Education Exposed: Leading a school in a time of Uncertainty

I read this book, which was published at the end of January, in just three days. As an assistant head of school, I got to know about it through twitter. Further perusal of it, made me conclude that this book would be useful to me and I pre-ordered this book, so that I could read it as soon as it got published. Even though my context is different, as I live in Malta, I could very well understand and empathize with what the author was stating.

This book has many interesting topics which are all important for school leaders. The book starts with behaviour, which is a crucial aspect of any school. The salient point about behaviour is that behaviour has to be taught. I fully concur with this. The school should show to students where the boundaries lie and what it does and does not accept.

The author also comments on the learning outcomes. This method of teaching is being introduced slowly into Maltese schools, along with continuous assessment. I concur with Strickland in that the children knowing the learning objectives is not beneficial to them.

Strickland also mentions another point: that of the importance of team work among teachers in a school. It is also essential that the school head invests in the people who work around him. As he states, a good school is one where students have one good teacher after another.

I really enjoyed this book and I would recommend it to all those who like me are in a position of
leadership in a school, as it gives you much to think about.

Continous Assessment and changes in the Maltese education system

Last Friday, at school, we had training about continuous assessment. This will be introduced as from next scholastic year, in year 9 in all subjects. This change will affect all Maltese schools. The students will be made to complete between three to five tasks , spread over three years, that is, from year nine to eleven.

While I am not averse to continuous assessment per se, I have my doubts whether this system will be successful. The Education Department is assuming that we live in an utopian world where all students are keen to learn, where they will all do their tasks and complete them by the deadline date. The stark reality for those who work in schools could not be further away from this. Nowadays, with the inclusive system in place in Maltese schools, schools are co-ed, and all academic abilities are grouped together in secondary school. Students with challenging behaviour are always a force to be reckoned with. The intake in schools depends on the catchment area, which severely defines the school culture.

These changes being wrought to the Maltese education system have all been done in the last few  years. These changes have occurred at such a fast pace that sometimes, it becomes quite a headache to keep up. Thus, next year, teachers at my school will be facing the advent of the learning outcomes framework and also this new system of continuous assessment. Half yearly exams have also been scrapped.

While I will be there to support teachers in the implementation of these system, I have very grave reservations about these. Will they lead to a better education for our students? Are these systems equitable for all students? While I am in favour of inclusion, only time will tell whether these changes will be a success or not.

Working out the classification

These past few weeks, my time has been taken up by the classification of students.  As from next month, my year 9's will be starting their year 10 and as per school practice, I will be following them until the end of year 11.

One of the tasks which I had to do was to classify the students for year 10. It has involved a lot of work, but luckily, I am now ready. The basic subjects used to classify the students are Maths, Maltese, English and Physics. However, in a couple of cases, I also used my discretion. After a year chasing them up and down, I know the students quite well by now. I know their behaviour and attitudes. I know who should be in class with and who should not. Apart from being classified for the whole class,  students are also set for maths, maltese, english and physics,  a foreign language (either German, Irtalian, French or Spanish), PSCD, and two options.

The classification, done on excel, yielded interesting aspects, which were to be expected. One of them was that those who had spent the whole year laughing and chattering in class, did very badly indeed. Some went down by two or three classes. Those who put an effort, performed very well and went in better classes. I had been alerting my students that the classification would be done by marks since March and I had been urging them to study and prepare for the exams. Some started laughing in my face! Well, now it is really a case of what you sow, you reap!

So, I was very satisfied with the outcome and I am looking forward to seeing the looks on my students' faces, when I will call them out for their new class come the 25th September!

Creating the Schools our Children Need

Last month, I was approached by a Maltese magazine to write a book review of a recent book which is related to education. I accepted the invitation, and decided to write about Dylan Wiliam's recent book, which has the title of 'Creating the Schools Our Children Need'.

The process of preparing for the half yearly exams

These past weeks have proved to be a long stretch. There are so many things to do! So it has boiled down to prioritising.

Exams start on the 12th February and I have been extra busy. I had to do the exam schedules, prepare the special classes for each sessions, do the class lists also for each session... the list seemed infinite. Luckily, I managed to finish everything off last Friday. Tomorrow morning I will go to school to print out everything. The next process is to stick the class lists on designated boards in the corridor, so that all the students will know their room allocation for each and every exam.

My plans for this week are that I should finish sorting out the half yearly papers. These need to be counted and put into jackets. Then, they have to be transported to my office...to be put under lock and key in my office. All exam scripts will then see the light of the day on the exam day itself.

This week is also important because the Bishop will be visiting our school, as part of the pastoral visit that he is doing at the village where our school is situated. Another blog about this important event will follow later on this week!

Back to school - Term 2

Today was my first day back at school. This was because I spent the first week of term at home. I contracted a very harsh version of the flu which confined me to my bed.

My first  day was extremely hectic. I had to deal with all sorts of mini-crises, with the  main one being the fact that some students took a long holidays from everything related to school work and did absolutely no homework whatsoever! The baying of angry teachers was incessant!

I also put up the half yearly exam timetable on the board, and it was quickly taken over by the well-meaning students who are now fast counting the days to the exams. Exams start on the 12th February, so they are less than four weeks away.

Another student was running during the break and he fell and hurt his leg. He came to my office surrounded by other boys, who were enjoying the chaos, that such an event brings.

All in all it was a very nice day, full of normal recurring things, which was only marred by the bad weather and excessive cold!

The view from my office today

Dysfunctional homes and student achievement

As part of my Ph.D studies, I am currently engrossed in reading the report drawn by the Social Mobility Commission (2017).

This report emphasises the fact that at secondary level, pupils from a low income household, make less progress than their more affluent peers. Thus, these pupils who come from a disadvantaged background, have limited opportunities of further education, at the end of year 11.

One case study school, which took part in the study,  identified material poverty as limiting low income pupils’ capacity to complete homework. This school is identified as School Five.

“The bigger barrier comes really from children not having a space at home to do the work in, they’re all sharing bedrooms, no child that I know here has their own bedroom.  Not having a space to do homework, not having the family understanding that they need to do homework”  (Social Mobility commission, page 26).

This has led me to think about John, the boy whom I talked about in previous blogs. During parents' day, his grandmother came to talk to me personally. The main thing that emerged was that due to his dysfunctional family, John is suffering mentally, and this had also impacted his academic achievement, which has taken a down turn.

In fact, John fits squarely into the quote above. The boy has no privacy whatsoever. His grandma admitted that he sleeps with her, and that he does his homework and studying on the kitchen table. HIs relationship with his mother is turbulent. He has no father. Given that John has recently lost his grandfather, on whom he looked up as a father figure,and came to our school last September, it stands to reason that the boy has been passing from one trauma to another. This past term was not the best for John, indeed.