Matt Burnage
@MJBurnage
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Assistant Principal, History Teacher and curriculum nerd @ArkSoaneAcademy
London, England
Joined April 2013
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Pinned Tweet
NEW POST
On the generic vs. the specific
Why I think the subject-specific is important, what role the generic might play, and how we might balance the two
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7 Alexander, Cicero and Augustus are on their way to see the Lion King musical this afternoon as a reward for being the forms with the most merits in the first three weeks of term!
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I actually think the JCQ guidance is brilliant, because I now have concrete examples of why level descriptors don’t work for every subject
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‘You can’t talk about curriculum when behaviour isn’t right’ 👏👏
@Strickomaster
#researchEDN
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So, some news: I’m absolutely thrilled to say that I’ll be joining
@ArkSoaneAcademy
from September as Assistant Principal, where I’ll be overseeing our curriculum. I can’t wait to meet our *amazing* founding team, and to welcome our very first students!
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Following on from posting our readings booklet, I've written a brief summary of what we're doing to improve our teacher training at BFS - let me know if you have any feedback!
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Had a great day at the British Museum learning about the medieval Islamic world and Sutton Hoo with 7 Augustus! School trips are always tricky to get right, but here’s what we’ve done
@ArkSoaneAcademy
to try and make sure they are always purposeful and easy to run 🧵
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All ready for our new trainees in January - a greatest hits collection including Willingham, Wiliam, Lemov, Christodoulou, Didau/Rose and many more...
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For anyone who may have missed it over Christmas, here’s what we’re doing at BFS to improve our teacher training offer
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If anyone can tell me how this is better than letting schools exclude violent students, be my guest.
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3% of schools start teaching GCSE content from Year 7. What this *doesn’t* tell us is how many impose GCSE-style assessment rubrics from Year 7. Both are highly problematic.
Survey finds 3% of schools begin GCSE curriculum in year 7
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Scripts are a massively useful tool for staff. Embedding routines or shared strategies that make teaching great lessons is a complex business, not least for teachers who already have so many plates to spin in the classroom.
Here’s a few reasons why they SUPPORT teachers:
🧵
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Ofsted *will not* be looking for ITT planning organised around the Teachers' Standards because they are not a curriculum 👏👏👏
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5. We explicitly teach students how to conduct themselves on trips - especially on the train. Students read in silence, and are taught to offer their seat to members of the public. The resulting great behaviour opens up options for trips, as we know we can jump on the tube!
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I’ve spoken a few times about how we’re trying to rethink our approach to teaching disciplinary knowledge but now I’ve *finally* written about it
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I've got something in my eye. Honest.
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2) Stop using the Teachers’ Standards as level descriptors. They aren’t a progression model, and the need to use them as such means feedback focuses on surface level features, instead of things that might be more constructive.
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Not that anonymous colleague: ‘Everyone I know who drinks this really understands curriculum’
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@bennewmark
I’d unhesistatingly return to a three year KS3 - the winning argument for me is that it would mean *every* student studies History up to Year 9.
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How can we improve professional learning? Here’s what we’ve been thinking about at
@bedsfreeschool
and
@advschools
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1) Stop grading trainee’s lessons. We’ve started to recognise this is nonsense as part of performance management, why haven’t we called this practice into question in teacher training?
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Fully agree with this. As a new school, we have done *a lot* of interviews over the past 3 years - here admite a few other ways that I think we could improve them 🧵
As we approach recruitment season, I hope schools abandon their practice of using pupil interview panels. It’s disrespectful to teachers and leaders to have to answer questions about their motives, skills and competencies from a selection of Y7/Y11s. If you want to assess how
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Super exciting news - we’ll be hosting a History teacher conference
@ArkSoaneAcademy
in February. Some great speakers lined up already!
Watch this space! 👀
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I was offered a job
@ArkSoaneAcademy
920 (!) days ago.
We welcomed our students for the first time 317 days ago.
We dismissed them as Year 7 for the last time one hour ago.
So unbelievably proud to be part of this team.
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Steve Mastin talking about the principles of a knowledge-rich curriculum at Inspiration Trust
#WLFSHistory
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Tickets for the first ever
@ArkSoaneAcademy
History Conference will be going live at 9am on TUESDAY 12TH DECEMBER! 📆
Tickets for this amazing line-up (the best I have ever seen) will be available for ONLY £20!!!
First-come first-served - set your alarms! ⏰
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Viking Age travel represented in the style of a tube map. Amazing.
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Stuff like this is really sad to see. We need to start thinking about how we approach ITT as a profession. Hopefully the ECF will be a significant first step, but there’s lots of improvements that we could be making to help avoid this kind of thing:
It is really sad to see that some trainees are feeling like this...
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The best strict behaviour systems don’t restrict teachers, they free them to teach. Just saying.
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If students don't know about a particular topic, they are denied entry into a conversation about it - this is why knowledge matters!
#PTE17
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8) We need to sort behaviour in schools. Should we really be surprised if trainees are put off of the profession by the need to fight fires in the classroom, and having to watch the lesson plan they carefully created being torn to figurative pieces?...
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‘We will be running subject-specific training sessions. The first is for humanities...’
🤦♂️
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Focus on knowledge because it’s interesting, says
@RobertPeal
- an under-rated argument
#MidlandsKnowledge
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I wrote this ages ago but never posted it - after some discussion with
@Counsell_C
and
@mw_teaching
this weekend about the Teachers' Standards, now seems as good a time as any to actually do so:
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5) More effort needs to be made to shift the onus of mentor training towards subject communities. This makes for better mentors, and therefore better trainees.
@Counsell_C
has done some amazing work here, yet so much mentor training still focuses on how to fill in the paperwork.
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The inimitable
@Counsell_C
talking about balancing the general and the particular in writing stories
#Soane24
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Three of my Year 7s spoiled me today with some unprompted essays they have written as extra homework. Our second cohort are already smashing it
@ArkSoaneAcademy
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It was such a privilege to host so many brilliant colleagues at Soane yesterday.
We’re so grateful to everyone who came, and hope you had as much fun as we did!
#Soane24
I’m overwhelmed by the response to our
@ArkSoaneAcademy
history conference. I will catch up with notifications tomorrow!
#Soane24
For now, I want to thank everyone who made today possible – our presenters, my colleagues, but most of all our pupil helpers. So proud. ❤️ ✌️
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Our first induction day
@ArkSoaneAcademy
today, and I’m just staggered at how unbelievably brilliant our founding team is
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4. We create a booklet for each trip. This means we can create purposeful, tailored activities for our students, and bring structure to what can otherwise be really unstructured time for schools.
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Apparently a school trying to refine its behaviour policy to make it more effective is now newsworthy. Absolute drivel from the TES.
Another story on discipline with ramifications beyond the school concerned. Evidence that wouldn't usually be made public showing how the zero tolerance model has its limits:
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Teaching is really complex. It is tempting to try and create prescriptive processes or systems in order to impose simplicity, but this is almost always artificial.
Lots of these things might make it easier for us to sleep at night, but they’re probably not improving teaching.
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We have been mapping out a long-term plan for our KS3 curriculum at BFS and would love some feedback/suggestions for improvement! We're particularly interested in thoughts on our chosen enquiry questions (we're yet to agree on a few!)
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Can’t help but feel that this would make teaching quite difficult.
If you're the smartest person in the room, then you're in the wrong room. 🧠
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6) Schools can do a lot to improve the experience of their trainees. Ensuring that trainees are treated as full members of staff is an important start. There’s also lots we could do to improve the quality of in-house professional learning.
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Pushing for 100% participation, and particularly an expectation of all hands up, has been a huge focus for us
@ArkSoaneAcademy
this year. It has pushed our culture to the next level, and Pritesh does a brilliant job of articulating why here!
*Another NEW post*
Two strategies to secure 100% attention in your classroom.
One of them involves banning traditional hands down cold calling.
*Runs and hides*
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NEW: why telling someone to work on their radar is a waste of time
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You can tell I’m back at work from the fact I felt it necessary to leave a worked example for the postman
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NEW - how can we improve teacher radar?
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This, on how Napoleon may have been the inspiration for Frankenstein, has blown my mind.
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More opportunities to join our fabulous school! You can expect:
✅ Immaculate behaviour
✅ Supportive SLT
✅ Respect for subject specialism
✅ Wonderful students
❌ Onerous marking policies
❌ Inane paperwork
❌ Gimmicks and fads
Feel free to DM for info!
Are you looking for an exciting opportunity? Grow with us! We are recruiting for teaching positions
@ArkSoaneAcademy
Maths, Science, History, Art and Design, PE, and RE.
Join our amazing team from September 2022. Full details are available online!
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We are looking for a *HISTORY TEACHER* to join our unbelievably brilliant team.
The successful candidate will get to play a key role in working with
@jonniegrande
and I in designing Ark’s new history curriculum, taught across 22 schools.
DM for info!
Are you looking for an exciting opportunity? Grow with us! We are recruiting for teaching positions
@ArkSoaneAcademy
Maths, Science, History, Art and Design, PE, and RE.
Join our amazing team from September 2022. Full details are available online!
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It’s approaching that time of year where mentors, NQTs and trainees have to worry about the Teachers’ Standards. Here’s why they’re a problem:
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This blog (from
@mfordhamhistory
) is the one I find myself referencing most often. It's a game changer for thinking about the curriculum.
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Scripts help draw attention to the bits that matter. For e.g.
@ArkSoaneAcademy
, we have a turn and talk script that consists of three things:
1.Have a clear in-cue - ‘tell your partner, go!’
2.Let students talk for 5-20 seconds
3.End with ‘all hands up in 3, 2, 1!’
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Important point here - if an all hands up approach is good (it is!), school leaders need to take responsibility for creating the conditions for it. This has to come from SLT because in order to make it easily achievable for EVERY teacher the whole school needs to row together
All hands up’ forces school leaders to take responsibility for the culture in their schools. You can collect all the data you like on assessment & behaviour on a spreadsheet. But… 7/
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Perhaps most excitingly, there's a recognition of the importance of subject communities and their respective discourses. AMAZING.
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Very lucky to have had a sneak preview of
@StuartLock
and co’s
@researchED1
Guide to Leadership - it is properly brilliant. Each contribution forced me to think really, really hard about what school leaders need to know (I even read some twice!). I can’t recommend it enough.
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Ben is spot on here. Lesson drop-ins have been distorted by nonsensical approaches to accountability. The focus should be simple: Is everything okay? If not, what support do we need to give?
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Well, it seems to be what everyone else does with their free time so...
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We’re hosting a History visit day
@bedsfreeschool
on 31st March. We want to share what we’ve been working on, and get some feedback on how we can be better. Get in touch if you’re interested!
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So impressed with
@AceThatTest
, thoroughly engaging and the perfect balance of theory and practice
#ASLrnSci
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4) There needs to be more information about ITT courses available before the point of applying. Currently it’s very difficult to make any informed decision about which courses are best.
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I've just attempted to record a relatively short video about curriculum for our new staff and now have even greater respect for those of you who have managed to do this seemingly effortlessly for
#rEDHome
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We’re looking for someone brilliant to come and be our Head of Religion and Philosophy
@ArkSoaneAcademy
. They will get to shape the department as our founding cohort start their GCSEs next year!
This is a once in a lifetime opportunity, so get in touch!
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Just a normal lunchtime
@ArkSoaneAcademy
, with our lunchtime legends ensuring the dining hall is cleaner than they found it after family lunch.
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In our dept meeting this week, we didn’t
❌ do a ‘book look’
❌ fill in a pro forma
We did
✅ decide to introduce Year 7 to the idea of having ‘the king’s ear’ to ground the concept of a royal court
If you prefer talking about history to box-ticking
CURRICULUM
We teach history that is filled to the brim with rigour, excitement, challenge, and meaning.
We're one of two schools spearheading a new history curriculum across Ark schools with
@jonniegrande
, shaped by
@Counsell_C
.
Our pupils absolutely adore it.
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Blown away by some of Year 7's essays this week. Absolutely staggering what strong fingertip knowledge enables students to achieve.
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New blog: Rethinking Point, Evidence, Explanation - re-evaluating writing frames as a model of disciplinary thinking
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It gets better! They *will not* require grading progress against the Standards
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7) If there was a greater emphasis on research-informed practice in ITT, then feedback could be more constructive, and more empowering. Trainees will be able to make better decisions about their practice once they have access to the ‘best that has been thought and said’...
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As her form tutor, I can confirm that she is definitely the superior Lehain.
I thought
@lehain
was amazing speaking but his daughter is so much more amazing. What a little super star.
#BrewEdcov
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@VallanceTeach
argues we must recognise that narratives are curricular objects, not pedagogical tools. YES!
#Soane24
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First half-term done
@ArkSoaneAcademy
. It’s such a joy to see our vision brought to life by the most fantastic team we could possibly hope for.
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Steve Mastin talking about the importance of what stories *don’t* tell us, and how we can deliberately leverage this. Completely fascinating!
#Soane24
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‘Stories work because of what they don’t tell you. Stories work because of what they left unsaid. They keep you guessing’
#Soane24
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BFS is an amazing school doing incredible things for students in Bedford - I absolutely loved working there. This is *the* dream job for the right person.
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@EnserMark
Worth noting that, as
@AceThatTest
pointed out at our
@advschools
conference, the main benefit of interleaving is changing between topics that are linked, so that links and patterns can be recognised (as opposed to changing between *any* topic)
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We’re looking for a brilliant founding English teacher to work alongside the inimitable
@MrPTse
as our founding English teacher
@ArkSoaneAcademy
.
We believe in...
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@Counsell_C
I’m ever more convinced that mis-use of the standards is one of the biggest problems in ITT. It lies behind so many problems - the tendency towards genericism, poor feedback, focus on surface level features and the unsustainable levels of paperwork.
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... which will in turn give them greater autonomy in the classroom, and avoiding needlessly having to reinvent the wheel in their first years. Again, subject communities are central to this.
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3. We repeat the same three trips in each year. This means that students get 9 experiences across by the end of Year 9, but also means we get quite good at running the trips, minimising stress for staff.
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Great thread on the value of a subject-specific PGCE, and particularly the value of a strong community of mentors within a subject. The rigour provided by
#camhistmentors
is second to none.
Debate this week following
@educationgovuk
report about ITT and the role of HEIs in providing it prompted me to look back at the reference
@Counsell_C
gave me for my first job during my PGCE with
@CamEdFac
. Photo shows the info about the programme. Some reflections 20 years on...
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Coffee and a new book about my favourite historical topic. I’m living the dream right now.
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1) We link our trips to what students have studied to to ensure that they are accessible to all. Because Year 7 study medieval Baghdad at the beginning of the year, they are able to make sense of what they see when they get to the museum
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@lehain
@PTE_Campaign
Good King Doug Lemov came down
And he gave us T-LAC
Wait Time, Cold Call, What To Do
Check for Understanding
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Just finished watching Once Upon a Time in Iraq after seeing
@kenradical
tweet about it - it is absolutely phenomenal.
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Pritesh is a master of motivation - watching him teach you can see him building our school culture brick by brick.
If you like the idea of working a school that sweats the details then GOOD NEWS - we’re hiring!
Fascinating interview!
I think the elements often missing from discussions on teaching knowledge, using direct instruction & cognitive science, are the practical ways to *motivate* students in the actual lesson.
Here are my top strategies! THREAD!
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Surprised not to hear more championing of subject communities in discussion of improving teacher training
#MidlandsKnowledge
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A moment of absolute joy
@ArkSoaneAcademy
as I walk in to see 7 Augustus during wet lunch to find them singing along to Bugsy Malone with
@Mr_Raichura
!
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