BONUS: Tom Wallace (Founder of Balance): Finding Balance

In this episode, Claire talks to Tom Wallace, a former teacher and founder of ‘Balance’, an assessment software tool which helps teachers to reflect on their assessment in school and adapt it to make it more efficient and meaningful for the children. Tom’s desire to be a teacher came from hours of watching and helping his mum (who was also a teacher) make displays with great sheets of paper, rulers and big wooden stencils. He thought that this would be a great job and put aside his dream of becoming a footballer and a rock star to pursue a career in teaching. Because it was what he had always wanted to do, he found it an easy progression through college and university. He has worked in three schools, and credits his last headteacher, Andy Moore, with changing his life.  In addition to his work in schools, Tom has also worked alongside many key names in education such as Shirley Clarke, Dylan Wiliam and Guy Claxton, to name a few. It was through working with these people that he found his passion was around assessment and how it can be transformed to improve the outcomes for pupils and the lives of teachers. A traumatic event was the turning point for Tom, and he realised he could not continue teaching because of the impact it was having on his life. He decided his desire was greater than his fear and took the plunge to leave teaching to concentrate on his business. In the podcast, Tom speaks openly and honestly about the heart-breaking events which led him to a very dark period in his life, as well as how he recovered from it. He discusses how schools can change their culture and vision by reflecting on themselves as staff and the impact they are having on their pupils to make feedback less onerous and more purposeful. *If you have been affected by any of the issues raised in this podcast, you can contact the Samaritans, who provide confidential, emotional support for people who are experiencing feelings of distress or despair. Helpline: 08457 90 90 90 (24 hours a day, seven days a week) Website: https://www.samaritans.org/  KEY TAKEAWAYS If you are struggling and need to take time to recover, know that the school will survive without you.It’s easy as a teacher to get bogged down in the responsibility of the role but ultimately, you need to be in the right headspace to do your job properly. Sometimes you have to prioritise yourself and your own mental health. Reach out to people.Everybody is battling with some kind of inner struggle; don’t be afraid to reach out to them. You never know when it might make someone’s day or change someone’s life. Work never ends for a teacher.It is easy to say ‘no’ when someone asks you to do something in your personal life because of the amount of work you have to do. It’s important to make time for the relationships in your life because the work you need to do will never end; it’s important to have an internal discipline. Surround yourself with people who guide and direct you.Everyone will need support and guidance at some point in their life. It is important that you surround yourself with people who can channel your emotion into positive action. Assessment is about staff reflecting on the impact they’ve had on their children.It’s not about what the children do or do not know. If we reflect, we can help to direct our teaching better next time. Changing the culture around marking and assessment and asking the right questions could save a lot of time in schools. Your mood and feelings have an impact on the pupils and their outcomes.It’s important to look after the teacher to improve outcomes for the pupils. It’s important to re-evaluate what is being done in a school and find ways to do it better and more efficiently.You can’t cut down a whole forest with a broken chainsaw, so it’s important to take time out to fix the chainsaw so the job can be done better. SLT could take extra assemblies to give staff that time to work in year groups, key stages etc. Be disciplined with your time.There are many cultures and policies that can be improved but you also need to look at yourself and reflect on how you can save time. Purposeful marking in the lesson (using structures to make it meaningful) is more effective, and less time-consuming, than written feedback.Changes won’t happen overnight as the culture of written marking is so ingrained, but there are structures that can be put into place (such as crib sheets) to make marking less onerous and more effective. Everyone must be involved in the culture change.Everyone needs to be on board to make change effective; it can’t just come from SLT.   BEST MOMENTS “We started to realise then, when we became a teaching school, [that] it’s not the same progression from teacher to assistant to deputy to head; actually we can start to go in different directions. We had the resources to do so. My love of assessment just took off, but at the same time I could see all the great things that Dylan [Wiliam] and Shirley [Clarke] were talking about; it just was not being reflected in the school. It was so data-driven.” “We just couldn’t continue seeing brilliant teachers leave the profession. We couldn’t continue having the same workload that we had ourselves. We wanted to do something about it. I taught my last lesson in July… So far it’s ok; I do miss the children though.” “I remember going to the intensive care unit to see my cousin; he asked me to come and see him and stay with him. I did over the weekend but then I had to be back at school on the Monday and I just couldn’t do it… The class I was teaching, they were a bit of a tough class. The boys didn’t really want to show emotion apart from anger. They were lovely, lovely children but it was a lively class. I remember when I came in… They all walked in so silent, and I’ll never forget that, and they just looked at me because they all knew… I remember trying to do the register and I couldn’t even get halfway through the register; I just broke down.” “I went to the doctor and said, “Look. Can you sign me off for a couple of days? Because I just can’t cope with this right now. I need to be in intensive care; I need to be with my family, with my mum and dad, with my cousins and whoever else, and we’re a very close family”… I remember him saying he would but I would be back in the week after asking for more time, so he said he was going to sign me off for three months. There was no way I could do that: I was a year 6 teacher. We had SATs coming up; there was not a chance… I’ll never forget this. He said to me, “You’re not that special. The school will survive without you.”… But he was right, and the school did survive and everything was fine, but I wasn’t.” “I remember just sitting in the car thinking, ‘That’s it. I’m done.’ And what I planned to do next was just stupid, and horrible… Luckily, a really good friend, in fact, my headteacher, Andy Moore, just happened to phone to say, “How are you doing?” and that was all I needed… To cut a long story short, I stopped doing what I was going to do and that was it. It was like, ‘Ok, come on. We can do this.’ But my answer was: I need to leave teaching… I need to get out of this because I can’t have this guilt and that guilt; it’s just not good for me. I can’t continue as a human being.” “I remember thinking, ‘But my case isn’t a one-off. This is something that’s going on up and down the country.” “I knew people who were leaving education. Good teachers, people who I went to university with… they’re so disengaged with their job... and I know they are brilliant teachers. They loved it.” “My biggest fear in life is not living life.” “I got to the point where I couldn’t even take [my books] out of the boot because the thought of even beginning to look at that workload was just too much.” “There’s a great quote… ‘The change will only come once our desire is more than the fear.’ I felt from that moment: what could I lose?” “[Andy Moore] was such a brave leader to say, “Do it, and if OFSTED come through that door, I’ll tell them exactly why, and if they don’t like it, I don’t care. This is what’s best for our teachers and our children.”” “[My little boy] is the best reminder ever of: don’t let this get on top of you… It scares me to think that I might not have been here for him… To think that I was ready to pack it all in because of marking books and data. It gets me angry.” “I felt powerless.” “What I say in terms of Balance and the support we offer, and the culture, is not rocket science. Everyone knows it, but there’s a gap between knowing and doing.” “I’ve got family who are just fed up of teaching at the moment who want to leave. The pressure it puts on their kids, their husbands and wives… something has to change.” “There’s an institutionalised mentality about marking, that, ‘We’ve always done it, and if I stop, I’m going to be seen as a bad teacher.’… There’s little to no evidence to say that it has any impact, yet we can’t give it up.” “At certain points in the week, or every other week, we need, in school time – not after school; in school time – [to] structure this point for teachers to stop and reflect on their impact. There’s nothing more powerful that we can do in a school.” “The ‘why’ is really important.” “Well-being is how I’m feeling regardless of the task… the work/life balance is when we apply that to part of our life… One is how you feel and the other is managing that tasks at hand.” “[Balance] has challenged them to think differently about their culture.” “I’d wave a wand over OFSTED (if that’s the right way of using my wand!) so they turn round and apologise for getting it wrong about assessment and especially feedback and marking.” “I think we need to give teachers 30-40% [of their timetable] to think about what they’re doing.” VALUABLE RESOURCES Tom Wallace              - Twitter: https://twitter.com/Balance_Tom Balance - Website: https://www.thisisbalance.co.uk/              - Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/balance.education/              - Twitter: https://twitter.com/balance_edu Shirley Clarke: https://www.shirleyclarke-education.org/Dylan Wiliam: https://www.dylanwiliam.org/Dylan_Wiliams_website/Welcome.htmlGuy Claxton: https://www.guyclaxton.net/Debra Kidd: https://debra-kidd.com/Hywel Roberts: https://www.independentthinking.co.uk/associates/hywel-roberts/Jaz Ampaw-Farr: https://www.jazampawfarr.com/Jamie Pembroke: https://twitter.com/jpembroke and https://www.sigplus.co.uk/Shirley Clarke and Tom Hattie – Visible Learning Feedback Book: https://www.shirleyclarke-education.org/publications/visible-learning-feedback-john-hattie-shirley-clarke/The Samaritans: https://www.samaritans.org/ or call on: 116123 The Teachers’ Podcast: https://www.facebook.com/groups/TheTeachersPodcast/ Classroom Secrets Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ClassroomSecretsLimited/ Classroom Secrets website: https://classroomsecrets.co.uk/ LIFE/work balance campaign: https://classroomsecrets.co.uk/lifeworkbalance-and-wellbeing-in-education-campaign-2019/  ABOUT THE HOSTClaire Riley Claire, alongside her husband Ed, is one of the directors of Classroom Secrets, a company she founded in 2013 and which provides outstanding differentiated resources for teachers, schools, parents and tutors worldwide. Having worked for a number of years as a teacher in both Primary and Secondary education, and experiencing first-hand the difficulties teachers were facing finding appropriate high-quality resources for their lessons, Claire created Classroom Secrets with the aim of helping reduce the workload for all school staff. Claire is a passionate believer in a LIFE/work balance for those who work in education citing the high percentage of teachers who leave or plan to leave their jobs each year. Since February 2019, Classroom Secrets has been running their LIFE/work balance campaign to highlight this concerning trend. The Teachers’ Podcast is a series of interviews where Claire meets with a wide range of guests involved in the field of education. These podcasts provide exciting discussions and different perspectives and thoughts on a variety of themes which are both engaging and informative for anyone involved in education.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.