Pivotal

[Hercwasonaroll]

theunofficialteachersmanual.blog/2020/02/19/why-we-should-boycott-pivotal-education/amp/?__twitter_impression=true

This blog is doing the rounds on twitter. Shows how harmful Paul Dix is.

I felt a bit like ResearchEd was cherry picking the research thye like. I am probably steered by their nastiness to Barbara Bleiman who is a bit of a God amongst English teachers and they really do not accept her (evidence based) ideas at all. English is always an interesting one! Lucy Crehan is another one who should be a star but doesn't get the oxygen. I am probably wrong but I feel like Daisy C is their token female. She is very clever and interesting but didn't spend long enough in the classroom for me to really pay her much heed.

Re Sabisky : he is being very aggressive to anyone who asks about whether Sabisky's views were known when he spoke several times for ResearchEd. I can see he feels cornered but some very moderate voices are trying to talk him down and he is being very snarky back. that's partly what gave rise to the nasty trolling account. It seems your favourite, David Didau, is pally with Sabisky (which doesn't surprise me!) and that Dylan Wiliam has endorsed his views. Tom seems to be guilty by association more than anything else. I do feel sorry for him but think he could be more conciliatory in his tone.

Ah OK. Well I'm not a supporter of ban the Booths as a campaign, but I am the mother of a child with SEN (who does sometimes display violent and aggressive behaviour). I was also a secondary school teacher for 15 years, and was assaulted a few times in the later years.

I agree with noble, there needed to be a discussion about SEN discipline, which has been lost a bit.

I used to timetabled once a week in our isolation room. Worst and longest hour of my week.

I haven't worked in secondary schools, but I was sent to an isolation room as a teen. I support the campaign to remove them, it's a shameful practice. I remember having to knock on the subject teachers' door at the start of every lesson period to explain why I wasn't in their lesson, and ask for work to sit in my 'booth' with. It was hourly humiliation in front of my peers.

Noble fair point about SLT being mainly white middle class men.

Pran Patel is a BAME voice but his views are extreme and he seems to piss everyone off too.

Maths Edutwitter does have a few strong women for subject stuff which is good to see. I don't delve too far into other subjects tbh!

I like Tom B from what I see. His books are decent too and have real school application/experience rather than lots of pie in the sky ideas.

That is not the normal procedure eats. I do have to ask what you did, and whether you did it again!?

I don't think they are always the answer but I do think the focus on the isolated child (assuming non SEN) ignores the rights of the other 29 or so to learn or to be safe from bullying, violence or aggression.

I will say that when I was a HOY I got rather upset when it was suggested a DS child should get the same sanction for poor behaviour as any other child so I don't support isolation for many SEN children (or exclusion but there is a huger discussion needed about SEN provision full stop). But that's probably fro a different board!

The discussion around SEN discipline should have been around funding cuts and the need for different provision. Diagnosis rates are rising and students with SEN aren't flourishing in mainstream. Special schools now take only the most severe needs and usually focus on the physical disabilities rather than SEMH. There needs to be schools that bridge the gap. Smaller classes, calmer environment but still academic.

Lucy Crehan has spoken at ResearchEd!

Other women. Hmm, Becky Allen? Laura McInerney?

Never heard of Bleiman but I’m not English. I’ve seen maths talks by women, and several by Carol Davenport of the Institute of Physics about girls in Stem (boo you say!) so I can’t see that they’re anti women or feminism (Lucy Ryecroft-Smith for maths would definitely challenge that notion).

It seems your favourite, David Didau, is pally with Sabisky

And now you finally disown him!
Sabisky was the source of the race stuff that got Didau into trouble.

I think Tom is probably pissed off at people demanding to know why Sabisky had a platform at a grassroots event organised by volunteers when he got hired by Number 10.

The discussion around SEN discipline should have been around funding cuts and the need for different provision.

Indeed, the cuts to SEN provision are appalling, and when people hear about teaching assistants and support staff being the first to go in the school funding cuts, what doesn’t seem to have been highlighted is who those staff would have been supporting. Teaching assistant brings up images of someone helping with photocopying, displays and sharpening pencils rather than their actual role of supporting the most vulnerable students in their learning.

The furore about students with SEN in isolation begs the question ‘where should they go then when they cannot stay in the classroom’. The glib answer seems to be ‘if you were doing your job properly they’d be able to stay in the classroom’. But that’s just ignoring reality and blaming teachers for systematic failings. Children with SEN deserve more.

the Researched people literally shouting down females... that said, Paul Garvey has also shouted down women and BAME voices

Isn’t it just a problem with men shouting down women (same old, same old), not specifically ResearchEd shouting down women?

I have been to a ResearchEd. It didn't feel very male. It was very white, although that does reflect the local profession. The sessions I went to were 50:50 male/female and I found it highly interesting. Contrary to what a lot of people suggest there was a wide range of opinions on offer. And it was exceptionally good value for that kind of CPD. I'm going to go again and would consider speaking at one.

You're so right about SEN and students who can't cope with being in a classroom. The 29 other children are becoming important again. The revised SEN code of practise doesn't help with the attitude towards it being the teachers fault. It makes SEN provision each individual teachers responsibility which seems to have abdicated leaders/LAs from doing anything. This alongside funding cuts mean SEN students are suffering.

I always found Didau dodgy! I have indeed read the book with the dodgy Sandisky appendage...

I guess this is an interesting, albeit circular, discussion about research and powerful voices. It's not all about maleness; a fair amount of it is about metropolitan and regional advantage. if I wanted to attend a ResearchEd of real quality I would have to travel very far , and at a weekend . I am astonished this doesn't put more people - especially women- off.

I definitely do not live in a research rich area! I think this is affected by multiple factors, but it does also mean that the ResearchEd speakers tend to all come from experiences which are very similar, educationally. This is what gives Pivotal traction : he has more of a franchise mode, travels perhaps to more areas and is fairly internet friendly.

I am not sure what CPD my SLT attend but it mainly seems to be PiXL.

I like Laura McInerney : she gets silenced a fair amount on Twitter. Becky Allen is also good.

I am glad to hear Crehan has spoken at Researched. She is very interesting.

I guess you are right noble that most of it is a male problem and that their self labelling as tribes on Twitter leads me to believe its' tribalism' (stroppy,smug, we are right about everything and Ofsted like us ResearchEd vs 'but who will think of the echiiiiildren?' Garveyites)rather than men just being men! This perception is exacerbated by the more vocal women I can think of steering clear of these tribes (in fact, in the case of Alison Kriel, et al (Beck Allen?) forming a different one which is specifically female.

But - honestly - what they all don't realise is your average teacher is oblivious to all of it! Which means they miss the nasty stuff, but also the good stuff.

There is a huge problem with SEND funding. But the solution isn't to whisk away all the SEN children to special schools so they don't bother anyone.

I left teaching 5 years ago. I know now that as a classroom practitioner I failed SEN children in my classes. I know that now I have seen it from the other point of view. Of course it is not entirely the teacher's responsibility (let's not use fault, it implies SEN can be blamed on someone), but lots of teachers I have encountered since my daughter's diagnosis (ASD) have dismissed many Interventions as "impossible in mainstream". For example when my dd does become violent, she is dealt with using the school behaviour policy of consequences. Except she can't control her outbursts, she rarely has a memory of them and she can't say she won't do it again. All she learns is that she is a bad person.

I don't want her to go to a special school, especially as academically she is very gifted. I want the mainstream to make adjustments for her, because in the future she will live in a mainstream world.

Breathless why should teachers and students have to deal with violence in a classroom? What happens if she is violent in a place of work? I work in a mainstream school and have had students with SEN inches away from headbutting me. I did nothing wrong and followed strategies for this student to the letter. But a 15 yo that is taller than me get that close was not a pleasant experience.

I really think schools with a higher level of support and smaller classes but still academically rigorous would be a good solution. The current situation isn't benefitting anyone.

I like Laura McInerney : she gets silenced a fair amount on Twitter

Does she? I’m wondering if my problem with twitter is that I don’t often read the threads so miss out on these spats or maybe I just skim over them? Or follow the wrong people?

Aggressive arguments and shutting people down was very much the style of the TES forums. I think that’s just how vocal men argue online - the MN forums are very different to TES!

Not having to put up with edutwitter is one of the things I'm looking forward to about leaving at Easter.

I will miss some of the contributors - Ed Finch, Dan Morrow but not many others.

and no doubt Piggy and Noble from what you've said on here but I don't know (or need to know) who you are on there.

I'm thinking back over all the behaviour management talks I've been to at school over the years - none of them were led by a woman. I do think men have it easier with certain aspects of behaviour management and this is never acknowledged.

Apparently that is not allowed to be acknowledged tom : I have read and heard in a few places that women need to stop being so silly in suggesting that many (not all) male teachers have an ascribed advantage by virtue of their sex. I have led behaviour training but not for several years now.

I think silenced might be the wrong word for Laura M. It is more that the men on Twitter retweet each other, join in each other's games, agree and disagree vocally with each other etc. I feel like when Laura , or other women , post something it is sometimes followed by discussion but largely from other women, disagreed with vocally by men or just ignored. I noticed this a while ago. I need to unfollow some of these Edutwitter men, as they stress me out!

In the interests of balance there are some nice male Edutweeeters...

Pivotal is the latest thing my atrocious SLT and they are using is as a rod to beat teachers with. Not shaking hands? You have poor relationships. Not taking personal responsibility for a student you have never met swearing on the corridor? You are ineffective....

To the previous poster who said it presents the teachers as the bad guys and the SLT as the pupils' friends; you have hit the nail on the head. It is the only thing our SLT can do because they are shit scared of our feral kids.

And they wonder why our roll is falling and we are full of supply.

I’m on twitter but I’ve never tweeted anything in my life. I deliberately have avoided learning even which button to press because I think it’s something I could get sucked into very easily, and people are always saying what a cesspool it is. Probably because I’m not getting involved in discussions I miss the finer details - on looking at tweets, Old Andrew looks pretty reasonable, but I know from the TES days that he’s an absolute arse to argue with so maybe Bennett and others are like that too.

There was that thing a while back where it came out that some unnamed prominent edutweeter was sending unsolicited dick picks to female teachers. Would love to know who that was.

I love edutwitter but there are far fewer resources being shared these days, because people were just tearing them apart.

I saw Sue Cowley talk about behaviour once. It was all fairly standard advice though, to a large mixed audience so I don’t feel like her being a woman made any difference.

Oh god, no, Old Andrew is one of the very worst! Contentious, entitled and aggressive! Really nasty to Debra Kidd iirc.

Yes but if you only read what he tweets and not his replies, he mainly seems to talk about tea and Ikea!

Debra Kidd annoys me too tbf. Although I did like her Notes from the Frontline book.