The Rochford Review

November 2016

The Rochford Review was released this October and NAPCE believes that its recommendations have the potential to support great steps forward across all forms of education in the UK.

The report’s headline suggests the removal of the statutory requirement of assessing pupils using P scales, building upon the removal of levelling. NAPCE sees this as an ideal opportunity for all schools to consider valuing progress in learning outside and alongside academic subjects their data, potentially assisting other outcomes related to pastoral care.

The report comes across as more clear cut for those students who are not engaged in subject-specific learning, suggesting limits on the statutory assessment for pupils. Special needs provisions NAPCE currently work with are already leading the way in assessing pupils’ development in all 4 areas of need outlined in the SEND Code of Practice and in the areas of cognition and learning. The use of models such as SCERTS and the Life Skills frameworksupport an educational practitioner in their own delivery. They are able to address key aspects of whole child development in the present and evidence it as beneficial to the individual’s long-term goals.

For those within mainstream looking to differentiate not just learning but now assessment this could pose an additional burden. Responsiveness, curiosity, discovery, anticipation, persistence, initiation, investigation; the 7 aspects of cognition and learning put forward by Rochford, are worth assessing throughout all of education and therefore bypassing the bias of those with additional needs in NAPCE’s opinion. With the report seeking for ITT and CPD for staff to have a greater understanding of assessing pupils working below the standard of national curriculum tests, now appears an ideal opportunity to link in with developing assessment (and delivery) across all learning environments. Perhaps this is something that will grow if stable systems of assessment are first put in place for the early stages of development. Those who doubt such skill sets as being applicable beyond focus areas of study need to be considering the knowledge based economy all students will be entering. One that perhaps requires a skill set flexible and resilient enough to be applied outside of a mastered field, let alone complex relationships.

Without P-levels the report suggests schools need to be able to evidence not to the DfE but to parents and carers, inspectors, regional schools commissioners, local authorities, school governors and those engaged in peer review to ensure robust and effective accountability. How this will be done is not included, but if you are a school that is searching for support in assessment post levels and now beyond p-scales, contact NAPCE for support and/or to be pointed in the direction of schools that can. We see the report as an opportunity to grow our students and our education system.

The Balance of Time

October 2016

For the past week @NAPCE1 has had the pleasure of delivering SEND training to cohorts of trainee teachers. It was a learning experience for both that provided the opportunity for some real world research to be put into place. Baselining what was known by each individual on the ITT allows a marker as to the extent that a year of training in mainstream primary and secondary education will raise their experience and understanding of additional needs.

The fieriest part of each training session was the debate between exclusion vs. alternative provisions. For some, having to argue against their beliefs and adjust to the alternative perspectives was a battle within themselves. The majority of trainees had limited experience of additional needs and therefore feared the behavioural and time demands a child could place on them. I felt this was understandable, although the rest of the training was geared towards changing and experiencing perspectives. The first few years of teaching places such demand on each individual that any additional demands can be perceived as a ‘threat’ to add to that burden- as was frankly pointed out- ‘that’s life’.

This set an interesting pivot to the rest of the training. Where is the line that marks the quality of life balance between learning and living for both teacher and student?

The first key message was that everyone has individual needs. Some can be independently sort but most require additional support in one way or another and some needs take priority. The second was that communication is essential to learning and human development. And the third I received through feedback- that this was the first session that had talked about themselves rather than the classroom. Upon reflection, what I failed to stress was that communication between ourselves and our institutions (school and home) is key to ensure our own and other’s needs can find an equilibrium, or if not, empathy.

When it came to discussing trainees own personal needs, they first identified the three most important things in their life. All candidates included family in this. Some quoted themselves as already saying to their own children ‘I will probably be spending less time with you this year as I will be busy with school’. Reflection on this balance led the trainees to plan in quality family time, but it left me pondering on how we prioritise both in and out of the classroom.

The conclusion I came to is that it is time. How we use our time will determine our own satisfaction with how each day ends and how we can support our new teachers may be creating a little more time for them.

Click To Add YOUR Input For the Pastoral Care Post Graduate Module

Why You Should Encourage Failure This Term

September 2016

Yes I am still trying to cling to the final few days of the holiday as well but the quiet whirring of cogs has begun to turn in the back of my head. What did I have to get done for the first day back? What does my calendar have marked? Did I…

For @NAPCE1, the start of the new school year often creates a time for setting new year education resolutions. What are my targets this year? What will be achieved in the classroom? Professional goals? What project will focus on getting up and running? Will I focus on teams’ stats, wellbeing or both? This is goal setting with a fixed mindset.

However, a TED radio hour podcast called ‘Failure is an Option’ has made me readjust how I will set my goals this year and what I will seek from my staff teams this term. I am going to try addressing goals with an open mindset.

Getting something to work or achieving something can be done by trying, failing and re-trying (repeat). But reducing the determination and effort is key in facilitating change. Instead, identify the problems on route to success before the journey even begins, or even if it can be gauged as realistically achievable. This allows you figure out how to prevent the hiccups or whether to even take them on.

Finally, encouraging more minds to be involved allows your participants to feel safely led as you are demonstrating your trust in them. If someone feels safe enough to try something and not be judged, then failing becomes learning.

It is natural for failure to hurt, but developing what we take from it and resolve to respond is a character strength (resilience) I would like to nurture in my every member of my team- that is my goal this term. The biggest display going up in my room is a celebratory failure board. Each entry will be given the time to be appreciated and reflected on and the biggest failure will be rewarded. If students can see their staff and their own mistakes as learning, their resilience and calculated risk taking can grow.

It might work, but if no one feels they can add anything, maybe I’ll have still met that goal and have succeeded.

I really hope you can fail too this term.

On a related note… To demonstrate my willingness to fail, I am yet to receive a single opinion on the post graduate Pastoral Care in Education module. If you would like to help me succeed, please click on the big blue button below:

Click To Add YOUR Input

You are essential to this months NAPCE newsletter…

NAPCE invites you, real world practitioners, to have your say in the development of its new Post-Graduate module in Pastoral Care in education that is set to launch in September 2017. You are the colleagues that are in the classrooms, working with the students and your peers, and so we seek your expertise. Only then can we deliver training that is real, useable, shared and dynamic. Our open survey wants to hear from you and your colleagues.

As the responsibility for a pupils overall wellbeing and development increasingly falls on schools and other learning institutions, the skill and knowledge set and systemic understanding of its staff and their leaders are having to adopt. Alongside Newman University, we want to offer a nationwide accredited programme. We know why pastoral care is essential, so NAPCE wants to develop the delivery of outstanding practice across education.

Click To Add YOUR Input

So what skills would you identify as needed (and for who)? What areas of pastoral care could you do with support on for yourself and your peers? What practice is effective? What existing networks are in place for support across the board? This survey is a blank canvas-the floor is yours.

We will feedback to you on what your peers across education consider vital and how your contribution is meaningfully aiding the development of the course and therefore the practice that will result. We are committed to taking new steps in the development of education and the care of the child being central to this. Care with us and belong to this development process- whether it is one line of opinion or an essay, please click the link below.

MENTAL HEALTH

NAPCE looks to promote wellbeing within education. We believe that the environment of your institution should actively host this. We wanted to support you in bettering it, so we went to the Capita Mental Health Conference to try and layout what issues and actions are out there at the moment. Mental health is not just illness (depression, self harm, eating disorders and anxiety disorders for example) it is also mental wealth- resilience, relationships, academic achievement, morals, self worth, hope and handling change.

NAPCE heard from dedicated experts applying and researching mental health in education and have shortened key points from the day and pointed you in the direction of support (we know you don’t have time to read waffle!):

Natasha Devon MBE from the Self Esteem Team:

1. Critical thinking focus. When engaging in media we are usually relaxed and therefore more highly vulnerable. Students and staff are not always aware of the pressures of pornography, sexting, social media and comparison. Think about ways we can use social media positively.
2. Discuss self harm without triggering. How can you express and then replace what self harm says and gives- exercise/passions. What empty’s your stress bucket? What do you love to do?
3. Talk. We have more than one emotion. Redefine strength and beauty.https://youtu.be/c79fvvItKQUConsider self referral and peer mentoring (it will happen whether you support this or not).
4. Name the Mental Health Leadin your school and how CAHMS referrals can be made and to who (ensure they oversee the healing process too).
5. Have you investigated the mental health of your institution lately?Create an action plan informed by staff and student voice, survey, SDQ’s, CORE-YP’s and focus groups identify areas of focus, increasing effectiveness. This also provides an action research approach that evidences the success of what you put in place.

Barriers to Mental Health Support

Increase in demand. Economic and technological demand leading to decrease in parent/family interaction and belonging, as well as government demand for academic only success.

Decrease in budget. Make it go further-prevention is the cheapest option! Or get more money… The government funding is not ring fenced so reduced accessed to mental health support agencies. Look up your local transformation plan! There is money attached to them! Or participate in research!

Stigma. Put it out there and discuss it.

The reality of how schools are currently dealing with was delivered from the voices of young people who came to present regarding their own mental health ‘no school experience comes without any challenge…least not the self-expectation’. A key point: ‘Be aware that shared issues can be influenced by another’s’. These points clarified that mental health and wellbeing must consider the whole community (including yourself!).

The conference raised a number of questions that need some serious consideration:

Why are students unclear on their route to happiness and a healthier mind? 

Does your curriculum facilitate opportunities for this curiosity and growth?

Can and should we do this within the linear outcomes that are demanded of us?

Email pookyh@cwmt.org or go to www.youthwellbeing.co.uk for freeschool training and mental health policy.

BELONGING

Why do we do what we do? Why do we devote our professional careers to aiding others? Why are our choices based on improving the lives of others?

Although we ask ourselves these questions as professionals, this month’s newsletter is about stepping back into the shoes of the student and looking at their motives.

Belonging is the next step beyond human rights and basic physiological needs being met, that drives decision making and engagement. It appears to be the common theme running through the 2016’s second edition of the International Journal of Pastoral Care in Education and the reason’s for its focus are evolving. As a pupil, you are now battling pressures to belong beyond the classroom and playground. The reduced autonomy due to the ‘dangers’ beyond the front door are leading to adolescents spending less time interacting socially and more time digitally engaged.  Aside, the decline of religious participation and local community integration are leaving schools as a central source of common belonging and this role needs to be acknowledged across the board. To belong to a community you have to feel part of it and this quarters journal articles, Emerson’s in particular, highlight the empowerment and worth that giving students a voice can bring.

We often refer back to Seth Godin’s TED talk on ‘Tribes’. It gives some excellent insight into why we seek belonging, how it can be generated and keeping the digital argument balanced, demonstrating how the internet can be supportive. It has certainly helped NAPCE step into the shoes of the student, understand the shift in power, the pull of the net and its various social circles, as well as the negative consequences of this. Can we as teachers/schools identify ‘something worth changing and then assemble the tribes that becomes bigger than ourselves to begin a movement‘. If we can take on this challenge then we can make learning meaningful, create self-worth and therefore create engaging learning.

This brings us to this quarters journal articles. Each article relates to schools looking to become tribes between themselves. Can we rethink the link between alternative provisions/SEN with mainstream schools and realise that the adaptive environments AP’s create could support rethinking the mainstream context and behaviour management? Logan’s breakdown of tribalism into stages makes you sit up and ask yourself, have I asked what stage key-stakeholders think they are at? (and in relation to inclusion, if removed from their tribe, what tribe do they believe themselves to be a part of and what behaviour becomes normalised?

And finally, when changing tribes (transitioning) are we stepping into students’ shoes or have we asked those actually in them to identify the issues they have and how they can be supported? Godin highlights the desire to be missed, so how will you acknowledge those who are moving on this year and make them part of your institutions history?

The consequences of belonging will be considered next month when we focus on mental health and critiquing what the current issues are and what latest guidance is putting forward. Until then, thank you for being part of NAPCE’s tribe! Remember, we want your voice as to what is vital in pastoral care for you and what support your institutions need. As always, use the links below. We do what we do because we care!