More tips from Charlie Burkitt
Video transcript
right let’s dive straight in what’s your first tip for us today uh tip number one is to be clear and follow through uh so you know just just to just for a bit of background i’m going to try and make the tips uh you know as general as i can and also just to say that you know all of these tips i’ve made mistakes on in the past i wouldn’t want people to think that you know i’m by any means an expert on them or always have been or invented them or anything like that you know when i was sitting down to think about these uh they’re all things that certainly in the beginning of my teaching career i went wrong on and also to say that obviously as you just heard i’m the head of math at michaela i’ve been working at michaela for a number of years now uh my context is very different i suppose to quite a few people um so just to dive in with the tip um you know i say my context is different what i mean by that is that the behavior of michaela really is impeccable everywhere um you know you really need to see it to believe it and i do recommend people come to visit you know you can do that really easily through our website um but when i first saw the school you know i really couldn’t believe how the kids were behaving you know they’re just in and out of their lessons they’re you know sat paying attention to the teacher and i really was very contrasting with um how my previous school experience was um i did teach first before um before joining michaela um so i know a lot of people will know you know what that experience is like um and so you know my first tip of being clear and following through the reason i’m saying that is because i think that really underpins uh a lot of the behavioral foundations at the school and that’s what um results in the fantastic behavior that you see everywhere obviously there’s a lot of detail that goes into the final product at michaela but that’s one of the main principles and the kind of order i’m going to do my tips today i hope goes in order of you know a sensible order of if you employ these tips in this order you can you know if you do tip number one that leads to tip number two etc so the first one about being clear and following through is just to say that um kids obviously really really value clarity they need to be clear on what the rules are or they’re not going to be able to follow the rules that you have and that obviously links in really hugely to consistency as well the more clear and consistent you can be as a teacher the more you’re going to see results in the children and you know that is obviously within your own classroom and also across classrooms if you’re able to achieve that you know maybe within a department or within a school of course what we have at michaela is all the teachers uh you know following exactly the same rules which are really clearly laid out to the kids um and following them through you know in the same way across all the different classrooms and that really is the thing that results in you know the miracle that is michaela that i walk around in every day um but where this can apply to people who you know people might be listening and thinking oh charlie you know what’s the point of you talking about michaela i can’t do anything about that in my own room um well i think you know there are some fundamentals of what we’re doing that that you can uh apply in your own classroom um certainly i remember when i was uh you know in my own room in that sort of island that you’re that you’re in often in a teach first school um if you can lay out the kids in the beginning okay here are the things that really matter to me here are the things that i’m going to to care about and i’m going to follow through on they are much more likely to do those things so you know for me one of the massive things in the beginning was not being spoken over you know i’m sure everyone’s had the experience of desperately trying to teach fractions or you know equations or whatever it is and the kids are just essentially talking over you and you know it’s hard for me to think back to that these days because it feels so far away but you know it did happen um so you know in the beginning it’s you know i’m not going to be spoken over that’s just something that’s not going to happen you know and in order to build a classroom with mutual respect where we’re all going to make progress you’re not going to be speaking over me so that’s the clarity end of it to set that up in the first place and then following through is then you know when it happens when inevitably kids do speak over you which will happen uh you must must must stick to your guns and deliver you know whatever sanction you have available to you often i don’t know demerits or um a warning on the board or whatever it is or you know whatever systems you have available to you you’ve got to follow through on that point um and you know that applies of course to behavior in the classroom like i’m talking about but it also applies to uh homework uh anything really involving the children be super clear follow through i love it right let’s dig into this a little bit uh deeper pachari um can you give us an example of a few more of these rules that you would have either ones that are school-wide or ones that are personal to you in your classroom so we’ve got the don’t talk over me just give us another selection if that’s okay yeah sure so i’ll go through some of the ones we have at michaela because that might give people people a flavor for you know how we do things here um so you know another one of the big expectations that we that we like to lay out early on is for uh projection in lessons what we call projection so that’s people’s just speaking loudly enough to be heard and there’s there’s a few levels to why that’s important obviously kids need to speak loudly so that everyone in the room can hear them so that everyone in the room can learn from them and so from that you as a teacher can hear them and learn from them um and uh be able to respond to what they’ve said uh but there’s also the lower level at which kids should just be learning to speak loudly and confidently in order to be you know productive uh members of society when they’re older and to come across confidently in interview and things like that now you know so we have that expectation we’re very clear about it every teacher across the school is always speaking about it all the time you know you want to project you want to project um so the clarity is absolutely there and the kids get that right from the beginning and then we will follow through on that you know both with the positive and with the negative to be clear you know i wouldn’t want people to think that this is all a big negative oh you’ve got to speak loudly or we’re going to be after you and we’re going to give you generics uh it’s not like that at all and i’ll come on to that uh a bit more of that warmth actually in another tip um later um but you know we will give you know on one hand merits for kids speaking really loudly and of course we’ll follow through if kids are kind of persistently not speaking loudly enough then they might pick up the merits um and yeah that’s one more example of where we follow through give us one more charlie who else want to roll with this if that’s okay okay one more i suppose you know it it’s in a way difficult to pinpoint one because there’s so many we have uh around the school okay so here’s another easy one um we expect silence in the corridors i know that’s a controversial one uh sometimes in the world of education but that’s a nice again a nice obvious clear one for people to have in their heads and it’s one of the things that results in uh you know just a school that runs incredibly slickly um and it’s really clear you know we say to kids you know you’re not speaking the corridors they walk uh in you know very orderly silent single file to their next lesson um if they were in the corridors to turn around and speak to the person behind them or in front of them or just do you know do something silly and a bit unprofessional then we and we would follow through on that um you know we have duties all around the school um to make sure that happens obviously this is part of what i’m saying about follow through that there’s no point in having the rule that you must have silent corridors and being really clear about that if you aren’t then going to follow through on it and and that means you know uh having uh the kind of presence around the school with the staff body to make sure that those rules are followed and you know the other the positive side of that is that you then have corridors where not only the pupils are behaving and being silent and moving to their lessons in an orderly way but you also have this kind of lovely kind of joyous atmosphere where all the pupils are saying good afternoon miss and sir to the teachers as they go past you have a little bit banter with the kids you’re kind of hurrying them along and it’s this kind of lovely uh very warm positive atmosphere that’s created but the the foundation of that atmosphere is that actually we will follow through on the rules that we’ve set out this is great charlie i want to dig into these two aspects the clarity and the follow-through if that’s okay so an error i’ve made is i go big on these classroom expectations first lesson in september so this is how the classroom is going to be and so on and so forth and maybe if i’m feeling particularly organized i’ll stick up some kind of poster these are the kind of ways that we we behave in this classroom and so on or maybe the school has got us you often see this in schools a behavior expectations kind of post or a list that goes at the front of every classroom or somewhere in the classroom but inevitably as september ticks on into october november these rules they start to kind of we experience a more kind of trickle-down version of them and you start to let things go with certain kids and certain classes and so on and i can feel it happening and i know it’s wrong and it just happens all the time so i’m interested first in in this clarity aspect particularly that that second rule that you ex explain about the the projection i mean that’ll strike a lot of people as well that’s an interesting one until i’d spoken to danny quinn i’d never heard of that as kind of kind of a rule but i guess this applies to all rules how do you get that clarity is it a combination of you modeling it do the kids have access to it written down anywhere do you practice it how did you how did you get that clarity sure yeah so on a whole school level you might have heard before about uh the boot camp that we run at the start of uh school when year seven tell us tell us about that charlie sure yeah so that i mean that’s a huge part of the successful running of the school to be honest with you so in the very first week of september we have all the new year sevens uh coming into school and we have none of the other pupils arriving at school yet except the year 11s who were in for their revision for their gcses but what that means is we have you know almost an empty building and lots and lots of members of staff and importantly the really experienced staff on hand to make sure that the year sevens are inducted into the systems we have at michaela now that serves the kind of dual benefit of not only inducting the year sevens but also inducting new staff that we have to come join the school so often the new staff of course aren’t used to the systems they aren’t used to the rules they aren’t used to how to deliver a lesson in a michaela way because there is such a particular style and it’s a style that i think really works so that’s a chance for the kids the sevens and the new teachers both to be uh inducted into that culture and into all the systems and rules and you know it’s it’s a really amazing site every year you know i’ve gone through this a number of times now the the people’s in year seven are they arrive to us on that first day and honestly they’re a bit of a rattle you know so they uh their behavior is kind of all over the place they kind of don’t know what they’re doing they’re walking in all different directions they um you know they can’t look us in the eye and connect us with full sentences and they and they don’t speak loudly enough for us to hear um and and then they generally have you know bad habits in terms of their concentration they can’t they don’t look at the teacher throughout the lesson um just all manner of bad habits you know you can imagine the picture and then the real miracle and this is amazing is that within a few days and certainly by the end of the week the pupils have just transformed you know they just have that their habits are miles better than they were in there when they arrived um and you know they’re speaking loudly they can look you in the eye they’re speaking in full sentences they pay attention in lessons they’re behaving themselves around the school if they’re orderly and they’re happier that’s that’s the crazy crazy thing they are so much happier for it you know they arrive kind of i suppose a bit nervous and that’s natural but just generally seeming uh upset you know and they’re just so much happier for the order that we provide and um you know that’s generated through obviously an amazing push uh from all the staff here on you know the consistency and as i’m saying the clarity and the follow through and all the other things that make mckayla great and that you know there’s so much i i could speak for hours but i won’t so um if we just drill in on this projection one then how are you teaching the kids to project are you are you kind of saying this is the kind of level that we speak at now can you try you try you try and is it written down anywhere no booklets often play and play a key role in some of your work yeah so there are uh boot camp booklets uh so the kids will in that in that year seven uh boot camp they’ll have that written on paper in front of them at some point but it’s not so much about it being written down on paper that’s more to remind us to go through it with the kids but then what will happen is there’s just a culture in the school of we all speak loudly and you know that that because that is a thread that runs through every single lesson in the building you can guarantee it and you know new staff are inducted into that kind of culture so it so it happens um then the kids end up rising to that challenge you know so it’s not so much a uh here’s how loud you’re speaking now you’re going to do it now of course there is a bit as a teacher you will be speaking loudly and you’ll be saying to the pupils look how loudly i’m speaking i’m coming across confidently this is how to come across confidently as a person you need to be speaking loudly like this and you know the lovely thing is that from the first day or two of boot camp there will be pupils in the class who straight away get that point and then they start speaking really loudly and then you can point to the ex person in the class and say look this this person’s doing it well this is how you do it that’s a merit love it fantastic and you really praise that person and it just sets that standard for the rest of the class and they they pretty quickly get the idea of what that looks like and because it’s happening everywhere it doesn’t slip um and then it happens like magic that’s great and well let’s turn to the other side the follow-through side because this is something i’m bad at as well because again you’re writing names on the board or wherever and then it’s it’s more work for you you’ve got to organize maybe a detention or type something up on sims or something like that and i just think oh i cannot be bothered but i know it’s the wrong thing to do so so tell me about these follow-throughs you mentioned demerits potentially detentions just talk us through how that system works charlie if that’s okay yeah of course look you’ve got the systems that are there and i hope that a lot of people listening to this might have uh similar systems you know these exist everywhere it’s just essentially a warning uh which we call it demerit and then a detention after that and then you have an on-call system where the pupils will be sent out of the lesson if they do that three times now that is happening very very rarely i have to say in the building and the reason that is happening rarely is because we know here not to over rely on those systems the systems are there to support you and they’re really really important but you also as a teacher and you know i’m going to be straight into my other tips here but you as a teacher you have to be a source of energy and enthusiasm and you have to draw the kids in and there’s an element of performance to teaching that that you mustn’t miss and you know it’s a mistake that i made very much in the early days of my teaching which is that i thought when i when i heard about michaela i was reading about michaela i thought that it was all and only about the systems and i pretty quickly realized that actually there’s so much more to it than that it really is performance you have to be you have to bring some charisma to the table and you have to try and show the kids why you love the subject and why you love them and and draw them in now to answer your specific question of course if you’re doing all of those performance type uh things in front of the children and we train new staff at that and you know people come and this this absolutely includes me people come to the school not knowing how to teach in the michaela way not teaching in a way that you know uh is really energetic and purposeful and and full of uh charisma necessarily you know so you don’t have to come as mr charisma to the school it’s not like that too i wasn’t that in in the least i was mr wouldn’t if anything you know but then um you know the other staff at michaela they come and they give you a bit of feedback um you know which is uh so useful to hear you get to watch all the other stuff uh teaching in a michaela way you slowly get used to what it’s like to teach here and then before you know it you’ve transformed in the way that you teach um and you know you’re actually engaging the kids uh on a performance level but of course if it comes down to it you will have to follow those systems we do all follow those systems and enforcing them consistently is what means that we get the excellent behavior that we do got it just a couple more on this uh charlie i could talk to you about this all day because it’s one of i mean michaela fascinates people just just generally and people have preconceptions about it and so on and so forth um but i obviously there’s far more to it than the behavior side but i think often the behavior in the rules is what people kind of latch on to so i just want to just clear a clear up a couple of things with the um with the detentions is how are they run is that is that the person who set the detention runs them are they run centrally or within departments just how do they run charlie yeah they run centrally so after school there’s uh detentions that the pupils have kind of read a list of who’s in detention and then they will go to uh centrally run system which is in one of our halls got it that’s great and my final question is i’m interested do you have any rules that are kind of bespoke to your classroom that aren’t kind of universal kind of school governed rules if that makes sense no interestingly you know and i know maybe some people are thinking oh wow that’s really you know weird or crazy that you would not have any rules in your own classroom they’re different to the rest of the school but the reason for that is because if i had rules in my own classroom that i thought made sense and i thought worked and and you know were working for the kids i’d be banging on catherine’s door and i’d be saying uh miss burble singh i’ve got a rule that’s working in my classroom we all need to be doing it you know so we have a way we we have a vision of what good teaching looks like at the school and um you know i think our results have been showing that that is absolutely working uh and you know you need only visit the school to see that it’s working honestly i knew you know i came to visit the school back when it only had um up to year nine uh here so there were no results to speak of but i i walked around this school and i was blown away by what i was seeing absolutely blown away and that is because there’s a vision of what good teaching should look like and we all aspire to that vision and if there were bits and pieces that we thought were wrong in that vision we just adjust and that happens all the time you know there was um a number of years ago we didn’t do any partner talk in the school we introduced uh partner talk and now that’s a really fundamental feature of all michaela lessons so we’re always pushing forward i hope on what we think good teaching looks like and really trying to strive for how can we be better how can we be better how how can we teach the kids more how can we get them better grades how can we make them into better people at the end of the day um and so that means that um that consistency of vision means no i don’t have extra rules and i don’t think you would find anyone in the school with extra rules now that’s not to say that if you walk into every classroom you’re going to see literally identical teaching of course you get different styles you get some people who are you know one particular way some people who are very sort of maybe sweet and that’s their kind of thing or maybe some people who are kind of a bit more funny a bit more of a comedian a bit more kind of banter um but you know you will see bits of all of that in everyone’s teaching and the rules are the same everywhere got it fantastic