What’s in a number?

Just recently a friend shared with me that on April 29th this year it was the 87th anniversary of the Everton v Manchester City FA Cup final. What was the fascination with this match? It was the first time players wore numbers on their shirts: Everton wore numbers 1-11 and Man City numbers 12-22.

VE Day commemoration

Many of us have also just held socially distanced street parties to commemorate another date – the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe. We celebrated on May 8th 1945 but the Russians on May 9th (as the Soviets were not happy with the Western Allies coming to terms with the German surrender a day early). My Mother recalls being in school at this time and sitting in her Geography lesson while the teacher moved flags around on a large map depicting the position of the various armies as peace approached. My Dad says he can’t remember VE Day – he was working in the shipyards on the Clyde – but it’s possible he was in the pub! (Very sadly for him the last days of the war were blighted by the death of his two cousins: they were helping out at a First Aid station when a German bomb aimed at Coates’ Mills in Paisley missed its intended target and hit their post instead.) For many, such as my wife’s family, the end of the war in Europe was a false dawn: my wife’s grandfather was still a POW of the Japanese and did not get back home until well into the Autumn of 1945 – and only then could they properly rejoice.

School numbers

At my two schools I was allocated numbers: in my Prep School I was number 58 (and apparently the 58th boy to join this new boarding school in Ayrshire) before becoming number 677 at my senior boarding school in Edinburgh (where the numbers were allocated according to your House). Having numbers meant it was easier for parents to mark up clothing and seemed to go well with the fact that you were generally known by your surname – Reid in my case – for much of your school career. (Boys with brothers, such as my best friend, Tom, had attributions after their surname: Tom’s eldest brother was Davidson Major, his second brother was Davidson Minor and Tom was Davidson Tertius.)

More Maths

We are living today in a time of crisis and once again numbers have become all important. (Not that I’m someone who’s any good with numbers: when I first took O Level Maths – yes, I am that old – I just managed a pass with a grade 6. My Maths teacher was furious: ‘Reid, you’re in set 1. You can do better than this – take the exam again next term’. I did so and promptly got a grade 7, a fail.) The Prime Minister and his medical experts are talking about the R number (sounds like an O Level equation – help), countries are being compared according to the number of virus-infected patients and, tragically, the number of those who have died. It’s all like some macabre league table. It is all too easy to become a statistic and for us to feel insignificant and of no account.

Not a number but a name

And so I am reminded of the New Testament story of Zacchaeus. Whatever our faith position, it’s a great encouragement to read of Jesus calling out to a man who, for fear of those whose numbers he’d been fiddling as a tax collector, had effectively been self-isolating. Jesus calls him down from the sycamore tree and addresses him by name – a person whom He had never met before. Moreover, the Bible assures us that not one sparrow falls to the ground without God knowing about it – and that every hair of our heads is numbered. This is the God who goes after the one missing sheep to return it to the fold with the other 99 – and the God who welcomes the prodigal back home with open arms.

So, how ever you are feeling today, let’s remember that we are not just a number. Our ‘football shirts’ have our name on the back – with God’s name as the sponsor on the front! Oh, and by the way, Everton beat Man City 3-1 back in April 1933 at the FA Cup Final (and my Liverpool family are Everton season-ticket holders)! Stay safe and well – and remember that you are named and loved.

With thanks to Alex Aldous, chaplain of Prestfelde School, for the football numbers and idea

FYI -ELI5 is not a postcode

Acronyms are everywhere!

I am currently in Liverpool visiting family. The other day I had my four-year-old grandson in the car on our way to football club. We passed street signs telling us that ‘dream’ should now be ‘believe’ and ‘stadium’ was now to be called ‘home’ when my grandson suddenly exclaimed, “Look Bubba (his name for his granddad), we are now in L5”. What on earth has happened to our language? I think I am in need of ELI5…’Explain it Like I’m Five’.

AMA…Ask Me Anything

I am in the City of the so-called ‘friendly derby’ (apparently the Blues and the Reds in this City of Belief and Home really like each other except when playing footy) and I am here to help out in a family which has a new baby and so I am AMA…’Ask Me Anything’ (which translates further as ‘I’m ready, waiting and willing’).

I am all for KISS (‘keep it simple, stupid’), not least in the home of a new born and when the headlines this week about baby research are all about DNA: did you know this stands for ‘deoxyribonucleic acid’? Clearly another case for ELI5. Still, now I am retired I am no longer afflicted by YAM. (In my younger days in Africa this was the name for sweet potato but apparently now means ‘Yet Another Meeting’.)

Things move fast, however, and my children now tell me that I should take care when putting LOL at the end of a text or WhatsApp message. I thought it meant ‘Laugh Out Loud’ (or ‘lots of love’) but apparently this has long since been replaced by LUZL which is a corruption of LOLs and denotes fun, excitement, kicks and laughs (and not always of the straight forward kind).

TIL…Today I Learned

My head is already reeling and so I’ll conclude by telling you this: TIL (‘Today I Learned’) that the most useful acronym of our time is ‘TL;DR’. I wish I’d known this when dealing with 80+ emails a day as a HM / HT (Headmaster/Head Teacher), not to mention the YAMs. I expect that President Trump uses ‘TL;DR’ rather a lot. Worked it out yet? It stands for ‘Too Long; Didn’t Read’.

JSYK (‘Just So You Know’) I am indebted to Gyles Brandreth in a recent edition of the I newspaper for his stimulus here. OAO (‘Over And Out’).

Back to basics and ‘chalk and talk’?

‘No evidence’ that enjoyable lessons help pupils?

At a time when there is so much Brexit ballyhoo in the Press, I very nearly missed the article last week in the ‘I’ newspaper with its beguiling headline: ‘No evidence’ that enjoyable lessons help pupils learn.

The age of the Banda machine

I am immediately suspicious when I see something in single inverted commas – clearly the ‘school sceptics’ are at work (see what I did there?). My educational antennae are set all the more aquiver when in the first line of the article I find the word ‘myth’ not now inside single inverted commas but within two sets of these over-used indicators! Richard Vaughan writes: The belief that lessons should be made enjoyable for pupils to boost academic achievement is based on a “myth”, according to research. All of a sudden my efforts over the past 38 years to produce coloured Banda worksheets and maps (aka a spirit duplicator invented in 1923), in my best handwriting, to relieve the tedium of monochrome Gestetner copies (first used in 1879) are deemed to be a waste of time. Those hours I spent carefully substituting coloured ink sheets, one after the other, and then reproducing sheets with that delicious smelling lubricant (just heavenly for pupils) were actually null and void. I should have given my hours to honing my most commanding voice, improving my blackboard writing skills, and choosing my nattiest ties to ensure my captive audience sitting in their bare-walled classroom would at least keep their eyes fixed on me.

Computer games, apps and online resources

Gone, too, should be the industry of computer games and apps, whiteboards and video clips in the face of the research carried out for the Centre for Education Economics. (I wonder if the clue is in this imposing title?) A more traditional approach to education, championed by Michael Gove, Nick Gibb et al since 2010, is being giving top marks. The author of this research, Gabriel Heller-Sahlgren, pours much chalk dust on child-centred approaches: The idea that positive emotions and achievement go hand in hand has become deeply entrenched within the education system. Indeed, it is still commonly believed that it is necessary to make learning ‘invigorating’ (there we go again – those pesky inverted commas) for learning to take place at all. Yet our research has found that there is little rigorous evidence in favour of this assumption.

Engaging lessons

Ah! A small chink in the research appears: ‘rigorous evidence’ (sorry, my emphasis this time). My mind flits to the Modern Languages’ classroom next to the Head’s study in my last school where the pupils were invariably excited and interested as the IPads came out, the headphones went on, and the individualised learning started to engage them. (Surely ‘engage’ is the key word here?) Having been so absorbed, the pupils would then chant their vocabulary, practise their pronunciation and even enjoy having a Skype conversation in a language other than their own with pupils in far-flung lands.

My memory now stirs as I recall several ‘learning walks’ (sorry for those pesky commas – I want you to notice this modern? term) during which I come across a diminutive History teacher standing on a desk brandishing a ruler as she led Harold’s doomed forces to quell the Norman invader, the chemistry class in the corridor having exploded yet another test tube leaving their lab filled with green smoke and the English teacher re-enacting scenes from MacBeth outside in the woods complete with mock battles, mysterious blasted heaths and haunting sleep walks. Whatever the research seems to suggest, these pupils were engaged, excited and enthralled by their learning.

Chicken pox

I have just returned from my four-and-a half year old grandson’s house. He was home from school with chicken pox. In amongst the chasing games, the imaginative Lego pirates and the football, I was amazed at how easy it was to engage him in reading using a variety of online and interactive programs, and how effective a booklet on writing skills was in helping him form his letters. Snakes and Ladders was great fun and also hugely useful in learning his numbers and, moreover, this and other games helped him understand the importance of rules, winning and losing. (I was more often than not having to learn how to lose gracefully.)

All I can say, therefore, is that whilst the Centre for Education Economics has no doubt carried out some very useful research, I do hope that it is understood alongside the wealth of attested evidence from hard-working and creative teachers within schools today which more than amply demonstrates that interesting, informed and interactive lessons enable pupils to engage with their learning and to succeed where a diet of chalk and talk teacher-centred lectures will not so readily enable them to do so – even if they sometimes do have their place in today’s classroom.

Retiring but not retreating

‘I suppose every day is like a weekend now’, one former colleague remarked recently. ‘Plenty of time for golfing and your garden – and also for your grandchildren’, he continued. ‘I can’t wait!’

Retiring but not retreating

I have to say that whilst I appreciated the sentiments expressed above, I didn’t entirely concur – or at least not yet! I have played more golf than I ever managed as a Schoolmaster (my leaving gift from the Governors was a new golf set), and especially as a Head, and I have pottered in the garden (mostly my children’s). I have also had time for our two grandchildren, one of whom was born just before I formally retired six weeks ago. The days have blurred a little, of course, without the regular term-time rhythm I have been familiar with for the past 38 years of my teaching profession. (If truth be told, it’s more like 57 years of school routines having started boarding aged five, worked my Gap year in a Prep School and then had four university years before continuing on in 1980 with my first teaching post.) However, it hasn’t all been plain sailing.

Received wisdom for teachers at the point of retirement is to ensure that they are doing something completely different whilst their former colleagues get back to the business of INSET, start of school admin and teaching. I followed this advice and went off to the IOW with my wife and mother-in-law (don’t smile, we all get on very well)! Within a very short time, however, I was back into school: my grandson was just starting Reception Class at his C of E primary in a northern city and as his mum needed to be away working for a few days my wife and I were called in to ‘cover’.

Car Park reverie

I know what ‘cover’ normally looks like in school but this was something altogether different and felt extremely odd. For the past 16 years as a Head I have been the one meeting and greeting children, parents and staff daily. The car park routine, beginning and end of the day, has been one of my favourite times. A chance to try and settle in the nervous newcomers with a friendly smile, chat and first names (and that’s just the new staff hurrying in late for Form time), and an opportunity to give out reminders (‘It’s home clothes on Friday for the House charities’) as well as the occasional informal admonition to tuck in a shirt or to pull a skirt lower. (I mustn’t lie: the latter obligations I did find tedious!) Now, just a week into September, it was very different: I was the one bringing a child into school and it was my turn to be nervous and unsure.

My grandson lives all of two minutes’ walk from his school (his father is, after all, the local Vicar), and at 8.40am precisely (any earlier was discouraged) I was waiting in line outside the school gates. The ‘lollipop lady’ was busy ushering youngsters and carers across the road whilst a series of yellow-coated playground assistants waited in line to welcome us. They were professional and polite and were already learning names – but it was clear that we were entering their territory! Even more intimidating was the formidable and aptly named Reception teacher, Mrs Handstrong (not her real name, but close), guarding the entrance to her classroom. She, too, was impressive and already on first name terms with all of her 30 charges as well as with most of the carers. I started to feel even more like a freshwater fish entering the sea as I took my grandson into his base, found his coat hook, deposited a water bottle and bag and then ensured my youngster had a starter activity to be getting on with.

My admiration for Reception Class teachers was already high from my own observation of these highly competent, professional and creative staff I have known as colleagues. They moved on even further in my esteem as I observed Mrs Handstrong, now with several whimpering five year olds hanging on to her arms, deftly usher us adults out of her domain whilst also instructing the TA to move into the first task of the day. I retreated gratefully and did indeed then spend the rest of the morning tending my daughter’s garden and playing some golf. I was back in line at the school gates at 3.10pm. This time I had a particular task to perform: I was to find a suitable moment to ask the Reception teacher about my grandson’s reading book and homework task. (Do they really have homework in Reception? Apparently they do!) My grandson, once I engaged his attention, was eager to be off home (he told me he had enjoyed lunch and play time) and so I had to seize my moment quickly. Mrs Handstrong was guarding the door whilst she selected the right carers to come forward. At the same time she rattled off some feedback on the day (apparently my grandson had been kind to another child – a proud grandfather moment) and still had time to answer my hurried questions. ‘Be sure that he brings in his picture and some comments about his interests by next Monday’. Phew – mission accomplished (for now)!

And so, yes, retirement ten days in was different from ‘normal school’ for me (and three more days such as the first were to follow) but it was not a retreat from the world of education. I had found myself being surprised by observing fresh things whilst I got a small insight into the ‘other side’ of the educational fence. Further insights and some disappointments were to follow – but that’s the focus of another blog!

Alastair Reid (recently retired Headmaster of Ballard School, New Milton, Hampshire)