Phrases like the following cause many teachers to feel that timetabling is a task they would not want to take on.

• timetabling wizard
• locked in a dark room until it’s done
• that won’t work
• you can’t have that
• nothing will change; it’s finished

What is the way forwards away from the ‘magic’?

Constructing the timetable needs to be broken down into its constituent parts, open communication should be encouraged and more members of staff involved.

The importance of curriculum design

The first element is that the timetable should be reviewed by the people operating it; the students and the staff - which will help inform decisions that are taken at later dates.

The curriculum needs to be designed based on the students that will be taught. This should involve all heads of department who should have input into the discussion about the curriculum time required for each subject and class organisation. Once finalised the picture of the model should then be available to all staff. One of the main reasons for the mythology surrounding timetabling is the lack of understanding that the general teaching population has about how the school curriculum is organised. This will range from members of the SLT (sometimes including the head) down to main scale teachers. There are also examples where an individual head of a department does not know how the students have been organised in classes, and almost certainly have not been involved in discussions about how to best deliver their subject. For example, where the French classes are determined by the English class that students are in, but the head of MFL is not aware of this. It is therefore important that the organisation of the curriculum is shared with and understood by all middle leaders, who can then communicate this to their departmental colleagues. It should also be understood that curriculum structures and organisation are not always set in stone.

Clear information needs to be produced about working with any external partners including specific information on any timings that are relevant to the timetable. This cannot be truly finalised until the Key Stage 4 and Post-16 options processes have been completed.

The importance of staffing

Once the curriculum is finalised the school should next consider resourcing the timetable. The school needs to identify what the maximum teaching load for each teacher will be and what subjects they can teach. This will identify where the school will need to recruit, or which departments need to be slimmed down. Heads of department will need to be involved to check on the teaching expertise of their staff.

Heads of department then need to work out the best deployment of their staff across the classes that require teaching. For this task they need to be aware of how their subject is structured in each year of the school. They also need to know how many teaching periods they can allocate for their subject to each member of staff, and what other duties each of their staff will be undertaking. This work is essential in that you can discover problems with the structure at this stage if the planning has not been done with due diligence or there are specific decisions that will need to be taken by the school in order to utilise their teachers effectively. Before being finalised the decisions of the head of department should be reviewed by their line manager to ensure that decisions have been made to help the students make the best progress.

Almost inevitably there will be a need for compromises to be made, either with assigning non-specialist teachers in the planning stage or conflicts between staffing requests and factors external to the department. The headteacher needs to be appraised of these known issues, and there should be clear explanations as to why these occurred. There can then be discussions about how to resolve these in the future.

The importance of communication

Timetabling is quite rightly seen as a difficult task, but some people give the impression that you have to have a very strange skillset to be a successful timetabler. The truth is somewhat different, yes you need an eye for detail, but most of all you need to be able to gather and process information and communicate with all the members of teaching staff in the school.

The school timetabler may not want to have the difficult conversations and may wish to produce a final solution that ‘cannot change’ before being told certain plans are not what is wanted. This can come from an insecurity on their part that they are concerned that the timetable will not work, will not be completed on time and does not want any extra restrictions placed on them.

Timetablers have the capacity to be one of the biggest blockers on curriculum change in a school, this can be overall structure or just how one subject is organised. A thought that “the timetable worked this year so I am confident that it will work next year as long as nothing changes” can lead to a thought process that any change will be impossible to schedule so changes to the curriculum structure must be discouraged.

It is essential that the timetabler gives clear and helpful explanations about why a particular structure on the timetable has occurred. Areas of concern on the timetable (for example, split classes or multiple lessons on a day) should be highlighted with reasons why they have occurred rather than a vague explanation.

The timetable is sometimes produced close to the end of term with no time for discussion about changes. This can occur because the timetabler has ‘finished’ the timetable and nothing can be changed. My experience, of over 25 years timetabling is that although the last few pieces of the jigsaw are the most difficult to fit in, once they are in then the timetable as a whole can be analysed and some areas of concern, for example, split classes, can be addressed quite easily.

Timetable construction should be seen a collaborative task, no matter who has the ultimate responsibility for completing it. The finished timetable will affect hundreds (possibly thousands) of people for a whole year, this includes teachers, teaching assistants, students and parents.

At Herts for Learning we recently had our second virtual staff conference. One of the speakers was Dr. Pragya Agarwal who spoke to us about unconscious bias. It was an inspiring and motivational presentation which made me realise just how unconsciously bias we can be as a human race and where some of these prejudices come from. If you get the chance, I highly recommend her book ‘Sway: unravelling unconscious bias’.

Unconscious biases can cause unintentional discrimination, they are the underlying attitudes and stereotypes that we have unconsciously formed based on our personal experiences, background and culture. They can be both positive and negative and affect the way we engage with another person or group of people.  Unconscious bias occurs when we favour someone who shares our values, for example, we may favour a person with a similar educational background to ours. We tend to be drawn to people who look like us, who share the same colour or ethnicity.

Unconscious bias theory suggests:

• iIt is part of human nature
• it is unintentional
• it can impact our decisions
• it increases with stress or tiredness
• it can be overcome

I wanted to look at some examples of unconscious bias that we may experience in our roles as Business Management professionals and how we can avoid them. The most obvious area is HR and Recruitment, but it can occur throughout the key elements of business management.

Recruitment

Names - Herts for Learning has recently introduced ‘nameless’ applications (until the interview stage). It is remarkable and somewhat shocking that as professionals we make judgements on people just by reading their name!

University – do you ever look at where someone’s degree is from and make a judgement?

School – do you know the school they attended? Does the reputation of the school reflect in your judgement of that person? Did you go to the same school and therefore share an affinity.

Gut feeling – how often do you say “it’s just a gut feeling”? This may be your unconscious bias at work, your brain uses shortcuts to make decisions quickly based on information it has received over time, but this is not the best way to recruit staff. Appointments should be well thought out, fair and based on factual evidence. Conscious decisions are controlled and well-reasoned.

PR and communications

It is important when dealing with parents, governors and other stakeholders that we communicate effectively. Unconscious bias can affect how we communicate with others, less friendly behaviours and body language are easily picked up on. Consciously consider using inclusive language that does not stereotype or demean people based on personal characteristics including gender, gender expression, race, ethnicity, economic background, ability/disability status, religion, sexual orientation, etc. It is also important to consider your audience and what unconscious biases they may possess. This is really about human nature and understanding our own bias helps us to understand and empathise with our audience.

Financial resources

Unconscious Bias can lead us to identify with what is familiar, it can prevent us from considering new information or other perspectives and ideas. By creating checklists and criteria for our procedures and processes we can mitigate for unconscious bias.

Purchasing – do you always order the same items from the same supplier because you perceive then to be superior and more reasonable than others? Are these decisions based on fact or historic information? Have you priced checked, looked at reviews, and tested other suppliers for performance, quality, price and reliability? Try discussing your decisions with a colleague, collective decision making is more reliable and less likely to be influenced by your own bias.

Premises, health and safety

Risk Assessments - Left to their own devices, people tend to gravitate to inaccurate risk assessment due to their assumptions and biases. We need to ensure that these are eliminated and create risk assessments which mitigate for human error and biases using checklists and agreed criteria. For example, a piece of play equipment or area of the playground that has never caused an accident. We perceive it to be safe and assume there is no danger. Evidence based risk assessment may identify a hazard not yet experienced.

• identify the hazard
• decide who may be harmed and how
• evaluate the risks and decide on control measures
• record your findings
• review the risk assessment
• governance

Here are some points to remember and try to mitigate for when trying to introduce new policies or procedures:

• people tend to believe what is repeated often
• people (generally) do not like to ‘stand out’ so tend to go along with the majority – rightly or wrongly
• people will ignore relevant information if it conflicts with their own bias or beliefs
• people generally want to be right
• people generally do not like change

While unconscious bias isn’t intentional, we do need to address it - and the best way to do this is to be aware of it; slow down your thinking, don’t rush to judgements and take time to think through decisions carefully. Record and evidence the reasons for your decisions. Try to focus on peoples positive attributes and do not rely on stereotypes, particularly negative ones. Unless we champion change, change will not happen and every Business Management professional can play their role in championing change.

Whilst schools have been focusing on the cleanliness of their buildings along with bubbles, spaces, ventilation and one way systems due to the COVID pandemic, I wanted to expand on this good work and bring your attention to the updated Good Estates Management for schools (GEMS). This toolkit gives comprehensive advice to schools and responsible bodies to help manage school buildings and land, and has just been updated by the DfE. Managing your buildings and land effectively will help you save money and ensure you have a healthy, safe and sustainable school environment.

The Government website has links to various documents and tools including the benefits of good estate management and also provides an organisational self-assessment tool to help you assess your current approach to estate management.

The Benefits of Good Estate Management gives you guidance on taking a strategic approach to managing your organisation including:

Saving money by:

• reducing running costs
• getting better deals & spreading costs
• making better investment decisions
• prioritising your maintenance

Having safer and healthier schools with:

• fewer accidents
• improved morale and outcomes

Run sustainable and efficient schools that:

• use less energy and water
• increase environmental awareness

The tools and checklists available include the following:

• the benefits of strategic estate management
• a self-assessment tool
• a guide to strategic estate documents
• guidance on good estate governance
• a top 10 of estates checks for governing bodies/boards
• the information you need to know about your estate
• an introduction to condition surveys
• guidance on how to begin estate performance management and benchmarking
• tips to reduce energy and water use in schools
• guidance on how to prioritise maintenance
• a maintenance risk based tool
• a compliance tracker
• an estate projects checklist
• details of Sector organisations for further information

A good starting point is to complete the self-assessment tool, which will help identify where you are following good practice and areas which require further development.  It will ask a number of questions across 12 areas of estates management to help provide assurance that the estate is being managed effectively.  The purpose of the tool is to help you develop strategic estate management in your organisation so you can add comments, evidence and proposed actions against questions, as appropriate to help you identify actions to improve.  Whilst answering each one of the questions you can click on the guidance link (similar to that on the SFVS/school resource management self-assessment tools) to review relevant areas of the GEMS guidance.  This will help you develop these areas.  This tool will produce an action plan based on your responses in the self-assessment.

There is also clear guidance on creating an asset management plan which is a short to medium term plan detailing and prioritising what maintenance and actions need to be taken to meet the requirements of your estates management strategy. The aim being that you should plan as much maintenance work as you can rather than carrying out works reactively.  It is good practice to allocate planned preventative maintenance and reactive maintenance budgets in the region of a 70:30 ratio (Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA))

There are some schools who utilise licensed software on an annual subscription, but for those schools who do not have access to these, there is also a comprehensive compliance tracker which provides an example maintenance and testing schedule to support schools.  This tool covers the Health & Safety requirements for most schools – though some schools may have further specific requirements for their individual buildings.  Schools will be able to enter all contractor information that are used for maintenance, inspections and/or other Health & Safety activities.  The tracker lists the most common statutory and recommended maintenance and inspection requirements for schools.  It also contains a work plan which shows what work is due within 2 months, 6 months etc. with any work overdue highlighted in red cells.

The Good Estate Management for Schools (GEMS) provides schools with a one stop shop for providing you with clear guidance on managing your premises and land.  There are regular H&S updates in the SBM briefing sessions which will keep schools updated on changes to regulations, the next briefing will be on 24th November at 10.00 a.m.

For advice on this or anything else related to business management, get in touch.

Call us on 01438 843299 or email businessmanagement@hertsforlearning.co.uk.

It’s been a really difficult start to the new school year and we are sure that you are juggling many plates at the moment. We wanted to highlight the PE Grant, which we are sure is not at the top of the list, but important none the less.  Due to COVID and the closure of schools except for key worker children, schools are finding their budgeted expenditure for the PE grant for 19/20 and has not gone to plan.  Although the Government has agreed that any unspent funds from the 19/20 allocations can be carried forward into the next academic year, they do have to be spent by 31st March 2021.  Some of the usual items we would expect to see financed through the grant, such as teacher training and specialist teachers are not practical whilst schools are very busy dealing with the restrictions imposed on them due to COVID.

The DfE are recommending prioritising physical activity, to improved mental wellbeing and educational attainment and the DfE recognise the importance that children continue to remain fit and active, wherever possible, and have the 60 minutes of daily physical activity recommended by the Chief Medical Officers. The DfE are encouraging schools to prioritise physical activity as they welcome more children back to school.

The PE and Sports Premium is a ring-fenced grant for primary schools for children from Year 1 to Year 6.  

Just a reminder that any use of the PE and sport premium should continue to support at least one of the key indicators:-

• Engagement of all pupils in regular physical activity
• Profile of PE and sport is raised across the school as a tool for whole-school improvement
• Increased confidence, knowledge and skills of all staff in teaching PE and sport
• Increased participation in competitive sport
• Broader experience of a range of sports and activities offered to all pupils

You should not use your funding to:-

• employ coaches or specialist teachers to cover PPA.
• teach the minimum requirements of the national curriculum (except top-up swimming lessons )
• fund capital expenditure (£2,000 in Herts Schools)

To try and help schools with planning their expenditure we have gathered together a list of suggestions:

• Online streaming classes
• Online resources – software, subscriptions (Complete PE) (Get Set 4 PE)
• Membership of Youth Sports Trust or Association of Physical Education both have lots of resources

Membership of Youth Sports Trust, this site contains lots of information about membership and resources along with post COVID advice for schools. 

Association for Physical Education membership costs also vary dependent on pupil numbers:

• local sports partnerships
• new PE Scheme of work (e.g. TOP PE)
• online workshops – healthy eating and activities

Focus on outdoor activities:-

• improvements to outside areas
• creative playground markings
• The Daily Mile (sign up free)
• playground equipment
• outdoor adventurous challenges – i.e. scavenger hunts
• renewing  / New PE equipment (Yoga mats)
• engagement of parents (walk to school initiatives)
• cycling (cycle to school week / workshops for repairs / subsidised helmets and hi vis) https://bikeability.org.uk/
• more diverse sports activities (consider Yoga or Tai Chi)
• CPD for teachers
• fund a PE lead, responsible for upskilling other teachers – succession planning
• extra-curricular dance teachers
• specific teacher/TA for PE to support staff
• lunchtime sports coaches for playground activities
• development of sports leaders

These seismic shifts in our way of life require us to reconsider how we educate children and young people.

The Wellbeing Team’s 2022 conference focused on developing pupil agency and empowerment because there are big issues on the horizon. Covid disruptions have already triggered serious debate about the way education is assessed; but I suggest that educational change needs more root and branch reform. Exact timings may be unpredictable but each of the issues below will impact on the children we are now teaching.

The 100+ year life

Generation Z is on course to normalise the 100+ year life and the first person who will live to 150 has already been born. A longer lifespan will require a reshaping of life-course patterns. The simple 3-part life that we recognise – educate, work, retire – is not compatible with an extended life. As changes impact across their 100+ years, adults will be required to re-educate, re-energise and re-focus at several points, probably going through periods with little or no working income as they reinvent themselves to respond to changing contexts. They will need the confidence to take calculated risks as the nature of work shifts and be able to recognise and seize opportunities. Essential skills in this context will be:

• self-belief and self-confidence to contribute ideas, thoughts and opinions
• an ability to learn, adapt, be creative and entrepreneurial
• skills of critical thinking and weighing options and choices

Artificial intelligence

The escalation of technological change that we have seen in the last 30+ years shows no sign of slowing. There is about to be an AI explosion, and it is much closer than most of us think. Some AI systems are already recognised as able to manage information retrieval and manipulation more effectively than the human brain. Yet, our school curriculum currently remains centred on learning and recalling facts. The assessment system tests knowledge of these facts, in order to funnel learners from one set of exams to the next. Incidentally, most adults will forget most of these facts. In the context of AI, should learning a nationally established canon of facts be so high on our agenda?

What will be the unique selling point for the future human worker in a world of advancing and advanced AI? What can humans contribute to the working world that is better than what AI can deliver? The answers must be related to our humanity. Duckworth and Jaeger in 2015 suggested 8 dimensions that humans uniquely offer - creativity, curiosity, critical thinking, entrepreneurship, collaboration, communication, growth mindset and global competence. Zhao’s 2018 list is shorter; foreseeing that humans are superior to AI in ‘being unique individuals’ and ‘being equipped with social and emotional intelligence.’  My own list includes the following as essential attributes to nurture in an AI-enriched world:

• empathy, compassion and perspective
• interpersonal, social and emotional skills
• collaboration and co-operation
• personal values and ethics
• individuality and uniqueness
• imagination and creativity

Global crises

As if all that wasn’t enough, a series of major crises are also on the horizon.

Firstly, hot on the heels of the vast borrowing that funded Covid responses, widespread economic crisis is beginning to bite. Speaking locally, Britain is at the wrong end of Europe’s ‘economic prediction’ league tables, and the increase in people living in poverty will be significant and protracted.  

We are also already seeing the early stages of a full global food crisis. Food supplies will continue to be impacted by war, by climate change, and are vulnerable anyway, given that 90% of world food is distributed by only four global companies. (There is no monopoly constraint at an international level.)

Global warming is an existential threat, and we can see the speed of environmental change escalating. It is coming; we just don’t know exactly when. Climate change will lead to significant human migrations, from newly formed wastelands and flood zones, initially into shrinking areas of life-sustaining land. (As a little bonus, the increased density of populations will enable easier transmission of pandemics, further economic collapse and more food shortages.)

So, what do our pupils need to be learning now to prepare them for this level of challenge to our way of life? I believe they need a strong curriculum that will enable them to:

• develop personal agency across a range of learning, thinking and skill areas
• be empowered to express their views and concerns effectively in a variety of ways
• understand how to influence and hold to account, political systems responding to inequality, human rights and existential threats
• develop skills of survival, problem solving, responsibility and collaboration
• understand their role as global citizens

As a starting point, adopting teaching approaches and content to develop pupils’ personal agency, will empower and grow learner confidence. This, in turn, will develop their capacity and thirst to effect positive change and their ability to weigh options and act upon choices, grasping responsibility with energy.

Next steps

These seismic shifts in our way of life require us to reconsider how we educate children and young people. The debate needs energy, imagination and innovation. Curriculum change will need to take us away from education for and by conformity, and into pupil empowerment and personalised learning journeys that nurture skills, understanding, uniqueness, diversity, and community.

Rather than simply wait for transformation, we can reconsider right now the ambition, focus and depth of our collective personal development programme. Statutory RSHE already provides a context to deliver a more meaningful and personalised educational experience. But across the board, our teaching and learning approaches should enable pupils to:

• explore their passions with curiosity and commitment
• grow capacity for taking responsibility
• develop courage, innovation, creativity and determination when facing challenges
• develop nuanced problem solving and decision-making skills
• evolve empathy, compassion and personal ethics

Join us in exploring the need for meaningful curriculum change that is fit for the future. There is a long way to go.

For further exploration of these ideas in your school or trust, please contact us in the first instance by emailing wellbeing@hertsforlearning.co.uk

The HfL Wellbeing Team have launched a learning resource pack for Hertfordshire schools to use in RSHE to teach about Hate Crime. The resource has been commissioned on behalf of the Hertfordshire County Community Safety Unit (CCSU), who recognise the importance of educating children and young people about respect for diversity and the law as it applies to incidents of ‘hate’. The official data tells us that high levels of ‘hate crime’ are perpetrated by those under 25, and we know that hate is a learned behaviour. Where are young people learning to hate?

Here is one example. Social networks are keen to inform users that hate speech is not welcome on their platforms. The loud statements of intent are there, but action to remove hate speech is all too often lacking. The evidence was clear last July, for example, when thousands of racially abusive posts against footballers Marcus Rashford, Bukayo Saka and Jadon Sancho followed England’s loss to Italy in the European Championships. The posts were undeniably racist in content, attributing penalty failures to these footballers’ race and/or including monkey and banana emojis. The major platforms made strong public statements on the issue, using words like abhorrent, de-humanize, degrade and hateful. Their action, however, remained significantly toothless. Instagram, as one example, made the public statement, “No one should have to experience racist abuse anywhere, and we don’t want it on Instagram.” Yet at the same time they responded to individual users who reported the abuse with: “our technology has found that this post probably doesn’t go against our community guidelines.” What do our football supporting youth learn from this? That racism and hate speech are, at the same time, both ‘untenable’ and far too difficult to define and to deal with.

Are children and young people learning better messages in school? Britain’s schools assure parents and carers that they are committed to equality and do not have a problem with racism, homophobia, transphobia or other forms of prejudice. Of course, abusive and prejudiced remarks and other experiences of hate are being experienced in schools. How schools respond in such instances really matters. Sadly, some schools can behave just like the internet platforms discussed above. Policies confidently declaring a commitment to equality and opposition to all forms of prejudice and discrimination; yet, when incidents occur or reports are made, staff find it challenging to recognise, accept and deal appropriately with the allegations. Denial and down-playing of concerns teaches those who are being ‘othered’ not to report their experiences next time and it diminishes their value in our society. It also teaches those who are ‘othering’ that they will be given the benefit of the doubt.

In responding to every incident of prejudice in school there is a required definition that should be used:

A prejudice related incident is "any incident which is perceived to be prejudiced by the victim or any other person".  This definition is not a conclusion of what will come from any investigation, but it will ensure that such dimensions are properly recorded, investigated and responded to.

The Grid: Prejudiced based bullying

This definition should be clear in school policy and staff need to understand their responsibility to record each and every allegation so that it can be investigated and monitored. Living and working in an equitable environment is rare; maybe even unattainable. However, that is what the law expects schools to actively aspire to deliver. So, in responding to each and every allegation of prejudice, the lived experiences and concerns of children and young people from our diverse groups must be heard and explored. If we are struggling to see legitimate cause, we must go the extra mile to consider where this belief has come from by considering the wider context in which this young person has become vulnerable.

The unconscious bias of individuals and groups can develop into systemic prejudicial behaviour that professionals simply do not see. The stereotyping of groups by making assumptions about their interests, needs and abilities can evolve into hard-wired barriers. And a failure to represent diversity with positivity, as a normal part of British and human diversity, across the school curriculum reinforces attitudes that some groups have reduced power and worth. The impact of all these, often unwitting, errors are evidenced in data across our educational outcomes. Therefore, it is important to be open-minded; looking at school systems from diverse perspectives and teaching with a determination to bring about change that will improve outcomes for every young person.

We hope that the Hate Crime teaching unit available to Hertfordshire schools has some small part to play in helping teachers feel more confident to teach against prejudice. It might be a beginning.

The HfL Wellbeing Team are here to offer training and support to all schools who are ‘grasping the nettle’ of delivering real equality and truly challenging hate and prejudice. Contact us at wellbeing@hertsforlearning.co.uk 

No matter where or when we went to school we can all confidently and quickly answer two questions: who were our most and least favourite teachers? So, who were yours, and why? Is your personal choice due to their pedagogical practices? Perhaps that is part of it; but I would wager that it is based mainly on how that teacher made you feel, either about the subject or about yourself. When I think back to those who had the biggest impact on me it was their belief or non-belief in my abilities that were crucial and whether their interaction with me built or shattered my self-confidence. 

As educators we are in the privileged position of shaping and moulding young people in ways that we are not always entirely aware of. Even a passing positive or negative comment can resonate strongly and have a lasting effect. Covid has added new layers of complexity into all of that, of course. Post-pandemic ‘catch-up’, staff shortages and ongoing teacher/class disruptions, not to mention the ongoing pressures of the curriculum and the need to evidence progress in spite of disruption are all piling on the pressure. So those of us who hoped that returning to school would mean a return to ‘normal’ have been disappointed. Yes, timetables, face to face teaching and ‘normal routines’ have returned, but these reinstatements are not a cure-all and can be somewhat superficial. The truth is that our staff and our pupils are not the same as they were pre-pandemic and our engagement with each other has been incredibly disrupted. Like never before we need to look at giving time and priority to establishing and building solid relationships, rebuilding trust and getting to know each other again. So, for individual practitioners there is an important reflection to undertake; which pupils do I have a good rapport with? And which do I still need to connect with and how can I achieve that? When pupils feel safe and happy, they are able to learn successfully, and that is underpinned by quality relationships and a sense of being valued.

Let me raise a question about the importance of teacher-pupil relationships by extrapolating from the national exclusion data. From 2016/2017 until 2018/2019 permanent school exclusions remained largely the same at approximately 7,900 per year. In 2019/20, with lockdown beginning in the Spring term, they decreased by only an approximate 2800. (Permanent exclusions and suspensions in England, Academic Year 2019/20 – Explore education statistics – GOV.UK (explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk). These figures are shocking I know. Since 2014, the most common reason given for permanent exclusions, accounting for around 1/3 of them all, is ‘persistent disruptive behaviour’. Of course, each of these cases are individual, but most began with much smaller issues. We all now understand that behaviour is communication and that when pupils are seen to be ‘disruptive’ they are articulating an underlying problem or need. So the question must be asked, could any of these exclusions have been avoided had there been more time and space focused on developing a deep trusting relationship with these individual pupils?

As educators we cannot always know what is happening behind closed doors for our pupils. Does this pupil have an army of supporters or is their family struggling? Do they feel safe or are they deeply troubled? However, what we can control is how we make our pupils feel when they walk through the school doors every single day. Every child needs to know that each day is a new day fresh with no mistakes and that we are there for them as a valued human being. Every member of staff in school has an important role to play in investing in relationships with pupils. Not just the pupils that make it easy, but every pupil. The power of connection is limitless.

Autumn is certainly here and there is a definite nip in the air. However, come rain or shine children love the great outdoors. Being outside has many benefits, and as the old saying goes, ‘there’s no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing’. So armed with wellies and waterproofs let us explore what benefits being outside offers our children.

• vitamin D – Vitamin D is essential to keep our immune systems healthy and supports healthy bone development. Exposure to the sun helps our bodies make Vitamin D, and while it is important to ensure we do not spend long periods in the sun (especially during the hottest part of the day); our bodies work best if they get some sunshine every day. Remember hats, sun protection (even on cloudy or cooler days) and to drink plenty of water.

• exercise – the NHS guidelines state that children under five who are capable of walking should be physically active for 3 hours throughout the day. Being outside is a great way to increase children’s physical activity. Using large open spaces so children can run and develop gross motor skills will benefit their overall physical health.

• risk taking – being outside gives children many opportunities to take managed risks. Risk taking is an important part of children’s development. Many children are good at knowing what risk they are ready to explore within their comfort zone. Adults need to balance the benefit of an activity against the risk, using their professional knowledge of the individual child. Without exposure to risk, children cannot learn to navigate it effectively.

• connecting with nature – taking time to use all of our senses and connect with the world around us can have positive effects on mental wellbeing and self-esteem. Noticing what we can see, hear and smell (the insects in the grass, the birds’ nests in the trees, differences in the leaves, plants and flowers) all help develop an understanding of how the world around us works and how to take care of it. Many children find spending time in natural environments very calming.

We, as adults, might not always feel like being outside, but the positive impact on children’s physical, emotional and cognitive learning and development makes it well worth the effort!

Why not take on the ‘rain or shine challenge’ this autumn and try to get outside every day?

Here’s 5 FREE things you could do outside this autumn and winter:

1. Cloud shapes

Wrap up, take a walk to a local field or park, and set up some picnic blankets or chairs. Lay back and look into the sky. Ask these questions and make time to listen to the answers. What can you see? What shapes are in the clouds? Where is the aeroplane going? How high are the birds? What are clouds made from? Can you trace round them with your finger in the air? Remember never to look directly at the sun.

2. Visit a local woodland

Is there a wood, forest or cluster of trees nearby? Remembering to be mindful of dangerous plants and berries, adults can teach children to collect fallen branches, sticks and leaves to make a den. Balancing and building with natural resources to create dens and structures develops children’s perseverance, problem solving and physical skills. If you are feeling adventurous you could take a blanket, sheet, picnic and hot drink with you to enhance the experience.

3. Somewhere to splash

From streams to puddles, water can provide amazing sensory experiences for children and is great fun. If the water is flowing you could play pooh sticks, bringing in mathematical and scientific thinking and language about the speed, size, and direction of travel. This is also a great opportunity to explore safety rules and behavioural expectations that ensure children stay safe around water.

4. Inside out

What do your children love to play with that is usually an ‘inside’ toy? Moving a favourite construction or small world resource outside can open a whole world of new play and imagination opportunities that develop and extend children’s thinking and experience. Children could be encouraged to use natural materials such as sticks, leaves, grass and stones to enhance their play. This can help develop children’s concentration, creativity and build links in their learning.

5. Go and explore

Whether you go on an ‘eye spy hunt’ or geocaching (geocaching.com), exploring new places outside and finding new things supports every aspect of children’s development as well as promoting curiosity, awe and wonder. You can develop this even further by researching what you have found, taking a trip to the library or use the internet together to find out more.

The key message of the Health and Safety Executive 2012 publication children's play and leisure - promoting a balanced approach states:

‘Play is great for children’s well-being and development. When planning and providing play opportunities, the goal is not to eliminate risk, but to weigh up the risks and benefits. No child will learn about risk if they are wrapped in cotton wool’

So, it’s time to put on our coats and wellies, risk assess and grab the opportunities before us that are free and abundant in the great outdoors and have some fun!

Have you downloaded the FREE ’50 Things to do before you’re 5’ app yet?

50 free or low cost activities for parent and carers to do with their under 5’s in Hertfordshire - creating memories, having new experiences and helping them gain new language skills and confidence whilst having fun.

Download the app from the App store or Google Play or visit hertfordshire.50thingstodo.org and under Regions, select Hertfordshire.

Hertfordshire County Council have commissioned the Herts for Learning Early Years team to ensure all activities within the app include links to local services and places to visit. The activities have been designed to support families and focus on developing important early language skills. The app provides a library of home learning activities that are either free or very low cost to families in Hertfordshire.

Please contact emma.wild@hfleducation.org for more details and how to share the app with your parents and carers.

Books, articles, products, advice and opinions on supporting your mental health are just EVERYWHERE. It is enough to make you feel guilty for feeling stressed, anxious or low!

As educators we are really good at seeing the importance of supporting the mental health of our pupils and our colleagues, whilst being completely cavalier about our own mental health. I think the self-talk that delivers this must go something like this – “I know this stuff, so I am determined to be there for everyone who needs me. I am a resilient professional and just need to get on doing the best job I can. So I will be just fine!”

In response, this humble addition to the published mountain is designed to be for you. Yes YOU!

You can do any of it alone, with family and friends or even with your class(es). Or you can ignore it and enjoy the smugness of your own self-determination. (That’s always good for your short-term wellbeing, but beware of the long-term consequences.)

Here they are: 10 things you can do for 10 minutes or less to support your mental health.

1. And breathe!

When things get stressful or challenging: STOP. Take a few moments to take four slow, deep breaths: slowly in and slowly out. You will feel your shoulders drop and become aware of the stress impacts in your body. You are on your way up.

2. Doodle or colour

Important not to use this one as a strategy to escape from the boredom of meetings, tempting though it might be. The point here is to get absorbed in the creativity of the moment so that you recharge your capacity to think.

3. Identify or indulge in creativity

Do you have an established creative outlet that brings you joy? If not, take 10 minutes to thought-storm options you would like to explore; but if you do, then spend 10 minutes contributing to it. If it is writing – try a stream of consciousness. If it is gardening - weed, dead-head, rake, plant or simply stroll in that garden. Or it could be a small contribution to your next project in any creative pursuit - origami, stone-painting, letter-writing, knitting, crocheting, embroidery, woodwork. I know – it is only 10 minutes. But every little action moves your project forward and reminds you of your interests and beautiful creativity.

4. Look at the view

I mean it. But really look! In a way you don’t usually look. From a different window, from a new angle or searching for a specific filter (light, colour, shape, structure…). You could even get up close and personal to tree bark. I’ve never met a bark I didn’t like.

5. Listen!

We rarely spend time, with our eyes closed, listening intently to every sound around us – inner sounds (neck creaks, heartbeats, breathing…) and outer sounds (rain, wind, birdsong, leaves in the wind, trees creaking, distant voices, engines...).

6. Body roam

While we are talking about closing eyes – take a couple of deep breaths in and out and then take your focus on a journey around every part of your body. As you roam, tighten and then release the muscles in each area of focus and you will gradually free all the stress traps and feel refreshed. Notice your heat and coolness too. And end with another couple of deep breaths. Voila!

7. Move

Stretch, dance, walk, go up and down the stairs, skip, hula-hoop, run, star jump, bounce… Just move and shift the energy.

8. Sing

…as if no-one is listening. We should all sing more.

9. Laugh out loud

Go on. Do it! It starts off feeling false and then you end up laughing at yourself. Just a giggle will get you started. There are whole day workshops on this stuff.

10. Give yourself a head massage

In 2020 German psychologists found that a ten-minute head massage helps the body to tap into its parasympathetic, resting state. Had to end with a bit of bona-fide science!

However you do it, take time for yourself – you deserve and need it, each and every day. So recharge in 10 minutes or less any time in any day.

I’ve never really liked Black History Month.

I can feel your shock and bewilderment.

I am Black.

But I do have an issue with Black History Month and it’s about time that I explained why.

Here are 6 things that rile me about Black History Month:

1. It’s one solitary month.

2. When done badly, it’s reduced to tokenism and stereotypes.

3. There’s often an expectation of Black staff to do something for BHM.

4. It can create trauma for Black people.

5. It’s not celebratory enough.

6. It rarely includes any discussion about race and racism.

1.  So let’s start with the main reason BHM tends to rile me. I resent the idea that the history, contributions and impact of 57 individual nations in the continent of Africa, 13 countries in the Caribbean, let alone the wider diaspora should be confined to one solitary month. The histories and stories of Black people have not been included in history because we have not been the ones telling our story. One month won’t cut it. A bigger and deeper change is necessary.

2.  The history highlighted during this month is sometimes negative and inaccurate. There is an over-reliance on slavery, African American history and civil rights movements, as well as the ubiquitous entries from Bob Marley (for music), Martin Luther King (for English, politics and history) and a collection of sports and music stars such as Mohammed Ali. Black history in the UK is not an integral part of our psyche and that’s why it feels like a strange adjunct and indeed why BHM had to be invented. There’s nothing wrong with highlighting these figures but it would be better to draw on relevant and relatable figures from a range of fields, with stories connected to the Black British experience.

3.  A tentative voice is raised in a staff meeting and someone asks: ‘What are we doing for Black History Month?’ What happens next? Often Black teachers are just expected to ‘do something’. Whilst it might seem like the obvious choice, it’s riddled with over-simplistic thinking. Asking the Black teacher(s) is a genuine problem and not just because Black teachers – as detailed in the Runnymeade/NASUWT’s report (2016) – are paid less, face structural discrimination and are less likely to be promoted. In brief, they’ve already got a lot on their plates.

Another reason why this request is unfair might come as a surprise to some: most teachers are not knowledgeable about Black history and that probably includes Black teachers. It’s simple really; British teachers are a product of the British education system and are unlikely to know much about Black people within British history such as their contributions to WW1 or WW2, let alone the kingdoms they created such as Benin, Kush and Carthage, unless they have put in additional work in their own time. So I don’t really blame Black teachers who, finding themselves suddenly called upon to take on extra work, from disengaging from BHM. It’s hard to teach something you may know very little about and tougher still to acknowledge this in the face of those who expect you to be well-informed, able and eager to make a contribution. It’s even more difficult when some of the subject-material is personal and likely to induce painful memories or to expose you to previously unknown traumatic experiences of people like you. Black people are often expected to share their traumatic history without the offer of true empathy or support. Producing something authentic, accurate and detailed requires time, interest and skill.  If schools and educational settings are serious about BHM being done, then they must give staff time to research, increase their knowledge first and work collaboratively.

4.  I genuinely worry about the impact that BHM may have on Black children and young people. Imagine being a Black child in a class when a well-intentioned but misguided teacher decides to play a video depicting slavery, hostility towards Windrush migrants or racist booing during football matches?  Meanwhile the teacher recounts the statistics: numbers of Black people abused, stolen, beaten, raped, killed and thrown overboard. Your classmates react and you may be left feeling: upset, confused, ashamed, embarrassed, tearful and/or traumatised. You might wonder if your parents were consulted on how this topic would be handled or if, despite good intentions, the school just lacks empathy and sensitivity.  

We live in a world where psychologists have been able to show that, by the age of 5, children are already aware of race and the implications of being racialized as Black and White. So BHM must not further traumatise Black children by only reminding them of a world and system which sees and treats people like them as inferior and deficient.  Instead let’s celebrate and explore uplifting achievements.

5.  UK BHMs lack ‘Black joy’ and rarely celebrate positivity within the Black community. I know that, on the face of it, this underpins my other points but it’s important and, as it’s my piece, I’m going to give it the space I believe it deserves.

We must make time to identify positive examples of contributions made by Black people and teach about the many and varied ways in which Black people have made this world better, through their creativity, innovation and leadership. Yes, I’m aware that, inevitably, due to structural racism - in every facet of society - these stories are likely to be triumph-over-adversity narratives, but it’s about time we spent more time trumpeting Black successes rather than being defeated by the cruel and painful acts carried out against Black people. Take for example contributions to our world by Black inventors: the three-light traffic light, the super-soaker gun and the home security system. If this is news, don’t be embarrassed.  It just reflects our flawed system. 

So get hold of a copy of David Olusoga’s ‘Black and British: A Forgotten History’, Atinuke’s ‘Africa Amazing Africa’ 

or ‘Little Leaders’ (Bold Women in Black History and Exceptional Men in Black History)’. That’s where you will find that Black people have a lot to be proud of and a great deal to celebrate.  We must make sure that every child grows up with this knowledge so they can challenge our existing system.

6.  Why don’t we spend more time explaining why BHM was created?  The absence of debate and discussion about racism before and especially during BHM is most odd.  The reason we have BHM in schools is because the current curriculum does not adequately reflect the history or contributions of Black people; therefore schools celebrating BHM must surely engage in discussions about race, racism, inequality, unfairness, injustice and the balance of the curriculum.

Don’t get me wrong. I know why this isn’t discussed. It’s difficult, considered incendiary and it makes everyone incredibly uncomfortable because you’re encouraging people to see the status quo and acknowledge its unfairness, as well as recognise White people’s prominence and power and question the justification for this. But not being willing to discuss race and racism is a huge missed opportunity.  It shouldn’t be controversial to explore the Black Lives Matter Movement and its origins in school settings – this is the perfect place to allow students to ponder why people felt it necessary to create such a movement.

On reflection, perhaps it’s time to admit that I don’t dislike BHM quite as much as I thought I did.  What I genuinely find difficult is what it usually looks like in schools across the UK: displays on slavery, photos of MLK, sports stars and rap stars, African drumming, steel pan bands and groups of young Black children suddenly thrust into the spotlight, feeling confused, angry and traumatised. BHM UK can and should be so much more than this and it so easily could be.

An honest and true representation of Black history needs to be included and highlighted throughout the curriculum daily and does not need restricting to a solitary month.  Black history needs to be visible throughout schools throughout the year: in the books selected for libraries and text books; in the displays in every classroom and hallway; in the choices made by school leaders and teachers about what to teach and include; but ultimately and most importantly, in the approach, honesty and sensitivity of how topics are taught to ensure that the narrative reflects the reality of the event.

If BHM UK can be a stepping stone to anti-racism in education then even I would be forced to respect the importance of its annual role in flipping the current educational script.

Check out hidden black history and ways to diversify your curriculum on  blackhistorymonth.org.uk