Education and the fallout from COVID – the canary in the mine?

This blog aims to outline some of the current challenges that teachers and leaders are dealing with, for those that don’t know what is happening in schools. I’ve tried to back most points with evidence (varying sources) but some of it is anecdotal. It is in no way supposed to be critical of schools and their staff. It’s an overview of where I think we are and why. You may well disagree but unless you spend a significant time in schools then you may not be aware of these things. I come from a secondary background however I suspect these issues are across phases.

The original title of the blog was going to be ‘COVID kids – the impact on schools and children’ which reflects my thoughts on one of the biggest causes of the issues below. They always existed but I believe that the lock-downs of 2020 and 2021 were hugely impactful to children, their parents and ultimately to schools.

Attendance

Attendance of students is at a stage that I have never experienced in my career. A significant number of students are not coming to school; some coming in less and some not coming in at all.

https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-9710/CBP-9710.pdf

The evidence of what we can do to deal with this is sparse. We are all trying to come up with things that might make a difference. But it is huge. For many schools, relying on tutors or heads of year to deal with absenteeism is now unmanageable. Schools need to make roles for colleagues to work specifically (and only) with these students and families. But this isn’t enough, reports show that adverts for these sorts of jobs are increasing, but are vacancies being filled? I’ve seen people share threads on X/Twitter of what they’re doing which is lovely to share but I think we should be clear that this isn’t a case of a few ‘hacks’. This needs a coherent strategy at a national level, fully funded and with shared resourcing in what might work. We need people to see this job as rewarding, valued, fully supported with continuous training and do-able. At the moment there is evidence that these jobs are not retaining staff due to “the “emotional intensity” of the work, high workload and frustration with the approach and scope of the work”.

Upping the fine for absence just isn’t going to cut it. Someone that has gone on holiday during term time will have saved multiple times more money than the fine, by avoiding school holiday hiked up prices. And for those whose absence is linked to school refusal, a fine isn’t going to do anything to help. Parents won’t be helped in getting their child to school, by paying an £80 fine.

Parents need help with parenting. They need support in dealing their child that is refusing to get out of bed in the morning or refuses to go into school. However this has fallen onto schools and we don’t have the capacity to do so. We have become an emergency service, social services and pseudo-parents and we just don’t have the knowledge, skills, time or capacity to fulfil these roles. The government needs to deal with this at the root; with current and new parents. I don’t know much about Sure Start but I hear that this sort of programme can have impact (and lo! the evidence for this has appeared today). The government needs huge investment into these sorts of programmes to ensure that future parents can be supported and schools can get back to fulfilling their usual role in society (mainly education).

Behaviour

How people in society behave has changed since the lockdowns. Reports of 50% increase in violence towards shop workers and data showing that violence towards teachers in school has increased, shows that boundaries have shifted.

What training have teachers had for dealing with deep rooted behaviour issues? I feel that dealing with students with more complex issues are way beyond our capabilities. Schools need to be able to support these students where possible but also, where necessary, find students an alternative to their current context, ideally to more specialist provision. There has been funding for more EBD schools however these are way behind their estimated opening time of September 2026.

Persistent disruptive behaviour has increased and schools are having to make the ultimate decision to suspend students. Despite what some think, this isn’t an overnight decision and takes a lot of time and resources to try to resolve before suspension.

The Mental Health crisis

I don’t think we will ever fully know the impact that COVID has had on the nation and the world’s mental health. And when we start to realise the long term impact, it will be too late for intervention for some people.

As already mentioned, teachers and school staff are not trained to deal with the levels of mental health issues we are facing. Coming up with a code for school registers might help in identifying the numbers we face however it’s not a solution. Schools need specific, targeted support for these students because the current systems aren’t coping. CAMHS referrals have significantly increased and the system doesn’t have the capacity to deal with them. Stories are being shared of having to wait weeks for referrals to be processed. This falls back onto school staff that aren’t equipped to deal with the level and complexity of need.

Value of schooling

Unfortunately, during the lockdowns some people broke the law and people in authority have since been found to have not followed the rules that they were enforcing. People’s view of authority figures have been affected by this, this includes schools and school staff. The value of schools has therefore changed in some people’s eyes.

Let’s be brutal, there are students that were told to leave school in March 2020, that now have qualifications that they weren’t fully assessed for. In some cases, students left with grades which may not correlate with what they would have got if they had been assessed in the normal way. They did not experience the end of school rites of passage. They missed out on important life skills and social interactions. These students may become parents themselves soon and I think this will impact their perception of schools and schooling, and consequently their own children.

Some have said that the ‘social contract’ between schools and parents has shifted. Ex-Ofsted Chief inspector Amanda Spielman has said:

“And in education we have seen a troubling shift in attitudes since the pandemic. The social contract that has long bound parents and schools together has been damaged. This unwritten agreement sees parents get their children to school every day and respect the school’s policies and approach. In return, schools give children a good education and help prepare them for their next steps in life. It took years to build and consolidate, from when schooling first became compulsory.

Unfortunately, there is ample evidence that this contract has been fractured, both in absenteeism and in behaviour. Restoring this contract is vital to sustaining post-pandemic progress, but is likely to take years to rebuild fully.”

This links to socialisation.

Socialisation

I’m not an expert but I can see the impact that lock downs have had on students’ socialisation. Surveys seem to support the impact that they had on social and emotional development. For some children, in their formative years, they didn’t have to deal with people they didn’t like or do what they didn’t want to do, for several months. I think that some students haven’t developed the skills of dealing with these important aspects of life. Some are using ‘fight or flight’ when encountering things they don’t like. Flight includes not coming to school and internal truancy. Fight includes refusing to go to class and arguing with staff.

Starting secondary school is a hugely important time for deciding who you are, how you are going to be and who you are going to hang about with. School provides children with the space to be with other people. People their own age, people that are younger and then some people that are a lot older! Part of being in school is learning to get on with people you may like but also people you may not like. Also, it’s doing some things you might like but also doing things you might not like. Many students missed out on these important stepping stones in life. (I believe that current year 10 have had the worst of this. They missed their year 6 SATs, end of primary school rites of passage and couldn’t have the same induction to secondary school as normal. They then went into lock down again in term 2 and had barely found their feet in year 7.)

The medical profession is also noticing this and its impact on relationships:

“The COVID-19 crisis highlights that school fulfils not only an educational mission of knowledge acquisition, but it also satisfies the socialisation needs of young people. With students at home, the school community is absent and despite the virtual interactions and learning opportunities provided by the internet and social networks, a barrier is created in the educational relationship between pupils and teachers.“

Parents

It’s impossible to fully quantify what parents went through during lockdowns. Some parents went from being mum/dad to also being learning mentor or even teacher. They were handed responsibility for ensuring their child did things that they wouldn’t usually have to do. Many found maintaining discipline and keeping their child/ren motivated, hard.

Schools are now reporting an increase in parents challenging school rules. Whilst people will always debate which rules should/shouldn’t be challenged it’s the impact that these challenges have on teacher and school leaders that goes unrecorded. Receiving abusive emails from parents, parents shouting at teachers at the school gate or posting hateful posts on social media about staff, have an impact. Some have forgotten they are dealing with human beings and that schools aren’t the enemy.

Sadly, parents questioning authority of the school has an impact on students. If they’re hearing ‘I’ll go up the school and tell them…..’ then this is giving a message to children about who is ‘in charge’. Students then openly question teachers when they are told things they don’t want to do/hear. They are copying what their parents are saying at home. Whilst students are in school they are required to follow school rules for their own and others’ safety. This crossing of boundaries was not helped when school was home, and parents became their authority on school work. The boundaries of authority became blurred.

Both schools and Ofsted have received significantly more complaints post COVID. These are taking up Headteachers’ time. Some aren’t warranted so are wasting time that could be spent on supporting students. It’s also not good for Headteacher well being. All credit to Headteachers that deal with these on a daily basis however it is a huge time-consumer and I can’t help feeling it is also changing the nature of the job.

Cost of living, poverty and disadvantage

Reports show that there is an increase in poverty. What does this mean for schools?

Disadvantage is often highlighted in education data regarding the issues above. For example, the new fine system will likely affect the disadvantaged at secondary more. Similarly for attendance, the gap between disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged has increased.

The pressure then falls upon teachers to try to ‘close’ the gap. This is now becoming a complete nonsensical thing to expect from teachers. The issues of disadvantage are far more complex than an engaging lesson or after school class can resolve. Amongst other things, the Education Policy Institute recommend a cross-party child poverty strategy.

Teachers, teaching and learning

Anecdotally, more and more discussions about education are about the above issues and less about teaching and learning. Teachers don’t have time to talk about curriculum matters if they’re dealing with behaviour matters. Form tutors won’t have time to talk to students about learning if they’re talking about attendance. We’re losing the time and energy to talk about the stuff that matters to deal with things that will probably make a limited difference.

Even back when the lock downs were happening, teachers could see that COVID was going to cause issues with learning. If it didn’t, we’d have some big questions to ask about the role of schools!

https://yougov.co.uk/society/articles/29497-at-least-44-teachers-know-pupils-who-cant-acc

More recent research suggests the impact of lock-downs on learning. One report found there were less children who achieved a ​‘Good Level of Development’ and the perception from parents and schools is that children (EYFS/KS1) have been disadvantaged in their socio-emotional wellbeing, language and numeracy skills.

The Dfe summarised suggestions of what aspects of learning have had the most losses:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/learning-during-the-pandemic/learning-during-the-pandemic-review-of-research-from-england

Teachers aren’t as happy as they have been. They’re now dealing with everything above. Teachers are increasingly stressed and their wellbeing has hit a 5 year low. Whilst the government has promised a “£1.5 million of new investment to deliver a three-year mental health and wellbeing support package for school and college leaders; providing professional supervision and counselling to at least 2,500 leaders”. However this doesn’t help with teacher retention.

Teachers are now less inclined to recommend teaching as a career to others and this has significantly changed over the past three years.

To top this all off, education is having a recruitment and retention crisis. So even if we get children into schools it is becoming less and less likely they’ll have a specialist or even a regular member of staff teaching them. The quality of education cannot be the same with non-specialist or supply staff, than with regular, subject specialists. There is also a shortage of supply teachers so internal staff are having to increasingly cover for colleagues. This is not good for teacher wellbeing and will clearly impact retention. Why bother going to school if school isn’t fully functioning as it should?

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The reality is that four years ago, schools stopped functioning in the way they had been, for the majority of students. Whilst there may be doubts over correlation or causation, I believe that the impact of the pandemic, in particular the lockdowns have significantly affected schools, children and parents. Is COVID’s impact on education the canary in the mine? As these children grow up, what further impact will there be on society? The data is piling up but it seems the solutions (or at least possible strategies to try) are not so forthcoming, at least at a governmental level. Society has changed, never to be the same again. As a new government is on the horizon, I hope they take on board all these issues. We need new direction and support. Schools need help with this ‘new normal’.

(NB I never usually write anything political and expect I will delete soon after publishing.)

‘I can’t do this, I wasn’t here last lesson’ – Absence, lessons and learning

The DfE data on absence isn’t a happy read. With persistent absence at 20% for the academic year so far, it’s clear that we are dealing with an issue that there are no silver bullets for. It’s a long term issue for schools which is a consequence of lock downs and the resulting increase in anxiety and depression. So what can we do at a lesson/teacher level to try to help students that are affected. We need to do something!

I’m proposing three strategies that might help. However, these ideas are not really for school refusers, these are for those students that we see once in a while. They’re in for one lesson and then you don’t see them again for a few weeks. Also, they may be subject appropriate strategies. For RE, when we see them so infrequently this has led to a huge improvement in engagement for these students.

Photo by Zhuo Cheng you on Unsplash

Lesson division

I see many people plan their schemes by lesson. So each lesson covers a topic within a scheme. For example when teaching the five pillars of Islam, they might do one lesson on each pillar so five lessons in total. The problem with this is if I’ve missed the first two pillars and I’m in lesson three, I won’t have any idea about those pillars (except through the starter – see below). So I don’t teach ‘by lesson’, I teach by topic across lessons.

Here are some simple illustrations to help visualise my point….

The diagram above shows how many teachers teach. Each lesson covers a topic or area and then the content is ‘done’ (aside from retrieval/revision etc). A student that attends two lessons in six will only have exposure to two topics.

This diagram shows how if you split topics across lessons, a student will be exposed to four different topics. This is a simplistic version of what I actually do (topics don’t all fit neatly into two half lessons!) but hopefully illustrates the point.

You could argue that the four topics they experience won’t be in-depth but I’d rather these students hear some of the content and hearing the key terms being used than two ‘whole’. They will end up with some notes on four topics rather than full notes on two.

When I start the lesson we always do a re-cap of the last lesson so all students can get back into things. This places the learning into context for the absent student and they can see last lesson’s notes on the screen via my visualiser.

Repeated content in starters

I use starter quizzes for a multitude of reasons. In this context they’re used to expose students to previous content. They won’t know the answers when they’re back in lesson but we repeat the quiz questions every lesson, so even if they missed the content teaching, they can pick up on things.

For example, at the start of the topic on Hindus teachings on life after death we talk about the story of Krishna and Arjuna being on a battlefield when discussing issues of life and death. This is important contextual information for the teachings. For the following lessons, I ask the starter question ‘Where were Arjuna and Krishna when they had the conversation?’ After a few lessons, students that weren’t in the initial lesson know it was on a battlefield because we repeatedly reference it. Also, because I don’t just go through the answers but repeat the content (showing the appropriate images/text that I used when I initially taught it) when we mark the starters, the students get exposure to more previous (missed) content. It takes longer than just reeling off the answers but the starter isn’t a pub quiz; it’s retrieval and foundations for the coming lesson. I’ve written before how my starter quizzes take a while. This is why!

Long term enquiry questions

This solution is probably more for humanities subjects where a topic can take longer than one lesson, but might be doable for a topic that has component parts in other subjects i.e. is not cumulative.

We have an overarching enquiry question that lasts any time from half a term or longer which has many different approaches to the answer. Every lesson covers one or more elements, contributing to the answer. A student can pick up where we are in any lesson because there is new material which is linked to past material but doesn’t necessarily rely on it. We have to repeat/summarise previous content to link it with the new, so essential content is presented to them. Whilst this won’t be as in depth as the previous teaching, it gives them a basis to pin new learning.

This really comes into play when we answer the enquiry question. A student can have missed a few lessons but can still answer the question from the two lessons they attended because in those two lessons they have two possible answers to the question.

An example for core key stage four is ‘How have people responded to discrimination and was it effective?’. Each lesson looks at case studies of discrimination and the response of those that have been discriminated against. Students that attend all lessons will have 10 case studies to draw from (see below) that have been spread across lessons (not one per lesson).

Even if a student attends the final lesson we will have done at least one case study before they answer it. It’s a limited answer but not a situation of ‘I wasn’t here so I don’t know what to write’. They always have something. This strategy also promotes ‘going deeper’ into a topic rather than rattling through superficially.

These three strategies mean that I don’t have students sitting wasting even more time in class saying ‘ I don’t know about this’ or when it is summative assessment time, not being able to write anything. They’ve made a real difference to my students that I don’t see very often but equally the strategies are good for all students in embedding learning.

RE Curriculum – Digging deeper

My goal is to write a set of blogs about something I’ve been thinking about for a while. What is it that makes a good RE curriculum? What is it that makes it RE rich? Challenging? Different from other subjects?

To help my thinking I’ve created a visual….

I’ve pondered analogies and images and gone with this. It’s not the perfect analogy; it implies a hierarchy of importance which isn’t what is meant but I think it might reflect how shallow or deep some RE curriculums go, which is important.

If you are writing a new curriculum or reviewing what you have, this might be a useful tool to reflect with.

Looking at it as a whole may be overwhelming, so my intention is to break each down with examples for each ‘layer’.

I am happy to take comment and critique. I know this isn’t how everyone sees the RE curriculum, but in the absence of many other options, it may be a starting point for your thinking.

First up will be hinterland and core, substantive knowledge……

Same question, but different.

One way that I differentiate is to consider challenge in the retrieval questions that I ask students. I start most lessons with a 1-10 of questions. The content of these question is chosen carefully. I take into consideration:

• Curriculum – where we are in the scheme, what we’ve covered
• The students – from what I know about them – are they motivated? cognitive issues? best language to use etc
• Time – when I last saw them (I will pick an easier question if I’ve seen them a long time ago compared to seeing them the previous day), time of day
• Lesson – what I will be teaching them or feeding back on – the choose questions that specifically link in to this
• Forgetting – which content might they be forgetting? Interleaving content from across the topic/course helps to remember in the long term

Once I’ve considered these general areas I think about the wording of questions. These questions cover the same content but some are easier than others. Which are easier and why?

1. Name one of the Trimurti	2.What are Brahma, Vishnu & Shiva known as?	3.Brahma, Vishnu & Shiva are known as the T_________.
4. How many gods are in the Trimurti?	5.Name the Trimurti	6.Name all three parts of the Trimurti
7. Name at least one of the Trimurti	8.Which god is missing from the Trimurti: Vishnu, Shiva, _________	9.The Trimurti are B_______, V________ and S_________.

For reference: The Trimurti are three gods in Hinduism; Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva

• Which would you ask first time after teaching the content? Why?
• Which would you ask after you are confident they know the content?
• Which would you ask if you haven’t seen students for a long time but you think they know the content?
• Which would you ask if there wasn’t a high success rate on this previously?
• What’s the difference between 1 & 7? When would you use each? Why?
• What’s the difference between 5 & 6? When would you use each? Why?
• What do the letter hints do for a student?
• Rank order the questions from easiest to most difficult. What made you decide?¥

Photo by Victor on Unsplash

Why ask the same question differently?*

• The Goldilocks effect – not too easy, not too difficult. The middle way. This changes as students learn more and confidence develops. This is the skill of a teacher; pitching at the right level!
• Challenge – it allows me to differentiate based on where I think the majority of the class are. Pitching the question at the right level of their understanding is essential for success. Scaffolding in questions includes ‘fill in the blanks’, giving more information, requiring more in an answer etc
• Motivation – students are motivated if they feel success but are also challenged. Making them feel clever can be the biggest motivator. Giving them hints can help. Giving them trickier questions can help students engagement.
• Getting used to multiple formats – if we have to talk about qualifications then this method is good for preparing students to be able answer multiple format questions. If I created the above table for maths, the questions could look significantly different on paper but teaching students that they are the same question builds confidence.

So, when you’re asking students questions think carefully; how should I ask this? It makes a difference.

¥ I’d go:

• 4 – remembering a keyword or what ‘tri’ means
• 3 – remembering one keyword with a letter hint
• 2 – remembering one keyword
• 1 – remembering one but trickier because they have three to choose from
• 7 – remembering at least one – gives option – allows student to be limited or give more
• 9 – remembering all three but with letter hints
• 8 – they have to know Brahma
• 6 – have to know all three but are told there are three
• 5 – have to know what the word Trimurti means and remember all three

*Those of you that like Rosenshine’s principles of instruction I think this probably covers:

• Begin a lesson with a short review of previous learning.
• Present new material in small steps with student practice after each step
• Ask a large number of questions and check the responses of all students.
• Guide student practice.
• Check for student understanding.
• Obtain a high success rate.
• Independent practice
• Engage students in weekly and monthly review

A worldviews approach to RE – what it really means for teachers

A few people have been discussing online what a religion and worldviews approach to RE might be. If you have been watching/listening to some of the RE community in recent years you may have a flavour but there hasn’t been much simple explanation of what it means.

From what I’ve seen it has always been juxtaposed with a world religions paradigm, which is often criticised. It is also often been debated by lots of clever people that aren’t necessarily designing curriculums or teaching day-to-day. I like to know the practical implications of what it means so I will leave the theorising and problematising to others, and crack on with considering what it means to me and my department.

I’m not going to include arguments for or the criticisms of a world religions approach nor those critiquing a worldviews approach, I just want some clarity on what people are saying it actually means for the classroom, in terms of curriculum and pedagogy (although I think these aren’t clear cut).

I certainly have not been sure what it fully means for my curriculum and teaching and I’m sure that there are other teachers that feel the same so I thought I’d bring a few things together, for me and for you!

Photo by Saketh Garuda on Unsplash

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Curriculum focus – in our schemes and in our plans

• Using disciplinary knowledge or ‘ways of knowing’ in your curriculum & teaching (some have gone for theology/philosophy/human/social sciences/history) – simply asking ‘how do we know X to be the case when considering Y?’ then using one of more discipline to answer this e.g. How do we that Christians believe that in God? Using Theology to read the Bible evidence, using philosophy to analyse philosophical arguments for his existence, looking at human/social sciences to see how people behave due to their beliefs. This may include:
  • teaching substantive knowledge (content/facts/stuff) through the disciplines
  • teaching students the multi-disciplinary nature of RE
  • considering if a unit of work uses one or more discipline
    • If you want to see how you already do this use these primary and secondary balanced RE audit tools (from the Church of England education office but applicable to all schools)
    • Watch Nikki McGee discuss a disciplinary approach
• Using academic scholarship – making students aware of the conversations and debates that have been had and are happening in the different disciplines – Read Joe Kinnaird’s thoughts on using scholarship here
• Including non-religious worldviews in your curriculum – Humanism is often mentioned but includes others. This RE:Online blog from Dr Kevin O’Grady may help with this
• (staring with) Looking at the lived experiences of individual perspectives (a person/people) rather than generalisations of institutional groups e.g. ‘Buddhists….’, ‘Christians….’ – Here’s an example for Islam from Dr Kate Christopher and Professor Lynn Revell.
• Considering the terminology we use when talking about religion & belief – an emphasis on presenting religions as worldviews, considering the names of religions (Hinduism/Sanatana dharma, Sikhism/Sikhi) Listen to an example on the RE Podcast with Louisa Jane Smith
• Teaching about diversity within and between worldviews – using similarities and differences – not all people within a religion agree e.g. looking at denominations/schools/traditions within a religion – Here’s an example from Zameer Hussein and Rachel Buckby on primary curriculum
• Teaching students about personal worldviews – not opinions but the things that have lead them to have them and the position that they have on the world. This isn’t AT2. This can be taught be using something tangible like lenses of a magnifying glass or glasses to help students understand the concept of perspective. Read my blog for some suggestions on how you might do this.
• Personal reflexivity – appreciating our own biases in our curriculum and teaching & encouraging students to do the same (thanks to Katie Gooch & Nikki McGee for highlighting) This blog explores our biases

Pedagogical focus – how we teach the curriculum

• Considering the language we use when teaching about beliefs & practices- Using ‘all/many/some/few/one’ rather than ‘Christians believe….’ See here for my blog on this
• Using the tools of our disciplines to create a critical approach to what we teach e.g. using philosophy requires us to consider the logic and reasoning of arguments – some have planned for students to be aware of the tools and have encouraged them to use them independently – some have used the metaphor of lenses (not the same as the personal worldview lenses!) to help students understand how we can apply them to substantive knowledge – See Joe Kinnaird’s example of getting students to write like philosophers
• Using a hermeneutical approach (considering how things might be read and interpreted differently) e.g. examining Genesis 1 from different perspectives – these resources from Jen Jenkins may give some ideas and this RExchange2022 video from Jennifer Jenkins, Shannon Clemo and Debbie Yeomans

Further reading on a worldviews approach
Reforming RE (website with many relevant blogs)

Worldviews in Religious Education – Trevor Cooling, with Bob Bowie and Farid Panjwani

An Ambitious Religion and Worldviews Curriculum for All Kathryn Wright

Worldviews – a new approach for RE RE council

Thinking strategically

I once went to an important meeting, with several schools leaders, that I thought was going to be a highly strategical, team planning meeting. I left disappointed. We didn’t discuss anything strategic at all; it was all immediate concerns and very little concrete planning. It was the perfect time and place for discussing the future challenges ahead but it didn’t happen. I’ve since deduced that it’s because the people that steered the meeting didn’t know what strategical, team planning was. And sadly, in my experience, many school leaders don’t seem to know the difference between strategic planning and daily running of a school.

So in this blog I’m going to share some thoughts. No education or leadership theory. Just some (hopefully) ideas on how we can steer towards strategic thinking and some of the pitfalls (plenty of non-examples…..) You may not agree with me.

What is strategic thinking?

I think it is thinking about the big picture (of a school, of a year group, of a subject, of a faculty etc) and all the parts that it is made up of. Then considering what is working well, what needs tweaking and what needs changing. And then, crucially, how it will be done, when and by whom. Those whom it involves need to involved in the thinking ‘behind’ things to a certain extent. It needs a careful balance of being informed to having too much information. A strategic thinker works out by how much!

Strategy comes in all areas of a school and those with a responsibility should be supported to think strategically. A Head of Year will be swamped with student issues day-in and day-out, how can they be supported to also think strategically? How can a new Head of Science be supported to think strategically about how their department can develop? Strategic thinking needs to be modelled from the ‘top’ but should be expected (with support, time and guidance) from everyone, no matter what their role is.

Working out what works

Working out what works is the the foundation of strategic thinking. But it has to be what works for the individual school. In my experience the least strategic-thinking schools just borrow ideas/policies from other schools without thinking about them. ‘If school A does this and they get good results then if we do it, we will also get good results’. It just doesn’t work like that.

You can’t try everything. Staff and students will become apathetic to every new initiative. Strategic thinking needs to take into consideration a range of things and then come up with a ‘best bet.’:

• What other schools do – this can be eye opening – especially if leaders have been at the same school for a while. Not for copying but for having a space to watch and learn from others, to then consider what may or may not be useful for your school. This is best done once the initial strategic thinking has been done so there can be a focus on specific things. This has been made much easier and time effective with people blogging on what they do.
• Research – There is very little research about improving maths GCSE grades for unmotivated boys in School A. However, there is research about attitudes in maths, unmotivated boys and subject specialist knowledge of how maths works. These together might help.
• Theory – Leadership theory, change theory, psychology, motivation theory….. can help to work more systemically through things.
• Collective experience – Did you know that your head of Drama used to be a police officer? What could they contribute? Did you know that your Head of year 9 has a masters degree focusing on student motivation? What did they find out that might help us? Have you considered that the teacher that has been in the school for 20 years might know how parents in this community think and have responded to things in the past? How might this influence our communications? If you think that the more you’re paid the more you know, you’re seriously missing out on collective expertise.

The enemies of strategic thinking

Watch out for these!

• Egos – if people are protective of their role, feel threatened, think that they are more important than the whole the process will be stunted
• Fear of change – ‘we’ve always done it this way’ is a good reason to keep doing something if it is effective. If not, it might be time to change. Strategic thinking requires conscious, thoughtful change management.
• Lack of context– ‘I did this at my last school’ might be a great idea but your last school wasn’t exactly the same. ‘ It’s great to have external feedback and support, but unless they have a good understanding of context, their advice might not be appropriate. Dylan Wiliam said ‘everything works somewhere, nothing works everywhere.’
• Onerous paperwork – It’s tempting to create reams of plans and evaluations with sheets and sheets of data. Keep it simple.
• Generalisations – Making everyone do the same thing isn’t strategic it’s controlling e.g. all staff sit in the same training session about ‘questioning’. Consistency in strategic thinking comes from looking at individual cases and developing from there. Why make all subject leaders do exactly the same thing when only some need to become better at it? (note: this is not about school routines, everyone should do the same thing to ensure power through consistency)
• Time – If anything is going to fall to the bottom of the ‘to-do’ list it’s the things that may not seem urgent right now
• It’s only for Senior Leaders – Power – If you think that your voice is more important or that people should do as you say, you will never have a strategically run school. If everyone in a school thinks strategically then it means that the complex network contributes to the whole school. It doesn’t just fall onto senior leaders. Middle leaders probably have the capacity to make the most difference under their remit. If they’re thinking strategically then it becomes powerful for the whole school.
• Lack of trust – often manifests in micro-management. If you think strategically, you will have systems that ensure people are free to work as they want but with structures that ensure that everyone is doing as they should. A fine balance which many leaders struggle to implement.
• Fire-fighting – usually linked to time. Most schools fail to be strategic because the day-to-day running of a school is so busy (even chaotic?) that there is no time or brain space to deal with the strategic. That’s why behaviour systems (the biggest time sapper?) and day-to-day tasks (marking?, planning, data) should be kept to a minimum to allow for the much more powerful thinking to happen. A tough one in challenging schools. It takes strong leadership to overcome this way of working.
• New shiny things – when a new shiny thing comes along it’s so tempting to want to do it in your school. Unless it fits directly into the strategic plan it will detract from the main thing.
• I’m right, you’re wrong – If you think that strategic thinking is a matter of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ you will struggle to see that others have things to offer and maybe, there is no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’
• No reviewing – How is the plan going? Are things working? Not just what you think, what about those involved? Are you prepared to hear things that you don’t want to? At what point should something be ditched? How will that be communicated or will it just fizzle out? What impact does that have on motivation and collegiality?

Proxies for strategic thinking (they may contribute but they aren’t enough)

Don’t be fooled. Strategic thinking is much deeper than just…

• Writing a development plan
• Writing a SEF
• Asking people what they think e.g. staff surveys, parents surveys, student panels etc
• Meetings….and more meetings
• Reading (and making others read) ‘research’
• Visiting another (random) school
• Completing leadership qualifications e.g. NPQH
• Reading someone’s blog and telling others what it said
• Putting out a regular newsletter/bulletin

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Disciplinary knowledge in RE – How does it impact the curriculum?

After a few chats this weeks about assessment and the disciplines in RE, I’ve been thinking about how we might approach using disciplinary knowledge in the RE curriculum and the teaching of it in RE lessons. (For more on the disciplines in RE and further reading Disciplines: A new direction for assessment in RE?)

In the absence of a National Curriculum for RE to guide the way, the CORE report (2018) proposes that ‘Pupils must be taught:….the different ways in which religion and worldviews can be understood, interpreted and studied, including through a wide range of academic disciplines and through direct encounter and discussion with individuals and communities who hold these worldviews.‘ It suggests … ‘ Religion and Worldviews should enable young people to…develop skills relevant to various disciplinary approaches to Religion and Worldviews, including qualitative and quantitative research skills (at age appropriate levels), philosophical enquiry, hermeneutical approaches to texts, and approaches for understanding the arts, rituals, practices and other forms of expression.”

For many, this is a new way to consider curriculum content and ways of teaching about religion & belief in RE. The inclusion of disciplinary knowledge is relatively new and I’ve seen little about the practical implications on curriculum writing (please do point me to anything!).

In this blog, I’ve decided to present my thoughts in different models, each with a different approach to including the disciplines. For the sake of simplicity I will use Theology, Philosophy and Social Sciences (to include history, geography, sociology etc) as the disciplines that I’m referring to. These are not in a hierarchy of recommendation/best practice but I think they show how the disciplines can be part of the RE curriculum ranging from ‘not at all’ to dominating it.

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Model 1 – No discernible disciplinary knowledge

This curriculum model is created using purely substantive knowledge including substantive concepts in what is taught. It does not reference implicitly or explicitly any of the disciplines. It would study everything as facts but without any mention of where they come from and how we know that they are facts. It could include diversity of views but no reference to the root of the differences. In reality this type of curriculum and teaching would be very difficult to do but possible in a short period of time e.g. within a lesson, and may be especially accessible to a teacher that has little background knowledge to address the ‘how do we know this?’ question when looking at substantive knowledge.

In this model it is not possible assess disciplinary knowledge as it doesn’t exist. Progression would purely be shown through accumulation of substantive knowledge.

(I do suspect that some ‘anti’ knowledge-rich people (‘It’s just facts and more facts’) believe that this is what happens in some RE classrooms. I’m really not sure it’s possible though).

Model 2 – Implicit disciplinary knowledge

This curriculum uses the methods (and resources associated with it) of disciplinary knowledge in the curriculum but without any explicit recognition of them with students. The curriculum may be based on a series of enquiry questions that specifically relate to a discipline/s being used which the teacher may be aware of.

An example might be whilst studying the Trinity, students look at the story of Pentecost in the Bible and what the Catechism says about the Trinity and analyses them but without mention that these skills might be used when using a Theological approach. It also wouldn’t be made explicit what the key features of this approach might take e.g. hermeneutical approach thinking about how we read a text. Students are exposed to the methods but there is no requirement to know what they are and how they might differ depending on the discipline.

I think (please correct me if I’m wrong) the Big Ideas for Religious Education follows this model. The website says that the Big Ideas have been derived from disciplinary knowledge ‘The Big Ideas proposed for RE in this project are a product of disciplinary thinking and reflect both the processes of study and some of the key theories to emerge from the disciplines with which RE is most closely associated: religious studies, theology, philosophy, and others drawn from humanities, social sciences and the arts.‘ However, the model doesn’t require students to explicitly learn the names of the disciplines and specific methods and tools as they are embedded in the Big Ideas.

In this model, it might be possible to assess disciplinary knowledge by specifically telling the students to use the methods in a task however it would relate wholly to them recalling substantive knowledge.

I suspect that most RE curricula and teaching of, follows this model, with a mixture of those that are consciously/deliberately doing it and those that are not. We are teaching the disciplinary stuff but we’re not really conscious of it. If you’re at this stage I really recommend taking a look at the ‘Balanced RE’ self audit tool (primary and secondary) to start to think about how your curriculum may or may not use one or more of the disciplines. This is a start to thinking more consciously about how they work.

Model 3 – Explicit disciplinary knowledge modelled

The third model is the same as above however the curriculum and consequent taught lessons makes students aware of the disciplines. There may be an ‘introduction’ to them as a whole and/or individually, and the teacher will mention which discipline/s are being used at any given point. The use of disciplinary knowledge is how the teacher teaches the substantive knowledge.

Progression of learning would come ‘overall’ having been exposed to the disciplines several times over a key stage/s so that student recognise how the teacher dealt with the source from a disciplinary perspective. Students would recognise that they are looking through a specific discipline but would not be expected to know how to do this autonomously. Assessment could over time start to include giving students the chance to use disciplinary skills but it would be over a longer period of time having repeated each discipline several times.

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Model 4 – Explicit disciplinary knowledge taught and used (with direction)

This model deliberately plans for both substantive and disciplinary knowledge to be taught and for students to knowingly use the disciplines in their learning. How structured the disciplinary skills are taught can vary.

I suspect that the Ofsted RE research review may be alluding to this type of model when it says “Some curriculum approaches formalise ‘ways of knowing’ into simplified disciplines, such as ‘theology’, ‘philosophy’ and ‘human/social sciences’. In these cases, the curriculum content is framed as if it were considered by, for example, theologians, philosophers or human/social scientists. These can be taught in simplified ways in primary schools.” Begging the question, what is a ‘simplified way’?

I think (although I’m happy to be corrected!) the REToday ‘Challenging knowledge in RE’ series is a basis of this model, although albeit in small topic chunks and not as a planned curriculum. In one example it introduces students to the discipline through an information sheet including an ‘investigator’ in the field, and then teaches substantive knowledge using the discipline and at the end recommends recalling the details of the discipline to review the learning and how it applies to the discipline. This actively involves the students in the discipline but doesn’t require them to practise it independently. Structure and activities are given to explore the discipline.

In a similar way The Norfolk Agreed syllabus may be used to create a curriculum aligned to this model. It says ‘We need to understand which disciplines it draws on in order to understand the object of investigation and the research methods to employ in RE. This ensures that content chosen for RE is appropriate and well-established within academic traditions and ensures that pupils use and develop a range of subject-specific skills.’ (my emphasis). The implication here is that students are able to use the disciplinary knowledge themselves. This comes through a set of disciplinary questions which are interleaved between the disciplines over the key stages. The exemplar curriculum map shows this as one question approached through one discipline although it does say in the guidance it is possible to use more than one discipline.

In this model, progression comes from knowing the substantive but also knowing what the disciplines are and specifically what you ‘do’ when you use each one however with limits on how they can be used independently.. Therefore, assessment would involve testing both. Assessment could assess:

• Substantive knowledge by itself e.g. short qus, multiple choice qus EXAMPLE Name the 3 parts of the Trinity
• Knowledge of the disciplines themselves and how they work EXAMPLE Which discipline would you use if you wanted to find out about beliefs? Which discipline would look at the logic of an argument? What questions would a Theologian ask about this?
• Substantive knowledge through a discipline EXAMPLE Give the Pentecost story and the questions a Theologian would ask and they have to answer them using the substantive knowledge they’ve learned

The key issue with this model is that significant time is spent teaching what the disciplines are and how they work. To what extent does this mean a reduction in the substantive knowledge taught?

Model 5 – Explicit disciplinary knowledge taught and ‘practised’

This model is as above however, the emphasis is that the curriculum is building towards students being able to use the disciplines independently and confidently.

I think that the RE-searchers model (Freathy et al) possibly aims to do this (please do correct me if I’m wrong) at primary level, through a set of characters. Interestingly it uses self-assessment of the key skills for each character to get students to reflect on their performance/confidence/perceptions.

Progression in this model emphasises if students can use the disciplines, ask the questions and apply the methodologies. When assessed this could take the following forms:

• Students ability to use the discipline/s independently on previously used material EXAMPLE Give them a copy of the Bible text of Pentecost (already studied) and get them to use a Theological approach to ask appropriate questions about it and identify key parts of the story that link to the Trinity.
• Students ability to use the taught discipline/s independently on unseen material EXAMPLE Give a survey on belief on the Holy Spirit (previously unseen), using a social science (taught in this topic) approach to ask appropriate questions and analyse the results, linking to beliefs about the Trinity.
• Students ability to use different discipline/s (not used in this topic)independently on previously used material EXAMPLE Having used a theological approach on the story of Pentecost, ask them to use a Philosophical approach, asking the appropriate questions and coming up with answers
• Students ability to use different discipline/s (not used in this topic) independently on unseen material EXAMPLE Give a survey on belief on the Holy Spirit (previously unseen), using a social science (not taught in this topic) approach to ask appropriate questions and analyse the results, linking to beliefs about the Trinity.

As above, a key issue here is how much time should proportionally be spent on learning substantive and disciplinary knowledge?

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Model 6 – Teaching disciplinary knowledge through the substantive

This model swaps the main curriculum focus from the substantive to the disciplinary. The curriculum is designed so that students’ core learning is about the disciplines and how they work, approached through substantive content. An example of an enquiry question might be ‘How does using a Theological hermeneutical approach to religious texts help us to understand them more? (using Genesis 1-3.). The overall learning is about how to read texts but it uses an example of the Creation narrative in the Bible to exemplify it. A curriculum would therefore develop over time using disciplinary knowledge and progression would be similar to the above bullet points. Students are ‘becoming’ skilled in the disciplines and that is the key method of assessing progression.

This model leads us to ask the question of how we select the substantive material. Are there certain topics that are more conducive to teaching a discipline? If we’re teaching through the disciplines, does the substantive need to be ‘discernibly ‘religious’? (see an analysis of Jayne Eyre using the disciplines by Georgiou & Wright in ‘Reforming RE’ chapter Disciplinarity, religion and worldviews: making the case for theology, philosophy and human/social sciences’)

This model is problematic as it may marginalise the religious/non-religious substantive content as it would spend significant time on learning how to use ‘tools’ for studying it. The Ofsted RE research review says “Pupils need to acquire these components through typical forms of RE content, which are not separated out from their in-depth context.” which makes me think that this model, in its extreme takes the knowledge out of its context which isn’t desirable.

Discussion

Issues with using the disciplines

What is disciplinary knowledge? From my reading of the disciplines and how people are using them in RE it is still unclear what we mean by disciplinary knowledge in RE. Some have interpreted it as the ‘skills’ that students use in RE, others use ‘procedural knowledge’. Should it be separated from substantive and personal knowledge? And as briefly discussed above, are we introducing students to what each discipline is and its methods and/or getting them to use the methods? The REC Draft handbook suggests ‘For younger age groups, drawing on a variety of methods is sufficient, noting with pupils that different methods handle content in different ways and should be evaluated appropriately‘ and then ‘ As pupils make progress through the school, they should be taught how disciplines construct different types of knowledge. This means that there are particular assumptions behind the various disciplines, and different types of question being addressed within them.’ What might this progression look like? What are the different methods and tools we want students to know about for each discipline? Should we use one discipline at a time or more than one? In case we think we are unique in this, this chapter ( Disciplinary knowledge denied?) is a fascinating read in how similar disciplinary issues arise in History. The term ‘disciplinary-lite’ is interesting here. How might these RE models be ‘disciplinary-lite’? i.e. we teach certain aspects of disciplinarity but not all. This is all another blog post.

Assessment is a huge issue. What does progression mean? What does it mean to ‘get better’ at Theology? There is also a danger of making them into a set of levels for each discipline – would that work if they were specific? The REC draft handbook goes back to a levels system in their 3 models to measure progress and so does the Big Ideas assessment model using Anderson and Krathwohl’s Taxonomy as a basis (with no discernible mention of disciplinary knowledge). Assessment and disciplinary knowledge is also a whole blog in itself.

Using enquiry questions – The Ofsted RE research review suggests that we can use specific disciplinary enquiry questions to approach teaching the disciplines however I feel there is a danger that people might think that they are teaching disciplinary knowledge just through an enquiry question rather than what is then taught and the method/s used. Enquiry questions either need to explicitly lead to the use of one discipline or the answering of the question must include the use of a disciplinary methods. For example, in the Norfolk agreed syllabus the questions are colour coded by discipline but just answering that question doesn’t necessarily mean that disciplinary knowledge is being used. In R Kueh, ‘A matter of discipline? On knowledge, curriculum and the disciplinary in RE’, in ‘Professional Reflection: Theory and Practice’, Volume 37, Issue 1, 2019, pages 55 to 59, Richard clarifies “One might think of the way in which different enquiry questions might instead intrinsically be anchored in disciplinary thinking. For example, ‘how have patterns of religion and belief changed over the last century?’ (drawing on the conventions of the social sciences and history), ‘how valid are arguments for the existence of God?’ (drawing on the traditions of philosophy), ‘how persuasive is the case for secularism?’ (drawing on the social sciences, philosophy and theology), ‘what does it mean to have a worldview?’ (drawing on the traditions of religious studies and the social sciences). Here, the disciplinary tradition sets the boundaries for discussion, the conventions to follow, the rules of the game and the legitimacy of the products of pupil work.” We need to think carefully about enquiry questions and how/if they’re used in the curriculum to ensure they promote the use of disciplinary knowledge not just covering substantive content that is masquerading as disciplinary.

I hope that each model is clear and that as reflective practitioners we can see where we are and where we think we want to go. I’m not sure there is a ‘right’ model but I hope that this blog gets people thinking about what using disciplinary knowledge might look like in our curriculum. We can’t even consider assessment until we’re sure what it is that our curriculum does. It’s a long road!

In his Farmington Institute paper ( Professional Disciplinary Dialogue TT428) Paddy Winter summarises…

“It is worth noting from the outset that a particular joy of disciplinary knowledge discussions is the need for openness to debate, refinement, and development of ideas.“

What do you think?

What’s the point of mock* exams?

Recently I had to invigilate our year 10 mock exams and whilst walking up and down the aisles, started to think about the purpose of doing mock exams. So I thought I’d pull together some ideas on what are the different purposes for them and the possible pros and cons. You may think it is obvious but from talking to students and teachers, we can have different opinions on their purpose.

I think that the purpose of mock exams is important. It is important because it affects how students respond to them, how they’re run and the implications of what students do in them. If staff/students are at cross-purposes with mocks, it can cause issues. Also, students will naturally assume that all subjects are using mocks in the same way. In my experience, many will be using them differently and I think we should make it clear to students how they’re being used in our own subject.

I personally couldn’t care less about grades. A mock is not there to create a number which is generally meaningless throughout the course. The only grade that matters to me is the real GCSE. I think mocks are about the experience for the students, where a student is ‘at’ with the content and for the feedback that is given. Over the different mocks, this then feeds into preparation for the real exam – in class and out of class. I also think it is important to consider what is on a mock. Why give a pre-written past paper? I think that it depends on the subject/cohort/timing/situation as to what you put into a mock exam. For example, with maths I’m not sure giving a past paper makes any difference because students are practising core maths skills. With other subjects past papers are specific content/case studies/themes that won’t be repeated. They are useful for practise throughout the course but might a mock require a more selective, thought-out paper? We have a year 9 exam, a year 10 exam and two year 11 exams. In RS we use these differently, so this influences what content we select, how they’re run. We don’t use past papers. On the whole we write our own papers to suit the purpose of the exam. I appreciate that this is more complex for some subjects than others however I have convinced another head of subject to give it a go after being initially sceptical! If a question has already been asked it is highly unlikely that it will be asked again. Writing your own mock papers means you have to have a good knowledge of the specification and how assessment works. It also creates a good opportunity to work together as a subject; writing a mark scheme together highlights what you have/haven’t taught well and can therefore influence future teaching . It’s more work for colleagues but I think it is worth it in the long run. It also means that no child can know what is on the mock in advance as they cannot access the paper as they can with previous papers.

To add to my thoughts I did an informal survey of some of the year 10 students and have included their purposes in italics next to each header.

*if you don’t like the term ‘mock’ then interchange with your preference. I think it’s probably just semantics.

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Retrieval Practice

So that we know what to revise for

To help us get into the habit of revision

To get good practice

keep topics we may have learnt a while ago fresh in our minds

If you are going to encourage students to ‘revise’ (I have many issues with this term) prior to an exam then this is an opportunity to teach them retrieval practice skills and strategies. I personally think that this shouldn’t be done in the run up to an exam but from day 1 on a regular basis, but some teachers/schools still do this kind of revision for exam rather than revision for retrieval/learning. Either way the mocks give students a trial run of this process before they sit external exams.

Some may use the exam itself as retrieval practice for learning rather than for assessment. For example, question topics are chosen specifically to get students to retrieve to help with long term memory rather than for knowing what the students do/don’t know.

Mock exams might be the first time that retrieval practice goes from low-stakes to high-stakes. We do regular retrieval practice in lessons, often without even seeing how students get on. Mocks (depending on how they are marked and then that mark used) steps up the stakes. This gradual process of mock exams, supports students in managing the whole experience of real exams.

Summative assessment

Gives teachers and you how you are doing in the subject

helps us see where we are in a subject/what we need to improve on

to see how good you are at subjects

I suspect that mock exams have been and still are, an opportunity for people to make judgements about student learning, in a high stakes manner. This might include:

• to allocate grades
• predict future performance for applications
• to allocate resources/intervention
• to decide setting/level of paper

If this is the case, I think we need to be clear with students on this well before the exam happens. They need to know the high stakes nature of the outcome.

Also, some schools may also use it as a tool to judge teachers. The results of the mocks may be used to monitor the ‘performance’ of a teacher. Again, teachers should be well aware of this way before the exams. How will the data be used? Will it be discussed with staff? Is a staff member responsible for a grade of a student that joined a group?

Formative assessment – feedback and improving

Gets you ready to prepare how to improve before real GCSEs

to see what you need to learn

to see where we are all at with learning and what points we’re struggling with

Surely mocks are a great opportunity to identify gaps in student learning and to act on feedback so that a gap is closed before the real thing? If students are answering exam questions then it seems an ideal time to work out what they do/don’t know or can/can’t do and do something about it. If we RAG rate each question then we can get a nice clear over view of what students and a class can/can’t do?

Interestingly this seems less popular than you think it might be with teachers. It is problematic for three reasons. Firstly, the exam paper doesn’t test students on all the content. It’s just a sample from the domain. It can only tell you about some specific topics. This may not be useful for the real exam if we spend lots of time on a limited number of things. Therefore RAG rating questions won’t necessarily be useful. Secondly, just because a student didn’t answer a question type well on specific content, it doesn’t mean that they don’t know how to answer that type of question. It might have been the content that couldn’t write about. Thirdly, if you use past papers for mocks, in some subjects, it’s highly unlikely that the exact same question will come up again next year. Therefore it’s not worth while spending too much time using it for deciding what they need to focus on to improve.

Using mocks for feedback is a whole blog post in itself so I won’t go into it here but I think it’s a very important consideration overall for a teacher. I personally think that the way we run the mocks in my department the feedback and improvement from them is very important but I suspect that the relative use of mocks for formative assessment depends on the subject and the paper used.

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The Physical Experience

Gets us used to exam conditions

The experience of sitting in a hall/room to complete an exam is an important aspect of mocks (which is why I shudder when senior leaders ask for them to be done in their usual classroom). Most students are used to their usual teaching classroom and complete work there in relative comfort and confidence. The experience of a often large, open room is physically different and we want students to experience this before the real exam as it can be daunting. Alongside this, the students experience other physical aspects that they may not have done so before:

• hand strain (from writing for a long period)
• in a different room than they did their learning in (see David Didau’s blog below on this – it’s fascinating)
• in a room with peers
• silence for 2 hours
• cold/hot extremes
• invigilators walking past
• sitting at the desk
• patience – sitting when done

If mocks are about preparation, then we need to include all aspects of that by exposing them to these things at least once before the real thing. Telling students to complete mocks in their usual classroom, with their usual teacher misses the point of a mock, in my opinion (with exceptions e.g. Art). Read David Didau’s blog here on ‘transfer’ and why it is important to consider where students are learning compared to where they sit an exam.

The Mental Experience

So there’s less panic in the real thing

Some students will have an intense 5 weeks of exams in the summer. It will be the biggest amount of pressure they’ve probably had in their lives. It’s the thing that hits the headlines each year and the potential effect on their mental health can be debilitating for some. The mental impact includes:

• stress
• preparation and organisational pressure
• daily pressure from lessons/revision
• feelings about success
• feelings about failure
• motivation

I strongly believe that schools have the power here. The language we use, the preparations we make, the way that teachers are treated with exams by senior leaders (pressure passes down to students), all contributes and I think we can be really smart about this.

Imagine a student that has an assembly in the morning with their head of year talking about the importance of exams and grades, then first lesson their teacher saying how important grades are and then second lesson getting a test back with a grade on and not achieving their target grade and then lesson 3 the teacher talking about their exams and how important it is for them to revise every night for their subject. Lesson 4 the student is given an exam paper to complete and told if they don’t get a certain grade the teacher will contact home and they will re-do it in their own time. Then after school they have a ‘revision class’ for one subject…… We don’t need to do this.

I think this all comes down to curriculum and assessment. If we plan carefully and we assess well, we don’t need to speak to students like this or behave in these ways. I’m not saying that we should pretend that exams aren’t important, they are. But we are the people in charge of what students learn and we have a responsibility to make things as simple as possible for our students. With a well planned curriculum you shouldn’t need to do after school revision classes for all students from Christmas. Mocks should be a gradual introduction to these potential feelings so it’s not a huge shock in the summer.

Real Exam Preparation

So that we can ‘train ourselves’ for our GCSEs

Gets us ready for GCSE exams

to help us understand the conditions we need to work in, teaches us time management

to help us get into the habit of being quiet for hours

To practise for GCSEs

Preparation for structure of GCSE

Prepare us for our GCSE so we won’t be shocked

I’ve put these together as ‘real exam preparation’ because I think that it is important part of mocks for students to have the ‘real experience’ before the summer. I think that mocks are really important for the following:

• what the paper looks like – I think that mock papers should always be made to look like the real thing, even if you’re not using all the questions. We want students to get used to what they will see.
• getting stuck – the experience of not knowing the answer, the possibility that a guess may be better than nothing, not letting it demotivate
• planning and using time effectively – a huge issue especially in subjects with extended writing. Students need to do this by themselves, using the clock in the room. Deciding what to include/miss out if they’re running out of time
• stationery – coming prepared to the exam, knowing what they need e.g. a calculator, black pen
• candidate number – getting used to using it and filling in the front of the exam paper
• one off performance – what it means to have ‘one go’ at something and that’s it (Anecdote – one year, after the GCSE RS exam I saw a student outside of the exam room. He said to me ‘Miss I’ve realised that I didn’t write the right thing for 1b, can I quickly have my paper back to change it?’. He was genuine. He had no understanding that, that was it, there’s no going back!) When else in their lives have they experienced the finality of doing something like this? (remember some will have missed SATS)
• question types – This really shouldn’t be the first time that a student experiences the different question types. I sincerely hope that all teachers have prepared students for different possibilities and even prepared for curve balls

Choosing the mock exam content

Choosing a mock paper will probably depend on what you think the purpose of a mock is.

I suspect that many subject leads just choose last year’s actual paper for the mock exam. It’s easy as it’s already written, it has a mark scheme, it is balanced in terms of difficulty and you could argue that the grade boundaries belong to that specific paper. The problem with using last year’s paper is that students can get advance access and the content probably won’t be repeated in the real thing (subject dependent). Using last year’s paper supports the purpose of experiencing a ‘real’ paper. However I’m going to suggest that mocks should be a carefully curated set of questions made into a unique mock paper. However, how this is done, all depends on what you think the purpose of the mock is.

A mock to motivate – if you want students to be motivated by the mock you may pick questions that are easier or more difficult. If you want to motivate students that lack confidence then use some easier questions and if you need to motivate students that are over-confident in doing no preparation, use more difficult questions

A mock to predict – A GCSE specification’s content has to be covered during the lifetime of the specification which means that if you’re several years through it you can find topics that have never been asked before and create questions based on these. This works better in some subjects compared to others. The benefit of this mock is that students get to practise questions that are likely to come up. It’s a dangerous strategy only if you tell students to only revise these things. Otherwise it’s just another paper.

A mock to practise weaker topics – If you know that students have struggled on certain topics you might include them in the mock. This isn’t to set them up to fail but it is a good way to revise. They experience a question on a tricky topic, you go through it in feedback and then get them to practise it again a a later date.

A mock to show off – If you’re using the mock paper as evidence of student performance for entry to further education you may want it to be a paper that shows off what they can do. Choosing topics that you know they will do well on may be useful.

How to write your own mock

Some exam boards have the facility for you to use previous questions to compile a new paper using questions from different papers. Unfortunately they don’t all do this for all subjects so you may need to do it manually. You need a copy of all the previous papers (and specimen papers for reference) to see what has already been asked. Then choose questions to compile your paper.

Writing your own exam questions

Having looked at what questions can be asked from the specification it is possible to write your own questions. This can be a useful CPD exercise in itself, especially if the specification is new to you. You need to make sure you know the command words that can be used, the balance of assessment objectives and the specific subject ‘rules’ of the paper. I strongly feel that mock papers should be presented in the exact same way that the real paper will be presented (as far as possible) because the visual experience of a paper is part of the practice. So, use the same number of answer lines, where appropriate.

If you work in a department with a few people you can do this process together to ensure balance. You can then all take a copy of the paper, and write notes on how you’d answer the question and create a simple mark scheme of possible answers. As with all mark schemes, students can be credited with different approaches but if you agree the main possible answers/approaches then it makes marking easier

Photo by Miguel A Amutio on Unsplash

Using analogies

I use and have probably stolen the analogy of a marathon for GCSE exams. Mocks are part of the training. They may not do the whole thing but they are part of the training that can help us diagnose certain things and help us work out what’s left to do before the final thing. Someone else on Twitter used a football analogy (gotta think of the boys….) where mocks are the pre-season warm ups. It doesn’t matter what you use but I do think that (if the analogy is a good one) then we can use it with the students IF we use the analogy from the start. I tell my students that their first homework IS part of the preparation. That every lesson IS the training. The issue of leaving the analogy to the final stages is that it could add to the psychological pressure not help to relieve it. Start the analogy in year 7.

Questions for teachers

• Do you know the purpose of mocks in your school/subject?
• Have you made it clear to students what the purpose of the mock is in your subject?
• Have you explained the rationale behind it?
• What questions have you included? What paper have you used Why?
• Have you considered writing an exam paper for the mock? pros and cons?

Questions for school leaders

• Are all subjects using mocks for the same purpose? Does it matter? Why?
• Do students know the purpose of mocks? Does it matter? Why?
• Have you asked them?
• Do you know how subjects leads have decided what paper/s to use and why?

Links & further reading

https://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/volume-21/edition-12/examination-stress-and-test-anxiety#:~:text=Research%20suggests%20that%20examinations%20are%20stressful%20for%20this,judgements%20from%20others%3B%20and%20fear%20appeals%20by%20teacher

All/Many/Some/Few/One…… Diversity & language in RE

Jews don’t eat pork.

Catholics don’t use contraception

Muslims don’t drink alcohol.

Sikhs wear turbans

Non-religious people are atheists

These may be commonly heard statements about religious people. But are they true? I think in RE we need to teach students how to speak about religion and religious/non-religious living and this comes down to how we approach diversity and our use of language in the RE classroom.

Doctrine vs reality?

This week I have started Theme A of AQA GCSE with my students. I’m not a fan. It’s the relationships and family unit which includes contraception, sexuality and divorce. I started the lesson explaining to the students that this unit includes things that are controversial and may be uncomfortable. It includes teachings that I know they won’t agree with and it’s really difficult to manage their perception of a religion from this. So I explained to them that the religious beliefs and teachings I will be teaching them stand alongside the reality of how people live. Religion isn’t just what the sources of authority say but is a much bigger thing that I want them to know about. I think that we can partly manage controversy and diversity by including what religious people do when we know what their sources of authority actually say.

This is where the use of different disciplines in RE can be useful. My interpretation of this is that when we’re looking at doctrine we are using Theology and the sources of authority that give beliefs and teachings linked to the topic. We can then use Social Sciences to reflect on the reality of how these beliefs and teachings are followed (or not) in real life.

For example, looking at the use of contraception in Catholic Christianity….

https://religionnews.com/2023/01/10/is-catholic-teaching-on-birth-control-driving-people-from-the-pews/

These two sources allow us to consider the doctrine and compare it with some data on the reality. Of course, we should always analyse the text and the data with the students; what’s the source? what might it tell us? How can it be interpreted? Is it representative of a whole group? But this is what allows students to really think about the doctrine and its impact on followers.

All or many or some or few?

I think this is the crucial part for RE teachers to be clear on with students. Which of these is correct to use with the topic/issue we’re teaching and how do we know?

An example is that in recent times there have been suggestions that in RE we should be changing how we speak about Hinduism and Sikhism. I’ve seen a few discussions where there have been views that say we should always use Hindu Dharma or Sanatana Dharma or Sikhi. I’ve then tried to look into the roots of all the terms and the views of people around which should be used and when. What I’ve yet to find is how many Hindus/Sikhs have a preference of which terms should be used. Our students have made it clear to us what they think but are they representative? It’s easy to think that one or two adult voices on social media mean ‘a few’ but its more complicated than that.

So how do we know what the reality is? I’ve found that an internet search is sometimes useful on this. It’s surprising what surveys have been done with religious themes and with respondents for specific religions/groups.

I’ve put together a list that might be useful here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1CUmVPbWMgVdyN08-bxeif6PmfrN-q1tMfVEojrgTRdQ/edit?usp=sharing

Also, I ask people. I ask people on social media and when we have trips/visits, about their views and interpretations. And I share these. It’s important that students know about what people are saying about their beliefs.

And in the cases where we can’t be sure, ‘some’ is the best bet. It doesn’t indicate a value of how many (like many/few do) and is sufficiently vague. And I am honest with the students when I don’t know. I say ” I don’t know how many _______ would say this”. This promotes the idea that lived religion is complex and we can’t always have a clear answer. I even make this clear with data that we do have. Instead of saying “According to the 2021 census there are 272,508 Buddhists” I say ” In the 2021 census 272,508 people clicked the Buddhist option”. There’s a difference and that difference leads to important discussions about data itself.

Overall it’s the discussion and debate that we need to teach students. It’s the heart of diversity; not just knowing what the diverse views are but WHY they are diverse. I think this should be core to all of our curriculums. It requires subject knowledge and confidence from a teacher but it makes RE a richer and more worthwhile subject.

Helping students to understand

I think this is probably a threshold concept in RE and there are plenty of adults that haven’t crossed the threshold! Doctrine is not always reflected in real lived religion and we need to think carefully about how we present that.

This activity has been so useful that I have done it with all groups and will repeat it throughout their RE experience.

I give students the following sentence starters (example for year 7):

They then need to complete the statements with accurate/true endings. It’s actually quite tricky to come up with an ‘All’ that is correct and only applies to year 7s, and that’s the point. There’s also very little that we can say is true for all followers of a religion. Have a go yourself! How many ways could you finish the sentence “All Christians….” which is accurate? I can think of a few endings.

I then link it to the religion/view we’re studying. I sometimes then get students to complete one of them in their starter quiz. It is a real indicator of understanding of what they’ve been taught.

I then use and emphasise these as I teach and encourage the students to use them. The language in itself acknowledges diversity and an understanding of reality.

GCSE and diversity

If we consider diversity in the GCSE then it mostly comes down to diversity of belief/religious practices from interpretations of doctrine. The exam does not require students to talk about the reality of lived religion. Whilst some argue that we should go back to the old exam assessment where all opinions were valid and could be credited, I think we need to actually combine both doctrine and lived religion (not ‘anything goes’). A good bit of Theology and some structured Social Science is what I would like to see. Anyway, I do think, for AQA at least, there is room for the reality (apologies if you don’t know the AQA assessment).

4 and 5 mark questions are generally questions that require students to answer questions about doctrine. However, in 12 mark questions I think a rich, informed argument would involve the reality. Students can give the doctrine and agreed interpretations from religious leaders however they can use real lived religion as part of a logical argument. For example, “Whilst the Catholic Catechism describes the use of artificial contraception to prevent conception as ‘Intrinsically evil’, some Catholics will use it because…..”.

This is especially important with the binary options given in some 12 mark statements; using knowledge of how people really live can enhance their answers. So, I’m going to teach them the reality alongside the doctrine.

Diversity

So how do you approach diversity of belief/practices/views in your classroom? Do your students understand that a ‘religion’ doesn’t mean one way and that it is rich and varied? Is the language that you/students use appropriate for the reality? How do you know?

Assessment in RE – the beginning of something new?

The RE community have been busily thinking about curriculum alongside other curriculum subject communities. We have engaged in webinars, learning journeys, a NATRE symposium, resources shared and conferences (rightly) focusing on what we teach, why we teach it and when we teach it. However a few of us have been turning our focus on the next important step – how do we know if our curriculum is doing what we want it to do? How do we know that students know, understand and can do what we have planned and enacted for them?

It’s time to delve into the education hot potato of assessment.

We’ve been reading, looking for research, discussing with each other and with experts to start to build up a picture of what is good assessment and where RE currently is in this complex domain.
And the general conclusion so far is, there’s not much out there that is RE focused. As with many other subjects, RE has mainly continued to follow a levels-type system, often with age-related expectations. Engaging with more general educational research on assessment (from this country and beyond) has been a really helpful starting point, but we are aware that whilst a particular approach might work well for one subject, it doesn’t follow that it’s the most effective model for another. We’re on a mission to learn from and build upon what is out there, in order tounpick what might be a better way to assess in RE and consider how that might work across contexts and settings. Of course, being experienced RE teachers and leaders, we’re doing this with the caveat that RE has its own particular challenges and there is a huge possibility that there is, in all likelihood, no perfect assessment model!

Watch this space for updates on our project and please do get in touch with any suggestions or insights……

Dawn Cox & Gillian Georgiou

Suggested reading….

Free Seneca intro to assessment course https://senecalearning.com/en-GB/blog/free-assessment-cpd-course-for-teachers/

£ ResearchED book on assessment https://www.johncattbookshop.com/the-researched-guide-to-assessment-an-evidence-informed-guide-for-teachers