It's just, it's just the simple things, pure incidentals,
It's like stayin' up 'till midnight and talkin' about ... absolutely nothing.
My favourite campsite (Dol Gam, pictured above) has hot water, toilets and recently electricity. And there a quality pub up the road. I've been going there since I was around 13. Together with the walking kit, and a map, I don't need much to achieve a great deal in the mountains. I just have to put one foot in front of another, have a rough aim (subject to change) and some fuel to scoff.
In schools, we have a wealth of tools. Take data. Many schools track the performance of individuals and groups of students across every year group. It makes me angry when this is seen as a desk exercise, although the fault is my own. This is important as the intervention and budget planning ultimately is decided by people who are removed from the chalk face. If the predictions aren't accurate, the school can't work together in order to be effective for its students. So, without an accurate picture, you've got to work harder. It's like walking through a white out - this needs total concentration as it's really unclear what's up and what's down. In certain circumstances this could lead to death as the mountaineer tries to avoid the cliffs.
Thing is, many teachers may think that if they highlight progress concerns, their teaching will be called in to question. This means it's very difficult to know how to help teachers teach high quality sequences of learning. Although death can be avoided, the results could be considered even more devastating. Imagine the child that slips through the net. Makes me have nightmares.
I believe that teachers are fantastic at knowing their children, even at secondary where an individual may teach three to four hundred individuals each week.
Problem is school data systems often encourage an excuses culture: looking retrospectively at the data and identifying reasons why the child (as in individual, alive human being) didn't achieve. What needs to happen is living 'data' of all sorts that is used to adjust teaching in real time. Proactive.
These adjustments needn't be workload burden. For example, that child who is a young carer. Should they be given homework? That same child may not be able to turn up to after school provision, what can be done to help? When exploring the use of smartphones, what about those who don't have one? That human who is under confident may benefit from having their book marked every lesson.
It's the incidental things that make a huge difference.
It's not SLT who are responsible for classroom interventions, but every adult. SLT can support when we know where to look.
The time? Some things don't need doing. It may only mean marking 29 books that week, but at least it's the right books of those without parental support.
Thing is, my little little sister is 13 and one of those humans.
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