Covid and Long Covid – Personal Testimony from Twitter

Posted on by julietgreen

I cannot repeat it often enough. Avoid infection. Avoid reinfection.

This is not an analysis of all the research that is currently available on the impacts of Covid on long-term health. The ‘people’ have ‘had enough of experts’ right?* Instead, this is simply a small sample of personal testimony – people who are actually going through this – posted on twitter during May and June 2022. There are many, many more like these.

My thanks to those who shared their stories.

All included with permission.

Avoid infection. Avoid reinfection.

*In case there’s any doubt – no, we have not had enough of experts. We have needed the experts badly. It hasn’t helped that some organisations have given credence to crackpot and unsubstantiated messages. Nor has it helped that some of the ‘experts’ have been subject to pressure from governments to tailor their messages to suit a certain narrative.

We need to stop thinking of Covid as either death or survival.

Avoid infection. Avoid reinfection.

That Letter I Wrote to Labour in 2019

Posted on by julietgreen

We knew what was coming. Some of us. We were aware of the tide of neoliberalism that was sweeping the globe and which had crushed the UK like a cheap mobile home in a tsunami. There was still a desperate hope that we could fend off the worst Tory government, nay worst government, we would ever see. Corbyn’s Labour had at least managed to reduce May’s majority, thanks in part to the fracturing effect of UKIP and in spite of the combined efforts of the country’s scurrilous rags that masquerade as newspapers. It was all Corbyn’s fault, of course, that Labour didn’t achieve an out and out victory. Anyone else at the helm… etc. etc. Much as I blame him for his role in Brexit (as you can see in the letter), that was bollocks. That’s pretty clear now. The Labour Party under Starmer is struggling. Of course it is. It’s an irrelevance now.

We’ve had to adapt to a lot of unprecedented experiences since then, but talk of elections, and of Labour and of progressive alliances has made me revisit the letter that I wrote to my MP (re-elected, as it happens, and a welcome exclusion of the Tory candidate). It was prophetic – though it didn’t take much clairvoyance to be so. Here’s what I wrote then when I was preparing to lend my vote. It is highly unlikely that I will ever do it again. I certainly won’t vote for a Labour Party led by a man who, among other things, does not even support the unions against a Tory government.

The Letter

A letter to the Labour Party

Dear Matt Western

cc Jeremy Corbyn

This General Election (December 2019), I find myself in the iniquitous position of feeling obliged to vote for a party that does not most closely represent my principles. It is highly likely that I will be voting tactically for you, Matt Western, our previous Labour MP in a marginal seat where the Conservatives are the nearest contenders.

This should not be considered as an endorsement of the Labour Party, but rather a choice forced upon me by the appalling First Past the Post system we operate in the UK. This consistently undermines democracy by sidelining true representation and has pushed us towards a two-party state. I have frequently been told not to vote for my party, the Green Party, because it would be a ‘wasted vote’, in spite of the fact that I believe them to be the only party that has truly understood the crisis the others have only recently accepted.

If I lend my vote to the Labour Party in this instance, it will be because I believe that we face a great evil in the form of the far-right, populist cabal that has taken over what is left of the Conservatives. I think that if they form a majority government, they will complete the steps to dictatorship that were started with the deceptive referendum to leave the EU. Very little remains of our democratic structures: the media are compromised, including that bastion of British journalism, the BBC; unashamed lies are now the new truths; foreign interference from Russia and from far-right organisations in the USA have blatantly interfered in our democratic processes; the language of debate has been toxified and the populace has been set against itself; the leader of the ‘Conservative’ party has indicated that he will proceed with moves to dismantle judicial mechanisms so that they cannot obstruct him. All that remains is for that party to achieve a majority government and we will see dissenters disappear, along with all the rights we have fought so hard for over the last two centuries.

I do not believe a Labour government would take us down the same route and I welcome many of the promises in the Labour manifesto. However, I would not be voting for Labour wholeheartedly and with a clear conscience. It is Labour’s refusal to acknowledge that the FPTP system is essentially undemocratic that puts me in this position in the first place. Additionally, Labour’s inability to contemplate working with other parties in order to ensure an opposition victory imperils us all. I also think that there is evidence that Labour is not innocent in the destruction of our democracy and I fail to understand why Labour ever supported the idea of a referendum and the Brexit lie. They surely must have seen who were the prime movers in wanting to leave the EU: the far-right; the ultra-rich; the racists; those with links to the oil companies and the climate-science deniers. Furthermore, we can only assume that Labour names are in the report on Russian interference and payouts to people in key positions in our country. Otherwise you would be demanding at the highest level that they be released immediately and you would not let up, rather than leaving the work to a few people of integrity (Ian Lucas, for example). It is extraordinary that you have accepted a general election when there is such overwhelming evidence that it cannot be free and fair.

An example of a healthier democratic system is the European Parliament, where for the first time in all my voting life, I have a representative I actually voted for: my Green MEP. Already, she has done excellent work in the 6 months she has been there, and has kept her constituents informed through regular postings on social media. We are set to lose this because of the Labour Party’s continued inability to tell the truth about Brexit and to support our crucial role as a voice in Europe. A ‘Labour Brexit’ would still be an action predicated on a tissue of lies. More ‘ballot box’ democracy in the form of a second referendum does not negate this.

Labour will benefit from much tactical voting in this General Election. Do not misinterpret this and claim it as support. Many of those voting for you will not be supporters. Those of us in the Green Party who follow the Green MEP, Magid Magid’s advice to vote tactically to avoid a Tory majority, know that Labour’s ‘Green New Deal’, though a positive step, is significantly flawed. Labour remains attached to notions of economic growth and it fails to understand the timescale necessary. The Greens have been trying to get Labour to listen to us and understand sustainability and social justice for more than three decades but have frequently been rebuffed or vilified. If we find ourselves in the happy position of preventing a Tory government, Labour would be well-placed to show some consideration for voters from the Green Party and others. It is high time that the FPTP system was seriously challenged and up for reform. At the same time, antiquated party politics which have brought us to this parlous situation should be put aside. We all face a clear and present danger and this needs more than the old party lines if we are to have any kind of viable future.

Finally, Matt, I consider you to be a man of integrity from what I have seen so far. You have been a very good constituency MP and you seem fully capable of thinking independently and analytically. Many of us were delighted to see you elected in the last General Election and I am sure that will be true of this one. Thank you for representing all your constituents to the best of your ability.

Nine Things That Gave Me Joy in 2020

Posted on by julietgreen

I’m not known for my upbeat nature. A few months ago, someone on facebook asked me if I was ever happy about anything. It was a supercilious remark that did not deserve an answer in the middle of my railing against the things I normally rail against: climate change inaction; the creeping disaster of neoliberal culture; all those things that are called ‘democracy’ but are not; the madness of Brexit… it’s quite a long (and closly related) list. But this is not a ranting blog entry for a change. During the time of Covid19, the time of our most incompetent government ever and the confirmation of the irredeemable stupidity of the human species, there were still some good things. In the true tradition of the Internet, here are Nine Things That Gave Me Joy in 2020.

Jamulus

For fifteen years, this open source software, authored by Volker Fischer, has been available to musicians like myself but like many previously niche programs, has been a game-changer at a time when a deadly respiratory disease put paid to so many real life interactions. As an amateur musician, I’m very fortunate. The cancellation of events did not affect my livelihood – but I missed playing. My new, lightweight MarkBass cab had only two outings before the first lockdown and I had a full diary of gigs lined up on sax and on bass! Everything was cancelled, and yet my musical experience has broadened considerably. Thanks to Jamulus and the WorldJam, I have played a wider range of music than ever before, and with musicians from all over the world – all in real time and all online. I’ve even given the double bass its debut!

Elephants

One of the best ‘thankyou’ gifts I ever received as a teacher, was a year’s adoption of little orphan elephant, Ndotto from the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust. It was a great gift for two reasons: 1) It was not a candle or a bottle of wine (I’m not a great drinker), and 2) the daily videos full of inter-species compassion and affection are a wonderful antidote to news of human stupidity and violence. I kept the adoption going and added another. Baby elephants are endearing, of course, but the Sheldrick Trust’s success rate is truly uplifiting. To date they have raised 263 orphaned elephants and seen the birth of 38 babies to former orphans now reintegrated into the wild.

    Ndotto then and now

    Tiny Recorder

    Prior to the pandemic, my facebook feed was already full not just of elephants but of insects. Several sites share extraordinary photographs by their members who also help each other with identification and recording. On one occasion, I came across Tiny Recorder and was hooked. Tiny, with the help of his big person friend, The Narrator, explores the British Isles and showcases the (mostly tiny) wildlife. He’s gathering quite a following which is not surprising, because although there is plenty of excellent biology, Tiny is superbly portrayed through humour and crafty camerawork.

    Women Politicians

    This is another unexpected one from me and I’ll need to be more specific. Even as a woman myself, I’ve never been a fan. I’ve always felt, and to some extent still do, that women are complicit in their own status as lesser humans. There isn’t always an external barrier – they often just choose to not do things they could do. Sometimes they continue to do things which don’t help – like wear those ridiculous shoes. But 2020 was a year that changed my view of women, not as a general thing but because of those who were morally grounded, intelligent, compassionate and authentic – all traits that seemed to give women leaders the edge when dealing with the pandemic. Women can and do change the narrative and perhaps we can hope for a cascade effect. Here’s a short selection of some class moments.

    Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, US congresswoman – confronting US abusive masculinity specifically and generally.

    Greta Thunberg, young climate activist and Times Person of the Year – staying cool in the face of troll behaviour from a mad president.

    He tweeted, “Greta must work on her Anger Management problem, then go to a good old fashioned movie with a friend! Chill Greta, Chill!”. She changed her bio to “A teenager working on her anger management problem. Currently chilling and watching a good old fashioned movie with a friend.” But better than that, – when the time was right she returned the advice.

    Zarah Sultana, MP for Coventry South – speech to UK Parliament on gifts for favours. Why are most MPs silent about it?

    Molly Scott Cato, Former MEP – response to Brexiter challenge on her expertise. OK, this is strictly 2019, but it has made me laugh ever since.

    Jacinda Ardern, of course, New Zealand Primer Minister, who did her job and got it right because she did not think there was an ‘acceptable number of deaths’ or that some lives were less valuable.

    Art on TV

    Painting by my friend, Karen, taking Bob Ross to heart.

    In all my years as a primary teacher, I saw the arts denigrated and abandoned as high-stakes tests in maths and English dominated the curriculum, so it was interesting to see how important music and fine art became during the pandemic. Many people turned to painting, finding Bob Ross for the first time. As a lapsed painter myself, I found I was inspired to pick up a brush for the first time in years, after watching Portrait/Landscape Artist of the Year and to see if I still ‘had it’. My favourite though, was Grayson’s Art Club, featuring Grayson, his wife Philippa, and several guests (celebrity and otherwise) in a gentle, creative chronicle of the time of Covid.

    Open bionics

    A simple one, this. Somewhere in my research for a primary school theme, I came across this company and ‘liked’ it on facebook, thereby improving my timeline by their positive posts. They have changed many people’s lives with their Hero Arm, an affordable, light and cool-looking prosthetic that actually works and is particularly popular with children. I’m reminded that there are groups all over the world quietly doing their best to make things better.

    Dave and Nandi

    There are so many things to love about this drum off between a legendary US rock musician and a young drumming prodigy from England.

    Maryam Tsegaye

    17 year old Canadian winner of the International Breakthrough Junior Challenge. Thoroughly deserved and what a role model! Do watch. It’s excellent.

    Fall of Trump

    Not much needs to be said about this. It was an unexpected brightening of the timeline. Jonathan Pie sums the Trump era rather eloquently.

    What do you think is actually going on?

    Posted on by julietgreen

    I asked this question on Twitter recently. I wondered what people thought and I wish that I knew. The answer may be depressingly banal. Humans doing stupid things out of short term venal self-interest. But let’s just look at some of what we know.

    The Cummings debacle

    We’ll start at the end and work back. Why, someone asked, has the population become enraged by Dominic Cummings’ stunningly arrogant and inexcusable car trips up and down the country, whilst he was supposedly infected and infectious, when they weren’t upset by everything else he has done to the country to date. My answer is this: most people cannot grasp what he has done, disbelieve it because it is like the plot of a complex thriller or, for the best part, are completely ignorant of it. In some ways I don’t blame them. I find it pretty hard to process it all myself. In contrast, his latest known misadventure sparks a visceral, old brain reaction. Even very young children have a built in fairness detector and I’ll warrant that everybody, even Cummings’ purported supporters (whatever they said publicly) understood that he broke his own rules and that his reasons were utterly spurious. So the gut reaction of the Real People of the Glorious Kingdom of Brexitania, was, “Oi. That’s not fair! We’ve been doing what we were told.”

    It did look like they might have got it wrong this time. Perhaps it is a case of collossal hubris. Playing with populism is like playing with fire. You think the People are under your control, but you only have to make one miscalculation and you can find yourself in the centre of a conflagration. Cummings certainly seems to think he had the malleable part of the British population doing whatever his algorithms dicatated and he is extraordinarily arrogant. Is that what this is? An actual mistake? The trouble with knowing that population manipulation has gone on in great measure, to the point of the destruction of a country, is that it’s easy to ask the question, ‘What is actually going on?” and to attribute incompetence or indifference to an actual Machiavellian scheme. Is there any possible truth in the theories that this is just part of the original ‘herd immunity’ strategy to cull the weak by manipulating them to break lockdown without actually telling them to break it? Or is it another of their interminable dead cats? Because it is true, that while this dominates the country’s social media circles and the media and possibly couch conversations at teatime, the other things that should be causing anger, still go on unremarked by the mainstream.

    What other things?

    This is where it gets difficult. It’s a brain-ache to think about the commercial deals, the carving up of resources, the selling off of assets that is part of the agenda and in which Cummings appears as a self-appointed mover and shaker. More robust commentators than me, present pieces of evidence on twitter and as I read them, my soul dies a little each time, much as it does with the statistics on Covid-19. Decades of watching the response to climate change has numbed me to the point where anger has been seething for a long time and new shocks don’t register much. The details of the evidence are many and complex with networks and covers and personal relationships and clandestine meetings that boggle my mind. Companies I’ve never heard of are given untendered contracts on vital services. Personnel within orgnaisations that receive contracts, turn out to have links with personnel in the cabinet. Huge amounts of money are spent on dead duck enterprises. It’s easy to fall into the trap of finding conspiracies and links, but what is frightening is what is not fake news. What is frightening is the actual visible network – the links between the cabinet, the current, parasitised Tory party, Tufton St, the Leave organisations and USA big business, Koch Industries, the Russians (who incredibly have bought British Citizenship without a word from the xenophobes), and Putin. Those are there and well-documented and evidenced. Sometimes I try to fathom how Tory voters square this knowledge with their belief that they’ve voted for the ‘People’s Party’ and that Brexit was about gaining some kind of freedom from unaccountable players. When I’ve talked to Tory voters about these links, the most common responses are “lol” or “I don’t listen to that bullshit”. So the answer is simple. Tory voters ignore what they don’t like and believe the story in their head. A story that may be implanted through the media, of course.

    But what is actually going on, then?

    The simple answer is that I don’t know. The political answer is that the rich and the powerful are empire-building as they have done throughout human history. They may use the notion of unfettered markets and assets may include virtual entitites, but these are still secondary, a means to an end in terms of real real-estate, physical resources, access to energy, food and water. And this is where I, and many others struggle and mentally or actually face-palm ourselves. In this neoliberal world, the rest of us appear to be expendible. Is it that they only need a small portion of the human world to carry on business as usual? How does that work in a capitalist system that relies on consumption? Or are they already thinking beyond that to the minimal requirement of the bunker? Can that be possible? It’s hard to believe that any normal, intelligent human being, (Is Charles Koch one?) is really a climate science denier in private and does not understand the impact that their continued business will have on the human species, including themselves and their own dynasties. So their endgame is unfathomable to me. Or maybe they really are just that stupid.

    A change of focus

    Posted on by julietgreen

    I started this blog when I was still a teacher and needed an outlet for expressing what I knew and felt about the education system in the UK, specifically England where I worked. Of course it was underpinned by politics – those who tell you that politics should be kept separate from any discipline are those who have led us into this disastrous present. But my blog posts, apart from the occasional digression, focussed on the the specific disasters related to schools and teaching and learning.

    I am now happily retired, just in time to be locked down due to a global plague. It was a positive step to remove myself from the eternal frustration of English education, but now we find ourselves in a social, medical and political maelstrom and so from now on, blog posts on here are going to be more general, starting with my response to my own question ‘What is actually going on?’

    Testing their resilience

    Posted on by julietgreen

    After nearly 3 decades of primary teaching, you’d think I’d have a secure philosophy, but we’re currently caught in the variable winds of different approaches, sometimes considered more traditional or more progressive, and often seeming to be contradictory.  I can’t follow the apparent narrow path of either, but I do question myself on what mine is. If anything, it’s that education is paramount – and by that I don’t mean ‘learning’ and I definitely don’t mean ‘attainment’ as I have blogged about here, before.

    I tried to give my class an analogy last week. I drew it as a bowl into which different pieces of knowledge were put. There’s no predicting what will be useful knowledge, but what is certain is that the more there is and the wider the range, the better equipped they will be to link it together in an effective way. This bears no relationship to fixed notions of attainment, cleverness, ability, SEND, class or all the other supposed divisions this country likes to impose on its citizens. Anybody can add to their bowl of knowledge at any time.

    With that in mind, I want to ride rough-shod over anything I see as an impediment to the education of each and every human being. It’s a global goal for good reason and it’s not difficult to think of examples where the high-attaining, poorly educated have had a negative impact on all of us – on the planet.

    I try hard to explain to my pupils that the important thing is ‘knowing stuff’. They think it’s important to be ‘good at stuff’ and increasingly, I’m stunned by some of the reactions and self-denigration I’m seeing: a small error causes a child to throw their book on the floor; not immediately ‘getting’ long division makes another child throw his hands up and begin to weep; feeling like something is hard, stops one from ever tackling a new area. Simply talking ‘growth-mindset’ has no impact.

    Is it really all the high-stakes testing culture that we’re in? Though I totally agree with the arguments against it, I struggle to accept that this is the issue completely – mainly because there has always been high-stakes testing, since I’ve been teaching, but this feels like a new phenomenon. I don’t think I’ve yet encountered pupils with such a fragile sense of their own ability to overcome small set-backs, no matter how much I tell them that learning happens when we put right what we got wrong.

    Recent whole-staff CPD seems to pull us in opposite directions. In some, we’re to challenge pupils to step outside their comfort zone. In others, the stress of our system is damaging their mental health. It’s difficult to know when to persevere and when to back off. I’ve always found it hard to do the latter. I’m a fan of tests, for example, even when they’re not embraced by every child in the class. In the past, they were tested regularly on old SATs papers, without any of the symptoms I’m seeing recently. Tests help us establish what we can remember and identify what we don’t know. Furthermore they aid memory. This is now common knowledge, though it wasn’t six years ago when I first came across Roediger‘s work.

    This year, a SATs-style arithmetic test caused Ferdy* to cry and put his head on the desk when we marked them. The second one caused him to wail when it was announced. He was furious with himself again when we marked them. He wasn’t ‘doing badly’ he just wasn’t perfect. It was nearly impossible to help him with the misconceptions that we could identify – it was like he thought it was magic and he didn’t have the special ability. At this point it seemed like cruelty to force the poor lad to go through more. I was conscious however, that it’s not actually torture – it’s just maths. I feel pretty sure that giving up and giving in – avoidance – reinforces the negativity and doesn’t help Ferdy in the long run. So I persevered and gave them all another, two weeks later, and then another. Ferdy has pretty much sorted out every misconception that was revealed in the first test. He correctly calculated all the long divisions – his nemesis. So it paid off. Ferdy’s sense of his ability to overcome obstacles is strengthened and he’s very pleased with himself. It’s a bit of a relief to me, too.

     

    *He’s not really called Ferdy.

     

    Assessment for Accountability – Taking the Biscuit

    Posted on by julietgreen

    Thinking about assessment and accountability again. I adapted this from a letter I wrote to the then Ed Select Committee.

    The problem of accountability

    If we take it to be the case that teachers and schools need to be ‘held to account’, then we need to ask ourselves some questions.

    Held to account for what?

    The answer to this is  crucial. For a long time we were held to account for pupil ‘attainment’. Recently there has been the reasonable suggestion that there are many factors outside of our control which impact on attainment, and that progress might be a better measure of how good or bad we are. The measurement of progress nevertheless, remains a massive challenge, in spite of attempts to contextualise it, or to use national trends for comparison: baseline data is not reliable (it’s ludicrous to believe that you can use the behaviour of 4-year-olds to derive data that will hold teachers to account at the end of KS2 – and beyond!); pupils do not make standard amounts of progress; domains at the start and end of the progress measurements are different (GCSE art teachers, beware!); cohorts are different; significance is difficult with small groups, etc.

    Whilst ‘progress’ seems at first fairer and a preferable measure to ‘attainment’, neither is sufficient for our purposes – not the way currently measured and not when matched against the aspirations of the National Curriculum.

    Does the current system even serve the right purpose?

    In the drive to measure ‘attainment’ and ‘progress’, I think we sometimes forget that we are using these things as proxies for the quality of the education being provided. We need to return to the drawing board for how we might ensure this happens. Currently we use an assessment system that cannot do this; the measurement is too narrow, subject to chance variables, and too much driven by fear of failure, leading to all the perverse incentives the assessment experts have been writing about for so many decades. A quality primary education is not ensured by testing the very few items that are currently measured at the end of KS2, any more than a quality factory is ensured by eating one of its biscuits.

    I think schools and teachers do want to provide a good education to their pupils and that a climate of fear is unnecessary and counterproductive. Real accountability must involve a move away from looking only at outcomes and focus instead on quality input: we need well-educated teachers with excellent and maintained subject knowledge, quality text books produced by experts and thoroughly vetted by the profession, online materials and required reading, use of evidence and avoidance of fads. Quality training is essential, as is development and retention of teachers with expertise.

    How can we ensure accountability where it counts?

    Realistically, I don’t expect a quick move away from summative assessments for the purpose of accountability, in spite of all the arguments against. But I feel that we could address some of the issues that arise with the current system by generating and providing (to the DfE if need be) not less but more information:

    • Frequent, low-stakes tests help both teaching and learning – require/provide tests throughout the year, every year.
    • Fine grained, specific tests provide useful information – test what we want to know about – keep that data.
    • Assessing the same domain more than once and in different ways helps to reduce unreliability – do not rely on one single end of year test.
    • Testing earlier in the cycle gives useful feedback for teaching – do not wait until the end of the year or the end of the Key Stage.
    • Random selection from a broad range of criteria helps to reduce ‘teaching to the test’ – test knowledge in all curriculum areas without publishing a narrow list of criteria.
    • Use assessment experts and design assessments that test what we want pupils to know or do. Criteria need to be reasonable – not obscure and mystical as they have been recently.

    If these aspects were applied to an assessment system throughout the primary phase, I believe we could enhance learning, improve accountability in what really matters and provide vast amounts of data.

    We really need to make better use of technology at all stages; this is the only way in which we can feasibly make assessment serve multiple purposes. There would need to be a move away from the high stakes pass/fail system which is not fit for purpose, towards a timely monitoring and feedback system that could alert all stakeholders to issues and provide useful tools for intervention. Data collected from continuous low-stakes assessments provides a far more valid picture of teaching and learning.

    Whole class reading (and Macbeth)

    Posted on by julietgreen

    It was several years ago – long before the latest surge in popularity of ‘whole class reading’ – that I found I no longer wanted to have anything to do with the old carousel method of guided reading and I abandoned it in favour of working on a text as a class instead. When, later, it felt that I might need to try and justify it, I sought out information online and came across Mrs P Teach’s blog. I was glad then, that I wasn’t alone in thinking it was preferable teaching 5 different lessons, to teaching the same one five times and letting the pupils do the others independently. When I took on the role of English subject-leader for UKS2, it didn’t take me long to encourage some of the teachers to use a whole class approach. Many jumped at the idea. Some were a little resistant but realised the benefits pretty quickly. One is still attached to the intimacy of the guided group and I understand why. I have suggested that for now, we use a combination and that my colleague tries at least one week of whole class reading. There have been too many imposed practices in my history for me to want to take that approach here.

    At the time of looking, Jo Payne’s blog was one of the few that came up in the search engine. Googling it now, reveals just how much the idea has been taken up and welcomed. Some good links are:

    The Teaching Booth

    Solomon Kingsnorth

    (Not so) New and Quietly Terrified

    DM Crosby in the TES

    And the powerhouse of whole class reading:

    MissWilsonSays

    I’ve drawn from these and various twitter exchanges and discussions, for the simple approach I take. There might be more honing necessary, but the following is my current practice. I felt it was time I shared something, so I have also included resources on Jon Blake’s adaptation of ‘Macbeth’ for Oxford Reading Tree. I used this text this term alongside Shakespeare’s original and I have included the witches’ poem comprehension.

    Reading sessions are daily – 30 minutes.

    Monday: I Read the text aloud. Pupils sometimes follow. Often they listen and make accompanying illustrations. I may get them to read aloud as a class.

    Tuesday: We look at specific vocabulary from the text, discuss synonyms and usage. This is also the day for reciting and learning things by heart and for addressing spelling issues.

    Wednesday: Read your own book day. It may include an activity based on their own book. Often it’s just the luxury of uninterrupted reading. 5 pupils a week use Ipads to access a set reading activity.

    Thursday: Reading comprehension – 5 questions based on the part of the text that has already been read aloud by me. Pupils have access to a printout of the text. The questions are based on retrieval, interpretation and explanation. I use the acronym APE to help pupils write longer answers. I don’t overdo acronyms, but this one works:

    • Answer
    • Prove
    • Explain

    We look at the answers together. Strong answers are shared. A good version is always modelled.

    Friday: Pupils who were less confident with the comprehension activity are supported to give stronger answers, including looking at the model. The rest of the time is reading their own book again. I have tried to increase the amount of time they spend ‘free reading’ as it used to be called. It has felt that in recent years, they’re almost desperate to do this and never have enough time, so that books are creeping out surreptitiously during other lessons!

    Here are the resources for the Macbeth text:

    Vocabulary witches’ spell

    Vocabulary p 82.83

    Vocabulary p 50,51

    Vocabulary p 26,27

    Vocabulary p 18,19

    Vocabulary p 7,8,9

    Macbeth questions p82,83

    Macbeth questions p50,51

    Macbeth questions p26,27

    Macbeth questions p18,19

    Macbeth questions p7,8,9

     

     

     

    Cognitive Load

    Posted on by julietgreen

    Well Edutwitter was unusually unforthcoming with teacher-friendly presentations on cognitive load so I’ve resorted to making one from scratch. I’m grateful, though to Greg Ashman for some curation of this subject and pointing us in the direction of useful materials such as this. It formed the basis of the presentation.

    Here I’m including the slides I’ve made for the presentation I will give to the upper key stage 2 staff at our school. I’ve tried to adhere to the principles in the making of it – not using text and speech at the same time etc. I think I could be criticised for not making the images even simpler as diagrams.

    Feel free to use if any of you need to do the same in your schools. Feel free to give critical feedback too.

    cognitive load

     

    A Tale of Two Teachers

    Posted on by julietgreen

    Mr White* was legendary in my primary school; he was the teacher everybody wanted to have. He was young, dynamic and funny, and his lessons were quirky and exciting. Pupils did not earn house-points – they played a continual ‘game of life’ in which they could build ‘houses’, have ‘jobs’ (even get ‘married’!) and earn money. My brother was taught by him 4 years ahead of me and raved about him so that I couldn’t wait to be taught by him myself. He was particularly well-known for setting a long list of weird and challenging activities for the pupils to do for holiday homework. Of course there were lessons, too, though I struggle to remember them. Despite the ‘progressive’ sound of all this, our core education was decidedly traditional. I finally got to have Mr White in standard 4 (aged 10) and was duly delighted. He left us in the middle of the year, to take up a job as a deputy head in another school and we never did get to earn our dollars for ‘taking a swim before sunrise’, or ‘making a cheese toasty with the iron’.

    Mr Smith was different. He was the deputy head in our school and had been since the dawn of time as far as we knew. We once had a lesson in which we were to identify what had happened on certain dates. He threw in one date that nobody could guess, until someone mentioned it was the year their grandmother had been born. That’s when we realised how old he was. We had him in standard 5, the year after Mr White. I mainly remember him sitting at his desk. He taught us from his age-old knowledge and from printed materials of all sorts, and he tested us often on everything. For example, alongside a rigorous maths and English curriculum, we studied to a fine degree, the life-cycles of several tropical parasites, knowing in great detail the scientific descriptions of the characteristics of each stage and their implications for health. He made no attempt to make the materials ‘child-friendly’ and he required that we did our own research projects to a high standard. I learned an incredible amount of a wide range of topics that year and I still remember much of it. As a teacher, I now can’t believe how much we crammed in, never seeming to be rushed or stressed for time. Nobody in our school would have called Mr Smith ‘fun’ or ‘funny’. He was a crusty old cove who gave up chain-smoking and tried to take up snuff instead – which he used in front of us in class.

    I’m not sure, but I can guess, which teacher would have won the popularity contest, had we been asked as children. Fortunately for us, it was not our choice. The more I reflect on it through the years, the more I realise that Mr Smith was the outstanding teacher of my junior school, possibly my school years as a whole.

    Teachers now seem to worry a lot about how they can be the ‘best’. There’s a huge amount of rhetoric about relationships, teaching styles, progressive and traditional practices, accountability for results and the problem is that most of it is either wrong, unfounded or measured in short-term, limited ways. Mr Smith didn’t have to worry about any of those things.

     

    *Names changed, of course.