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‘Sometimes it can feel like we have to pick up the pieces and do things for ourselves.’ Why the ECF programme needed to be adapted for teachers in special schools
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Elaine Long
Welcome to The ECF Staffroom. I'm Elaine Long.
Mark Quinn
And I am Mark Quinn.
Elaine Long
We are programme leaders for the UCL Early Career Teacher Development Programme. Why are we in the staffroom? We are here because this is where the best professional learning conversations always take place. This is where problems can be aired bluntly and where solutions can be explored.
Mark Quinn
Over the course of this series, we will hear the voices of different colleagues as they come in the ECF Staffroom. We will hear from early career teachers themselves and from the mentors and induction tutors who support them. We will talk about all things ECF, the challenges and the joys. So why don't you enjoy a coffee with us, perhaps even grab a biscuit and sit down to half an hour of ECF Staffroom, chat.
Mark Quinn
Hello everyone and welcome to the ECF staffroom and actually thank you, Melanie. Melanie has invited us into her office or her staffroom the today for the day, if you like. So she's invited us to put our feet up and take our coffee. We've had a lovely walk around your school, so you might we might get to talk a bit about a little bit about that later on.
But we always ask our guests how they take their coffee, What's the drink of choice? I see you've got a Diet Coke in front of you.
Melanie Hogan
I'm afraid it's Diet Coke all the time for me.
Mark Quinn
Very controversial. That gets you through the day, does it.
Melanie Hogan
It does. It does. Everybody else is the tea and coffee. But I always have a Diet Coke. I'm actually known now, when I go into any meetings , they all say, where’s your diet Coke? It keeps me going.
Mark Quinn
Well, we're feeling very cosy here with without mug of coffee. It's a real coffee rather than a virtual coffee, easily because managed to get virtual coffees out of these podcasts. But thanks for inviting us in Melanie. We're going to learn lots about your role in Castlebar Special School and we're looking forward to the chat.
Elaine Long
Yeah know I also share your addiction to diet coke as well, so you're not alone. I think you probably have need for all that caffeine having seen how busy you are here and it's been a real privilege to walk around with you this morning and I wonder if you can just introduce yourself for the listeners because I know they'll be interested in your journey into education and particularly what brought you into special needs education.
Melanie Hogan
So, I mean, I've been in Castlebar a long time now about I'm going to say 22 years. And I originally started in mainstream and once I'd finished is that Mary's University, I was teaching in mainstream schools in London, but I always had a passion for special education. I always wanted to work with children with additional needs.
Then it came to a point, I think with me, I get to a point every three or four years, four, five years where I'd like to try something different or I need something else as a challenge and there was one year in Hammersmith, when I worked in Hammersmith and I had a group of children and there were a lot of additional needs in the class.
It really made me think about teaching and what it was all about and how to support them and so from there I decided I was going to move into special and I came to Castlebar, a big shock and as a mainstream teacher.
Mark Quinn
Straight to Castlebar
Melanie Hogan
Straight into Castlebar, and the children at that time had moderate learning difficulties. But even with moderate learning difficulties, it was such a big change from the mainstream and it took a while, but I was really invested in it and stuck with it. I remember the deputy at the time saying to me, if you're not interested in working with children with complex needs, don't take this job.
So, I knew there were going to be changes ahead, but the school has always been really invested in training and development and lots of CPD opportunities. But I suddenly realised, you know, how much there was to learn and I loved it and so I took every opportunity that was given to me and people in the school were very supportive, so any ideas I had they went with, so which was great. Then I went up to the ranks, as you say, through the years, I was the cluster leader in charge of a team of three. Then I went up to assistant head and then I always said, I'll never be a deputy and I'll never be a head.
I always said that, and people remind me of that now. At one point then I became very interested in the teaching school alliances and with the heads here we discussed it and he said, well, if you really want to do it, then you can do the application. You go forward and take the school into this position.
So, I had a lot of support from the head of the local authority and from the business manager who worked beside me and we did the application and we became a teaching school. So, the beginning of being a deputy at the school, one of the main roles for me was actually the teaching school, although I still have my duties here in school, so I had to really balance that and that was tricky because you would get pulled both sides. But what it did do was gave me a really outward facing perspective, and I enjoyed that.
So, I met a lot of new people, had learnt a lot of new skills and particularly around finance. We just talked earlier today. It's all about asking people for money but I was in that position where I couldn't say, Oh, no, we'll just do it. We, you know, we had to ask for the financial backing for all of these things that were happening. So, yes, so for the first six, seven years, it was all about mainly the teaching school, but also the duties in school, and I could be in a strange position of giving out the dinners at lunchtime at one point, and then the next minute I could be in a meeting with the local authority about something around SEN in the borough or delivering training. So, I was kind of zipping between things, but it all seemed to work.
Then just at the end, a couple of years ago now the Teaching School Alliances were finished because we were moving into that new phase with the teachers school hubs and so my work in the Teaching School Alliance was finishing, but that's exactly when all the work around the ECF was going on. I was kind of really interested in that because I was always keen on the training and development for our staff here at Castlebar, and that's one of my main duties here now at the moment is CPD and curriculum and so I wanted to know what it was all about and nobody really understood it at the beginning and it was having to kind of research it, see what was going on and then, of course, it was about, well, how does SEN fit into this? Because it didn't look like we had a place in it.
Then I spoke to other colleagues and they had the same concerns and the same kind of thoughts; How are we going to go forward with this? I contacted some of the main providers, UCL, yourselves being one of them, and actually UCL were the first ones that came back and said, we want to look at something for SEN, it's important, and my other colleague and myself were very interested in this and obviously then we worked together.
So, but in terms of the school now and me as a deputy in the school because I think your, your job changes so much anyway because different things happen in the school, somebody might leave, who's going to do those duties? Lots of things change the whole time but currently my main priorities in the school would be the curriculum, CPD, working with the middle leaders, supporting them on their studies and journeys. We've got a couple of people here to the NPQSL, Apprenticeship, NPQML and I work with them and support them and their mentor and then working with teaching assistants, upskilling teaching assistants, I deliver a lot of training in the school or I have, I have a group of people with so much expertise that I can ask them to do the training. Our middle leaders, all have a curriculum area that they lead on. So I tap into their expertise.
Mark Quinn
So, you've got middle leaders leading professional development throughout the school?
Melanie Hogan
Yeah, absolutely. I've even got teaching assistants who have got expertise in particular areas and they will lead. Just last week we did a food technology session and it was me and one of our HLTAs that delivered that session. So we're all about learning here and people are very keen to learn. There's always something to learn. It's never standing still in Castlebar and there's always something new and then of course, in the day to day, it's greeting the children in the morning, because, of course, the children are the most important part of the school. So, I would greet the children in the morning, bring them into school, taking them to their classes and checking that everybody is in.
I have to look at the attendance and I do that with the team because there's a team of us that do all this, the assistant heads that work with me, we all look at the attendance and then it's following up safeguarding issues because obviously a lot of our children are coming on buses, so we need to be very vigilant. You know, little bruises or a child is upset, we'd need to check that straight away. So, we work as a team in the morning and a lot of those sort of things would come up in the morning and then throughout the day. It's amazing how busy the diary gets with lots of different things going on.
It might be observations, it might be supporting in a class for certain amount of time. It might be involved in a meeting with the multidisciplinary team because we have a large team of multidisciplinary workers here. So occupational therapist, speech and language therapists and again, that group of people work with me. So, I work with them and they have meetings every half term, every two weeks with the needs and then also meeting with the leaders of those professions outside of the school as well.
So, it's very busy and no day is the same.
Mark Quinn
We should be, well, we are very pleased you let us in on your busy day. So, That’s a tour de force of a career. Actually I'm going to if you don't mind, I'm going to rewind you a little bit. Back those 22 years. I have just a question about that experience you had in mainstream, and what maybe, what you remember of it, more particularly, have you taken anything from that experience into your work in special school.
Melanie Hogan
That's an interesting one because when I first left St Mary's, although I was interested in teaching, I wasn't completely taken up with teaching. So, anything could have happened, but actually I was very lucky to get a job in a school in Kilburn and that is where the love of teaching for me started.
I think it's a lot of that teamwork. It's a lot about working with people that also have the same outlook as yourself for the children and so that's where my kind of love of the teaching started and what I would take for mainstream, I suppose when I was in mainstream, again around behaviours and things with children, you know, what was going on for the children, that's what I would be always interested in. I met a lot of children there where there were things going on for them at home that were influencing behaviours in school. So, I think you start to kind of develop practises that are more empathetic really about what's going on for the child and then that just got stronger when I left mainstream, but I brought that from mainstream with me.
That's interesting. I think either you do or you don't develop that empathy and it sounds to me you were lucky, I guess, to fall in that school in Kilburn with others who shared that vision or shared that outlook that you had because that isn't always the case, is it? I suppose that would have helped you develop that sense of empathy you had. You began to look at what was behind the child's behaviour and thoughts and stuff and yeah, I can see that that would be, that's always an important thing to remember, and have a culture around you of other colleagues that can support you is really important as well as isn’t it.
Melanie Hogan
Yeah
Mark Quinn
Yeah. Now I think it's nice to remember isn't it? It's a two way street here where people we do have teachers moving in from mainstream into special impact, the other way, that does happen across our profession.
Melanie Hogan
I've met a lot of SENCOs, I've worked with a lot of SENCOs in the last few years in mainstream schools. I've done peer reviews with them, and it's so interesting to see their investment in children with special educational needs as well. And that has been really powerful. So actually working now in a mainstream school and seeing how committed people are to support the children and see the barriers that are in their ways and they're still trying to overcome them.
So, there are people in mainstream and I think it was like that for me when I was there myself teaching that have that real investment in those children and they will go the full mile and trying to you know, cross those barriers to support them, and the families.
Mark Quinn
Yeah, absolutely. ECF. Let's talk about that for a little bit. Last year or was it the year before even Melanie, you were part of a very small team that we that we were lucky enough to gather together to help us develop the supplementary resources for our programme, for those teachers working in special settings, special school settings. I am asking you, I'm interested in why you think it was important to do that? Why do teachers in such a setting need those very specialised resources?
Melanie Hogan
Yeah. So, I mean, I think, I think looking back and this was probably when I was part of the teaching school as well, and I think we were always looking way for that sort of pathway so that students would lead into their new teacher training and that would take them forward into middle and senior leadership and they wanted that pathway.
I think we were always looking for it, but we never got there. But the ECF and the core content, it kind of started that now has brought it in, hasn't it? And it leads into the NPQs which of all developed. So, I think we're almost, we've got it there now which is brilliant, which is what I think people have been looking for.
I think it's great and I know it will be things that have to be reviewed because there'll always be glitches along the way, but at least there is that sort of framework in place. So, in terms of the ECF, obviously we didn't know where we sat because we were special. So, I think it was important because also I think it's important for special school teachers to see that they've been recognised in any of these new initiatives because sometimes it does feel like we're not, that we always have to pick up the pieces and do something ourselves and that can happen even in a local authority where the special schools might sit slightly separately or whereas actually we should be all together. It's just a different side of education, isn't it? So that was important to us that the teachers felt that programme belonged to special schools as much as it was for mainstream. But also, if you've got to, it was, it's quite an intense programme. So if you've got to meet with your mentor every week, then what you're discussing has got to be relevant.
That's why we were so invested in getting involved in this. So, the colleague I worked with, I mean we did our best to add resources in for that first year of the ECT, we added as many resources as we could or tweaked slightly adapted things. We couldn't do it for every module because it was just very, very different, but looking back now, I'm almost thinking that even having general resources for a special that we've done, that may not be the best way forward. I actually think because we've got an ECT here this year, I almost feel like it's easier for the school themselves to adapt as they go along because all special schools are not the same.
So, it's you can make it relevant, but you put the work in with the ECT.
Mark Quinn
And if schools knew that they had the licence to do that, if they felt that they were allowed to do that!
Melanie Hogan
I think that they’d feel more comfortable, and I have to say because it's the second year now and I'm working with the mentors, at that first mentor meeting, I think it was a lot more feeling of comfort in the second year because it's more about the research and it's more about the practise in the classroom and I think everybody agreed that they liked the second year, it was more applicable for us and obviously we've got a great investment in lesson study, which really does help when you're moving into that year two.
Mark Quinn
Oh, of course. You take that enquiry approach already.
Melanie Hogan
So, I felt very comfortable with that. So, when I had the meeting with the mentors, I felt really comfortable because whenever you do a training session, I think you've got to know what you're talking about if you're not invested in this, but it's going to be a flop. It felt very, I felt at ease doing that session because of it's about research and enquiry.
I was able to share some of the resources that we use here in Castlebar as an example, I said to them, Don't just use what we've done. You know, it's got to be you changing things, but it gives you an idea of what has worked for us.
Elaine Long
I think this is very, very nicely on to my next question actually, because you mentioned that love of learning is very important to you. And I can see here that as well as fostering a love of learning in the students is really important. You foster a love of learning for adults in this building. In many ways, everybody's learning and it's a community and we share those values and ambition for ECTs on our programme, on one of our high quality outcomes of things that we hope for our ECTs is they also value professional learning and we want to teach them that through the programme.
You’ve already hit on that, if they're going to value it, it have to speak to them and you've already talked about the sense of enquiry, but I wonder if you could elaborate a bit more about some of the conditions that you think lead to ECTs really valuing their learning.
Melanie Hogan
In a special school?
Elaine Long
Yeah, and I think also some of those lessons will apply more generally as well.
Melanie Hogan
So, in a special school, I mean, as I said earlier, as we're walking around and if you come into a special school to teach, you feel like an ECT anyway, if you've come from mainstream or wherever you've come from, because every special school is different, so, when we have new teachers or ECTs, they start on the induction programme and so we are supporting them along the way.
We all know that if you just do a one off training session, it doesn't stick with people, it doesn't mean that it's going to change the world, but it might because some people might like that. They pick it up.
So, the way we kind of train our teachers here, maybe some of the time they don't even realise they're learning things, but we have a multidisciplinary team and they, they do a facilitation role, so they actually go into the classrooms and they teach the staff in the classrooms how to deliver programmes, interventions, and they'll work with, say, one teaching assistant and they'll show them how to use the programme. The intervention, and they step away, but they just revisit to check that it's all working well and that works very well. We're not kind of always putting pressure on the staff that they've got to be at this training session, they've got to be at that training session, but they get support with everything that they do in the school that's new.
So, for example, if they have to write an IEP, the first one is always written with either their cluster leader, with a mentor or it's written with a senior leader. If we need to step in because we step in for everything, if we're needed and if they do a progress meeting, the first one is always set up and done with a mentor, so they don't probably even realise that they're actually learning the scale and that they get the knowledge of what they have to do in assessing children, but they learn it through those kind of pathways.
The other thing we do is drop-ins. So, our middle leaders will often do a drop in about a particular intervention. For example, if I said to you it's about blanks and then they might do a blanks, drop-in and any teacher in the school or teaching assistant who thinks they need to know about that then they will do a drop-in.
They're all invested because if they don't get invested in that learning, then they won't be able to provide the best practise in the classroom and they want to do the best practise.
Elaine Long
So you have continual professional learning in the truest sense of the word. You mentioned drop-ins and that being an open door culture and one in which people don't feel frightened about, you want people embrace learning. I know that some teachers in the early stages of their career might be quite scared of people dropping into their classroom. How do you sort of avoid that happening?
Melanie Hogan
I mean, I suppose what we do and you can say things and say things, it don't mean that somebody is going to believe things, but we always promote the fact that everyone's there to support you and that if you do a drop-in to a classroom, it is about support and we do a formal observation in the autumn time for everybody, but that's really just for us to get a chance to go into the classrooms. We run it like lesson study, because everybody is invested in lessons study because it makes people more at ease, because it's about the learning and it's about the planning.
So, what we've done with our formal observations is, is that we have a pre-meeting with the teacher and we talk through the planning for the lesson. The teacher talks us through. And we can ask questions and we can say, What about that? Have you thought that? Or, you know, it's we just it's a natural conversation.
For some newer teachers in the past, it's made them rethink something and then they've gone back and thought again before presenting the lesson. Sometimes there's no need for that because most of the time our teachers, you know, are very organised and they know their children so well that they've covered all the basis for us. What it does do for us when we go into the classroom is that then we don't need to kind of think of why is this happening? Because we've already had that information. It really helps.
Then the feedback at the end of the second part of that whole organisation, they talk us through again and then it's suggestions and considerations and when we talk rather than you need to do this, this needs to change, that's not, that's not the way we work really.
Elaine Long
Which links back to the Enquiry itself, which is kind of really feeds through everything you do in the school. And you mentioned mentoring as well because obviously on the ECT programme, ECTs spend a great deal of time with their mentors. In your experience, because I know you facilitated sessions with mentors as well, what do the best mentors do to support their ECTs?
Melanie Hogan
Well, I think the best mentors are the ones that are really invested and they're invested in developing others, and I know from the groups that I've spoken with how much time they put into this work and they are prepared when they meet their ECTs and they spend that time with them. And I think that's what you need.
This year we've got an ECT and I've got feedback from her mentor, and her mentor would say that sometimes it's quite hard to, you know, to kind of really focus on, you know, what you've got to go through because there are so many other things going on and it's finding the time to really sit. But what she has done, which works well, is that every meeting is in the diary.
So if it's in the diary, it means it's going to happen. Whereas if you say I'll make that meeting, I’ll arrange it for the next two weeks as that won't happen, it's got to be in the diary. She's also flexible and I think the other mentors that I spoke with as well, I mean, if that ECTS has had a really bad day, if you don't plough ahead, you have to think about, you know, the situation that you're in and you need to react and respond to what you're hearing, really. And if you can do that, that's great. If you're just focussed on I'm going to get you through this programme and this is what you've got to do, this is the right you've got to do this, that won't work It will destroy everybody
,
Elaine Long
That’s really useful advice because feedback we've had is there are lot of our mentors struggle with balancing, getting through the knowledge elements of the programme and getting through the learning and tensions and balancing that with the emotional needs of ECTS, which of course we know that schools are really challenging places. I would entirely agree with you that they have to use their judgement there about what to talk about and when and it's not a rule book or a script, it's a guidebook. So, I think that that sort of approach is really useful for the mentors to think about.
Mark Quinn
Yeah. You have to remember that the ECT has an agenda and the mentor needs to listen to that agenda. That could be what's happening at that moment or what's been happening that week for the ECT as well as what they're moving onto the structure of the programme as well. It's interesting, I think that's the sort of language you are using when you're describing your formal lesson observation.
Actually, you're handing the agenda to the to the teacher that kind of talk me through what you're planning to do and then after the lesson, talk me through how that went and that's most of the talking and a lesson observation feedback should be the teacher rather than the person themselves. I think that's if you want to if you really want to make development.
And I think the same in a mentor meeting. You know what needs to be talked about right now? That insight you have. I'm sure you, I can imagine, Melanie, when you’re facilitating your to mentor cluster on our programme that you can draw upon many examples of those interactions you've had while working at Castlebar.
I'm wondering, thinking about that facilitation that you do for us on the programme, how would you say that the Mentor Development programme actually has been useful to those mentors and what would make it more useful?
Melanie Hogan
So, I think it's definitely been useful. I think they would say it's been useful to them that they've learnt a lot from it. In terms of making it more useful, the actual session itself, we're thinking?
Mark Quinn
The session, your facilitation of the session. How you meet, where you meet and any of that?
Melanie Hogan
Yeah. I mean I think, I think we kind of know that we couldn't do it face to face, but it would be better. It would be better to have a group that met face to face. But because we're all over the place, really, it just wouldn't work.
Mark Quinn
But yeah, you're a very large teaching school hub area.
Melanie Hogan
We are.
Mark Quinn
You’re in Teach West London actually. This is I think it's the largest perhaps and so obviously your teachers are going to be well dispersed across the area as well.
Melanie Hogan
Some of them are up in Northumberland, and I think it wouldn't be cost effective to do it like that, so it's easier to be online because the limitations of online because people are waiting aren’t they, you never know whether you can speak or and also the time I mean, it's an hour. I can remember last year, one session where there were a few things that came up and it was about how hard it was, you know, meeting ECTs, this is quite early on and there were a few things we wanted to talk about and talk it through. I think we managed to, but it felt very quick. The hour was very quick. An hour just goes so quickly. I did wonder whether an hour and a half would be more realistic because if you really want to get into some of the conversations and discussion, but then it's other times people don't want to get in to the you know, there isn't anything to go deeply into.
It was just that one session last year, I kind of felt I'd like to carry on and delve a bit more with this and a lot of people were giving advice and we were really talking through a problem that had come up. But I was very conscious that I'd stick to that time. Maybe this if there was a flexibility that it was an hour to an hour and a half, then you could actually judge as you went on if there was something that you wanted to explore a little further. But it's people's time and so you have to be very conscious of that.
Mark Quinn
Quite, because of balance isn’t it. How have you found its change because I know you've done your first session for year two of the programme? Has you have you seen a change in those mentors as they come into the second year of the programme?
Melanie Hogan
Much more confident. Yeah. Definitely a greater confidence and they are enjoying it, they say they will say that they're it can be hard at times because things come up in schools like you know, absence etc. which kind of makes it harder for them to do their meetings or they have to rearrange. But they are positive about the programme, but I think a lot of them would say what I'm saying in terms of the special that there's a lot more needed.
They still, those ECTs in special are not just doing the ECT programme, they've got to do another programme of induction that's been set up by their school because otherwise they would sink. If they would just relying on the ECF programme as it is, that would not enable them to be the best teacher they can in their specialist setting because they need so much more.
Elaine Long
That must hard workload wise.
Melanie Hogan
Yes. Yeah, and our teacher here now, she's managing, but she would say that sometimes it's hard because she's got a lot of other commitments as well and the multidisciplinary team are working very closely with her. But if they want to meet her in the morning, she wants to meet them because it's going to be important for her class.
But at the other end of the day, she's got a meeting with her mentor for ECF. So, it's it can be a lot of inputs for her that day.
Mark Quinn
Yeah. And you've got to keep an eye on that.
Yeah, and it's good that our mentor is very, very experienced. The mentor who is with her here and keeps an eye on that.
Elaine Long
The flexibility is hugely important in supporting the wellbeing of the ECT in your school.
Can I just ask because I know you're very experienced in developing others and preparing for facilitated sessions and you're very conscious that teachers are incredibly time poor. What's in those sessions has got to be grippingly relevant for them? How would you go about preparing for your sessions to make sure that's the case?
Melanie Hogan
So, sessions for the ECF?
Elaine Long
Yeah.
Melanie Hogan
Well, I look at all the materials that I'm supposed to look at. It's, it's nice. Okay, so I do that
Mark Quinn
Do your homework
Melanie Hogan
I do my homework beforehand. Then I suppose I kind of just think about then what it is that I could share from my own experience, if there's anything and I might not share that because it might not come up in the meeting. So, I'm just kind of flexible on that. But I know that there are certain things I could share and offer, so I will do.
Then I think you just respond to what you get from the rest of the group because things come up and then I just go with whatever comes up.
Elaine Long
You’re very much sort of facilitating the session around the needs of the participants.
Melanie Hogan
But I also like the other participants also. So, if somebody brings something up that they want to talk about, I don't want to be the person who's just giving the answer. I do like to involve everybody and see what their point of view is or have they got a good way of dealing with the issue that's been brought up?
Elaine Long
It’s sometimes difficult In sessions, isn't it? To get people to talk and get people to almost answer. The problems within the Nirvana of facilitation. How would you do that?
Melanie Hogan
I don’t know really, I just put it out there. Maybe it's just that the group are, you know, they are quite responsive and a couple in particular, there's a few really experienced people on there which really helps and supports and if people don't talk to me at all, which I mean, you can often get on online training training and I might say what you might say, Would you like to share?
Elaine Long
You’ve been quite modest about it, but there's probably something in there about the culture that you create from the beginning in terms of session and people contributing.
Melanie Hogan
Well possibly hopefully but people do contribute and certainly some people might have a day where they don't really want to contribute, they're just having a bit of a day like that and that's fine. But I would always advise people to speak and I think it's important that everybody's opinion is valued within the group.
Mark Quinn
The point of those online communities for mentors, you know, is to be kind of discursive. It's not it's not meant to be, right, now to sit down, listen to the wisdom of Melanie Hogan, even though there's plenty of wisdom you could share .
As you rightly point out, there's lots of the mentors who will be in that session with you are themselves highly experienced. Some so some will be more experienced, some will be less experienced. But you've got to value that as well don’t you?
Melanie Hogan
Yeah.
Mark Quinn
And it does lead me to ask this. What is there about the experience or the knowledge that exists within, you know, within special needs education that those who are not in special needs education, those who maybe teach in mainstream to learn from? I'm not sure if you can think of, you know, three things, three nuggets, Melanie Hogan nuggets that the rest of the world needs to know about. What would they be?
Melanie Hogan
Well, I think because we do a lot of outreach from here. So, I mean, and particularly recently, schools have got a lot more complex pupils in their schools. So, we've been getting a lot of requests to go and support. Um, I think they, I think it's useful for others to come in and visit because then they see whatever we're saying, they see it practise is always better but particularly around say managing behaviours in a positive way, I think that's always useful and it's looking at things in a different way and because I've heard people say in a mainstream school and I don't criticise them for this because it's a different, it's a different situation with a large group of children and they are under extreme pressure where they've got difficult behaviours that they're not used to, but it's like they can't do that, you mustn’t to that, you know, they're not allowed to do that here and of course they're not allowed to do it here.
But and it's not going to stop because you say you're not allowed to do that, don't do it. It's not going to stop. That's not going to stop a child from doing those things, because for some of those children it's finding an approach, get behind the behaviour. What's it all about? But then it might be about using something like motivators and in mainstream schools, I think for some people if you suggest things like using a motivator, something he likes to do this that you've got to get away from that they might you reward him for the bad behaviour and it's not that.
Mark Quinn
It's about giving a better choice.
Melanie Hogan
Giving a better choice and changing the behaviour because what will happen is once the child is relaxed and confident in you, trusts you, that they will probably then the motivator is needed less often because they're enjoying what they should be doing and they've changed their routine, that habits of behaving in a particular way is gone because you've changed it by doing a particular strategy. So, I think around behaviours particularly and I suppose now it is about more about the, the actual learning because they're having to adapt, you know, the curriculum so much a mainstream skills to meet the needs of the children that they've got because some of them are nowhere near working at the level that they’re expected to be in their year group.
So, it is about looking at the learning and how you adapt it. Do you use symbolised text? Then of course you've always got to remember in mainstream what's hard for them. If it's a year six or year five child is making it age appropriate because they're if they're in year 6 and year 5 rightly so they're thinking this child would benefit more from a reception or a year one curriculum.
But then if we've got to make it age appropriate. So, I suppose that's the sort of thing that's that we would be, it's natural to us because we have those situations. So, I think if anybody was looking for.
Mark Quinn
So it does make me think that, you know, you obviously facilitate a cluster of mentors, all of whom you teach in special school situations. Should we not do that? Should we entirely mix this thing up? We shouldn't have in our programme ECTs working in an ECT cluster and mainstream working at a mainstream cluster. We should….
Melanie Hogan
Bring them altogether.
Mark Quinn
Or is that just fantasy I'm talking?
Melanie Hogan
I mean, I think it's a good idea in some ways. I mean when we ran the NPQs here a few years ago, we mixed everybody up together, so when we had it in Ealing and we were doing and NPQML or SL, the special and the secondary and the primary, they were all in one group. So, it can work and people benefit and you learn from each other don’t they, different experiences together.
So, it's not, it's, I don't think it's completely unacceptable to do that.
Mark Quinn
We go back to your Kilburn experience, you know, as long as you are amongst people with a similar outlook and similar vision that it doesn't matter what setting they’re in, they're all willing to learn from each other.
Melanie Hogan
Yeah, because you adapt to you. I've had to go in and observe in a secondary school. I've never taught in a secondary school in my life. But now you're still able to do it. You know what you good practise is and good teaching and learn, don’t you.
Mark Quinn
I bet you could.
Elaine Long
I think it's interesting because I think you’ve learnt so much from visiting other settings and it's actually a feature of our programme. In the second year our ECTs go out and visit other settings and we think that experience as well is hugely important for professional development because you learn so much about your own practise from looking at other settings as well.
We're coming to the end of the podcast and we know your time is precious and we've already taken up too much of your precious time. But one of the traditions of our podcast is that we pass you a post-it note. So here you are and on that post-it note, we would like you to write down some advice, and it can be anything you want for anyone, but we'd like you to tell us what you would write on yours and who you would you pass it to.
Melanie Hogan
I suppose, this is hard because I haven't thought about this really, but I think it's just about being open to opportunities maybe and if you are interested in something, don't think I can't do it. If you want to do it, put yourself forward, no matter how hard it is. I've had lots of situations over the years where I've just thought I'm going to run away from this, I don’t want to do it.
But actually if you do it, the more you do these things then and the easier they become. So, I think my advice would be that wherever you start, whether you start with mainstream, special, just be open to opportunities and take them. Yeah, and just remember that it's, it's always learning, you know, that you never know everything, you're always able to learn something new.
Elaine Long
I think that's a great place to end and we've almost come full circle from where we started, which was about you describing a love of learning. I think always learning is a really great place to end on.
Mark Quinn
Melanie, thank you so much for allowing us into your very special, special school and for making us nice coffee that we could drink through our meeting today. Enjoy the rest of your day. We've got to make our own way home after this, but thank you so much and see around.
Melanie Hogan
And thank you, thank you.
Mark Quinn
Our thanks go to our colleague Melanie Hogan for sharing coffee with us this week in the ECF staffroom. Melanie is deputy head teacher at Castlebar Special School, Ealing and a facilitator on our ECF programme.
Elaine Long
Please do get in touch with us, if you would like to talk to us about your ECF experience, we especially want to hear from a range of voices and lastly, we hope you'll join us next time for a biscuit and a chat with another colleague in the ECF staffroom
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