 Hello everybody thank you for joining us just to make sure you're in the right place this should be that you signed up to because you never know. An LBQ webinar where we're talking about staff shortage we're going to kick off formally in about 10 or 20 seconds or so. So just bear with us and I'm sure you're all zoom pros at the chat box, the your comments your questions come to me only so that just allows everybody to focus on the discussion. There's no slides, we're going to have a little bit of a talking heads, sharing ideas, those types of things so if you're familiar with the zoom I'll just put hello in the chat box, there you go so you can see where that is so the messages come to me. And this recording will be shared so it will be circulated through the event bracket ticket page, and we'll stick it on our YouTube channels to. So it's just come past four o'clock, I'm going to kick off formally. So welcome, my name's Ross McGill and I'm on teacher toolkit, former school leader, a bit of a blogger and I got a little small audience online where I like to kind of share lots of ideas and when I'm not struggling with my doctoral degree, I am physically and more increasingly digitally in the school supporting teacher training and trying to find out great ideas that make a difference to our teachers and to our young people in schools all over the country and I'm lucky enough to be joined by two experts still on the front lines when I introduced them in a moment now if I just give you a heads up I want you to introduce yourself your role and tell us something interesting about yourself that's not related to school. And so, let me just formally kick things off. The title this session dealing with COVID staff shortage issues now in my former life as a school leader managing cover for a secondary school in Westminster London 250 staff 2000 pupils was a headache day to day at the best of times throughout COVID I suspect it is a bit of a nightmare and there are two years of perhaps dealing with this. There are certain things that we can do to optimize and reduce margins, etc make things a little bit easier. But how do you make sure that learning still happening when there are fewer teachers to do the teaching looking at a few government announcements earlier today. The average is about 10% of staff at this is at the moment. So, be interested to hear what Sam unless you have to say in terms of their attendance patterns for staff. The skills across the country. Well here from Samsung beads, Roman Catholic primary school has been hit with staff shortages as well. And their attendance issues because of the pandemic. And this has led to a variety of issues in and out of the classroom whether it's widening learning gaps. And we know people are focusing on curriculum changes and supporting pupils with their mental health so we'll have I'm going to ask Sam to introduce himself first and then we'll also hear from Alicia sure who works at the shine class. So, at least if you can tell us a little bit more about the trust and how you're also dealing with the shortages and then we'll get into the formality of going through a lot of questions I want to post and just to unpick. And some of the issues and some of the solutions that have been dealing with and then for people watching and people watching live pose your questions in the chat box they come to me only and I'll ask them on your behalf and we'll also talk about the LGBTQ software which we're fortunate enough they're hosting this event and brought us all together and I'll talk about my experiences of using that software as well as hearing from Sam. And Alicia so that's enough from me and Sam can I ask you first, you your role and something interesting and outside of education what what keeps you excited and motivated and looking after your mental health in particular. Hello everyone I'm just going to move because the light sensors just said that I've gone to sleep so I'm just. Well, there you go. I'm Sam. Deputy Head, yes it's teacher and Senko at Catholic Primary School in Newcastle, Central Newcastle just at the outskirts. Love my job. What's interesting to me about me outside of education I'm a new dad for a six month old daughter who slept in her own room this weekend so fantastic bags are slightly smaller. And I'm also a Newcastle natives fan and that certainly. I don't know if excitement is the right word. Keep your emotions busy but um, yeah congratulations on becoming a parent I suspect now you realize what real tiredness is compared to teaching right thank you Sam Alicia. Hey, so I'm Alicia short I work at shine and we are a charity based in Leeds, and our aim is to reduce the attainment gap between kids from low income families and then more people and peers, and we particularly focus on the north of England. We are a grant giving charity so we give grants to schools and teachers who have got innovative ideas about how they can reduce that gap so if you've got any innovative ideas. Have a look at our website or feel free to get in touch with one of us and we give grants of various different sizes just to projects lasting up to three years. We don't work directly with schools. So we haven't sort of had the the impact of staff absences that I'm sure Sam has, although members of our team have been off since Christmas because of covered. But we do hear a lot from schools that we work with about the challenges that they're having and the delays that happening to the projects that they're trying to run because of the challenges of staffing and attendance kids attendance as well and parents coming into school because of and something interesting about me. I guess that something that I do that I find really helps with my mental health is getting outside a lot going for walks and sort of getting into nature. And that's it I thought you're going to forget that I wasn't going to lay off the hook so thank you Alicia for sharing that I guess from me and having lived and worked in London for 30 years. I'm one of those that left the big smoke in the pandemic so I'm now in Halifax, Yorkshire. And I absolutely love the outdoors up here so you know further away you move from the southeast the more space. And so my favorite word at the moment is diaphanous and I think it's because I've been learning more about nature and planting lots of trees and all sorts of things and really enjoying the outdoors. Right, let's get into some formalities and so Sam will start with you. What's the situation at St B to tell us a little bit about the school your demographics etc and how it reflects the kind of national struggle that all schools have been through particularly last 18 months. Yeah, so we are the West End in Newcastle, which is a real. I described as like a melting pot really we've got all sorts of different children from all sorts of different backgrounds were about 25% people premium 25% English is additional language and got a higher than average amount of children on the SCN register. A growing number of people with autism that's a bit of context for us and we're right in the middle of a countless days we've got no green space whatsoever which provides other challenges. And in terms of the picture of the last couple of years it's been really tough, our families have really struggled, our schools really struggled. And as much as maybe as we're okay budget wise to taking a real hit over the last sort of particular the last few terms with absences of staff and we're a close knit family. And then one of us goes down we don't just suffer in terms of worrying about that member of staff being off we're also suffering because that means cover it's pulled you know your support staff is no longer support staff they're doing someone else's job. I think myself in the head over the last two years of being cooks with being cleaners with being caretakers with being in men with being, you know, you name it we've done it. All hours of the day and I'm sure I'm speaking to many people are in a similar situation. We've had various outbreaks where children have, you know, picked up COVID and it's spread and we've had, you know, quite a few children off. We've had times where, you know, we're waiting for PCR results but we're feeling healthy but we can't be in school we've had all of these things that everyone's gone through. And it's been a real, you know, real tough place to be it's made everyone question whether what they're doing is the right thing to do. It's made everyone look, you know, look for answers. You know, I'm fortunate enough I'm quite active online and I'm looking around on Twitter to see what else is going on out there but I know lots of schools in our area on as connected as maybe as we are. And it can be a really lonely place it can be nice, you know, an isolated profession at the minute where you know you're reading the press and teachers are getting a bit of a pattern and then you go into work and you're really stuck against it anyway. You're part of a trust, Sam, your school. Yeah, we've just, we've recently joined a bigger multi-academy trust as part of the Catholic schools up here and the Newcastle sort of local authority kind of disbanded a few years ago and so there's lots of the support that lots of local authorities might give we don't really get you have to look privately for that and when you look for private support you can face different kinds of challenges and different kind of hurdles. So, yeah, I mean, just my starting to see the benefits of that now, and I say we're only six months in. Right, so I mean, I guess the earlier part of the pandemic you could have, you know, you could have quite rightly felt quite isolated as a staff body. So, in terms of the reminders of the kind of demographics, how many form entry are you in? One form entry, we haven't got in history but 210 kids from reception to six. Okay, lovely. So I'll come back to you, Sam, thanks for that, that's an interesting context. Alicia, you know, your insights, you know, supporting lots of different schools across the country. What's the national picture? You know, we've heard lots of stories about disadvantaged kids being left behind. What insights have you unpicked from Shine based in Leeds? Well, as you both said, the picture on the media and on social media gives you a pretty good but bleak idea of what's happening. So, as Ross said before, the survey seemed to be suggesting between 10 and 20% of staff are absent. And that's pretty reflective of the sort of conversations that we're having with schools. So, for example, I spoke to a teacher in a secondary school in Leeds the other day, who spoke about the fact that they've got 10 teachers and seven teaching students due to COVID at the moment, really struggling to get any supply cover and so that's obviously really affecting the learning of the children at their school as it is having an effect on sort of thousands of children across the North. It's just an ongoing challenge, isn't it, with the lack of staff and the challenges with supply, with binding supply staff. And we all know that it's resulting in children potentially having to be sent home for online learning or having to, schools having to combine classes and year groups so that they can, they can teach the schools, teach the children, sorry. And for the children who are being sent home, it affects all children but it seems to affect disadvantaged children more profoundly than children from more affluent homes. National analysis of data nationally shows that the attainment gap has been exacerbated by the pandemic. There are loads of different reasons for that. It's been a really challenging pandemic for everybody but I think we can see the challenges if you are living in a low income, in a low income household with less resources, potentially with less time and the online learning has been really challenging for a lot of kids from low income families because of lack of resources, lack of access to the internet has really sort of deepened that attainment gap. I don't know if anybody saw some data that was presented by the FFT education data lab last week about the differences in absences between children from low income families and those from more affluent families that the kids who in the FSM six group had much higher levels of absence and were much more likely to have had really, really long periods of absence than their more affluent peers and so it's all just adding to this picture where we already had a gap, an attainment gap that was not acceptable before the pandemic, but lots of different reasons and the pandemic has just exacerbated it. Lisa what kind of things have schools been getting in contact with you about in terms of what are their kind of urgent needs that you were you would normally the kind of support that you would offer as a trust. So we, we tend to offer support, as I said around innovative ideas to reduce the education gap. We tend to focus on the transition into primary school and the transition from primary secondary school because we know that those are really fundamental areas where the gap can grow. It's really important to make sure that kids from low income families are keeping up. We've been hearing from schools that, especially the sort of the nursery settings and reception sessions that we talked to the staff are really concerned that that gap is is bigger than they've ever seen before. That everybody's coming in, so the average level of language and communication and social skills that kids are coming up in with is sort of lower on average, but that particularly for the kids from disadvantaged families. So an early as teacher from Blackpool recently who are saying that she's really noticed that children from low income families are coming in with much lower levels of communication language that they did in the past. And it's always a good reminder that you know if you think of a year three student they've not they've had two years of, you know, no steady schooling at all impact on all the different new groups. I'll see. Sam, if I come back to you thank you Alicia. How have you cope with staff shortages so you know, I don't know if you can give us some statistics you know staff attendance and things like that over the last couple of years or this term, and come to some of the strategies that you're you're doing to deal with these problems. Um, I haven't necessarily got numbers off the top of my head but I've got sort of anecdotes that staff shortages have come in different ways so we've had some people who have been ill themselves who are often you know and understandably ill, and maybe it's longer than the two weeks of the old isolation period, and we've had some staff who are off intermittently whether they're going for PCR test or they've been close contact or whatever. But it feels like when we talk about this pandemic it's like various different eras isn't it and some of them feel like a lifetime ago. So juggling that short term absences whether it's a day or an afternoon or you know a couple of days while waiting for a result, or whether it's prolonged it's been a real Valentine act, and we're lucky that we've got a couple of members of staff who are HLTAs so can soap in and do some cover. And we're kind of felt a bit of a responsibility at the same time to not reach out to supply teaching as much. I guess in the early stages we were like don't necessarily want new staff coming into the school we don't want to put them at risk we don't want to put our community at risk. So it was like a real, it was like a moral decision isn't it to decide whether we're going to try and bring somebody else in to help piece staff shortages in school or whether we're going to close the doors and keep outsiders out you know what I mean. So we've tried to use as much cover as possible we've used goodwill of staff a lot of the time where you're losing that extra member of staff in your class. And as Alicia has just said, you know that's also impacting on our children from those, you know, the income families, or SCN children and things like that who've got this designated support. It's been really hard. And there's never been a case where I felt that we've done everything right, had to make sacrifices. You know I had a teaching assistant full time, and then for a number of months because of various cover one after the other, after the other. I lost my support so I was teaching solo, and as a deputy head and Senko, you know that's going to have an impact on me so I'm working more, more into the, you know into the afternoons in the evenings because I've got so much stuff to do because I've missed my, my leadership time. So we've been looking really for whatever we can to try and pull back some of that control and make sure that the learning still take place and make the staff are feeling valued. We've tried our best to scrap direct time for an extended period of time so staff have got a little bit more freedom to leave a bit earlier after school is a bit of a wellbeing boost. We've pulled in things and I know we'll go on to talk about more, pulling things like learning by questions that is a bit of a time to it's a massive time saver in terms of planning and assessment and ensuring that that learning is still taking place. We've really had a box clever and it's not, it's not been easy and it's still not easy, but you know that the whole time there's a few things at play. The kids have missed out on a lot. You said that some of the, you know, my year sixes didn't have a full year of school since year three. They've missed out a lot of learning. We've got a real catch up agenda recovery curriculum, whatever you want to call it. We need to make sure that's happening. We've got staff who are already on their knees because they've worked so hard and we've got, you know, we've got to look after them too if they've been through it. And then we've got the families who are really relying on us to understand the situation. Some of them are scared still. Some of them, you know, are worried about their children being passed even now two years on. Yeah, it's been in place really. I am so I know LBQ really well but maybe one or two people watching are not familiar with this as a potential solution to help with staff shortages keep learning going online as well as in school. Can you give us a little synopsis of what it is and what can it do. It's, it's basically, it's basically a complete teaching tool. So it's a bank of question sets which cover all different, you know, shapes and sizes lessons, particularly English maths and science and I can set a question set online to my kids. Click of a button. It'll distribute a code onto my screen. The children log on and whatever device they've got. We're lucky enough to be part of the shine project where we've got some tablets in our class that are specific for our learning by questions. The kids log on, take the code. They access this, you know, this question set. They work through at their own pace. They're given prompts are given little reminders itself. Tess has marked it moves them on at their own pace. And it gives me instant feedback through through my teacher screen so I can see who's doing well who's struggling who needs support and pause the lesson bring up on screen, use it as a teaching point. It is all encompassing. So I've got questions set already that are of a great standard of all different sort of levels and abilities. I've got access to the kids on a one to one level. And then it's got that instant feedback. So I know lbq and it's a fabulous bit of software. I think the best thing is one, it saves you marking to really holds kids to account and helps with their learning journey. And that immediate assessment that you get as a teacher on your dashboards just fabulous. And I know there's lbq kind of stuff in this session watching maybe they can correct me but last time I I believe 60 to 80,000 questions on their database I think at least maybe might be one or two off but it's a fun phenomenal resource so if you're not familiar with it do check it out. Sam what's pupil attendance been like for you at St beads. And although you've used lbq to support that and many other things and what's been your attendance like throughout the pandemic. And there was a massive day last Friday where I had full class for the first time this year. Which just sort of illustrates it and it's, it's kind of the theme throughout school. And I know the figures that Alicia was talking about earlier on would definitely, would definitely different dip and beneath that. That national figure. And I would say at its worst classes have had up to 16 children off at its best will probably only had one or two up in each class. So I've never, I had my past full for the first time last week in the schools never had all children in even on the first day. And opening in the 80s percentage wise, which is really, which is really sad. It reflects that national picture, I suppose. I'm going to come back to you Sam on lbq and preparing for sats and your thoughts on exams and stuff and I jumped back to Alicia. I guess schools struggle financially. We know budgets are not enough and we know a lot of schools have been picking up the flak for, you know, cover budgets, etc. I guess the question is when it comes to tablets and resources and what can shine do to support our schools could you tell people watching a little bit more about the kind of things that you can offer. Definitely. So, a few years ago shine awarded a grant to learning by questions for schools specifically in the Northeast, so that they can access learning by questions, and they've got sort of the funding to do that. So the grant allows schools in disadvantage areas to access the resources they need to take part in the project and to try using lbq. We've spoken about what lbq is it's an online tool which gives children question sets and then immediate feedback on how they've done. So obviously to be able to use that you need to have some kind of tablet or laptop or computer desktop computer the children can use. So our funding allows provides teachers with the, the, I think they're all tablets aren't they sorry. They're all tablets and the pupils can use and they provide some of the funding towards the lbq subscription as well. So there's some slots still available for schools in the Northeast to have this funding so that they can trial lbq, they get all the technology that they need. And so, yeah, again touch with school you don't think right I can get some money and when's the deadline. What do I need to do where I don't need to go any links anything like that you can share. You need to get in touch with not some keys but some way right who is currently hasn't got his screen on but you can get in touch with Sam. And Sam will be able to talk to you about whether or not you meet our criteria and yeah how you can move forward with that. Okay so we'll share the links in the ticket list if you've signed up to this to watch this live and people watch the link in the, the kind of details sorry Alicia. You know just the sooner those seven slots filled up the better from our point of view because we want kids to be accessing this, this great intervention as soon as they can. But we're certainly hoping that all of them will be filled up by the summer. So there you go so get some funding and some devices fantastic thank you Alicia. Thank you. No cost for schools managing your budget, you know, me my life as a kind of school leader and then evolving into a blog and seeing all these resources come my way and all these end tech solutions for years and then all through through the pandemic has been an explosion of them all. And we've all got a good understanding of how much the cost and what value they have and obviously we want to use things that we know will make a difference etc. I guess lots of questions how does lbq compared to other things that you use you know the kids the things that kids are logging into daily and you know is it good value for money. Yeah, and I'll start by saying just quickly that shine project, it was a revelation for us and it was so easy to go through the loop that we needed to go through to get on board with that so definitely if you're in the northeast. No, not at all and we haven't got time you know what it's like. Our email boxes inboxes are full of, as you said all of these solutions that are going to be the game changers that are going to save our time our money all of this stuff. And ultimately, if it doesn't stick, it's not going to work is it. And if it costs too much, we can't afford it. I'm learning my questions and again I don't work for them I'm just an advocate I started like many people do with with learning my questions I saw Mr booth on Twitter years ago telling me that it was brilliant. I did a little trial and before the sats one year. The kids loved it so automatically there was buying from them. It was saving me loads of time. It was getting me away from that for a couple years so I decided to sign up and just as it happened as I was going to sign up the time project had a space so we went through it. I'm going to try all of these different products, but, like I said, claim to be the next big thing. This is the cheapest of the products that we've signed up for and it's had the most impact, and they put it in simple terms. And like I said, the kids love it so it does become a daily thing. Like I've said before, it's saving me time it's saving the school money and it's it's really led to some great games with kids. Have you found yourself, you know, where you've had to you know collapsing classes and team teaching or in the whole you know that the usual scenarios. Yeah there's been different setups like that there was one scenario where I was waiting for PCR results. I was absolutely fit and well fine, but I couldn't be in school. But I knew that I needed to teach it was it was a fractions lesson and you did something before I came back to school the next day or the day after whenever these results came. And I knew that I could have learning by questions on I could set questions set from home. I emailed the code to my teaching assistant who's in the class to run the lesson. And I had the data so I knew that the next day that my lesson was fine. You know, at one point in the pandemic, I wasn't allowed to say books for 72 hours or something like that happened quarantine because of the various rules going on. And then it was like so I'm teaching this lesson on Monday. I don't know how they've put on until Thursday, but I've got to teach Tuesday and Wednesday in between. You just have to you have to change the way you do things and learn about questions let us do that because I had that instant feedback and I could plan, you know, plan accordingly. Are you are you now in a position where all your kids have access to a device at least in school. We're not the whole school where we're in a looking position where we've got lots of devices, but because of the learning by questions devices that we've got as part of the shame project. My class have got them, you know, all through the day every day. If you know sometimes you plan to use learning by questions and that's going to be the main party lesson sometimes it's like, oh my days they've flown through that task. They need to give them more learning by questions is then the tablets being there's been great. Sometimes you have some children that maybe need something slightly different and learning by questions and cut that in half. See as we haven't got the photo copy for another task. You know, one example was when I did start the fractions topic. I was doing this lesson on equivalent fractions and I sort of did my introduction as I've done for however many years I've been in Essex and had a couple of well I had many blank faces looking at me and I was like, I'm going to check what's going on here. And one of the children says, what are those numbers with the line in between? And I said, do you mean a fraction? I said, yeah. And I said, and I stopped from when I thought, right, the last full year in school was year three. Well, it will have had fractions introduced in a basic level. Yeah, therefore, they left halfway through fractions hadn't been taught the five teachers cloud so much effort into the basic skills that fractions probably being scraped on this stuff. Some of these year six kids haven't seen what a fraction was. And I had this worksheet that was the Essex level equivalent fractions. I thought, well, I can't give them back. Yeah, well, my son's in year six now and I know that, you know, you know, one example of millions of kids but he was he loved maths but he's a bit maths averse now to be fair because of that routine being destroyed in some respects. So that's the only question of preparing for sats and things like that, Sam. And how are you six, you know, let's ignore the thoughts about sats and all that. You know what what you're doing day in there to just get kids in a better place and you know that's that preparation, etc. What does all that look like. That's a massive advocate of not making schools factories and not plowing papers into them every five minutes. You know, yes they need to see what they look like and be comfortable with that before it gets to me but I'm all about giving them that experience in a nicer way. So the fact that the kids love learning by questions and love being on those devices and love having to go. It means that I can sort of feed practice without it being, you know, that formal sitting down answering the test paper type thing. And we've got sats boosters that we're having a breakfast club three days a week where it's volunteering the kids come in, we use learning by question to that really nice friendly environment where the kids enjoy being there. Yeah, we'll try to give them as diverse an experience as possible without, you know, plowing past papers in front of their face. And give me a sense of kind of your general staff, you know, I suspect staff are exhausted but I know teachers as ever are always up for the challenge and go above and beyond. What's the mood on the ground in your school. I'm really lucky to have staff that we have in school. Everyone's chipping in everyone's helping out interventions are happening, you know, all over the place. We're not doing it for that we're doing it for the kids we're doing it for the kids to be ready for the next step on their journey which is high school really. We've got a real understanding that lots of the kids in our area, possibly suffered more than more than others in that, you know, we have got lots of low income families who didn't access much through the first lockdown, needed devices sent to them that maybe took a little bit longer than they should have done. You know, that's by the by. But yeah, there's a real atmosphere in this school that we're a community that, you know, the kids come first and we need to do all we can for them. Often, you know, you know what teachers are like, we often put others before ourselves, don't we, the expense of our wellbeing and we'd never make that a directive to staff but it's definitely what they're trying to do. I'm going to bring a listen but Sam I'm going to come back to you and ask you just for just general well being things that you've done to support your staff but Alicia, you're aware of what St Beads is doing with the funding for LBQ devices. You know, maybe not saying any names particular schools but could just give us a general picture of what you see from your side in terms of how other people have used your funding how they've deployed resources how they're dealing with the same challenges. And do you mean specifically with LBQ or general things that you do with shine but you know maybe you've got one or two LBQ examples also but I'm not not in particular but if you have them even better. Hello. So actually, before I took the job at shine, I worked for a charity called the Institute for Effective Education. And we also had a link with LBQ and ransom ransom projects where people evaluated using LBQ in different ways. A lot of them were disrupted by the pandemic they started sort of in 2019 and so they didn't necessarily finish, but people used it in, in lots of different sorts of ways so some people used it specifically to target the transition to make sure that things were consistent between schools and some people used it as sort of making sure that once kids got to year seven that they knew where all the kids were and where the gaps were and the kids from different primary schools could then be sort of caught up if they haven't done a bit or made sure that everyone was engaged so it was used for sometimes for transition. In some cases it was used to focus on a really specific skills so one school really sort of was thinking about how best to help kids have really good recall of times tables, and they were trialling various different options and LBQ was one of them. So yeah there's loads of different ways that schools that I've been engaged with, both at Shine and previously at the IEE have a view Shine, sorry LBQ. And before I come back to Sam, have you seen any great kind of wellbeing or reducing you know support and staff with the attendance or absence, you know those types in your kind of view in Shine Trust anything. Presumably more broadly than LBQ. Yes, just general good practice or things that I think oh that's a great idea. So for, I'm putting it on the spot so don't worry. You are a little bit. Now I'm just trying to think of all of our different projects because they all do fantastic things. I think that the schools that we work with generally are really thinking about how they support their staff and how they support wellbeing. And people have done, yeah various different things I suppose that it depends on your staff and how you, what people need and what people want at the time. So, Sam, you know, what kind of things have you done so I was at my son's school yesterday as a parent governor and we were, I was actually in the school this morning, talking to them about their or they were talking to me more about their wellbeing solutions their staff policies that how they've adapted the marking policy online assessment tools their email culture, the whole kind of shebang I suppose. So what kind of things have you done throughout the pandemic to support your staff support and teaching staff mental health. Yeah, lots of the things you say in there. I said earlier we were removed there at the time because I understood that you know some staff wanted to get away earlier or come in slightly later obviously still in time to be ready with the kids. We thought really carefully about staff meetings and how, how, how we could sort of change the focus of some of those make some of them more online. If there's a webinar type format or a prerecorded format just, you know, aware of people's time. We introduced PBA from home. If I wanted to do that, I had that time and space to get away. We were looked in particular classes that have been really hard hit, and we employed extra support staff. As much to support the kids but also possibly, you know, share the workload a little bit actually employed an extra teacher so that we could cover some more PBA and give some more leadership time to, you know, to dedicate the intervention and catch up as well. Yeah, we've just tried, like I say, we were in a position where our budget was quite strong so we could do that and also supply staff just like most of us. Yeah, it has been a struggle. And again, I said to you before we're tackling that issue of whether we thought that was the right thing for us and our kids. So what we did was we ended up removed some of the teaching assistants and dedicated them just to intervention, and so that the classes were slightly smaller, increased roles and contracts of some of our staff already so they have the ability to cover classes. We just tried to use our staff as best we could. We did end up needing to apply in the end and that was a struggle and finding the right staff as well was a struggle. So I guess we kind of thought our staff knew our kids best, their best place to support them so that's where we're going to start. Yeah, it's been the fault for many. So people watching live, here's an opportunity to either pose a question in the chat box it will come to me only or if you're confident, unmute yourself and fire a question to Alicia or to Sam so I'll give you an opportunity to do that now. Thank you, makers. And Alicia, can I just pop back to you. Oh, here we go. Yes, Dave, please question. Oh, come on. Oh, yeah, there I am. It's about music. Actually, I'm the director of North East Music Foundation. So we supply Perris into schools. I just wanted to know how schools are coping with the music provision of the found we found out there's a sort of reluctance for schools to put music back on. I don't know if that's because there's a lack of teachers teaching specialists out there. Let's hear what Sam, how's your music curriculum been throughout the pandemic. I think I think you're right, Dave. I think it has definitely suffered lots of the arts have suffered the hardest things I guess to teach remotely. And we've got we have gone down the line of we're actually we've increased the amount of music we're teaching now because we're aware that you know there's been a real deficit of that same with PA and we've increased the amount of sport to get the children as active as possible. But I know from what I've heard, especially schools in our local area, there has been a shortage of shortage of teachers. And I guess, as I said before, about some of that reluctance of letting other people come into school, I know they're perfectly sometimes that's been a bit of a battle too. But yeah, we're going along the lines now with we've got a job to sort of pay back what what we've missed out on. And but I know not all schools are in that same position. Any any insights from your side. Our projects really focus on reducing the attainment gap between English math and in English math and science so music isn't a major focus for us, although quite a few of our earliest projects do use, use creative subjects to improve school readiness. So we certainly used to, even if we don't anymore, have a project that used music to music workshops with parents to improve speech language and communication and school readiness in lots of different areas. David, as you're probably aware, you know, the, I guess the earlier COVID guidance with bubbles and people being restricted to use practical spaces such as music technology classrooms. Yeah, of course. Obviously, would have hindered your resources and your your interventions that you normally give back to school. So I would say if the, you know, the guidance is slightly different and the vaccines are all out and things like that we might be in a better place where you're starting to see a little bit more traffic your way but maybe gives a picture of, you know, the stuff that you do and support and you know your your general sense of the world at this stage. Yeah. We're just bringing around schools and trying to get music back in to sort of help schools with the music provision really if we can. And like we're just finding that it was a lot quite reluctant to get the back in, you know, with the restrictions. Here's your chance. Give yourself a plug. What website or company are we looking at here? It's North East Music Foundation. North East Music Foundation. So there you go. And website address. www.northnemf.co.uk. Are you putting it out for you at the end, yeah? Yeah, if you could. And the other thing I'd like to just mention that we've also been developing a music resource for the last three years or something. We'll just get a little bit of fun from the Arts Council recently just to help with this. We'll find it really hard to sort of get into schools to get this out there. But the schools that are using it, they find it absolutely fantastic in terms of accelerated learning stuff. Follows around the Rosenstein principles that you talk about a lot. You know, revisit them, the learning and small chunks and everything. Yes. We'll be able to do it quite late. It's like a video resource. We would like schools to sort of trial it out at least. Yeah. And also we'd like you open. Sorry. I'd like you to have a look at Ross and see what you're looking at. All right. Let's talk offline, but I want to kind of keep on top of that. That's okay. Yeah, no problem. I think that would certainly help schools in terms of like whole class ensemble teaching. We've got like a resource that really helps with that. So we'll give you a shout out. If you put the link Dave in the chat box, I'll read it out just at the end. But yeah, the kind of synopsis of all the state of the nation has been, you know, practical subjects, particularly creatives and your scientists, I suppose, had all of a bit of a knock on the head in the earlier stages of the pandemic. Hopefully things are opening up a little bit now. I have a question in the chat box. Thank you, Dave, for Alicia and Sam. What is the criteria for assessing the shine fund in Alicia? And is it related to pupil premium numbers? Generally speaking, yes. So our remit as a charity is to improve outcomes for children from low income families. So the projects that we fund are nearly always working in schools, which have higher than average pupil premium numbers. If you are a school that's got quite low pupil premium numbers, but you've got an amazing idea would be really happy to work with you. But we would need to talk to you about how you could deliver that or scale that to schools which are in more disadvantaged areas. Okay, so great. Thank you. And I might have lost track of my questions, Alicia. But did I ask you for the seven slots? So is there a particular deadline for those slots? Or is it just seven funding slots to fill? There's seven funding slots to fill once they're gone. So the deadline is open until the last slot's gone. Yeah, we're hoping to get them filled by the summer though. Okay, so if you're watching this live folks, then, you know, there's your first opportunity before I get this video recording uploaded on the YouTube and it gets taken straight away. So there's your last chance. I'm going to start to wrap things up. So Dave, just a reminder, if you can put your web link in the chat box, I'll give you a shout out. And in the chat box earlier, I put a link to LBQ. You can log in. I know and have a free trial and play with some of their quizzes and questions and look at their tools. There's obviously the paid full side. And there's all the kind of sets preparation that you can look at there in terms of resources. So I'll put that link in the chat box again for everyone you've heard from Sam. I think that my takeaway message from you Sam was, you know, a low cost high impact. Yeah, absolutely. And especially schools and staffing in the Northeast. If you want to see it in action and more than we're going to show you, you know, as restrictions sort of lesson, you're more than welcome to come and see it in action in our school. But there you go. So there's a, there's an invite to and I'm up in Durham soon it's probably a little bit away from Newcastle. But yeah, once I get back up in the Northeast, I'll come in and pop in Sam on my travels and say hello but I'm going to start to bring things to a formal conclusion. And people watching live if you've got any other questions that you're burning to ask. This is your last opportunity. Okay, last chance last chance. So I'm going to wrap things up. And so we've been talking about staff shortages, managing absences, digital devices, ed tech solutions that make a difference. Plug in LBQ again, as a solution obviously got the shine trust funding for schools schools are always looking for a bit of funding Alyssa can you reassure me that the paperwork is not too laborious for school leaders. So we really try to make things easy that shine. As some said, the application process is as smooth as we can make it for the LBQ grants, but also for our grants more generally we, we know how busy teachers are. So we try to make things and if I can give you some analytics from my website 70 seconds is the average reading time from 16 million teachers so there you go so 70 seconds is about 450 words. The application forms are short and punchy or your one page policy Sam, 450 words, then you're on to a winner. And there's that link from Dave so thank you Dave so www.add, add, add notes, a DD. That that's actually the reason what's got the resources code where you can get the website covers both companies if you like. Okay, I'll share that and circulate it through the ticket and put it online. So wrap things up there everybody and thank you for your precious time thank you to Alicia for your insights from shine and from free funding what's not to like there and to Sam. On the front line working tirelessly and a new dad to and I hope you've mastered the nappies. I hope you're enjoying fatherhood and Alicia as well and me and in Yorkshire now enjoying the, the, the wonderful outdoors. And so I'm going to leave it there on behalf of lbq. My name is Ross bill been your host, and I've been joined by the delightful Sam keys and Alicia sure. And thanks for watching keep well keep safe and see you again in the future bye for now.