Episode 193: Teach Less, Learn More

Okay, it's another School of School podcast. It's another episode. We've got two thirds of the gang. We've got me and Andy. How are you this morning, Andy?

Yeah, I'm good. I'm well, thank you. How are you this afternoon, Adam?

That's good, this is excellent news. Well, on Marvelous Things, the sun is shining up here in the tropical North West, and from the North East, Craig and Jill from Kingsley School, how are you both today? It's a Friday, you finished first week back, how's things?

I'm great, yeah. Yeah, we've made it through the first week, even though it was only a three -day week, but it feels a lot longer. Do you agree, Joe?

I definitely do agree, feels an awful lot longer than three days.

think that first week backs traditionally the longest short week in history. As a general rule, if you picked one short week in the school, and we've got a few of them, in the year I mean, the first week is the longest short week. I don't know if that's a thing, but you know exactly what I'm saying.

Yeah.

Exactly, yep.

Yeah, I think that week feels like a month.

Yeah, well, you've made it through to Friday and you can settle in now and we can just sort of talk about your school and talk about all the amazing things that you do at your school, the things that you've done to make it amazing. I know that we've talked on other occasions on a podcast episode, but also in person. We've seen you speak at events that Maths No Problem have done. But I just wonder if we can pick up on a couple of areas and we sort of touched on it about what's next for Kingsley.

I think we start to sort dig into those things. How do you maintain the momentum and possibly just again introduce yourselves just because we might not know exactly who the two of you are. So just after introduction, a little bit about your school and yeah a little bit about what's happening in your school and perhaps we can move into what's happening next.

Yeah, so I'm Craig Robinson. I'm the assistant head at Kingsley Primary School and also the maths lead.

I'm Gillian McDonald and I am one of the year 6 teachers at Kingsley as well and I've been doing maths and all problems since the very beginning, since we very first got it.

Do want to share your feelings about when we first started you?

Okay, so.

I think Craig's invited me under this podcast so that I can tell you how much I was the most reluctant teacher. As soon as I found out maths was changing I was very set in my ways and I was like no I don't want it, I don't like it, it's no it's doing it the wrong way, it's not going to work and I can hand on heart say that my opinion has completely changed. I do, I do really like maths no problem, I love the way the lessons go, we do journaling and other lessons now.

I use an awful lot of the skills that the kids learn in Maths No Problem, lot of the discussion, lot of the questioning each other, apparatus and things like that. We do in all sorts of lessons, do them in my English, my science, computing. We do put it kind of everywhere, it doesn't really become Maths No Problem, it becomes kind of Learnings No Problem almost. They use all of those skills and I am kind of like a massive advocate for it now.

it does make life a lot easier and it gives the kids a lot more independence I find even lower down I've taught everywhere at this point and as much as I do love year six and the way we do it in year six I think across across the board they do kind of build a bit more independence with the kids and I love getting the stuff out and I just think it's if you'd asked me this before we'd started would you get apparatus out I'd be like absolutely not not happening

Mm

But yeah, I think that's why I've been invited because I am definitely the success story Craig, is that what you want to call me? Like you convinced me.

Yeah? Yeah? Definitely. And I think...

So probably it.

I was just going to say it probably leads to a reasonably obvious question, Jill, or I think it's an obvious question, which is, was there anything in particular or what was it that you knew? Because sometimes we might hang on to these things. I'm not going to like it. No, I'm definitely not going to like it. I'm definitely not going to like it. And then at some point we have to let go and go, do you know what? I really like this. What was it? What were the things that either built up to it or what were the things that like was there something that you just, there was a fundamental shift at once? What was it that sort of

that changed your attitude towards it.

I think my biggest turning point probably was in year five, when I was teaching in year five and we'd been doing bar models for quite a while and one of my kids...

One of the little boys in the class was a bit like, just don't get it. Why don't I get it? And we talked about various different ways. We'd drawn them. We'd made them. We'd, I think we were doing fractions or division or something. And we'd been ripping up pieces of paper and stuff like that. And one of the other kids on the table basically did exactly what we'd been doing together for him and was like, look, this is what we're going to do. You have a go as well. And then he was like, yeah. Like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

just thought it absolutely needs to be more like more what do we say more learning less teaching or something it needs to be more kids talking and that I think that for me was the biggest turning point because I think the little boy that had helped normally wouldn't have said to boo of a goose and it was just massive that he knew when he got it and he wanted to share that.

Yeah, it's, it's, it's fascinating when you see.

And I think that was when I realised as well that it can go anywhere.

Yeah, it's great when you see that.

Yeah.

I've heard it said before, and I don't know if there's any research that backs this up, but I've heard it said before that children learn more from their peers in the classroom than they do from the teacher, right? Would you guys agree with that statement?

Yeah, definitely. Yeah. I think that's what we I think where we come from and probably taking us to where we're going next as well as the the the teacher's role has changed a lot from the kind of the main person that the kids learn off into the person who has to like orchestrate and kind of and just say like we mentioned in a previous podcast that just

Absolutely.

ask that question at the right time or just adapt the direction of travel in terms of the comments that have been made or the discussions that are happening. Whereas most of the volume, most of the discussion in the classrooms now comes from each other and it's just planning them opportunities and giving the kids the right stimulus or the right kind of inspiration to be able to have them discussions and

like we deepen them discussions as well at the same time. Whereas in contrast to before, like I said a minute ago, that would have all been led by the teacher or 90 % of it would have been led by the teacher.

Yeah, which is, know, there's the term that you used, John, I love it. You know, it's I think.

It's, it was actually part of the Singaporean shift in their curriculum at one point. they said teach less, learn more, right. Was, was how they said it. And there's a lot of, there's, there's a really interesting thing about that, which is what you've just highlighted, Craig, which is that, you know, as a teacher, so it's not about teaching. First of all, the classroom is not about teaching. It's easy as a teacher to get fixated on teaching, but it's actually not about teaching. It's about learning, right? Teaching is only a, is only a

and act that you do so children can learn. So when you're planning your lesson or you're thinking about a lesson or you're, dare I say, performing a lesson, it's about, your emphasis should be on the learning, not on what you're doing as a teacher.

Right. And that's a big mind shift for a lot of teachers because obviously when you teach you, you're focused on what you, you know, what, what do I have to do? What's my role? What's my job? But, but what, what your role or what your job is often is just to be wise and kind of step back and orchestrate the classroom.

Like, Hey, I'm just going to ask those people that question because if, if I've got it right, that's going to, that's going to get them somewhere else. And that's what I need to do, right? As opposed to being the, you know, sort of here I am writing on my whiteboard, all the things that they need to know. Right. One, you know, when you divide a fraction or whatever it was you're teaching in year five, you know, this is step number one, do this step number two, do that step number three, do that. That's not what you do. Right.

Yeah.

Yeah, I think going off the back of that as well Andy is that we've always wanted kids to do well, but when previously we would have got satisfaction out of a child getting something right and just walk away and think I must have done it right because they've just got that right. Whereas now I find and I don't know whether you find the same job I get satisfaction out of confusing them to a certain extent or challenging them. So like asking they think they've got it and they have got it but you

Yeah, absolutely.

that question that makes them think a little bit more and makes them question that cognitive wobble. And I love just asking that question, seeing their expression and walking away. And then when they start that pause and you can see the cogs working in their head and then they start the discussion, that's what gives me the satisfaction rather than actually seeing them get something right.

Absolutely. And it's just, you know, to use a practical example, you might find that, you know, you'll, you'll hear a child say something like, well, when you multiply two numbers, you know, the, they'll say the answers to the product, but they'll say the answer is always bigger, right? They'll say something like that. And you might just let that fly, but, then there's like, well, if you just ask them, well, are you sure? How do you know?

Right. Because then they might go on a whole system of discovery and then when they come up with a conjecture, you can just give them one example where that's not true. You know, that blows their mind. Right. And then, and that, that can, that can be a whole exploration journaling task for them. That's just going to take them somewhere. It's not even in the curriculum, you know, but it's just.

Exactly, yeah.

You just, you're just as a teacher, you're just looking, you're just kind of spying across the classroom, looking for those opportunities to say, how can I, how can I get them deeper? Right. And it's a whole other job. It's a whole other job, but much more profound. Right.

And it's a constant development, Jill, isn't it? I often, every year you look back and you think, I know a lot more now than I used to and my approach to it has worked a lot more. I used to really find it difficult to stop talking in comparison to like the way that we used to teach and just observe and listen without interrupting. And I had this constant voice in my head that I used to

yeah, definitely.

say just don't speak, don't speak, whatever you do, just let them make that mistake. Because it was just habit that we would just kind of correct them straight away. It'd be a pre -maths or problem. I don't know if you have the same experience, Joe.

Yeah.

I find a lot of the time, even now still, I'll kind of like catch myself going like... And then I normally come out with, really? Like that's just kind of my go -to phase when I do kind of want to interrupt.

I also find now, especially, that I have to stop myself kind of stopping everybody to listen to one kid because they're all in their groups and they're all talking in kind of their own bits so I just kind of wait till they're all stopped and then do it and I do think but even now I still kind of hear somebody say something really profound and I'm like...

Right, I'm going to keep that and we'll talk about that in a minute because otherwise you find you're stopping kids that talking about potentially something completely different.

think it makes sense. I think that what we have to recognise is that if you've grown up in the UK or I'm from New Zealand, but I would say the majority countries in the world, we've had models of teaching shown to us over a long time. When we train these models of teachers over a long time. But I think that what you're talking about is so extraordinarily obvious, doesn't make it easy.

But it's kind of like in order to learn, you've got to practice, right? So I'm not going to be able to be a good runner by listening to a really good runner tell me about them running. And I'll be sitting on the couch listening to them and they're telling me all about, I could even watch them run. But I'm still going to be on the couch and it just seems obvious, right? Well, if you want to be a good runner, Adam, you know, there's a reason why you're not is because you're not doing it. And it's kind of like, isn't that the same in the classroom?

No.

Like surely the amount of time that these children spend practicing maths would equate to them being better at maths. It seems so blindingly obvious, but I think that we do have to understand just almost how hard -wired into the model of teaching that we are. Now hopefully that will change. Hopefully the children that you're teaching this week in your year six class as they come back, hopefully some of them go on to become teachers and the model of their teaching, they won't even think twice. They'll keep their, you know, they'll let you everyone practice.

But I think it's amazing because some of these things that you're discussing and talking about, they're incredibly skillful. So don't pretend otherwise, but it just seems so obvious. You find out for yourself, you practice this more. I'll just shake the questions to sort of send you in the right direction. And I think that when you sort of like point that out, it's like, well, of course, of course this is the way that we should be learning.

But yeah, I still find it amazing. It's the same for me. There'll be times where I'll just want to pick up on something just because there's something in me that's almost instinctive. Wrong, but instinctive.

Yeah.

It's important to point out that none of this is in isolation either, Adam. These things work because they've been developed over time and the kids are used to it. You couldn't just say, use Shua, prove it, that sort of thing if they hadn't mastered previous learning as well. And that's where the master problem comes in as well.

Yeah.

You might be going at a slower speed possibly, the pace of learning, the pace of mastery is much higher than it used to be. And it sticks, that knowledge sticks. So when you do ask questions in familiar situations or ask them if they're sure or throw them back into the learning pit, they've got that knowledge that they can kind of draw back out of the long -term memory. And they're able to kind of apply that. Whereas in the past,

because it was so insecure that the knowledge or it completely disappeared. They hadn't got anything to fall back on. And that's probably why they gave up so easily.

I think that... I was just gonna...

I think that's a super important point, Craig. I you know, the reason, Julie, you're, you're able to observe what you, what you observed in your, in your year five lesson is a lot of that credit goes down to what happened in year one and year two. And, you know, you, I hear this often, I hear people say stuff like, you know, how much do you actually need to know to teach year one? You know, actually you need to know an awful lot.

Because, because if you don't, and it's not, you don't need to know calculus really well, right? But you need to know an awful lot about learning because those foundations that you build right from reception all the way through are the reason that you can do what you can do in year five. And part of it is, is, is the,

You know, let's say call it the, structure of the classroom, like just building those habits that, that build the tenacity and the resilience that they need to do these really difficult problems. cause they problems are pretty hard in year five, right? A lot of adults wouldn't be able to solve many of the problems in a year or five textbook. And that all that was built up from the sort of like, okay, well, Hey, we're dividing fractions now. well, in order to divide fractions, you need to, you need to.

teach some really important concepts in year two about sharing and grouping. And, you know, cause if you don't do the grouping bit, they're not going be able to do the fractions, the division of fractions in year five or year six. So, so all that is very carefully orchestrated, built on top of each other. That's the coherence of the program. And I think that's an element that a lot of people don't think enough about. They think that if I just have the right lesson for today, then I should be able to succeed. And it's no, actually it takes a lot more than that. It takes a teacher.

needs to know how to teach a lesson like this, which is the whole professional development journey. You need the coherence in the program to have built you up to a point where those children are actually ready to learn that problem. And then of course, you know, the whole school has to be there supporting you to go through the slow process because it sometimes is seemingly painfully slow. my goodness. It's taking so long for us to like learn column addition. How many lessons are there in your year four on column addition, you know, or

or multiplication or whatever. It's just like you're thinking, does it really need to be this low? But no, you need to, you need that time, right? You need that time. Yeah. It's, think sometimes people forget, they forget what it's like not to know something, right? And I think that's something that teachers have to struggle with a lot because it's like, look, it's obvious, just do what I do and you'll get the right answer. How do you overcome that in teachers? That sort of...

Yep, definitely.

reminding them that like, know, like something like place value is not really that obvious.

I don't know, I think it's just more giving them the confidence to be able to make mistakes and doing it that way, so just accepting, like, the thing.

I think for them not knowing something means that they've already made a mistake and I tend to tell a lot of my kids, know, you guys are literally, you've only been on the earth for 10 years. You can't be expected to know everything, especially when those children who don't know something get quite frustrated or if they've forgotten something and just kind of reminding them that they've only been on the earth for a decade. And I think sometimes I have to remind myself because you know, when you sat thinking, why aren't you getting this? then I think to myself,

ten like you reminding yourself that those kids have literally been on this earth for ten years and and obviously further down the school it's even less and I think as soon as you take that on board and you think of it like that you you do kind of remember how how it feels to to get things wrong and to not know everything and to to like help them accept that you can't know everything and you've got to learn

I think we've got much more clarity and a bigger bank of effective resources when kids do struggle now. Whereas in the past there was always a tendency to do little bit too much for the kids just so they'd get things right. Whereas now we know, we understand the theory that yes, they might need the emotional support, yes, they might need a little bit of scaffolding here and there.

Certain kids might need it a little bit different from others. They might need extra instructions or instructions repeated to them, etc. But the learning is still the same. If there's not an element of independence or a big dose of it, then they're not going to learn. And even if they're doing that lesson, it's not going to stick. So I think the PD that we put in place and the experiences that we've got a wealth of now.

We kind of understand what it's like to struggle a little bit better than we did before and how to combat that as well. So I think that's... Going back to the point that you made at the start, Adam, of where we're going next, that's kind of our bread and butter, really. The kids that we... The nature of the kids that we're getting in in reception is changing all the time, and the kids that we're getting transferred from different schools in terms of needs are so different all the time. It's that flexibility that...

We've learnt and we've got the confidence now that our approach works for pretty much any child that we've taught, we've proven it works for. It's just that we need to be flexible and adapt it as we go and that's our constant challenge. We've got this approach now that is so effective that anyone who any needs that come in we've just got to work out how we need to change it and adapt it to get the best out of that child.

So you guys have a really high proportion of SEM children in your school. What's the impact for them, this approach?

Like I said, the approach works for every single one of them. We haven't found a child it doesn't work for. And we've had some children with really profound difficulties. For example, we a sixth child last year who had a talker when he went to secondary school. He still hasn't got the spoken language. But it's just a case of working together with teaching assistants, teachers.

and leadership to find a way that we can adapt the approach to make it work for them. we have things like, for example, in our Key Stage 1 set and base, have the teacher will use the reception journals, for example, but she'll make it, she'll maybe photocopy the pages and cut out the ordering task rather than them having to draw lines to and things like that.

Some of the journal pages aren't used. They're just the inspiration of the of the hub or the idea behind that was underpinning the lesson. They'll be adapted by the teacher and maybe done in a more practical way using more concrete resources or even just taking them outside and using things outside. But it all comes down to the basis that that's the starting point. The maths, no problem, quicker than the starting point. It's how we adapt it for them.

And I mean, the other big thing in terms of seven pupils is they usually go a little bit or even significantly slower than the rest. And their goals or their steps are a lot smaller in comparison to others. Obviously, they feel the same size to the child, they imagine, but in comparison to the masses, their steps are a lot smaller. And it's just the skill of the teachers.

able to do that but they've got time to do that that's the thing because they've got the resource they've got the approach of maths no problem it's just making it work for them individuals.

I think I just want to pick up on that Craig because honestly I think that message is so important that the pedagogy, that the pedagogical approach remains the same. Like you've talked about making reasonable adjustments like based on the needs of the children and you've talked about time but in terms of that pedagogical approach because the number of times I get asked okay so you do all this for you know the children and them in the mainstream what about

SEN children surely there's a different approach surely you have to do something radically different and it's just simply not the case and I think that it's really important I think that the schools and teachers understand that the pedagogical approach the way that we go about it remains the same and of course you know some children will learn at different rates and absolutely I know that you you know do a lot of work with

children with all sorts of different needs and you make those adjustments and when I've listened to you talk about it before and it's brilliant the work that you guys do at school but I think it is is important to know that it's not a radical shift that all of a sudden you know different children are getting taught totally differently and I think that message has to be made loud and clear to teachers that seem to still think that there's as if there's a totally different way about going about your business.