michaela school homework policy

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London Borough of Newham

Homework habits: what we have learned at Michaela

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24 Jun 2017, 5:00

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Setting the right balance on homework is a tight-rope walk for teachers, but Britain’s so-called ‘strictest school’ has a plan, explains Jo Facer

Every school faces the challenge of getting kids to practise what they need to, but without gaming it. Teachers have all encountered pupils who will do the bare minimum to avoid a sanction.

While it is the weakest pupils who benefit most from homework, it is also the weakest pupils who are least likely to complete it. At Michaela, we have tried and rejected a number of approaches to homework.

To begin with, we tried reading logs, but rejected these when we realised pupils were simply making up plausible-sounding sentences about the books they were pretending to read.

We then set pages of a common book to read at home, but found great difficulty in testing completion. One single multiple-choice question threw up false positives – kids just guessing the right answer and avoiding a detention – as well as false negatives – kids who had done the required reading but somehow managed to answer the question incorrectly.

We also rejected vocabulary books, where pupils wrote out five new words they had learned from their reading, as these were burdensome to check, and pupils were found to be reusing the same words!

Each day we have a homework completion rate of 97-100 per cent

We have come to recognise that we can never actually know if a pupil has read anything without reading it with them. All form tutors read the same book with their classes for 20 minutes in afternoon form-time every day, and our weakest readers attend a 30-minute reading club with a specialist teacher who can hold them to account.

Now, the only homework set by subject teachers at Michaela is self-quizzing. We all set the same homework to encourage high completion rates: each day we have a homework completion rate of 97-100 per cent.

Centralising homework in this way is essential: in our previous schools, teachers would set a variety of homework tasks and children would often be lost as to how to complete them. To self-quiz, pupils simply need to learn key terms from their knowledge organiser and write them from memory.

Knowledge organisers are one page, split into sections, distilling the core knowledge for a given unit for pupils.

The difficulty of self-quizzing is knowing whether the pupils have genuinely focused and learned content, or whether they have just copied it out. To check what was happening, we began setting a quiz the following day on the same material. The results were revealing: when we first started it, around a third of pupils were failing the quiz.

Today, almost no pupils fail: they are now held to account by their teachers. The pupils complete a short quiz which their teachers sort, using comparative judgement, into two piles: ‘got it’ and ‘not got it.’ Pupils who fail are targeted by their teachers in later lessons to ensure they catch up with their peers.

After visiting a number of the country’s leading state and private schools, we introduced a further strand to homework that we called ‘extended prep’, as we did not want our own pupils to fall behind. We set a one-page essay or one-page written test in each subject in addition to their self-quizzing, and their writing transformed. With all this additional practice, pupils were suddenly far more capable of writing at length under timed conditions.

Unfortunately, a group of pupils opted out entirely, preferring to sit a 30-minute detention than to complete a 30-minute prep. This had such a hit to buy-in that we have now dramatically reduced the amount of extended prep we set – just one essay a week in year 9 – and from next year we will phase it in gradually, with our headmistress leading assemblies to parents to explain its importance.

Having a centralised detention system ensures that all teachers set prep and follow it up. Setting the same prep each night – in our case, self-quizzing along with maths practice questions marked online – ensures very high completion rates. We’re not there yet, but we hope one day to find that sweet spot – where the kids are learning loads, but also loving school – including homework.

Jo Facer is head of English at Michaela Community School

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Michaela Community School

Saturday 12 October 2019

A school with lessons for us all

I find that one of the best forms of professional development is to learn from what works in other schools. This blog focuses in on one specific school - dubbed to be the ‘strictest in Britain’ – which says it is spearheading an “educational revolution” after triumphing in its first examination results.

Michaela Community School in London was established in 2014 to serve a disadvantaged community. The staff at the school have written ' Battle Hymn of the Tiger Teachers ', where they describe how they have established a strong culture focused on learning and success. Whilst its pedagogy is very much based on a knowledge rich curriculum – in contrast with the constructivist philosophy underpinning IB programmes – it has much to teach all schools who put each child at the centre of their concerns as they prepare them for high-stakes exams.

"We believe that all pupils are capable of becoming better than they have ever been."

The book is packed with good advice. These are my key take-aways:

• Staff Handbook - that explains all the rationales for the way Michaela does schooling. It is a 60-page guide. New recruits are given this months in advance of starting at the school. The first week teachers are in a school they watch a lot of experienced teachers teach the Machaela way, then are watched doing it themselves - again another way of inducting them into the culture of the school. Teachers are provided with a phone app so that they can learn the names of all pupils before they arrive in the school.
• Explicitly teaching and embedding values - 'Work hard, be kind' is Michaella's motto. They quote James Matthew Barrie's “Those who bring sunshine to the lives of others cannot keep it from themselves” when they explain the importance of embedding a culture of kindness and appreciation. "It's great to be grateful" is one of their mantras. "Gratitude at Michaela is an everyday practice that everyone is called on to be a part of. One ritual that we have for this is appreciations. Every day, we encourage every pupil over lunch to think of someone they feel appreciative towards and share why. It reminds us all to ask: 'what are we taking for granted at the moment?" Another gratitude mechanism that helps us to go beyond self-centredness is thank-you notes. Every half term, we encourage pupils to write a postcard to someone they'd like to thank."

• Homework as revision - acknowledging the limitations to traditional homework they have fundamentally reimagined the challenge of homework and have connected it with revision. Their homework is a seven-year revision plan, from age 11-18. Recognising that "cramming is an ineffective way to revise - it only works for the short term - they build in revision to every homework, dividing the week into seven revision sessions of no more than one hour each day focused on an individual subject. "The human mind forgets things very quickly: over half of newly learned knowledge is forgotten within a matter of days unless it is revisited. Cognitive scientists who study learning and the mind tell us: Long-term memory is now viewed as the central, dominant structure of human cognition. The aim of all instruction is to change long-term memory. If nothing has changed in long-term memory, nothing has been learned. Here is a summary of their findings: 'Use frequent quizzing: testing interrupts forgetting. In virtually all areas of learning, you build better mastery when you use testing as a tool. At Michaela homework is revision and self-quizzing for all pupils across all their subjects. Here's how Michaela's homework-revision ecosystem works: we combine knowledge organisers, knowledge books, practice books, class quizzes and practice book checks." (See Homework - to be or not to be)
• Kindness: Michaela's motto is 'work hard, be kind'. Year 7 bootcamp shares stories of the tragic consequences of bullied children to underline their message on zero-bullying, encouraging all to speak out if any form of unpleasantness arises. One of their mantras is 'It's great to be grateful!' and build into school routines - such as appreciations at lunch, and 'thank you' notes written each half term on a postcard - ways of being grateful. "We remind each other that being ungrateful leaves us feeling resentful and unhappy, whereas being grateful makes us feel glad. We remind pupils not to take their families, parents, siblings, kitchen staff, cleaners, tutors and teachers for granted."
• Family lunch - in their book they quote Luciano Pavarotti: "One of the very nicest things about life is the way we must regularly stop whatever it is we are doing and devote our attention to eating." 'Family lunch' at Michaela is special - every day pupils and teachers eat together in a communal dining room, share conversation, serve each other and appreciate acts of kindness. Each table sits six pupils and an adult. Each pupil has a role to play. One serves lunch for all, another pour water, another clears up etc. They are learning how to serve each other. Every day they are given a topic to talk about whilst eating; the topic being is explained by a member of staff who is leading lunch. In their book they explain: "'A good wine should always be accompanied by a good topic, and the topic should be pursued around the table with the wine' (Roger Scruton). Substitute wine for a healthy and nutritious lunch, and this comes close to the underlying philosophy behind Family Lunch." After lunch five minutes is set aside for 'appreciations' (see above).
• Professional Development : Regularly observing each other and being observed + subject based CPD + inset days dedicated to resourcing the curriculum and making it better. "Every day at Michaela, teachers watch their colleagues teach - five minutes, ten minutes, 30 minutes perhaps.  Teachers receive feedback on their practice from every member of staff. Every teacher will watch and be watched hundreds of times a year. No grades, no top-down feedback, just teachers, trying to get better at teaching by looking, learning and receiving feedback. Every week at Michaela departments sit together and look at the upcoming week's lessons. They talk through the context and how it will be delivered together. They anticipate misunderstandings, consider links to be made to prior learning, and spot opportunities for additional examples, together. That is CPD at Michaela."

PS: In the following video the Head, Katharine Birbalsingh, explodes some common practices in education:

Battle Hymn of the Tiger Teachers - The Michaela Way , Edt. Katharine Birbalsingh, John Catt, 2016

The Michaela Community School website can be found HERE . You may like to look at the description of their curriculum by clicking HERE .

Controversial Michaela free school delights in GCSE success , The Guardian 22 August 2019

All students and staff learn by heart William Ernest Henley's poem 'Invictus' in the first week they join Michaela. It is a poem about courage and resilience.

Invictus means ‘undefeated’ in Latin. William Ernest Henle wrote this poem when he was a young man, in the hospital being treated for tuberculosis of the bone.

At the age of 12, Henley contracted tuberculosis of the bone. A few years later, the disease progressed to his foot, and physicians announced that the only way to save his life was to amputate directly below the knee. It was amputated when he was 17. Despite his disability, he survived with one foot intact and led an active life until his death at the age of 53.

Out of the night that covers me,      Black as the Pit from pole to pole,    I thank whatever gods may be      For my unconquerable soul.   

In the fell clutch of circumstance    I have not winced nor cried aloud.    Under the bludgeonings of chance      My head is bloody, but unbowed.   

Beyond this place of wrath and tears      Looms but the Horror of the shade,  And yet the menace of the years      Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.   

It matters not how strait the gate,     How charged with punishments the scroll,    I am the master of my fate:   I am the captain of my soul.

William Ernest Henley - 1849-1903

Tags: induction , knowledge is power , Michaela , memory

Creating a Homework Policy With Meaning and Purpose

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We have all had time-consuming, monotonous, meaningless homework assigned to us at some point in our life. These assignments often lead to frustration and boredom and students learn virtually nothing from them. Teachers and schools must reevaluate how and why they assign homework to their students. Any assigned homework should have a purpose.

Assigning homework with a purpose means that through completing the assignment, the student will be able to obtain new knowledge, a new skill, or have a new experience that they may not otherwise have. Homework should not consist of a rudimentary task that is being assigned simply for the sake of assigning something. Homework should be meaningful. It should be viewed as an opportunity to allow students to make real-life connections to the content that they are learning in the classroom. It should be given only as an opportunity to help increase their content knowledge in an area.

Differentiate Learning for All Students

Furthermore, teachers can utilize homework as an opportunity to differentiate learning for all students. Homework should rarely be given with a blanket "one size fits all" approach. Homework provides teachers with a significant opportunity to meet each student where they are and truly extend learning. A teacher can give their higher-level students more challenging assignments while also filling gaps for those students who may have fallen behind. Teachers who use homework as an opportunity to differentiate we not only see increased growth in their students, but they will also find they have more time in class to dedicate to whole group instruction .

See Student Participation Increase

Creating authentic and differentiated homework assignments can take more time for teachers to put together. As often is the case, extra effort is rewarded. Teachers who assign meaningful, differentiated, connected homework assignments not only see student participation increase, they also see an increase in student engagement. These rewards are worth the extra investment in time needed to construct these types of assignments.

Schools must recognize the value in this approach. They should provide their teachers with professional development that gives them the tools to be successful in transitioning to assign homework that is differentiated with meaning and purpose. A school's homework policy should reflect this philosophy; ultimately guiding teachers to give their students reasonable, meaningful, purposeful homework assignments.

Sample School Homework Policy

Homework is defined as the time students spend outside the classroom in assigned learning activities. Anywhere Schools believes the purpose of homework should be to practice, reinforce, or apply acquired skills and knowledge. We also believe as research supports that moderate assignments completed and done well are more effective than lengthy or difficult ones done poorly.

Homework serves to develop regular study skills and the ability to complete assignments independently. Anywhere Schools further believes completing homework is the responsibility of the student, and as students mature they are more able to work independently. Therefore, parents play a supportive role in monitoring completion of assignments, encouraging students’ efforts and providing a conducive environment for learning.

Individualized Instruction

Homework is an opportunity for teachers to provide individualized instruction geared specifically to an individual student. Anywhere Schools embraces the idea that each student is different and as such, each student has their own individual needs. We see homework as an opportunity to tailor lessons specifically for an individual student meeting them where they are and bringing them to where we want them to be. 

Homework contributes toward building responsibility, self-discipline, and lifelong learning habits. It is the intention of the Anywhere School staff to assign relevant, challenging, meaningful, and purposeful homework assignments that reinforce classroom learning objectives. Homework should provide students with the opportunity to apply and extend the information they have learned complete unfinished class assignments, and develop independence.

The actual time required to complete assignments will vary with each student’s study habits, academic skills, and selected course load. If your child is spending an inordinate amount of time doing homework, you should contact your child’s teachers.

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• Collecting Homework in the Classroom
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• Methods for Presenting Subject Matter

How to Write the Perfect Homework Policy

Author: Naimish Gohil

Posted: 10 May 2017

Estimated time to read: 4 mins

Homework is an integral part to the learning process and as such, each school should have a clear homework policy readily available to teachers, students and parents that sets out your expectations when it comes to home-learning .

A clear and effective homework policy will mean that quality and quantity of homework can be easily tracked and all stakeholders are on the same page. We've created our own Homework Policy that you can adapt for use in your school or use as an outline when creating your own policy:

1‭. ‬Introduction

This is the school’s policy for the provision of homework to pupils and has been drawn up in accordance with guidance from the DFE and Sutton Education Trust‭.‬ It must be recognised that parents play a vital role in the education of their child‭, ‬therefore it is important and valuable to‭ ‬have a good home-school partnership‭, ‬of which a homework policy must address‭.‬

2‭. ‬Homework‭ - ‬A definition

Homework is defined as any work or activity that students are asked to undertake outside of lesson time‭, ‬either on their own or‭ ‬with the aid of parents and carers‭. ‬Homework doesn’t necessarily have to be completed at home but can be completed in free periods and after-school homework clubs‭. ‬We see work completed outside of lesson time as a valuable part of a student’s learning‭.‬

3‭. ‬The purpose of homework‭ ‬

The school regards the purpose of homework as being to‭:‬

• ‭ Provide learners with the opportunity to work on an activity that is relevant to learning outcomes‭, ‬or that contributes to gaining qualifications/accreditations‭.‬
• Develop an effective partnership between the school‭, ‬parents and carers in pursuing the academic aims of the school and the development of their child‭.‬
• Consolidate and reinforce skills and understanding prior to the following lesson‭, ‬particularly in English and Mathematics‭.‬
• Extend learning across the curriculum‭, ‬for example through additional reading‭.‬
• Encourage pupils as they get older to develop the confidence‭, ‬self-discipline and independence to develop organisational skills‭.‬

As a school‭, ‬we encourage children to pursue out-of-school activities‭. ‬Homework should be used to effectively reinforce and/or extend what is learned in school‭. ‬We hope that children will feel a sense of personal satisfaction in a task completed well and that their efforts will be recognised and praised both at home and at school‭. ‬

Homework tasks should be undertaken to the best of‭ ‬their ability‭. ‬We hope that parents and carers will be willing and able to give their active support to ensure that work completed at home is done so conscientiously and in the best possible conditions‭.‬

4‭. ‬Current practice‭ ‬

At the beginning of the academic year‭, ‬each year group will be informed about what is expected of them with regards to homework‭.‬

5‭. ‬Time to be spent completing homework

Based on current good practice‭, ‬we ask pupils to spend the following amount of time on homework‭:‬

Years 7‭ ‬to 9‭:                   ‬1‭ - ‬2‭ ‬hours per day

Years 10‭ ‬&‭ ‬11‭:                ‬1‭ - ‬3‭ ‬hours per day‭ ‬

Pupils may be expected to undertake a variety of homework activities‭. ‬These activities will differ depending on the teacher and‭ ‬subject‭. ‬Examples include‭: ‬Reading tasks‭, ‬numeracy tests‭, ‬spelling tests‭, ‬quizzes‭, ‬project work‭, ‬classwork extensions‭, ‬coursework‭, ‬essays and research activities‭.‬ As a general rule‭, ‬teachers will not usually set substantial homework tasks to be completed for the next day‭, ‬pupils will have at least two days to complete any work set‭.‬

6‭. ‬Pupil feedback

The school recognises the importance of providing prompt and actionable feedback to pupils‭, ‬parents and carers‭. ‬Feedback will include how well homework tasks have been tackled‭, ‬and the knowledge‭, ‬skills and understanding developed‭.

‬A variety of methods will be used to provide feedback‭, ‬such as an appropriate comment of praise‭, ‬appreciation or area for improvement‭. ‬Any given feedback will vary according to the age of the pupil‭.‬

7‭. ‬Where to access the school homework policy

The school will use newsletters to inform parents and carers about the school’s homework policy and secure their involvement‭. ‬The homework policy‭, ‬as well as useful information for parents in supporting their child’s learning‭, ‬is displayed on the school website‭. ‬

Parents’‭ ‬Evenings and New Intake Evenings will be used to promote this partnership and obtain feedback‭ (‬e.g‭. ‬English and Mathematics workshops‭). ‬Homework questionnaires will be used where appropriate to ascertain parent views‭. ‬Parents will be consulted about any significant changes to the policy that are being considered by the governing body‭.‬

8‭. ‬Reviewing the policy

The homework policy will be reviewed every year‭. ‬Where significant changes to the policy are felt to be required‭, ‬proposals will‭ ‬be presented to the governing body and parents consulted‭.‬

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TACKLING INEQUALITY IN ENGLISH EDUCATION

Reversing The Matthew Effect

How does Michaela School tackle social inequality?

I wanted to visit Michaela simply to find out more about their homework policy, being fairly ignorant of the swirl of debate surrounding the school on twitter.  Their website gives a very clear message regarding their expectations regarding home learning, and the use of the knowledge organiser was of particular interest.  I only began to understand the specialness of the place when I researched the twitter presence of the staff, and felt the passion with which they wrote about the school they were creating emanating from their blogs.  The enthusiasm of my colleague, Toby French @MrHistoire, on the train journey up also added to my growing sense that the day was going to be a special one.

I wasn’t disappointed. I left the school after just over three hours with my head spinning; the homework policy I had gone to see in practice was a small cog in a huge wheel that had been painstakingly planned and implemented.  As so many people who have visited the school have commented, it is a remarkable place which feels like the living embodiment of social change in action.

If I were to have read a description of a typical school day for a student at Michaela before I arrived – starting at 7.55am, ending at 4pm (or 5pm if you’ve managed to acquire two detentions), lunchtime meals in a seating plan with a highly organised routine, large amounts of silence either listening to teacher-led discussion or reading very challenging texts, every body movement and position explained and corrected – the alarm bells would be ringing.  I couldn’t help but think: everything appears to be suppressed; surely it’s a pressure cooker waiting to explode – children can’t be expected to behave so well 100% of the time.  If I also read that they don’t really talk about feelings, that SEN students are not explicitly differentiated for and that the weakest students are expected to do the most work, I would have had quite serious concerns.  However, having seen, and more importantly, felt, the atmosphere at Michaela, the exact reverse is true.  Rather than having serious concerns, I have ended up asking myself some quite challenging questions instead.  So many of what I had felt to be my inalienable beliefs were called into question within the space of a few short hours I have found it difficult to think of anything else since I left the building.

So how can such a tightly controlled environment not feel like a ticking time bomb waiting to go off in an explosion of hormones and teenage angst?  Quite simply, Michaela have created an environment which allows staff to tap into what every human being craves: the chance to succeed.  Or as Maslow would put it – achieve self-actualisation.

I looked so carefully for signs that students were not genuinely engaged in their learning, but only saw the faces of children who were actively listening and participating.  I waited for the class whose teacher dared to lead a whole-class discussion for more than ten minutes with a lower ability year 7 class begin to lose students around the edges, but found the children’s concentration levels surpassed my own.  I watched the students marking their spelling tests expecting at least one to ask for a repeat of the correct spelling, but only saw 30 perfectly co-ordinated ticks on every single letter on every single word.  The 100% participation ratio that is the holy grail of teaching was in evidence for 100% of the minutes I spent in classrooms, even after the guided tour had ended and I was free to wander into whatever rooms I chose.

So how has the school managed to access the children’s ability to self-actualise?  I think much of the answer can be found by considering how so many of their basic human needs are fulfilled within the school, and most significantly for me, how those children who do not have these needs met at home can achieve so much in this environment.  

At the basic physiological level, the facilities are warm and welcoming, and they are all fed in a communal dining experience that could be the topic of an entire blog on it’s own.  Suffice to say that the sensible choices are made for them; a healthy meal is provided and sweets are effectively contraband.  

The students are safe .   And by this I don’t just mean they are protected from physical harm, but they are protected from the psychological harm of bullying.  No child has to fear being heckled by their peers for giving a smart answer, or wearing the wrong thing, or anything else that fills those unstructured moments when the nastiness creeps its way into barbed whispered comments from those who just want to hurt someone else to make themselves feel better.  Their resources are well looked after, they are provided with the equipment they need to succeed and routines are in place to ensure that they always have what they need to learn at the times when they need them.  

The children belong in the Michaela community.  Again, this is embedded in so many ways that are both tangible and intangible, but there is no denying it – these kids feel like they are part of something larger than themselves and they are proud of it.  

They have self- esteem .  The knowledge based curriculum and the structured learning environments build their confidence and sense of achievement.  They have respect for others and are respected by others.  

With all this in place, it is no wonder they are in a position to achieve the key elements of self-actualisation : a sense of morality, problem-solving, lack of prejudice and an acceptance of facts.  There is also a time and a place to be creative and spontaneous – it’s just not all the time in every lesson, which actually feels right when you are dealing with disadvantaged young people who all to often struggle to make the right choices for themselves.

So whilst my visit to Michaela led me to take a long hard look at what I had for so long held to be true, it actually reaffirmed what to me is most important: within every child, no matter how troubled, no matter how challenged, no matter how unpleasant to deal with, there is a very human desire to succeed.  And once that desire is unlocked, there are no limits to what they can achieve.

 Edit: I’ve written a follow-up post with some of the developments we’ve made since the visit here:  Follow-up

14 thoughts on “ How does Michaela School tackle social inequality? ”

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Amazing school by the sound of it. Bring back discipline.

Definitely an amazing school. To say “bring back discipline” suggests an old fashioned draconian approach, and that’s not the impression I got. Consequences were definitely important, but unlocking a genuine love of learning was far more important.

Astounds a fabulous place to learn in and teach in. It is a new school – how easy would it be to replicate their strategies in an established school with a more entrenched culture?

That’s all I’ve thought about since! I think at Torquay Academy we have already embedded a lot of the cultural things, and behaviour has come a long way since the times of special measures a few years ago (we got a good at a no notice inspection last year), but there is still lots to do. I’ve come away with a long list of practical measures we can implement, and hope to write more about it over the next few weeks. The headteacher did comment that it had been much easier for them being a new school, but I think she was being modest. There was a staggering amount of preparation work that they did before the students arrived that I think got them off to a flying start, and could be replicated.

Should also have said, look at my post on coaching for one of the ways we are creating our own fabulous place to learn and teach in!

Great post as I’m a big fan of coaching. Important aspect of the work I do in one of my schools and several others I support as a consultant. Thanks for posting. Cheers

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It is so much easier to set this culture in a brand new school. Have seen this at SMWs old school Mossbourne where I have done lots of consultancy work. Turning a school around is harder I think but fair play to them at Michaela. Cracking job for the children there

Thanks, that sounds really interesting. I will take a look at your posts.

• Pingback: How does Micheala School tackle social inequality? | The Echo Chamber

And what did you learn about homework??!!

Ha ha! Too much for one post! This is the first thing I’m going to work on so will put this up in another post soon.

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Zest for learning… into the rainforest of teaching.

The Michaela Way

Last week,  I joined the growing number of people who have visited Michaela Community School to see it action.   I’ve read Battle Hymn of the Tiger Teachers and numerous blogs and articles about the school from its teachers and visitors – so it was great to see what it is really like to put the commentary into perspective.  I had some preconceptions and lots of questions but, as I’ve often said, it’s a big mistake to judge a school you’ve never been to. I was prepared to react in lots of different ways.

My overriding impression was that Michaela is a lovely, lively, happy school, led by highly committed, driven people on a mission; people doing some ground-breaking work in shaping a knowledge-driven curriculum that inner city teenagers can access at a rate and depth that seems remarkable – all supported by an ethos with life-changing potential.  It would take pages to give a full blow-by-blow account so here are some of the more note-worthy aspects of my visit:

My tour guides were very polite and gave extended explanations of what they’re learning without prompting. This suggested that they are explicitly taught manners and to string sentences together. My Y7 guide was very sweet and enthusiastic – and was having to think consciously about how to express herself fluently whereas her Y9 partner spoke effortlessly. It’s part of their learning – something that, through practice, they’ll get really good at.  The explicit teaching of manners was evident at multiple points in the day.

In lessons the behaviour was impeccable.  The  ‘1,2,3, SLANT’  instruction and response was impressive – not unnatural or oppressive in any way, just absolutely consistent. My guides couldn’t even remember what the acronym stands for exactly – it’s already a habit.  In fact lessons felt quite relaxed because everyone is so used to the expectations. Students really are fully focused the whole time and their work is constructed to be pretty intense . However, because lessons are punctuated with lots of choral repetition, appreciations and so on,  it’s not all stuffy silence -far from it.  For example the Mexican wave of whooping to mark success on a maths exercise was joyful – lovely.

The centralised curriculum planning and associated work books and knowledge organisers are all very interesting and impressive.  It’s totally clear what needs to be learned and the expectations are built-in from the beginning – a sharp contract to schools where teachers are planning lessons from day-to-day, scrabbling to pull resources together by themselves to varying degrees of success. Students were really clear about how their learning was supported by the process of self-quizzing – for homework and other parts for the day.

This whole process of teaching very specific elements of knowledge very directly, with the use of choral repetition and daily quizzing is fascinating. Katharine explained that, in her view, the mistake new teachers make most often is asking students questions they don’t or can’t know the answer to.  The ‘ just tell’em ‘ philosophy is very strong; it’s palpable in lessons. However, once told, students are meant to learn and remember. This is done systematically and rigorously – eg a demerit for not checking all self-quizzing correctly. But the students say it just makes them do it and they’re really learning – across the curriculum.  Year 9s are getting a more varied diet of homework with more extended tasks beyond the quizzing. I’m interested in where this all leads and what other types of learning might be built on this later as all this knowledge gets put to use in wider contexts.

The curriculum model is interesting.  Six one-hour lessons a day and a stripped down curriculum mean that the subjects all have lots of time given to them. At KS4 they will all do History and French plus RE in Y10 and the core subjects.  Art vs Triple Science is the only option I think. It’s a bold model, nicely simple.  Do we over-do the whole concept of choice and of trying to fit every subject into an impossibly crowded curriculum?

The Year 7/8 art work is amazing. It seems to build explicitly on learning from artists and making reproductions using scaling grids for accuracy before students do their own drawings – but, wow, the portraits students had drawn were wonderful; it’s impressive stuff.

The maths teaching I saw was great. Students worked at a pace through pre-planned sets of practice questions which were then checked at speed by a teacher modelling the answers using a visualiser. I loved the tall visualiser stands – which made this very easy for the teacher to use repeatedly.  The tasks included going back to easier problem sets like doubling (x by 2). This was done at speed which students really enjoyed. The emphasis was on building confidence which seemed to be working.

Behaviour around the school was also impeccable but also seemed quite relaxed and normal.  It wasn’t overly oppressive; there is a busy dynamic feel as students move quickly from a lesson to lunch or lesson to lesson; there’s a staff presence but everyone is just saying hello and smiling and the children say ‘Good afternoon Sir’ as they go by. People tend to associate strict behaviour with sternness and people being told off a lot – I didn’t see anything remotely like that.

The family lunch is great; a powerful element in creating the school culture.  The space allows staff to address students at multiple points in the half-hour starting with some choral recitation of a poem and a bit of Shakespeare (I’m too ignorant to know which bits they were -but my dining partners knew very well when I asked).  During the recitation I saw a Y9 girl who clearly knew the soliloquy very well, almost dancing in the rhythm of the lines as she said the words – this was spontaneous enthusiasm; she loved doing it. I spoke to her later – a very happy, engaged student.

The eating part is all very civilised and efficient – you can’t hang about! Our table felt very relaxed; students spoke openly about how they view the school -there was some playful off-message irreverence as well as genuine pride.  There was some direction about a discussion topic – something to do with empathy in literature but on my table they weren’t too keen to follow; they viewed it as optional.  Fair enough – I may have put them off; they were normal kids. The appreciations after eating were interesting.  They were expected to explain the reason for the appreciation in a big loud voice – with appropriate affirmation/feedback from the lunch-leader. Some appreciations felt more authentic and personal than others but I saw that as part of the learning process; students are learning to appreciate others and that their community values it.  At the end, all those with detentions were called up to go. It was a largish number – 40 or so?  This is part of the routine of their world, a consequence they accept, not something they fear. It keeps the standards high – two demerits= a detention – but it felt light-touch, not heavy-handed.  All sanctions are narrated – students have rules and expectations reinforced all the time. It’s a powerful culture.

The reading system is massively impressive.  The texts are all pre-planned and printed in numbered lines in the booklets with key words in bold to prompt instruction and annotation.  Students hold their guiding ruler with two hands moving down the page stopping to annotate as required. It all happens at quite a pace.  The expectations here are sky-high; intense reading of sophisticated texts with lots of modelling from the teacher as well as students reading aloud. So, this is how you do reading! There’s so much to learn from this.

The French lessons I saw were fabulous.  We were treated to a bit of a flourish at the end of Mr Smith’s Year 9 lesson.  The loud, enthusiastic call and response, (his English and their French), was dazzling. Accents were stunning. However, it’s not a mystery.  It came straight from the Year 7 knowledge organiser: À mon avis, apprendre une langue étrangère c’est très utile main évidemment ce n’est pas toujours facile quand même.   Also, Il faut que je fasse mes devoirs . This isn’t like any language learning I’ve seen before. The theory appears to be  that if you amass a repertoire of complex phrases through direct instruction and recall methods, you gain huge confidence on which to develop fluency later.  It’s a world away from the more typical process of learning lots of vocab about everyday life and gingerly introducing verbs – without really expecting/demanding total recall of what has been learned along the way.  Here, students learn to say the phrases before they fully understand the underlying structures – too often we over analyse language at an early stage which inhibits the learning.

Something I was looking to check was that Michaela has students who might present as challenging elsewhere.  I certainly did find a range of students.  It turned out that my playfully off-message lunch partner needs lots of support and has had some difficulties at previous schools.  I encountered him later in a withdrawal group for Maths where two students were being taught by a teacher.  He’s definitely doing way better than he would be in a lot of schools.  Elsewhere I saw students who were just like a lot of the characters I’ve met at the more challenging end of the spectrum at other schools.  I don’t know the proportions but certainly Michaela does cater for students who are not simply pre-programmed to passively work within the boundaries of a discipline system. They have to be shown and supported even though the expectations remain firmly the same for everyone.  For sure, it would be hard to impose this culture in an existing school; you need very strong majority buy-in to a culture that the odd more challenging students assimilate into without them creating their own.

The main under-represented group are middle class children.  This was something I discussed during my visit – whether the Michaela way could extend to a more socially mixed cohort, where students have stronger home learning environments, more involved parents, mature self-discipline and, more importantly, students with a lot more prior knowledge and cultural capital.  The school isn’t really set up with those students in mind but it’s interesting to explore what might transfer to different contexts and what one might change in terms of the curriculum and some of the routines.  It will be interesting to see if Michaela matures into a school that staff send their own children to – always the acid test. That’s not meant as a criticism; it’s a genuine question about different social cultures and the interface between what parents express what they want for their children and what a school provides.

Finally, I was struck by the expectations of staff supervision. Teachers teach most periods in the week and then, between lessons, there they are at their stations on the stairwells by the toilets and there they are again taking part in the family lunch, swapping places to supervise the half-hour of free time in the yard. It’s a full-on day.  That’s the deal. The trade-off is that teaching materials are pre-prepared and marking is minimal and overall, staff do report that they find it easier working there than in their previous schools.  However, the expectations of contact time are a world apart – it’s all part of that sense of mission that is so strongly shared by the staff.

Ok – this has ended being much longer than planned but there’s a lot to say. Thank you to Katharine for hosting the visit and to all the Michaela staff and students who made me so welcome. Congratulations on creating such a great school and for giving us all so much to think about.  There’s no doubt whatsoever that, when the time comes, Michaela students will knock those accountability measures out of the park.

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40 comments.

[…] The Michaela Way by Tom Sherrington  […]

Absolutely amazing. I too would love to see how a more ‘middle class ‘ cohort would respond. This is just so life affirming as someone who has always worked in challenging environments.

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Hi Tom. Thanks for this post! To answer your question: speaking as a Michaela teacher, for the record: I grew up in a firmly middle-class part of Lincolnshire and have a middle-class family; I attended a very middle-class Lincolnshire selective-grammar school; my wife attended a top private boarding school in the UK too. We would love to send our (future) children to Michaela!

Glad you enjoyed the Mexican waves too!

That’s good to know. I enjoyed the brief glimpse into your classroom world.

Interesting. As I feared about Michaela and possibly other schools, no Geography offered at GCSE.

They’re keeping it simple. But yes, that’s going to be a challenging decision for lots of people.

What’s their reasoning behind this?

Early stages – want to focus on common curriculum. Geography is slightly less aligned to knowledge curriculum philosophy than History?

It smacks of intellectual snobbery to me. History is no more aligned to a knowledge curriculum philosophy than Geography. Both subjects are rigorous and academic.

They wouldn’t argue. They do it at KS3. But most schools only ask children to do History OR Geography. It’s a fair call to just do one or the other for everyone if you’re keeping things tight.

It really narrows their curriculum – geog is such a broad subject. Anyway, they’re obviously entitled to do what they want, it’s just surprising and disappointing – it would be good to have such a high profile school flying the flag for traditional geography. Cheers for this write up, and for your other blog posts.

So, on balance, which were you more impressed with? Michaela or School 21?! Or is there room for both?!

I have 2 questions for you Tom: A) how much social engineering do you think is going on? B) does the school reflect British culture and if so what is this?

Socialisation and social engineering are two very different things. Having visited myself I would say the former is happening unlike the schools where I taught and which progressives promote, favour the latter approach.

Socialisation depends on the type of society you aspire to. Social engineering is trying to change your current society to meet your aspiration. I’d say a bit of both?

Actually socialisation is fitting into the current society while social engineering is political and aspirational. However, the latter is a problem when teachers who are not democratically elected or representative of the population decide to do so without the consent of society. I don’t really care how “enlightened” they may consider themselves, it is an abuse of the trust placed in teachers to have done what they have over the course of the last 50 years.

Very inspiring reading. What is in place sounds exciting, challenging and successful. I am interested to know what Michaela schools offer in the way of music, drama, dance and sport (you mentioned Art but no other arts)?

They have PE lessons and two hours of music per week. No drama as far as I know.

Are you looking for a job or just networking?

Thanks, Tom. Have read so many different things about Michaela, this helps with balance.

Thanks fro writing this. I can’t really comment as I haven’t been, but could I just point out this:

It’s a world away from the more typical process of learning lots of vocab about everyday life and gingerly introducing verbs – without really expecting/demanding total recall of what has been learned along the way.

As an experienced language teacher and former head of modern languages, I wonder what makes you think that other teachers/schools/methods don’t expect/demand total recall of what has been learned along the way?

It’s strikes me as defining the problem so that it fits the MCS Brent solution? Is that good science?

What makes me think it is the experience of working in schools for a long time. At Michaela, ‘demand total recall’ really means that. The self-quizzing process on very specific words and phrases means that students really do retain the learning and build up an impressive repertoire. I’ve never seen this happen elsewhere I’ve worked or where my children went to school that the phrase-level recall was required and checked systematically. Often lots of vocab is explored but the recall expectations are not nearly as intense or rigorous. It’s not ‘try to learn these words and see who well you do’ – it’s ‘you must all absolutely learn these words and be able to recall them by X date’. And they do. That’s the difference.

Do you think that phrase level recall demonstrates a good grasp of the language? It’s undoubtedly impressive, but, having tried many methods throughout my career, parroting answers from a prelearnt script without understanding the underlying grammatical structures does not language learning make. They’re learning stuff, undoubtedly. But they are not learning to speak or otherwise manipulate the language in order to be able to express themselves, which is arguably the whole point of foreign language learning. You may think this is an oversimplification on my part and that this is not what happens at schools like MCS Brent, but since your case is built on one, I thought I’d use the same strategy! 😉

They are learning to manipulate it too – it’s not merely parroted; that’s just the foundation of it. They can express themselves. I think you should go and see and talk to the students – I know MFL teachers who have been and been impressed. I honestly don’t think it’s worth offering a critique until you’ve seen it. You may find that your school delivers well too – certainly Michaela is not the only school that teaches languages really well. But compared to your average state comprehensive school, their approach is very very different in terms of expectations.

The whole you haven’t-been-so-you-can’t-criticise is really grating. I have your explanation. I have their blogs. I have the views of MFL specialist who have been and thought there were good things and bad things. I am a languages teacher, and can give an opinion based on the available information.

Ok – but you’re making an assumption about what they do that I don’t think is quite right. It’s quite different to how I imagined in lots of ways; it might grate but it might also be true that you can’t really judge from afar. I can tell you that, without any doubt, their kids are streets ahead of most state comprehensive students with similar starting points. What’s not to like about that?

I hope you are right. All I can say is: based on what you’ve said, what they’ve said and what I know about language learning and teaching, outlined above would be my concerns.

Also, I would like to see on what evidence the two major assumptions in this assertion are based:

Here, students learn to say the phrases before they fully understand the underlying structures – too often we over analyse language at an early stage which inhibits the learning.

This is the subject of a good discussion. I’ve been a language learner myself many times – always struggled. My kids ‘know’ the languages they’ve learned – enough for A* at GCSE – but they can’t really speak them with any confidence. I’ve seen this phenomenon repeatedly – students inhibited by fear of inaccuracy because they’ve be taught an array of rules to cover various possibilities without really being confident in them. For example, at school I learnt and can still remember to say “Je me suis rendu compte que j’avais perdu mes amis” as part of a story. I knew it off by heart. The ‘rendu compte’ and the ‘j’avais’ were just words I believed to be correct in the context of that phrase and I remember using it in my oral exam. But I didn’t fully understand the structures at that point. I do now. I tried learning Russian and German but was defeated by the whole case issue – nominative, dative etc – It never made sense to me and it felt as if everything I said was wrong, pretty much every time. I’d have killed for a bit more phrase book rote learning just to have something to hang everything else on. It’s that kind of thing. When I lived in Indonesia I picked up lots of phrases and could chat to people in shops at a certain level – it was all based on word and phrase-level copying, not a proper grammatical approach. Worth discussing? It’s experiential evidence – not a full blown study!

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I fear that the deficiency of such a model is not reserved for MFL teaching. Parroting information isn’t learning is it? Doesn’t it inhibit students from transferring knowledge into new contexts. Isn’t it counterintuitive to independent learning? Anyone can robotically produce information, especially when the constant threat of punishment looms. Is that really where things are at: force fed = gushing adoration? The comment about middle class uptake is pertinent. The answer is no. I would never allow my child to be so stifled. The assertion that knowledge is needed to empower independent learning is becoming so tedious, as it lacks imagination. There are other ( and ironically more powerful) ways to implant knowledge compared with force, and for a thriving progressive society, certainly more useful epistemologies.

Having re-read this comment, i would disagree with some things i’ve said. Knowledge is important and absolutely necessary to empower independent learning. I’m still unsure about the strategy Michaela uses to achieve it, but then again, i haven’t been there so can’t really comment without appearing disingenuous.

I am fascinated by the complete omission of any reference to science lessons in your post. Given your own sci ed background this surprises me. I would be really interested to know what science lessons were like at Michaela. Did you see any during your visit?

Reblogged this on The Echo Chamber .

[…] year has been visiting so many interesting schools including School 21, West London Free School, Michaela, Eton, Wellington College, London Academy, Canons High School, Cottenham, Turton, Priory Academy, […]

[…] I’ve only seen this at Michaela (and Eton!) but I’ve heard of other schools that do it: students sitting at tables together to eat shared meals in a family style – not the normal canteen queue.  It’s quite wonderful to see in action, all part of building cultural capital and the school ethos.  I wrote more about my Michaela visit here. […]

[…] I’ve only seen this at Michaela (and Eton!) but I’ve heard of other schools that do it: students sitting at tables together to eat shared meals in a family style – not the normal canteen queue.  It’s quite wonderful to see in action, all part of building cultural capital and the school ethos.  I wrote more about my Michaela visit here. […]

[…] schools have their own character – here are some blogs about schools doing incredible work:  Michaela in Brent; Turton High School in Bolton;  Eastern High in Cardiff.  Go out and find a school to work in […]

As someone who served many detentions, I would suggest that they have a different effect on different pupils. Understanding what individual students are trying to achieve is surely an essential part of personalising education for participants.

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Is Homework Good for Kids? Here’s What the Research Says

A s kids return to school, debate is heating up once again over how they should spend their time after they leave the classroom for the day.

The no-homework policy of a second-grade teacher in Texas went viral last week , earning praise from parents across the country who lament the heavy workload often assigned to young students. Brandy Young told parents she would not formally assign any homework this year, asking students instead to eat dinner with their families, play outside and go to bed early.

But the question of how much work children should be doing outside of school remains controversial, and plenty of parents take issue with no-homework policies, worried their kids are losing a potential academic advantage. Here’s what you need to know:

For decades, the homework standard has been a “10-minute rule,” which recommends a daily maximum of 10 minutes of homework per grade level. Second graders, for example, should do about 20 minutes of homework each night. High school seniors should complete about two hours of homework each night. The National PTA and the National Education Association both support that guideline.

But some schools have begun to give their youngest students a break. A Massachusetts elementary school has announced a no-homework pilot program for the coming school year, lengthening the school day by two hours to provide more in-class instruction. “We really want kids to go home at 4 o’clock, tired. We want their brain to be tired,” Kelly Elementary School Principal Jackie Glasheen said in an interview with a local TV station . “We want them to enjoy their families. We want them to go to soccer practice or football practice, and we want them to go to bed. And that’s it.”

A New York City public elementary school implemented a similar policy last year, eliminating traditional homework assignments in favor of family time. The change was quickly met with outrage from some parents, though it earned support from other education leaders.

New solutions and approaches to homework differ by community, and these local debates are complicated by the fact that even education experts disagree about what’s best for kids.

The research

The most comprehensive research on homework to date comes from a 2006 meta-analysis by Duke University psychology professor Harris Cooper, who found evidence of a positive correlation between homework and student achievement, meaning students who did homework performed better in school. The correlation was stronger for older students—in seventh through 12th grade—than for those in younger grades, for whom there was a weak relationship between homework and performance.

Cooper’s analysis focused on how homework impacts academic achievement—test scores, for example. His report noted that homework is also thought to improve study habits, attitudes toward school, self-discipline, inquisitiveness and independent problem solving skills. On the other hand, some studies he examined showed that homework can cause physical and emotional fatigue, fuel negative attitudes about learning and limit leisure time for children. At the end of his analysis, Cooper recommended further study of such potential effects of homework.

Despite the weak correlation between homework and performance for young children, Cooper argues that a small amount of homework is useful for all students. Second-graders should not be doing two hours of homework each night, he said, but they also shouldn’t be doing no homework.

Not all education experts agree entirely with Cooper’s assessment.

Cathy Vatterott, an education professor at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, supports the “10-minute rule” as a maximum, but she thinks there is not sufficient proof that homework is helpful for students in elementary school.

“Correlation is not causation,” she said. “Does homework cause achievement, or do high achievers do more homework?”

Vatterott, the author of Rethinking Homework: Best Practices That Support Diverse Needs , thinks there should be more emphasis on improving the quality of homework tasks, and she supports efforts to eliminate homework for younger kids.

“I have no concerns about students not starting homework until fourth grade or fifth grade,” she said, noting that while the debate over homework will undoubtedly continue, she has noticed a trend toward limiting, if not eliminating, homework in elementary school.

The issue has been debated for decades. A TIME cover in 1999 read: “Too much homework! How it’s hurting our kids, and what parents should do about it.” The accompanying story noted that the launch of Sputnik in 1957 led to a push for better math and science education in the U.S. The ensuing pressure to be competitive on a global scale, plus the increasingly demanding college admissions process, fueled the practice of assigning homework.

“The complaints are cyclical, and we’re in the part of the cycle now where the concern is for too much,” Cooper said. “You can go back to the 1970s, when you’ll find there were concerns that there was too little, when we were concerned about our global competitiveness.”

Cooper acknowledged that some students really are bringing home too much homework, and their parents are right to be concerned.

“A good way to think about homework is the way you think about medications or dietary supplements,” he said. “If you take too little, they’ll have no effect. If you take too much, they can kill you. If you take the right amount, you’ll get better.”

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Secondary education

Connect with other parents whose children are starting secondary school on this forum.

Anyone got any opinions on the Michaela School?

noblegiraffe · 26/11/2016 13:43

My Twitter is currently full of talk about Michaela as the teachers there have released a book today and are holding a conference explaining what they do. It's a no-excuses school where kids walk the corridors either in silence or chanting Shakespeare, behaviour is expected to be perfect including no slouching. Everything possible is done to reduce workload of teachers - no marking in books, lessons are all joint planned and taught uniformly, no differentiation, they write their own textbooks. Does anyone's kids go there? Anyone decide against sending their kids there? Does anyone know how it is viewed in the local community?

I've read lots about this: every blog I've seen from someone who has visited the school has been largely positive, even if they were expecting not to like it when they went. I don't know about the local community, although I have seen one post from someone who said she moved house to get into the catchment. What I like about it is the emphasis on learning and retaining a great deal of subject knowledge. Even for people who don't value subject knowledge that much, and prefer an emphasis on 'skills', it seems to me that for pupils to be able to think critically and write well, they need to have a good, deep knowledge of what they are thinking and writing about . Have you read the headteacher's book about her previous experience in schools where a lot of promising children ended up lost to street culture? It's a really good insight into why Michaela has been designed the way it has. As a black headteacher, in a school with a majority of black children, she wanted to do everything she could to prevent that happening. The school's culture reflects that, but it seems that a lot of the school's (white) critics aren't interested in understanding those reasons.

As a traditional-style teacher I approve of the idea of teaching knowledge explicitly and love the idea of the school explicitly seeking to reduce teacher workload. I also like the idea that values such as being kind and appreciating others are explicitly taught. But the idea that black children need a different type of school to white children, and that school involves militaristic-type drilling is unsettling - I know that KIPP schools in the US have been criticised on this basis. I also don't understand how it works in practice. For example I had a Y11 student burst into tears in one of my lessons recently - personal issues. I let them go to the toilets to mop up, sent another student to look after them and arranged for a pastoral teacher to pick them up later. I don't understand if at Michaela I would have been expected to impassively issue demerits for slouching and not paying attention.

I don't think they actually do militaristic type drilling! I read that they jog to their PE lessons at a remote playing field chanting French verbs (or something like that). But you know what I mean? Rigid orderly fashion with lots of uniformity.

Nor do I think "black children" need a different type of school No, I'm sure that many children would benefit from such a strict culture, regardless of race. It's the idea that such schools need to be set up to help black children avoid gang culture that's problematic, and that's what has been criticised in the US - these schools for black children (and some white kids whose parents like the idea), normal schools for white middle class children whose parents talk to them at dinner. Actually in the U.K. it's white FSM children who overwhelmingly underperform - perhaps schools like Michaela will be proposed as a solution to that issue? Put the poor kids in strict schools?

I read a blog once by a French teacher at Michaela and what he (said he'd) managed to achieve with his Y7 and 8s was quite amazing - lots of proper conversations and jokes with a firm grammatical foundation. I'd be fascinated to read an independent analysis.

Given the amount of school time dedicated to learning and the effort the teachers put into designing the curriculum, I would be surprised if their results weren't astonishing.

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I am absolutely fascinated by it. I would love to visit but I am afraid to ask for a day off for it and even more afraid I will have a huge breakdown and refuse to leave... I work in a school with a few discipline issues, can you tell?

Learning Spy blog from 18 months ago: www.learningspy.co.uk/featured/michaela-school-route-one-schooling/

One thing I worry about with this school is their ideological opposition to a spiral curriculum. They say they teach the stuff right the first time so it is retained. I worry that in Y11, they just will have forgotten what they learned because that is how memory works, and their results will tank. That's game over for them, if they get bad GCSE results in the first cohort. (Also, if it's not spiral, how can you connect old learning with new topics?) Maybe I have misunderstood what they mean and they do revisit content to keep memories strong and connected.

I believe that the main reason for the strict behaviour is to maximise learning time as much as possible. The school takes the view that many of their children are behind where they should be (due mainly to the primary schools they attended). They want them to catch up, and not just catch up, but to fly. The whole way the school operates is oriented toward that. The goal is to maximise the learning time; the rationale is that children in private schools have advantages they never will, but one thing they have is a Spartan approach to learning. Work hard, never give up, practice. That's a quote from a blog by Tom Bennett, after visiting the school. It's the idea that such schools need to be set up to help black children avoid gang culture that's problematic, Well, there are a lot of black parents who don't see that as problematic, and I don't blame them. I suspect if I were in their position, I would feel the same. When wealthy people find their children are getting sucked into a bad culture, they have other options, such as boarding schools. However, I feel I should stress that I don't think that's part of Michaela's mission statement; it was more my own deduction from the book I mentioned earlier. Personally, I think all children would benefit from a Michaela-style ethos; but there are an awful lot of parents who disagree. Put the poor kids in strict schools? I would like to see all schools sort out their behaviour problems, as a priority. But I suspect that many poorer parents, who are often saddled with the most chaotic schools, and who know that they don't have the resources to help their children outside of school (tutors, revision guides, financial support for extra years of study) may have more cause than I do to be anxious for their children to attend a school that maximises their chances to learn. I have the resources to pick up the pieces for my children (and I have had to do so), but others are not so fortunate.

Some interesting excerpts from the Michaela book just posted on Twitter.

Wonder Pupils are expected to do a lot of revision at home, as homework. Also, everything they need to know is in their knowledge organisers, and so will be available to them to use for GCSE revision. The school also says it uses spaced practice and testing. I'm sure they will be on top of making sure whatever revision is needed in Years 10 and 11 gets done! This is a link about the curriculum: mcsbrent.co.uk/curriculum/

Maybe I have got the wrong end of the stick then. I just wonder if they really mean they won't revisit topics in lesson time because once they are taught, they are taught. I feel like you need a closer look at things a few years later to get more out of the topic and make new connections. Let's see, they're only up to Y9, now, right?

Yes, Year 9. I guess we'll find out in about two and a half years!

Parents are very happy for their children's schools to be extremely strict as long as their own children aren't on the receiving end of any discipline.

By the way, Noble , if you are interested in reading more about the school, but don't want to get the book, there are quite a few blogs around by Michaela teachers. Pragmatic Education, Reading All the Books, Bodil's Blog, To Learn is to Follow, Tabula Rasa, are some of them.

I follow quite a lot of them on Twitter, kesstrel but obviously they are all very vocally in favour of the school (possibly a bit culty!). That's why I was interested to hear if anyone had a child there, or knew the school but didn't work there.

I follow a few of them on twitter too and some of them are vomit-inducing in their evangelical smugness. I haven't visited, and remain open-minded but one teacher did post a video of a daily equipment check and implied that this is something no other school does, which just made her look a bit of an idiot.

Crikey, the head really kicks off at about 1 hour into this video: livestream.com/L4L/Michaela/videos/142771330 She at least has a very clear vision for what she is trying to achieve and is exceptionally passionate about what she is doing. A call for a revolution.

I used to teach philosophy and ethics. I loved going into a classroom with a general direction but free to divert if they brought up some interesting thoughts. I liked responding to the class. I cant imagine enjoying teaching to a script someone else wrote as surely that's not teaching... our local school seems an incredibly similar model (often in the local news for it) and I really don't want to send my daughter. I'd hate for a rule to be enforced without any understanding of the circumstances. I do like the idea of intelligent conversation. I'd be curious to visit the school - or see where the students end up.

I visited a school recently which operates a lot like Michaela. It unnerved me a little. And, dare I say it, even as a old-hand teacher who bemoans the lack of discipline and need for 'putting on a show' on a daily basis... I found the lessons boring as hell. The students seemed hypnotised. Obedient, compliant, docile even. They worked in complete silence. No-one fidgeted, yawned or looked unfocused. I came away impressed on some level, but would I want to teach somewhere like that? Not a chance.

Treehouse Having read a lot of blogs, I haven't encountered anyone mentioning teaching from a script at Michaela...have I missed something?

Not an actual script - but uniform lessons that are the same and predone is pretty much scripted in my book. It wouldn't be teaching to me. (A heck of a lot easier yes....but no real skill of teaching, knowing your subject, class, how you like to teach, what works best, finding ways to make topics different or more enjoyable etc.)

I like some of the bits they manage to avoid though from the picture of the book above. The pointless admin tasks, detailed lesson plans, marking just for ofsted etc are all things keeping me from going back into teaching. I just want to be free to teach my classes! (I used to teach to hundreds of kids - no way could I manage regular detailed feedback or think it necessary.)

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‘Teaching is workload-addicted. Teachers seem to believe hard work equates to love for one’s pupils’

On the fourth floor of an unremarkable, grey, pebble-dashed, concrete block of a school building, overlooking the littered streets of Wembley Park, sits our staffroom. Large in size, its open, airy feel makes it arguably the nicest room in the school.

Before we opened in 2014, our headmistress, Katharine Birbalsingh, had to fight with the builders and designers redeveloping the building to ensure that this room did not become the sixth-form common room, but that instead it would be a space for teachers.

As headmistress, Katharine wanted to send children and staff a strong message: at Michaela Community School, staff come first.

Nowadays, some newly built schools don’t even have staffrooms. Presumably this is because it is assumed by some that teachers enjoying a few moments away from the exhaustion of the classroom is a bad thing.

It’s indicative of a wider work-addicted culture in teaching .

Why go to bed early when you could plan another engaging worksheet? Why see your family at the weekend if you could go in to school and run another intervention session? Why have a cup of tea in the staffroom when you could be marking a set of books?

This addiction is driven by the misguided belief that hard work equates to love for one’s pupils. The harder we work , the more we care, the better they achieve. After all, nobody can argue that you don’t care if you work every hour god sends .

No sensible senior leader can say that you didn’t do enough if you worked like a dog all year. Not working hard means your pupils don’t reach their potential, and because most teachers are decent people who genuinely want the best for the kids they teach, they are prepared to put in the time to make the difference. It’s wrapped up in a belief that doing more will garner greater results, and that self-sacrifice is the sole route to pupil progress.

Perhaps sometimes this is the case. Renowned American teachers such as Rafe Esquith, Michael Johnston, Erin Gruwell and Jay Matthews write about the great things they achieved with their classes against the odds.

In the face of gun crime , gang warfare , drugs, street crime, prison, horrendous poverty, and with a lack of funding and structures in place to support them, they help their pupils to overcome these difficulties and go on to transform their lives. It is truly inspiring stuff.

But whilst this may be effective, it cannot - and must not - be the only way to do right by one’s pupils.

Unrealistic and irresponsible 

If our system depends on half a million inspiring teachers working all hours, we might as well give up now.

It’s an unrealistic and frankly irresponsible position to take. If we ask teachers to work so hard that they leave the profession or end up suffering from a mental illness, we must introspect and admit where we have gone wrong.

At Michaela, we know that pupils succeed when teachers are happy. And so we put in place many measures that enable teachers to focus on what’s most important, and simultaneously maintain their sanity.

Instead of waiting for the Department for Education or Ofsted to come up with an answer to the question of teacher workload, we recognise that school leaders must take the initiative.

Many of the practices that drive this culture of over-working can easily be dispensed with if senior leaders look at every tiny task through the lens of improving teacher wellbeing.

Galvanised by our streamlined approaches, the Michaela teachers have recently come together to write a book, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Teachers . In it, we describe many of the systems that free up teachers’ time.

At Michaela, teachers on a full timetable can leave at 5pm each day, and don’t have to work on weekends or during the holidays. In over two years, I’ve never seen a teacher struggling with enormous bags of exercise books to mark at home, or panicking about impending observations or report deadlines.

Our focus on continually simplifying and reducing time spent on low impact tasks such as these enables every single teacher in the school to teach every single lesson with purpose, urgency, and the charisma of a Broadway performer.

Precisely because our teachers are so happy and fulfilled, and able to focus all their energies on what matters most, the pupils thrive.

Pupils behave beautifully in lessons, in the corridor, at break time, and as they wait for the bus outside school at the end of the day.

With careful planning, ruthless prioritisation and unrelenting focus on reducing workload, any school can achieve the same outcomes.

Our belief that we are not special and that any school can do what we do, drove us to write our book sharing our approaches. In it, Jo Facer outlines how putting an end to the Sisyphean task of marking exercise books has reduced burden on teachers and increased pupil outcomes.

In his chapter on homework, Joe Kirby describes how simplified, centralised systems and consistency enable all our pupils to complete homework every evening, whilst minimising effort for teachers.

Our approach to discipline - a mixture of a heavy focus on teacher authority, consistent consequences and respect for teachers - means that lessons are stress-free. Rather than struggling to get pupils to sit down, arguing with them or wasting precious learning time amidst classroom chaos, teachers are free to spend every second focusing on teaching their subject.

In Hin Tai Ting’s chapter, he outlines how teacher respect helps to achieve this; in Lucy Newman’s chapter, she explains why teacher authority is both liberating for teachers and vital for pupil progress.

In Jessica Lund’s chapter “No Nonsense, No Burnout”, she explains how we have ruthlessly dropped so many of the practices that are seen as standard in many schools, and how doing so dramatically improves classroom practice and pupil outcomes.

Where in some schools it is deemed necessary to grade observations, to implement a divisive performance management system, to expect all-singing and dancing lessons, to demand four-part lessons and attention grabbing activities, to enter endless amounts of data into boggling spreadsheets that nobody other than the data manager ever uses. Or to spend hours chasing up forgotten homework and to run classroom detentions at lunch times, at Michaela, we do not.

The beauty of Michaela lies in the detail: our ongoing obsession with simplifying systems whilst maximising learning has enabled us to build a school where teachers teach without burning out, and pupils learn without wasting time.

Perhaps if more schools thought about things in this way, we wouldn’t have a teacher workload crisis.

Perhaps, if we moved away from the damaging paradigm of overworking, we’d be able to do an even better job for our pupils, and would have even more fun doing it.

Perhaps, if more schools did things the Michaela way, teachers would be able to achieve the outcomes they are currently killing themselves for with much less effort .

School leaders must take action if we are to solve the problem of teacher burnout.

If there is no emphasis on this at the top of the school, we condemn our teachers to late nights, short holidays, and few weekends. Change the paradigm at the top of your school, and the culture will thrive - and so will the pupils.

To learn more about our methods, and how we reduce teacher workload, order a copy of Battle Hymn of the Tiger Teachers  now. Even better, come and visit: you’d be more than welcome. 

Katie Ashford is deputy head and director of inclusion at Michaela Community School

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• Disadvantage does not have to be destiny Katie Ashford • 12th September 2014

Homework tips for supporting children in primary school

Homework can be a sticking point for busy families.

After experts questioned its relevance for primary schoolers, many of you weighed in on Facebook, disagreeing on how much, if any, homework is the right amount for this age group. 

So, what is beneficial? And what are some strategies to help make it a less stressful part of the day for both parents and kids?

What's the value in homework?

Grattan Institute deputy program director Amy Haywood says there is value in homework — particularly set reading — for primary school-aged kids.

Ms Haywood, based in Naarm/Melbourne, says time spent reading independently or with an adult "is a really good use of time because it builds up the vocabulary".

In addition to reading, other key skills such as maths can be a focus.

"In classes is where they're doing a lot of the learning of new content or skills, and then outside the school might be opportunity to practise."

She says there's "clear evidence around practice leading to mastery, and then the mastery having an impact on students' engagement in school, [and] their confidence with taking on different learning tasks".

There's also a case for homework in later primary years as you might want them to build some of those study habits before they go into secondary school.

But, she says "schools need to be careful about what homework they are setting".

Communicate with the school

Ms Haywood encourages parents to speak to teachers if they have concerns about set homework.

"[Teachers] may not necessarily realise that a student is spending a lot of time or needing quite a bit of help.

"That new information is very useful for a teacher because it means that they can go back and understand what they might need to reteach and any misconceptions that they need to go over."

Find the best time for your family

Parenting expert and family counsellor Rachel Schofield says finding the best time for homework in your family's routine is important.

Based in New South Wales' Bega Valley, on traditional lands of the Yuin-Monaro Nations, she says for some families fitting it into the morning routine is easier.

It's also about when parents and caregivers are in "the best shape" to help, "because if you've got a kid that's battling homework, you're going to have to be in emotionally good shape".

"If you're really stressed at the end of the day, then that's probably not the best time."

Ms Schofield says "parents have incredibly busy lives" but if you can carve out the time "homework can become a place where you actually get to slow down and stop".

She says children below the age of 10 need a lot a supervision and shouldn't be expected to do homework independently.

Why homework straight after school might not work 

Ms Schofield says kids "need decompression time after school".

She says there's an understandable tendency among busy parents to get homework out of the way as soon as possible, but this could be working against them.

Snacks, play and time to offload are usually what primary-aged kids need, Ms Schofield says.

Some time to play and connect with a parent after school can be "really helpful".

Even 10 minutes "can make the whole trajectory of the evening go differently", she says.

Ms Schofield says kids can come home with "a lot of emotional stuff" and rough-and-tumble-play can be a good way to spend time with them and help them decompress after school.

Ms Schofield says you can also try and engage with your child 'playfully' if they are refusing to do homework.

It's tempting to be stern and serious in response, but she says treating it more "goofily" by poorly attempting to complete it yourself or asking your child for help with a task might get a better result.

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