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Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families podcast.

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Speaker 2: It's the podcast for the time poor parentho just once

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Speaker 2: answers now.

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Speaker 1: One of the best things about running the Happy Families

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Speaker 1: podcast is the people I get to talk to. And

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Speaker 1: today somebody that I just love learning from and listening to.

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Speaker 1: We're talking school today, and when I think about schools

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Speaker 1: and education, I think about what's happening in classrooms. The

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Speaker 1: person that I want to talk to is the founder

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Speaker 1: and CEO of an organization.

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Speaker 3: Called Real Schools.

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Speaker 1: Adam Vott is first and foremost a skilled classroom practitioner

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Speaker 1: and a highly successful principle. He got his first principalship

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Speaker 1: earned I shouldn't say god, he earned his first principalship

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Speaker 1: at the age of thirty five. He's personally led full

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Speaker 1: school turnarounds and also the design an establishment of a

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Speaker 1: brand new school as its inaugural principal, and his experience

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Speaker 1: is peppered with lessons and case studies from a career

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Speaker 1: spanning more than a quarter of a century in the

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Speaker 1: classroom and in school leadership. What Adam doesn't know about

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Speaker 1: making the magic of learning happen in schools is probably

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Speaker 1: not worth knowing, and he joins me on the Happy

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Speaker 1: Families podcast right now, Adam, thanks for being here to

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Speaker 1: talk about schools. Pretty challenging place to be as an educator,

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Speaker 1: and sometimes we feel like it's a pretty challenging place

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Speaker 1: to send our kids these days.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right and my experience, And first of all,

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Speaker 2: thank you so much for having me justin. It's really

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Speaker 2: love let and that's the very glowing words. I'll try

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Speaker 2: to live up to it through the podcast. But I agree,

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Speaker 2: I think it's a challenging landscape at the moment. I

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Speaker 2: think that in my time when I'm sort of at

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Speaker 2: our time and recording this. It's now thirty and it's

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Speaker 2: my thirtieth anniversary of being in government education. I first

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Speaker 2: began as a preschool and prep teacher on an Aboriginal

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Speaker 2: community in nineteen ninety four. It's never been harder than

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Speaker 2: it is right now, but it's also never been more important.

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Speaker 1: For parents who are feeling a bit stressed about and

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Speaker 1: teachers who are wondering what's going to happen here. I

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Speaker 1: want to just highlight four things that we're going to

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Speaker 1: talk about today in a very limited timeframe, and g

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Speaker 1: I wish we could go deep for like an hour

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Speaker 1: or two, but you're so so pithy with what you

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Speaker 1: have to say. We're going to talk about just teacher stress,

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Speaker 1: especially in relation to additional needs. As a parent of

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Speaker 1: an additional needs child, we've taken our child out of

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Speaker 1: the school because it just wasn't working for her. But

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Speaker 1: we know teachers are stress, so we're going to cover

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Speaker 1: that off briefly. We're going to talk about student engagement,

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Speaker 1: and I do want to go on a tangent there

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Speaker 1: and talk about devices phones in schools. And we're also

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Speaker 1: going to talk about a recent study that was published

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Speaker 1: looking at how parents are pushing their kids in selective

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Speaker 1: schools and how selective school attendance relates to life satisfaction

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Speaker 1: as kids get older. So let's start at the beginning.

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Speaker 1: Teacher stresses at record levels. We know that more teachers

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Speaker 1: are indicating a preference to leave the profession in the

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Speaker 1: next twelve to forty eight months if they can. And

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Speaker 1: we also know that parents of students, especially those with

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Speaker 1: additional needs, are feeling increasingly uncomfortable sending their kids to

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Speaker 1: school because it doesn't feel like a quote unquote safe place.

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Speaker 1: In fact, a click story on this. I was talking

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Speaker 1: to a parent just the other day, whose grade one

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Speaker 1: child with ADHD was locked in a store room, locked

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Speaker 1: in like a cupboard because the teacher couldn't deal with them. Obviously,

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Speaker 1: this is not representative of what happens in all schools

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Speaker 1: with all teachers. Most teachers are doing a great job.

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Speaker 1: But what's your take on this and how do we

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Speaker 1: support teachers but also help parents to feel like the

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Speaker 1: kids can go to school.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so, what we've known for a really long time,

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Speaker 2: this has been the case for about three decades in Australia,

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Speaker 2: is that the number one stress of teachers is student behavior. Now,

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Speaker 2: if we make the class more diverse, if we make

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Speaker 2: the students that come along more challenging, if we, for instance,

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Speaker 2: have students with advantages placed in our independent and private schools,

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Speaker 2: it means that our government schools, where the kids have

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Speaker 2: the most need, the need gets more prolific and when

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Speaker 2: we don't support those teachers to kind of handle that need. So,

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Speaker 2: for instance, this goes conversations around both pre service teacher training,

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Speaker 2: what sort of support they get, They don't get enough,

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Speaker 2: they don't get enough of the practicalities. We are too

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Speaker 2: many teachers who are graduating go and I learned more

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Speaker 2: in the first four weeks of teaching than I did

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Speaker 2: in four years at university, and that's not okay. And

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Speaker 2: then there's the in career support and training that they get,

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Speaker 2: which is often built around pressure around producing higher levels

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Speaker 2: of student learning outcomes, which isn't the kind of care

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Speaker 2: that a lot of people with the sort of kids

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Speaker 2: that you're talking about who have additional needs, they're not

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Speaker 2: looking for a nine to nine etar. They're just looking

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Speaker 2: for a safe environment where their kid can learn to

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Speaker 2: be a good learner in the company of other people.

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Speaker 3: That's all they're looking for.

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Speaker 2: But when we have more and more kids who have

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Speaker 2: additional needs so that the kind of basic skill set

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Speaker 2: that a teacher has doesn't do it doesn't do the job,

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Speaker 2: so we have to invest more heavily in them, or

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Speaker 2: we can expect more of these kind of stories that

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Speaker 2: sit on the outside of it, stories like cupboards that

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Speaker 2: we are unacceptable, but we can expect to have more

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Speaker 2: of those come along because teachers are struggling as this

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Speaker 2: as the work that's required of them becomes more difficult

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Speaker 2: and the training that they have doesn't cope with that change.

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Speaker 2: So really important that we kind of as parents, that

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Speaker 2: we're advocating for additional support for our teachers so they

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Speaker 2: can do the job that's required of them better and

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Speaker 2: that we don't get kind of sucked into justin this

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Speaker 2: kind of adversarial relationship with the school and saying, well,

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Speaker 2: you're not doing what I need for my kid. So

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Speaker 2: I'm going to kick up a stink. I'm going to

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Speaker 2: go to a department. I'm going to call a current affair.

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Speaker 2: I'm going to get adversarial with you. It's actually the

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Speaker 2: time that we need teachers and parents advocating for the

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Speaker 2: same thing.

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Speaker 1: So if a parent wants to do that advocacy, I

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Speaker 1: mean the easy thing to do is to go and

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Speaker 1: yell at the teacher or send an angry email to

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Speaker 1: the principal. How do they do that? I mean, that's

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Speaker 1: not this kind of thing that most parents are usually

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Speaker 1: thinking about doing, is seeing how do I support the

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Speaker 1: teachers at my local primary school or my local high school.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: I think one of the most important things to do

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Speaker 2: is that whenever we decide that we're going to need

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Speaker 2: to talk to the school about something, and we should.

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Speaker 2: If you're concerned, we should talk. But it's one is

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Speaker 2: to understand that the people that you're talking to are experienced.

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Speaker 3: Qualified and capable.

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Speaker 2: And so the first thing we want parents to do

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Speaker 2: is to seek to understand. We want them to ring

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Speaker 2: the school and say, can you explain this to me?

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Speaker 2: Because our lens for our own kids. And I know

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Speaker 2: this justin because I've got the call from the school

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Speaker 2: to tell me that my kid has done the wrong

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Speaker 2: thing at school now, And I got that call from

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Speaker 2: a principle when I thought that this principle was ringing

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Speaker 2: me to talk about principally things, and in my head,

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Speaker 2: I was ready to go all irrational, you know, all emotional,

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Speaker 2: because we are emotional about our kids, of course we are,

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Speaker 2: But we need to understand that when we ring, we've

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Speaker 2: often got an emotional hat on and we're not receptive

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Speaker 2: to information that would put our minds at ease. So

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Speaker 2: if we can ring up, seek to understand what's going on,

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Speaker 2: and then let's put the problem kind of on the

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Speaker 2: whiteboard and let's talk about it. Let's see we can

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Speaker 2: solve it together, be resources for each other rather than

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Speaker 2: adverse aerials.

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Speaker 1: So valuable really appreciate that suggestion. Let's move to a

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Speaker 1: second idea. There's been some talk in the media recently,

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Speaker 1: including an article that appeared on the Conversation that some

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Speaker 1: online platforms are starting to measure student engagement at school.

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Speaker 1: What do you think about this idea? First of all,

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Speaker 1: what do they mean by they want to measure student engagement?

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Speaker 1: And secondly, is this what we need to be doing?

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Speaker 3: Yeah?

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Speaker 2: I think that I'm a really healthy and fierce skeptic

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Speaker 2: around this stuff. I think that our tech companies have

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Speaker 2: hijacked the word engagement, and I think that what they're

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Speaker 2: I'm measuring engagement. Engagement for me is young people who

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Speaker 2: are listening, speaking, thinking, or doing love it. So every

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Speaker 2: teacher that and so the enemy of engagement then, by

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Speaker 2: in a classroom, to be honest, is waiting as teachers

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Speaker 2: who talk too long, because most of the time kids

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Speaker 2: are waiting to can I just say something? Can I

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Speaker 2: do something? Can I hear something? Can I get activated

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Speaker 2: in my own learning? And we need them because if

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Speaker 2: they're not activated, they're really hard to teach. So I

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Speaker 2: think that these platforms, chiefly what they're measuring is is

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Speaker 2: young people logging in, young people accessing, young people being present.

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Speaker 2: But you don't learn from being present, you learn from

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Speaker 2: engaging and so I pushed back against the idea that

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Speaker 2: they're actually measuring engagement at all. Logging in doesn't mean

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Speaker 2: I'm engaged. We've all sat through that we weren't engaged with.

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Speaker 2: Where all watched a television show that with our brains.

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Speaker 1: Somewhere, We've all sat in a zoom meeting that we

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Speaker 1: weren't engaged in.

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Speaker 2: You know, I can drive in my car and listen

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Speaker 2: to an audible book and all of a sudden, I go,

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Speaker 2: I've driven from last fifteen and I'd learn one word.

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Speaker 2: So logging in or play, pressing play, that's not engagement.

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Speaker 2: And I think we actually, as parents and as educators,

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Speaker 2: we need to kind of be protective of the word

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Speaker 2: engagement and say it's ours. Engagement is when you're getting

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Speaker 2: the thrill of making dangerous, difficult progress in a topic

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Speaker 2: that particularly is going to be relevant or useful for you.

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Speaker 1: A cynical view of Kevin Rudd's education revolution is that

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Speaker 1: everyone got a laptop and we just moved education onto

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Speaker 1: screens but kept doing the same thing, maybe even more poorly.

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Speaker 1: And technology is I mean it's everywhere in schools.

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Speaker 3: Now.

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Speaker 1: Is there too much tech in schools?

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Speaker 3: Well?

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Speaker 2: I think there is when we start to see education,

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Speaker 2: for instance, as a delivery or a distribution model. So

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Speaker 2: I think that's what was the biggest risk, the biggest

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Speaker 2: damage that was done by in education across heavily lockdown

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Speaker 2: communities like where I am in Melbourne, is that it

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Speaker 2: became a delivery model. Came just here's the content, I'll

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Speaker 2: try and get it through the screen to you and

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Speaker 2: then you've got it. Job done. That's not what high

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Speaker 2: quality education is all about. And what we do know

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Speaker 2: now is we've got And obviously there are books at

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Speaker 2: the moment like Jonathan Heights The Anxious Generation Book, an

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Speaker 2: incredible book that made me think a lot about my

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Speaker 2: parenting as well as my role as an educator, showing

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Speaker 2: us that the proliferation of technology, just because it makes

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Speaker 2: certain parts of educating and growing young people easier, isn't

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Speaker 2: good for them. It's changing not only the way they behave,

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Speaker 2: but who they are. And that's something that I love

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Speaker 2: all our parents, all our educators to get there, to

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Speaker 2: get their heads around it is that we're are building

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Speaker 2: young people for the future, not just trying to get

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Speaker 2: certain things done in their company.

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Speaker 1: I'm talking abot Adam Voyd from Real Schools. He's the

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Speaker 1: CEO and director of Real Schools. I guess you'd call

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Speaker 1: it a consultancy really looking after a couple of hundred

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Speaker 1: schools around the country and helping educators to help kids

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Speaker 1: to feel more engaged, to help students feel more engaged

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Speaker 1: at school. Let's go down this pathway of phones and schools, Adam.

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Speaker 1: There's been a lot of talk over the last year

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Speaker 1: or so and governments successively and successfully removing phones from schools.

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Speaker 1: Kids just don't allowed to have them in most states

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Speaker 1: and territories now in both primary school and high school

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Speaker 1: in the public system at least. What's your take on this,

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Speaker 1: good or bad? And why?

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Speaker 3: So? I'm a convert here.

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Speaker 2: So I several weeks about five or six years ago,

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Speaker 2: I wrote an article that was published in published nationally

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Speaker 2: in some of the biggest newspapers in Australia about how

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Speaker 2: I think we needed to be more sophisticated about mobile

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Speaker 2: phones in classrooms and I think we needed to show

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Speaker 2: kids how to use it for life because it wasn't

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Speaker 2: going away.

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Speaker 3: And I was wrong.

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Speaker 2: So I have done the work that I've done more

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Speaker 2: recently on trying to trying to understand, like I said

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Speaker 2: about the way that these devices, and particularly the way

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Speaker 2: that software that's designed for social media platforms that these

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Speaker 2: kids are accessing way too early, is doing them damage.

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Speaker 2: The work that I've seen many of our schools that

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Speaker 2: we work we do around to be frank complying with

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Speaker 2: mobile phone bands, particularly our secondary schools, is that their

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Speaker 2: teachers and their school leaders are reporting young people who

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Speaker 2: were more present in their learning, more to hark back

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Speaker 2: to a previous conversation, engaged in learning, They're more attentive,

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Speaker 2: they're more focused, and above any of that, they're happier.

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Speaker 2: So they're telling us that the young people are actually

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Speaker 2: enjoying getting a six to seven hour break from having

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Speaker 2: the Mark Zuckerberger's and Elon Musks of the world tell

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Speaker 2: them what they should value and who they should hate.

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Speaker 2: And I think that that's a good thing. So I've

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Speaker 2: gone from being someone who was against a mobile phone

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Speaker 2: band effectively to being someone who's in favor. The schools

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Speaker 2: that have done it best have been the ones who

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Speaker 2: have engaged the kids in that messaging. I know one

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Speaker 2: in Sydney who who had no messaging about the mobile

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Speaker 2: phone band come from grown ups. It was all the

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Speaker 2: students They got a group of them in who were influential,

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Speaker 2: not just as student leaders, and said, how are we

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Speaker 2: going to message this to the community, to us, to

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Speaker 2: our student commit unity, so that they realize that this

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Speaker 2: is going to be good for us and we're doing

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Speaker 2: it together.

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Speaker 3: They did a great job.

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Speaker 1: I feel like that's what education is about.

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Speaker 3: I mean, this is great.

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Speaker 1: I'm likewise, I've had the same evolution. I've flip flopped

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Speaker 1: a little bit, but primarily I've been saying we've just

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Speaker 1: got to learn how to live with this. I couldn't

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Speaker 1: agree with you more. Getting them out of the schools

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Speaker 1: is absolutely fundamental and essential to increased engagement and well being.

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Speaker 1: All right, last question for you, Adam, as we move

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Speaker 1: towards a wrap up, and thanks so much for being

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Speaker 1: so generous with your responses already. There was a study

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Speaker 1: that was published recently and written about in the Fairfax

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Speaker 1: Press about selective schools and life satisfaction. Essentially, the article

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Speaker 1: claimed that parents are pushing their kids into selective schools,

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Speaker 1: but whether you go to a selective school or not,

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Speaker 1: and by the way, for those who are not familiar

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Speaker 1: with selective schools, what that means is there are some

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Speaker 1: schools that specialize in academics or sports or drama, and

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Speaker 1: if your child is a high enough achiever, they get

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Speaker 1: to go to that school rather than the local public

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Speaker 1: school down the road. Life satisfaction no impact whether you

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Speaker 1: go to the fancy hoist toyty selective school or you

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Speaker 1: go to the local public school. That's what the research

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Speaker 1: has found. What's your take on this?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, I guess one of the things that I

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Speaker 2: do like is that we're now finally curious about life

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Speaker 2: satisfaction as being a potential has been something that we're

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Speaker 2: trying to set our kids up for while they're at school,

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Speaker 2: and I think it's a good thing to explore that.

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Speaker 2: And so what we do find when we look beyond

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Speaker 2: what are the academic results that they produce in a

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Speaker 2: particular year level, in a particular month of a school year,

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Speaker 2: and stop kind of making schools accountable for that and

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Speaker 2: supporting them only to produce that, and actually say, well,

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Speaker 2: what about way down in life and not just like

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Speaker 2: right at the end of the journey, not just a

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Speaker 2: year or two later, but maybe five ten years down.

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Speaker 2: How satisfied are these young people with their lives because

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Speaker 2: of the education they got and what we're finding is

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Speaker 2: that the longer view that we take, the more we

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Speaker 2: are seeing a return on the investment of time and

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Speaker 2: of money and of effort that a lot of parents

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Speaker 2: are going to for getting that kid into a selective

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Speaker 2: entry school or even an independent or a rive at

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Speaker 2: school early and in their lives. We mostly are acceeding

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Speaker 2: in these instances to some parental guilt, and which in

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Speaker 2: Australia is well marketed. You know, it's really easy to

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Speaker 2: make a parent feel bad about not giving their kid

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Speaker 2: every possible opportunity. But what these kinds of studies that

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Speaker 2: are emerging are telling us is that actually providing our

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Speaker 2: kids sometimes with a really nice level of productive struggle,

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Speaker 2: of being able to be with people who are not

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Speaker 2: exactly like them, even where we've got selective entry justin

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Speaker 2: where they've gone to, say a music school, because they're

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Speaker 2: particularly gifted there. The way to grow that gift is

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Speaker 2: not necessarily to be just around kids who are awesome

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Speaker 2: at music, but to be around and kids and talk

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Speaker 2: to them, Talk to kids who are going to be

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Speaker 2: plumbers and listen to their listen to them about their

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Speaker 2: their music tastes and what floats their boat. Artistically, but

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Speaker 2: being with a diverse group of people is really good

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Speaker 2: for the individual. And there's a lesson here for policymakers

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Speaker 2: around education as well, and that is that we need

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Speaker 2: to make our schools diverse as well. They need to

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Speaker 2: be places where people with all sorts of hopes, streams

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Speaker 2: and backgrounds come together because the world's going to demand

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Speaker 2: that you work with different people to you, and so

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Speaker 2: it's useful this diversity at a scaled level, but it's

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Speaker 2: also useful at an individual level.

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Speaker 3: And I think parents can stop.

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Speaker 2: Feeling guilty about not finding the perfect school for their

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Speaker 2: kid because it doesn't exist.

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Speaker 1: I feel like we've kind of come full circle. Our

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Speaker 1: very first conversation was about the gap widening between the

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Speaker 1: private and public system where the haves and have nots,

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Speaker 1: if I can use that crass term, Essentially, we're not

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Speaker 1: getting the diversification in our education system, and we've kind

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Speaker 1: of landed there again. Okay, Adam, I mean, anyone who's

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Speaker 1: just listening to this conversation can see now why I

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Speaker 1: would rather have two hours with you than fifteen minutes.

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Speaker 1: Really really appreciate your time. If people want to know more,

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Speaker 1: especially educators who are listening to our conversation. If they

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Speaker 1: want to know more about you and the work that

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Speaker 1: you do at real schools, where can they find your

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Speaker 1: what should they expect?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, they can head to realschools dot com dot au

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Speaker 2: and I'll find out everything as an educator that we

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Speaker 2: do with working with schools. And we work with schools

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Speaker 2: for three years. So some schools ring up and saying

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Speaker 2: they'd like a PD day train our teachers for a day,

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Speaker 2: and our answer.

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Speaker 1: Is no, yeah, that's my job, that's my job.

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Speaker 2: Well, we're locking in and so we help schools for

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Speaker 2: the long term and multitude of different ways. They're supported

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Speaker 2: by an experienced principle. Every school that does it has

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Speaker 2: an experienced principle allocated to them and we're really proud

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Speaker 2: our missions to transform education in Australia and to do

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Speaker 2: what one school at a time.

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Speaker 3: So we're busy, good stuff.

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Speaker 1: Really appreciate your time and thanks for your insights. I'm

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Speaker 1: sure that everyone really enjoyed the conversation. Thanks Adam, not

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Speaker 1: at all, Justin, thanks for having me. The Happy Families

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Speaker 1: podcast is produced by Justin Roland from Bridge Media. If

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Speaker 1: you'd like more info, check out Adam's website. Realschools dot

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Speaker 1: com dot au will link to it in the show notes,

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Speaker 1: and of course, if you want to make your family

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Speaker 1: happier and figure out how to navigate things just from

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Speaker 1: a purely in the family perspective, check out my website,

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Speaker 1: happyfamilies dot com, dot a u