Why do we count in 4s?

 Why do we count in 4s in England?

As a former maths teacher who chose to work in #FEmaths I think we may need to look at assessment at age 16.

I give the analogy of a pilot in my book.

A pilot proves knowledge has been acquired and retained on key aspects of flying in an exam. But to fly a plane commercially they accrue hours of competency. They evidence, over time, how they apply this acquired knowledge. They progress in their roles held in a hierarchical structure with flying hours a key part.

When I think about assessment in England, we assess at 16 a whole course approach and those who don't achieve the desired grade 4 are immediately affected for the rest of their lives. 

Imagine a student who achieved a grade 3 in maths but 7s in all other subjects. They gain 4 A levels (not in maths). Go to university and achieve a BA. They do an MA and then decide to get a job.

The first qualification that is often required is a grade 4 in English and maths. The rest of this students brilliant study doesn't get taken into account unless that grade 4 is there.

The 4 is what counts.

Sure the student can re-sit alongside other study but the point is, we place all our emphasis on this assessment designed for students aged 16.

What were you like at 16?

We don't take into account experience, skills, evidence of learning over time. 

We count in 4s.

I say this having taught an adult who worked as a healthcare assistant in a hospital, during covid, who wanted to be a nurse. They re-sat maths 6 times. They earnt a healthcare assistant wage for the 6 years of re-sits they took. They gained vast care and medical experience in that time. The year of covid they passed maths and immediately began a nursing qualification. Upon completion all the years experience were recognised and they entered nursing at a higher band salary than would be usual.

The experience counted but only after we counted in 4s.

So I come back to the pilot example, yes a skills test of the basics. Then a process of evidencing learning over time, applying the subject to real life, showing what you know in a variety of non exam ways. Sounds like a good maths course for 16-19 years olds, no?

These are not our decisions to make but we can raise our voices and show how we think change would deliver better for our students.

We need to stop counting in 4s.

This analogy and other arguments for disruption are in my book which is raising funds for charity. It is also available as an audio listen along version as well. Info at www.whatthetrig.co.uk 

Edtech and me

I write this as I am being nominated for an award (see this link)

I think it's important to remember where you came from and those who shaped your path, always. This might be an individual award (and I may not even make the shortlist) but recognition for others who helped me, is deserved.

Back in 2015 I took a break from FE for maternity. I returned in 2016.

What followed was a year of me finding my feet. Literally.

I was told that we couldn't use memory sticks anymore (hello 2016!) And that all my lessons were on Google. I'm not joking, that was all I got from the Google expert in my team! After a day of googling, 'where are my transformations of shapes lessons?' and crying I asked my husband if I could buy a Chromebook. No, I didn't need his permission but yes, having returned from maternity and having zero money of my own, I felt that I should. I spent £149 on a Chromebook and vowed to teach myself how to create lessons in this Google thing.

Welcome Johnny Diamond and Steve Hope to the frame. We had never worked together before but they said to everyone at college, if anyone could make good, maths lessons in Google for education they would reward them with money! When my child was at nursery and I had TOIL owed for evening classes, I wrote. When I got home early from the traffic and my child's nursery was paid for another hour yet, I wrote! Boy did I write! I wrote 30ish lessons, all original material for GCSE maths. What a learning curve. I included #Equatio (handy given now that's my actual job!) I wrote robust multiple choice quizzes with Equatio in Google Forms. I wrote full sequenced lessons on Google Slides, all original materials including diversity and inclusion examples as well as British values. Like I said, I wrote!

My motivation for this was purely financial, to earn the £149 I had just spent back, if I am honest! But this learning experience was to kick start a chain of events. On that same £149 Chromebook I became a level 1 and level 2 certified educator in Google for education. I was determined to teach myself!

My approach with EdTech is always, what need is it serving, does anything we already have serve that need, what else do we need to make this the best solution ever? This approach often means I stay in my lane.

Steve Hope saw something in me. Something. I don't know what it was, and we are still very close and I could ask him, but I don't need to, because I don't think it matters what it was. I was a nervous maternity returner but he saw me learn this Google thing, write all those lessons, teach across multiple campuses, all with a small child in tow. I didn't work for Steve, yet, he included, encouraged and supported me.

2018 saw another maternity leave. The day of my 12 week scan I interviewed for Steve for an advanced Practitioner role. I went for my scan, came in for lunch and the tried to appear 'normal' for an interview, this is not a recommended approach! Steve offered me the job and didn't bat an eye when I said I was pregnant again. That whole convo will stay with me forever. He genuinely didn't think it would affect my role, I have to be honest aside from 5 months fully away, it didn't. I also became a Google for education certified trainer in 2018. That Google thing that I had been determined to teach myself, I now had qualifications in it and could train others. 

In the months before my leave Steve brought Iain Thompson on board who was (and forever will be) my rock. We were a brilliant team. We still are, just it's a friendship team not a work team! Whilst on a KIT on maternity Steve asked me to apply for APconnect. I did (in a park mid baby feed via my phone!) When I returned to work in 2019 my focus was to get up to speed with what I missed on APconnect and lean on Iain Thompson. I relied on him. We went to an event and we met Lou Mycroft. I was back on track with my APconnect work. AP connect, did that, it connected me to other APs nationally to learn and grow with. 

2020, you know.

It was only recently when I said it out loud did it sink in. 2020, Iain, Steve and I supported over 1000 staff who had over 10000 students with all their Edtech needs as they taught online. We did this remotely in our homes, me in mine with a baby and a child in reception which meant homeschooling too. I don't think I can ever fully explore the feelings of that period, it was tough.

When it got really tough in summer 2020 I remembered Lou from APconnect offering us to reach out when we needed, I have no idea why this popped into my head when it did but I am grateful that it did and I found the ideas room with JoyFE. JoyFE gave me that peer support to test Edtech ideas on, we did Flip birthday cards for each other!

2020 I applied to be an innovator as part of the Google for education programmes. To my surprise I was chosen as one of 75 of the many who applied. I think everything until this point shaped things but this event changed things. I met  Ryan Evans here and just like I would be lost without Iain, I would be lost without Ryan too. There isn't a week that goes by without me needing advice from Ryan. We pushed, and still push, each other with EdTech, that critical friend that drives you on and always has your back, that's me and Ryan!

2021 I left working for Steve. I was now self employed trying to carve a path on the noisy world of Edtech and consultancy. In comes Jamie Smith and Ian Nairn. Late 2020 we began discussions and it was to be that I would have a regular self employed gig with C Learning working on exciting new products (AI/XR) coming to market as well as CPD for colleges and schools on Edtech. I was unknown to them, they took a chance. I vividly remember the day I finally said out loud that I was going to go self employed and that I was nervous. Jamie asked what's stopping you from doing it, and I said nothing, I won't let my family starve. That saying it out loud conversation was a massive moment.

2021 I was named Edtech50 (mind blowing). It also saw me be a Google Certified Coach (very early doors as in one of the first 2 in UK and Europe). Then mentor other cohorts through my gig at Canopy. Grateful for the work from canopy through this period too, consulting with colleges and local authorities on Edtech. Throughout all this self employed period, I still thought an evening class of GCSE maths every week, I loved teaching. How could I help people with EdTech if I hadn't used it myself? My classes also appreciated me staying in my lane, too much Edtech can distract from what we are here to learn. 

I have to mention my 2020-21 GIFs work. In my teaching I had a lot of students struggle with lack of access to internet and data. They had other financial struggles too and safeguarding referrals were regular but data and device access directly affected their learning. I built a short CPD course on how I turned to creating GIFs to bridge that gap. I delivered this to colleges and schools and recorded it and it's free on Eduspark. Hat tip to Eduspark for bringing me in early doors, supporting and believing in me.

Another regular gig in this period was APconnect itself. APconnect is run by Touch Consulting. That wonderful programme that had shaped me as an Advanced Practitioner, I now worked on. This was down to Joss Kang and Lou taking a chance on me. Here I got to hone my Edtech in a different way. Outside the Google for education eco system and support APs nationally.

2022 I decided to take a job, gigging had been fun, a blast! Texthelp had a role that I had seen advertised before and I decided the timing wasn't right. When I saw it advertised again I felt the timing was better for my family. And here we are.

I think whenever we are recognised as an individual it is really important to also recognise who helped make that individual. Hat tips throughout all of this long blog because I owe so many people for helping me learn and grow.

Owning the title former teacher

Rather un eventfully I left teaching April 2022. I don't know what I had planned for the event but it ended up being an email to senior leadership saying enough was enough. Truth is, I probably, had left the classroom long before, I had done a year as a zero hours evening class teacher, before that I had done 3 years as an evening class teacher on secondment. Actually the last time I think that was a 'teacher' teacher was probably 2017. When I shared with pals that I was leaving (for good this time) I shared that I felt a bit of a fraud having only been a zero hours teacher for a year. That in my head, because I wasn't working all day every day in the classroom I was less of a teacher. There were some interesting debates with friends. Some took the view that I was still putting the same love and attention in to my one class and having wider impact with my other work, some dismissed the idea saying once a teacher always a teacher, some said think of the ones you have taught.

I debated all of this and some! Why did I have this dilemma? In 2018 I became an advanced practitioner, a teacher who coached other teachers. To keep me fresh I still taught one class a week on an evening. That's the beauty of FE, there is always an evening class that needs a teacher! The plan for this was that I would practice what I preached to the teachers I was coaching and they could observe me anytime doing all the amazing things I was coaching them through. This meant that I should have been putting Ofsted levels of planning into that 1 class a week. Let's be honest, I wasn't. I had a lot on in my other role, and whilst these lessons were well planned, they weren't gold plated. The theory was also that I would still be viewed as one of them, one of the teachers that I was coaching, on their level, I could say, "I get it" 

I would like to apologise now to those teachers who I coached and who I said this to. Whilst I 'got' teaching and learning, and I still do, my one class a week was not significant enough for me to position myself with other teachers. Truth, most of my week was spent training, coaching and mentoring and very little time went into my alleged Ofsted level planning. So I wasn't the same, I wasn't in the team meetings hearing the same messages, I was an outsider parachuted in to cover that evening class who left after class. I wasn't there when someone had to cover reception at the community site. I wasn't there when they had a deep dive by SLT. I wasn't there when there was an attendance problem with students. No doubt I was having impact across larger teams in my role, my role was enjoyable and I saw progress with my coachees. But I was not a teacher the same as them, had I exited the classroom?

Let me tell you about being a zero hours teacher. No, it's not the same as being employed. The Christmas just eat voucher that HR give out from SLT is only for employees, not zero hours employees. The well being day that you can take is only for employees, not zero hours employees. The payroll who can, and do, kick back your time sheet and don't pay you because of a typo when you are zero hours. Yet employees who are salaried are always paid. All of this breaks my heart for others who are zero hours. My situation was very different. I had my own self employed work and was financially stable. I genuinely was still teaching for the love of teaching. It certainly wasn't for the salary. The salary was 50% less than my salary when I was an advanced practitioner and I know (and appreciate) that the zero hours pay I got was very generous too. Again I know how fortunate I am that I was able to combine my love of teaching with my self employed work. Fortunate that circumstances worked out and that I had my reputation from being an advanced practitioner as well was there being an evening class that always needed covering. 

Now, this past year as a zero hours teacher has been wonderful, in my virtual classroom. I have had such good times with my students. I have adored almost every second of it. I have enhanced my teaching digitally in a flipped/asynchronous style. My students have their work up front, at the start of the week, the morning after their evening class. This is a form that branches out depending on their responses. If they're ok with the topic (these are resitters) they get some questions, if they need help they get a video from me or another one I have curated from YouTube. My students have a choice of how they learn and when they learn. I think of it like each chalk and talk episode I would do in the classroom is a form, with a task built in for them to complete. The tasks are all self marking and then I ask for a student reflection on how they felt that it went. Each episode is linked together in one overall doc and if this is complete before the end of the timetabled class they are marked positively for attendance.

I have blogged about this before if you want to learn from my years 1 and 2 iterations here (link1 link2 link3 link4 link5 link6 link7). I then host a workshop live in the timetabled slot. This is shorter than the timetabled class as there are bookable one to ones as well on offer. If the forms are complete it is optional for students to come to the workshop. This also means that if students have ignored my work and attend live they can get the gist of what's been going on and return to the work post workshop or part way through too. Some students arrive for 10 minutes ask for a specific example explaining and leave. Some students attend the whole thing piecing together where they went wrong in the forms from their weeks work and some students come some weeks and not others. It has worked for 2 years. I have taught 3 cohorts this way over 2 years. I have done action research on it which I shared at ALT and I was doing more research in it as part of my MA. Obviously I'm not now as I have no sample as I have left! So had I left teaching when I became zero hours?

One student has never attended live apart from mock assessments where they heard my pleas and joined the call live. Every week their work was completed day 1 and the screenshots of their self marking tasks showed it was all correct. Their mock results were amazing, grade 5s and I really should have put them in for higher (but that's a whole other tale). This student also weekly appeared in my emails with negative comments from other tutors, late, no work, poor attendance notifications. These were always followed up by SEND team replies reminding other tutors of this students EHCP. This student had been at college previously and had sat maths and done worse than they had at school. Before I left I asked for a chat with this student. They obliged and on the call they appeared with their parents. Their parents explained that the student struggled with anxiety when on live calls and thanked me for never pressuring them to attend live. I explained my job is to find a way that it works for everyone as much as possible and where I can flex I always will.

FE maths is often the least popular subject in college. The one most students have to do but they really don't want to do. In this example the parent was telling me maths was their highlight. I asked the student why they liked maths and they replied, they don't. They hate it. Standard FE response I thought. They said what they liked was that I was respecting the challenges of the way that they learn and by allowing them to study at their own pace, at home, take breaks, revisit tasks and not be dragged to a live session face to face or online was what they enjoyed. I may have turned my camera off as I may have had a wet cheek from tears at this point. I asked about previous attempts at GCSE, I am always fascinated why it hasn't worked before and how can we make it work this time, it's always a question I ask! The student explained that they had never sat a full exam, they had reacted negatively to being in the exams before and either been removed or left after 10minutes. So the question then was, how do we make it better this time? The student had no answers other than that they would try. I made a promise to try too; to try to get all the forms for the rest of the years topics scheduled on Google classroom before I left. We had a deal. I wrote this before the date of the exam but I have heard from the SEND team that the student is still watching if I will keep my promise of scheduled asynchronous tasks and if so, they will keep theirs and try to sit the exam. (All the tasks are written and scheduled!)

So when did I stop being a teacher?

The other week when I had this call and left my current class. I think I was a teacher all along, just not as in it as full or part time classroom teachers. The level of work is similar but I accept I escaped the pressures of being in the building all the time. Yet the pressures of being zero hours and having to chase emails and attendance in your own time are significant I would argue, but different.

I am not still a teacher, I have now left teaching. Even though my scheduled tasks continue! But I will proudly wear the badge of former teacher, supporting those still teaching where I can!