 Hello everyone, this is Ross at Teacher Toolkit, the most influential blog on education in the UK today. I am lucky enough to be joined by Claire Keaton-Roberts, a teacher and academic. Good afternoon, Claire. Hi, Ross. Thank you for joining me. So just for context for everyone listening, Claire and I are at the Faculty of Education, or we were, Claire has just graduated in her doctorate. So congratulations, Claire. We met a couple of years ago, remember you said I'm in my sixth or seventh year and we were just chatting about the journey before we came on here, about the process. So what I'd like to do with you is to talk about your research to begin with. Could you just give everyone a, I know this is a really hard question, Claire, a synopsis, a 30 second synopsis of your research. Absolutely. I've always been very interested in educational leadership and for me, I've always said that leadership is about people, it's about understanding how people work together. And as I've progressed in my career, I've worked for a developing multi-cademy trust and I was really interested in how leaders work in a multi-cademy trust. So my research is a single case study of a multi-cademy trust and I'm really focused on this idea of what it's like for leaders working in multi-cademy trust. And I defined that as head teachers, as senior leaders, as governors and centralised team as well. And for the first time, it's a piece of research that's set back from concentrating on outcomes. So the multi-cademy trust supports positive outcomes for children, but actually looking at what it feels like and what it looks like for leaders within multi-cademy trust. Okay, fascinating. So we'll come back to the kind of details of that. How does it feel to have graduated? It was quite a recent thing for you, wasn't it? Yeah, I did my FIBA in end of September. And yeah, it was amazing. I had a bit of a turbulent time in that I was pregnant as I submitted and then I had the baby and then I did my FIBA. So I've had a really busy couple of months but it was really lovely to be able to talk about my research and to have a professional... So teachers that don't really know the details of how that's conducted. Describe, you probably did it virtually, I suspect, but describe the kind of experience, the process, the people that are involved of how many, how long it's for, that type of stuff. So you submit your written thesis, so usually about 80,000 words, and then eight weeks after you do a FIBA, which is essentially, they call it a defense of your thesis, which I always think is quite scary. But you choose your examiners. You have an internal examiner at your institution and an external examiner, which is great because you can choose someone who's really vested in your research and has some strong expertise in the area. And then eight weeks after submission, you do... It was absolutely like this. It was virtual and they have questions to ask. They've read your research in advance and so they want to just sort of delve a little deeper into the choices that you've made. It was about, mine was about an hour long and it didn't feel scary, to be honest. Find any really hard questions that you couldn't answer or do you think you were well equipped? Yeah, no, I think it was okay, actually. It wasn't too bad. There was one that flew through me right at the end, which was, what do you think Hargreaves would say about your research? And I thought that was, it was a nice way to finish. It got me to really reflect on what I've done. But yeah, no, it was fine. Great. So the process of the Viva, I'm curious as do you think there are certain experiences throughout your doctorate that might inform your life as a teacher? And I'm quite fascinated in the Viva process for an appraisal methodology squeezed into a year where the teacher sets their own target and it's critiqued with school leaders, and maybe a mentor in their school. So that's my thinking, but what will tell me some of the things that you've experienced through your doctoral process that have influenced your work back at school? For me, well, for leaders, I think that schools, that's a work at such a fast pace. We're sometimes making decisions that sometimes we don't have the time to think and properly reflect on why we're doing those things. And then we end up doing things, that aren't the right things at the right time. And I think doing the doctorate has helped me to stop reflect and try to understand what the existing research, existing thoughts around that particular process is to then make an informed decision. And that balance between the rigor of academic writing and the fast pace of schools is what makes it really hard to marry those two worlds together. And for me, it's made me a better leader because I'm more informed in my approach. But it did mean that my research at times was a bit sketchy because I would do it at the time I was working in a school to try to get it. I mean, my life now kind of freelance and trying to support schools from a different perspective, it's really hard to battle that kind of, well, not only the self-employment pressure from the pandemic, but just that nature of working in normal circumstances and then trying to settle down to deep work when you've got lots of external forces, pulling you away from what you want to do. How has the whole lockdown experience been for you? I guess that the frame is different as a parent and as a teacher. So maybe let's start as a parent first. So I also have a four-year-old. So she isn't quite at school yet, but she was meant to be going to nursery and she really missed her friends and my husband's a teacher as well. So we're both at home trying to teach our online lessons whilst having a toddler that didn't quite understand what was going on. So I massively sympathise with families who've got more than one child. As a teacher, I think very quickly we've learned to adapt to working online and I think I had shied away from it before. I think a bit nervous and didn't know much about online working and that's massively changed. I'm a lot more confident with that now. Something I'll be using in teaching forever more, but yeah, it's been a very strange time. How has your school, what have been the highlights since March 2020 for your school shifting curriculum, adapting to remote teaching? How has it been? Yeah, so I think we have constantly been slowly changing things to ensure that we're keeping up with what's going on. But I think the approach we had to the remote teaching was excellent. We've got a massive school, we're like in a huge school with over 400 children in each year group. So the challenge for us doing live lessons was whether to include all staff and have it in the small classes or whether we should stream it for whole year groups. And I think we did a bit of both to understand the best way to go. And I think we settled in the half medium in the end. But yeah. So what's it like now? You know, you're locked down technically, schools are open, kids are in, you might have one or two self-isolates. And what are the pressures that you're under? I think it's a completely new way. I think the pressures on staff is obviously a huge change, a completely new way of working. The bubble system, so to give you an example of our school having 400 in a huge group, we have year group bubbles and they're spread out around the school. And what it seems like is that we have lots of mini schools rather than one big school. So although that change was really difficult to manage and really difficult for people to understand, it's actually produced something really lovely because we have these mini schools that have a stronger sense of community. We have the heads of years and the assistant heads of year able to do some really intricate work over a small physical space, not the large campus that we're used to. And I think that's been a real strength actually and it's going to change how we approach the physical being of our buildings and the structure of our lessons. I've heard quite a few stories that there are some positive consequences, I guess, of the virus making people rethink about how they'll approach things. Have you had any cases of the staff? Yes, we have had a few, yeah. So it's interesting because I'm looking at the unions and calling for transparency, calling for the government to fund schools to cover those costs. With that going into too much confidential details, what have been the key messages around your leadership team in terms of where real difficult decisions are to be made? It's quite difficult for me to answer that actually, Ross, because I'm actually maternity leave again. So I'm a little bit attached from that sense. So you're kind of observing at a distance in some... So you've been at home since when? Maternity? So my maternity started July, but I've been at home since March. So let's just shift on slowly to kind of life as a teacher, the kind of flexible working agenda. What are your thoughts? I mean, I'm sure at some point it's either cross your mind or it's something you might want to speculate in the future. I don't know, I don't want to get too personal, but how is flexible working from your perspective? So I worked full-time before having my first daughter, and then I went to 0.9 and 0.8 and flitted between 0.9 and 0.8. And really that was for me to complete my research because I'm a strong believer that a weekend for me is my family time. And so I always had Monday to Friday as my work time. I would have family time between five and seven, and then put the child to bed, and then I would do a little bit more work. So I think the challenge that parents have, and particularly women as well, is having that cut-off period between work and being a parent, and not to be really hard on yourself. Because my daughter's four now, and I found it extremely hard to not, I would say to myself, I'm not being a brilliant colleague, or I'm not being brilliant parents, and I think that's okay. You can't be the best person you want to be all the time. So what advice have you been giving yourself? You know, if we talk about this mental health discussion, how do you, you know, that perfectionism that we all have, especially as teachers, how do you manage that? I have battled with that. I have really battled with it. And for me, I have to, with my work stuff, I have to draw a line and say, that can wait. That can wait till tomorrow. That can wait till whenever it can wait to, and prioritize. And I hear these words, and I hear people give me that advice five, 10 years ago, and it didn't mean anything. And there's probably people listening saying, oh, yeah, everyone says that, but you have to be so strict with yourself to taking your emails off the phone, not be intense to have a look at your emails over the weekend. It's really, really important. So I'm sure you are, you know, obviously maternity and lockdown and things like that, but what tips would you give to new teachers in particular who are joining the profession at this time? I've started in September, dealing with lockdown, dealing with remote teaching, all the mental health. Give us maybe one or two insights or stories and what would be your top tip? Wow, my top tip. And I think it's so hard for trainee teachers and NQTs at the minute, because my top tip would always be to observe, observe, observe. And I remember in my training year, wanting to just get into the classroom and have a go myself and slowly realising that I wish I'd seen a lot more people do things in different ways. So for me, it'd be observing all the time. But it's gonna be hard right now, isn't it? Absolutely, absolutely. At the minute, just say please do not be hard on yourself. Please do not push yourself to try to be the best, most amazing teacher because we are all struggling through this completely new way of working. And that goes for the children as well. They're working in a completely different way. Be kind, be kind to yourself. And for school leaders, when my life as a deputy is do your work after school hours or first thing in the morning. I used to do the cover. So I was in my desk at six o'clock, 6.30 sometimes before the kids and staff started to come in. And then I knew I was dealing with their agendas, not necessarily mine. What would be your top tip for school leaders at this time? You know, with all the government announcements, all the pressures managing staff, mental health as well as kids and parents. It's very hard to prioritise, but what would, where would you... Yeah, and for me, I think the reason why I've seen your leadership team is called a team. It's because you have to be so supportive of each other. And I think we often, as senior leaders, forget about our own mental health. And sometimes we portray an image that we are invincible and we are there to fight all the fires and support all our staff all the time. And I personally make a point, saying to my headteacher, are you okay? And genuinely mean, and are you okay? Because what we're doing at the minute is really hard. And actually articulating that, because when you're muddling through things, it's really easy to get lost in the sort of operational things and not have the time to sort of reflect on how you've been and about things. And that goes for really difficult things like dealing with staff and the staff contracting COVID and students contracting COVID. And it's so important that we sit and we just reflect and ask each other how we are doing and what we can do to help each other. Good, thank you. I want to return back to your research only for probably selfish reasons for myself because I've got to go through this journey that you've been through. But I also want to kind of pitch it for teachers who are really interested in research and want to kind of know maybe that journey that you have to go on. And I know you've kind of done a huge body of work over six, seven, eight years. So won't do it justice to squeeze it in two or three minutes, I know. But what were you top tip for a teacher that was curious about starting a doctorate? So a doctorate has to be an original contribution to knowledge. So first of all, you need to have an idea of something you might be interested in researching. And then you need to take a moment to see what's out there already from a literature point of view. Because if someone's already done it, then it might stand up as a piece of research. Read as much as you can, because as you go into the doctorate, there will be an interview to get us the course. And you'll be pitching your idea. And it's a bit like Dragon's Den, you're trying to persuade the university that this research is worthwhile and it needs doing and it needs doing now. So have an idea of what you might want to do and read around it to get a better idea of what already exists. Now, I think I've personally grasped the methodologies, the kind of mixed methods that you can explore. Could you just articulate to listeners the method that you used, how you grappled trying to identify where which path to go down and what benefit it had of selecting your particular approach? The research methods in itself is a complex field and depending on what you're studying lends itself to the methodology you choose. And because I was looking at perceptions of leaders and experience of leaders, for me it was always about a case study of these leaders' stories. And I did that through interviews. I could have done it through questionnaires, but I chose interviews because it's very personal. It's very, you can really understand and you can sort of delve a little bit deeper into individuals' perceptions and stories over time. I haven't added element to my research is that it was longitudinal. So I had two data collection points that were three years apart, which also added to the unique nature of my research is understanding a multi-cadric trust over a period of time rather than one period of time. And how did you get into a rhythm of writing and reading regularly? To be honest, I don't think I did. It was very ad hoc. Before lockdown, I would religiously on a Saturday go to a coffee shop and just do writing there because I didn't have any distractions. And I enjoyed that and then lockdown happened. And to be honest, lockdown saved my doctorate because I was stuck in the house and all I could really do is do my writing. The bit at the end is particularly difficult because you have all of the data coming in and things like that. Like referencing and bibliographies. So what are your top tips there for someone who's still got to dabble with all that? And pull my finger out. What will be your top tip? So bibliography, definitely use the piece of software that will help you with that, like Zotero. Because you will end up having 200 to 400 different papers that you'll be referencing. In terms of the referencing, I made a bit of a mistake. I had to do a lot of work at the end. Make notes of what you're referencing all the time. Have it in one central place. You can flick back. I ended up having quite a few research journals. But over eight years, there was a lot of flicking through to try to find which paper that was from. And I wish I had recorded that a lot better, to be honest. Now, I'm curious, what from the experience of your doctorate, what things have you learned that you now apply into your life as a school leader? So my research was about a leadership in the Multicademy Trust. And one of the things that I found is that leaders were not sufficiently aware of of understanding the trust they're working in, sometimes this generalisation here. And so for me, it's made me a lot more aware of the trust I'm working in. It's made me ask questions about the trust and how I can, as a leader, support the trust and how the trust can support me as a leader. And so, personally, it's made me ask some questions about my leadership. And what impact or what do you think you're going to do next now it's published? So I'm really interested in working in newly formed Multicademy Trusts and those that are established but are asking other academies to join. Because I think there is a body of work that we could be doing where trusts are really articulating to schools and to leaders what it means to be in their trust, what it means in terms of their, you know, uniform policies, where they stand on these type of things. And if that isn't clearly articulated, I found in my research that leaders get very frustrated and they're not entirely sure the purpose of the trust. Yeah, absolutely all about purpose, particularly working in schools. So we've gone past our 20 minute barrier, Claire, and I warned you before we came on that I'm going to fire loads of quick fire questions at you. Not necessarily a quiz. I want to kind of catch you off guard. My performance has not been very good of late. So but I'm going to try my hardest and see how we get on. So I'll start with some easy ones. And what project are you working on at the moment? Raising a baby. Raising a baby. OK, what books are you reading for fun? Hello, magazine. OK, what's the kind of kids cartoon that you're currently engrossed in that you're now in the songs to your kids? How frozen to frozen to. OK, a piece of advice for a teacher who's starting to get interested in all this cognitive science research. Read, read, read, have an opinion. Form your own opinion. Dream job. Now, I'm a human doctoral research and teaching is your dream job. But what's that one off the wall career that you wish you'd done? Ballet dancer. Ballet dancer, fantastic. And what's your biggest career achievement today? That's a hard one. Oh, creating a building a really positive and well-formed team within the team on working with them in it. OK, great. Three positive characteristics that you know you're working in a great multi-academy trust? Collaboration, openness and transparency. OK, what did you have for dinner last night? He's a hard Ross. All right, so I'm testing your memory recall. Lamb. Lamb, very nice. There wasn't seasons. Who would you recommend I interview next and why? And then that's a very hard question. Toby Greeny, because he is the girl. Toby, yeah, OK. He's a multi-academy trust. And why Toby? He, the stuff he's writing at the minute about multi-academy trust and where they are positioned at the minute is really forward thinking. OK, fantastic. And where can listeners connect with you more, you know, read your work or connect online, you know, Twitter, blogs, websites? Yeah, so I'm on Twitter at Music Seahood and I will share with the world my published work when I get around to it. I'll direct it to the baby. My final question, Claire, and what would you hope to be a legacy? In terms of my research, in terms of everything. Anything, anything and everything. I want teachers, I want leaders, I want people I work with to know that I care about them and to know that they are doing a good job and that good job is appreciated. Fantastic, what a lovely way to end. So, Dr. Claire Keaton Roberts. And thank you so much for your time. It's been a real pleasure. Really, congratulations. Haven't seen you go on your journey or at least a latter half of it. And you got your hands full there at home. But I look forward to your research being public and seeing what impact it has, the multi-academy trust dialogue in England in particular, as you'll know, is very vast, transparent in places, opaque in other parts. So, it would be a fantastic contribution and I wish you all the world with the rest of your maternity leave, lockdown and everything else. So, thanks, Claire, very much. Right, thanks, Vars.