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What could the future of primary education look like? How we can take things from where they are now and improve them to make the situation better for the pupils, for the teachers and for everybody involved in primary education?
In each episode, Ed Finch will be talking to guests within the educational field to talk about how things are, how we want them to be and the actions we can take to get them from here to there.
[00:00:00] Ed Finch: You're listening to the Primary Futures Podcast from Hamilton Brookes. A podcast about the big ideas and bigger questions in primary education, brought to you in partnership with Oxford Brookes University.
How can we make things better for school leaders and for teachers and pupils and everyone involved in our schools? This is the big question that my guest Sonia Thompson takes on in this episode. Sonia is the head teacher at St Matthew's Church of England Teaching School in Birmingham and she's passionate about leading with rigour and heart. Let's join the conversation where I ask Sonia what she sees in her school on those buzzing days when everything's just going right.
[00:00:42] Sonia Thompson: I'm going to tell you about today. Today is that day when all of the children are in the same space singing together, acting together, enjoying each other's talents, the teachers are smiling, I'm crying because I'm just overwhelmed with the fact that I'm leading this amazing school, I've got people who support us like Lambda the music service, in enjoying their labor and what they've done all year and to see the children that they've been working with just blossoming and blooming. Today I heard some soloists, Ed, you think you know your children, but when they stand there in the middle with 210 other children and they are just singing and it just sounds so glorious. Today was an amazing day and it made me proud to be the head of St. Matthew's, but also just proud to be in a profession where we just see children at their very and adults at their very best.
[00:01:46] Ed Finch: And were there parents and carers in the hall too?
[00:01:48] Sonia Thompson: Parents weren't there today, but we always record and then we upload it to our platform. We usually have parents, but we didn't have them today. So, as always, we will hear some fabulous messages from our parents about...
[00:02:01] Ed Finch: Because your school, well, I mean, if anybody's Listen to this who hasn't come across you before, one, I think it's unlikely, but two, you're known for an awful lot of things at St Matthews, but one thing you're really known for is the quality of the work you've done with your community. So what sort of work, you know, can you outline what have you done to get the community working in harmony with the school?
[00:02:21] Sonia Thompson: I think one of the things we are about at St Matthews is the idea of belonging and partnerships and I think what we do really well is ensure that our parents get a sense that this is their school as well. There are no closed doors to them. We have many times during the year when we open ourselves out for the parents that come in, come in and see what we do to have lunch with their children. I've certainly got an open door policy. I always think that, you know, when you have to kind of gatekeep as a head teacher so that you have to schedule parents in and parents feel that, gosh, I've made an appointment, but I'm not going to see the head. until in a week's time. I just think often that can just enhance issues. I always try to see parents on the day and if you bring a level of positivity to any conversation, I'm not saying it's all roses and singing and birds tweeting, but usually you can get a sense of A, what parents are feeling, what the kind of issues are, what their concerns are, what, where the frustration comes from and usually you can talk parents down and you can get them back into a space where they understand that actually, if we work together, if we support each other, then it's all for the good of their children. So, yeah, and I think that's worked really well for us. We also do a lot because where I am in Nechells in Birmingham, third most deprived area in Britain, fifth in Birmingham, Nechells doesn't have a great reputation, but it is an amazing place and it's a place where our children are not leaving for now. So they have to love where they are. I am a person that really celebrates Nechells talks it up. We do, last week we had our community day, which is called the Wonders of Nechells and we invite our parents to dress in traditional clothing, to bring food, to bring music, we have everything and we also use it as a way to showcase our end of year DT curriculum where our children are making things and we have a fashion show from year two who are recycling and parading their clothing and then we have year six who design their own leavers. But he's brilliant company that a local company that we work with in Birmingham, they showcase their hoodies as well. So it's a really great celebration of all of that.
[00:04:47] Ed Finch: And so that bit about being grounded in your locality, I think is really important. I think that if you want the children to feel that they belong in the school, then you've got to accept that their community belongs in a school and the school belongs in the community.
[00:04:59] Sonia Thompson: Absolutely and I think that opportunity to work with and to be supported by as much of the community as possible centres your school really as that place where actually it's more than just the place where children learn. It is part of the kind of ingrained, inbuilt ecosystem of any area, the school is an important part of that.
[00:05:23] Ed Finch: Obviously, in a lot of places, the staff are driving, particularly the teaching and leadership will be driving in from elsewhere, quite often we get schools where Teaching Assistants are local people and part of the community and able to really talk authentically about that and you've got leadership and teachers who drive in. So how do you tackle that little knot?
[00:05:42] Sonia Thompson: I think you've got to set out the kind of culture of your school very early on the vision and values of your school and I think if that the place that levels us all, no matter where we're from, is the fact that we want children to do their very best, we want equity for all children, particularly in areas of high disadvantage where, you know, often opportunities are not as strong and they're not as forthcoming. The leveler for that is the vision and values and the culture that we have within our schools.
[00:06:09] Ed Finch: So St Matthews is a Church of England school, am I right?
[00:06:11] Sonia Thompson: We're a Church of England school.
[00:06:13] Ed Finch: And that really helps because the Church of England's, you know, the diocese will say that you have a vision which is clearly expressed and that everybody sings from that hymn sheet and that's how you get inspected under our science inspection. So I think that's a really good model for schools in general, actually. What is it that you say you do? We're going to judge you on whether you do it.
[00:06:32] Sonia Thompson: It's a brilliant starting point, but I think as I've always said, if it's not enacted, it can become wallpaper, can't it? And what I always say as a Church of England and I'm a trustee of the National Society, so I'm embedded in the whole vision of what the Church of England has done. But we've got to be really mindful that we're living out what we say we're doing and again, that takes me back to equity, that takes me back to having teachers who understand the mission and teachers who are on the same page with that mission in terms of children doing and being their very best.
[00:07:06] Ed Finch: So how do we do that? In a moment when I think a lot of teachers and leaders as well feel quite beleaguered and, you know, the morale isn't necessarily that high across the profession, I think we probably agree. How do you make sure that you're teaching staff get fired by the vision? Is it just the power of your passion and communication or have you got a strategy around that?
[00:07:28] Sonia Thompson: I think we have to talk about it all the time, we've got to live it. I think as the head teacher, I'd like to think that my teachers know that when I talk about it, it's not just for the sake of it, it's because I believe in it, it's important. I think you have to cultivate that within your leaders. One of the ways of doing that is being really intentional about the things that you do. Often we try and do just too much and over the years, I think as a leadership team, we've been very mindful and I always say, and people are bored of me saying it, we've just got to do less and we've got to do it better and once we stripped away the things that we don't have to do, we have to make those decisions. We've got to be quite strident about that. We're hopefully left with the things that really matter to us as educators within our school. For me, that is about an ethic of excellence, that kind of mantra culture. Part of that is our children having access to a full breadth and depth of a curriculum, including the arts, including every aspect of that, music, visits, visitors and none of that being missed out, pushed to one side, we haven't got time. Those are the things that matter to us at St. Matthew's. So we've got to make time and I think what we've seen over the years is that making time for those things enhances the other things around attainment, around accountability, those things are enhanced by all of that. So you've just got to be clear about what is it that's important to you as a school.
[00:09:10] Ed Finch: I think that's really important, isn't it? Because so many colleagues just feel that statutory assessment pushes the dial. They say, I don't want my children spending all day doing extra catch up phonics and missing their music lesson, but I feel I have to because that's what I'm under the cosh for or I don't want my key stage three to be limited, but they're on a route to GCSEs and we can't afford to let any fall behind. But what you're saying is the richer offer makes it more likely they'll attain.
[00:09:38] Sonia Thompson: Absolutely. Everything is curriculum. Everything you do is curriculum. So the richness of our curriculum and I'm talking about the richness of the rigor, the richness of the focus, the richness of the drive that teachers have to really improve the lives of children across the years that we have the privilege of having them, as well as the richness of the wider curriculum, all add to what you're doing as a school and as I said, we've just got to be mindful that we're not squeezing out things that have the potential and the possibilities to make a difference to children, particularly those children who often find one aspect of school life difficult. The wider range we have, we can draw them in and pull them into the spaces that they need to be in order to achieve really well.
[00:10:26] Ed Finch: So we make sure that you're experiencing success in a really broad way and that once you start experiencing success, you might find that you're less intimidated by the bit of it that's difficult for you.
[00:10:39] Sonia Thompson: Absolutely. Success begets success, I think and we know that when children feel that sense of achievement, it spurs them on to want to do more. So yeah, that's important.
[00:10:51] Ed Finch: I really like the phrase, the richness of the rigor, because I think it's really easy to be lazy about the word richness and just think it is about more school visits and more arts opportunities and more forest school and I think all those things are really important. But to say there's a richness in the rigor, I think that's really quite an exciting thought. Could you say a bit more about that?
[00:11:12] Sonia Thompson: I think for us, those routines and systems that we build in, particularly in the autumn term, enable our children to feel safe. I think there's so much research that says children find safety and predictability because they know that that routine, that system, enables them to get certain things done. When we don't have that, that richness in the rigor, we end up with children just feeling a little bit unsafe about the learning spaces that they're in and often when children have outside spaces that often feel unsafe. If we can make, you know, this space that they're in for such a long time, as safe as it can be and that those rigor, that rigorous environment, the systems that we have, the routines, the children know, oh, I'm going to do this, I'm going to do this, the teacher wants me to do that. That enables children, as I said, to feel that sense of safety and that's what we know will then enable children to then begin to build that foundation and grow within any system. Children will not grow if they feel unsafe. They will not want to be in the space if they feel unsafe. They will not want to be in that space if they can't trust the adults that they're in and that rigor in terms of all of the systems that we have, needs to be really clear to adults, to children, to parents. The boundaries need to be clear so that we can all feel that we're coming into spaces that are safe and enable children to develop and grow and adults to flourish as well. Adults need to feel safe in this space as well.
[00:12:48] Ed Finch: Absolutely. We want schools to be places where adults and children want to be and part of that is knowing that there's a predictability to it. There's a, I know how it'll be if this happens. I think a lot of us learned this after the schools reopened after lockdown, where things that had just been unquestioned part of school tradition or culture, like how we walk through the corridors and how we behave when an adult come into the room, that these weren't tradition anymore, they had to be reinvented from scratch and a lot of people were like, Oh, the children's behavior's gone out the window. I'm like, No, they just don't know how to do it.
[00:13:19] Sonia Thompson: Yeah, they needed a reset. We all needed a reset. It was a time that was so, we didn't feel safe, we didn't feel our, we, our routines were broken and we were doing things that we didn't think, A, we didn't think we were capable of doing, some of xthe things we didn't want to do. So when we all got back together again, you know, we had to do those resets, that we needed and I think it was important, certainly for us and I'm just, I am just talking about us at St. Matthews. The rigor and the richness of the routines and the systems alongside the support for the social emotional elements of any good school also needed to be up and running. We didn't want to just focus in on the social emotional and forget the rigor, we wanted everything to be reset.
[00:14:07] Ed Finch: But they're not separate, are they?
[00:14:08] Sonia Thompson: No, they're not. They're not.
[00:14:10] Ed Finch: Yeah, if the children feel safe, then they're more likely to be settled and get back into learning and get back into social relationships that are meaningful and if you make the mistake of thinking that'll happen by magic, then, no.
[00:14:22] Sonia Thompson: Yeah, absolutely.
[00:14:24] Ed Finch: So you said that, you're quite forthright about saying we're going to drop the things that don't make the difference. In your role as the head teacher, what are the bits that get in the way? Are there things that you can't avoid that you just have to do? Or have you managed to curate it so you only do the stuff that matters?
[00:14:40] Sonia Thompson: I think there's the obvious things. The obvious things that we say are obvious, but some schools are still doing. Over marking just doesn't, there's just no evidence for that. Sending teachers, I just think it's ridiculous that if I see a teacher with a set of books walking out the door to take it to their car, I would actually feel so sad that is part of what my teachers have to do. I don't expect that from one person. Never take a book home to Mark. Never. Don't do it!
[00:15:12] Ed Finch: Yeah. I'll tell you what, we just blame it on GDPR Oh. So sorry, you can't take the books at home, GDPR, you have to leave 'em in the classroom and go and take some rest and be with your family.
[00:15:21] Sonia Thompson: Absolutely and that expectation, that kind of norm expectation that we sometimes have, that teachers just have to go home and work harder every day, it just doesn't make sense. We've just got to be so mindful. I am that head that if I need something done, I know I've got to give teachers time either in school or out of school to get that done within the school day and I'm not saying that they're not, teachers are not going to do something at home. It's, gosh, this job just dictates that there are some things that you will end up doing, but for a big body of things that we do, we have to get it done in the school day. We've got to find time, we've got to find cover, we're a one form entry school. I will battle to the bitter end for teachers to not have to do important things that I need, that they need, that our children need, to have to do that at home. I've got to find time in the school day. I think the other thing that we're just dropping, is that over assessment that we do three times a year. We, this year has been the first time we've done twice a year. We did autumn, we did spring too and yesterday I had a conversation with governors and it has been beautiful, staff have benefited from it, that real focus on teacher assessment, that real focus on knowing where your children are and not needing a set of tests to tell you that.
[00:16:49] Ed Finch: So are you still having pupil progress meetings through the year to check on that, or are you in that position of trust with your staff that you know that they know where the kids are?
[00:16:57] Sonia Thompson: We will have, it's not as rigorous, she says, as pupil progress meetings, but there are opportunities for us to get together with teachers and go through what is it that we've done that has been successful, what is it that we need to work on? And I think those conversations are important because then you can target support, you can work in not such a scattergun way, but kind of home in on who, which year group, which children need that particular next stage of support and I think often we try to support everybody, even the ones that don't need it and I think we, again, we've got to be a bit more focused on which teachers, which children need support and where do we focus that support in?
[00:17:39] Ed Finch: So that over reliance on, you know, three points of data a year and things could actually shift the dial away from having the conversation about Roger in year two, who's just not getting it and what is it we need to do for him?
[00:17:52] Sonia Thompson: What is it that we need to do? one of the things that we did as a school, and it's been really good for us, is that there are so many competing things that as leaders, we've got to tune ourselves into and of course we know that, you know, we've got to make a decision as part of our school improvement plan. But I think we as a school made some decisions about six things that we were going to hold ourselves accountable to and for. So we've said we want every child to leave St. Matthew's as a reading, but also have agency as a reader, picking up a book without an adult telling them to. We are holding ourselves accountable to our children's funds of knowledge. The fact that they come in with something, we are not, they are not empty vessels, they have a heritage, they have a culture, they have rituals and things that are important to them and their families and their background and that is important and we celebrate that in school, in our curriculum. We also wanted to hold ourselves accountable to the fact that our teachers need really good professional development. We've got to spend time ensuring that the professional development that we, our teachers get is really evidence informed, we are about evidence informed professional development and also about our teachers wellbeing. Having that listening ear, you know, as leaders, we can sometimes get bogged down in things and not listen, not see the signs. We've got to be open to ensuring that well being is always spoken about, teachers always feel that they can come to you and we've been doing this for years. I am the head that if you haven't seen your own child's performance, why should you put energy into somebody else's child's performance? I just, that doesn't make sense to me. So of course you can have time to go to stay and play. Of course you can have time to book a medical appointment in the middle of the day. Those are non negotiables for me and this is not a new thing for us at St Matthews, we've been doing this for years, I've been here for nearly over 10 years now. We've been doing it for years because it's what we have to do, people to people, if we want people to thrive within our spaces.
[00:20:06] Ed Finch: That it's a people business.
[00:20:07] Sonia Thompson: It's a people business.
[00:20:09] Ed Finch: But you know, so many, so many structures seem to stand between, you know, between us and that, or at least we feel those pressures, I think maybe it's heads. Yeah. We go do you know what? this has to be a priority because I want you to be really human and authentic in your classroom with the young people in front of you and you won't do that if I don't model that in my relationship with you and with the governors and with whoever else there is in structure. So about, for you as a headteacher, I mean, you've been doing it for a decade, so I guess some bits of it get easier, but some bits of it get harder, so...
[00:20:43] Sonia Thompson: I suppose I have, I've been at St. Matthew's for a decade. I've been the deputy and the head as part of that time, yeah.
[00:20:51] Ed Finch: But how do you look after yourself? It's, I mean, it is, it's a beautiful role and we all say that, but we all know that it's incredibly demanding and exhausting role and we're speaking now towards the end of July, so you must be just about on your knees.
[00:21:06] Sonia Thompson: I am, I'm on my knees, but smiling all the way to the end.
[00:21:10] Ed Finch: You've got a beautiful day today with the performance and things, and so, are there rough days? Are there days where you just think, oh blimey, I don't want to do this anymore, and you have to give yourself a talking?
[00:21:19] Sonia Thompson: Oh, absolutely and those days are probably a bit more, now than they were at the beginning. Just as you get older, you begin to feel every day, you know, in terms of, gosh, I've got the head space. I am that head that does lots of other things and I think, I do think that those other things, for me, sustain me because it means that I get an opportunity to work with, be involved with a wide range of organisations and just to have access to some of the conversations. I suppose that I'm part of the RSC commission and the way I've grown just listening to people talking about Oracy in all its iterations and just the passion of people from various sectors. We've got someone on the commission, we've got the CEO of the National Theatre, we've got somebody from Place To Be, we've got someone from universities, we've got lecturers and, you know, people from universities, we've got curriculum leaders who advise us and as I said, it's such a privilege to be in that space, to hear and learn from and of course, when you learn that, you can come back to your own school and think, gosh, well, what can we do differently? So I think for me, that really keeps me going and I think some people think, Oh, Sonia, she's there again, she's over there, she's there again. But for me, that is what...
[00:22:49] Ed Finch: That nourishes you, doesn't it?
[00:22:51] Sonia Thompson: Yeah, it does.
[00:22:51] Ed Finch: Yeah and I think headship can be a very lonely job. You know, I think I can't show my struggles to my staff because they need to think I'm a confident leader, I can't show my struggles to my chairman of governor because they'll think maybe I need to be laid off, I can't speak to my partner because that's just, and if I do that every night, they'll get, you know, so who do you talk to? I think getting out of the room and going and talking to other people keeps you alive in the role, doesn't it?
[00:23:18] Sonia Thompson: Absolutely and I think things like I went to the whole education conference and the energy of people who, you know, are working in, you know, under the heading of whole education. I have to be honest, I didn't know about it, but my goodness, things like headteachers round table, you know, you can talk to like minded people and you can get a perspective on what's happening in your own school, often you feel quite isolated. I do think as heads, we do need to be outward facing. We do need to gather energy and strength from others doing the same thing, but we also need to have outside interests. I love choirs, I am a person who sings in choirs and at the weekend I had a lovely opportunity to sing at Symphony Hall with lots of different choirs and we learnt some Ode to Joy and we did a bit of some spiritual songs and gospel songs and it was just so uplifting. I came, I didn't want to go and I was like, Oh God, it's a Sunday, I don't want to go to this. But actually I came away feeling, yeah, and I, you know, I part of the Commonwealth Choir and you know, that is really uplifting for me as well as going to, yeah, I am a, someone who does go to church and I am a Christian, so that offers a lot for me to keep me going.
[00:24:32] Ed Finch: I think heads need to be in various networks and it might be networks of heads because that's other people who get it and other people who can share your woes. But also just like making sure that you actually genuinely authentically part of your own community and like choirs are great for that, aren't they joining our voices together...?
[00:24:49] Sonia Thompson: Yeah. Oh, I love, I just think it's such a powerful thing and any opportunities. I'm a terrible singer by the way, but I can sing in a group, I love doing it's so uplifting. So yeah, definitely find something that you love.
[00:25:04] Ed Finch: Yeah, so how do you find time? Because you do a lot of things. I know that, you know, I think that's amazing and brilliant and I can't quite imagine how you find the energy to do it all. So how do you find time within your curriculum and your school to make room for the research school stuff that you do? Because that seems to me really exciting but really demanding.
[00:25:25] Sonia Thompson: If I start at the beginning of that kind of research school journey, the reason we applied to become a research school is because very early on in our school journey, we really began to see that what the things that we were adopting as a school were things that had an evidence base underneath it and I think we really got to see for ourselves the impact of really thinking through what we were implementing as a school and how we were implementing that. So when the opportunity came up to become a research school, we jumped at the chance and it was a rigorous process to become a research school. We are one form entry school. You know, we're a school where there's only one class in each year. So it relies heavily on people doing much more than, you know, often, you know, you'd have to do in a bigger school. But I think because we had seen the benefits of research and evidence, we were really excited about the opportunity to support others. When we got our outstanding tag a long time ago now, we did apply to become a teaching school and we became a teaching school. So this tradition that we have at St. Matthew's of supporting others and I don't say that in an arrogant way because we don't think we're better than anybody else. But I do say in a way that we are a school that's always been very collaborative, very supportive of if we've got it and you want it, you can have it. If, you know, you see something here and it helps to your thinking around what you could do, we're very open to that. So we've always been that school that has offered training, offered support, offered ourselves to support others and over the years, when the opportunity to become a research school came up, it kind of, it worked well with the ethos that we have.
[00:27:14] Ed Finch: Because it ties in with the ethic of excellence, doesn't it?
[00:27:17] Sonia Thompson: Absolutely yeah and it works because A it gives us access to great research, but also another great network of other research schools, we have a research school lead, an advisor who supports us. We work with other local authorities, we're currently working with a local authority and it's been so empowering, watching their journey as heads and leaders within that local authority, just really seeing the benefits of what collaborative work can offer to them. The thing that makes it work here is because what we do have a really good senior leadership team. We pride ourselves on nurturing people and the problem with being in a one form entry school is that when you get good people, they often want to move on. So we lose a lot of people, but we like to think that we are able to build and grow and support others to move into those spaces. Over the years, I've seen people leave and flourish in their own space, as we've continued to grow. So when I do go off and do various things, I know that I've got a great deputy head, I've got a great assistant head, I've got fabulous class teachers who all know the mission, who all know the things and we're very organised here, we are very organised and kind of know our diaries is very organised. So we often trip ourselves up because we've forgotten something and I've triple booked myself into seven places at the same time, but usually it works really well.
[00:28:49] Ed Finch: You're such a positive person, Sonia, and like it just, from the very first time I ever met you, I could, it just beamed off you and I think somehow that your school is also this great well of positivity and positive action that kind of maybe breathes positivity for itself. Do you, coming from that, do you feel optimistic about the education picture at the moment? Are you like in a place where you're going, whoopsie, here we go? Or have you got reservations?
[00:29:15] Sonia Thompson: I'm all for optimism and the fact that we've, we're in a profession that is so, so Amazing. We've got to talk it up. We've got to be positive. I think this new Bridget Philipson on the things that she's already talked about. I'm open to giving everything a chance, but I'm not naive. We need teachers, people are leaving for a reason, things are hard in the classroom, in schools and that pressure of accountability in the iteration that it is now needs to change because we can't go on feeling the pressure and expecting teachers then to, well, we're expecting them to, but, you know, we kind of push that pressure onto our teachers, onto our staff, and then expecting them to be happy in the work that they do. They won't be happy if, as senior leaders, we can't see the wood from the trees. I see this as an opportunity to really assess where we are, to be reflective and to think about how we can make things better. We've got to make things better if we want teachers to come into this profession.
[00:30:24] Ed Finch: Okay. Well, I'll tell you what, I think that's a great place to stop for a break. When we come back from the break, we'll try and get right into that. What do we need to do to make things better? Let's imagine a better future. But right now we're going to a break. See you in a bit.
So before the break, we were talking about how things are at the moment and some of the great joys that we have in our schools, also some of the challenges. But now in the second half of the podcast, we like to imagine a brighter and better future. We'd like to imagine a future maybe five years down the line for some reason and we know there's not a lot of money around, so we're not going to pretend we're going to spend acres of money, but we do think that policy could change, public attitudes could change, we could have an independent curriculum commission who might make some decisions, we might even get you on that commission, you never know. So, let's think, five years from now, what could we be doing better? And what could we be doing really well?
[00:31:22] Sonia Thompson: We would definitely have an accountability system that didn't make leaders feel overwhelmed, feel as if they have got to do certain things. That will then have freed up space for leaders to think, as I talked about before, what are the things that are important to our school, our children, our community and that may lead to some innovative things happening in schools. I'm definitely about retaining the rigor and the focus on attainment so all children have an opportunity to thrive. But in that opportunity and that space to flourish and thrive, what does that look like for each individual school in their communities? What does that look like in terms of the partnerships that we build? The support that we're able to offer, I do think that the days are gone when we just are places where we educate children day to day. There are so many other aspects to the work that we do, and we want those aspects, the support that we offer to families, the signposting, SEND pupils having the very best experiences in our schools, the opportunities that provides and seeing the positives in that. I'm in a terrible space when it comes to SEND and I'd like to think in five years time, the support and the changes that will have been made by this government will enable me to see that actually this is a fantastic thing and that the schools we've got to embrace and we've got to move forward and we've got to work collaboratively with experts who will help us to really do what is absolutely best for our children. I'm saying that in the spirit of being a headteacher confronted with children with high level SEND needs, but who has had to work out the journey with not necessarily much support, but has done that with the support of our staff and you know, some of the great services, although they're on their knees supporting us and seeing children and families really thrive and knowing that it's not going to change, but we've got to make it better. We've got to have the space to make it better.
[00:33:46] Ed Finch: I was speaking to, at the Whole Ed Conference last week. I was speaking to a woman who's got the amazing job title of the SEND chaplain for her trust and I said, what does that mean? And she goes, well, we're kind of working it out because we made it up and that's, she says, well, basically I'm helping staff, pupils and families navigate SEND. So, you know, we got people who are on an autism pathway, but they're waiting for a referral. We're not just in a holding pattern. We're doing something, you know, we got people who are applying for an EHCP and they've never done that before and it's intimidating. I'm alongside them. You know, I'm not, I don't belong to their school, but I do belong to their trust and I thought this is amazing, but that is a trust choosing to employ someone, quite an expensive, someone full time, a one form entry school can't afford that person.
[00:34:36] Sonia Thompson: No, no and it's those types of things that we need to have space under a less weighed down, bogged down education system that will give heads and you know, of maintained and maps and trusts the space to think, what is it that our children need? It's really important. Often we do things because, you know, the outsiders are telling us to do those things and it's not necessarily what our children need. There is a space in between, we can become so polarized in the work that we do in education, there is a middle ground and I think we've got to find our way back to that middle ground that enables, you know, when we talk about knowledge, which we don't need to fear out fear, but when we talk about opportunities for children to play and enjoy music and we don't need to think that's not rigorous either, there's a space in between that enables children to thrive and do well.
[00:35:42] Ed Finch: This is a high quality, liberal, primary education, which is kind of what the British system does best, I think and with a localised particularity, which is what we really do. If you look at a lot of systems worldwide, you would have been dropped into that school and you might be moved after two or three years because you would work for the local authority, not for that school, but you were allowed to be there, develop the ethos, develop the character, that's a great strength of our system is, but I think it's a vulnerability as well, because it leaves you out on a limb when things aren't going great.
[00:36:15] Sonia Thompson: Absolutely and we've got to really think about how does that impact people? This people system that we're in, how does it impact people? We've got to put people as well as children at the heart of the thinking that we're doing around education.
[00:36:28] Ed Finch: And as a school leader, you've got, you know, we got to say, look, looking around at the schools around you and nationwide, you're going to say, are these head teachers being treated as humans or do they feel dehumanised by the experience? I think some of them would say they do feel dehumanised by it.
[00:36:44] Sonia Thompson: Absolutely and I think, you know, you can feel as if you've got this Damocles sword hanging over you all the time. I hate the word that headteachers need to be brave. Oh, goodness me, gosh, we're not Bear Grylls, you know, we're were people in a system that should recognise that we are human and that, you know, some of the things that we've had to do and we have to do. I mean, don't you just despair when somebody says that they've got Ofsted this week? Well, doesn't that just drive you to just think there's somebody somewhere who just doesn't care? Just don't care enough.
[00:37:23] Ed Finch: I've got, two close friends in my head teacher network who got the call on Monday. They were on their knees already, they're working really hard, they were looking forward to the production and the levers assembly and the big game of rounders and the water fight on the field and now they're dealing with that. It makes no sense.
[00:37:41] Sonia Thompson: And of course, gosh, you know, we can then roll back our anger when we can say, well, at least they can have a good summer now and they don't need to think, that's not the point, is it? That's just not the point.
[00:37:53] Ed Finch: So do you think that removing the single word headline is sufficient here or are there root and branch changes that you would because I'm giving you the, you know, I'm giving you the magic wand here. We can change this inspection regime, we can do that as of September the first, you know, what changes do we need to see?
[00:38:12] Sonia Thompson: We definitely need accountability. we can't work at system where we're not being made accountable for the children that are in front of us. We can't have that system. So I think we've just got to wipe that out of our minds, but we've got to have something that is compassionate accountability. That's what we've got to have. We've got to have a system that doesn't require us to want to do things that are not conducive to enabling our children and our staff to thrive and flourish. That is a system then, whatever that's going to look like, whether it's a dashboard, whatever it is, it's got to celebrate attainment, but it's also got to celebrate the wider opportunities that we offer for our children and it's got to say to schools that are narrowing things down so closely, so tightly, because that is not what we want for our children. We want rigor, we want children to be in spaces where learning is important, knowledge is important, good curriculum work is important, opportunities are important, but everything as part of that has to also have a value and we've just got to think about what we value and what we don't value because I think sometimes we can become a bit too tunnel vision and not see that there's that wider lens provides some really great opportunities for our children. We love competition at St Matthews. If we put ourselves forward for anything, we want to win. So we, any good competitions that are out there, we love. So we are a school that loves poetry. Poetry is one of our things that we love. Our children love it, we've got children who write poems, we performed at our last big concert, the poem of one of our children in year six. who's a writer and we took part in, we do Clipper, we do Poetry by Heart, this is our first year doing Poetry by Heart and as part of that, every class is involved. We do a big celebration of the poets performing. Our staff were crying, watching our children standing there, then when we send off our entries, we didn't win this time, she says, But the experience was fabulous and we got to take children to the Globe Theatre. Come on, oh come on, that is amazing. We can't be so tunnel vision that we're not going to give children a chance to, from inner city Nechells the to experience the Globe Theatre in all its magic and wonder. No, I'm never going to do that. No.
[00:40:53] Ed Finch: It's a beautiful thing. Those children will carry that for the rest of their lives. I don't know what the rest of their lives are going to look like and some of them will have great and some of them, it might not work out so well, but they'll have that in the bank.
[00:41:02] Sonia Thompson: And on the other side of that then, a brilliant curriculum that enables children to confidently talk about their learning and remembering and to see them light up with a curriculum that enables that to happen. I'm not plugging, but we use Opening Worlds and it has been the best thing that we've ever done because somebody who's got more brains than we have has curated something that has been, it's changed the game for us at St Matthews and it's changed the way that our children engage with learning because it gives them something to talk about. They are excited about talking about their learning and what we've learnt from that curriculum has enhanced all areas of our curriculum and we felt we were great, we felt we'd done the work. We've been doing the work on our curriculum for a long time. 2014 when the new curriculum was revised. We started the journey, it wasn't new for us when, they said, right, you've got to think about particular subjects, we've done that, we know we've done that, but you've got to be open to, and I think if you become too tunnel vision in your school, you don't go out and hear the things that are happening. You've got to, you've got to be responsive to change. So when we made the decision to dump our old curriculum. The work that we've done with that, bring on something that was better and we've got to see that sometimes things come to an end in your school, get rid of it, get rid. Don't be afraid to get rid of things.
[00:42:33] Ed Finch: Sometimes you need to refresh because you need to refresh as well. You know, that's the thing. You might refresh the school vision. It might have been, you know, hand painted above the door, but there might come a time you go, Didn't it? It wasn't bad, it wasn't wrong. It's not even that this thing is necessarily better, it's because we need a refresh, we need a reset. Yeah, and by being connected to things like whole education, or to the Oracy commission, or to the research schools business, that gives you all those opportunities to come across those things that might refresh you and if you get stuck on the accountability treadmill thinking I can't leave my school because they might call today, you're not going to be open to those connections.
[00:43:11] Sonia Thompson: No, and you know, we're not silly enough to say, don't keep remembering. I mean, we're in the Ofsted window, but God, that can't hold us back. We've got to keep, you've got to keep pushing forward. We've got to keep moving forward.
[00:43:24] Ed Finch: So you've got to keep swimming, otherwise you sink, that's the thing, innit? So thank you so much, it's been such a pleasure to hear you here today, thank you very much.
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