 Ond y gallu'n gilydd y cwestiynau yw eich bod yn cael ei gwниw gweld yn cael y mewn edrych? Fe wnaeth yn meddylu, mae'n gwybodon ein dnifesiaid a'n cael ei wneud ein gylwgr o bwrdd diolchol o gyfnodau Fe yna ei wneud o withildau i gwybodaeth, a'r berthynat o'r peth sy' nid, erbyn hyn yn cael ei gwirionedd yma, mae'n gwybodon eu gofoedau sy'n cyffredinol o'r pethau a'r taffaith yn gwneud. ..y'r head of design technology, so my teacher at the time said, you know, this is probably his first day level year. You like, you like DET, you like kids, why not be a teacher and that was it. So what happened in my second year of sixth one was he put me when I was free into year seven classes to teach lessons. So we did a plan and had a little project and I really liked it. And then there was a mock interview to kind of prepare for the university interview process. So it was a four year Bachelor of Education at Goldsmiths College at the time. And that's how it got started. And four years of six to eight week teacher placements and four different schools all round south east London. And that was it. Brilliant. Yeah, so Mr Boldie. Mr Boldie. Yeah, Paul Boldie. I still keep in touch with him now actually. Goldsmiths. No, he was head of design technology at Fleetwood High School up in Lancashire, Blackpool. And he's around Chawley area in Manchester now. But it was nice because a while ago he found out I won an award and sent me a message for an email. And I think he's got my book and follows me on Twitter. So it's lovely. So that's, that's, every teacher's got a great teacher story. And that's, it was Paul Boldie who got me into it. So maybe then you could talk us through about how you became, you know, the most successful educational blogger that's out there at the moment. And how you handled the kind of genesis of teacher talk here and that sort of thing. So teacher talk, I've been tweeting since 2007 or 2008 personally. And then there was a time when the teaching tweets started to interfere with my personal having a beer and playing with my son kind of tweets. So at that point, it was about 2010 when I really was getting into Twitter in the classroom professional. I thought I've got to make a professional decision here. So I created, I created a few accounts, one for a classroom which was for kids and it was locked down. And another one for me personally, which is teacher talk it, which was a pure, it was an interactive channel. But my mission was to just be interact, an output channel. And it was just all about teaching full stop. Pretty much what tweeting is. It's what status updates, what I was doing. But gradually it became a bit more deep and meaningful. And so that's how it started. And my logo actually started with a keep calm carry on symbol. And as it got gathered speed into the thousands of and then towards 10,000 people, I thought, well, I need to copyright issues and might come into it. So I then found a photograph inverted it, kept with a red background and put just put teacher talk. I will have a teacher talk at my first created the account. So that's how it started. But the writing and the blogging came in 2011. I've always loved writing and also creative imagination, but I've never known if I've been good at it because I struggled with English and reading as a kid. And I still do today. But it started when my son was born in hospital in 2011. We were 85 miles away. So he was born premature three months early. He was born around nine life and death, et cetera. So three months. So there was really poor reception and to try and communicate every kind of key decision with families. Just hard work, never mind the emotions. So throughout this eight or 10 hours would be there every day. I just started to go on blogger to start with on my phone and just type notes to it was very good therapy. And it was a great way to get home and reflect on the doctor's notes and publish it to my family. And because it was a raw story, life or death, I knew the risk of that, but it gathered momentum and it went up to 150,000 hits very quickly. And the baby charities and people got hold of it and that led to contributions in different books over time. But I started to enjoy it and not necessarily the line, but there was a stage probably 30 days in where Freddie was going to be safe, where I could start to enjoy the writing and updating and I was getting lots of feedback. And I thought, well, this is great. Let me apply it to my teaching. So I started a teacher blog as well. And it was, it wasn't very passionate at the time. It was just kind of trying to think of stuff to do or things to talk about. And eventually I found WordPress, which was a better platform for making it work smarter. And then I just made a real focus on everything teaching, things that I'm doing, reflecting. And through Twitter I was getting lots of feedback. So the blog allowed you to express much more. And that's what I did. And it's, you know, in the two years now I've done it, it's 1.3 or 4 million hits, which is amazing. And the opportunities, you know, this here now or the book, or House of Commons being requested for X, Y and Z, it's just because I'm blogging. And anyone can do it. I don't normally believe this, but yes, if there's a time commitment, yes, you've got to have a passion. But more, I think probably success is because I've made it with my design experience, a bit of theory I've created my own brand or my own kind of strategies. And I've learned ICT skills through my own doing. You know, I've got a grade F for ICT as a GCSE student. I've learned, and I guess that's resilience, isn't it, to a degree. So that's the story. That's how I started writing. And I suppose also to add is that you are trusted, aren't you, above most people for good advice about how to be an effective teacher. I was wondering if you could talk a bit about that. Originally I didn't do it without, I put thought into it, but I didn't put thought in terms of the odd, well, that's a lie. Obviously there was to be an audience because I'm putting it online for people to download. But in the very beginning, when I was using the TES, it was, this is really nice, let's just share it, and that's it. But with the power of social media, you can spread a document online much further than you maybe could have in the past. So there's that issue. And then as the audience has grown, more thought has been required because I do see myself as, although I'm an individual, some people do think Teacher Talk is a brand or a company, I just see myself as an individual, just sharing ideas. And because of the immense and wide range of feedback from around the world that I get, I have to put much more thought into the one on the stream there. I've just thought about its presentation. Can anyone understand it? How will it be used? Where am I going to put it on? Will there be a blog to explain the theory behind it? I mean, I found another website that comes up with nice interesting fonts, for example. So I don't see it as anything unique. I love how things appear, being a designer. I love thinking about the visual quality of a document or a resource. So I think those are a factor. I can't answer the question, I don't know the answer. But I think there's lots of parts of it. I think it's like anything you do if you're writing a book or writing an essay. You invest in the time, you refine it before you put it out there. If you get feedback, you tweak it. I suppose I've learnt what works or what people want, because people don't want to read a thousand pages unless they deliberately are seeking something like that, such as a huge book. But if teachers are busy people so they want something quick, something that they'll know that will work, and something that they'll know will work from someone who's used it, I think that's probably the key thing. So because of all the power of social media, if people are speaking to each other behind the scenes without me being involved in sharing things, then that's validation that it is successful. Again, with the teacher talk at ICOT, people know instantly where to go and ask. I would like to think that 99.9% of tweets that I get I do respond to if people want clarification or help. I think that's also a trusted source as well. I would like to think that all my followers know that they'll get that back. It's hard to keep up, but when I was saying to you earlier before we started that I might not be able to manage everything, so I'll either find some ICT tools to help me cope that, or save things for another day and respond later when I've got a bit more time on my hands. These things do impact on work to a degree, but it obviously works first, but it does impact on the home, so I just have to adjust when I do do things and when I shouldn't. That's been a lesson to learn, and I wouldn't be denied that I've been in the doghouse when we were young. I'm learning to deal with that because as the audience increases, the demand has increased as well, and I have to be very, very careful that it doesn't consume me, and there have been many times where I feel it has. I've just been more ruthless for myself that through the social media epoch, I can share something at any time, and it will, with the audience and the power of retweets and blogs and staggering or buffering various content. There's no rush to get it out there because people will share it for you, or people might not be wanting to look at it when you want to share it, so there's all these clever tools that can stagger content out. So there's less panic to get things out because I've found a lot of times I've wanted to share an instant idea, but there's a time for reflection consolidation, and I think of my blog, I've got about 35 articles in reserve because I'll think of something and I'll tweak it and I'll revisit it, or I'll have missed a bow in terms of the season it should be. So that could be something for the future, or it might fit in with another topic, another point. So that's just something I've learned over the last two years. It's a nice strategy to keep in mind actually. Very good. I suppose a bit of a tricky question, but off the top of your head, what would be the key advice you would give for teachers to just improve their practice? In the classroom or through... Maybe just off the top of your head, do you really strike who is important? I'm a firm believer in my two catchphrase poses. I'm not the same teacher I was 20 years ago to what I am today. I certainly wasn't the same teacher I was last term. The reasons are because I am open to feedback. I'm reflective. I'm constantly thinking about how I can get better. I don't think perfection exists. I don't think outstanding exists every day, but I found a nice quote earlier there. I forgot who it was, but excellence is a habit and I want to strive to be excellent as much as I can and all the time. I think that maybe might be the difference between being a teacher who I have been in the past where I just turn up, do my bit and go home to using the time that I have to think more about it. It does impact what I do today at home, but you were one 10 years ago as a busy headed department. I still was the same person thinking about all my ideas for the department all the time, so I think that's probably just me and my quality or my characteristic. Not everyone will be like that, but my key messages will be to always observe other teachers, always visit other schools so it's the best CPD you can have, and to always get people into your classroom beyond your appraisers and sometimes beyond your colleagues to get some mutual feedback and to work hard at having our clear focus, planular lessons together, observe together, observe each other, and then review and reflect and how it really goes into this kind of lesson study model or a good intent programme which I've kind of created myself and started to gather wind here, and it's nice to know that I'm on the same page, it all goes down to triads and co-planning, co-observing, co-reflection, and that's key, and the only debilitating factor will be skills not given teachers the time to do it regularly or consistently, and that's key, so that's the time of money issue. But I was under conversation today with my governors and it's not really, I mean if you take a member of staff off time table for a week, it's a thousand power in cover and send them off with their class, their formal class to go and observe their lessons in their own school for a week, think of that time, you will give that member of staff to see all lessons around the school to reflect about great ideas they see or to not some great ideas and to reflect about their own practice or the kids that they teach in other areas and see how those kids interact. That's a great idea, I don't know how feasible it is, but that would be incredible CPD for your teachers and even if you reduce it to one day and calendar it, you're giving staff real opportunity to see teaching beyond their own classroom and see what the kids diet is in your school. So there's loads of ideas, but I think the pinnacle will be the reflection part of a teacher to know that you can always do a little not better, but you can do it differently to open doors and break down barriers and things like that. So I suppose it's very much a co-operative model that you're talking about. And that involves, it's pretty much what I've been working on today, it's not just the teacher, that involves the kids and your audience are the students and they should have a say and they should be able to be part of that process. And there's a time and place where you want to have them in rows and in silence and tests and didatic and repeat, repeat. There's a time and place for that, there's also a time and place where you want students to lead their own learning and for them to feed back into your planning and then to give you some critique, but some of us might not be open to that and I've been in situations where I don't, on the whole I think staff don't build it into their planning enough to take the student views, they'll plan for the students but they won't necessarily ask the kids what they thought about it. And some of the best lessons I've observed with teachers over a long period of time have asked kids for their ideas, have given them feedback and then have actually implemented what the kids have wanted and it's just really evident to see how much you're learning going on in that classroom because the kids have had a say. Yeah. You know and there's other things like data looking in books and typically in support which is your routines. So if I observed you for dare or say a one off lesson I need to make sure that I'm looking at progress over time so I'm looking at what's typical so are the kids like that because it's something that you always do or are they putting their hand up saying so why are you doing that these are all the signs that you'll pick up when you gather observational experience and you know all teachers can get to that stage but they need to have the opportunity to go and see teachers in their own schools to get to that kind of level. And where do you stand I mean you know as much talk about the sort of competitive model for education we talked about the cooperative but you know teachers sort of performance related pay and things like that so what are your thoughts on that in that context? I haven't formed a real opinion yet because I've worked in schools where standards have been incredibly low and things have been put in place where performance has improved and not saying money has been a factor but you know clear consistency clear policies there's other things that will raise standards so you could almost call that an open process rather than a closed process which is your data or your money and it's going to be new to us all but I think what has helped is the condensed and clearer teacher standards I really do think they have helped and there's been lots and lots of change far too much for us all to keep up with I think we need to slow down and I think policy makers and government there needs to be something fixed into power where they can't change X, Y and Z for a certain period of time until it is probably evaluated but to answer your question I'm more of a no than a yes but to be a respected profession there's a good 80 billion to pluck a figure out of the air that we have within the economy that's put aside and we have to be accountable and not to be respected we have to show that we know our staff and we should be qualified to gain that credibility and we have to fight all the media and the poor headlines and things up there and I'm trying to get to the key part of your question I think you can reward staff in other ways so for example where I'm working now we have a recruitment and retention I know that's died of death but it's another way of giving staff a pocket of cash that they can bid for to aid their professional development it's voluntary, it's not forced some people use it, some people don't but it's for their professional development and it's a nice way of saying to staff you've completed a term or completed a year or you've been working here for five so it's put anum so you've been working here along the amount of time and staff have been putting in requests for some digital devices that they can use at home or in school or to pay for flights to go to a conference in another country I mean if I was much younger and not a committed family man I would be off to Sweden and Finland and go and see what it's all about and go and visit some schools and it's nice to know that my school would support me with some flights and to think of the schools where I've been in where I've wanted to improve my practice I've wanted to complete a masters and they've been very stingy with the money that they've given me to aid my professional development I've left feeling a bit aggrieved and a bit miffed off that it's been such a battle that I've wanted to commit back to the school some action research so that's not really answered the question I think we do need accountability performance-related pay across the board I'm not sure but certainly when you get to your threshold what we've been used to I don't think it should be automatic where it has been for many years and that's how I've evolved and been institutionalised as a teacher but at the stage where it does get to threshold I don't want to tick box culture is a danger as well but where you can properly evidence some hard data some progress some professional development then there is a case that that might be needed because ultimately it's public funds we're working in a public service but I've put my difficult union hat on I've paid my mortgage and I've got a life that I need bills to pay and I'm getting berated and I've got to do this, this and this and I've got a 90% teaching time table XYZ I turn up to work, I do a good job every day and I deserve to be rewarded and then there's the other issue with being paid in line with other graduates and other careers I don't think we are but again it goes back to the credibility the accountability and a bit of data and XYZ and then perhaps we might be in a position of high inflation pay rise or whatever so I know there's been lots going on working conditions but I'm in a leadership salary now and I've never been so skinned in all my life if I think just back 10 years ago where there was a bit more money around in the schools I'm not saying money was thrown at me but it was certainly thrown at me as a head of department where I had the opportunity to spend and invest in staff and facilities on the kids and it was happier times and happier times professionally for spending and working conditions and I was busy and the usual squeeze on timetables and things like that but I was happier personally I'm happier today though but financially it's harder 2014 you tell me anyone who's better off today I think the answer is going to be no and maybe moving on from that it's really the very exciting and free market world that you're entering with selling your resources maybe you could talk a bit about that and explain how that's come about so the blogging read to an editor at Bloomsbury Publishing to get in touch and say I want to rebrand the book so it was a hundred ideas brand and I wasn't going to say now I thought great because writing a book was never a dream but writing was so blogging was keeping me very happy so this is just a nice validation that it was working or it was well received on the other end so I grabbed that and as I told you earlier my first book within a few months got it out for the start of the last academic year and haven't had lots of meetings I've seen statistics within a year it's already I can't remember the exact data it's in the top five of education books over the last number of years per sales and that's again a nice validation but I was happy to write a book without getting into too much detail and upsetting Bloomsbury they make a handsome penny so I've learnt contracts and things like that and I've had several companies come to me and ask me for books but again I'm a teacher I'm a senior teacher I've got a job to do, books impact on my home life so I've refused a few and I've just stuck with Bloomsbury with what I know for now and I've got two more contracts with the possibility to write my own series and there's opportunities to have a teacher talk at app and things on the iPad I'm not quite sure yet but that's all we've discussed so that's really exciting and then you get to a point where you know writer's block and what I'm going to talk about but again I'm just going to come back to them writing about what I'm doing in my passion if that helps other people then great so there's all that and the other side is all the resources so traditionally I've put things online and I've had fingers burn and as you get with the power of social media I'm getting to that stage where I have to protect myself to a degree with licences and ownership and having put things on the TVS and having them removed or my moral or intellectual property taken away from me I've started to self host and that's then led to all sorts of stories and me then having the option to sell my own resources to help the financial difficulties we've experienced in the last three or four years at home and also to pay the petrol and it's not the only solution I will always share my thoughts and tweet and support because that's the generic characteristic of a teacher to support colleagues to support kids to share and to exchange ideas freely but I'm getting to that stage I will always do that so don't get me wrong but I'm at a stage where there's some things that are really hot property and there is a penny to be made and when companies approach me to do X, Y and Z they're making a buck so why can't I so there's been lots of ad hoc negotiations and deals along the way and there's been lots of decisions made on doing that this is mine, I'm going to do that and then that's led to sell-fi for example where I want to sell a resource but the five minute lesson plan has been quite a journey because a lot of people it's going to go digital next term so people will be able to a small little iPad program where they can tweak the headings and make it content for themselves and then it will save as a PDF making print it as evidence for a performance-related pay whatever whatever whatever so there's that option but then at a deeper level if they really get into that or it gets to a site-licence level for a school that a pay option then comes in so that's great for the company but at what point will I make a penny to pay for my petrol one month and not struggle financially because teacher conditions and the pinch on pensions puts me in a predicament I think you are at the forefront of something a lot of teachers are going to face in coming years that you've got many teachers with amazing ideas but at the moment effectively a given way for free on the TES side now absolutely and maybe, I don't know any thoughts on that really I mean not everyone will be able to do it everyone's got different circumstances people don't have time but I do make time to think about ideas and where to put them but with the world wide web as it is today teachers can do it for themselves and I guess teacher talk is a real great story of doing it for yourself and then opening so many doors when I've actually lost count of all the opportunities next week I'm going to the education reform summit and Michael Gove, Tristan Hunt Boris Johnson to be there at St James's Palace I'm just a normal guy who's doing something that I love and there will be thousands and thousands of teachers who have that same attitude that they love what they do they can do it for themselves you know your cynic might say you need a bit of ICT skill you need to have something to share there's all that Is there a room, I don't know Is there a room for more of a teacher co-operative thing perhaps the unions and other organisations haven't really no there's not been much thought the unions could do much more I've engaged through SLT chat with the DFE Ofsted and Ofcol through a Twitter channel where they are taking part and my blog has not significantly done anything but has I've seen Isted documents and proofread them and contributed before they went to print for the rest of the teacher profession and that's a result of blogging or Twitter channels and there's been a few others that have had that and now we see the DFE and whoever else having round table discussions with you know it might appear to be quite ad hoc and I still get frustrated that there's never many teachers involved in the process and there might be a reason for that one either they're not on Twitter and a lot of teachers aren't and there's a lot of teachers that do do not blog, that's a real minority and then there's teachers that actually don't care they just want to come teach, go home, be with family that's fine or there's teachers that might not be experienced enough and not know what to say rewind ten years I wouldn't know what to say and challenge policy but I'm in an experienced position now where I can which is maybe why I'm invited to a round table so teachers can do it for themselves union leaders are far behind they're not quite engaged with you know I've had a few party you know politics engage with me and ask me to write blogs and X, Y and Z but in terms of Twitter and a regular you know let's see the unions engage with grass root teachers they say they might survey their members and things like that but it's always not necessarily for grass root CPD it's more you hear all the other side of the working conditions which is important and the strike decisions which is important but not about teachers doing it for themselves taking stranglehold of their development and how their union can support them that's just one story but teachers can definitely do it do it for themselves we don't need huge companies having a stranglehold on the whole market those times are changed and I think lots of companies are starting to some are starting to realise that and they're starting to have to change the terms of conditions or their resources or their facilities and it's spoken to a lot of people who do contact me regularly to say can we do this or can you do this for me and look at the value of it for me as a teacher or the value of me kind of investing my time or the financial reward even and it's a real it's a real kind of tipping point I think and I think we will it will be one of those things that will naturally evolve through the online social media I think because it potentially could be very emancipatory in terms of the hole in the wall thing in India and the globalisation that your resources are available to someone the farthest reaches of earth just as long as they've got internet connection 5 minute plan as last count was 141 countries around the world it's been downloaded and used my blog is about 170 countries it's been read so anyone can do it and it is a freedom call for all teachers because if I suddenly found something inappropriate or some case study stories put it on my blog it spreads, it goes viral and then all of a sudden an off-stead or whoever have to think hang on a minute and those stories have happened and the more people that do it the more teachers can change policy and I think that's key so I kind of finished that answer on that really and finally just you know obvious question where next well I've got a new job as a deputy head I'm really excited about great body of staff great kids brilliant head teacher who I've known in another school so he's going to do some great stuff brand new building and as a design technology teacher I went on a tour around the other day and I was trying my hardest to keep calm environment is a significant factor and kids you know you can learn anywhere but an environment will make you really want to be at work as a teacher and I'll certainly want to make the kids stay in school for longer periods of time to do homework and learn to the best that they can so that's really exciting and I guess that's going to be you know x number of years doing that and who knows who knows what will happen head teacher is on the radar the words of Steven Drew who's on Twitter on TV now through education ethics he said you've got to be 100% ready you've got to have no doubt in your head and I don't have doubts I just know I'm not ready which is I suppose one doubt but that is the only doubt I do think I'll do a good job I do think I'll do passionately and love leading staff and love leading kids in the community but I'm not ready to do that yet I've got lots to learn still and with the writing the blogs that they're great and they're a huge distraction and then I'm getting lots of requests to speak at events so I've been invited to McGill University of all places in Montreal next February to talk about my book and leave an insert and again that's great it's kind of affirming but it's a huge workload you get a nice bit of cash but then you have to tell the tax man and then after all the calculations you kind of think is it worth it there's that discussion as well but it's great to get out and talk to people and share your ideas and if you can pay your petrol once a month then that's great but that's a huge extra bit of work as well so you've never contemplated just giving up teaching or going part-time three years ago I was made redundant before I started my current job so I took volunteer redundancy knowing I was going to become a father and then unbeknownst to me my boy was born three months early so I had garden leave which was handy really quickly and I had six months out and I won the Guardian Teacher Award I had a good 10 years ago now and I used that as a means to get into the garden and say look I won this award everyone else seemed to feel beat great stuff so I showed them some travel articles I've written and showed them to my son's blog that was inspiring that control and I got my first article I think it was about redundancy actually coping with redundancy was cool and it was written on the first week of September of me reflecting I'm not in school for the first time ever in 20 years and that's how that started so writing was a great part of it and at that point three years ago when I was made redundant I contemplated becoming a consultant or stepping back from teaching full time full time and I don't know what I do know what stopped me I wanted to be in the classroom I wanted to be in a school I loved the structure I loved the day-to-day interaction with the kids and the staff and all the ideas and still I'm in a nice position now I'm kind of the best of both I get events I can blog and share to the world and I can be in a school in a safe environment nine to five job nine to nine job but with a nice group of staff and great kids and do what I love and I suppose that's Do you find the kids how do the kids and staff react to your celebrity status but I've never seen myself as a celebrity but I have been in situations where I've seen people kind of double looking at the corner and saying I can see by the reactions they're thinking that of me and I always feel a bit awkward about it and I just want to come and say hello and I'll say look it's rough some teacher talk it you can do it too and I've been at conferences I've been at CPD events people saying on Twitter thanks for replying or emailing me saying I know you're busy but strangely when I went to my new school that was the first real time I've been in my own school environment where there was that bit of reaction and it was a bit embarrassing but I'm just rough I'm just doing my thing and I just want to share I found ad hoc in my current school staff read articles and I think they know that but we're quite just that earth here we just get on with it and you know you remember a staff someone might discover something online and it's mine and they'll say I saw that and that's cool but then there's the other side where so that's a bit weird but two or three years down the line if that's happening God help me in ten years time it's going to be crazy and there'll be a lot more people as well because there's definitely a Twitterati and then there's definitely a I do a negative side is I do see a Premier League evolving and a championship on social media and that could get quite dangerous but I think if we all you know all the other Twitterati that comes to your head as well if we all keep humble and remember it's grassroots and we're there to share and we're blogging and expressing our opinion and we might have a you know I started off with a hundred reads a day very humble and I carried on regardless because there wasn't one person and I got a bit of feedback and that was it and it's just gone it's just gone crazy and that's a nice validation but it's not the reason why I do it I'm just I'm just doing a bit of therapy really I'm writing and I'm sharing some ideas and now I'm in a stage where I can get instant feedback and that's what it is because I can improve my classroom practice improve my leadership and it benefits the school and it benefits people elsewhere and I think that's what's brilliant about it and why should everyone should do it and you shouldn't give up