Mentor networks and the new orders

1. Mentor networks and the new orders By JK Rowling.

2. What is happening and how do I know? • How do I know? • Evidence from doctoral research. • Evidence from working with networks in Yorkshire.

3. Common themes. • Resistance to engage with change. • Divergence of curriculum time, largely based upon socio-economic background of the schools. • Concerns about assessment agendas, imposed largely by senior managers. • Disengagement with narrative as an element of both chronology and diversity.

4. Resistance to change. • Too much change at once. • Resource implications. • Time implications. • We are doing OK thanks.

5. Research participant • Year 8 the new KS3 curriculum has made us rewrite and rethink. We have followed a concept of protest across year 8; we look at the Stuarts and Tudors, the gunpowder plot, civil war, Cromwell and then 2nd term we look at, child labour industrial revolution, that is protest and exploitation and the 3rd term is protest and franchise which is looking at the chartists, Peterloo, suffragettes and up to 1914 so we can start 1914 in year 9 with the war. Year 9 is always very war dominated and we are looking to change that slightly but our students love it. The love looking at wars so we have had to do it really, the first world war, rise of Hitler, Hitler’s foreign policy appeasement second world war the home front.

6. Curriculum time. • The rise of the two year key stage 3 plan. • Taking GCSE history in 3 years. • Taking GCSE history in 1 year. • The growth of a humanities approach. • Opening minds. • History as a vehicle for the PLTs.

7. Research particpant. • we’ve gone for an integrated humanities which one teacher will teach several episodes a week, so you will teach history geography and RE, one lesson of English one library lesson and they will teach the lot. So you are getting non specialists teaching humanities so it is going to change completely and it is not going to be so much historical content because again it is based on competencies. The Opening Minds competencies were CLIPS, citizenship, learning, information, people, situations, so it is working with people and managing situations and the students remember CLIPS and we say what CLIPS have we covered today and they will tell you about their learning and how they have leaned and that was part of the opening minds programme.

8. Assessment. • Teaching driven by summative assessments using levels. • Lack of engagement with SMT about the nature of historical progression. • Over reliance upon causation as a concept for generating levels (and in general planning)

9. Research participant. That is one of the big things I have noticed is how much more the kids have to be aware of what level they are at. I would never have known what level I was at when I was at high school, we did have them but they were not communicated as they are today and she was very much I want to get level 7. She has got such a drive behind her now that when we were doing the crusades she ended up doing a comparison of her own back, we’ve got a display board with chronology, interpretation, evidence, causation and communication and levels 3 4 5 6 7, so they can look up and see what they must do to get level 7 causation.

10. Narrative is neutral. • Teachers drawn to history by the narrative in their own study but failing to engage with it in the classroom. • Narrative as a way to attract option numbers. • Lack of developed link between narrative and chronology as a concept. • We don’t have the subject knowledge.

11. Research participants • We’ve been looking at the new A levels and my head of department has picked the Netherlands and the witch craze, Henry VIII, China and the Cold War. I haven’t taught any, but she thinks that that will put bums on seats. • I think now its what the kids are going to find interesting and what is going to make them want to do history at GCSE. What’s going to get your what’s going to allow for the most interesting lessons. If it is a bit gory if it’s a bit gruesome. When we were doing the 6 7 8 club we picked punishment because it involved people having to swallow molten lead and getting bits of their anatomy chopped off.

12. Research participants • I’m interested in your use of the word allowed there, what do you mean by you being allowed to do things? Who would not allow you? • Nobody really, I’ve never thought about…um its in the curriculum, we follow the curriculum, I suppose I’m dictated by the curriculum • Do you mean the National Curriculum or your school one? • No the school, our head of department wasn’t strict, we could do whatever we liked but she had a vision of what she wanted, because I’ve worked in the department for 8 years I suppose I’ve picked up the same vision subconsciously that’s what you do, its year 8 that’s what you do and therefore…I think its very difficult for us to think of completely new concepts we are so used to what been there and I think I’ve continued that vision of that’s what you do in year 8 and that’s what you do in year 9 the students like it, if it works don’t change it.

13. So…….mentor networks? • What might we find? • Schools offering very different experiences to our trainees. Humanities, opening minds. Etc. • Dissonance between university and schools with regards to history pedagogy. Concept led enquiries with meaningful outcomes? Sub dividing levels? • Host teachers in increasing numbers from outside the discipline. • Most will have had no training on the new orders. • They are starved of subject specific CPD.

14. What can we do? • Mentor meetings can become a source of professional development as well as a means for advancing the HEI agenda on quality assurance and paperwork. • Support for pedagogical development on school placements. Use of VLEs, training support materials for mentor/trainee meetings. • Place substantive subject knowledge higher on our agenda, they can’t teach it if they don’t know it. • Emphasise in both our mentor networks and training sessions the change in emphasis between the old orders and the new. • Empower. They are feeling embattled, we can help them to position both our subject and their departments within the new curriculum. • MTL is capping Masters credits at 30 for PGCE courses, make sure they are used wisely by our students. • Encourage practitioner research amongst our metworks.