All through my career, my experience was telling me I was being asked to do things that I knew didn't work. I did a five day training in 2003 where brain based research was first introduced to me. I was a year 6 teacher in Cheshire
I went back armed with 'mistakes are good, being stuck is how we learn' etc but also visual, kinaesthetic and auditory learning.
On my own in year 6, I was trying to encourage these dispositions until a senior leader told me to stop because it was time to revise for SATS.
So back to giving the pupils mountains of past SATS papers hoping a miracle would happen and they would start getting more questions correct and I could justify my salary by having more level 4s than the previous year.
Roll on to 2011 and I was given the utmost privilege of leading Ysgol Merllyn. I inherited a team that all had the pupils at the heart of their work.
We decided on the vision, Making a Difference Every Day, and then aimed to realise this vision. It soon became apparent that I lived by this. When they asked for anything I asked how they could measure impact. I told them that I wouldn't ask them to do anything if it didn't make a difference to our learners, and if I did they had the right to say no.
This resulted in a real team effort and a culture of allowing to try things out to see if they worked and continuing or stopping during reviews. For example, we opened a nurture unit. This was excellent and made a real difference to learners. From this our school evolved to have a real goal to ensure our families completed the jigsaw in a holistic approach to our learners.
