As the inevitable discussions began in earnest last week about Teacher Assessed Grades for Year 11 and 13, I was reminded of how important it is in schools to be able to see the bigger picture. It is so easy as a teacher, and even as a middle leader, to get entrenched in your own subject. We are all so passionate about doing the best for our students in our respective fields that it can be incredibly hard to remember to take a step back and see the whole picture. Senior Leaders are constantly having to balance the various elements of the whole picture and I believe that the more of us at different points in the organisation that can see it too, the better the end outcome for everyone will be. Our lives have shrunk further and further in the last year, forcing us to work on a more micro level but I think the time has come for us to zoom out and begin to think on a macro level again.
Like so many of us, I have been working from home most of the week since Christmas. My large classroom full of children was replaced by a make shift home office, my staffroom full of colleagues replaced by the living room and a snoring Labrador and my commute, useful for mulling over ideas, suddenly became 35 steps from one part of the house to the other. My world, as did everyone’s, shrank in a flash. With two teachers in the house, both doing non-stop live lessons and no home office, I have spent the last 8 school weeks delivering lessons from the ping pong table in the basement; quite literally on my own underground. No amount of Google Meets has made me feel connected to the world, in fact, the more this lockdown has gone on, the more I have felt isolated and disconnected despite daily interactions with staff and students. I have been busy juggling the complexities of my Faculty and keeping all those plates spinning and trying hard to keep myself feeling connected to the whole, to the wider school. It has all felt very odd.
But, as we prepare to go back to school tomorrow, I find myself reflecting. It is far too easy to focus on the things I haven’t done in the last 8 weeks; I haven’t mastered jam boards, break out rooms elude me and I still can’t get Year 11 to unmute and talk to me! However, I realise that I have actually achieved quite a lot; I have delivered interactive lessons, I have kept my Faculty moving forwards, I have had lots of meaningful interactions with students and somehow, just about, I am still smiling. However, I have also realised that amidst all this, I have still been able to keep sight of the bigger picture. I wasn’t aware I had successfully managed this until the conversations about TAGs started but as that developed, I realised I could see how my subject fitted into the whole, I could see why suddenly creating an internal exam timetable wasn’t right for the students and I could whole heartedly see why we need to be patient and flexible as we figure this out. I could make sense of the decisions presented to me by senior leaders and I could appreciate that they were juggling a particularly wicked and swampy problem in the best way possible. I am grateful that even in my reduced world, I haven’t lost sight of the bigger picture; seeing it, understanding and making sense of it helps me feel connected to the school community and I think will make the coming months easier.
Seeing the bigger picture often requires a conscious decision and proactive action. To do it, we have to step back from our micro world and look outwards to the macro. In my case I have had to remind myself to step away from the ping pong table in the basement, look up from the laptop and refocus on everything around me. There have been times when that has felt insurmountable but every time I have done it, I have found I can still see the bigger picture and that makes the challenges facing us seem less daunting. As we think about the systems underpinning TAGs, knowing that we aren’t working on our own as individual subjects leaders is empowering and reassuring. Being part of a whole creates a safe space in which to think and act; so long as you let yourself recognise the bigger picture. None of us will be able to have the perfect fit for our individual subjects, it is impossible as there are too many constraints, but if we focus on getting the big picture right, we can do the best for our students. That has to be worth zooming out for.
Creating Cognitive Classrooms 