You can download an mp3 of the podcast here.
Clare Sealy’s tips:
- Every teacher should make the teaching of literacy a high priority (03:02)
- Be super clear about what you want children to learn (14:13)
- Always check for understanding (27:22)
- No feedback, more teaching (35:56)
- Have a robust culture of retrieval (46:30)
Links and resources
- On Twitter, Clare is: @ClareSealy
- Clare’s website is: primarytimery.com
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Watch the videos from Clare Sealy:
Podcast transcript:
Craig Barton 0:01
Hello, my name is Craig Barton and welcome to the tips for teachers podcast. The show that helps you supercharge your teaching one idea at a time. This episode I had the pleasure of speaking to former primary head teacher and now advisor class Seeley. And it is a sponsor slots for the podcast are now open. So if you want to let the world’s most interesting listeners know about your book products or events, just drop me an email. Two things to remind you before we get cracking, you can view all the videos of class tips plus the tips of my other guests plus a load of videos from me on the tips for teachers website. And secondly, you can sign up to the tips for teachers newsletter to receive a tip in your inbox on Monday to try with your classes in the coming. And finally if you do find the tips for teachers podcast useful this is a big one this I’d be really grateful if you just take a moment ideally now just pause the podcast and give us a quick review on your podcast player of choice. It really does make a difference. Thank you. Okay, back to the show. Let’s get learning with today’s guests. A wonderful class Sealy spoiler alert. Here I play us five tips. Tip one, every teacher should make the teaching of literacy a high priority. Tip to be super clear about what you want children to learn. Number three, always check for understanding Tip four of this one, no feedback, more teaching. And Tip Five, have a robust culture of retrieval. As ever, if you look at the episode description of your podcast player, you’ll see that I’ve timestamp teach these tips straight to anyone you want to listen to first. Listen, enjoy the show.
Well, it gives me great pleasure to welcome Platt Seeley to particular teachers podcast Hello, hello, how are you?
Clare Sealy 1:52
Hi, Craig. Great to see and fine. Thanks.
Craig Barton 1:55
That’s great to hear. And for the benefit of listeners. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself ideally in a sentence?
Clare Sealy 2:00
Okay, so my present job which I’ve been doing for two and a half years, is m head of education improvement for the states of Guernsey, which is in the Channel Islands for those who don’t know that previously to that. I worked for 22 years as head teacher at sympathise Primary School in Tower Hamlets in East London.
Craig Barton 2:23
Fantastic, right, let’s dive straight in. What’s your first tip you’ve got for us today?
Clare Sealy 2:28
Okay, well, this may seem obvious to some people, maybe there’s obvious other people, but that every teacher, no matter what age you teach, and what subjects you teach, should make the teaching of literacy a high priority for themselves. That includes at every subject, so it includes, you know, PE teachers and math teachers who may go Yeah, but that’s not my priority, because I’m a PE teacher or a math teacher. But fair enough. That’s true. And obviously, it has to be done in a way that is sympathetic to the fact that if you’re teaching PE like a lot of time, you should be teaching, PE, you know, running around teaching kids how to move and stuff, if you’re doing maths. Similarly, you know, neither of them are subjects that have a great deal of narrative around them, however, and you know, obviously, a geography teacher or a history teacher, or obviously a primary school teacher will spend more of our time teaching literacy, because their subjects lend itself to that, and that’s fine. But even if you’re say, You’re a PE teacher, you should use some of the time and I’m talking like, you know, two, three minutes a day lesson rather. So it’s not I’m not saying a long time. And yes, most of the times you’d be doing physical things and then a physical things. But when you can, you should use those opportunities. So for example, giving a give you an example. If you’re a PE teacher, you learn what I check my notes here. So if I’m looking that way, Hi, I’m checking my notes. You have to learn about components and fitness. You learn about them at GCSE, but obviously you can learn about them and keep reading them about them. And he says do didn’t begin to learn about them. And he says one, so one of those is agility. So, if you’re going to learn about agility, here’s a definition, which I’m obviously going to read. Agility is the ability to move and change direction and position of the body quickly and efficient ly while under control. It requires quick reflexes, coordination, balance, speed and correct response to a changing situation. So there’s a definition obviously, it needs to be unpacked and explains and so on and so forth. But here’s an example of, we can help children with illiteracy, which will pay dividends in every subject and will pay massive dividends in terms of life chances for our students. We can do that in every subject by where it fits in and doesn’t undermine In the key purpose of a subject, we can get children reading. So how I would do that to PE teacher, I want them to know about agility, I will read the sentence I will read agility is the ability to move and change direction, and position of the body quickly and efficiency while other control. So I will read that really well. I will model how to read that really well. And then we will read it together as a class, we’ll all read it together as a class, and then we might go and now turn to your partner and read it. Now I’m going to read it again. Now who wants to anyone would have wanted to read it? Is it and you go off and you do your normal PE stuff? So you’re just going I’m not going to tell you a definition, we’re actually going to read it in P in math. I don’t think reading out definitions of what a denominator is, is particularly helpful. I mean, you can’t do it. But that’s I don’t see that’s where math teachers can can do their bit for literacy. I don’t I mean, I’m not saying don’t do it, but I don’t think that’s the key thing. Because actually, those definitions, you know, just try and say denominator, the definition is harder than the concept, frankly. But what you can do, what you can do is you know, those word problems that kids go, yeah, yeah, but yeah, but so but is it that you have this big, big word problem like, but is it an answer?
Okay, and one of the reasons why kids find word problems, they might understand the operations, but they don’t understand how to apply the math onto this word. The word root problem is because of something called prosody, so prosody is the sound, tone and pace with with the music, if you like, of language, and different genres of writing different poses. So if I read a story that will have a different once upon a time that Alella a different sound and tone to if I’m reading a piece of nonfiction or you know, an explanation, science example, or a maths problem. Now think about maths problems is nobody reads them for pleasure. Well, maybe you do, Craig, but very few people, read them for pleasure. And you never heard hear them read out loud. And actually, you need to know how they sound. Because how they sound in English and lots of languages. There’s lots of stuff that isn’t in the text, that indicates which words distressed and which words are in importance, and there’s nothing written that tells you that just sort of pick it up. So I should have written down a maths problem to read out loud, and I haven’t so bad preparation on my blog, but it might have certainly, Craig has 10 pounds. I want to read the word each I’m calling I thought a really crappy word problem. Now I’m just thinking off the top of my head, but you know,
Craig Barton 7:42
each
Clare Sealy 7:44
each suite, he wants to buy costs that and I didn’t really well, I really, I can’t think of a word problems of my head. But there’s words like each or every or in total order that in a sentence in a word problem. Or you would stress those words, Craig has five biscuits, he wants to give each of his friends, one biscuits each he has kind of like five friends. So that’s a really easy welcome. But you know what I mean, they’re things like each, each of his friends has five biscuits, you need, you need to know how to stress those words in the sentence in order for it to make sense. And then people aren’t going to learn to do that unless you as a teacher read it out in real pantomime style. And intuitively, we as self experts know which words to stress. There’s one about about a calendar, and how many days are there in November, December and December. And it’s like, ah, you know, because we want to know, it’s all of them together. And these are the these are when when children do maths problems. They don’t read the problem, not because they can’t read the words, they know the words, but they don’t understand the sentence because they’re not used to the prosody. They’re not used to reading it as a math problem. So I’m really sorry, I should have picked it up was problematic. I’ve given this example. And I’m failing terribly giving it one. But you get the idea. So as a math teacher, not every not every lesson, not every not every, you know, hours and hours and hours. But for a couple of minutes. I’m going to read you the question out loud. I’m going to pantomime reading it in my best like performance voice. And then we’re going to practice it. We’re going to maybe Coralie read it all together. And then you maybe we’ll do another one just so that we get used to hearing the sounds of sentences. So that’s my top tip literacy for everybody.
Craig Barton 9:41
I love it. Well, let’s dig into this a little bit. So the first thing to say is Claire, I am clueless. One thing I’m completely clueless about is reading and we had Chris such on the show, and he’s giving a good kind of lesson and overview in so I’m all over it now. This is right up my street what you’re talking about. So a couple of things to say. I see When you say literacy to me, and I think with my math teacher, halftime, I think of two problems immediately springs to mind that students tend to struggle with. So one is whenever you ask students to write longer form prose based answers to math problems, they struggle. So you know, explain why discuss the scribe students really struggle. And I find that really hard to help students out with. The second is math is full of technical language and a lot of it you get these polysemous words that, you know, obviously mean different things in math than they do in the rest of the world. Yes, similar and frequency, they’re problematic. But I’ve never thought to do that before what you’re speaking about there, the word problems, and they are a massive problem for kids Exactly. As you say, whenever you show them how to do it, they say, Oh, if had I known that I would have been able to do it. But of course, the skill is knowing you know how to do it in the first place. I’ve never thought to read it out loud. Like that. It’s always like the things on the board. I always say to students, okay, read the problem, highlight the key words and soul, but I’ve never seen kind of stepped in there myself, as you know, so called experts to read outs, I really, really liked that idea. So that’s in the bank. Now. I’m just wondering with that kind of communication, staffing. Any thoughts on that? How can I get my kids better at the written form of literacy, if that makes sense?
Clare Sealy 11:13
Well, the key thing is, and I’m sure you’ve heard this before, they can’t say it, they can’t write it. So they need to be able to you they need to be encouraged to say it and you know, all the usual tricks of like letting How can we say it talk partners. So thank you, Amanda. That was great. Can we make it better. So pushing, pushing, pushing for the best, the best sentence even said, or really, and then writing that down, and then you can write it down. And the other thing is, there’s an idea. This is one of Doug loves one part of it as well. He’s got obviously some buzzword, what it’s called, but the idea of just just get them just get into, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter if it’s a bit crap. You know, get them to write whatever it is, and it’s not very good. And that’s fine. So it goes, you know, denominator wasn’t denominator, what’s a fraction? It’s, it’s when you put it in bits. Okay. Okay. That’s fine. That’s a starting point. It is when he gets it in bits. Now, can we work on that? Now, is when you get to it, we use use a bit new, so parts, okay, so is it just parts? No, it’s about equal parts and a bit by bit and go back, come back, come back, come back, come back. And just just just for a little time, using whiteboards, whiteboards are great kids will write on whiteboards, which they wrote don’t like, for some reason, they just like the fact that if it’s wrong, doesn’t matter, when a whiteboard, you know, if it’s in a book, it’s like, oh, no, it’s gonna be perfect. And that’s, that hampers them. So it speak it write it, or even sometimes write it, then write it down. Even if you’re already reluctant, like something, I don’t care if he doesn’t write fraction, bits, parts thing off, I don’t know. And then we’ll and then we’ll talk and then go back to your writing write a bit more, then we’ll talk some more writes a bit more. To that back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. And I think it was so good. It’s like it’s it’s David Dido’s talks about this as game as well. It’s like a a nought to 5k approach. You know, you’re building writing stamina, that is not, we’re not gonna be frightened to this, we’re going to write for 10 seconds, like everyone is going to be writing wherever you write can be, I don’t, like just ever go.
Craig Barton 13:32
That’s nice. I absolutely love that one. That’s brilliant.
Clare Sealy 13:36
seconds, then up to 15, then up to 20, or whatever, is max, so you’re not gonna get the very long.
Craig Barton 13:42
Brilliant, brilliant. Okay, what is tip number two they’ve got for us today, please.
Clare Sealy 13:47
So tip number two is actually essentially because you want five tips, don’t you? And I did a piece for the teachers here. And I talked about my five sort of planks of quality of education. So that’s quite good. You want five and these are basically the five that I’ve told them. So that works really well for me. And one of the things I say, so there’s going to sort of span that sort of three, four and 5234 and five, is that we should teach well, and teach a court clearly, and teach recall and teach for the long term. So anyway, so number two is to teach, teach well, but I mean, obviously, that’s not really a tip. Hey, teach well. But under that rubric, is be super clear about what you want children to learn. Really super game much clearer than you think you need to be. So think about what’s tricky. What are you assuming they already know? Break it down into steps, and then get each step and break that down into steps and then get each step and then yet can I break it down more? Because we have the curse of the expert, and it seems so obvious to us. So let’s have an example. So, where where does this usually go wrong? How can I preempt that? How can I be proactive? So let’s take the example of fractions since you’re a maths teacher, and say you want them to add fractions. Well, let’s think about that. Have we thought about when we say our fractions? Do we mean, adding fractions with the same denominator with different denominators? Do we mean the same numerator? And let’s be really super clear about what exactly is okay, we’re gonna say, all right, no, no actually is gonna, we are gonna start off at the same denominator. Fine, we’ll just denominator Actually, me. And this is where just giving them a definition won’t particularly help. I mean, maybe along the line, we can, but like, it’s to like the definitions or the concept, frankly, so. And when you think about denominators, the key things are, they’re not natural numbers. And I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t use this language with kids, but for us to understand are not natural numbers, irrational numbers. That’s why kids find them hard. Because they all the way along, they’ve learned that one more goes up in value by one and now we come to some other numbers where that doesn’t work. Of course, that’s gonna confuse them. Of course it is. They’ve been brainwashed in that for like, seven or eight years, when we first started doing that, and all of a sudden, we go nine, and I just might like that. Well, the they’re gonna find that really confusing, because it’s like completely going, Oh, no, now that doesn’t work like that. Well, that’s because it’s not a rational numbers, they’re not the same. So we have to make a big effort to really preempt the fact they’re gonna find that hard. So there’s that. But there’s also this whole thing about the word whole. Like, we haven’t got, you’ve got a little kids haven’t yet we don’t go 1230 three’s a whole number. We don’t say by the way, these things are talking about their whole numbers. We just all of a sudden start going out Yeah, holes. And of course, there’s also a hole like a hole in the ground. So that’s confusing anyway, but you know, hole what does that mean? A hole number. It’s so and we know going to big thing about what we mean by a whole numbers at all the numbers we’ve been talking about before, they were whole, but you know, sometimes things aren’t old numbers, and you know, your kid, probably How old are you now? But does he go on three and a half, you know, like they do go like I’m three and they go, they do like that sort of label. So do sort of know that they do sort of know, oh, I’ve got half a biscuit or something like that. They sort of know something about that. But making a big deal. And this can be you know, kids who are 13 might not quite have ever got that. And we just assume they have but what do we mean by a whole number and what’s not a whole number. So really being super, super clear. And then also in fractions a whole lot because sometimes leaving a hole, and we just assume it’s one. But of course we know in practice, there’s not always one, and sometimes a hole. And then we talk about there’s a whole numbers. But there’s also the whole of a fraction to go, you know, when these definitions are fractions, you go, Oh, what’s the hole? But a hole doesn’t have to be one does it? So you might say, and a hole doesn’t even have to be a hole number. Thanks really complicated. You might say, What’s two thirds of a quarter? Well, what’s the hole in the hole is a quarter but like, a quarter isn’t a whole number.
It’s confusing. So unless you know how confusing it is. And I’ve really thought about that, then it will all unravel quite quickly. So like, yeah, what is a whole number and just the basics, you know, fraction, what does fraction mean? fraction that comes from that, and it’s about breaking something. So here’s a number like number two, and we can break it into pieces. There we are. Or we usually call them parts rather than pieces of mass for whatever reason. But look, and then so you’ve got the idea of a whole with the idea of parts. But then and this is really key kids don’t necessarily know what an equal part is. Because they think equals means here comes the answer. And the and some kids already struggle with that they really don’t get what an equal parties or equal group. So these numbers in each each is a key number in max that you really need to understand. And believe me, I’ve had kids of 11 or 12, or something who don’t really get each. I mean, not most kids, most kids are fine. But some kids don’t get whole don’t get each and don’t get equal. So unless you preempt all of that, and a really thought about it, and really done stuff to preempt that you will get into trouble. So preempt it really know where you’ll be super clear about what you want to teach and just use fractions. As an example, it could be in English, or it could be about what is the sentence? If people go crazy because kids don’t? Why do you think all stops? Well, probably if they don’t know what a sentence is. Like, they don’t really understand what a sentence is. And it’s quite a tricky concept actually. So you need to do lots of and I should have said this for fractions as well examples, but also non examples. So here’s two things. I’ve divided this into two pieces. This is equal groups. This is not equal groups, you know, examples, not examples. This is a sentence this is not a sentence. So it’s a fragment. It’s not yet a sentence we need to add more words before it becomes a sentence. So identifying misconceptions, examples and non examples. In sentences Some kids don’t realise that you know he ran is a sentence because they have the misconception that sentences have done quite a lot of It’s an act two isn’t enough. So be super clear about what you’re going to teach. That is tip number two.
Craig Barton 20:07
Right? Let’s dig into this a little bit. First thing says I love it. Second thing to say. So I often say, when I’m speaking to primary college, you could not pay me to be a primary teacher. And I’m discovering this, this now as I saw my little boy, like trying to get my head round numbers. I remember when I spoke to Helen Williams on my Mr. Biomass podcast, we had a big discussion about what is three? And I’m like, Yeah, just one to three inches. Yeah, but it could be counting. It’s the concept of three, three nests, and my car, my God, like don’t know. Then as you say, you’re now talking about fractions. And I say fortunately, like, luckily, when I teach students in year seven, they’ve got, you know, a decent awareness of something like fractions, but to start that from Square, one flipping, because you say things about holes, each equal parts and so on. But this will be true for for any concept that secondary colleagues, teachers, you know, and I
Clare Sealy 21:00
bet you have kids who haven’t really got those things. Yeah, exactly. Right, they might have some some things that are fine, that are sort of at an appropriate level, but somewhere underneath there’s some really basic concepts that are that are really shaky that place value my husband used to be the child now math intervention teacher, but younger kids, for me, maybe probably age kids, I needed this. So it’s a bit of research on language and about place value. And kids didn’t understand value. Well, you know, value means cheap in supermarkets. So no, but place and understand place either. So like, or column. He was like, Oh, God, this is so complicated.
Craig Barton 21:46
So it’s a nightmare. So I guess my question is, because this curse of knowledge is obviously an absolute, you know, disaster waiting to happen this for for many teachers, what how do you find practically you can do this. So So talking about your fraction example, which I think is a really nice one? How can teachers do that for a any concept they’re teaching? Is it a case of, you know, write out the solution to a problem, and then try and think how they know how to get from line one to line two or other different strategies? What’s
Clare Sealy 22:13
the I think, I think it’s right at the beginning, thinking about if you think about where this, I mean, obviously doesn’t work? If you’re brand new teachers, you won’t know. But if you’ve been teaching a while, where does it always go wrong? Like we know, fractions always goes wrong, because people don’t understand what the denominator is. And therefore, that’s why they add different denominators, because they don’t really understand that. And then you think, Well, why don’t they understand that? What is it? And it’s not just what I’ve told them? I’ve told them, they can’t do it. So they need to understand why it doesn’t work. And the reason why it doesn’t work. And this is tricky, because I mean, we’re probably not gonna use that language in that kind of rational number. But it is actually a number, you know, it’s not actually a number in like, a common or garden number, how those of us who aren’t maths teachers would think about it, it’s not referring to a quantity, is it really, it’s to a ratio and that means it operates differently. So therefore, we have to unpick that and then to unpick, you know, what are we actually getting out it’s about when we’re dividing something and that gets the whole whole to what is this something that we’re dividing and we use the words Oh, in a rather Cavalier fashion. And we’re dividing it, alright, kids generally get dividing. But we’re dividing it equally. Okay. And that, that, I don’t know why kids, because we think you know, fairness. But honestly, that’s a real stumbling block for kids. And they really do need to see the examples and examples. So I think it’s like backward thinking for where does it go wrong? Why is it going wrong? And if you can, I think try and explain it. Like if you’re a maths teacher, go and get a French teacher or someone go let me teach your French Did you find fractions harder? Or you’re your partner or somebody who isn’t a math teacher? Like somebody who doesn’t know this stuff as well as you do? Did you find this hard at school? Let me explain it to you and like like be brutally honest. Like don’t do that glazing eyes when you start going, Yeah, I understand. If you don’t like tell me it’s really worth doing it’s really really worth going especially if you know the one of the things that always go wrong. Fractions always goes wrong. Negative numbers always goes wrong sentences always goes wrong tenses in. In languages always go and go around in English for that matter, as well always go wrong. You know, just find find out what those things are. And then spend a lot of time on picking why and then proactively teacher it.
Craig Barton 24:39
Let me ask you one more thing. It’s a terrible question this Claire, let me just ask you one more follow up to this. Let’s imagine you’re you’re a brand new teacher, so you’ve no experience to fall back on. And for whatever reason, you’ve either you’ve got no mates, you’ve got no support. You can teach fractions to what are you going to do there? How can kind of novice teachers Well,
Clare Sealy 24:57
obviously your school will have a break In curriculum that would have preempted that all for you, but I’m, I suppose you’re saying that that doesn’t happen either. You what you still have to just break it down, Break it down, Break it down, Break it down, Break it into steps, break each step into steps and then think, Well, surely there’s nothing. There’s nothing more to know, you know, three, three, is that no, there’s more to know, like, break it down until it’s ridiculous. And then, okay.
Craig Barton 25:28
It’s hard, isn’t it, because I do a lot of talking about, some people call this atomization, or whatever you want to put on it. And the kickback you always get from teachers as well, I don’t have time, like, if you want me to break it down this much. I’m never going to actually get to teach the thing because I’m going to be spending all my time doing each of these minor components. Well, what’s your response to something like that?
Clare Sealy 25:48
Is that Well, do you want to teach it? Or do you want them to learn it? You know, and I will get into this when I go to robust culture of retrieval, which is tip number five, it’s like, the key is that the kids learn it, not that you get to the end and go, Well, I’ve taught it now stupid kids didn’t learn it, it’s all their fault. So it’s not just about you, you getting to the end of a course, it’s, it’s about them actually learning it. And if that’s what it takes, that’s what it takes. And actually, in Pisa, big international assessments, the Japanese kids in the ticket 15 is in the maps. They, they only do something like two thirds of I don’t know if it’s two thirds or three quarters anyway, not all things we call anyway, a fraction that’s greater than half of the syllable of the syllabus, they haven’t talked at all by the time I do the test, and yet they come third in the world. And so even though there’s like a quarter of it, or whatever, but they haven’t done they ate, they ate it and do much better than everywhere else, because what they have learned, they know really securely.
Craig Barton 27:01
Got it. Got it. Okay, what is tip number three, please?
Clare Sealy 27:06
Tip number three is. So we’ve talked about teaching Well, teaching securely. So this is checking for understanding. So which again, sounds really, really obvious, but this is getting away from your teacher who’s going but I’ve got to get through, we’ve got to get through the whole conveyor belt curriculum. Mario Kart talks about that. But it’s a train leaving the station to mix my metaphors, it’s going it’s going, it’s going and like, we just have to carry on because we won’t get to the end, actually, well as pointless because again, it’s about what they’re learning not about what you’re teaching, and it’s better that you’ve bought, you have taught they’ve learned then then you can just go well, I’ve taught it. Hey, not my fault. I didn’t learn it. So checking for understanding lots of ways of doing that. I love Tom Sherrington says the simple sentence of saying, instead of saying, do you understand if you say Do you understand, like most kids will go? Yeah. Because for two reasons, either they’re too embarrassed to say no, not really. All they think they do understand. You know? And maybe they do, maybe they don’t. So he says, just flip that on your head and ask the question, what do you understand? Hey, so great. What do you understand about what denominator is? So Michelle, what do you understand? So, and then don’t just ask one person, they’ve just as one person think, Oh, he’s got it. So therefore, everyone’s got it. So it’d be really forensic about checking for understanding. And then of course, you check for understanding and when they all do understand Great, good to go. But when you find that they don’t, or some students don’t, then you flex your teaching in response. But you address the fact that they can’t, so that that might be in the moment. Or you might go, I am going to have to mentally park that because nearly everyone else has got it. Those who haven’t. Yet I do need to carry on. But I will bank that to do something at some point with them to release maybe within a lesson and maybe after the lesson in intervention, whatever. But you’re not just ignoring it. So you’re flexing your teaching from the information. Now, how would you do that key things are using whiteboards. And I like as a big thing on Twitter at the moment with lots of primary school teachers. Again, I can’t believe people are going whiteboards reusable for 20 years we haven’t saved yet. Well, good for you. Brilliant. You carry on doing that. Not everybody has, believe me, they haven’t. And some secondary schools have some secondary schools haven’t maybe some primary schools haven’t. So if you have good for you, if you haven’t, you’re missing a trick you need to be using Lightboard so that you can see in the moment you can see what people are doing and how they’re doing, how they’ve done so that you can flex your teaching. There’s also you know, this is from the Teach Like a Champion playbook. What is called cold calling, which I think is a really unfortunate name because it sounds I mean, it’s just meant to be like cold calling is when people phone up and try and sell you. Double balloon isn’t it? That’s where it comes from. But people just see it as cold didn t it’s about catching kids out and it can make kids anxious. like cold calling isn’t any of those things it’s only thrives in a classroom culture that’s warm and supportive, which we’re error is seen as useful. But kids feel safe to make mistakes and see them as useful. And where they understand that you asking them a question. Without them volunteering the answer, it’s that they expect to be asked questions is because you care about them and about their learning. So that’s what cold calling is. I talked about this earlier whiteboards cold calling, I talked about this a bit with literacy call and response is a really underused mechanism. So you know, what are we going to do? Now we’re gonna do questions, one for five. So they know, we’re all going to do that we’re all we all know that. And then show cool, which is a variation on cold calling, it’s the same thing. But that’s where you’re sharing a piece of writing or a piece of something written, and then critique it. So probably not so much a math thing. It could be, I suppose, it could be like, let’s look at your steps, but I worked something out but or a piece of writing, put it onto the visualizer. And whatever, you’ve got to be able to do that. And then really analyse it and critique it and make it better make it even better, you know, it’s probably fine again, but these all require classrooms with warm, supportive ethos where, you know, you don’t have kids rolling their eyes or laughing or smirking because somebody’s made a mistake. Like you have no tolerance for that whatsoever. So yeah, what do you understand checking for understanding being really forensic? And it might not be it might not necessarily be? Oh, no, that’s tip number four. It’s gonna say maybe after the lesson, but I remembered No, wait.
Craig Barton 31:51
This is great. Okay, well, let me just dig into this a little bit. I am obsessed with checking from the starting classes right up my street there. So just a couple a couple of things. I’d like Doug Lomov. Again, we’re both huge fans, right? I think it’s tip number one in Teach Like a Champion 2.0. And then he shifted it a little bit longer than 3.0, where he has either reject or now he says, replace self report. Because that’s the classic thing where, as you say, you say, do you understand what I like that dog does there is he says, if you find yourself wanting to say Do you understand that’s really good, because you’ve recognised that it’s the right point in the lesson where you need to check for understanding. And then you can step in and do something like you’ve said with Tom Sherrington is idea of just, it’s it’s not a massive change to your teaching, is it you’ve recognised it’s the point in the lesson to do it, you’ve just got to make sure it’s an actual check of understanding and not a check of students perception of understanding. So really, like, I really like that.
Clare Sealy 32:44
I also like Adam boxhead wrote this brilliant thing. It’s that this is a real way. Oh, yeah. But you know, when when we understand something in the moment, you get this sort of endorphin rush, and it feels good. Like, oh, yeah, like when it clicks, and it feels great. And so like, you think, Oh, I understand that now, if you’ve had this feeling. And so but your memory, when you go back to it, that you want to understand that now what you’re remembering is the feeling of understanding it now, but understanding is dependent on remembering it. So you can’t understand something and have forgotten it. But you might go but I understand that well, you’re what you’re remembering is the feeling of understanding it, not actually understanding it, and the two are different.
Craig Barton 33:27
That’s lovely. I’ve never never thought about this thing. So that’s really, really nice. I really liked that. And my second and final point on this, this is something I discussed with Joe Morgan, a secondary maths teacher, she said that a lot of the emphasis on check for understanding and responsive teaching, is on the checking for understanding and not so much on the responding. And you’ve alluded to this yourself, like if you do the check, and it reveals that there’s a problem, you’ve got to then respond to that if you just crack on regardless, there’s no code
you’ve put all your thoughts into the check for understanding and you haven’t thought, Alright, what am I going to do if it goes this way, or this way? It’s problematic, isn’t it? And
Clare Sealy 34:08
that’s why that goes back to my earlier point about being super clear about what you want to teach. So again, you know, you’ve got your teachers one, I’m not gonna go right back because that will be ridiculous. Okay, maybe you’re not but then you check for understanding. Oh, maybe I need to go right back. But you know what, that you know what that right back goes to certainly like, Oh, God, I don’t even know what each means, you know, like, or, you know, what is going wrong here. I know that. I’ve got I’ve got that. I know what the likely things that could have gone wrong, had gone wrong, and I’ve checked for understanding and it’s like, Oh, okay. That could go. But yeah, I really like Mark McCourt’s phrase about conveyor belt teaching and that we shouldn’t be to that and somebody I don’t know if it was him. Somebody said, We’re teachers, not broadcasters. So you know, when you broadcast the programme, it just carries on regardless doesn’t matter. And that’s why teaching during lockdown was hard, because you didn’t get you weren’t sort of in broadcast mode. And that that checking for understanding was much harder. Particularly if you didn’t want to have cameras on, or particularly if it wasn’t even live teaching, if it was a synchronous teaching, it was really hard. So you couldn’t check for understanding. And you were in broadcast mode and kids caught what they call but you know, it was sub optimal. To put it mildly. So yeah, we’re teachers, not broadcasters, which means we checking their understanding. And we’re flexing in the moment and responding to that, because we are super clear about what they want to know. We know what the misconceptions are, and we can pivot.
Craig Barton 35:41
Fantastic. Okay, what is tip number four, please.
Clare Sealy 35:47
So this is again, so this is more about checking for understanding this is after the lesson. So after the lesson, you know, you’re going to look at their books and and maybe a mask they ticked as they go they you know, like in maths, I think it works really well when they do for and then check with the either check, because you give them the answer, you know, for independent work, they might check and then you give them the answers or check in when with a group. I love this. When you check with the group. Have you got the same answer? Probably it’s right, though, you probably haven’t all made the same mistake, probably. But if you know if there’s a difference in the group, then let’s work out who’s got it wrong. And maybe it’s the three have got it wrong, and the ones got it right. Anyway. So that’s a buy divide. Sorry. So that’s really from the previous one. But so when you check their work afterwards, then again, you need to do something about it. It’s gonna go oh, God, I couldn’t do that. Nevermind next week, it’s area cracking on or, you know, Macbeth or whatever, you know. So what do you do? So what you don’t do most of the time is marking? Because why don’t you do that. And it’s not really even about workload. It’s about workload, but actually, it’s because it’s not very effective. When I was learning to drive, I wasn’t very good at parallel parking. Now, what my driving instructor didn’t do was then going, Oh, how am I going to help you with your parallel parking, and there was only one of me, of course, it wasn’t trying to teach 30 people all at once in parallel, but, but what she didn’t do was go, I’m gonna write you a little mini essay here explaining how to parallel park and then I will read it and go, right, that’s what I should be doing. You know, it’s like, it’s really unlikely to be helpful, isn’t it? You know, why? Why is writing an explanation? Why don’t you just tell them the explanation. And as we know, most of the time, the problems are pretty similar that kids are coming into. So when children can’t do something, most of the time when they try and do something, you know, they haven’t done it, but it’s not because they’re being perverse if they haven’t done it, because they don’t know how to sew, they don’t need feedback. Like, they do not need feedback, what they need is more teaching. That’s what they need. So you do a letter, anything, oh, blimey, they can’t do whatever. Then what do you do next lesson, or, you know, a third of them can’t do that, well, we’re going to do that again, then, you know, not necessarily for the whole lesson. But we are going to do some of the lesson doing some of it, rather than just thinking I know, I’m going to write it down and write it down for Craig, and we’re gonna write down again, but Alison, write it down again, for Apple, and then write something else. That’s crazy. In fact, to get workloads, it’s just really ineffective. It’s also really bad on workload as well. And that’s important, not just because it’s nice to be nice for teachers. Of course it is. But it’s like if you’re, you know, all choices and opportunity costs. If you’re spending your time marking, you’re not thinking about misconceptions, you’re not being thinking about how to be super clear, you’re not, you’re not thinking about how you’re going to check for understanding the lesson, or what you’re gonna do, they can’t do something. And that’s a much better use of your time than spending ages, marking work. So yeah, if they can’t do something, but only feedback, they need teaching. Most of the time, that mean, it’s a place for some sort of feedback, but you know, it has to be within their power to act on it. So I don’t know if you if you’ve had this, but you know, when you were had to get on the edge, get the next step of the target and the target is, learn something I haven’t taught you yet. Well, it’s not in their power to do anything about it. So that’s pointless. So it’s much better to go. Your feedback is, you know, if you did your homework that might help. Or maybe you should sleep some more, or come to school on time, you know, those sort of things are in their power. I mean, I know it’s not in all kids power, I get that some kids super challenges in their lives, but you know, for most kids the things they they can actually do. Maybe if you don’t tables, you’d find math a lot easier. Just saying. So give them give them you know if you’re giving them feedback back. It’s got to be, it’s not on what you just taught them generally, because there’s not much that’s for you. The feedback when you look at their books is for you as a teacher. So you don’t it’s called AFL and assessment for learning. Yeah, well, actually, a lot of it isn’t assessment for learning. So assessment for teaching. So, but there is assessment for learning. And actually, it is useful to say, things like, your table knowledge is really getting in the way here that could really help you, you know, so let’s do something about that.
It is really useful to give them metacognitive strategies to check their work. So for example, and these will be, you know, I’m not talking about PCs four here, but you know, if you add some numbers together, you can add them up in a different order to check. Because that should be the same answer that the quick checking mechanism to check your own work, you can use the inverse to check. So do your work, and then check it and have that those sorts of routines that you are going to check. If you’re doing long multiplication, what’s the thing that everyone forgets and the long application? Oh, they forget the zero in the second line over two zeros and the third line or whatever, like, what’s the thing that everyone does? Oh, yeah, check that Oh, and this one, this will be your like this one for PC? Four. Can you say five? Any Key Stage? This is a thing? Units? units, units, units, units units? Is this a measures? Question? Yes. Has it got units in? Yes. My the examiner, tester, whoever is at the question, have, you know deliberately mixed up metres and kilometres probably because they’re just like that they want to check. I’m going to check forensically the units. I will just do that. Whenever it says units. I will go through a question. And I’ll put a big, I don’t know other code to myself, I’ll do a big pink circle or something around it. And that will remind me that when I check, it’s like there’s a unit question. I’m likely to make a mistake with this. Integration at the zero. I will make that mistake. As soon as I read integration, I’ll put a big sign to myself. I’d see Sorry, whatever it is, what do you do the integration, I’d say whatever it is, the thing that you do that everyone forgets to do. So teaching them self checking mechanisms, fine. That works. So a bit of metacognitive feedback that feedback is more is really for you, not for them.
Craig Barton 42:32
I like it. I like it controversial. And Claire and I like this, forget the feedback, do the reteaching. If they don’t know I like that. So let’s dig into this a little bit more. So the first thing to say is I’ve made this mistake many a time, where I’ve had a big pile of books on a Sunday. And I’m having to mark them and I the first book gets a load of my attention, loads of written feedback, bla bla bla, second book, slightly less attention. So I’m getting nakid. Now third books on and then what happened by the time we get to like the 15th book, not only well, it cannot be bothered anymore, but also, I’ve spotted the same mistake again and again and again. And if I’d have known that from the start, I wouldn’t have bothered writing all this feedback, because it would have signalled that this is a whole class issue. So no point writing in the individual books. Let’s just you know, reteach it. So I think one thing that I’ve certainly found useful was having a quick flick through all the books first, just in case you can identify a bit of a common trend before you start diving in forensic ly one book at a time. Does that make sense?
Clare Sealy 43:28
Yeah, absolutely. I think that’s absolutely key. And, you know, if you get some outlier, who’s done something really bizarre, fine, you know, yeah, I still maybe writing isn’t gonna be the thing it might be. It’s not like it’s banned for evidence day. But like as your go to strategy, it’s a really weak strategy.
Craig Barton 43:49
I agree. Right. Let me ask you an awkward question about this then. So I was like to kind of play devil’s advocate a bit on this show. So let’s go awkward. So what you’re kind of hoping for when you mark is either everybody’s got it, right? Because then you’re laughing? Or everybody’s got it wrong in the same way, because then you can do your whole class feedback. But let’s take the extreme scenario. Let’s imagine half the class have got it right, half the class have got a question wrong. What are you going to do there? Because if you teach the whole class it again, it feels like you’re a bit of a disservice to the ones who know it. But then if you just try and teach a small section, what on earth is the rest of the class going to do? How does that play out?
Clare Sealy 44:23
Well, I think you could go either way. And I don’t say it’s not a problem, but I think I think people over overdo it as a problem. And I think actually overlearning is really good. So it’s not going to kill the harp you’ve got it right. To sit through it again. It really isn’t. It’s like oh, good for you. And actually, this is this is going to help you and I read this ages ago and I cannot I’ve tried you know as we know, when you read something you think, oh, where was that? And I’ve tried to find it and haven’t been able to find it. That’s really annoying, but there was a it was this paper about a level maths and And typically the jump from GCSE to a level maths is quite a shock to the system for kids. And what they find is that these high flying kids who’ve got all their grades, whatever’s seven pluses, wherever, but actually, their understanding of things like fractions or algebra or whatever, isn’t as secure as you think. Because they’ve been able to do stuff, and they’ve been stretched and challenged and pushed on to the next one, and the next one and the next one. And actually, you’ve done them a myth service, because you’re an all they can do a few. So they’re fine. And they don’t really they’ve got a superficial understanding and got a really in depth understanding of it. And actually, they could have done better, had they really been, you know, we’ve done them to death, we’ve done them done major, they really, really, really, really added to your understanding. So that overlearning actually will probably really benefit them. So it isn’t it isn’t the the terrible thing, though, you know, there might be occasions there might be some cases like no, really, really they do get it, they really do get it and I don’t think you know, you there are strategies you can use, you can be like, if you’ve got it if you really, really, really got it. Here’s another one to be getting on with, you know, here’s something you should be practising, I’m going to be talking to everyone else, you’re going to be dead quiet, I’m not going to help you. So this is for most people, but if you really think you’ve really got this fine, here you are crack on with this. So
Craig Barton 46:26
got it. Okay, flow, fifth and final tip, please
Clare Sealy 46:31
say so my last one is have a robust culture of retrieval, quoting and unboxer. Again, that is just because you’ve taught it, you’ve taught it to keep taught it well do you a super clear about what you wanted to learn, and you taught it securely. So you check for understanding, not just in a lesson, but after the lesson. But just because they’ve learnt it doesn’t mean they’ll know it in a month’s time or three months time or a year’s time. And this is Adam boxer writes brilliantly about this. So I’m basically channelling and a book. But human like forgetting is completely normal, is forgetting is not some irritating thing that children do to wind us up or because they’re feckless, or whatever. Forgetting is human. Like when humans learn stuff, they forget it, or almost immediately, we know that that’s a scientific fact that humans forget stuff. So we shouldn’t be shocked or disappointed or surprised or disheartened by the fact that what we teach will be forgotten. Like it just will be that’s just normal, and human, it’s inevitable. So therefore, we need to plan to interrupt the forgetting through doing retrieval practice. Now, that should be whether that you do that in a starter or near some other way in your lesson. Don’t think that don’t think for how there’s a million ways of doing it, I would say that secondary school level that most of your homeworks should be based on that maybe not all, but most of it should be based on that. But you know, you do need to be going over what we learned yesterday, what we learned last week, what we learned last month, what we learned way back when let’s do some way back when stuff as well. And then again, you’re checking for understanding or checking for taking they still understand it. And of course, if they can’t remember it, they won’t be able to understand it. Or they might remember, understand it. And then you get so what you’re going to say to me is what about all the teachers who go but I don’t have time. And this is where we talked about my my leaky pipe analogy, okay. So because human beings are leaky, they are leaky learners, we teach them stuff, and it leaks out their brains. So imagine you were told to be built a pipe between point A and point B, a pipe to carry water, and you built this pipe, and you could see that the pipe was leaking. But you thought, Well, I haven’t got time to go back and fix the pipe. I don’t care about the pipe, I don’t want to get from A to B. And then you get to add in your pipes. Dairy are Tada, I’ve done it. I’ve done a pipe, oh, do not much water coming through because so much is leaking out. Whereas somebody else never gets from A to B, they get sort of two thirds of the way to B or three quarters. Oops. So those two numbers, right? It gets you to get most of the way. But what they do, the reason why they don’t get there is because they do go back and fix the pipe. So actually, they get more well walwater further than somebody who just craps on and it’s really thinking about themselves and really thinking about looking good, rather than actually being good. And being good is actually making sure that the learning is revisited and isn’t forgotten because legally we’re all leaky learners. So don’t blame the pipes. Don’t blame the pipes for forgetting or for leaking. Like you it’s your job to to notice the leaking and to do something about it.
Craig Barton 49:52
I love it. All right. A couple of them are two things I absolutely love straightaway here. So firstly, I really like that emphasis. The forgetting is normal. I like that I think about Something that that doesn’t get emphasised enough, between teachers, but also teachers communicating that to kids. I’m a big, big fan of that. I absolutely adore this leaky pipe. I’m all over that one. That’s a really, really, really solid analogy. I really like that. My, I guess my only follow up question is, I’m really interested in retrieval opportunities, inside and outside of lessons. So I completely agree with you that homeworks are really good time to do retrieval. And I’ve made the mistake for many years in it having topic themed homeworks, based on what the kids have just done, and it’s fine, but they tend to do quite well on them. And then you think, Oh, fantastic, I have to worry about that again, but I call it this, like the illusion of mastery, you think they’ve got it, but they’ve only got it in the moment, and so on. So I think moving away from topic specific homeworks, to always, as a minimum, having at least some kind of revision or recap section in each homework is a good idea. But the problem with homeworks. And again, this is a cultural thing is quite a few kids don’t essentially take them all that seriously. Maybe they either don’t do them, or they rush them, or they copy, or they just do the questions they can do. So then a lot of teachers think, okay, I know, well, I’m going to shift my retrieval opportunities into the lesson instead. But then, of course, then you retain up into a kind of curriculum time. And it feels to me, retrieval should be in an idea well done outside of the lesson. Because, again, the teacher can then focus on teaching the new stuff. And if they can collect information in about what kids know, and don’t know about prior learn stuff, they can address it. But I just think, I don’t know if it’s the same in primary, but homework, it feels like the ideal opportunity for retrieval, but it never seems to work as well, as it does in theory, if that makes sense.
Clare Sealy 51:40
I think it comes back down to it is a more of a secondary thing. I think that homework in primary is, is more contentious. And you know, personally, I do think that in primary schools, it should be about reading every day, for sure. And it should be about things like it should be about retrievals you should be about number bonds and times cables. And maybe as they get older towards up a few things to it can be some of the other stuff inside the other subjects for people practice. I do think the secondary, I don’t think so there’s a question about it, it should be retrieval practice should be the sort of the the mainstay, not of every single piece, but of homework and it needs a whole school culture that is taken seriously. But it’s, you know, if it’s going to be taken seriously, that’s a whole school thing. And you need if you want if you’re going to say right, so the mainstay of our homework is going to be a really robust culture of retrieval with a culture of retrieval is we’re going to have a platform that we’re going to use or platforms that we’re going to use, there going to be consequences. If you don’t do it, it’s going to be checked up on if you don’t do it, that’s an issue. But that only works if everyone’s doing it everybody. Everybody knows what you’re meant to do. And there are genuine consequences for not for not doing it. I don’t know if you know, it sounds like this is a peon to add a boxer which in a way that is the platform he uses is carousel, not so like mass. There’s loads of other things I wouldn’t mass you’ve got your Egadi or boxes now, isn’t it? Yeah. It’s your one. And as what’s the other one? What’s the other one? Doctor? Doctor, Dr. Frost not gonna floss anyway, there’s loads of things out there. So they’re all fine. But um, so what carousel does really well, for other subjects? And again, it wouldn’t work for every single subject, but it has for the kids, right? And again, it’s so it’s not it’s not a math thing, really. But they say, right, they have to write answers. It’s not that they have got some multiple choice, it’s not many multiple choice. So they write an answer. So you know, what’s photosynthesis? It’s plants and sun, they write? Okay, not obviously not very good answer. And then they have to judge for themselves that they’ve done, then it gives them the answer, and they have to see if they’ve written it correctly or not. And then they’ve been clear, it’s not really correct, because it’s sort of on the way to being correct. And then they can do it again. And the idea is they will carry on doing it and because they will get given the answer. Do the answer, get given the answer, have a go at doing it again, teach, you can see all of that. And then it feeds into the starter for the next lesson. For the startup in the next lesson, it goes into whiteboard mode, and then you can you can go oh, here’s an answer that Craig put up or you know, you can do it anonymously. So many books, photosynthesis, plants and fun stuff. And we can critique that again, go back to our show call, we can critique that right, it’s on the way to being right, but how can we make that better, better better? And so then kids can see that actually what you did for homework it absolutely is feeding into the lesson it is absolutely is doing that. So there’s a real purpose towards it. It’s easy for teachers to set it’s easy for teachers to to check, and it’s purposeful. So if it’s a whole school culture behind it, then I think that whole thing and I haven’t been a secondary school teacher so you know, what do I know? Maybe Though Yes. But I do know having talked to schools where they do do it well, if you have a whole culture behind it, and, you know, when things don’t work, it’s because the systems haven’t been you know, it’s going back to being super clear, being super clear for teachers making it easy, easy for teachers to set easy for teachers to check. Easy for kids to know. So they don’t have John some schools you have about 59 different logins. Like if it’s maps, it’s this login. If it’s history, it says login, you know, it’s Google Classroom for this it sparked for this it’s I don’t know, what’s another one
Craig Barton 55:39
century
Clare Sealy 55:40
Quizlet something else? You know, he gets all your brainpower worked out just to work out which blooming platform you’re on, make it easy, like, keep it super clear, super easy. Parents can check. You know, parents can check up and teachers can check kids. Can they have them? No, I didn’t have my login. Like carousel you even need to log in. So yeah, make it make it easy.
Craig Barton 56:08
Love it. Absolutely love it. Well, I’ll see what colour they are five. Absolutely. Fantastic tip. So one thing I’ve made a tonne of notes for the benefit of the viewers here is tonnes to think about here. Absolutely. Fantastic. So let me come back over to you now well, what should listeners check out of yours?
Clare Sealy 56:25
Well, I can look up my blog. And it’s called it’s www primary time Re. So primary timer theory.com. And it’s got primary in because I’m a primary teacher by trade. But there’s loads in it, you don’t have to be a primary teacher to benefit from it. Because there’s loads in there. I’ve just done laminated blogs on assessment, for example, that is pretty much crossfades. And now I’m working crossways anyway. So that will be my my main thing that I’d say listen to listen to you don’t listen to it, because it’s a blog. Read it. Don’t listen to it. Sorry. I edited the researcher guide to the curriculum. So I mean, only wrote the foreword and chose the people to write things. But that said some really good pieces in that not least their final chapter by Christine Council, which is the tour de force. So they will be my two main things I’d say of mine. Do you mean? Do you mean other people? Because I mean,
Craig Barton 57:21
that’s perfect. No, no, it’s all about you. So yeah, that’s the least I could do. So yeah. Well, those links to both of those in the show notes page. Well, Cloud has been an absolute pleasure. I’ve learned absolutely loads. It’s been practical, interesting, engage, and it’s been brilliant. So thank you so much for giving up your time to speak to us.
Clare Sealy 57:39
No problem. That’s been great talking to you, Craig.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai