway, so you might as well hear it. So that's that's how it works. And then you agree a kind of constant set of actions, but they you can be quite demanding of people in that process. You can say, well, great, ready, go for it. Now let's see if that works, really commit to it, really do that, you know, go for it, and you encourage them and you can kind of create a kind of motivational drive there. Anyway, hopefully that can capture some of that no, it does.
Speaker 1:It does you know. You know what I I kept thinking of in that is that maybe, maybe some of the leaders listening will think there isn't room there to correct where people are going wrong, because you're co-constructing. It sounds softer than what people are used to. A lot of people are used to going in and just laying down the law. As they see it, you've done this wrong, you've done this wrong and you should fix this immediately. Yada, yada, in this co-construction process. It might sound as if there isn't space for difficult conversations within that, but I think there is, and I think if people can come to that self-realization and want to improve or they might come to the realization that they don't want to improve they want to move on as well. You know, there is a lot that can come out of that process.
Speaker 3:I think that's true. I mean, and also I think it's one thing you have to. One of the reasons for the co-construction is that and this is like an evidence thing from studies of teachers is that, just like any child-teacher feedback relationship, adults are the same. So I might see a teacher teaching a certain way and in sort of similar to someone else and think, oh well, I'll give them similar feedback. But actually no, that teacher is going to respond better if I, if I just sort of really quite direct with them and say, michael, you know that with those things pair shares, you know, I've noticed that you just say, okay, guys, have a chat on your tables. And it really doesn't work, because have a chat on your tables to that those kids you'll teach you just means it doesn't mean enough to them, they don't want to, and I've seen it several times now. So I think we really need to work on the structure, like you've got to say. You've got to give them a question with a structure, which is they come up with three ideas, think of your own and share them and ask them what they agreed. And it has to be structured because otherwise they're just recycling ignorance, they're not talking, they're not helping. You're not helping them enough.
Speaker 3:I could. I could say to a teacher you, I really think you need to do that because it's not working. Another teacher if I said that to them, they just say get out of my room. Who are you walking in here and telling me that? And you have to know that teacher. Another teacher I'd be saying, yeah, I love what you're doing. I mean it's brilliant. You're like, it's such an energy and you're so charismatic. The children really love it.
Speaker 3:Do you think that discussion format is working? What do you think? I mean, have you ever noticed some of the things they say? And I might just be totally sort of around the houses about it, because the teacher isn't ready for me to just tell them, kind of, I really think you know they're not ready for that and you have to sort of be intelligent about that. I mean, different people react differently to that kind of directive.
Speaker 3:So if you can support a teacher to say, yeah, maybe that's a bit sloppy, isn't it? Maybe, perhaps I should ask them to be. Maybe I'll try that think-pair-share thing that you keep banging on about. I go well, you try that think pair share thing that you keep banging, banging on like okay, well, you know, why don't you give it a go? You know, give it a go. I know it's like you know you'd get some nice responses from some of the students, but I really reckon if you tried that you might find it works really well. So how about that? And I'm much more sort of tentative, another teacher I'm 100 saying I really need you to do this because this is not working. And you know, I mean I think that's the joy of the work, because teachers are human and you have to work with the people you've got.
Speaker 1:You know yeah, you're right, and and it comes down to relationships like, if you know the people you're working with, you'll know how to work that co-construction feedback meeting. Yeah, this is brilliant. Thank you so much, tom, well, thank you very much.
Speaker 3:I've. I love talking about this stuff. I could talk about it all day, so thank you for inviting me oh, you're most welcome.
Speaker 1:I want to ask you one last question, though, as someone who's really, really immersed in the education space what are you excited about? What are you excited about in education right now?
Speaker 3:oh, wow, that's a really good question. I'm excited about a kind of mature maturation is that the right word of the idea of a kind of knowledge rich curriculum and things like coaching having a sort of second wave where they're a little bit more subtle and balanced with kind of more organic approaches. So we've been through this period of knowledge rich curriculum being sort of like define everything, be precise about everything, and now I think people have got used to some of these routines. We can start being a bit more expansive in our view of that, and I work with schools where I feel like that's where they're at and it's the same with, say, coaching.
Speaker 3:You need a structure, you need a system, you need it to work technically in a school or else it doesn't. But once you've got the system, I just think it's brilliant to get into the exactly the conversation we've just been having about the way you interact with a teacher to support them to improve. But I I've been to a lot of schools where they they talk about that conversation being the ideal, but they haven't set up the opportunity for it to happen in the structures. So I feel like there's a lot of really good intelligent work around coaching. I'm really excited that more and more schools are dropping all the sort of formal observations all the time. Like they're dropping them. It's the direction of travel is towards regular cycles of developmental feedback and so on, and we're changing the culture in schools all the time and that to me is very exciting and fewer and fewer leaders feel they need to do the top-down judgment stuff. So I do think that's good and I'm really excited about that.
Speaker 1:Brilliant. Thank you. Where can people reach you, Tom?
Speaker 3:Well, I'm always on Twitter, teacherhead at teacherhead, my blog is teacherheadcom, and I'm also increasingly going to use LinkedIn just as myself, I think and obviously the walkthroughs. So walkthroughs is the whole website. We just, literally this weekend, released a book Learning Walkthroughs that's just come out so it just came out last Friday and it's written for parents and for children, so we're really pleased about that. So, walkthroughscouk you can access stuff there. So all these different things hopefully will interest different people.
Speaker 1:Thank you for being on the podcast.
Speaker 3:Thank you for inviting me. It's been really great. Thank you for listening to. It's been really great.
