This episode of the Tips for Teachers podcast is proudly supported by LUMEN
You can download an mp3 of the podcast here.
Sonia Thompson’s tips:
- Read for pleasure and read for progress (03:30)
- Be clear about your career pathway (12:42)
- Make use of the NPQs (23:03)
- Go out and visit other schools (28:43)
- Think about implementation (40:22)
Links and resources
- On Twitter, Sonia is: @son1bun
- Sonia’s book is: Berger’s An Ethic of Excellence in Action
Subscribe to the podcast
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Watch the videos from Sonia Thompson
Podcast transcript
Craig Barton 0:01
Hello, my name is Craig Barton and welcome to the tips for teachers podcast. The show that helps you supercharge your teaching one idea at a time. This episode I had the absolute pleasure of speaking to primary head teacher extraordinaire, Sonya Thompson, and it’s a cracker. Now, just before we get going a quick word about our lovely new sponsors, because this episode of the tips for teachers podcast is proudly supported by lumen. What on earth is lumen? I hear you say? Well, lumen is the acronym for the Loughborough University Mathematics Education Network. And it’s a network very close to my heart and I’m very proud to be a visiting fellow in the Department of Mathematics Education lumen have kindly sponsored three episodes of the tips for teachers podcast. So each episode I’m going to tell you about one of their amazing free online CPD videos that they have available. So the one that caught my eye straightaway is cognitive load theory practical applications by none other than friend of the show Ali Lovell. This video presents practical applications of cognitive load theory for the classroom building on Oh, hi Chen’s video Ali Lovell who as we know is teacher and author of the book Cognitive Load Theory and action provides classroom examples of the redundancy effect. Split attention affects work examples, and more. And that’s not that’s not all. You know, there’s loads more videos from early years maths to post 16. Our best bet is just a Google lumen l u m e n math CPD or you can follow the links in the show notes. Now two things to remind you about before we get cracking with today’s episode. First, you can view all the videos of video of all Sundays tips, plus the tips of all my other guests plus 20 exclusive video tips from me all on the tips for teachers website. These are brilliant to share in a departmental meeting, or a training session. And secondly, you can sign up to the tips for teachers newsletter, where you receive a tip in your inbox every Monday morning to try it with your classes in the coming week. Around about 2000 teachers have signed up for this newsletter as well. So you don’t want to be missing out. And finally, if you find the podcast useful, please could you just take a moment to review it on your podcast player of choice it really does make a difference. Thanks so much. Okay, back to the show. Let’s get learning with Today’s guests are wonderful. Sonya Thompson spoiler alert, here are sanyas five tips. Tip one, read for pleasure and read for progress. Tip to be clear about your career pathway. Tip Three, make use of the NP Q’s. Tip Four, go out and visit other schools. And Tip five think about implementation. If you look at the episode description in your podcast player or visit the episode page on tips for teachers.co.uk You’ll see I’ve timestamp teacher the tips so you can jump straight to anyone you want to listen to first, or we listen. Enjoy the show.
Well, it gives me great pleasure to welcome Sonya Thompson to the tips for teachers podcast. Hello, Sandy. How are you?
Sonia Thompson 3:04
Hi, Craig. I’m fine. Thank you. We’re really excited about this thus far. Thank you.
Craig Barton 3:10
That’s fantastic. Well send you for listeners who don’t know, can you tell us a little bit about yourself ideally in a sentence.
Sonia Thompson 3:16
Okay. I’m Sonya Thompson. I’m the head teacher and director of St. Matthews teaching. In fact, I’m going to take off teaching, I’m going to say Research School in the chills in Birmingham.
Craig Barton 3:28
Fantastic, brilliant. Well, let’s dive straight into on your what’s your first tip you’ve got for us today.
Sonia Thompson 3:35
The first tip I’m really passionate about and it be a teacher who reads and a reader who teaches nice Read, read for pleasure and read for progress. That’s my first tip.
Craig Barton 3:49
Amazing. Tell us a bit about this.
Sonia Thompson 3:53
I think I’m a really big advocate of teachers wanting to learn and understand more. And I think reading is such a great way of doing that. Of course, there’s podcasts and there’s blogs, but I think diving into a really good book. And I just think we’re in a golden age of edgy books. You know, I think there’s something for everybody’s taste. So I just think if you are a teacher who wants to improve their pedagogy, their understanding subject knowledge, if you want to go deep if you want to do a little bit of light reading, I think there’s just something for everyone. But I also think that if you are a teacher, and just to enjoy books and ensure that your children love reading, whether your primary or secondary. So that’s my reading for pleasure bit and I’m a really massive reading for pleasure advocates,
Craig Barton 4:44
or this is great. So let’s, let’s talk about this reading for kind of professional development. Have you always been a reader for for kind of teaching tips or is that come a little bit later in your career?
Sonia Thompson 4:55
I think for me, I’ve always been a reader. I’ve always been someone who’s a form of being a child. I’ve loved libraries, I was a librarian. I worked, that was my job for a couple of years. And then I’ve been English lead. So all of that just means that I’m very passionate about reading. I think reading educational books has kind of been part of my leadership journey. And I think everything, every kind of PD that I’ve been involved in, I’ve always wanted to read behind the kind of headlines of everything, and find out what is who’s saying what and why. And I just think that gives you a level of confidence not not because somebody is telling you exactly what you can do in your school. I don’t think there’s ever any time that anybody pins that down, but I think when you can read the arguments behind why people are saying we should be doing things, I just think that that arms you as a teacher with either saying yes, or actually I need to think about that a little bit more.
Craig Barton 5:56
What What are your reading practices? If this isn’t a daft question? So if you’re reading or reading a book, are you a skimmer? Are you from page one till the end? Are you taking notes? What what how are you digesting the kind of key takeaways?
Sonia Thompson 6:09
I am a page one to the end. But I’m, if I’m reading for pleasure, I’ll read the end first. Because I do I know people hate that. They hate that. Craig, they hate when I say that. But I do. Because I can’t wait I am. I’m one of those people who just go, I’ve got to find out what’s going to happen. It’s like, if I’m watching anything like, you know, line of duty or anything like that, I’ll watch that last episode. I need to know what I know. It’s terrible. It’s terrible. But I’ve got to do it. I can’t wait. And I enjoy it more when I know what’s going to happen, whether good or bad. So I read the end, but I am a post it note person I post it No, I don’t like to highlight. But I know some people really highlight and write on books. It depends on what I’m reading it for. But usually, I’m just the post it note right on the post it note type of person.
Craig Barton 7:05
And if you’ve got if you come across an education book, first, how do you decide what to read? Is it recommendations? What do you do have a filter system? How do you decide what gets your time?
Sonia Thompson 7:17
I am very much about recommendations I read, you know, somebody’s suggested something. I do use Twitter a lot. So lots of recommendations come from Twitter. But also I, you know, got a great opportunity. Because we are a research school. There’s lots of kind of background reading that we have to do. So something if I’m running a particular programme, something will spark me and I think, Gosh, it’d be great to actually read a little bit more about that. So it might be a paper, it might be a blog, it might be a book, but I just think as teachers, and that makes me more confident, particularly if I’m delivering that. Because I can I know the kind of story behind it. So lots of kind of thing sparked me to read. Yeah.
Craig Barton 8:03
And let’s think about your staff now. So if you read something interesting, I guess two things really wasn’t first, how do you share the kind of key stuff with your colleagues so that it sticks and makes a difference? And how do you encourage teachers to read more, because you get the classic thing, like we don’t have time and so on? So what’s your response to that?
Sonia Thompson 8:21
We have got a staff PD library, where we are constantly and we and we again, we’ve based that on teacher recommendations, as well as those kind of leadership ones that we think would be good for staff to have. And we are that that school that does the we’re sending something out. And we’ll make time in a PD session to talk about it, what spend ages on it. But just to flag up a couple of headlines. If people have read something, then we kind of say that’s the let’s talk about that. Let’s think about it a little bit more. So I think as a school, if you do what you eat, you know, when people talk about time time is we ask it’s so time short in teaching, it is that thing that if we could make the day longer, without making ourselves even more exhausted? We would, but it is if we want it to work, we’ve got to make time for staff to read, you know, little chunks of time consistently throughout the year making that time for staff to read. Yeah.
Craig Barton 9:21
And when you say you send out the kind of headlines. How do you do that? Sonya? Is that an email? Is that a newsletter? Is that a regular thing? How does that work?
Sonia Thompson 9:30
Because again, being a researcher was great because we have monthly newsletters that we send out anyway, so all of our staff get access to those. So again, there’s a real range and we will review for those recent school newsletters. But we also if we’ve got a PD coming up and we’ve got a little chunk of reading that we want staff to read will email that out in good time though, making sure that you know because we’ve kind of planned out our PD sessions and making sure that we give staff time to do that and if Don’t, we’ve got a little bit of a little chunk of time in that PD session to have a read through and work as a group just to summarise and make some, you know, pull out some key headlines, as I said,
Craig Barton 10:10
fantastic. And final question just just on this one. I’m still, by the way, trying to get over the fact that you read the ending of books and TV.
Final question out of this. And it’s a bit of an impossible question. But what have been some of the big biggies, the kind of the key books, perhaps over the last 12 months or so that either have had a profound impact on you as a leader, or perhaps your staff in terms of their practice, just pick out a few few headlines for us.
Sonia Thompson 10:37
I mean, I have to talk about leverage leadership, getting better faster, because I am, I’ve currently just finished my year long leverage leadership PD. And I’ve done by actual the author, Paul Bambrick. Santoyo was my tutor. And that has been a it’s been, I know, it sounds really weird. But it’s been quite life changing for me. Because being part of that, the leverage Leadership Institute and the fellowship has been fantastic. The book has really changed some of our practice in terms of coaching, and the support and the way that we support our teachers. It’s been really influential, because we’re videoing some of our sessions and some of our practice routines and systems. So I think that book has been really quite powerful for us. I don’t know if anybody knows, but we’ve written a book as well. St. Matthews, we’ve written an ethic of excellence Ron burgers book. And it’s been great because I’ve gone back to an ethic of excellence. But what’s been really nice is that we’ve been able to link research to a lot of the practices that Ron burgers talked about. So again, a couple of my senior leaders have written chapters. So it’s been great to have that book for staff to give that book to staff to really go through and we’ve, we’re using it for PD as well. Most recently, I’ve read I’m reading a book, and I thought I had it here. The names going out of my head, but simplicity has been fantastic. Emma Turner has really kind of captured primary. And I think often we kind of forget the uniqueness of primary. And I think that book has, it has been really powerful in really capturing some key messages around what we should be thinking about as primary practitioners, particularly when it comes to curriculum, and the way that we the uniqueness and what we need to really make sure that we don’t lose as part of that uniqueness of primary. So yeah,
Craig Barton 12:36
amazing. Some great recommendations. Yeah. Okay, so when you’re What’s your second tip for us today, please.
Sonia Thompson 12:45
My second tip is be clear, as a teacher be clear about your career pathway. And what I’m what I always think is that there are class teachers who want to stay in the room, in the classroom, and that, that, for me is gold. Those teachers are gold, because we know the research is clear that they are that is where the difference is made. But it also think that it’s those teachers that we want to harness and how do we ensure that once they stay in the classroom, they are supporting our other teachers in a really consistent way. Because that is what’s going to help our other teachers to get to that place that we need them to be. So I think if we can give our teachers support and advice from senior staff and other practitioners about whether or whether this is whether or not they want to stay in the classroom, or they want to move into leadership, I think we should encourage our teachers to think about that pathway. I think often teachers come into school, and they are schools, we don’t give them the impression that there is a pathway for them. And I think teachers need to know that there is a pathway, whether you want to be classroom based, or whether you want to move into leadership. And I think it’s important as a profession that we have that
Craig Barton 14:02
really interest in this I’d like to dig a bit deeper into this because when I first started teaching, I mean I’m old these days, so we’re talking 1517 years, God knows when it was, well, I didn’t really have any interest in pastoral and as soon as I saw my house stress my head of department was I had no interest in being a head of department. Obviously, I’m talking to a secondary background here. Yeah, but the pathway that really interests me their interest in me was advanced skills teacher because that sounded to me like the best of all the worlds I could stay in the classroom. And then one day a week I could go and work with teachers often in other schools, different levels of experience. And in those few years I did that I learned so much but that obviously ASD does doesn’t exist anymore. So if you’ve got teachers who want to stay in the classroom, what is this career pathway sign you for? Because it can be can be so tempting Carly, because the big money on the bigger money is for taking on leadership responsibilities or senior leaders. How do we kind of what what what’s in it for teachers who wants to stay in the classroom
Sonia Thompson 14:59
and I Think I just think that we need to win. We need to be clear with teachers who have the skill and the knowledge base in the classroom. And they’re making a difference, just how critical they are to our our schools. I don’t think we give them enough kudos, we are far too quick to push those teachers into leadership. And we take them out of the place where they’re making the most impact. So I think we need to add value that we need to teachers need to understand how valuable they are in the classroom, particularly when they are making a difference. We also need to if I think this is great as mats begin to grow, and we’re not a mat we aren’t, we’re not. But one of the things that I’ve been really passionate about for our school is we did become a teaching school, we encourage our teachers to become SLAs, supporting other schools. So all those kinds of opportunities is great. But as a Research School, we’ve got a role called ELA, which is evidence leading education and part of their role is to support other teachers with practice as well. So hopefully, as maps begin to grow in these new roles around supporting teachers with clap quick after in practice, hopefully, these are becoming much more, there’s much more clarity around them. And I just think if we’re not valuing our teachers in the classroom, often we get in leaders who jump out of the classroom far too quickly. And it’s not credible, I always say, you are at your most credible when you are talking about what you’re doing day to day. And when you’re a classroom teacher, and you are doing that with such passion. And I know this from personal experience, because I when I came out of the classroom, I became an English consultant. And I would stand there and talk about things. And if people would, you know, they’d give you the side eye, because they were like, Yeah, as if, as if you’re doing it. But as soon as soon as I went back into school, and like when I came to St. Matthews, I was a deputy and I was a teaching deputy. But I was still doing some work for the local authority. And the difference when you talk about your work, when they and you’re talking about what you’re doing day to day teaching, moving children forward, then there’s a different level of respect. So I just think we need to value that
Craig Barton 17:20
there’s fascinating that I’ll just share a story from secondary, and I’m interested in whether this is a thing in primary as well. So certainly secondary maths teachers are like gold dust these days, because it’s a recruitment crisis, and so on and so forth. So if you’re a promising secondary maths teacher, that you can have your pick of jobs, basically. So what’s happening now is you’re getting teachers in their second year of teaching third year of teaching, or maybe even in their first year of teaching. And they’re being offered second in math department promotions, even heads of department after having only taught for two or three years. And and the problem with that, of course is you get you’re out the classroom, but also you’re you haven’t honed your teaching practice to the coroner, you don’t have that kind of foundation of experience. And now all of a sudden, you’ve got all these other responsibilities on top of it. So your teaching never develops. But it’s so tempting, because you’ve been offered an extra four grand a year or six grand a year and so on and so forth. Is that a similar thing in in in primary where you know, your good teachers have been lowered away by by by money? Or is it not quite as big a bigger issue, it’s,
Sonia Thompson 18:23
it’s probably not as big an issue. But there is this kind of there is a race to the top. And I want I want to be clear here, what I’m not saying, because it’s not often it’s not age, and it’s you know, it’s about how it’s about it’s not stages age, and often you have some really good people who were younger teachers or not. And I’m not taking away from any of that. But I just want I just want to say again, that the craft of teaching the craft of making a difference in the classroom, that is our, it’s our super power. That’s our soup, that’s our teaching superpower that is our strength. That is our calling card, and if we can talk to others, and support others to develop that because we are practitioners. And because we know what we’re doing, and we know how to make the difference, then we mustn’t lose that and will. For me, I think we’re sometimes in danger of solve teachers being so focused on this career pathway that that part of the pathway is not developed enough. And I think you know, those teachers who do want to spend time because often you know, you’re right, you do get people who say, Oh, you know, I’ve been teaching for 15 years, and I’m sitting in the classroom. Bow to those people, you know, and if they’re the ones that say, how do we use those people? If they are perhaps you can talk to others? Are we using them? Are we using them? Have they just become the ones in there? How do we harness that? Because I think it’s crucial that we
Craig Barton 19:56
do I agree and that was going to be my final question here is because that’s the flip side of it. There’s one thing wanting teachers to stay in the classroom and hone their craft. But the advantage, you want the advantage of that to be shared not just with the kids they teach, but to be spread around the school or even wider. So if as a leader you recognise you’ve got a teacher who has been teaching for five years, six years, whatever it may be 10 years. And yet they haven’t had that opportunity or willingness to kind of share their practice. Maybe they’re modest, maybe they’re shy, maybe, you know, in solace. How was the lead? Did you bring that out of them? How would you how would you encourage them to share?
Sonia Thompson 20:30
And I do think it’s up to us as leaders to really that is, that should be part of our role, we should be looking at our staff on a regular basis, who is it that we’ve overlooked? Who is it that we could tap into? Who could work with who to build their confidence to enable them to do this work and support other teachers? So it is about how do we enhance that? I also think it’s great for diversity, I think often we can leave teachers in the classroom, because they’re not that you know, they’re not those people who are the ones that we necessarily always move forward. But I think it’s a great way of saying that all of our teachers are valued. All of them have got opportunities. It’s not just for the chosen few, but it’s for everybody, and who how do we make sure that that balance of teachers is there, that range of diverse range of teachers is there that we’re giving these opportunities to?
Craig Barton 21:25
I see. Yeah, I completely agree. And final point on this, you, you make me think so much with this, I’ve, I’m lucky enough these days to visit loads of schools and work with loads of maths departments. And what I always do is spend the first morning visiting as many lessons as I can, and making a note of kind of good practice I see. And invariably, all the things that I would want to work with the maths department on, I’ve seen in these lessons, there’s always examples. And the thing is, it’s just not shared round. And sometimes I’ll speak to the head of department and I’ll say such a person is amazing with mini whiteboards, or their question is amazing. And then they don’t know the head of department doesn’t know this, and the rest of the department hasn’t had an opportunity to see this. So there is almost a blindness isn’t there? And it’s not necessarily senior leadership, it may be a department level or whatever. Yeah, yeah, just the quality of stuff that’s going on within classrooms within you know, your own four walls, and you get the best professional development, if you can somehow tap into something that’s happening three metres away, versus, you know, calling some expensive consultants and so on. It’s yeah, it’s frustrating.
Sonia Thompson 22:25
And I think I think that’s where, you know, even if we, I don’t know if we can video sessions, video parts of sessions that we can then use as part of our particularly had, you know, in department meetings, where we can see elements of that practice we want to move forward mini whiteboards, let’s video Craig do in his classroom doing that, and then Let’s all watch it and pull out what we want to see then implemented. So it’s finding different ways of doing that, you know, rather than, you know, because sometimes we haven’t got opportunities to release people. But are we missing a trick? How do we make sure that we harness that it is important.
Craig Barton 23:02
Okay, Sonya, what is your third tip for us today, please.
Sonia Thompson 23:05
Okay. My third tip is make use of the MP queues. I am a big advocate of MP queues make use of them, they are free. And they provide some quality opportunities for training, coaching, and to expand your teaching network. So just
Craig Barton 23:26
to introduce it for the benefit of people who don’t know what M PQ is, can you just give us a bit of background on those?
Sonia Thompson 23:31
It’s the national professional qualification, I think it kind of links to my two, because I talked about those who want to stay in the classroom. But I also talked about those who want to make that leap. So there are is the national professional quality qualifications provided by the DfE, but filtered through different organisations to deliver them. So you’ve got MP cues for headship, of course, senior leadership, leading teachers. There’s new ones that are coming off for literacy and for early years. So there’s a range of opportunities for MP Q’s, and as I said, they are free. So we’re not we’re not using school budget to pay for these but what you’re developing here again, and again, it links to my first point, in my second point, a pathways for teachers to read, to expand their learning to deepen their subject knowledge. I am all about professional development for our teachers. Were one for mentary school here, but every teacher in my school who wants to do some training has got that opportunity. I I’ve been I’ve been deemed by somebody who says my senior leadership team has said no to me doing an NVQ. And I’ve said why why would they say that they’re free. Everybody should have a pathway. This is a career that we’re in. And as I said, you either want to stay in the classroom or you want to move into senior leadership team. If you want to move whatever that pathway is, let’s make sure that we’ve got That organise within our schools, and not leave it up to chance. And the MP queues are a great way of doing that.
Craig Barton 25:06
Now this is interested in this because this is an area just kind of career I’ve chosen, I’ve never had to encounter one of these MP queues. And I’ve heard real mixed bags about here, some people who kind of see them just as a thing to do got to jump through a few hoops to do it. And then you hear other people like yourself who kind of really sing their praises. So let’s just imagine we’ve got a teacher listening here who wants to progress in their career, and maybe they want to become a head maybe, as you say, a lead teacher, and so on. Firstly, if this isn’t a stupid question, where do they go to access these and then how would you advise they they make use of them?
Sonia Thompson 25:36
If you want to find out, obviously, the DfE website has a link to all the MP Q’s. And I’ve got to declare a little bit of an interest here, because I am, I am on the DfE group for the MP Q’s and eects. But I am going to be proud of that today. Because they are battling to make these the best that they can be. And we know that there’s been teething problems, we know that there’s been there have been issues. But one of the things that they are really trying to do is ensure that teach there is that underpinning of research. And as I said, there is no research that is going to tell us what it is, it’s going to make the difference for every child, we know that there’s but there are some best bets. And as teachers, we know that we whatever we want to deliver in that classroom, we want it to be based around what’s going to make the difference. So if once you get onto the DfE website, there are providers. So we do MP ghusl, which is the Church of England, I’m going to have to advocate sign up for church of England, no, I’m not going to, obviously, ambition, teacher development trust, there’s lots of providers that you can sign up to. And each is you know, they’ve got some key things that they’ve got to do. So there is an opportunity for coaching, some really good professional development around using research and applying it to case studies, and getting a chance to talk about and as I said, expand your own network. I just think it’s so critical that we don’t become just in our schools. And you talk to yourself, Craig about that opportunity to go out to other schools when you’re in ASD. And I just think that broadens your horizon. So just having the opportunity to come together with other practitioners who are working to in the same kind of way as you and having those conversations. I think that’s just invaluable.
Craig Barton 27:33
I mean, it sounds absolutely fantastic thing for the individual teacher to do. But as you’ve alluded to there, you some Sometimes schools aren’t supportive of this. So if you were speaking to a school leader who had a member of staff who was keen to do one, what would you say to the school leader, what’s in it for the schools,
Sonia Thompson 27:49
I think what you’re getting is a member of staff, as I said he was going to be have a key understanding of the latest bits of research around education, they are going to be reading, they are going to be analysing they’re going to be talking to other colleagues, they’re going to have a chance to really reflect on what’s currently happening within their school setting. Because there are certain modules that each of the NP Q’s have to involve, for instance, culture, how critical is culture for schools to move forward. They’re looking at teaching and learning, they’re looking at behaviour, all of those key drivers that all schools need to need people to understand. So the more you can build a set, some staff who’ve got that understanding and that evidence base behind it. I think that can only be a bit of a benefit to schools. So yeah,
Craig Barton 28:40
fantastic. Yeah. Okay, Sonya, what about Tip number four, please.
Sonia Thompson 28:45
Okay, tip number four, links to tip number three, go out and visit other schools see what they’re the amount of times we work with schools as a Research School. And also, when we were a teaching school and teak school, they would come to St. Matthews. And they said, Oh, it’s so great to be out of our school building and see what others do. And I’m not advocating that you go to other schools to copy what they do. But what it does provide is just a wider lens. And that is so crucial. As educators, we need a wider lens, and we need to not be insular. When you’re insular, you lose momentum, you lose the focus of what is happening now. And often schools can get into a little, you get into a silo, don’t you? And you’re just regurgitating things that work for you. But this could be something better. And that’s what we always need to remember. It’s not that things don’t work for us, but there could be something better out there that we can start to think about and contextualise for ourselves. We’re not going to pick up and lift what that other school is doing, but we’re going to start thinking about it. And it may be something that we can add in something we can You know, manipulate that works for us. So it really is about not being too one track. But having that wider lens on education, go into the schools is great. This
Craig Barton 30:13
is fantastic. I have loads to ask you on this because I first off, I fully agree with you, I think it’s a brilliant thing to do. I’ve had this slight disclaimer that I think, as we talked about before, make sure you’ve seen the good stuff within your own school first, because you can go out looking for the great stuff. And it’s it’s in you know,
Sonia Thompson 30:31
it’s right there. Yeah.
Craig Barton 30:33
Well now have loads of things to ask you about there. So first, if what about the logistics, if somebody contacts you and says, I want to visit St. Matthews? Obviously, you can say, oh, yeah, of course come in, and they can have a chat to you and so on. But what they really want to see is what’s going on in lessons and so on. So how do you kind of sell sell that to the staff, because a lot of staff are quite intimidated when they’re, you know, being observed, and particularly if they’re almost being held up, as you know, coming and coming and come and watch me? And these are outsiders coming in? I can only do this quite intimidating. How do you get them on board with that?
Sonia Thompson 31:04
And I think I think a it is about being honest with other people who are coming in to see what you do, because I think our schools, we have to be clear that this is what we do. And what we do is based on our context for our children, based on what our children need. So what you’ll see is where we’ve used research, we’ve made sure that we’ve contextualise that we know what works, and then we’re working in that middle place. Hopefully, that sweet spot for us. So what you’re seeing is what we do, our teachers, I think we’ve, I think we’ve come to a place now where when we have visitors coming, we are very honest, we say to our visitors, you’re going to see this, you’re gonna see that you might Don’t go in there, don’t go in there. We’re not letting you in that room. Just be honest, be honest. Show them where, where you found a good practice, don’t just open the school out. Because if there’s teachers were not comfortable, then there’s no point there’s no purpose, it doesn’t help anybody. So even if it’s about a couple of classrooms that you’re showing them, and you’re talking it through, so we do work kind of threefold morning, we talk about our contexts, we talk about what works for us, we show classrooms, but we say don’t go in there, don’t go in there don’t go in there. We bring our subject leaders in to talk about books and talk about what we do. And then the people who come in can ask questions. So be really clear about what you are. Don’t just have people come in, and there’s not a clear programme of what you’re going to do with them. It’s not just a free for all go anywhere. Because you often need people to know rate what they’re seeing. You need people to signpost them to what is the good practice that they’re looking for? Often people can come in and not see what they want to see. Because they just don’t see it. They just don’t get it. So you do need some narration of that. So be really clear, give as many signposts as possible.
Craig Barton 33:02
And do you find it tends to be kind of one way traffic in the sense that people want to come to see your school? Or do you have kind of reciprocal arrangements where your colleagues can get out to other schools, because that’s often kind of the disadvantage of being in a school that’s doing well is that people want to see you but you don’t get that chance to go out and see other things. How does that work?
Sonia Thompson 33:20
Where are all we are out, out and about all the time, I think that’s I up for me, that is one of the things that moved us forward, in that we were able to go to others. And we were very deliberate about researching schools finding out about the similarities in terms of context, at the area where the school was, the children the kind of population that they served, and went to see what they did. And I think again, you’ve got to just be really clear about what you’re going for what you want to pick up what you can leave behind, and what you can then move forward. And it’s sometimes it’s not going to be everything. It’s not gonna be anything. But you know, it’s about giving people a chance to just see, and I’ve seen people just come back. So infused, they either say, Gosh, this is really great to be at St. Matthews, or they say, actually, there’s some great things that we can learn and move forward here as well. And I think one of the great things about our senior leaders here is that they do get a chance to go out and talk to every people about what they see. And we’ve changed and aligned and manipulated got rid of things because of what we’ve heard. But you’ve got to be really clear about that pathway. Yeah.
Craig Barton 34:34
This is this is fantastic. Just two more questions on this, go speak to about this all day. And if we’ve got a teacher listening here, he thinks, you know what, I really want to go out and visit a school now. If they have the email address of the head teacher or senior leader or whatever, what would you be looking for in an email that would make you think, yeah, I want this person to kind of come around my school because I can imagine you can get an email saying like, I want to come in and you’ll forget what kind of things do people need to The same well what what the genuine reasons that you know, for wanting to come in, if that makes sense.
Sonia Thompson 35:05
I think for me, you always you will, you’re always suspicious when people just say we want to come and visit. And you’re waiting for that you’re scrolling down to see the rest of it, but there’s nothing there, we will have people come to us because they heard about that they it’s either reading or its curriculum, or its behaviours or its culture, if people are specific, because you can’t do everything. So if a school’s already thought we need, we’re looking at that, we can get some support with that particular thing. I always worry when people say we want to see five different things on and we’ve only got a morning, can’t see five things. So it is about being really clear. If you want to visit another school be clear about what and it makes it easier for that school as well to kind of tailor and, and organise the morning so or whatever the time is for you to be able to do that. Yeah, that’s great.
Craig Barton 36:01
Right. I’ve got one more question directly related to this, but then a bonus question if that’s okay, so my question directly related is, is there any benefit? Do you think of primary teachers visiting secondary schools and secondary teachers visiting primary schools? And is this something you’ve experienced?
Sonia Thompson 36:16
I, again, I think it’s absolutely crucial for transition. Just for for both sides to really understand primary and secondary to understand each other or what we do. I think people will be surprised at just how, how confident primary pitches are in this in this space, when they’re learning the level of independence. And I think there is, there is a scariness for children, there is a kind of falling off when they go to secondary school, and they become the smallest in this big a small fish in the big pond. So it is really useful for teachers to kind of get that sense. But I think on the other side, it’s also really important for primary pupils to know particularly for their feeder schools, what is it that you would like us to focus on what would you what would you like us to get your children ready for our children ready for? Because often, we don’t know, we don’t know what that the view from the other side is. So I just think there’s a there’s a brilliant opportunity for that two way. Collaboration is
Craig Barton 37:21
fantastic. We’ve got you’ve answered my bonus question. Next, I was interested in what makes successful transition. And again, I’ve done it all wrong. In the past where it’s been very much are the primary kids come to the secondary school, we teach them a kind of secondary school maths lesson, a lot of them are probably thinking we’ve done all this in year four, absolutely terrible. But yeah, that’s where anytime I’ve been lucky enough to visit primary cause I’m always blown away by the depth of maths there and the quality of teaching. It’s, it’s, it’s scary. It puts me to shame a lot of the time. So I’ll ask you a second follow up question. This could be the worst question. I’ve asked you all day this just in general, I mean, it’s terrible. But just in general, do you think there’s anything that primary school teachers can learn from secondary and secondary can learn from primary just like it as a general couple of things that you think secondary teachers do that actually, quite? Well, we could we could learn from that, and vice versa? Or do you think it’s up to general to kind of pick up on anything?
Sonia Thompson 38:14
I think, I think because I am such an advocate for reading for pleasure. I know that much more primary, secondary schools are creating this kind of really strong pathway for reading for pleasure within their schools. I think they could learn how we do we engage children with books, I often think I when I visited a primary school the other day, and I saw and I’m not gonna say anything, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, and I was like, No, we don’t know. We’re not reading that in year six, we’ve moved past, we are really trying to broaden and deepen our children’s reading. And I just think that if the progression was there, and I know what I’ve been really enthusiastic about so many primary secondary schools are plotting that pathway out now when using things like Tutor Time to really engage in read aloud to pupils, and our primary pupils just love that they are fully fully on board with that. So it’s about coming to have a look and see the kind of books that we’re reading. Here what we’ve done with reading for pleasure at primary, I think it’s secondary, I think there is a level of how you how children become so independent. I think we can be a little bit because they were there in one class all the time in primary, I think, how do we develop that level of independence? And I think we think our children are independent, based on where they come through from reception kids stage one by the time they get to six, we think they’re independent, but actually, what more could we do? What could we do and it’d be great to see what’s how secondary practitioners really get children to just know when to wait Go what to do, how to do it in a really organised way.
Craig Barton 40:04
I’d love some of my year elevens to be independent, by the way.
Sonia Thompson 40:08
I love that somebody that was in that’s interesting, because somebody said that made that comment the other day and said, gosh, are you sure we’re as independent as you think we are?
Craig Barton 40:21
That’s fantastic. Well, what is your fifth and final tip for us today?
Sonia Thompson 40:24
So my final one kind of links to everything. And it is think about implementation. And I think as a Research School, one of the really great documents that we’ve we use with our schools is the implementation document. And one of the things that sometimes schools are afraid to do is to say, we can’t take on any more, we’re going to just work and embed what we’ve got, and take it to the place where we all feel confident that this is working for us. I suppose the other end of that is don’t be afraid to get rid of things that you’ve done in your school, and they are no longer working. And often because we’ve spent money on something we’ve, you know, we’ve invested in it heavily in terms of time, we know that it’s not what I’m gonna say maths, we’re sorry, math whiz, whoever created it, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. But it was great at the time, Craig. But you know, we got to a place where we were, it didn’t work anymore. And because we’d spent quite a lot of money on it, you were so reluctant. But you know, as soon as we got rid of it, it was the best thing we ever did. So I think we’ve got to be confident enough for schools to say, This no longer works for us. There’s research, there’s other best bets. Let’s move it forward. But also, we need to be confident to say, let’s just stop. We’re not taking on any more initiatives. Let’s really embed this and make it work and be confident, because it is something that we can see potential in. Let’s spend time getting it right. Moving on too quickly. This
Craig Barton 42:00
is interesting. So take your first example. I mean, the first thing to say is I don’t think masters will be sponsoring this podcast anytime soon. I see this a lot this kind of sunk cost fallacy, right? You think you’ve put all this time and money into it, you’re clinging on to it for dear life, and it’s so hard and we’re just gonna live generally, it’s once you it’s hard to hard to let go. So that’s, that’s fascinating that I’m interested as well, when I visit schools, and particularly when I work with maps departments, they’ll say, All right, so our focus this year, is to improve retrieval, improve question and improve extended right? And there’s about five or six of these things. And you just this isn’t this is an acronym? What what what what has worked in the past few? Is it kind of one big idea or too small? What where’s the where’s the limits on your Do you
Sonia Thompson 42:45
think we always say two big ideas and maybe an extra, right, okay, and really just hone into that and even then be flexible. Even if you’re you’re Turman, and those two big ideas, ones, there’s more potential in one than the other. Don’t be afraid just to hold back. Because the long term benefits of being really clear about, as you said, Five things across a year just will not work. Because our schools, we know, gosh, I don’t know about you this week. Last week, we had SATs, we had this we had that we had the other we had seven things happening at once. And you lose, you lose focus. And we did our briefing on Friday. And by the end of it, I said, Oh, my goodness staff, I’m really sorry. There’s too many things happening. So you know, we have to be really clear and really mindful of our staffs well being, and that there’s nothing worse and then nothing that’s break stuff while being down when we’re trying to do too much. Yes. And it’s easily done, you know, and I’m handling the, I’ve been guilty of it still learning still on my journey. But we’ve just got to be more mindful as leaders, that we don’t overwhelm and make sure that what we’re moving forward are things that are really going to have impact for our children. Yeah.
Craig Barton 44:04
Okay, this is interesting. Just a few more follow up questions on this. So when you say kind of two big examples, so two big initiatives for a year, could you give me a couple of examples of what they might be saying, how big are we talking here.
Sonia Thompson 44:15
And if we’re looking at particular subject here, for instance, it may be a subject or you might be looking at reading, but you might be looking at fluency. So it might be just fluency that we’re going to focus in on, we’re going to focus in on how to train staff properly to deliver fluency as maybe an intervention, but we’re also going to look at how we train staff to implement it back in the classroom. We’re going to do some in class observations for staff and maybe do some in the moment support for staff we’re going to do some coaching around that. So really build it in and be clear about what we want as that end point. Where do we want stuff to be at the end of the year we’ve looked at for said fluency is the thing that Where do we want staff to be by the end of the year, if it’s linked to reading, where do we want children to be. So it’s about really being really clear at what is the professional development that’s going to support that. And again, it’s not changing it every week, there may be two or three, two or three big points of fluency training across the year. And then of course, slotting in other things. But being really clear about what that looks like. So that PD, that professional development calendar being really we really working for you, rather than just being a list filled with things that you’ve got to tick off. We’ve just got to be mindful of that.
Craig Barton 45:36
That’s really, really fascinating this. So just again, just a couple more follow ups on this. So again, so one error I’ve seen with in schools, as I say it’s just overwhelming people with with loads of things to do. The other thing that’s quite interesting, I don’t know if this is a secondary issue. And perhaps secondary exclusive issue, I don’t know if I’ll be interested to ask you, you often get a whole school initiative, that doesn’t quite work within each department, certain mathematics is always that the awkward subjects here, you’ll get, you’ll get something that’s like we’re going to improve, you know, we’re going to one of our focuses is on extended writing or writing prompts or something like that. And the maths department owes, I think almost kind of shoehorn that in whereas they’d be great if they could focus on like a math specific thing, but it doesn’t fit into the whole school agenda. And I’m sure the same, you know, could work the other way around. Some of that works really well for math, the English teachers that can offer god’s sake, I don’t want I’m guessing that’s not as big an issue of primary because what we’re teaching our subjects would that be right?
Sonia Thompson 46:30
Yeah, yeah, definitely. I think it’s that that is kind of secondary specific. And I think you’ve made a great point there around leaders who are not necessarily, you know, fully conversant with what every subject areas need to do, being really mindful of what what is that conversation that you’re having with departments about what are the specific needs for our department, because of course, there’s whole school things that you’ll bring everybody together for. But more often than not, you’re doing more department meetings than homeschooling routines. So of course, you’ve got to be specific, but leaders have to have that overview and be very much guided by that strategic picture, but also by that departmental picture. So I think it’s key, I think in primary, we are mindful that there are some key stage phase specific things that we’ve got to, we’ve got to think about. So where early were there, you know, we look at early years, and we look at, for instance, the way that early years are delivering their math sessions, we’ve got to be a little bit more mindful. But there’s also some things like manipulatives, where we want everybody to be using that. And it’s not a it’s not a Key Stage One thing, and teachers need to be really clear. So we’ve got to do some whole school teaching about the importance of manipulatives. In in reception, but as well as in year six. So it’s just being really clear about what is that pathway?
Craig Barton 47:55
That’s interesting. And last one, for me just an observation and a final question. So my observation is, I love the fact that you have planned in to keep these big ideas going across the year, because what you often see schools go mental in September, and then by February staff can’t remember what the hell this big idea is, because they’re not training on it. And so I like that planning in these kind of, I think you said three kind of big pot, you know, revisiting points throughout the year, that feels really important.
Sonia Thompson 48:22
And I think what we’ve, what we’ve also done is linked that to the professional development so that those we can we’re moving those forward as part of it’s not some new things that you’ve got to do as part of your professional development. We’ve got this whole set of things that we do as part of Ed, I think, when we started to merge them. And, you know, I always have to hold my hand up, Craig, we’ve been on a journey. All these things are journeys I’m talking about if it’s fully embedded here, these, this is a journey. And it’s whether or not schools are willing to take that journey. And I think when you are when you fixed your lens, as you know, that wider lens on this research on what the research is telling you what the best bets are as a school, I think you’re more open to changing things and aligning things, and thinking about what’s going to work because the research is there. But we’re also looking at our context as well.
Craig Barton 49:12
That’s great. And final question. And if you were launching two big ideas, what’s the best way in your experience? Is it to launch them both at the start of the year and run them both throughout the year? Or is it launch one? Let’s get a bit familiar with that. And then launch the second one what what tends to work best? There?
Sonia Thompson 49:29
We are, we do a little bit of staggering. Never because of September’s always a little bit. You know? Yeah. Teachers come back and you know, that learning loss we all have that we forget what we’re supposed to be doing as teachers. So I think if you’re just throwing everything at everybody in September, we do we kind of do a whole refresher against every subject just reminding about key points. But then we have some big ideas then that will move we move forward at particular points so long Getting off with one and then launching off with a couple of other things. So yeah, got it.
Craig Barton 50:05
Fantastic. Yeah. Well, they’ve been five absolutely brilliant tips. I’ve always I mean, I love talking to anyone but particularly primary practitioners because I again, as a secondary teacher, we can learn so much as well. So that’s been absolutely brilliant. So let me let me hand over to you though, what what should our listeners check out if the only thing to plug you mentioned your book, tell us a bit more about that. And anything else we need to be locking up,
Sonia Thompson 50:24
check out an ethic of excellence in action. So that’s our book, based on Romberg as book, and ethic of excellence. We were privileged to work with Ron Berger, who supported us through just tuning in, and we haven’t we haven’t taken everything from an ethic of excellence that is about one of the things that we’ve moved forward in St. Matthews. And as I said, the what our big focus was was, what is the research that kind of underpins these ideas that Ron Berger didn’t even, you know, didn’t even know he was the research was there, but was just a great practitioner in the classroom changing lives. So that’s been really exciting to do that. So check out our book, check out, you know, because of the book and the work that I’ve kind of done with Tom Sherrington, there are a couple of master classes. And it’s not just about me, all of the inaction books, there’s an opportunity to see a lot of the authors talking about those books, as well as some additional people. So that’s always great. And I would say that if you’re not on Twitter, I know that people say a lot of things about Twitter, you know, sometimes Craig, just you just have to stay out of the way, don’t you read on Twitter, and just have your own? You know, but I can’t, I think it’s great. And I think that if you just make sure that you use it in a way that will be beneficial for you. There’s so many good points for for you to get to get into. And of course, I’m always going to plug research Ed, I’m a big fan of a great network, for supporting teachers, by teachers for teachers. So if you’re not engaged with research, it gets engaged.
Craig Barton 52:10
Well, that brilliance and for benefit of poker systems, I’ve just muted my mic, some kind of storms brewing in the north. So this could be my last podcast. This one but it’s not a bad way to go out. And so this has been absolutely brilliant conversation Sunday. I’ve loved every minute. So thanks so much for taking your time. Well, thank
Sonia Thompson 52:26
you for having me. Take care
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
