House Matters

Pastoral roles are changing in schools. Maybe the discussion of non-teaching pastoral leaders is for another day, but today I’d like to share the relatively-rare system which is at the core of all we do in my school.

I teach in an all boys comprehensive in Coventry. We’re a good school but pretty much straight down the middle in most criteria, with boys coming from challenging areas, affluent areas and all across the city. We do some things really well, have challenges which all similar schools have, and challenges which are unique to us due to our set up. We’re also one of the oldest built comprehensive schools in the country, constructed in the 1950s. More and more schools are recognising the importance of the House system and are reintroducing it; for us, it never went away, and as a result, it retains a special feel.

Our Houses all exist in separate buildings. These buildings each contain a House room, lockers and cloakroom, staffroom, toilet block and office. Students go to their Houses before school, at break time, eat their lunch in there with the House staff, and return there after school if necessary. Each House contains one group from each year, and so there are about 130 pupils in each House. There are weekly Inter-House competitions after school and House points allocated and trophies awarded. Boys belong to a House and this sense of belonging remains with them for life. It’s a House, because it’s a family.

I have the privilege of being a Househead. I have a team of tutors and we meet daily. The students have a full House assembly twice a week, three tutor registration sessions, four afternoon formal full House registrations, and a year-based SLT Assembly. I, or the team, address the House ten times a week and the students and staff spend up to two hours a day in the House.

That’s a huge amount of potential face to face contact between staff and pupils and leads to the underpinning ethos of the school, which is all about the importance of relationship, loyalty and respect. It’s hard work—non-contact time is precious and break and lunch is usually spent surrounded by pupils—but in terms of setting the standard, the House system simply works.

My job description calls me a ‘Learning Leader’, and this has been a fundamental shift in focus over the last few years. My role is not to discipline (although this happens); my primary function is not to reconcile or advocate or find solutions (although these are major parts of the job). My role is to place learning and achievement at the heart of all we do, and pass on the understanding that everything has an impact on the learning community.

Every time I stand in front of the House I am reminded what a precious role we have as teachers. The importance of setting standards, of role modelling, of presenting to students the possibilities that there is more to life than their experiences; the ability to start the day off positively, the opportunity there is to inspire young people...how much the House matters.

In all the battles of everyday classroom teaching and pastoral leadership it is easy to lose sight of what we’re in it for: because we love teaching, and we love seeing lives changing. And let’s be honest—if it was simple, we wouldn’t enjoy it as much would we?

My New Year's Resolutions

I love holidays. I especially love two-week holidays. And I love Christmas, where it is delightfully busy. Two days before term begins, and I'm almost through my marking (just one more set to go) and now it's just the small matter of planning which needs doing. Ah, holidays.

Right now I am full of new term/new year optimism. And so I don't forget (because we all know what the run up to Easter is like in terms of stress levels), here are my Teaching 2013 Resolutions:

1.  Keep on top of marking. This could be my every-holiday resolution. I know how important it is to mark accurately, consistently and constructively, yet it remains the thorn in my side. Maybe my resolution should be to 'enjoy marking'?!

2. Make Learning, not Work, the focus in my classroom. As tough as this is when getting coursework completed, I've got to be all about The Learning.

3. Keep up The Fun. I am guilty of becoming proper grumpy sometimes, but I shouldn't forget that laughter is such an important and underused tool in the classroom.

4. Become more Lazy. Thanks to Jim Smith (@thelazyteacher), I'm going back into term full of Lazy ideas. I've been using some for the past term, and now is the time to get even lazier.

5. Figure out what makes my classroom different, and what makes learning in my classroom a unique experience, and focus on making that more important that ever.

That's five, and I think that's enough. I could have written down dozens more (probably about questioning, objectives, networking, CPD...) but these are vague and varied enough to give me plenty to work through. And four of the above are definitely worth blogging about as they go!

Happy New Year!

Going Somewhere

I’ve been a Twitter user for a couple of years now, but it is only in the last couple of months that I have begun to change the way I use it. Recently I’ve been making more and more connections in the education community, reading and being inspired by fellow Tweachers and writers who have a great deal of interesting things to say.

I don’t feel like I have much to say, but I am nearly getting there.

In fact, being inspired by all these brilliant teachers actually made me feel more and more inadequate. I feel just an observer to these really interesting conversations going on; that I have nothing to add.

Yet more and more I feel the only way add something is to get involved, to give it a go. I know I am joining (am already part of) a dynamic community who have a great deal to say about life and learning.

So what do I have to say? I teach in a pretty much unique secondary school in a pretty much unique role which I love. I’m willing to give things a go and I’m interested in what works in what can be a challenging setting.

My hope is that this will be a platform for others to have a voice—former students as well as current ones—and that together we may journey and discover things about ourselves. Above all, I hope these ramblings may be interesting, entertaining and hopefully inspiring to others who are like minded.

And you never know; maybe I'll get somewhere.