 Hi allan achos yw Ross at Teacher Talk at the most influential blog on education in the UK today I'm delighted to be joined by Sam Keyes. Sam is the deputy head teacher and Seneca lead at St Beads Catholic Primary School in the north east of England and it's a friday evening so we're going to be very concise here. Sam how are you and thank you for joining me. Yeah, and feeling good just recovered from COVID and just bouncing back and back to work for a couple of days so Fy enw i, rydyn ni wedi gweld i'w gweithio'r gweithio y cwpl o'r gwybod o'r LBQ byddwn yn gallu gweithio'r gweithio ac mae gennym ni'n gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio. Rydyn ni wedi gweld i'r Covid oherwydd. Felly, ym mhyself ym ym mhyself ym mhyself ym mhyself? Ymddangos ym mhyself ym mhyself ym mhyself a'r gweithio'r gweithio, ond yna hwn yn gallu graddlu cyfryd ardal gyda'r meddoryniad pan béfion, ychydig neud fod yn gweld yn info'r ddau teef amddangos dwyr arall, os mynd yn roedd nodi'r taeth, wedi bod atw i'r flwys ac yn symud. Rwy'n meddwl bod wedi'u defnyddio'r ysgol i'w ddefnyddio'r llystioli ychydig, ond ychydig sy'n amgyrchol o'u angen o'r hyn. Ond yw'n arddai'r lle ifanc yma ychydig i'r ysgol? Efallai ymddangos eu meddwl i'n gyffredinol yma yn y gyflwynt hefyd, yma rwy'n gweithio yma'r newydd, o'r cynhyrchu gyda'r newydd. Efallai e'n gyflwynt hefyd, efallai'n mynd ymddangos'r newydd i'w mwylo'r cyfwysig i'r cyfreithio'r bwysig, rwy'n cael ychydig iaith o'r rhannu ailfyrd, rwy'n cael eu pwysig i'r llanio ymgyrch, Felly, mae'n gwneud o'r premium a'r FCN. Mae'n gweithio bod ni'n gwneud o'r hwyl. Mae'r fflaff band, rhai o'r grath o'r rhai, fel y ddweud o'r llwyffod yn y stryd, ond mae'n gweithio'n gweithio. Yn ymgyrch o'r rai oeddiad o'r Llywodraeth, mae'n gweithio'r gweithio'n gweithio. Mae'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio. Fen дальше gwylwch y sole wedi teithio'i gyrraf a ydw i'r gwir. Yn ymgyrch a'r eu rat nochd yma, dwi'n bod navetr yn gweithio'r tal crochets i fyny yn ystod iawn, byddwn ni dechwww'r bideni ac roedd produceraaaa Tyllianno. Sawnd i fyny, gan dw i gynydealio'rweith, o'r Llywodraeth a ddim fydd. Oedda i yn eich syniad ac mae'n ddych i'n amlwg ond dros uned at uned yw'r bach o gymân yr uned wahanol a ddod i地 mewn amlwg ond o'r eu ffansiau o'i hwn. Fy that yna'ch gweithio hyn y maeth o'r old primary school, mae r позвол o'r edrych ar gyfer y bydau, fyddai'n ymerchu yn ymddangos, hen mae'n gweithio i'r ymddangos i'r ddechrau. Mae'n ddau yn uned o'r uned yn Newcastle os yw? Nog mae ddweudwyd GG yn uned o Blydynn, unedig yng Nghymru Llangosia. Okay, great. That was great and then I did a skit in Newcastle after that, yeah. And then teaching back in Newcastle? Yeah, yeah. Got a job at a school that I trained in and stayed there for about seven years. Right, what a great story. And so there for seven years, particularly key stage or year group? Yeah, so that was the biggest school. That was a one-and-a-half, four-mentary, so there was mixed classes. So I taught, the first class I taught was a year four, five class. And then did a couple of year two, three classes, which were interesting being key stage one and key stage two. And then I sort of, I got a little bit of an interest in the SCN side of things. Right. And then the Senco at our school left and the job came up. And as you probably know, not many people put their hat in the ring for a Senco job. That's a tough job, yeah. I kind of wanted to see what it was like. So I took on that role as sort of an aspiring Senco. Did the national award and then got that job permanently as well. And I haven't, you know, I've been hooked on Sen too, really. Right, fantastic. And I found in my experience, once people get into Sen, SCN, that's it. It becomes quite a, you know, a teaching of vocation, as you'll know. But the SCN part becomes, it is something you live and breathe 24 seven, isn't it? Did you then come to sit beads after that, that particular job? Yeah. So I was sent going class teacher and somebody sort of suggested that I went on some aspiring leadership courses. And I thought about, and then one of the bits of feedback I got in my first session was that they said I pigeonholed myself. I was too SCN focused. I couldn't be Deputy Head. Nice feedback. And I was a bit worried. I was like, well, I do want to go into school leadership and I do want to maintain this sort of passion for Sen. So then I thought about whether I moved to specialist provision. And then I was flicking through the advert and I saw Deputy Head teacher, class teacher and Senco. And I thought that's a bit of me. And here I am. And for someone, you know, maybe listen who's interested in teaching or from outside of education, particularly a parent. I know this is a big question, but what is the role of a Senco? What kind of things are you doing strategically on a termly basis? And then how does it look on a daily basis? So there's lots of questions there. So what's Senco? What does it look like strategically and day to day? So Senco is, that is a big question, Senco is a special educational needs and disabilities coordinator. I always think it's a ridiculous role. I like to say that I am a champion for the kids who need that extra bit, specifically regarded to those additional needs and disabilities. So day to day my role is the oversight. I'm making sure that the kids that need stuff have got stuff. The teachers are teaching them in the best possible way for those children to excel and achieve their potential. I'm a barrier remover. If there's something in the way I need to be there supporting teachers getting that barrier out of the way. I'm looking at interventions, what extra things we can do outside the classroom and in the classroom. I'm monitoring their progress. I'm working with parents to try and find out those little nuggets of information that are going to completely change the day for that child. From the tiniest thing like how their morning routine was through to whether they've lost their spelling book, whatever else. Through to the really struggling and noisy environment. I'm there to try and make a decision. And give us a kind of picture of the kind of strategic things that you're doing termally annually as paperwork funding, that type of stuff. Yeah. So typically the majority of kids fall under what we call SCN support. And that means it's school just picks that up within their own budget. Some children qualify for extra funding, but that requires quite a bit of paperwork. We have termally targets. That's another sort of round of paperwork. There's lots of meetings with other professionals, reports, referrals. It's quite paperwork heavy. Without putting people off, what's the best part of the job? You know, you said it's that need stuff and you give the stuff that the kids need and you kind of unlock in those barriers. Well, I guess we can't go into specific case studies, but I'm sure you have lots of great moments in your role. Could you give us a little insight for people listening? Kind of what you do. Yeah, yeah. So I guess the best thing for me is, you know, when you've got a child in your class, or you work with a child and you've made a difference to them in the air and you celebrate the progress they have made in the air. I guess you do that throughout their whole school journey. I get to see them from a parent concern or a teacher concern where they're like, oh, I think something needs to be done to support that child through to that child going on to high school and doing well. And recently, obviously without going into details, I received feedback from a high school about a child who's really, really thriving. He's not just doing well, he's thriving. That's amazing. Without our support at primary and without that strong transition, that might not have even been the case. That could have been a school exclusion. It could have been something else. So I get that progress journey, but I get it times five, six or seven sometimes. Yeah, and I think, you know, I'm speaking very loosely here. You know, I don't have any hard evidence, but I kind of stick my neck out. I think we should do more at secondary level to let primary schools know how certain kids are doing it. And I know, you know, I've never been a Senco and I've never worked very closely with Sencos, but I know that they probably do that, and much of that information at a whole school leadership team is probably lost. Any tips for secondary schools to do that better? Yeah, what I make a point of is I make a point of letting the secondary schools know that I want to be at the first review in September or October, the autumn term. And I really insist on it, and I'm like a dog with the bone, I have to be there. And when you've got your face in there, and when they can see that you've got that knowledge of that child, they'll keep inviting you back. So if I'm speaking to secondary schools, just let us in. I know you do it differently. I know secondary schools work in a completely different way. Our local secondary schools are so different to ourselves. But let us have a go at telling you what's worked because it might, you know, answer a few questions for you and solve a few problems. And in terms of your role, I guess the last question on it, I suppose, what's the kind of career trajectory for someone like you that could either go, you know, obviously the head ship next, or is there a more specialised field you can get into down the SCN road? It's something that I guess I'm at that crossroads myself, thinking about what is next. I think ultimately for me, I'd love to be a head teacher. I'd love that whole school complete oversight. However, there's been roles that I've seen advertised where it's specialist, or whether it's consultancy work with regards to SCN. I've looked at those two. I don't know. At the minute, I don't want to leave a classroom, and that's where I'm at. So I'm quite happy with that. There's nothing wrong with that. And, you know, if I just change the conversation slightly, we know at work loads a particular focus of mine and I know COVID has got in the way, but is it possible to kind of think before COVID what would be the workload pressures for teachers in general from your perspective in the northeast and perhaps as a same code? What are the kind of general pressures that you face? General pressures obviously vary from SLT to SLT in school to school, don't they? The demands are placed upon different teachers through policies and practises and things like that. Generally, the bug bears are obviously your mark, and that's something that some schools are still quite archaic with in their terms of marking and feedback policies. And our school is fortunate to have moved, you know, we're not fully away from that, but we're moving away from the, you know, mark and 32 books per lesson. And scrutiny, book scrutiny and things like that and lesson observations that are landed on your door at the moment to notice and feeling like you need to teach a whizbang lesson every lesson. I was talking on a primary education voices podcast the other week and I said, I'm not the best teacher. Why should I try and do these lessons that are not me? If what I do my bread and butter is good, and that's good enough, that's good enough. If I'm consistently good, I'm a happy teacher. And how do you, as a school leader, you know, I throw in that word standards, how do you share that ethos with the rest of your teaching staff knowing that, you know, what you do day in, day out when no one's watching is good teaching without this kind of show and tell performance or that burden of you're a great teacher if you mark all your books. I really try and lead by example, I guess. So when, you know, I'm more than happy. I know COVID has put a block on that recently, but I'm more than happy to let teachers into my classroom and I'll just teach. I'll just teach normally and I'll comment to them about how I'm not doing anything different. This is just getting every single resource there is available in there to make it look 10 times better. I just teach and when I'm doing a book scrutiny or whether we're doing a moderation session together, my books are my books. I haven't, you know, I haven't cherry picked them. I haven't made them shiny and polished them up. My books are my books and I'm really vocal about that. So I guess I'm authentic about it in the hope that they'll see that, well, if he's doing it, then we can do it too, I guess. If we go back to that marking policy, which we know is a headache for a lot of people, what kind of things do you still need to tackle? You mentioned moving away from the notion of having to mark everything. Where is your feedback policy at the moment? So where in the limbo of we are actually looking at the book still, there's some sort of light touch marking and then in some cases we'll call it feed forward, some next step stuff, but not in the majority of cases. It's the few people that need that next step. It's the idea of who you're marking for. Are you marking for somebody else to look at the books? Are you marking for that child's learning to progress? And if you're not doing it for the learner to progress, you shouldn't do it anyway, I guess. No, absolutely. I mean, you'll know my thoughts, that feedback, feedback forward, the verbal written, non-verbal. Part of my role for people listening is getting to see all these fantastic school policies and trying to make them a little bit more refined to help everybody. What are two ideas, Sam, on what wellbeing initiatives are you doing with your staff to promote teacher mental health and wellbeing? Is there anything that you're really proud of that you do that staff say this is what makes work and it's a great thing? Well, I had a session actually a few weeks ago, it was a Catholic school, it was a prayer session actually, and the person leading it asked us to sort of think about the atmosphere of school and they imagined us to walk around the schools and say what they thought, and the head and I were sat there obviously knowing what we wanted, the same what people would say, but in those moments it's really good to listen. And they all talked about the atmosphere, how they feel they can go to each other with anything school related or otherwise. They all talked about how they felt we were a team, nothing was too much, if somebody was struggling it was that wraparoundness. And I guess that's complete culture, that's not just a gimmick thing. Would you do the gimmicky things as well? We'll give an early finish on a Friday hence why I'm sat in that. Yeah, but those things are important. But that's good feedback from your staff. Oh yeah, totally. That's the sort of stuff you want to hear because you're not doing that for a tick in a box, you're doing that because when you know yourself, if you've got happy staff who feel safe and confident you're going to get better teaching aren't you, you're going to get better outcomes. Exactly. So let me put you in a corner then. Give me in 30 seconds why I should work at St Beads. In 30 seconds. Okay, so you should look at St Beads because we've got a forward thinking leadership team that are really looking at what can be changed to benefit staff and pupils. We've got a really healthy budget at the moment. So, you know, you could be an opportunity. There you go on that. There's a positive. We've got early finish on a Friday and we've got staff who genuinely care about you and the kids are the best. Great. And one more. What's professional development like for your staff? It's not one size fits all and bog standard dry stuff, is it? And no sign of a lunch? Get tea and coffee on Inset Day? Oh yes, and lunch. We'll let staff come to us with their needs. We're constantly talking about where they want to go next. Performance management is a conversation. It's two people are in that situation and they're talking about what they want to do next and what could be better for school but what's going to be better then. We're really talking about growing our leaders as well. With the hope that one day they'll either take over from us or they'll fly off elsewhere and do great things. Fantastic. I've tried to keep things punchy for the podcast. I've got one more question because it's just interesting. I suffered from the London bubble as a teacher for 30 years. I've lived in Newcastle for a year of my life and as you'll know I travel to schools all across the country but I don't get to the North East as much as I'd like to. But what's it like to teach in the North East? Give listeners a flavour. The kids are funny. They will tell you how it is. If there's something on their mind they'll tell you. Brutally honest at times. Today they told me that the thought had maybe had a little bit too much chocolate while I was off with Covid. They're really keen to learn. They want to be there. I've had on the extracurricular stuff. Our uptake for after school club is crazy. Demographically Newcastle is a great city but you're close to the sea. You're close to the border, the countryside. What else is there to offer? We've got everything. The city is amazing. But 10 minutes from the city, 50 minutes from our school you've got the beach. If you drive 20 minutes the other way you're in complete rural Northumberland. You could literally go from farm to city to beach in the space of an hour. It's great. I was lucky enough to be in is it concert not so long ago. Up there working in a proof. Fabulous countryside. We've got our 20 minute barrier. If you're listening to a podcast I'm going to throw loads of quick fire questions at you and try and catch you out and put you on the spot. No pausing or hesitating. I'm going to try and sum up our conversation and throw the odd question to you. Let's tell listeners what your plans are for the weekend. My plans for the weekend are to recourse all day tomorrow and then I'm going to watch Newcastle on Sunday. Newcastle for the win or is it Chelsea? Head or heart? My dad is a massive Chelsea fan. Head and heart say Chelsea to be honest. Was Alan Shearer as good as the Newcastle fans say he was or is it all a bit of an illusion? Better. There you go. What's on your leadership desk back at school for Monday morning? What are you working on? I've got three referrals for education health and care plans to be finished. Right there's a headache. What book are you reading at the moment? I am reading babies and toddlers for men. That sounds interesting. Finish this sentence. I would start again. Piece of advice for someone who wants to become a Sanko. Use the parents. Use the parents. Top tips for anyone wanting to go to Preston University? Check it out first. Top tips for doing a psychology degree? Be critical in your thinking. If you met Mr Clifford again, what would you say to him? I'd say thank you. I've already thanked him. I went on a training course with Sir John Jones and he said, reach out to the teacher that made the difference to you. I thanked him and he replied and it was amazing. That is amazing. I've been lucky enough to do that. What is your most proud career achievement? I had an article published in Nason's Connect magazine and was nominated for an award. Who would you recommend I interview next and why? Paul Watson. He is really modest. He is a fantastic teacher. He really doesn't shout about it. I'll chase Paul down. What's the simplest barrier a teacher can remove from a child? The amount of time they're talking and doing nothing else. Easy one, where can listeners find out more about your connect online or school? I'm on Twitter at MrKeys underscore DHT. What would you hope to be your legacy, Sam? I want kids to see me like I saw Mr Clifford. Sam, thank you. Listeners, Sam Keys, Deputy Headteacher at St Beads Catholic Primary School up in Newcastle. Sam, thank you for your time. I'm really glad that we finally got this podcast sorted. I'm definitely going to come and knock on the school door when I get up to Newcastle soon. And have a good weekend. You too. Cheers, Sam. Thank you. Thank you so much. See you later. Cheers.