 Hello, everyone. This is Ross at Teacher Talk at the most influential blog on education in the UK today. I'm joined by Stephanie Hill. Stephanie Hill is an associate assistant principal at Passmalls Academy in Harlow in Essex. And she's also an ed doc student at Cambridge University. Good evening, Stephanie. How are you? Really well, thanks, Ross. Is there anything I've missed that you'd just like to kind of describe your life, your work in education with listeners to start with? I guess the only other thing is that I'm originally from Australia, so that's probably a unique factor here. And I've been working in education in the UK for coming up to 11 years now. And how long were you teaching over in Australia? Well, on and off, I've actually been in the UK since 2005. I went back and taught in Australia for four years. So my first school was Passmalls Academy out of here. Oh, it's in your blood then, isn't it? Obviously, you're following on from Vic, sadly, but it's our second guest from Passmalls. So you're the most popular school on the podcast channel, which is good. So what I do normally, before we get talked to about your research, I just kind of get a general insight into your own life as a child in school. Can you give us a snapshot of your education from Australia? Yeah, I mean, I was, I went to a secondary school in a regional town in New South Wales in Australia. And I think that I was really lucky with my education because when I went through school, everything seemed all subjects or curriculum areas were really equally valued. So arts were just as important as English and maths and just as important as sports. So I sort of went through school thinking that all of these areas were accessible and fascinating and valued in society, which was incredible. Because then when I went on to university and studied English literature and history, philosophy, and psychology, for me, it was the world was open to me. And I felt like that all of that was value. How did you feel moving to the UK when you thought, right, you're not that clever? What was your view on that narrative over here in the UK? Yeah, I mean, it was a big shock. I have to admit, it is 20 years ago that I went through secondary school. So I guess things have also changed in Australia a little bit as well now. One of the reasons being that we are unfortunately following the UK in the way that it values those subjects. But yeah, it was a big shock because I also I guess I realised that these subjects, English and maths seem to be valued a lot more highly than in subjects like your creative arts and sports and humanities. So we'll talk about that in a moment. You're a kind of life as a school leaders perspective and the impact on eBay, particularly vulnerable kids. But before we do, could you describe your 16 year old self when you were doing your exams? I was a very avid student. I loved school. I was just as passionate and interested in art. So I would be found in sort of like the visual arts studio for hours and hours after school. And I was also one of those students that loved being part of study groups and talking about Shakespeare and discussing all the different interpretations. So I did well at school, but I did well. Did you hand your homework in late? No, I didn't. But I think I was passionate about I had the ability to be engaged with the subjects that inspired me. And I think that made a difference to me. You know, in COVID, we're back, you know, all in term recording this. How has Passemore's, you know, I usually look at the start of it got a principal at Passemore's at the start of COVID in terms of government support of things. How has it been six months later? I think that one of the things that has been a real challenge for us more than anything is being very hyper aware of the well-being of staff and students. It's really easy to get caught up in the narrative around there's gaps in learning. We've got to catch up. These kids are so far behind, but that doesn't help our young people and it certainly isn't going to help sort of their next steps. And so what I think six months on what we've realized is that we have we absolutely have to change the narrative around this. And we have to focus on the fact that these young people are now going through a moment and a time in history that we probably won't get for another century. What an amazing opportunity to focus on all the skills that they're going to learn and and what they can take out of that. Bring it back to the E-BAC. What's your school done with recovery curriculum, learning loss, you know, the E-BAC influences? Give us some insights into life in secondary school. One of the things we haven't done is we haven't cut down any of the subjects that are not part of the E-BAC. And I think that was a really important decision for us. So the whole breadth of the curriculum has remained as is. What we have done is we've offered students the time if they need to to have that extra support in the afternoon. But it's also been very much about let's start from where we are now and let's sort of move forward on where you need to go next, rather than look at all the stuff you've missed and here's the gaps in learning. So really for us, it hasn't been a focus. Sorry, my computer telling me what time it is. How are your Zoom, Microsoft teams and Google skills these days? Doing well. I mean, we've sort of, we've actually had a little bit of both at school. There was a lot that went on, obviously, when we're in lockdown. We have tried as much as possible to engage students online. So we're using platforms that allow them to access different resources and engage with staff, especially when they're off. But the difference, I mean, what's been amazing about being back in school is that what matters most to our young people and what helps them the most is the relationships. And so actually having that time in school and then being able to be around each other. So on that note, if we rewind, maybe I don't offend you here, maybe 20, 30 years. When did that relationship start for you where the seed to be a teacher started? I can't remember a time when I didn't want to be a teacher, but I wanted to be a primary school teacher and right up until the night before I was supposed to submit my application. So the deadline for applications at my degree in education were just about to close off lying in bed and I was like, what am I doing? I'm not supposed to be a primary school teacher. And so that's I went into secondary ed. So yeah, I can't remember it's fine when I didn't want to be a teacher to be honest. Fantastic. And how is it compared to life as a school? I know, let's push COVID to one side for a moment. How does teaching compare to your life as a part time school leader? So you work three days a week, right? Yeah. You know, the dialogue about flexible work in women in leadership. Just just give me some general thoughts there on those pressures. It's, it was a challenge at first, in particular, because of my own self management. What I was tending to do was I was in school for three days, but I was working for five. And so I really needed to take a step back and for me it was about thinking about my own tendency to perfectionism. It didn't need to be everything didn't need to be perfect, but also that we had a really great team around this. So it was about sort of looking at how do we use everybody in the team? And and how could I sort of engage when it was needed and also do what I could do when I was there three days a week, but also recognize that the reason I went back part time was because I really wanted to focus on research as well. And that was important. Let's talk about your research. Now, for listeners, you're in your fourth year, third year and doing your doctorate at the University of Education, Cambridge. How's it going? Well, how's it been so far the first three years? It's been a mix, to be honest. What I love about being a part of a research community is the conversations that you can have and the people that you can meet. What I realized from the beginning and the reason I first engaged with the University of Cambridge was through a masters in leadership. And I did that because I was so confronted with what was happening in the UK. I needed to understand it better. I needed to understand what was going on behind the scenes in terms of why the education system was the way it was. So coming back into the doctorate and been able to talk to people who were engaging with lots of different areas at a more extensive level, I guess, was really, really interesting. So for people dabbling with or starting out like me and you, I suppose, or for people considering what kind of the highlights of things that you've learned in the last two or three years? I think for me it was a lot to do with me being able to consider other interpretations on what was going on. It's really interesting to hear other perspectives, but they really get you to question how you're looking at things. But also, I don't think I had really started to engage with the way in which we're using research to be able to connect that sort of bridge between practice and research. I think because I'd done my masters as almost a little bit more of a separate entity, whereas the doctorate, the practicing doctorate is very much about how can research inform what we're doing now and how is it making a difference? No, you're three days in, I'm sure the challenge is very real, doing your research and being a busy family at home. Where are you today with your research? I know you're preparing for your upgrade, but could you give, as if possible, a kind of synopsis of your research? Sure. It started out where I was looking at some student leadership in professional learning. So how are we mobilising student agency to improve schools and to look at the way how effective learning was? So the early research was very much about a case study within my current school, looking at a team of students who worked alongside teachers to be able to engage in dialogue with them about what learning was like for them, how they learned and how that can be improved. So off the back of that research, I published a couple of articles and where that sort of took me to, I guess, was a look at the damage that accountability measures and performativity measures in the UK at the moment, the damage they're doing to both our young people and also to staff, to teachers. And then looking at a case, is this a way where we can get a more meaningful insight into what is actually going on in school? What's the lived experiences of the students in the school in any given context? And that was important to me because I think we live very much in the UK. It's all about standardising. It's all about the universal. So what are the universal expectations? What do the powers that think that education should be? Because actually that's the way they were educated. But they don't account for a school that sits in Northern England that has a very different demographic or context to what they might have in London. So I really wanted to look at how are we going to mobilise those lived experiences of students in a way that we can capture it and use it to... The theory and the practice, what practical things have you been doing just to give listeners a better understanding of the kind of... I guess in some ways how you might conduct a bit of research. Yeah, sure. So a lot of the current research I've been doing is around setting up the opportunities for meaningful dialogue. So how can you provide opportunities where students can go into lessons and see what's going on and then meet with teachers afterwards and talk about what happens. And that needs to be more than just answering questions. It needs to be a conversation and a discussion. So co-generative dialogue, which is the idea that you will come out with something that will move you forward afterwards is really where we started to sort of look at developing that. And that's important. So I would say to anyone who's looking at who's interested in starting to engage students and bring students in the conversations about learning, being able to look at how you provide those opportunities for that meaningful dialogue is a good place to start. I know probably five plus years ago, if I put out on Twitter, should students be part of an interview process or in a lesson observation and then provide feedback to either the teacher or the interview panel? What are your thoughts on that? It's really interesting because we see that a lot more now, but one of the things that we've struggled with through this process and that you see in some of the stuff that comes out as well in social media is, well, why should students listen to teachers? Why should teachers listen to students? Because teachers are qualified. They're the experts. And really what you look, we need to change the narrative around that. It's not about students coming in and saying we're experts in content. It's about students coming in and saying this is how we're experiencing learning. And this is what could happen to change our experience of that. And we can't do that as teachers. We don't have... It's a fantastic change of perspective, isn't it? So, where are you now with your research and what do you need to do next? So, what I'm looking at now is I want more of an international perspective. So I've been doing a little bit of work with the Cunds Cup Scotland schools in Sweden. And yeah, we're doing incredible stuff. But what I'd really like to engage with them is how are they mobilising student agency? So people that don't know about Cunds Cup Scotland, can you just give everyone a quick 30 second description of that type of educational scenario? Sure. It's a model of education that puts student agency at the centre. So students are very much in control of what they do, what they learn and how they learn throughout from primary right through to secondary. So it's very much empowering students and sitting them at the centre. And what is your current focus? Are you preparing for upgrade? So I know some of the answers, but for listeners, is that meant to refine in 10,000, 20, 30,000 words? What are you currently doing? Yeah, it needs to be 20,000 words. So I've got more than that at the moment. So it's about refining that. It's actually about looking at contingency planning because my research design had to completely change when COVID hit. So I was originally planning to take a team of student researchers and myself over to Sweden because I would I want students to be central to the research process as well as part of the sample. So now what we're going to need to do is look at doing that remotely. So that hopefully will still be really effective because it's about now sort of setting up conditions where the teachers and the students within the case study school engage in dialogue with each other and I'll be able to see that. Now I assume you're going to upgrade with no corrections and in the next couple of years or so you'll have gone off and done your research and gathered some evaluations, etc, etc. What impact, in the future, what do we hope to achieve from your research and what impact do you hope it might have? One of the things I'm looking at is the role of learning organizations in schools and so that idea that every stakeholder, every member of a school organization is on a learning journey and everyone contributes to the improvement in school. So my hope would be that through the research that we have a model where more schools can start to engage students in that process of teachers and students learning alongside each other. I know passports already do many of these things. Give us just a kind of sense to listeners, some of the things, this prior to COVID, some of the student voice stuff that your school was already doing really well, particularly with vulnerable kids. Yeah, so we have, we have quite a few things that sort of build into our student leadership network. So we've got a student pedagogy team. Their role is to work alongside staff to improve teaching and learning. We have our student council and prefects. We also have well-being ambassadors. We have students who work with coaching other students in different year groups. So what we've done is started to bring together all of those different student leadership roles to create what we call a student leadership network. They all have a representative from each team and they meet as a student leadership team and they discuss, it's almost feeding forward to SLT. What they think could be sort of included in things that we want to improve on and focus on, but also SLT can feedback and say, OK, we're thinking about this, what do you think? So I guess a lot of schools are already doing these things, but we've probably just started to bring that together so that we're unifying it a bit more, I guess. Now, my passion has always been teacher workload. Just giving you a sense, you know, marking my insights drives every teacher crazy, but can you just give us an indication of how COVID has shifted workload? What have been the pressures, curriculums, lesson planning, learning IT skills? What have been the pressure points? I think it's a combination of all of those. I mean, curriculum design has been one of our focuses this year. And that's a challenge when we need to look at is the curriculum that is accessible to those learning from home the same quality as those who are in school? And what are we doing at the moment to make sure that learning is engaging and inspiring? Not just a whole lot of content because we're worried about. So I'd say that's probably been our main focus and the biggest challenge with workload, definitely. Back with the research. I'm hoping you've saw your student views on the COVID experience and learning online. What are our children saying? Actually, one of the challenges that they're finding is there's such a wonderful, we forget about the structure that we provide our young people within a school day that actually the skills, organization and metacognitive skills to plan and monitor their time and their days and what they're going to do. That takes a lot of time to develop that over many years and our current education system doesn't really provide the conditions for that. So when they're at home and they don't have that structure in their day, they're struggling. That's good to school, all that type of stuff. Absolutely. So have you put anything in place to support kids with that? We're looking at quite a few things. One of the things we're trying to develop at the moment is, do we make sure that students are following the same school day that they would have? So when they log on, they're able to access a portal. They can see exactly the same as what the students in the lesson are getting. And we've also had some stuff that are also doing video links directly into the classroom as well. And so there's lots of things that we can start to play around with, but it's one of those things, isn't it, where we have to trial them? A lot of these things before we can really implement them and we don't. We need to be aware of the fact that these young people are at home now. How are your colleagues feeling, you know, your teachers around you immediately? I know you're in a trust for five or six schools, but in your immediate school, just what gives a sense of the pressures, the mood? I know it's half term tomorrow, but how are we all doing? I think that it's been the most tiring term I can imagine. I can half term that I can remember sort of in my career and I think that that's what a lot of staff are feeling. It's a lot of additional, I guess, energy is going to a lot of things that we probably wouldn't normally put it towards in terms of cleanliness and awareness of those around you. But I think in the most part it's being aware of each other and aware of how students are feeling and how staff are feeling that obviously is more tiring than what it would be on a day to day in any other half term or year. So that's probably the main thing for us. So I mean, I'll pick your brains with some of my questions in a moment, but I get, you know, the senses, the half term people are going to need to do lots of sleep and looking after them. Now, we've passed the 20 minute barrier and this is where I throw lots of quick fire questions at you. I want to try and catch you off guard. So how you do and you can't pause or hesitate. I don't know if you're familiar with Timmy Mallet. No, no. I'm a bit of a spongy hammer, but I'll start off with something easy. What book are you reading at the moment? I'm actually reading Raising Boys by Steve Biddoff, which is, he talks about how we sort of look at the brain development of boys. I've got a one year old boy, so that's what I'm engaging with. That's great fiction books. Was that sorry? Fiction at the moment. Oh, no, I'm not. But what I would like to do soon is I've got Gabriella Garcia Marquez's 100 years of solitude on my bookshelf. I've read it in English. I'd like to read it in Spanish, because I'm trying to sort of learn another language. I know a tiny little bit of Italian, but I'd really like to sort of engage with that a little bit. So I haven't started it yet though, Ross. 27 days to visit Australia. Where would you recommend I go? Oh, East Coast. I'm from Byron Bay, which is the northern part of New South Wales. So I'm a little bit biased, I guess, because it's got that beautiful combination of countryside and the beach. Could you define co-generative dialogue? Yeah, of course. So if we look at something, we want to generate new ideas and new directions. So that's the whole idea of generating from the dialogue. We do that in combination with other people, so in collaboration. Great. Any tips for teachers who want to go to their head teacher and ask them a part-time? I would say to start with think about why you'd like to do that. What's the purpose for it? Is that actually something that is going to really help you with what you want to do next? What I would suggest is that what we can't do is do that because we're finding everything's just too much, and there's too many teachers that are having to go down to part-time so that they can continue to work five days a week just to get through the workloads. So I think it's really important to start off with the purpose for why and the conversation really then needs to be around. Is the part-time to help you to be able to do other things? You're judging your researcher hat, your school leadership hat and your family hat and your mum. What do you do to switch off and get me time? Actually at the moment, just being able to play with my son is one of the most joyous things. He's just out of walking, so they're watching him walk and babble, and I just find that's the best way to switch off. It's like mindfulness, I'm just focusing on him. And so for me, that's the best thing at the moment. Okay, one insight of things that you've learned about metacognition, particularly metacognitive planning. Any insights or tips? Yeah, I would suggest that probably what we don't do enough as teachers is we don't actually think aloud and talk about how we're thinking as teachers. And as we start to do that and we talk through our learning, we talk through the processes that we go through to discover new things and to work things out, then students can start to do that as well. Piece of advice for a teacher wanting to start research, whether it's an MA or a PhD? I would suggest that as you go through it and as you're starting, really think about being around people who are going to get you to question your own mental models. So the way that you think about the world, get a community around you that is going to continually question you and question that. That's the best way to start to get into research, I think. Off the wall, what's that dream job you never had? Oh, I can't imagine being anything else but a teacher or being in education. But one of my core values is creativity. I'm really, I love getting involved with everything I do. I kind of visually, it needs to sort of be like, I get engaged, we're very engaged with that. So probably something in the creative industry, it would be something I go for. Who would you recommend I interview next and why? This is a little bit of an outlier, this one, but I think that you should interview a group of students. Oh, okay, yes. You'll be the perfect candidate to help you get that set up. I've got one or two students on our podcast, but a group of students will be a first. Yeah, I think especially now. Let's set that up. What's your number one workload tip? I have found that the best way to decrease your workload is to empower students to be able to take the learning on more themselves. So peer evaluation, collaborative work, them knowing how to critique their own work and knowing where to go to next, means that actually we become the experts in the room in terms of explicit instruction and guiding processes. But they are the ones that are taking the learning and really running with it. And that just makes your job so much easier, but so much more enjoyable. It's Halloween next week. No, I know it's going to be different. But if we were dressing up, what would be your costume? Oh, gosh, I'd probably I'd probably want to be something like Ruth Bader Ginsburg or something. I'd say I'm a bit of a nerd like that. Tip for NQT who's struggling right now. Talk to someone, reach out for someone. Okay, advice to yourself to get that upgrade done. I need to make sure that I give myself the space sitting and having the space is the big thing. That's this. That's my goal this week, Ross. My question, what do you hope to be your legacy staff? I think if we can, if the next generation of young people can actually create an education system where every single vocation and profession is valued equally. I've been reading David Goodhart's head, head, heart and hand, head, hand, heart, I think it is. If we can actually create a generation of kids that can do that, then I think potentially that's it. We've done what we should be doing as teachers. And Steph, it's been lovely to connect with you. And sad we've not been able to catch up with our doctoral sessions, but for listeners, we've got a virtual one and a couple of days. I wish you all the best with half term of a great rest. And thank you for all your time and the amazing work that you do at the Passmalls Academy and wider trust. And what an interesting and fascinating research topic. I wish you all the best with that. Thanks for your time, Steph. Thank you. I appreciate it.