Shirley-Anne Brightman is a leader of learning at the Glasgow Improvement Challenge. She also leads the social enterprise project at St Albert’s Primary School, which publishes stories with BAME characters that have been co-written by professional authors and the school’s pupils and parents.
She talks to us about the importance of children seeing people like them in books, why teachers should stick to their guns and how primary school education could be transformed.
1. What I wish I’d known when I started teaching
I wish that I had known how much I would love it, how proud I would be to tell people that I’m a teacher. I had a wide choice of potential careers and tried a different one before realising that I was called to teach. I think it is the most important job in the world, that it makes a tangible difference to children’s lives and communities. I wish I had started my career with the repertoire of teaching strategies and skills that I have now - but that necessarily develops over time.
2. The most important qualities that a teacher or school leader needs are...
A tricky combination of excellent subject knowledge, really high expectations of the children’s potential and compassion. And the greatest of these is compassion: when you take the time to get to know each child and understand their barriers to whatever the subject knowledge might be, you can then find ways to unlock it.
School leaders have a really complex job balancing the demands of government policy, staff teams, parents and pupil needs. I have had the privilege to work for two visionary heads whose very different leadership styles both worked for the contrasting schools and school systems they worked in. It’s about being responsive and designing the curriculum to meet the needs of the children in your school. At St Albert’s, the school motto is “Creating conscience-led communities”, and the staff work to deliver a culturally responsive curriculum - the social enterprise work was part of that vision. The school’s pupils are primary from families from the South Asian diaspora: 85 per cent of the children are non-white and 79 per cent speak a different language at home. The children couldn’t see themselves in the books available to them, so we wrote our own and fundraised to completely overhaul the school’s library and reading book stock.
3. The most important lessons I’ve learned from doing this job are...
To look beyond behaviours for reasons and, even if you can’t find reasons, to always treat people (colleagues, pupils, parents, your bosses) with kindness. During my initial teacher training, an inspirational headteacher spoke to my cohort of Teach First trainees and explained this to us: you will never know what else is going on in people’s lives and their reactions are likely nothing to do with you. The nurture agenda has harnessed this thinking for how we deal with children’s behaviour, but I think it’s important to remember it for adult-to-adult as well. Teaching is a pressurised job, teachers are stretched, stressed and engaged in an emotional role with a very high level of responsibility. As leaders, especially when we might have left the “coal face” of the classroom, it’s so important to remember that and to always offer support and compassion.
4. The best change I ever made to my practice was...
To largely disregard what other people told me about what a given pupil could or could not do, and become an advocate for fluid groupings and group-based lesson structures. I learned from fabulous colleagues in my NQT [newly qualified teacher] year how to be agile about assessing and regrouping children daily. My class was never banded into “top, middle and bottom” or “circles, triangles and hexagon” groups because my instinct was that it was wrong. How could I know who would need what sort of support in this next sequence of teaching? The constant rearranging, the grouping by next steps and the level playing field at the beginning of any new area of learning promotes confidence in children and avoids labelling them. Numerous educational researchers (Tyner, 2009; Neuman, 2006; Reutzel, 2011; Pinnell and Fountas, 2009, to name but a few) have proven the impact of this approach, but it is a culture shift that needs championing.
5. If I could change something about Scottish education, it would be...
Not specific to Scotland but for the primary education sector, I would restructure staffing to enable staff to play to their strengths. It is almost impossible to find teachers who have excellent subject knowledge across all eight curriculum areas - we demand that our teachers have completed a degree so it follows that most of them have specialised. Whilst there are great benefits from a “home” classroom and a teacher who spends most of every day with young pupils, I would argue that with the exception of literacy and numeracy (in which all teachers should be excellent), other curriculum areas could be taught collegiately across staff teams. I think it would lead to higher-quality teaching in disciplines such as music, physical education, drama and science.
I’d also look to invest heavily in computer-aided learning of quick recall information like times tables and spelling that could be overseen by non-teaching staff whilst teachers had quality teaching time with smaller groups. The Rocketship Public Schools model in the US seems to be getting this right.
6. My most memorable moment as a teacher was...
The We Can be Heroes book launch in November last year. It was the culmination of 18 months of fantastic collaboration between authors, illustrators, pupils and a range of stakeholders, including the Scottish BAME Writers’ Network, the Scottish Book Trust and the Scottish Library and Information Council. The quality of the products (the books) we had written, illustrated and printed was beyond what we could have hoped for. The 150 copies we had on sale sold out within the first hour of the launch and we had to quickly order a second print run to satisfy orders taken on the day. The pupils involved (both from St Albert’s and illustrator pupils from secondary schools Holyrood RC Secondary School and Bellahouston Academy) were bursting with pride - and that is all I wish for from my job.
7. The worst mistake I ever made was...
Feeling that my two periods of maternity leave were “interrupting” my career. I don’t think any CPD could have taught me more about child development or how to relate to parents than becoming a parent has.
8. My top tip for aspiring teachers is...
Stick to your guns. Most teachers I have encountered have gone into teaching with passion and a mission to help the children they teach. The job is so complex, so difficult and so relentless (even before pandemics and online home-based learning) that teachers can become exhausted and lose sight of their aims.
9. When dealing with challenging pupils, my go-to strategy is...
“What am I doing that’s not working for this pupil?” At the end of the day, the job is to ensure that all pupils feel safe and secure coming to school and make progress in their learning. Whatever the challenge, whether it’s behaviour, a language barrier, health issues or an additional support need, to me, it just means I need to change something in the way I’m planning for and working with the pupil in question. It might be something to do with the classroom environment, the pace of the lesson or the timetable
10. The best CPD I ever did was...
I’m currently studying for a postgraduate certificate in middle leadership and management at the University of Glasgow. It’s been a fabulous course that has helped me to root all my experience and practice in research. I’ve learned so much about how to improve in my role and it’s been great to network with others at a similar stage in their careers, too. I’m grateful, too, that I had developed skills in my previous career as a business development professional that have contributed to my teaching career. Managing stakeholders, creating and sustaining partnerships, writing applications for funding and delivering training were all elements of my previous jobs. I am realising more and more how much all of my past work experiences are helping to shape my present and future.
