You can download an mp3 of the podcast here.
Kieran Mackle’s tips:
- Leave space between reading and implementation (04:04)
- Treat the act of teacher development like teaching (10:09)
- Be explicit when modelling for colleagues (19:36)
- Some behaviours are more important than others (28:33)
- Nobody really knows what they are doing (40:37)
Links and resources
- On Twitter, Kieran is: @Kieran_M_Ed
- Kieran’s podcast is: Thinking deeply about primary education
- Kieran’s book is: Thinking deeply about primary mathematics
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View the videos of Kieran Mackle’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 pleasure of speaking to primary maths specialist Kieran Makayla, and you are in for five quick announcements before we start. Yep. Number one sponsor slots for the podcast are now open. If you want to let the world’s most interesting listeners know about your book, product or event, just drop an email. Number two just a reminder, you can view videos of all of Karen’s tips on the tips for teachers website is a great TO SHARE IT department meetings or training sessions. Number three, you can sign up to the all new tips for teachers newsletter, to receive a tip in your inbox every Monday morning to trout in lessons that week, plus a video to share with colleagues podcast to listen to on your way home. So do sign up for that. And number four, this is a big announcement I’ve released the first 10 Premium tips for teachers online courses. This first one is on habits and routines, loads of practical suggestions that I’ve taken from my guests. Reading research on my own experiences working with students and teachers all over the world. There is a link to the cost of the show notes and many more. Last, but certainly not least, if you find this podcast useful, please take a moment to review it on your podcast player of choice. Thank you so much. Okay, back to the show. Let’s get learning with today’s guest with a wonderful year in market spoiler alert. Here are Karen’s tips. Tip one, leave space between reading and implementation. Tip two, treat the act of teacher development like teaching. Tip three, be explicit when modelling colleagues. Tip Four some behaviours are more important than others. And Tip Five. Nobody really knows what they’re doing. Least of all me. If you look at the episode description on your podcast player or visit the episode page on tips for teachers dot code at UK you’ll see a timestamp teacher these tips so you can jump straight to anyone you want to listen to first already listen. And this is very exciting. I nearly forgot this. I’ve splashed the cash here, thanks to my wonderful Patreon supporters. And I’ve now got much better podcast transcripts where it’s more of like a script. And you can go to the different time and search words and all that kind of thing. So check that out for this episode. And I’ll be updating all previous ones with it as well. All right. Enjoy the show.
Well, it gives me great pleasure to welcome Kieran McCall to the tips for teachers podcast. Hello, Kieran. How are you?
Kieran Mackle 2:45
Hi, Greg. I’m Oh, good. Thank you very much.
Craig Barton 2:47
Well, thank you very much for joining us. And for the benefit of lessons. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself ideally in a sentence.
Kieran Mackle 2:53
So I’ve written the sentence down to make sure it was a sentence, but it’s pushing the boundaries. So I’m a teacher, primary mathematics specialist who for five years has led a collaboration of three schools as part of a project funded by the Worshipful Company of Goldsmith’s designed to raise aspirations and outcomes in an area of high socio economic deprivation. The author of two books on primary mathematics and a host of the thinking deeply about primary education podcast, hopefully, I wasn’t too long.
Craig Barton 3:18
That’s good. Plenty of comments in that sentence. That’s that’s very good. Right? I’d say why Kiran, let’s dive straight in. What’s tip number one you’ve got for us.
Kieran Mackle 3:27
So tip number one is to leave space between reading and implementation.
Craig Barton 3:34
Whoa, tell us about this.
Kieran Mackle 3:36
So I think it can be really exciting. You know, particularly when we’re as interested in education, education resources, we might be in, you know, our peers are to read something and jump straight in. But I think that’s possibly the easiest way to get towards lethal mutations, you know, so, if I can give an example, the first time I read about retrieval practice was in 2014. So I read David dadoes, what have you, everything you knew about school was wrong. And it was 2017. Before he actually put anything in place that utilised it actually had to read David’s book twice because it challenged quite a lot of my assumptions about education. And but I went to the source materials who went to the Bureau works, and some of their colleagues notices they sort of co authored work with different people and and then they sort of poked holes, and then thought, well, how can we make this management in the classroom? And so I thought this would be, you know, I’ve read efficiently enough that I can utilise this with with colleagues. And, you know, one of the things I’m thinking about at the moment is the question of when does coaching become another fad? And I think it’s when we don’t spend time looking at the different models because coaching I think is reasonably complex, and to read about coaching, and then decide everyone in school is going to be a coach. I think that’s, that’s not necessarily the most effective way to get the most from them. So I think, you know, look at what the experts say there are different models of instructional coaching and structure coaches, perhaps just one model of coaching itself. And then, you know, and then make a plan for maybe six months to a year’s time and see where we go from there.
Craig Barton 5:12
This is great. Let’s dive into this. So So first, just just on the coaching thing, everybody’s chatting, coaching, or like hearing these days, I need to get into this coach, and I need to get up on that on the Twitter bio, I’m missing out here. It’s all over the show into what was called where’s that come from Dragon?
Kieran Mackle 5:28
I mean, I think research aid has been very, very effective in disseminating sort of messages about things that might have, you know, our best bets. You know, I was thinking about him listening to Nick rose on your podcast many, many years ago, and he was telling me what our best bets are, we don’t know things will be effective, but we do know that some things are likely to be more effective than others. And I think when you’ve got people like Josh Goodrich, like John Hutchinson talking about the impact that coaching might have, and how they’ve utilised it in their context, I think, you know, combine that with Tom Sharon Denali, Oliver Gillies, walkthroughs, and you’ve almost got a critical mass of people who, you know, you should listen to when they’re speak, you know, it’s and this is, this might be something worth doing.
Craig Barton 6:11
Yeah, that makes sense. And the other thing I was gonna say, so I’m really pleased when you send these tips, I love all of them. But this one in particular, because I’ve done this keyword as well, right? You read one thing, you think this is the thing, and I’m going to dive in. And the problem was that I never read anything for 12 years, then I tried to read everything. So my lessons were just a disaster beforehand. And like the year after I started reading stuff, because every time I read it, I just try out and I didn’t have a clue what I was doing. And I give you a good example of this. So So interleavings are really interesting, what many of you have mentioned in the box. So when I first read it as part of desirable difficulties, I thought, Oh, this sounds good. You just make stuff up and something magical happens. But the kids hated it. Performance debt and performance dip so much that learning never really seemed to take off in the end. And it was it was really bad. And I think it’s only now so this is what maybe six, six years on from first reading about it seven years on, that I’ve finally started to get to grips with with with perhaps what it takes to make it work and some of the sorts of things that I missed. So my follow up? Well, first to say is I fully agree with you. But my follow up question is what helped me with interleaving wasn’t just leaving time, but also making sure I checked out other people’s take on it. I think this is quite important, as well as a podcast that I listened to called Tyler Cowen, he talks a lot about this, he says, Whenever you’re reading about something, make sure you read several different people’s take on it, because then you start to get the bigger picture of it. Whereas if you just focus on one take, even if it’s really clear, you get a bit of a narrow view of it. So do you think it’s a mixture of when you read something leaving time, but also then trying to get different takes on it in different sources are always times efficient?
Kieran Mackle 7:50
I mean, I definitely agree, I think the best use of that time that you’ve left, you know, first time you read about something, okay, I’ve got a general idea. And then, you know, lots of people that I talked to, will have three or four books on the go at the same time around similar ideas, and maybe not just education based, but how it applies maybe in other contexts in your business, that kind of thing. So yeah, 100% with you, I think, you know, the best use of that six months, is giving yourself the most rounded picture possible.
Craig Barton 8:15
And final one on this, Karen. It’s tempting though in it right? Because you’ve read it you want to try it is hard, especially when you because we spoke about this with a few people this this kind of fear of missing out you see on Twitter, somebody’s chatting about something, you want to dive in and give it a go. And you want to say well, what’s the worst that can happen? How do you how do you resist?
Kieran Mackle 8:35
That’s a really good point. I think there are probably is a fine balance between the practitioner in the classroom, who might try something out, you know, tomorrow, and the school leader who is looking to plan for meaningful change. So perhaps the bulk of what I’m saying might apply more to leaders, you know, because in the classroom, you know, if it doesn’t go well, you can always fix it the next day. It was something that was more tried and tested. I totally understand. But yeah, I think it maybe depends on your particular context.
Craig Barton 9:06
That’s the Yeah, you’re absolutely right that because we’ve all seen this right. SLT, get hold of an idea. Next thing, it’s the next big thing. It’s the new policy. And they haven’t had time to think it through. They’re the foundations aren’t there. And it’s a disaster. Yeah, like that. So individual teachers, by all means try stuff out SLT, maybe just put a pause on it. Let’s go back here. And I like it. All right. Well, that’s tip number two, please.
Kieran Mackle 9:31
So tip number two is to treat the act of teacher development, Mike teaching.
Craig Barton 9:37
Yeah, let’s go for it.
Kieran Mackle 9:39
So I’m talking specifically about the strategies that we employ when supporting others and improving you know, the the physical act, I think it is. And I, you know, the more I do it, the more I see the connection between hire would teach a class and hire a teacher teacher to teach. So you know, I think if you very crudely broke the essence of teaching Dine, it might look something like explain, model and practice. And I think I would use the same model when working with teachers in my schools and you know, I would explain something, I’d model it. And then and then they would be given a chance to practice and we almost repeat that cycle. You know, I think that some of the particular points that stand out to me are the idea that we remember what we pay attention to. And we’ll come to this in a in a later tip. But I think when we asked teachers to pay attention to too much, you know, we’re thinking about the report and sound centres talked about how we need to account for cognitive load when we’re training our teachers, and he’s probably talking about big inset days as much as he’s talking about coaching with teachers. But if we’re very specific, okay, I want you to pay attention to this, you know, you will attend to this one particular idea, then you were more likely to enact that in the classroom. And I think, you know, we expect our pupils to pay attention to the meaningful components of our lessons. I think Daisy Christodoulou is component parts, you know, making good progress, she talks about the gold states and more than your current state. And, you know, Michael person pushed me on this a bit because he likes to talk about generalisations and broader behaviours. But I do think there is a place for breaking sort of bigger behaviours down into smaller parts, getting rid of the smaller parts, and then bringing them back together again, just just like the football players might do on a Saturday when they’ve been trained in different things all week, you know, so maybe the jury’s still out, you know, I probably defer to Michael most times, and, but this is the way I’ve been sort of approaching teacher development in my current role. And then I think, with explicit language instruction, you know, I want my pupils to know what the quotient is, I want them to know what the minuend and the subtrahend are, because they can use one word instead of seven or eight. And if we do the same, and codify the, you know, the act of teaching, then I think we have a better chance of sort of engaging in a more meaningful level, you know, and I know that people perhaps and stuff, we’ve talked about that for quite a while I but it definitely has a massive impact when you’re talking the same language.
Craig Barton 12:12
This that interest in this care and right, like, let’s dive into this a little bit more, can you give us an example perhaps of of either some training that you’ve led, or some coaching that you’ve done, where you’ve adopted this explain model practice approach?
Kieran Mackle 12:27
I mean, typically, I’ll have a math specific sort of input with all our teachers on the first Tuesday of a term. And so I’ll say, Okay, right, we’re going to look at worked examples, for instance, okay, here, here’s what worked examples are. And then over the next six weeks, I’ll go into classes, I’ll teach people’s classes, you know, this is how I interpret this, this is how I might do this. And then gradually, if I’m working with someone, and they’re an early career teacher, then they might get more support than others. So it’d be me teaching 100% of the lesson at the start. And then by the time you get to three weeks later, responsibility has shifted to them. So we gradually feared just with just like we would do with sort of backwards, for example, teacher takes more responsibility for that particular part. Until eventually at the end, I can sort of leave their plate spinning because they’re more effective than I have at the, at the whatever we’ve sort of explored.
Craig Barton 13:24
This is really interested in this. So I’ve been messing around with this myself. So first thing to say, I’ll just put my cards on the table, massive error I’ve made is the way I delivered, CPD was nothing how i like how I taught, and it was a disaster waiting to happen. So like I’ve said this before, I’m a real group work sceptic. I’m terrible at group work here. And Sammy cabina, when he was on the show, he’s changed my life thinking about group work, but I’m woeful after and yet CPD. What How would things be set up the tables would be in groups with the teachers. And again, whenever I attend CPD, and I see tablesetting groups, I think this is just a bit of a sit off waiting to happen here. And it’s just that I never fully engage with it. So now I really try and think of my CPD as as how I would kind of teach lessons exactly as you say. So what am I focusing the attention on here? How can I remove distractions and so on. So that was the first thing I wanted to say. And then just two concrete examples that that I’ve used. And I just want to get your take or if there’s anything you want to add to this. And mini whiteboards comes up every set every single tips for teachers conversation. And if it was a drinking game, people be hammered on whiteboards here because it comes up all the time. But recently, I’ve been doing quite a bit of CPD around mini whiteboards. And I found the best way to get people on board is to show them how useful mini whiteboards are almost via by stealth. So you make it look like the CPD is on something else like you know planning for depth or whatever it may be. But you use the mini whiteboard to facilitate paired discussion or to facilitate checking for understanding. And then at the end you can say oh, Okay, look, we’ve been using this tool, how could we then apply it to our lesson? So I think that works quite well, almost when you, you almost use the medium that you want to kind of train staff on, but you use it in a slightly different context to show the power. I don’t know if that makes sense at all.
Kieran Mackle 15:15
No idea does makes total sense. I think, you know, when you’re delivering CPD, utilising your sort of teaching strategies from the classroom, I think can really help. You know, because if you, for instance, wanted, did some CPD on perhaps I don’t know, cognitive load theory, and you looked at them, you know, the combination, you know, very crude example of images and sort of key vocabulary. And, well, then you might use that in the rest of your CPD. So that you’re assuring teachers, you know, this is stuff we do all the time, you know, or the use of multiple choice questions, you know, I’ll quite often put a multiple choice question from, you know, spacing things out something from the first session, something from the last session, you know, and and then when we come to the session on memory, people are going, okay, you know, I get it, and then they feel it. Yeah. So I totally agree with you.
Craig Barton 16:10
Let me just ask you one final one on this case, I’ve been looking forward to asking somebody this, and you’re my mom for this. So why only what I try and do whenever I kind of coach teachers, or work, do CPD, and so on, is to try and do two things, make them feel like the students so they can experience what it’s going to be like for their learners. And then so I get them doing like the maps and the activities and so on. And then I say, Okay, right, now we’re going to jump out of that. And now let’s put our teacher hat on and think kind of pedagogically what we need to change to make this work and so on. But the difficulty I haven’t even this is at secondary level. So I’m this why I’m interested when it’s like a primary level, is it’s quite hard to make the teachers feel like students, because of like, the examples we invariably use are a pretty straightforward one. So like in maths, I’ll say, I’ll say I’m doing something I’m learning generated examples, or whatever it may be, I’ll say, Okay, think of two fractions that add together to make one or whatever it is, teachers just wizard down straightaway. Whereas obviously, the students, they’re going to take a bit more time, maybe they’re going to want to ask somebody, and so on. So I find it hard to fully replicate how the students will will act in the thing that I’m doing the CPD on, but that feels like a real problem with the CPD because I need teachers to appreciate that. So they they can then empathise with their learners and so on. So that was a bit of a rumble. Do you know what I mean there? And have you experienced this because I imagine at primary level, this is an even bigger issue.
Kieran Mackle 17:37
I think it’s potentially easier when you know, the teachers you’re working with. So I’ve been working with our guides for five years. And I will always use examples that are just beyond where they’re working mathematically. So you’ll find questions with triangular numbers. And the solution being or if you think about on Watson, the paper on taxicab geometry, they’re managed to make those teachers even though they were specialists, you know, believe that they were working in Euclidean geometry, but actually, they’re working in non Euclidean geometry. So it’s almost you know, that was like a watershed moment, all care. So this is just beyond Yeah, so. But I do think it’s easier when you work with the teachers every day, and you know what their mathematics is. And
Craig Barton 18:18
that’s interesting. So you’re the, let’s take your word example thing, if you’re doing work, for example, training, and you wanted the teachers to experience what the worst examples like you wouldn’t do a worked example, from kind of year two mathematics, you may in fact, do a worked example, from a higher level of math so that the teachers feel like the novice is that the kids would be would that be right here.
Kieran Mackle 18:37
And at the point that I want them to feel that sensation, obviously, I will illuminate and illustrate with examples that are fear specific. But when I want them to have the sensation of the learner that I would choose something that’s maybe the cases three, bridge into key stage four. That’s
Craig Barton 18:57
right, I’m gonna have to brush up on my further maths and start making some of that out for the secondary colleagues. That’s brilliant. Love it. Right here. And why is tip number three, please.
Kieran Mackle 19:06
So think, tip number three ties in it’s be explicit when modelling for colleagues.
Craig Barton 19:12
Yeah, let’s dive into this stuff.
Kieran Mackle 19:15
So let’s say I think this comes from reading Alan Sims teacher gap, where they talk about small actionable teaching assignments, and the idea that some schools improve their teachers better than others. And it’s usually bid through specificity. And, you know, so when colleagues are watching me teach, I’ll ask them to focus on one thing, and vice versa when I’m watching them. It won’t be your old school. This lesson was a good or an outstanding lesson it’d be okay. How did the worked examples go? And, you know, was there sufficient difference between the consecutive examples, you know, being really, really specific and what exactly it was, and I She saw the benefit of this the other day, because one of our early career teachers, we’ve been working specifically on routines and behaviours. And as I was going for I was taking some people around the school, and we happen to be in a class, he was using mini whiteboards. And they had a signal for when they were ready to continue. She had a system for checking in different parts of the class different times. And then she was ready to move in. And this is, you know, she’s executing this better than I could ever have imagined. But that’s because we spent three weeks only looking at that part of her practice, because she’s going to be teaching for 30 years, there has to be something that she learns in here to learn to the year three. And yeah, so I find that really helpful. And, you know, I think one caveat is that safeguarding is an exception. If there’s something to do with that, then that needs to be addressed at the right time. But what I took from renown and Sims and then there’s a, there’s an American book called, and I can’t remember, the name escapes me right now. But it’s basically a an exploration of business and education, and learning to improve as the name and they take examples from business that that might apply in education. And they said something very similar. When the feedback you give and the and the criteria is more specific, you’re more likely to enact change. And so that’s something we’ve been doing for a while. And I think it you know, again, it’s, it’s what you do with pupils, but let’s do it with the teachers as well.
Craig Barton 21:21
This is great here and write a couple of follow ups on there. So the first thing is that the teacher gap, that’s a brilliant book, isn’t it? Hey, I, I don’t think that gets the attention it deserves. That’s, that’s one of the best ones I’ve ever read it. And I can bet Becky Ellen and some are absolutely brilliant. But I’ll tell you one thing. She’s not returning my emails at the moment back down. And so she’s in my bad books. I’m trying to get her on here at a gamble. So I’ve got off for a little bit, but I will, I will say that that book is absolutely excellent. It’s a Brit. I’ll put a link to that in the show notes. But I’m really interested in this gear. And this this this? Firstly, I love that point that let’s just focus on one thing she can be teaching for 30 years there’s there’s no rush that ties in with a lot of things that have been said on on tips for teachers about not not trying to accelerate your career too much. Just taking your time focusing on one thing getting better at that and then move it on. I love that. But I’m really interested in the practicalities of this. So let’s imagine you’re working with an early careers teacher. Firstly, who decides the focus? Is that did you suggest things that they suggest things? Is it? How does the focus come about?
Kieran Mackle 22:21
I mean, I think it’s changed since the early career framework was brought into place. I mean, that was the end of the first academic year. But there’s a real roadmap for generic sort of pedagogy that we can that we can follow. You know, obviously, my support is often math specific. But I think that there’s a lot of crossover. And so before the framework, I would use my knowledge of my practice and what I thought was effective teaching. And we would sort of, we codify what we thought effective teaching looked like. And so it’s almost a combination of both now where there will be some specific things that I focus on, but a lot of things will work in just as well, with the with the new framework.
Craig Barton 23:04
Got it? And if you’re let’s say you’re working with a specific teacher, and you’ve agreed on a focus, you know, whatever it may be, let’s say it’s worked examples or whatever. What, what would the conversation before the lesson where you watch them look like would you be? Would you be saying, Look, I’m literally just gonna be focusing on this one thing, so don’t worry about anything else that what what does that conversation be? Because the reason I’m asking you this, Kieran is, is often there isn’t a conversation before a kind of supporting observation like this. And it feels to me like that conversation is quite important.
Kieran Mackle 23:35
It is. And it was probably more important for me at the start, because I need to establish that I wasn’t in my schools as another stick to beat the teachers with, you know, because they’ve been through the only the only constant was changed for quite a while. But I, you know, I’ve removed myself from the accountability process. My notes are my notes, because my working memory is limited. And I need to remember this conversation at 6pm. Because I might be working with the teacher at 910 and 11. And then plan at that someone in the afternoon. And so yeah, so I think it’s very important that you establish that this is, you know, getting better now, because we need to, but because we we have to or not because we can, and yeah, I think the more experienced the teacher is, the more freedom I think they have to decide where they’re coming from. But generally, I think the things I introduce, will be just beyond normal practice enough that they’ll think oh, I’d quite like to get better at that thing. We talked about your staff meeting.
Craig Barton 24:29
God, it’s just the final one on this. And it’s the obvious question, what is the conversation afterwards look like? Is it I mean, do you started with the classic How do you think that that went or what are those conversations play out? Like?
Kieran Mackle 24:41
It depends on if I’ve done the teaching or not. So I’ll ask them what did you notice if I was the teacher? And I probably will start with you know, how did you think that went? Alright. But again, being really specific to you know, how did that worked example work? You know what What did you notice about the people’s responses? And because I think, you know, it’s very easy for us to give value judgments on ourselves, oh, I was terrible. They weren’t listening, you know, that kind of thing. But actually, that’s not important. Were the questions similar enough that we could draw generalisations, you know, so I think, normally very informal, because, you know, we’re doing very important work. But we can almost build this relationship where we’re, we’re, it’s supportive, you know, because we want everybody to be the best teacher so that pupils get the best education we can possibly have.
Craig Barton 25:30
Just the final points on this. So Chris, such a I’d obviously, you know, very well was was on the show a few episodes ago, and he talks a lot about depressurizing learning. And one of his strategies was the, as a teacher, he’d make a mistake fairly early on, when he meets a class just to show that everybody’s human, it doesn’t matter if you make a mistake, and so on. It almost feels like that, you know, kind of depressurizing this, this, this coaching, or this observation feels like an important thing. Would you ever? I’m not saying that? I mean, I do this without even knowing. But would you ever deliberately do something sub optimally? For two reasons? Just so one, you’ve got something to talk about? And two, it kind of takes you off your pedestal? And the teacher realises that that everybody’s human, or does that not feel like a good idea?
Kieran Mackle 26:17
I mean, I haven’t done it on purpose. But when I do make a mistake, because no lessons ever gonna be perfect, I will own it. And I’ll say, Well, that wasn’t ideal. What can we do to improve that next time? You know, and because we’re, you know, what have we got, we’ve got a three form or two forms one form, there are lots and lots of teachers. So I will have these conversations openly in the staff room about where I’ve gone wrong, you know, so I think, you know, maybe in the future, I will plant and mistakes, but you don’t have to look very far to see mistakes that are getting made worse than anywhere.
Craig Barton 26:50
Kevin Claire, she just won bonus on this gear. Now apologies for for keep digging into this. But I’m just fascinated. And I can see this model working really well in your school where, obviously, you know, the staff, you’d probably know most of the kids, and you can do this, I’ll teach this lesson, you teach the next maybe we’ll do it together and so on. Let’s just say you were kind of transported into another school, or perhaps you’re an external, you’re an external consultant, or whatever you are, would you still do the kind of our teach? Do you think that’s still the best way to start this process for them to watch the the strategy, you’re talking about inaction? Or is the fact that you’re not familiar with the school? The pupils? Is that too much of a barrier?
Kieran Mackle 27:32
I mean, it’s always tough. You know, the strength of teaching comes from knowing your pupils, doesn’t it? But I think that we want to almost disarm anyone who were looking to support, you know, he’s gonna put his money where his mouth is, you know, because you know, it’s very easy for people to come in and say, Do this, do this and do this, we’ll be back in two weeks to check up on you. I think I got a lot of them a lot of currency from my teachers, and I think I wouldn’t and other scripts, if I sort of was the one who led because then I think people who are reticent, get a bit of breathing space and think, Okay, this isn’t so bad.
Craig Barton 28:07
Yeah, I think that’s really important. That’s brilliant. All right, Karen. Tip number four, please.
Kieran Mackle 28:14
So I don’t know if this has got consensus, but some behaviours are more important than others.
Craig Barton 28:20
I like this, because I can, you know, I love the clickbait headline, this is a good one, this is this is bringing in the numbers that we need here and right, tell us about this.
Kieran Mackle 28:29
So I don’t think hierarchy is a perfect metaphor, but I think it’s a workable metaphor. And that gives us the space to think about how we teach, you know, so you’ve had lots of people talking about behaviour. And so for instance, in any hierarchy, behaviour will be the first thing that you need to get right in your classroom before you can do anything else, you know, can make it make everything as possible, because the routines we have the expectations of learning, then allow you to focus on your on your pedagogy. So, you know, at the start of thinking about primary mathematics, I said, read Tom Bennis work before you even start this book, you know, because it’s gonna save, you know, I learned that the hard way, and I think probably most teachers do don’t. And then I would have explanation and instruction. Because I think if you get good at those, and you can explain things, then you build some space from your senior leadership team, because they’re when they’re a partner in the class, they’ll see, oh, that there’s, there’s what they would call good teaching going on. And, you know, we know it’s only part of the picture. But I think if we can establish that with some modelling, perhaps as a bare minimum, then you you could teach kids and I think they could make progress and, and once you’ve got those in place, then you start thinking about things like variation, like task design, and, and maybe strategy selection, you know, because that’s the, you know, the nuts and bolts of the thinking we need to do in our PPR time. You know, so we’re planning, we’re thinking about the question selection, we’re thinking about what Do I want to have a background of sort of a variant background? Or is it in variants? You know, I don’t think you can think about that. If you haven’t cracked the, the fundamentals. And so I would almost have, you know, there are many, many more things that go into what it means to be a teacher. And, but I would say that general hierarchy gives you the most rapid and sustained progress because it gives you space, but it also establishes a minimum competency very, very, very early on
Craig Barton 30:29
God, it just gives us a hierarchy, one more time care.
Kieran Mackle 30:33
So behaviour, explanation, instruction and modelling. And then your things like variation tasks, design, strategy, selection, but in that group, I’m having everything that we you know, if we’re reading about education, and we’re thinking about confidence, we’d have multiple choice questions, that they’re not the first thing you explore. But they’re definitely very powerful once you’ve got the hang of the basic rule.
Craig Barton 30:57
Right, this is brilliant. So the first thing to say is obvious. Obviously, when I first started teaching, I did the exact opposite. So all my thoughts was on the tasks, and it was I wasn’t even good at that. It was just like, poor task selection. And that’s all I was was focusing on. I’m really ensure I completely agree with you. I’m gonna ask you the worst question in the world. Karen? And I know the answer is going to be depends. But how long? How long does it take to kind of move the I guess, down the hierarchy? Like, how long will it typically take to get your behaviour to the point where then you can start thinking about your explanations and modelling.
Kieran Mackle 31:33
I mean, you would hope that within the first six weeks, you know, you’re right, it does depend, and teachers will take it to more naturally. But I think we’re a school has really good systems in place. And it’s just a matter of adopting those systems, that’s much more manageable than having to establish them against the against the tide, you know, but I would hope that by October, November, we could start thinking about pedagogy because, you know, the class we’re, we’re learning this and, you know, as default.
Craig Barton 32:03
So this is the obvious follow up question. And I apologise, it sounds really kind of aggressive. This one, I don’t mean it to what’s happening in those six weeks in terms of learning that if if if they kind of focus at the teachers on behaviour, is it just a case of, you know, the explanations and task design will be suboptimal. But that’s just what the way it’s got to be.
Kieran Mackle 32:22
I mean, my preference is for the utilisation of high quality textbooks. So you’re almost guaranteeing a minimum standard of instruction, even if you just follow the script. You know, I’m not saying that’s the best way to use high quality textbooks, but it’s on a fundamental level possible, where that’s absent, having really high quality curricula, you know, things like the rich curriculum in history, geography and science, you know, they go a long way to supporting teachers in their delivery. And then the more competent and confident you become, then you can experiment with your with those really interesting bits of pedagogy. You know, I accept that if those aren’t in place in all schools, particularly not in primary schools. But that’s what I would recommend, you know, and I think, even if those aren’t in place, if the behaviour isn’t sorted, the learner is going to be suboptimal. Anyway. So I don’t necessarily think there’s a comparison to be it. Yeah, this
Craig Barton 33:19
this makes a lot of sense. I’ve spoken about this, perhaps on the Mr. Bart muffs podcast that for if you’d have asked me, you know, anytime in the first 12 years of my career, is it a good idea to have kind of centrally planned lessons or, you know, prescribed approaches, I would say, definitely not like the whole point of being a teacher, you want to be creative freedom, express yourself and all that. But I look back now, and I was talking nonsense, because as you say, if you’re you’re starting out teaching, and even if you’re an experienced teacher in a new school, if you don’t have that behaviour, right, it’s, it’s going to be an absolute disaster. And it’s such a weight off your mind, if somebody says, Look, just use this example, we thought this through this is probably a good example to use. And I’ll tell you what, once you’ve explained it, give them this task, because this is probably a good task to use. And as you say, there’s that will get them through wonton mode, you know, most of those those kinds of six weeks or so. And then you can then start to look at look at the next year, as opposed to either looking at things the wrong way around or trying to just sort everything out all at once. It just it just doesn’t work. So the more I think about it, prescription particularly early on, it’s probably a good thing, isn’t it?
Kieran Mackle 34:28
Yeah, I mean, I tell people this all the time, but I had her when I started teaching, and within 18 months, it was gone. And I think it was the inspection criteria. You know, because it was six activities for every single lesson, you know, throughout the day. So you know, there’s only so, so long your follicles can put up with
Craig Barton 34:48
it. Let me ask you just this thing down here, just in case I forget to ask you this. So obviously, we’ve talked we’ve done four tips here and this one in particular just highlights how much thought needs to go into bid to be in it. maths teacher, you’ve got to get behaviour right? Then you’ve got to think about explanations modelling and then you start thinking about all the nuances tested on variation. But the thing is primary teachers, they’ve got to do this for all subjects. How the hell did he like you? There is not enough money in the world to pay me to be a primary teacher? How does he do it here and someone’s got to give us
Kieran Mackle 35:20
I think we’re schools have really sensible approaches to workload, you can prioritise thinking and learning your for I’ve got a colleague, Lloyd Williams joins me on the podcast quite a lot. He will give His teachers hold errs at the start of term to brush up on their subject knowledge. You know, and I think we’re that kind of situation exists and people are allowed to explore say they’re teaching the Vikings and Scandinavian history in that sort of, you know, 11 for was first century, wouldn’t it? And then spending six hours getting to grips with it, you know, I think goes a long way. And I think when I think about school development, I’m thinking about well, in five years time, if we have a body of teachers who are sufficiently knowledgeable of bytes, you know, both the subject knowledge and the pedagogical content knowledge of a broader range of subjects, then I think we’re moving in the right direction. You know, I do think that too much is asked, you know, I think the curriculum is too broad, my preference would be for a specialist model. But I do know that that’s, again, not a consensus view. And schools have just got to do the best they can to provide their teachers with time to think so they’re not doing unnecessary paperwork, then you can spend time thinking, and if you’re not doing and, you know, other bureaucratic chores, you know, staff meetings that could have been emails, and then you again, you have more time in your day. So it’s about how you use the idea of being 45 hours in a week, how do you use those 45 hours, we’re gonna use a substantial amount teaching, but the rest, I want to focus on what’s important, rather than things that are there because they’ve always been there,
Craig Barton 37:01
too quick follow ups on this, I’m fat, I’m fascinated by primary schools care. How is maths the subject that gets the biggest focus in terms of kind of CPD pedagogy? And so on? I’d imagine English should be be at a similar similar level. What about the other subjects? Like? Is there enough time to think deeply about geography and art and all that kind of stuff?
Kieran Mackle 37:28
I think at the minute, the expectation is that there is, you know, schools would maybe have, on an inset day, we’ll do some focus on art. But the new inspection framework is sort of guided schools towards a model where they do have to spend more time thinking about sort of subjects that would have been neglected before 2018. You know, because I remember when I first started teaching, it really was reading writing and mathematics that we had to get right, because that was what the school will be judged on, essentially. And, and the rest? Well, it was it was okay. You know, I mean, I was lucky that her teacher who valued lots of those subjects, and so provided us with additional opportunities, but I think it’s becoming the norm. And I don’t think we’ve got it right, a primary in terms of how we use our staff meeting time, and they’re definitely people like Matt Swain, who are talking about how we might use it in a different way. And, you know, maybe breaking one long meeting into two smaller meetings and having a focus over five or six weeks, rather than a different focus every week. And but yeah, I think the jury’s still out on that one. And we’ll see where we are in maybe four or five years time once we’ve been through a full cycle.
Craig Barton 38:35
Last question on this, Karen. I’m always fascinated by how much of maths pedagogy transfers to other subjects. So anytime a school asked me to come in and do a whole kind of staff training session, I also look and I don’t have a clue what I’m doing outside of my nice little secondary maths bubble. But then I know some of my books are read by teachers outside of maths and they can find the strategies apply, and so on. How do you find that a primary? So let’s take for example, you were saying about words, examples? Would that transfer across would would teachers be able to use what they do words is obviously maths in in history and English. And so one of the other aspects of maths at transfer quite nicely across?
Kieran Mackle 39:16
I think so I think, particularly those that had been researched by cognitive psychologists. And it might be easier for maths teachers are teaching maths, because a lot of the examples are quite often mathematics based. But you know, for instance, something like retrieval practice will work equally effectively across the, across the curriculum. And I think, you know, one of the things that we’ve tried as an as a country and mathematics is to establish the idea that all pupils can attain Well, if they’re given the right support, and so we use manipulatives. Quite often, we used multiple examples. We use them, scaffolds, but there’s no reason why we can’t do that in history. Now on scaffold and really, you know, thinking carefully about the, the information we present to pupils. And so then that will almost alleviate some of the cognitive burden on those people. So I think it does take a lot more thought. And perhaps because the broader conversation has fewer examples from the other subjects. But if you look at the principles, like I was told Michael Tom, but in general behaviours, you look at those general principles and highlight this look, there’s nothing to lose from trying those, I don’t think
Craig Barton 40:27
it’s as thick. Right here. And what is your fifth and final tip, please?
Kieran Mackle 40:33
Nobody really knows what they’re doing.
Craig Barton 40:37
I like it. So tell me about this.
Kieran Mackle 40:40
Okay, so it’s really hard to do this one without offending anybody and others definitely as in my attention, that my intention, and I’m the worst for accepting this is true, but I will defer far too much to people with experience and expertise, to the point where, sometimes if I meet them socially, I will struggle, and because of how much I don’t want to sort of make my samsat self sound silly in front of them, you know, interviewing perhaps was really difficult because it’s so much respect for his intellect, thinking, right? Okay, I’m gonna have to cut everything I said in this episode. But, but really, it’s a mental health, or mental space tip. And I think we should always strive to be better, and we should learn from ever more experienced, but I don’t think we should beat ourselves up. There’ll be aren’t other people or that we seem to be making mistakes that other people don’t make. You know, I always talk about how, you know, the universe is what maybe 14 billion years old and a bad lesson hasn’t ended it yet. And so, you know, maybe it’s not going to be career ending if we make a mistake, you know, but like I said, I will spend hours when I’m supposed to be sleeping, worrying about things that happen and works on I need to take this advice myself. And I we acknowledge that everybody’s just muddling along the same, you know, regardless of their position in, in sort of the system, you know, and the default attribute of most teachers is that they want to help other people. So ask them for help and give yourself a break from from time to time.
Craig Barton 42:09
It’s a really really important one that Karen well when I started the tips for teachers thing I really wanted obviously the pedagogical advice but also this this kind of stuff and Jamie Tom did a similar thing about turning down the negativity radio he describes hours where you know, you teach for decent lessons while crap lesson and that’s the crap ones the only one that you think about when I did my Mr. Barton laughs podcast, my favourite question to ask was, what’s your favourite failure? Because then people like Dylan, William and Pepes would say, look, I messed up by doing this. And it’s quite refreshing to hear as you know, as a teacher trying your best that you know, the so called grades also also struggling. You’re absolutely right. And everybody, everybody else that has Yeah, struggles from time to time. The only thing I just wanted to say about this is Twitter’s an interesting one for this Kieran. Because it can be like, I would say, it’s my single best source of ideas, where I see people kind of sharing things, I think, Wow, that is really, really good. But it can also make you feel bad in a couple of ways. Firstly, there are some idiots on there who just you know, take everything out of context and try and try and upset you. But also, it’s this fear of missing out thing we spoke about before, where you’re seeing people who are doing things and you think I’m not doing good enough for that. Like there’s a secondary school teacher, Helen Constantine, who designs some of the best questions I’ve ever seen in my life. And I think I’m not, I’m nowhere near that level, like my kids are dipping out, because I’m not doing that. So Twitter’s an interesting one, isn’t it? Because you kind of want to be on there to get the ideas. But very rarely do I leave it feeling like a better person or a better teacher? You know, it’s tricky, isn’t it?
Kieran Mackle 43:45
Yeah, I mean, I’ve got a pretty healthy, block mute process. And because I don’t think people go on Twitter, too, you know, when they speak on Twitter, it’s not necessarily to engage in meaningful dialogue, and the form restricts it. So really, what you want to do is you want to embrace the echo chamber, you know, and okay, here are some people who I really respect, I’m going to see what they have to say, and you know, and if people are out to be bad faith actors will then I have no interest. So I’m going to block or I’m going to mute you know, maybe not in that order. And but it’s difficult because I think, across the air across the spectrum, you know, I’m Adam Buxton does a podcast and I think at the start of his he used to make fun of Twitter all the time. You know, it all is a place for reasonable discussion stuff. You know, he’s absolutely right. And if they’re having similar issues, you know, then there’s not much hope for us. But I think in terms of switching off, I will physically switch my phone off, because it’s very hard to resist and remember Doug Lemov either tweeted about it or he wrote in one of his books about the the experiment where the only way your attention wasn’t going towards your phone was when it was switched off and in a different room, even if it was switched off in the same room. You were still, you know, students were still looking at or haven’t study with. So yeah, so it’s a try To smartphone free like bread already for a while, but I was missing too many important phone calls because the signal wasn’t good enough. So yeah, so but so turned off in a different room, and we go from there, and we go from there. But yeah, it’s, it’s far from a perfect model.
Craig Barton 45:15
That’s very good. And last last question on this camera, let’s imagine you you’ve you’ve had a bad day, lessons haven’t gone well and so on. How are you dealing with that? How are you kind of stopping yourself because I’m, I’m terrible at it. I lay awake, as you mentioned before thinking about it, what works for you to switch you off it.
Kieran Mackle 45:33
So I mean, I started the thick daily podcast during lockdown when there was a lot more free time. And if that was going to continue, then I needed to be more specific about when I was going to do it, and what would constitute an acceptable amount of time in my evening. So we’ve actually carved out, there’s one night a week, that’s when recording happens. And then we’ve got a selection of activities that my wife and I will do when the kids have gone to bed. And so we’ll think okay, do you wanna do the puzzles? You want to do the paint by numbers? And you know, that for us at the moment works, you know, and I think weekends are becoming busier because we’re allowed outside and things. And but yeah, because I was definitely at risk at one point of spending far too much time editing podcasts that didn’t need to be edited anymore. Sure, you can relate.
Craig Barton 46:19
That’s brilliant. Well, they’ve been five absolutely brilliant tips here. And I absolutely love that. So let me hand over to you. Well, what should listeners check out?
Kieran Mackle 46:28
I mean, I don’t think my friends would give me if I didn’t say that at the Saturday isn’t nine o’clock, you can check out the thinking dibuat prime education podcast. And, you know, because I think I probably lucky that very interesting. People will talk to me about education. And so yeah, well worth checking out.
Craig Barton 46:44
You know, just on my campus. I’m a big fan. Just just if listeners because you’ve got a massive back catalogue now. Right? So maybe pick out one or two episodes. If if listeners were to start with something well, where would you advise assembling them?
Kieran Mackle 46:57
Yeah, so I mean, I go for a maths and literacy one. So obviously, Christopher such he did. I think he’s done maybe six hours on reading, but his first episode in, I think it was season one, season two, his second episode, he told us season two, Episode Six, he spent two hours talking about reading. And essentially, it was just before the art and science was published and got a chance to really pick his brilliant because I didn’t know half the stuff that he was talking about. And then mad swing talks about mastery and how he’s made it work at the primary level with the step Academy trust. So I think those two seem to interest people, but also I think they go pretty deep. But to be honest, we’ve done 80 episodes, maybe 81, but a timeless go site. And you know, all the guests are fantastic. You know, I think we’re blessed with the the deep thinkers, we’ve got
Craig Barton 47:46
fantastic and everything else. What about your book?
Kieran Mackle 47:50
Yeah, I mean, yeah, I mean, I’m hopeless of publishing my own stuff. I promote my own stuff. And yeah, I mean, I’ve got thinking deeply about primary mathematics, which links quite well into this is sort of these tips, because it’s based on my work, and okay, I’m seeing general patterns here, I’ll write it down. And so I see it as a blueprint for teachers who are inexperienced or would like to improve their professional development. And, and hopefully, it’s both accessible and to a challenge and at the same time and add some junk here. And actually, we shared an editor. I think the editor of your second book, Craig was the was the editor of that one, so I knew it was in good hands when I when I sent it off.
Craig Barton 48:30
Oh, that’s fantastic, superb stuff. Well, I’ll put links to all those in the show notes and all that reminds me to say here and it’s this has been an absolute pleasure. So it’s thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us.
Kieran Mackle 48:39
It’s been lovely. Thank you very much.
