You can download an mp3 of the podcast here.
Craig Latimir’s tips:
- Explicitly teach the skills an expert in your domain uses (03:29)
- Leave a legacy (23:21)
- The principles of Cog Sci apply to humans (not just students) (39:24)
- Learning doesn’t start in Year 7 (55:10)
- The secret to a happy life (1:09:13)
Links and resources
- On Twitter, Craig is: @Teach_Solutions
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View the videos of Craig Latimir’s tips
Podcast transcript
Craig Barton 0:00
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 absolute pleasure of speaking to maths teacher, Craig Latimer. Now one of my aims of this podcast was, of course to have all the big names on and we’ve done that right we’ve had Dylan William Thomas Sherrington, Daisy Christodoulou. But they also want to give a voice to teachers who perhaps aren’t household names, but have amazing things to share. I think Craig fits into that. Many listeners may not be aware of quips work, but I’ll tell you why. After this conversation, we’ll do one quick one before we start, I’ve started recording and premium versions of Mike’s hipster teachers online courses, I’ve done four so far dead happy hour with Cornell. I’ve done one on habits and routines, one a music participation, one on checking for understanding, or one on responsive teaching. And the way these online courses work is they’re made up of loads of little short videos, I think means a participation are about at like one minute videos, two minute videos, and so on and so forth. With a really simple idea that you can try the very next day you go into your classroom, then an opportunity to reflect on what you need to change to make it work, links to any resources, research videos, and so on. So if you’re interested in those, and you can just search Craig Barton online courses, or I’ll put a link in the show notes, please check those out. Anyway, back to the show. Let’s get ready with today’s guest or wonderful Craig Latimer. Spoiler alert. Here are Craig’s five tips. Tip number one, explicitly teach the skills and experts in your domain uses it to leave a legacy. Tip three, the principles of cognitive science apply to humans, students, tip for learning doesn’t start in year seven. And Tip five we’re going deep here, the secret to a happy life who if you look at the episode description on your podcast player or visit the episode page on tips for teachers.co. UK, you’ll see I’ve timestamp teacher the tips and also have splashed the cash Thanks to Patreon sponsors. And there’s now a really nice transcript for each episode also on the podcast page, so you can search for keywords and all that kind of stuff. Anyway, I’ll shut up. Enjoy the show.
Well, it gives me great pleasure to welcome Craig Latimer to the tips for teachers podcast. Hello, Craig, how are you?
Craig Latimir 2:33
Very good. How are you?
Craig Barton 2:34
Very, very well. Thank you. And for the benefit listeners. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself ideally in a sentence?
Craig Latimir 2:42
Yeah. So maths teacher trained in the PGCE a long time ago and work in various schools, and now lead maths across creative Education Trust, which is a national trust of 17 schools.
Craig Barton 2:56
Fantastic, right? Let’s dive straight in. What’s tip number one today, please.
Craig Latimir 3:01
Step one is explicitly teach the skills and expert in your domain users. I’m going to try and break that down into things that make sense, right? Let’s go. So, so a Owen content makes up about 50% or so of the GCSE, but I think takes up a lot of the thinking time and the way that we direct students in lessons. So the 50% the reasoning and problem solving doesn’t get as much in my opinion, it explicit attention within the classroom, I think because people feel like it’s less of a tangible thing to sort of harness therefore, it’s much harder to teach. I’m going to disagree with that and try and give some tips. Mostly Matt centred, but try and get some overall tips people could use for their own subjects as well. So I’m going to, I’m going to ask you a math question, Craig. So I’m going to put you on the spot. So the question is, if 482 pencils cost 115 pound and 68 Pence, what is the cost of 312 pencils? Now I can see you’re writing things down. And the point here is, hopefully you don’t know what the numerical answer
Craig Barton 4:11
is. I can confirm that is true.
Craig Latimir 4:14
But But hopefully, you know how, how to solve the problem. And at the moment that the numbers aren’t the important part of that if I asked you what I asked how many pencils I’m actually cast or how many I wanted, you couldn’t tell me yet, you could confidently say you can solve the problem. So sort of what’s going on there because I think too often in in math classrooms, we go straight into the numbers, what calculations are we doing? And whereas we don’t necessarily always need to? I’m going to read that one more time without the numbers. So if blank pencils cost blank, what is the cost of blank pencils? And introducing that to math teachers? I think would they would all know how to solve it without the numbers. They’re being being important to make My first tip around explicitly teaching the skills and expert in your domain users is for maths, one of them is the numbers aren’t always that important. And expert mathematicians I think will often ignore the numbers. And I would suggest that students often get quite caught up with them. And so taking this idea of ignoring the numbers, and applying it to a longer question, I think can be a really useful tip for students, I’m thinking about the sort of 456 markers that exist GCSE, and often students will leave the entire thing blank. So we know from cognitive science, you hold about 678 things in your in your worst working memory at any one time. And if you’re reading that thing, you’re preoccupied with the surface level detail, which would be the numbers in this case, then you might end up being overwhelmed and not able to access anything. So the first step here would be to ignore the numbers. And we might, we can do one more example for a longer question. And and see, and I’ve got a visual for this, which I’m not going to share, because I need it goes out on the podcast. So we’ll see if we can do it. But it might be too much. Well, we’ll see what happens. So the question is this. And I’m just gonna ignore the numbers first time round. A pyramid has a square base. Each of the four sleeping edges has length blank, the total length of all eight edges is blank. Work out the area of the square base. So how was that one more time?
Craig Barton 6:36
Yeah. Give us one more. I think I’ve got about Yeah, go on. Give us one more time.
Craig Latimir 6:41
So we’ve got we’ve got a pyramid with a square base, we’ve got the length of all the sloping edges, they’re all the same. We don’t know what they are, we don’t know. They’re all the same. Cut the total length of all eight edges. And for sloping and before at the base. Question is, what are the area of the square base? So my conjecture here is that giving back to students, they can do an awful lot of thinking about how to solve this problem, how to get into it, what structures are underpinning there. And that an expert mathematician, first time reading that, even if the numbers were visible, would be ignoring them. And, and would look at the surface of the question, first of all. So yeah, but by, you know, the original tip was was explicitly teach the skills and expert in your domain uses one of these things, I think electrician does is ignores the surface level stuff. In this case, often it’s the numbers, which sounds counterintuitive for mathematicians, but but I think it often is. And you can model that with students, and you can go through this process with them. And I would suggest that the way that I’ve done this before, is to show students a question that sort of four or five, six months that you know, they’re going to struggle with and discuss cognitive overload, discuss what’s going on their heads and share with them why they are struggling, and then show them a similar question, but with the numbers missing, and start to break it down for them. And give them a chance as as a class as individuals or maybe in pairs to come up with the sort of the furthest plan they can have how to solve the question. And don’t be able to come to a numerical answer. But he can start the thing, what’s step one going to be? What’s step two going to be? And, and then get them all back together again, and as a group, produce a plan, you know, they will come from history lessons and English lessons and MFL lessons always encouraged for those big long questions to write a plan before they start producing the big essay. But in maths, and long questions aren’t as long but encouraging a plan, I think it’s still a good idea. And by removing the numbers, you’re forcing them to do that, that thinking and so foremost plan is a group once you’ve agreed what it should be, I will then reveal the numbers to the students give them time to then solve the problem, make them feel successful. And then repeat that few times and slowly scaffold away what you’ve done. So what you’ve done is you’ve hidden the numbers so at some point you’ll have to introduce the numbers to get them to be thinking in a way that they ignore them first time round, focusing in on what is the surface of this problem before I sort of go deeper into the calculations that I need to need to do
Craig Barton 9:23
right anything else great before I come in here because I’ve got a million things to say
Craig Latimir 9:31
I’ll pause there
Craig Barton 9:32
Yeah. All right. Let’s go on this right so a bit of background here. So this is where I first came across your work is when you this I think was your first ever tweet right where you tweeted about this. And I read it and I thought this is one of those things. That is one of the best things I’ve been the best ideas I’ve ever seen because I can’t believe this hasn’t been done before or I certainly am not aware of it and it’s so simple but so powerful. So I absolutely love it and that’s the kind of main driver I wanted you to get. On the show, and since you’ve tweeted out loads of other really good ideas that we’re going to dive into. So just a couple of things about this, you often hear that experts and novices think differently. And one of the one of the things that comes out the research is the experts for folks on the deep structure, novices kind of focus on the surface structure. And this seems like a really kind of clear example of that, where students who are struggling latch on to the numbers and we’ve all seen this, right, you know, the first two numbers that they see in one of these word problems, they just either multiply them together, add them together, whatever operation they fancy doing, they just focus in on those numbers without realising what the problems are about. And this seems like such a smart way to get them to focus on the deep structure by essentially removing the surface features. I really, really like that I absolutely love it. I also like, I’ve just got to run for a bit and then I’ll shut up. What I also like about this is I don’t You seem like you’ve been teaching there maybe a similar amount of time. To me, whenever in the early days of kind of thinking about problem solving, it was always, you know, give students like a problem to solve than a big old sheet of paper. And maybe it’s kind of four quadrants, and maybe it’s like and devise a plan. What do you know, what do you not know? And it never worked, I could never make it work, because and I think now having thought about this, for from your perspective here is because the numbers are still getting in the way that the problem is still there in its original form. So kids latch on to the numbers, but taking the numbers away, again, means you’re forced to think about the deeper structure. So I like this as a real practical way of doing it. I don’t know what order to ask these. And I’ve got three questions here. And right, well, we’ll go for it. We’ll go for this one for when do you do this? Is this kind of purely kind of building up to revision for an exam? When does it come in kind of a learning episode that, you know, when you’ve introduced an idea how far a gap before you get them solving problems with that idea in this way? Well, where does it fit in?
Craig Latimir 11:59
Yeah, that’s that’s a that’s a question. You know, I think John Mason says that if you’ve any matters and should involve generalisation, and this is broadly what this is. So that first question that we had with the pencils, and the cost is a very typical proportion question. And it works for that. By removing the numbers, you’re looking at what is going on in proportion? So in that sense, it could happen in a year seven lesson. That second question was a bigger DC question. And were more marks and more of a strategy for tackling those, those unseen questions when students are gonna get in more of a pickle. So I’d say whenever it’s helping them see what the structure is. I’ve heard Danny Quinn talk before about getting students to respond without numbers. So if you’re asking, you know, if there’s a shape on the board, he says, well, what’s the area? Instead of a kid saying it’s five times seven? It’s the length times the width. Great. But if you remove the numbers in the first place, they haven’t got a choice. So it’s not I haven’t used to build into them. It’s the only thing that they can say. And so I’d say whenever. Yeah.
Craig Barton 13:11
Okay, those are okay. Let me let me dig in a bit further on this one. Sometimes I like to be awkward and play a bit kind of devil’s advocate. What and it’s not me being nasty. It’s just so good again, just to try and push it on this. What’s the logic with showing them the numbers first? Is there a danger that that kind of overwhelms them? What? How come you don’t just show them the no number version first?
Craig Latimir 13:37
Two, to sort of prove them, they’re going to struggle. It’s that sort of, there’s a word for it when you the hyper correction effect. Is that Is that where where? Right. Can you solve this question? Or or similar to is it Datameer talks about the migraine? The aspirin? Here’s the question with the numbers. Can you solve it? No. Great. I’ve got a solution to that. Because I think showing the students in my experience of having done this a few times, we got the numbers straightaway. They just think you’re a bit bit bonkers. We can’t solve it what you’re doing. But if you front loaded with oh, look, we can’t solve this. Here’s technique which might help us go with me here. It just increases the buy in
Craig Barton 14:18
Yeah, I’m sold on that. I like that. Next one that what how does this go down with the kids? Why if it goes down badly in which way does it go down badly and how’d you get?
Craig Latimir 14:29
And I’d say so you get you get different camps of people that are more more or less done but but at the end of it, you know, when they sit there GCC, you can’t force them to solve it in a certain way. If you know this is in their locker, some of that they can rely on so often levers if there’s going to be for everybody. However, if you are trying to question like this, and you do get stuck remember you’ve got this as a as a backup. So if people are So the first time around, hopefully, you know, I don’t know what they’ve what they’ve done in their in their exams this this year, but hopefully they put it there if they need it. But broadly, there is reluctance at first, they do think you don’t know what you’re talking about, because the numbers have been the most important thing of how can you solve it. And we don’t write down plans for these questions. And it feels very much outside of what they can do normally. But enough time and with enough carefully chosen questions that they can be successful with it. They broadly come around.
Craig Barton 15:33
Got it final two questions on this. And I’ll, I’ll shut them and let you finish off at any bit of the tip that we’ve not discussed. Just thinking about exams, do you? If we’re thinking practically about students using this in an exam for a question that they’re stuck on? Is it because it’s quite hard to avoid kind of the numbers, once they’re there like is, is there anything about just you know, covering them up with your fingers, or, you know, going over them in pencil and robot about what what seems to work to make this work.
Craig Latimir 15:58
So it’s a, I think it’s on a PowerPoint with them and an ad, you know, that sort of black clutter function or black box and hit it all and tell them they, you know, they can’t do that don’t don’t scribble on their exam. And it’s part of that scaffolding process, you know, experts, we do this, that we see the numbers, but we ignore the numbers. And it’s just how you scaffold it away. And it’s, maybe you remove two numbers, and then three numbers, or you keep one to two, then you eventually have all of them. And you get them doing this thought process automatically. They read over the number. And and I will do this when I made this part scaffolding as well, when all the numbers are revealed, when I read the question, so if we go back to the premium as a square based on your question, if the number is up there, and they can all see the number, I might read as each of the four sloping, it just has length, I don’t care yet. And just to, again, make it a bit explicit of what’s going on in my head. So you can see it still trying to read it in a way that that means you ignore it. Yeah, I was gonna say only this sort of idea is only about four or five, six months old or so. So I’ve not fully tested it in every in every dimension, but I’m looking forward to sort of carrying on with it.
Craig Barton 17:17
Got it right. Last question on this. And this is, I don’t really know what I’m going to say sorry, anything could happen here. One thing I’m thinking about a lot at the moment is is retrieval and what retrieval practice looks like. And I don’t know if you’re the same here. But whenever I do either a low stakes quiz or a do now or whatever my retrieval questions tend to be typically the 801 questions that you’ve described at the start. And that seems to make sense, because you there were the easier ones to write the easier ones to assess. You need kids to be able to do that to be able to do the more complicated things. But of course, the problem with that is what what happens is that, well, a couple of things, kids don’t really get chance to practice the more complex skills aside from when they first initially encounter them. And also the message it kind of gives out about retrieval is this is all you need to remember just you know, this kind of surface level of knowledge. So I just wondered if you wanted to reflect on that in your own practice, but then they kind of tie it back to this tip? Would you include this as part of retrieval practice? Where have you ever talked to one of these questions in as a do now? Or a low stakes quiz or a homework or whatever? Well, what’s your thoughts on that?
Craig Latimir 18:25
So sometimes what you’re saying earlier about how problem solving used to be in my in my head, you know, I’d go on and rich, or I’d look at the ukmt questions, and then put them in front of in front of students. But they’re so far removed from what is assessed in the curriculum that you can go on, you know, whether you were sort of an exam wizard or exam Pro, whatever the bank for your exam board is for, for resources, and you can filter by a Oh, two criteria, or a three criteria, you can pull that back out there. And you can see that things that make the problem solving unique at GCSE are really teachable skills. And it might just be someone’s combining two topics together. And that being part of retrieval is absolutely fine. You don’t have to, I spent the first few years of my career thinking problem solving was this massive, you know, open ended problems, and she’s really good at them. And when you pull apart, what makes a Oh, two criteria to it, it’s really, really teachable. So even getting students to talk about one more thing here, which is about how students write in maths. And that’s problems are less reasoning and problem solving when it comes to the curriculum. And there’s a very particular way that we write answers in maths I think we say get a factor then we say, so what the mean score for Class A is lower than that for Class B fish effect. This means that on average, class B did better. The segment is bisected. This means the two sides are equal. It’s just about on disseminating, this thinks is needed to back to the overall tip of explicit, teach the skills and expand your domain users, once you can take what their skill is, you can make it part of retrieval. You know, I couldn’t have an image problem as part of my view back in the day, because my idea of what problem solving meant was was different. But by disseminating it down into these discrete skills, ignoring the numbers and solving them for solving number for a problem and making a plan, or writing a sentence in this way that has this structure of fact, and so what are discrete things, which you can teach explicitly, and as soon as you can teach it explicitly, you can retrieve it.
Craig Barton 20:41
So would you just again, just to clarify that, so would you, would you and have you included this as part of a retrieval opportunity? Where would it fit into a do now? Or
Craig Latimir 20:51
I would I haven’t, the nature of my job at the moment is that not based in any one school, so I’ve gone in and delivered this sort of halls full of year 11, and not had the chance to do that constant retrieval afterwards. If I had my own irrelevance back again, 100%.
Craig Barton 21:10
Got it. Got it. And was there anything else on the on this this tip, though, because I kind of put up that kind of forced you to go on pause whilst I went to my ramp as it was.
Craig Latimir 21:18
And I just spoke with just about where it came from was, and this should apply to any teacher event of any subject was that I think is so common, when it’s when the when the papers first come out, you just grab them and try and complete them as quickly as possible, like slow down, you weren’t doing so much thinking implicitly in your head, because you are an expert. It’s really hard to disseminate what those skills are. So this is where this came from, came from me looking at Question thinking, what what have I done to solve this, which I’ve ignored the numbers, which sounds like such a simple thing that kids aren’t doing that now. So what’s going on there? So from our tips on how to do it for your subject, I suppose or, or to find more tips like this, or when you’re doing maths or doing your subject, go really slow, trying to be super aware of what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. If you’ve made any jumps in your thinking, pause and think well, where did that come from? And and how can I disseminate it? And how can I teach it. And then the other thing would be, I suppose, to upskill yourself, so you can keep sort of writing just just then that writing feedback from that act is do about five different subjects every day, without being asked to write in five different ways. And try and find out where you’ve got the skills that are similar or different to other subjects. And make that explicit with your students as well. will be my way of sort of summing up this, I suppose.
Craig Barton 22:42
I love it. Absolutely. Love it. There’s a danger. You’ve peaked too soon here, Craig with this, all right, what is tip number two, please?
Craig Latimir 22:51
Tip number two is leave a legacy. And so I’m going to talk about at a department level, please reply to anyone with responsibility, Key Stage or even homeschool at a colleague of the day, I think this is a widely known analogy, or one that she had she’d made up or something, but it’s about about aeroplanes, and sort of go and go on a flight. She was saying every time you went on a flight with a different pilot, made from the same airline, there were different routines in place and different qualities of landing and different food, different ways of checking in, you’d be really annoyed, and you’d be confused. And you’d be livid. And same same at the bank if every cashier was different. And if the if you were seeing a cashier whose first day it was as opposed to whose 10th year it was, you’d want the same service. And companies are really really good at doing that. You can’t really pick out who the who the first person on that on their first day, isn’t it and who’s the most experienced person because all the systems and structures that they’ve got in place. My argument here is that this should be happening in our schools as well. I think too often we sort of allow our eects or our trainees to excuse what they’re doing, but we don’t put enough systems and structures in place, higher level to allow them to shine. And so I think schools should adopt this aeroplane company policy in some senses, and I think I’m sort of broadly getting out is CO planning is how it’s been discussed. But I don’t want to talk about CO planning. I want to take that one step further. I think the CO planning goes far enough, just producing a set of resources as a department, you need an aligned pedagogy, you need agreed routines, you need consistent methodologies, you need immediate accountability, you need knowledge of where that flexibility arises. So you have a complete package and with almost a brand to feel horrible saying but as a leader of the department or office holder of a key stage, the more structures you put in place the the more freedom You allow Your teachers to have in focusing on what should matter, and you’ve taken care of the rest. And so you should, you should, you should leave a legacy. And it is tough as a teacher, because the first time you sort of become a leader is the first time you’re responsible for students that you’re not in front of. And, and no one really prepares you for that, suddenly, you’re in charge of students that whose names don’t even know. And it’s, it’s a big leap. But what can you do? That means they’re getting the best out of out of you and your experiences and you as a leader. And I think the way of thinking about this is, if you left your position, and came back in two years time, what evidence would there be that you had worked there? And what have you put in place, because I think as leaders of a school, one, you’re entitled to do that to leave a legacy. I’d argue maybe you’re duty bound to do that as well. You’re not a manager, when you go round, and you cater for the whims of all your staff, you need to be leading them. And by reducing the variability within your department, I think you can really focus on an increase the quality within the department, I I look back, I don’t know about you? Well, from the title of your book, I think I do know about you, but I look back at me teaching in my first few years, and I’m like in horror, I wish someone had given me clear structures and clear routines. And I spent my time thinking about, okay, how to how to implement them well, with a bit of extra space for some creativity and some original thought, but not worrying about what’s, what’s every single minute of my lesson gonna look like and what routines I use for this, but it wasn’t the routine or you know, whatever day of the week, it was that changed whatever I was doing it. It’s didn’t have enough headspace for me to do anything. I hate to see myself teach at the beginning of my career now. And so I think it’s about Yeah, as a leader, reduce the variability. But increase the quality focus on a few things. When you deliver CPD for your department, if you’ve said we do this here, you can pinpoint a few real high leverage ideas to focus on. And staff should be talking about the same things within your department, I think, worked in a few departments where an idea of what a great lesson was, that is so different in each of our heads, that we couldn’t really talk about it properly. We were just clashing on your kids or in silence for 10 minutes, you’re a monster, you know, your kids were throwing things out. Yeah, they were free, and they were exploring things. There was no consistency around it at all. But a good leader should should grab that. And think that I’ve not heard yet. A good reason against doing this. And I would love you to play devil’s advocate, the biggest things I’ve heard.
As an individual teacher, if I’m doing something better, I don’t want someone telling me what to do. And that’s fine. As a leader, it’s not your job to be the best at everything. But it’s to be the collator of what the best is. So someone who’s better, that should be shared. And that should be your practice. And if it isn’t better, they shouldn’t be doing it. Another thing I’ve heard is, if we’ve got all these things in place, it becomes too easy. And people won’t engage with it, they’ll walk up to the lesson. And they’ll just download whatever you’ve got in place, and they’ll just sit back and relax. But well, if they’re going to do that, if that’s their attitude, with no systems in place, they’ll be doing something anyway, they’ll be going into tears the night before, finding the person they can and implementing it. At least if you’ve got structures as a department, you know what to hold them to account for, you know, what you should be seeing. So you can say, as a department, we do this here. And you can really start having that conversation about not catching them out, but but pushing them in in the right direction, because you’ve got a real clear vision of what you are expecting. And then people talk about stifling creativity, I think when it comes to this as well. And I mentioned earlier, I disagree that the more things you put in place. The more structures you put in place, the more routines you put in place, the teaching is hard, you can think about a lot. The less you have to think about in your lesson, the more time you have to be creative and to be responsive and to have energy and to go home happy at night. And I yeah, I just don’t see why as a leader, we aren’t grabbing those things and saying this is my brand. And that’s it might annoy some people within within your department, but I don’t think it needs to be the case that every school is for every teacher. Not everyone’s gonna go work at Mikayla and be happy. That’s okay. If someone’s not fitting into your brand and your culture and you’ve done what you can for them, you know that there’ll be someone else and they’ll find someone where they’re happy and you’ll find someone that was happy with with you as well. And I’ll pause that
Craig Barton 29:59
this is great. So they’re really, really pleased you’re up, brought this one up. So I’ve talked about this many, many times in the past that when I first started teaching, I think looking back, I would have rejected somebody telling me, this is how you should structure your lesson and so on. But looking back, I definitely needed it. I 100% Definitely, because I was clueless, absolutely just make stuff up as I went along, and again, taught a load of terrible lessons. And, yeah, it took a long, long time for me to start to improve. So I agree with you. But let’s just dive into this a little bit more. So you mentioned kind of some set routines, but also kind of room for for flexibility. This is a terrible question. And one that’s very hard to answer. But what would be some of the almost kind of non negotiables? I know, that’s a very loaded phrase. But if you look, if you’re running a department, what are some of the things that you say, No, you know, what this we do this this way, versus some of the things where you can sit okay, this is where you have a bit of bit of choice to play with? Is it easy to sort those out?
Craig Latimir 31:01
I think, to a, to a degree where you can all agree probably schoolwide of what great looks like you can so lucky, you might imagine I’ve got a trustee for for science and one for English as well. And you would often think that the three of us would find it hard to agree on what great teaching is because three very different subjects there. But a zoomed out level we can all agree on. When the teacher is modelling as expert in the room that kids should be listening. There should be some whole class assessment for learning going on. Whether it’s mini whiteboards, whether it’s multiple choice questions, but whether it’s whatever. And we should all agree that when kids are working, most time it should probably be in silence because we want them to ingrain it and then think about it and then not to be distracted. I think there’s loads that you can agree on, which has the danger of sounding, oppressive and boring, and all these things. But we’re not here to cater to the whim of the teachers, we’re here to give the students the best deal possible. And the evidence is pretty clear on what that is. I’ve got it the way, the way that I would have most fun in the classroom isn’t what I know would be the best way for my students. Sometimes I wish I was back in in year one. And we had these enrich problems. And we were spending 60 minutes just having a great time I was I was loving it. But it’s quite hard to say now that it wasn’t the best for them. And if I had some structures in place around what modelling looks like, and what practice looks like, and a kid doing one thing once isn’t enough, and if one kid in the classroom gives the right answer, you can’t do that as proxy for the entire room. And I think there’s loads of things that you can agree on. And within one department, you will then find your own things that you choose to be non negotiables, you might have a certain way, just for ease that you want to set out your do now we’ll start to you might want to have a math lesson last week, last month last year, it’s not central in every school, but but it can be central for you. I think that’s that’s okay. What was the question?
Craig Barton 33:08
Now that you’ve answered it just interested about what you would consider to be kind of non negotiables? versus where so where would the flexibility come in? What areas of a lesson would you expect teachers to be doing different things?
Craig Latimir 33:19
I think great teaching is responsive teaching. And one that’s responding before the lesson starts because you know, you’ve got these kids, and it’s this time of day, and these are the last few lessons have gone. And you need to cater it. If you are using Copeland resources. It shouldn’t look the same in every single classroom, because they come in different journeys, and you’ve got different kids in front of you. And I want to see flex there. Within the lesson, where you’ve got your check to understanding it can it shouldn’t look the same. Everywhere teachers should be responding to whatever happens. So that’s where things would look different. And I think also once all those things are in place, you could have the same lesson with the same pedagogical routines and you can have three different teachers do it and the personalities would shine because all their headspace around what they should be thinking about or you know, not what they should be thinking about. But around the lesson and the key content is done and ready. And they can be themselves for a little bit. That’s a bit of creativity as well and a bit of freedom to express yourself and be who you are. And I think creativity in the name of the trust, I work for creative Education Trust, but it’s less about it’s less about in the moment, big things being wildly different. And I mean I’m saying that it’s it’s so what’s the question was where does Where’s the flex coming? Where’s the creativity come in. And I think also these these things can happen from outside of the classroom where you come up with an idea. And then you share it around and you get that structure embedded as well. In terms of within the classroom, I don’t think need to be creative in the moment. I mean, there’ll be times when a kid might throw up a misconception, and you might find a quick way to deal with it. But again, by having everything else in place gives you that headspace to think about how to deal with with that in the moment. So that’s quite creative. People might disagree, I don’t know.
Craig Barton 35:36
I’d say Well, let me ask you two related questions just on this tip here. So the first is G. One thing I see a lot when I visit schools is the classic kind of lethal mutation where, you know, either SLT decided or had a massive decided, every lesson starts with a do now or every lesson has, you know, silent modelling or whatever it may be. And you look at these lessons, and they are, they’re completely different, both in terms of how they look, and also their effectiveness. Because one person’s you know, you say I do now even if you specify, it’s got to be four questions from something kids have learned in the past, we everybody here knows there’s there’s effective ways of doing that, and less effective ways of doing that. Do you see this a lot. And this, this is danger with their kind of prescribe that you get these these lethal mutations, or, you know, people latch on to a label of something, but it’s not interpreted the way it’s intended.
Craig Latimir 36:27
100%. And you’re teaming up very nicely for tip number three our lives, which, which is all about how to deliver CPD, and to ensure that these things don’t happen. And so we
Craig Barton 36:40
will pause. I believe that’s kept listeners are like that. Well, let me ask you the final thing on this then. So we’ve we’re going down this kind of for want of a better phrase, this kind of prescribed route where we’ve got these these routines, I assume? Well, perhaps I shouldn’t I should be Who are they coming from? Is it the head? Does it typically be the head of department? Is it the head of department? The TLR holders more experienced teachers in the department? Is it a collaborative thing where it says, you know, like, let’s hold the side how our do nails or whatever look like? Where does it work best?
Craig Latimir 37:13
Yeah. So it’s a great question. And that’s where being a good leader will come into play around, talking and being human and creating these things. And there’s a mixed deck because said early, you don’t have to be the originator of all the best ideas, you should be open to some flexibility. But also, there are some things that you’ve made your mind up about, because you’ve got that job for a reason. And what you say should go with some things. I used to hate departmental meetings where you get that phoney sense of right, we need a new routine for this. And departments already decided what it’s going to be, and tries to guide everybody to say that and agree that. What about this? She’s on the next slide already? Things on posters? Oh, yeah, fine. Well, let’s, let’s go with that. And it will change moment by moment. And it will change thing by thing. And, and there’ll be times when you just need to say we are doing this, but always be open to someone else saying, I think I’ve got a better idea or something like here, which is fine. And you need to do that. But don’t waste people’s time. You’ve got a job for a reason. And, and then there’d be times where you didn’t you don’t know or the job is too big. You know, let’s say you want to agree consistent methods to how to solve things in math. You can you can delegate that to your team, you might have final say over it, but they can come up with ideas and give it to you on my team sent them or poorly made make sense. So that will just come down to a case by case basis. But But don’t be afraid if you have come up with your idea. Just to say it because people will be grateful for it. They need to be patronised.
Craig Barton 38:53
Fantastic. All right, Craig, you’ve teased already. What’s tip number three, please.
Craig Latimir 38:58
Tip number three. And I’m going to start with two to pass experiences of mine. And then I’ll say we’re there. So once was a as it seems this was a long time ago, it wasn’t my current trips I need to say was in some CPD around direct instruction. And on the board, so this is when it sort of first coming round or come around the biscuits was hadn’t heard of it was all the good things direct instruction involves and how you should deliver it in the classroom. And not a single principle was being used by the presenter. You should model things you check for understanding whether there was reading it. Second one even more obvious, second CPD while someone reads from a slide about how when teaching children you shouldn’t read from a side because the listening and the reading is a thing. It’s a part of the brain that says this tip is to please realise that the findings from cognitive science apply to all of us. We use them in classrooms, and we use them as great principles. Teaching we share success criteria, we use explicit modelling, we scaffold the process, we give a chance to practice, we receive feedback. It’s not because that’s how kids learn best, it’s because that’s how humans learn best. And, you know, the majority of research on cognitive science, I think I’m right in saying that it’s quite done with university graduates and people that are got more of an adult brain than than they do, we’re sort of a young adolescent brain. So if anything, you should apply even more to us than it should to the students. And if for some reason, it just doesn’t happen when people deliver CPD. A great classroom teacher. But their issue, I mean, just don’t be patronising. I don’t know what it is. But the idea, I think, of novice versus expert, I think blurs people’s views here, because teachers will be an expert in loads of things. But there might be an expert marker, an expert. So technology has been their expert using a mini whiteboard or cold calling, if your CPD is worth delivering to the people that are in front of you, they won’t already be experts. So all the things you would do for novices in your classroom, that I mentioned earlier, it, do them for the adults. And it just and then like say early, early around, there are lethal mutations. You know, this is what will happen if you don’t explicitly model things, if you don’t check for understanding. I’ve got I’ve got an example here of a framework I used for getting mini whiteboards use sort of intended across across the department. And it isn’t, tell the teachers to use a mini whiteboard, there’s like six different strands to it, all the all the pre pain you need to do or the training you need to do, how you’re going to deliver it, what scripts are you going to use? Are you going to model it? Are you going to show them some non examples of when it doesn’t work? The whole thing about mini whiteboards is you need to be responsive. So should have multiple times if they will get it right, do this. If they all get it wrong, do this if there’s two or three kids that get it right, or get it wrong in the rescue, right? Then what do you do and, and model it, model it explicitly that all the all the great advice that people have heard around what they should do for children do it for adults isn’t patronising and it Phil Phil’s, it’ll feel weird at first, especially if you want to get people to do sort of Doug Lemov techniques or things that are active, if you want to start to practice it be good at it, they have to model it, they have to do it in front of other adults. And it’ll feel weird the first time, but it won’t feel weird for long. The best, CPD is a bit active and it sounds like sounds like all the things that make teaching quite funny back in the day, get your kids up and start practising the routine. But you know, we do lots of practical things as teachers so practice it practically normalise that behaviour get people out coaching each other within the CPD. Correct that if they’re not doing it, right, tell them how to how to do it better. And and, again, the same way that you would use retrieval practice, come back to this CPD. Same way that you would mark their work and give them feedback, go around observe lessons. And then what are the biggest misconceptions that you’ve seen when it’s being delivered? address that map out time, it’s not just introduced the idea, but sort of, you know, the worst case if they haven’t got it wrong, or haven’t got it right. In three weeks time, we need one more CPD booked in and after that we might be able to disseminate to heads of department who can then make little tweaks plan for all these things. We know we don’t live in a sort of a one and done world of I’ve seen it once they can all do it now and we know that in the classroom. For some reason we don’t know it when we when we deliver training to adults. So please remember the cognitive science all these things make great teaching make great CPD as well. Yeah,
Craig Barton 43:44
right okay. I don’t think I’ve ever written so much like it was just getting beyond the joke less now for i Let’s go with it. So first thing to say is I’m thinking of reissuing my How I wish I taught maths but to be how I wish I delivered CPD because I’m starting to realise this myself that, you know, it just seemed to be completely different how CPD happens versus what we what we what we think about effective lessons. And I’d never I’d never realised that before about you. You’re absolutely right. The fact that a lot of the participants in the cog science studies a university students, it’s a really smart observation that so then if it’s going to probably apply more to adults than it is to some of our younger learners, it’s really like that. Second thing to say is, anytime I walk into a seat, I hate group work hard because I’ve thrown this out there many, many times. I’m a real group. And anytime I walk into a CPD session where I see the tables in groups, I just think, Oh, nice. So this, well, first, I think this is gonna be really awkward because I don’t particularly want to do this. And then secondly, I think I’m probably gonna be able to sit off a little bit here and just let other men more you know, other members of the group take the lead and so on. And I want to pick up that I find this really interesting the cycle of real life CPD myself that I’ve been through once you’ve been speaking, I’ve been thinking about this a lot over the last few months anyway, and because I’ve had a few few conversations with people like Adam Voxer About this, why my CPD doesn’t mirror more closely what I do in the classroom. And I think you’ve hit the nail on the head with this patronising thing. So I do a lot of CPD using diagnostic questions, some big into diagnostic questions, and so on. Now, the problem I always run into is what I want, I will say to, to delegates, I say, right, you’ve got two roles to play here, you’re gonna, I want you to play the role of your learners because I need you to experience what this is like as your kids. And then we need to take our Learn out and put our teacher hat on and think, right, what does this look like in our classroom, and that that feels to me, you know, like a sensible approach. The problem is, it’s quite hard to generate what it’s going to feel like to be learners because of this classic curse of knowledge that we have. So if I’m working with a group of maths teachers, and I put up, you know, diagnostic question on adding two fractions together, they all know the answer. So when I say, Okay, let’s vote, you have the either are all honest, and everyone votes for the right answer. And then it’s hard for me to model how to respond, or they have to like to try and help me out of it. Some of them, you know, put see up and then they have to pretend not to know, and it, you know, it feels inauthentic. And when I was talking to Kieran Mackel, who’s a primary colleague, he says that when he does primary CPD, he purposely uses like Key Stage Three content that is a little bit outside of you know, the regular experience of the primary colleagues. So they feel a bit more like students so that they can better appreciate it. But I think it’s a little bit harder for secondary colleagues because bit well, if I’m speaking to a mixed audiences, what am I doing whipping up a further maths question or something like that, you know, but so I’ll just pause there. Do you see a bit of that? Do you think that’s part of the reason why perhaps sometimes CPD isn’t quite as effective because we can’t make the participants feel like our kids are going to feel and that’s,
Craig Latimir 46:51
that’s definitely part of it in terms of them seeing the benefits of it. So I’ve delivered CPD, but I’ve had an apartment. I was only person that was teaching decision. Maths. Yeah. So when I did modelling, I got something from from there. It’s good. Actress, got a big CPD conference. Recently, Kara maca was didn’t expect to have teachers, which was which was great. We had Daisy Christodoulou talking about assessment. She had multiple choice question What’s capital of Moldova? No clue. And it was those things that you can buy doesn’t need to be maths related. It doesn’t need to be further maths. If you want to prove how diverse the questions work to something from from whatever domain you want. They want to, you’d want them to see how you react, how you do so with that knowledge, it doesn’t matter that the important bit like only the numbers aren’t the important bit matters, the important bit. It’s what you do with that information that matters. So yeah, yeah, I think there’s an issue. And it’s really hard for teachers to learn what it’s like be being a student really, really hard. Yeah, I would say go out of school domain where possible general knowledge, things like that, where you will only meet some people, but that’s not what you want. Sometimes I think,
Craig Barton 48:05
yep, smile makes a lot of sense. And just few more points on this. This the I don’t know what point I’m upset. Now, who knows. But one thing I’ve been dabbling a lot with is this kind of CPD via stealth. So this is the idea that I mean, mini whiteboards, everybody’s China mini whiteboards at the moment. But if you want to do CPD on mini whiteboards, sometimes it’s good idea to do the CPD almost on something else, but use the mini whiteboards to facilitate it. So if you want, you know, if you’re doing modelling or something like that, you everyone’s got a mini whiteboard, and then you can you can say to people something like, Okay, write down the three most difficult things you find when you’re modelling yourself. Okay, hold that up. So I can see Oh, amazing, Jane, tell me a bit more about that swap with your partner, and so on. And then almost at the end of this session, it’s almost like a big reveal and say, Oh, look, we’ve been using mini whiteboards what worked well with that, what do you see? Do you see any value in that at all? Is that a bit sneaky?
Craig Latimir 49:00
100%. I was as long as you don’t bid at the end, right? As long as you make it explicit. That’s the important bit I’ve seen people model. Try and do that by separate but to stealthy. Some point, you’ve got to tell them what you’ve been doing and and why it’s been beneficial for you and how you use it in your practice, for sure. Yeah, I think it depends on your audience. And where they’re at depends on how good they are at using that thing do they need all the time focusing just on mini whiteboards, or if it’s, you know, if you’ve delivered that CPD once and you’re revisiting them in six months time, that might be where you do that refresher of that. It’s retrieval practice. It doesn’t need to take the forefront because it’s retrieval. They know the basics, but if you want them to, you know, because they weren’t focusing on the routines you were doing at the time, if you then say at the end, but that was your main focus. You’re pretty well planned as as much but but if it’s retrievable, if it’s part something else that then I think 100%
Craig Barton 49:58
interest in interesting right? Final two points on this, I could talk to you all day about this. One is just an observation for me. So I’m obsessed with them atomic habits by James clear, I don’t know if you’ve ever read it sold like 20 million copies or something like that. So I’m not exactly new to the to the party with this. But he cites a really interesting study that I’ve used a lot with CPD, and that is this. It’s called an implementation statement or an implementation action or something like that. And it’s the idea that, let’s say you’ve well in the study was about like diets and exercise and stuff. If you say, you know, you get all this motivational material and you think, right, okay, I’m definitely gonna go to the gym, I’m going to go next week, it never happens. Whereas if you say, I’m gonna go Wednesday, 10 o’clock, like the jump up in participator, it’s something like, you know, 40% increase or something like that. I wonder whether this is true in in CPD that you know, you leave CPD with all these good intentions and life gets in a way. Whereas if you state the exact time you are going to do something for the first time, it’s more likely to happen. What’s your thoughts on that?
Craig Latimir 51:01
100%. So, a few things you can do within your CPD is give people one if they will stick with me, because I love New whiteboards. And one if they practice it within your lesson, within your CPD, it’s less of a strain on them to then do it in the classroom because they’ve practised it wasn’t the end of that CPD. Yeah, get him to go to laptops or whatever. Right? We’ve got 10 minutes left over now, look at lesson that’s coming up. Find the class you’re worrying about the least other stuff with Yeah, that’s good. And a lesson that will work best for it. And now produce a set of questions and or start to produce it, hopefully, you know, they can finish it, but if they need to get started, remove that time. And then you say, you know, tell your colleagues send an email to your heart, they’re going to commit, if they can capture that time doing it. Great. If not, you know, alas, and probably missed over 100% Get them to commit to give them some time to start to work on it within that CPD that you say otherwise, they’re gonna walk out the door and then are teaching this tomorrow and doing that and photocopying and life will get in the way. So yes, get them to commit it and get them to tell someone else if that person ends up coming to the classroom or not. I bet it like say it’s going to increase the success rate of them then delivering it and 100% to do that. Yes,
Craig Barton 52:26
I’m sorry. One final thing on this, Craig. And I love I think this is where a lot of CPD falls down is it doesn’t have the the follow up, it tends to be one off things. Now I experienced this myself, when I’m called in as like an ex external speaker or whatever. It’s always a bit frustrating for me, because I can leave the session thinking, okay, that seemed to go, well, people seem to enjoy and so on. But I’ve no idea what happens unless I can come back again, three months later, or whatever, I’ve no idea. But when you deliver CPD within your own school, or a group of schools you’ve got a relationship with, it’s much easier to do the follow up. But what I’ve never thought to do, and it’s such a simple idea that what you’ve said there is this idea of, you know, observing where possible, colleagues doing it, but then spotting misconceptions, just as you would do, you know, within a lesson. And then the follow up session almost starts as if you’ve marked a load of homework with Okay, here’s some examples of really good things I’ve seen. Here’s some examples of something that’s almost good. But if I describe it to you, can you see what could have made it a bit better? All that stuff that we saw normal and natural to do in Lesson doesn’t happen enough? Does it with CPD either for five kind of practical reasons, or just because people don’t realise it’s a smart thing to do?
Craig Latimir 53:38
Yeah, the danger of you might have, you know, people to try and buy somebody in to do a thing. Which is fine. You know, if you want them to work on any basketballs, you can, but we’re going to make sure that that once you’re gone, we if you’re not coming back in, we build something to chase up on it again. Dangerous that? Yeah, again, that sort of one and done. Craig Barton came in, why can’t you all use mini whiteboards, and I think it was diagnosed diagnostic questions properly now. So well, because people learned at once Same, same as I say, to this exact same, oh, I taught these kids by Sagaris a month ago. Now they can’t do it. Of course, they can’t do it anymore. It’s in their use need to retrieve it and you need to tweak it and you need to do all these, all these things that make great teaching. Just yeah, applied to CPD. Whether it’s the original speaker you get that came in and whether it’s someone in house then then grabs that board and sort of keeps it rolling. Yeah, maybe it’s maybe something worth doing. You know, you speak to them. Great question for them. Like how are you going to follow this up? And obviously, it’s not on you at all to to it’s on them, but just might encourage it lasting a bit longer.
Craig Barton 54:51
Brilliant. All right, Craig, what is tip number four, please.
Craig Latimir 54:56
Well, number four, number four is this is a bit of a shorter end We’re learning doesn’t start in year seven. So, hopefully people’s minds are blown. And so if you, if you think about all the misconceptions that you could name that a student may have acquired by the end of year seven, since sort of walking in September, the second or whatever it is, there’s going to be loads. But then you pause and realise, well, they’re in year seven, or seven, that means there’s been at least six years before that, where they recruit as many misconceptions as many mistakes, they’ve forgotten as much stuff as they could in that one year times by six. And the danger then, is that we didn’t realise that, and year to year 11. And you meet hardworking students that have good attendance, but still don’t have the timetables, they still count on their fingers, like I’m doing now. But still, when adding lists of numbers, don’t jump to the number ones first, that make their life easier. And let me know what fraction represents and I suggest that they’ve been taught to hide, it’s so easy to grab, when you teach your seven, your long term plan on schema work, or whatever it is, and go right. This is where our course starts. This is where learning starts with the students and not seeing them before, sort of out of sight out of mind. This must be where we begin. But there’s just so much that they they could have missed learned forgotten before you that you have to go beyond or backwards from the year seven and start looking at primary. I’m going to highlight this point with an example. I first heard Vicky Priddle talk about I spoke about with with our head teachers a few months ago and and the current macro spoke to our adults about that which is counting. Like if you ask pregnancy anyone but certainly technical maths teachers, what’s it take to count where you get one, then two, then three, then four, then five. And, and that’s how you count. But there’s five components to counting this like, blew my mind. So so there being a stable order for that has been 1234, you can’t go 145 That’s one thing fine. one to one correspondence, but you can count objects. So one, object two objects three, the object isn’t the number three, but it can be the sort of it can be the third one. And now the next thing I think about gets a bit more interesting. So cardinality, the idea that by the time you’ve counted the third object, not only your position three, there are three objects in total. Now, so three is, is one place and an underlying but it has a size to it. And to me that that links to jumping from counting your fingers to jumping in one in one go. If you think of three as 123 or 17, as 1234 517, you’re always gonna count on your fingers, either forwards or backwards. If you haven’t understood cardinality, you’re not gonna know you can make those those jumps. So when we see these gaps in year 11, still, I think it’s because we haven’t addressed the gaps from from primary. The next order irrelevance, if I give you seven objects and say, Craig, how many objects? Can you see here? Well, you’ll count seven objects. And if I were to rearrange them, and say, How many are there now, you would hopefully say seven. Some people would have to count them again. Well, that leads to commutativity. If they haven’t got that concept, and we never teach this explicitly, cardinality, order relevance. The fifth one is abstraction, that so anything can be counted. And also one thing can be multiple numbers at the same time. So if I have a group of five objects, well, it can be one group, or it can be five things at the same time. If I think about a fraction, fraction, three sevens is that three of something, or is it less than one of something, what it’s both at the same time, and that idea of obstruction again, so this is just counting, there’s going to be a whole wealth of these things at Key Stage One and Key Stage two, that lead up to things that key stage three and key stage four, and if we aren’t teaching, at the periphery of what students already know, not going to learn anything. This is when you get students in Year 11, that can’t do the timetables or add efficiently, because they spent the whole time learning from year seven upwards. And really, you’d be better off going a few years back. So I think ways to address this are get your key stage two experts to come in and speak to secondary leaders get the Vicki pillows and chemicals of the world or just your feeder school, they’ll know loads more, attend the sessions, but read the books with the things like maths comp will say sort of the key stage it’s aimed at, which I think is wrong. It is the key stage that the maths is not the key to that, if it was aimed at you know, I would learn as much my key stage two session as it would have been the other session because I’m teaching after that key stage. So the matters Key Stage two, it’s relevant to me because my kids would have gone through that journey already.
We’ve got a school next year. Really excited about this that’s hiring you Key Stage Two specialist for the secondary school to do this intervention. And, you know, see if that’s a possibility or see if you can do some job sharing or some swaps or something like that. And the other thing was the amount of time and effort that goes into year 11. intervention. The issue here is that students have been taught at the wrong point for four years. Ya got the crazy, very good quick, let’s blitz them for a year and see what happens. Well, if you flip that, and did the intervention that year seven, then you’re going to spend the next four years eight 910, building on actual solid ground because you fixed all those issues and beforehand, so you shouldn’t need to rethink your elephant. So yeah. It’s, it’s a fully in my teaching still, that I don’t know enough to go into a primary school and talk about their mats, secondary, no problem. But what you know, the metal stuff I don’t know, scares me sometimes, because some kind of accounting for half an hour, like I’m gonna draw on the floor, it just doesn’t shouldn’t quite be be right. Convinced, the more we know about it secondary, the better our students outcomes will be. So yes, learning does not start at year seven.
Craig Barton 1:01:12
This is a another another biggie here, hey, you know, when when you sent these tips to, I thought this tip was going to be the exact opposite of what you’ve described, which, which I find fascinating here. So Joe Morgan did a piece of like a video on YouTube that’s completely feel available, I’ll link to it, which was shift aimed at secondary teachers, showing them all the things that kids know, in year six, well, so all the things kids have experienced in year six, and it’s frightening, right? Like, you see some of the depth of math, and you’re like, Whoa, okay, you know, that’s essentially our year, seven schema workers, you know, 80% of it has been covered, it’s year six. So what I thought you were gonna say, and others have found this fascinating, was be aware what kids have done it year six, so make sure the work at year seven is more challenging. So you know, have a look at year seven scheme of work. Don’t bother spending ages on place value, because they’ve done it for the last three or four years, let’s crack on with a bit of algebra and so on and so forth. But my interpretation is, it’s it’s almost kind of the opposite. It’s make sure that that understanding really kind of, is secure. And I guess my kind of follow up to that is, is how is it is like a doesn’t mean, our kind of checks for understanding needs to be better? And if so, what do they need to look like? Is it a case of not assuming just because they’ve covered things for three or four years that they know it? And my theory with that is that yes, some scheme of work exists, essentially becomes the year six scheme of work. And then we know kids get a bit kind of bored and switched off, because they’re doing the same maths that they’ve done in primary. I don’t know if that makes sense.
Craig Latimir 1:02:47
Yeah. Now 100%. And this won’t apply to all the students. But you know, that’d be different Joe, that says, all the wonderful things that they have done, great, just means there’s gonna be some kids, that I’ve got so many misconceptions about so many things. And within the classroom, things don’t need to change, I’m probably talking about the bottom, attainment wise five to 10% of your students, the fact that you can go through five years of secondary school. There are some things outside of your control, illness and attendance and things like that, find that but when you’ve got a student that’s got good attendance and a good attitude, and is in your sort of low set year 11, and can’t do basic maths, something’s gone wrong. And I would just shift intervention should whatever time and effort and energy goes into year 11, put it into year seven, and fix it, then it doesn’t need to rearrange your whole schemes of work, because largely students will be successful. This isn’t about every year seventh student. Just about being aware, and we’re so aware of misconceptions at secondary, we know what kids have learned, moving to haven’t mastered it, and we look out for them. And we make sure we go back just the right level before teaching. Expanding double brackets, we know all the little things to look out for are multiplying the negatives and the coefficients and only going to square the powers and all that. But we don’t know when it comes to adding or multiplying and things like that. So we just need to upskill ourselves a little bit by going back further. And invest that time in in those students not not everyone don’t rewrite the entire seven schema work. But put something in place to work on those students. Otherwise they’ll spend five years not doing anything. They’re trying their hardest, and it’s not pitched the right level. And you know, the same way that yes, they might have learnt it. Trigonometry is on the case history curriculum now, doesn’t mean I’m gonna start teaching your town I’m going to assume they all know how to how to do it. Yeah. So just invest time in yourselves in your department in learning about what happens at Key Stage Two Sessions put in place for any subject as well. And then spend time in your setting identifying those students, and you’re going to put out a master class for for year 11 students took the seven instead. give them four years of better learning, rather than waiting till the very end. Yeah. Oh, they still can’t do it. Yeah, well, no wonder
Craig Barton 1:05:08
why to get asked you to awkward question though, right. So so we know that there’s a bit of a recruitment crisis in maths. We know that the Vatican, I mean, the majority of departments probably, you’d be lucky if you’ve got math specialist teaching all the classes, maybe you’ve got teachers from other subjects doing a little bit of teaching math teaching here and there, maybe you’ve got a lot of part time teacher with split classes, and so on and so forth. what invariably happens is that your strongest teachers get tend to put put on you 11 classes, because there’s, again, there’s this push for push for exam success, and so on and so forth. And that seems to trickle down that the year seven almost becomes a bit of a kind of hodgepodge where you’ve got, you know, split classes left, right and centre, the PE teacher, the geography teachers teaching a bit of this and so on. But it’s very hard to break that cycle. Because if you invert it for one year, maybe GCSE results come go down, and then there’s all kinds of pressure and so on. So working within the constraints that we know we have, how would you allocate staff? Would it be strong in year 11, strong on year seven, and then kind of year nine, just kind of that’s where the trouble comes from? Being realistic, what how do we do? How do we solve this.
Craig Latimir 1:06:25
So linking back to tip number two, around building a legacy and having structures in place, so long as you’ve got a solid person looking after each year group during it five, in that sense, then whatever routines in Scotland to underpin structures and things are in place, and then embedded, and if you’ve got a PE teacher, because you have your legacy because of your brand. And because of all the those things, you’re mitigating as much as possible for all these things. But you’re touched on another really important point, which is, like, ethically, what’s the right thing to do? Let’s say you had the Queenstown numbered, right? 99 to one, let’s say you had 1000 grades to get out to 100 tilde pupils and make the numbers off of myself. But would it be ethical to give everyone to attempt to work in a way that gives everyone a sixth? Where you ignore the people that are doing better than that? And you put all your time and energy into those little ones, and twos and threes? And fours? But are you aiming for a normal distribution? Or are you saying that if you want an eight, I don’t really care about anymore? Because eight nine, you’re the same life chances broadly, and I only get my three or four? Are you saying that if you don’t get these kids nines, they can’t get into Oxford, and they can’t become the next Einstein, they can’t do this. Because we’ve got limited resources, you have to decide. It’s tricky as schools, state schools, parents don’t choose, they choose the ethos that they heard they send their students to, you have to do that for them. And I’ve worked in schools with a priority is four plus four plus seven plus that sort of thing. And then any sort of five, you just sort of ignore them, because some pluses, your 11th grade, and four plus is your sort of large life chances grade, you have to decide where you want to divert your energy and your best teachers and your resources. And it’s, I don’t know what the perfect answer is to that. But the current system we have in place. You know, when you have intervention sort of ended up for class and named that top set, probably most most of the time. I think it’s that right? You got kids that aren’t a great one. So they’re, well don’t worry about them suddenly get a four anyway. Well, it should, should be to get them to, I don’t know. You have to decide ethically, philosophically for yourself, either as a head teacher, or as head of department, where and how you’re trying to keep these resources. And if you have a bump in GCSE results one year, but you know that in two years time, everyone’s going to it was going to increase. Do you do it? Because, you know, that’s one of the toughest decisions I think you need to make is where do you put your resources? And yeah, I think it’s a very long way of me not answering your question.
Craig Barton 1:09:05
So check your high grade, fifth and final tip, please.
Craig Latimir 1:09:10
Fifth and final tip seven, save as the secret to a happy life.
Craig Barton 1:09:14
I saw I saw this I thought, right, I’m gonna pay attention here. This is this is gonna be a big game changer.
Craig Latimir 1:09:20
Yeah. So this, this isn’t gonna be pedagogical. And this isn’t aimed at anyone with sort of serious mental health problems and intention not to demean or undermine anyone going through that but it’s so the rest of us it’s been fluctuating between feeling invincible and on top of the world and then being a bit grumpy. Sometimes, and teaching can be so rewarding. It can be lonely and it can be stressful and it can be can be really pressured as well. I was at a conference one of the sort of summer conferences a few years ago and every speaker was pretty dull, and they had one person booked for a double over lunch was our great two hours of darkness instead I think was the most incredible two hours of my life. And it was a man called Andy cope, Dr. Andy cope, who is the UK self professed doctor of happiness. And he wrote his thesis on, is it possible to be happier without anything within your life changing. And he was great. And he gave five tips, I won’t give them all because we’re running out of time, and I don’t want to take his job off him. But a few tips he gave that just resonated. Number one was when you get home, or when you wake up in the morning, be the best you for five minutes. So you’ve probably had a horrible day. Sometimes you’ve had a horrible day. And the temptation is, as soon as you get in, this is your place where you’ve got your partner with children or your character and you unwind and you let loose. Don’t like take a pause before you knock on the door with the key in the door and just think, right for five minutes, I’m gonna be positive, I’m going to ask what the people are doing, I’m going to I’m going to bask in their happiness from from their day and what they’ve achieved. And it’s important to have people to offload to and not when you walk in, you don’t want this sort of Pavlovian reaction of the doors going right and other moans about to happen. And so sometimes about other people’s happiness as well, but but if you do that for five minutes, you make a concerted effort to be happy. It might also just change your mood a little bit when you when you go on in the in the rest of the rest of the day. So that was one tip. And another one was stop wishing your life away. I think teachers are awful for this. And if you’re in your 30s, you’ve got about 2500 weeks or so to get. So imagine starting a half term on a Monday and going six weeks ago. You’re wishing for a shorter life. Like don’t don’t say six weeks to go like find the joy in a Monday morning in a Wednesday in a five day period five, stop saying I wish it was Friday already or two days ago or it’s hump day today. Like it teaches other words the suitor halftime starts over this is a short one, where we’re talking about like, this is your life. It’s finite. Enjoy it, find the little things and with that He then spoke about hookah. And I don’t know if you’ve come across hookah. So who is this Danish idea of comfort and cosiness? And they sort of embed it in their furniture and their ways of life? And it’s one of the reasons that you know, the Danes and the Norwegians as was come off as the happiest people on the planet. And you speak about seasonal hookah. So in the summer, what was your who could be what would bring you comfort and cosiness? It’d be like reading a book under a shady tree isn’t your personal history to each person in the ultimate might be having a tomato soup and a polystyrene cup was watching some fireworks for me in the winter. This is an awful one. But in London, it would be on a cold evening wrapping up warm, getting a box of popcorn chicken from KFC and walking along the canal at night. And it was just it’s just a little time to give me a bit of headspace and enjoy myself was not thinking about what school who would be. I started writing a list last night of the little things you can just appreciate in the day that have to happen anyway. But where can you find the joy in it sort of seek out the moments and just appreciate them. So like a pristine, newly cleaned a whiteboard and write on that for the first time. As beautiful a tidy classroom in the day. Oh God, meeting a class for the first time. What a joy writing with a chisel tip pen for me to tip all the way. That’s how satisfying doing a mini whiteboard routine. And if one gets it right, like savour these moments they’re gonna happen anyway. But don’t don’t rush past and seeing that kid that’s annoyed you all here is quite personal one smash outperformance on the piano in front of the whole school in the term. And that was just beautiful. Finishing a new seating plan. That’s a big one. And and marking the last question of the last paper in the pile. There’s no better feeling than the mat. And these are things that are going to happen anyway. But just just pause and appreciate them a little bit find the joy in a five day period five find the joy in a Wednesday and your Monday morning and yeah read hookah by Mike Viking it’s a great little book.
Craig Barton 1:14:14
Wow what a fantastic tip that is to end on grey just just just just a just a very brief reflection for me on this. Absolutely fantastic I spoke to Jamie Tom on the podcast a number of episodes ago and he’s very much into slow teaching and mindset and so on. One of his tips was turn down the negativity radio and he says that teaching is really bad for this that it’s we’re full of the negative thoughts you teach for good lessons you have one ropey one what’s the only one you reflect on? It’s the bad lesson and so on. And he talks about things he does with like his little boy I think he’s little boys three or four. And at the end of each day they say what their favourite part of the day was and so on. These things are so important on in any job but particularly particularly teaching where you’ve got to be performing all the time and so on. It’s yeah, so that was just one reflection. But but the second one, the the not wishing your life away, I think is a huge one. That’s I think that’s huge. It was one of the reasons I took a break from full time classroom teaching because I was doing this like I would everybody on their timetable has one or two lessons that they do not look forward to either, particularly year two in class, I would have them Thursday, period six every week, last lesson of the day. And I would dread it, and I would dread it from I’d be happy at the end of Thursday, period six, but even Friday, mid afternoon, I’d start thinking in four days time, I’m going to be to anyone hanging over me all weekend. And it was it was hard. And you always have something like this, there’s always something in the week that you dread. And if you’re anything like me, it doesn’t matter if you’ve got something to look forward to, it’s the dread that kind of overshadows this. And also related to that is because the teaching is divided up into six half terms, you’re never that far away from a holiday. So you’re always like, it’s always a countdown five more sleeps, and all this all this kind of stuff. And the years just take away, they just take away, take away take away and you know, before you know it, you’re you’re old, you’re cynical, and you know, and all these moments have kind of gone. So this is a big thing that I am reflecting on. And I’m really pleased you you’ve mentioned this and there’s some lovely ideas. I’m terrible. This is the last thing I say I promise I shouldn’t be. But I’m terrible for that. As soon as I walk through the door, the moaning comes out comes out comes out. But I’m going to do that now. Be my best me for five minutes. I think that I’m fat. I’m going to try this because what I could do is listeners won’t know this guy for cutting it out. But Alexa just went through my wife interrupting a podcast. That’s a cardinal sin in this house. So I could go down and be dead grumpy. But what I’m going to do, I’m going to be my best me for five minutes and see where that gets us. Craig, that’s absolutely brilliant. Right? Let me hand over to you then what? Well, because I was going to talk about this tonnes, what listeners should check out but as I say you, Are you new to Twitter permanently? Or was this just kind of new guys that you popped up? And then well, well, where can listeners kind of get more of your stuff because it’s brilliant.
Craig Latimir 1:17:01
Yeah, sort of links to tip number five, as well as post like, I I’ve been on Twitter, under my name for years, originally just personal and try to turn it into professional about three or four years ago and putting some things out there. But I came so aware that anytime I send something out, if within five minutes hadn’t got 100 likes, yeah, I became really self conscious. And I was just I was checking it over and over again. And I’ve got people think I’m stupid and I colleagues, my peers gonna see this, I need to delete it and delete half the things and it was destroying if I tried to keep them nice, I was trying to be helpful. But if I tried to do it, then left the house would be on my mind. And this isn’t healthy. So that there isn’t an account under my name, but I don’t really use it as much anymore. So maybe this new account thinking, right? If I’m anonymous, maybe I won’t worry, I still you know, I feel like I’ve been in this game long enough to give some things back. And I’d like to do that. So I’ve learned so much from other people through the same medium. So that wallet, let’s make an anonymous one. So check out teaching solutions on Twitter. But it just it just really helped. This might quite ruin my anonymity a little bit. But it was like being, you know, trolls sort of harass you anonymously, I told you like become like an anti troll, like anonymously help people. And it just made me just feel so much better. So this is a category of about two months or so. And been overwhelmed. I think that the freedom it gave me to express things, you know, it’s bypassed the engagement, the other account had by biomar. So it’s it was just quite interesting. And yeah, so check that out. But also don’t be a beer anonymous troll sometimes if you want to help people out. So that’s where you can hear more more from me on that on that Twitter account. And yeah, and then do you want other things? Yeah, gone? Yeah, of course in terms of I just so you’ve been doing this for a long time and there’s loads of things I don’t want to repeat anything that people have already said. So one is just about go out there and listen to people and read people that are diametrically opposed to what to what you believe like I’ve had the the fortune of I wrote a master’s based around Joe bowlers work. I’ve trained under Alan Watson. I’ve worked at the school that Bruno Reddy and Chris Bolton were out and had both their jobs and visited. Makayla visited Helen handles school where they’re doing inquiry learning, all those things, people that, you know, that’s so different in their backyards, but I learned something from every one of those of those things. So just try and broaden what you’re listening to and what you’re reading. And then to to actual things. When one book, which I’ve not heard mentioned, it’s called inclusive mathematics. It’s by Alan Watson and Mike politan. And it’s quite old now, but as if anyone reads that and doesn’t get something from it. I mean, well, well done. And then there’s a CPD event called the Institute of Political pedagogy champions once a year. And it’s happening in a few days time starts on my birthday. I can’t wait. And it’s sort of three or four days in a convent in rural Oxfordshire, and it’s most incredible CPD for anyone that’s that’s sort of done the math comps a few times and starts to hear the same things. Go to this because it will blow your mind. It’s quite limited and spaces. And I know I’m putting on to explain for next year, but But yeah, it’s incredible. I think that’s, I think that’s me, Tim.
Craig Barton 1:20:36
Wow, brilliant. Well, this has been an absolute pleasure. I know I say this a lot. But I’ve learned so much. Yeah, I mean, again, I’ve Yeah, I make a lot of notes, but I put stars next to things that I really need to focus on and it’s like some kind of big constellation on my on my pages. So this has been an absolutely brilliant So Craig, thank you so much for taking the time to speak to us. Cheers.