At the chalk-face
At the Chalk Face is a no-nonsense podcast from Craig’n’Dave, tackling real issues in education. Expect honest chat about pedagogy, classroom practice, and what actually works — from two ex-teachers still embedded in the world of schools. Not just for computer science teachers — this one’s for every educator.
At the chalk-face
Craig'n'Dave Key Stage 3 Scheme: Idea to impact.
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Craig'n'Dave Key Stage 3 Scheme: Idea to impact.
Our brand-new KS3 Computing resources are finally here!
After years of planning, classroom testing and refining, we've officially launched our brand-new Craig 'n' Dave Key Stage 3 Computing Scheme of Learning.
In this video, we take you behind the scenes to explain why we've created these resources, what makes them different, and how they're designed to support teachers preparing for the 2028 Computing curriculum changes.
We'll cover:
✅ Why we decided now was the right time to create KS3 resources.
✅ How we've planned ahead for the new curriculum.
✅ Our careers-led approach to inspire students.
✅ How we've reduced teacher workload with purposeful assessment.
✅ The pedagogy behind every lesson.
✅ What makes our scheme different from traditional KS3 resources.
✅ Our roadmap for future units and ongoing updates.
Whether you're already using Craig 'n' Dave resources or you're looking for a future-ready KS3 Computing curriculum, this video explains everything you need to know.
Find out more and explore the new KS3 resources:
https://go.craigndave.org/9IExkn
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admin@craigndave.co.uk
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Every teacher's got a superpower within them.
SPEAKER_01What's yours? Hello and welcome back to another episode of At the Chalk Face with myself Craig and my colleague Dave. If you're a returning teacher watching on us since this, thank you very much. And if you're new to us, we both taught computer science in the county of Gloucestershire in comprehensive and grammar schools for many, many years. And now we run a resource company, Craigandave.org, providing everything you need to resource your computing department from Keysage 3 to 5. So what are we gonna waffle on about this week, Dave? Um as we often do, not always, but as we often do, we often like to start off a quote and then just kind of bounce a conversation of that. So I've got a nice little quote here, Dave. I'm just gonna read it out and then we'll um we'll we'll go from there. So this is from Robert Brought, and it says, it's quite a short quote the average teacher explains complexity, the gifted teacher reveals simplicity. Okay, unpack that a little bit for us because this is the springboard for our real whole conversation today.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, well, I've been reflecting uh on this a little bit because you know the public often dumb down teaching, right? Yeah, if you can you do, if you can't, you teach. And it's you know a very familiar saying, and um, it's very patronizing. And if you've uh if you've been in teaching, you know how hard and demanding it is. It's interesting that the same people that say that if you can do and if you can't teach are still the same people that will often then say, oh, but I couldn't teach, you know, or oh I couldn't do it, or oh, I couldn't possibly work with teenagers, or oh no, oh no, no, no. And so, you know, hidden in all that is the fact that teaching is difficult. Let's just put it that way. It is difficult. Um, I was pausing there because I was thinking that, you know, is it a calling? Is it something that some people are just sort of almost called to do? I do remember uh when I was a child, that was often something that was said, you know, teaching isn't a profession, it isn't a career, it isn't something you go into for the money, it's something you go into because it's a calling, you know, you want to work with young people. And all the challenges and difficulties that come along with that are just accepted because it is the love of teaching, you know. And I do wonder if over the years, and I think perhaps I was a little bit guilty of this, especially towards the end, um, of uh sort of falling out of love with the teaching a little bit. And it did become about, you know, the professionalism and the standards and the initiatives and doing the right things at the right time and ticking all the boxes. And I wasn't doing all those things for the love of teaching, I was doing it because senior leaders expected it of me, and that became more important than looking after the children, because that's what they are, let's face it. And so, you know, that's just a very personal um reflection. But as part of me thinking about this, I've thought some teachers have something a little bit extra, though, Craig. They have that what I would call the secret source, something that I sort of strived to achieve. There were often people that I would look up to as I was a younger teacher and think to myself, if I could become you, then I would be great at this job. And so that's really the heart of the discussion I want to get into today. It's like the secret source of teaching. Some people just seem to have it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I just want to add my little sort of backstory to that as well. I mean, we we all remember our favourite teacher. I mean, here I am at almost 50. Mr. Reynolds is right there. If you're still around, Mr. Reynolds, I loved your physics lessons. Never took it beyond GCSE, but I love that lesson. What was it? I could go into there, but we've got lots to talk about. But you were saying earlier about it being so difficult. You just unpack that a second. It is because it is one of the professions, along with sort of nursing and anything like that, where you are dealing with humans 100% of the time. And when you think about it, you are dealing with 30 different humans in their very hormonal adolescent stage, where they're going through lots of changes, both mentally and physically. They come into your classroom, all their own feelings, expectations, things that have happened before them in the real life at the weekend at break time, and you they're meant to teach them for 50 minutes an hour. A bell goes, you have 30 more personalities, and that can happen five, six times a day, week after week. That is why it is so, so challenging. But that is why that secret source you speak of is so important. You know, yes, you do extensive training, but there's a reason during training as a teacher, so much of it is placed in a school. It is one of those jobs where you only can really learn it by doing it. And and just before we get into that secret source, because you're absolutely right, for um a large part of my time at the school I was at, uh, the longest, it was a comprehensive school, I was part of the teaching and learning team. And and you know, very briefly that just meant so certain teachers are maybe struggling in aspects of their teaching, were assigned a teacher to mentor and help and watch. And to a certain extent, that mentoring is supportive and helpful, and you know, it it can help the struggling teachers. Obviously, clearly no names here, but there were occasions where I'd mentor a teacher and I'd go back to the teacher and learning meeting saying, right, how much progress have you made? And I said, I don't know what you want me to say. I've put plans in place, you know, I'm going, I've put plans in place, I've put procedures in place, I've got things, but they just don't know how to connect with the students in front of them. And that, that there, I mean I didn't call it the secret source back there, but that's what you're talking about. You know, I had teachers in my department that are phenomenal. Maybe they didn't do every initiative I told them they had to do, or tick every box that you know uh senior leaders have been telling them to do. But I'd walk into their classroom and be like, Yeah, okay, you really should be doing that because that's what I told you to do. But I'm like, the kids are eating out of the palm of their hand, they're loving it. You know what? It's not that important. The thing I've said, and there were other teachers who follow up, but I've done it, I've put this on the board, I've done that, I've ticked this, I've done that, and but why don't the kids and I'm like, I just don't know how to say, you just haven't got what it is, and that is hard, and that is why it's no surprise the four eight years of crack-ons wanted my own opinion there. That's why it's no surprise when you look at Hattie's research, you know, the what are the biggest effects on student achievement? Some of the ones that float right to the top are things like interpersonal skills, ability to connect to the students, teacher students' relationships. They are things which are very hard to teach and coach, not impossible, but some teachers just have it, and that's where I'm remembering my Mr. Reynolds from physics. So go on.
SPEAKER_00As you've been talking, I've been thinking, you know, that there must be a word to describe all this. And I've I've been struggling to think about what it is. And you've you've just said it. Oh, have I? It's yeah, it's connection, it's connection. I think everything comes back to the connection, as you rightly said, teaching is a human-to-human sport, yeah. Uh uh human-to-human art, a human-to-human science, you know, whatever it is. But at the heart of all of that is that word connection, you know. I think that is the word I'm looking for. And if I reflect on um a few teachers over the years, um I've got kind of three that spring to mind. I won't talk about them extensively, but just briefly, the first one I met in the early stages of my career, um, ahead of year. And uh this lady, she would she wouldn't mind me saying any of this. This lady was um slightly older, shall we say, um, approaching uh the mature years of her career, been the a been a teacher a long time, had seen it, had seen a ton of initiatives, you know, been there, done it, um, got the badges, and probably the wounds, although I never saw them. And what this teacher had was the ability to connect with the young people in her year group in a way that meant you didn't mess with her. You definitely didn't mess with her, okay? She commanded both the classroom, the assembly, the one-to-one um tellings off, the one-to-one praise, you know, all of the things ahead of year does. She commanded it uh with what looked like very little effort, I would say. Um, so you wouldn't mess with her, but she'd also be the one that you would go to, whether you were a student, uh, not even in her year group, which I thought was quite remarkable. Not and the teachers as well, particularly younger teachers like me at the time, I would go to her for the sort of advice, and she wouldn't patronize me. She would um accept the fact that, you know, I was a teacher and I was therefore on an equal footing to her, but she had a way of nurturing in a way that made you develop professionally without feeling patronized, without feeling belittled, without feeling you're not doing your job, but just that beautiful mentoring approach, and she could take that with the students as well. And I would look at her and I would say, How are you able to just command these students both with empathy and with rigor at the same time? But the the conclusion of all that, what it equated to ultimately was the students felt safe and they felt cared for, and I just thought that was remarkable. So that that was one teacher. I never got there really as much as I tried, and I I'm in awe of that teacher. Another teacher that springs to mind, um, and I still work with them today, so they might recognize themselves, although I think they'd be too humble to recognize themselves, and I think maybe that's part of the secret source. Um, they can just command a group of students in the classroom um from day one to day 100 to day 1000. The students just don't mess with them, and I don't know why. It it could be the student that's the most delinquent in the school. Um, this teacher, as soon as those students walk through that teacher's classroom door, they just behave, they just do as they're told. They I don't know what how they do it, because this teacher doesn't do all the things that I would train teachers to do to command a classroom. They just do it with so little effort. And I think even if you observe the lesson and you tried to spot some of those classic teaching techniques of how you control a class, you wouldn't find them. Such is the power that this teacher has. It's almost spellbinding on the class, and I don't know what it is, and every time I look for it, I can't find it. That's a superpower. Um, and I I've never been in that position. I've always had to, you know, use lots of strategies to try and sort of maintain my class as engagement, and uh, I've been very successful doing it, you know. The the students don't mess me about either, but I'm doing it through a lot of hard work quite often, and then doing it with no work. So it appears to me, right? The third person, just very briefly, that I'd like to mention, is again somebody that I connect with uh today. I still see them quite regularly, and they would recognize themselves and what I'm about to say, I'm sure. They just know the kids. It's it's remarkable the memory that they have for children's lives, whether they teach them or they don't teach them. And this teacher, um, you know, I brought them up from an NQT, they uh became a head of year, they're now a deputy head teacher. But and that's why they accelerated their career so quickly. What took me years to achieve, they achieved in a matter of, you know, three or four years. And it's because of that connection. I'm so glad you said that word, because I was struggling to kind of know what it was, and it is that this teacher knows the kids, and they you know, they know what teams they support, they know a little bit of their background, they know what they do outside of school, and it doesn't have to be the students they teach either, it can just be students in the corridor, they know the names of the students, and they know uh quite a lot about them, and that enables such a deep connection that those students feel valued, and that's why that teacher is able to teach so effectively because the students feel valued, yeah.
SPEAKER_01So, I mean, I was going to reflect on some of the amazing teachers that I've known, but actually I want to go in a slightly different direction, Dave, because while you've been saying that, I've been thinking of a whole number of things, and I think if they've remember the four words, I what we're saying comes down to really four key words, and I remember using these when I was a training teacher. You've got connection, you've got respect, you've got relationships, and a really important one for me is consistency. Now that comes out in all sorts of different ways, but I just want to touch on a couple of them instead of me picking out teachers. That was that respect one, you have to, you you do, I'm sorry, you have to earn the respect of your students. Long gone are the days of my parents here or my grandparents where you were afforded respect simply because of your status in society. It would have been, you know, my dad got pulled over by a copper on a bike, was told off, and then you'd go home, and it would be the copper pulled you over, and then my dad would give my son, but now it would be, oh dear, you can't have you can't have told my son off, blah, blah, blah. You know, the idea of having a level of respect where you are. Well, I'm sorry, that's gone. We could argue about changes in society. You do have to earn the respect of the young people, and you do that by being fair and being consistent. Um, and they might not realize it, they might not be hip enough to say, Oh, yeah, yeah, I really respect Mr. Sargent. But you can tell when you've built up that respect, especially in some of the more challenging students. And this also ties into building those relationships. The other two words I used were consistency and one I've forgotten, unless you can't take, but it all ties around the same thing: consistency. So it was very tempting to be overly nice to the good students and quick to punish the bad students. And I was I was quite keen. I'm not gonna be bold enough to say I was quite keen and hot on that. If a good student was out of place, I would make sure to pick up on them and correct them, not let it slide, oh, they're one of my nice students, I like them. And the same time, not to, you know, overly punish the more troublesome students. That fairness, well, that was the other word, that fairness and consistency again is so important. They all build around the same things. You're building relationships, you're building respect, you're being consistent, you're being fair, and then what you find is all the skills and techniques you were taught suddenly seem so much more effective. They're so much more powerful. It's like, well, I know all the skills, I've been taught them. Yes, but they don't respect you, you're not consistent, there's no relationship there. So I can tell you about all these things you should be doing, and you can tell me you're doing them, but they're gonna have minimal impact. The exact same set of skills and techniques can have a huge impact if those kids are on board and they respect you and they're and you know, you know, they they like you. And I do remember saying to several teachers while training, and it's a very it's a clear distinction here, you want to become friendly with the students, not become their friend, and that's a key distinction. I'd see some teachers, especially younger ones, you know, they'd come straight through from university, maybe they're only 22, 23, and they're six forms of 17 or 18. They're closer to the age of some of the students than than they are to the rest of the teaching staff, and they would fall into that trap of maybe giving away too much personal stuff in their life and like becoming their mates. And while the kids kind of think it's cool, and you feel students don't really want you to be their mate, they've got their own mates. They might think you're just the cool hip teacher, but that's not the way to earn respect. But you definitely do want to become friendly. That's okay. Become friendly with your students, you know, engage with them because that builds the respect, it builds the relationships. Um, yeah, I think I think really that's the core of the superpower because then it enables all the other skills and techniques, as you say, to be so much more effective. You're saying you're looking at a teacher, it just seems effortless. Well, that's because the consistency, the fairness, the respect, the relationships are all there. It makes those techniques so much more powerful. As you said, it it how does she do it? It looks effortless, not through chance. Um, it's it's not easy, is it? Because there's not a single ingredient we can sprinkle and go, there's the superpower, take one of those a day, along with the vitamin C, and you'll be a great teacher. It's um but I you know, I think maybe I've cracked on part of the formula there, or at least that's my perspective, Dave, from all my teaching.
SPEAKER_00No, I th I think you're right. So I'd like to think there is a superpower in every teacher. Okay, I think it's important to recognize that everybody is different, everybody brings something slightly different to the profession. We all have different background stories, we all have different personalities, we all have different ways of working and working with each other. But I think despite all those differences, well, or to accentuate those differences, inside of everybody is a superpower that they can bring to the classroom. And it's a question of sort of recognizing it and then nurturing it, you know. Um, I know you're big into um some of these things that I'm about to waffle on about that that I don't know anything about at all. Because you're quite into your superheroes and things like that. Oh, yeah. And I know, I know in that sort of genre there's this notion that, you know, when a superhero is born, they don't know what their superpower is, and they kind of discover it as they get older, and they might not be very good at it, and they um, you know, maybe they cast the wrong spells or whatever happens. But through a period of discovery, uh, they they become the superhero, they become the superpower. And I I'd I'd because you're into all that, I'd love you to elaborate on that a little bit more. But as part of that, you know, what what's your superpower? If um if if you were to if you were to try and summarize it for us.
SPEAKER_01Okay, firstly, I think you just outed me as a nerd. So full confession, everyone knew that. Um, what is my superpower? It's hard, isn't it? Because I've just gone and said all these different things. I mean, there isn't a single thing, but having spoken to lots of students since I left, and still students I bump into now in town, and the ones you know I don't know through GCSE and into ALM, my tutor group, um and not everyone can have this advantage. One thing I think helped was the relatability of what I was teaching, because I would often, often, sometimes to my detriment, because they'd let me waffle on. Oh, well, Sir's telling another story. Brilliant, let him go. He does this for 10 minutes. You know I'm getting you're guilty of this too. But I would quite often tie it and make the theory relatable to my real previous experience. I am teaching computing, computing science, programming. I have been a programmer for the Ministry of Defence for Lloyd's Bank, you know, a major bank. You know, I I have worked it and done it. So I would often bring in anecdotes and little stories, make it relatable. You could see them light up and it's like, oh, brilliant, can't speak. And then I'd have to catch myself going, no, okay, but we've spent long enough on that, let's get back to it. So I mean, that's something a bit beyond. Because I do honestly think it comes down to the four things I said earlier. You know, I did think I made a lot of effort to connect. I made sure I was always consistent. I, you know, I made sure to always be friendly and build those relationships. But if we're after something unique, individual, because everyone has different superpowers, then For me, I think it was you know the the advantage that I didn't go straight into teaching, which I was going to originally, but long story short, I talked about it in a different video. I took left in the traffic lights, ended up being in the commercial sector for the better part of 10 years. But actually, I think that really helped me with my subject, especially at GCSE and A level. So yeah, now there you go. That's mine. I'm gonna throw that straight back at you now as you put me on the spot, Dave. What's what's your superpower?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, well, I'm an education nerd. Um really? Yeah. Um I I think you know, my superpower has has developed over time. I think in my uh early career, my superpower was just understanding the basics of teaching, doubling down on them and getting them right, to the point that when I've been teaching for just six years, I was then appointed the subject leader at the University of Gloucestershire for the teaching of ICT and computing as it was back then. And so trainee teachers would come to me and you know learn the art of teaching, I suppose. And really kind of yeah, and and really all I did was two things. I just imparted all my subject knowledge, so you know, I knew applications programs inside out, and a lot of people coming to the profession didn't know a lot of the tools and techniques with the applications, so that helped me a lot. But then I would just, you know, towel them repeatedly and look for and expect the basics of teaching. And if you got that down, then you had all the foundations to be a good teacher. So I was very, very good at the basics in the early days and instilling those basics in everybody else. As my career developed, though, um as we got towards sort of 2014, I would say. I started teaching, by the way, in 1997. When I got to 2014, um that sort of changed a little bit. I mean, my teaching had become a bit lazy by then. I've said that on previous episodes. And so I'd lost quite a lot of the basics actually by then. And I'd stopped doing the teacher training several years earlier, so I didn't really have any impetus to keep going. And I think I just got really complacent. I just thought I can do this stuff and I don't need to do it. But what I didn't realize is I was working quite hard on those basics to ensure that they worked. Anyway, what happened in 2014? I kind of discovered the art of reflection. Um, and and I I think it happened because a lot of the senior leaders at the time around me were doing a lot of reading and they would be quoting a lot of stuff from lots of different books and teaching initiatives and strategies and all the rest of it. And at the time I didn't give it any credibility. I was just like, yeah, whatever. I'm not interested in literature, I'm interested in doing the job. And that was really, really arrogant of me at the time, but it's how I felt. But what kind of happened as a result of that, through a sort of period of osmosis over the next couple of years, is I just became really highly reflective in my teaching. And I started to, at the end of every year, analyze quite deeply what was my teaching like, what were my students achieving, why were they achieving those things? What could I change in my teaching to try and get better outcomes? And I started to experiment a lot more with a lot of different ideas and strategies, and I became much more confident in reflection and change and implementing change, even if it was risky. And so you'll quite often find with Dave in the classroom, he'll take risks and he'll try new teaching methods that other people aren't doing, he'll do things that upend the expectations that everybody else has about what good teaching looks like. And so for now, right now, my superpower, I think, is being that ultra-reflective teacher.
SPEAKER_01I I remember your first ever GCSE computing class. Everything's on the uh everything's on the school computers. You don't need to do anything fancy, they can program Python, they've got everything. Why, why, why faff of that? Get on with the lesson. You were like, nah, I can't you know what I'm gonna say, don't you? I haven't planned this. I just this this sticks in my head. This sticks in my head. You were like, no, it's the GCSE computing class, I want it to feel a bit cool, a bit different, you know, I want them to feel special. So you gave every student a Raspberry Pi, and the first thing they'd do is come into the lesson. I've forgotten about yeah, unplugged the monitor, unplug the keyboard, unplug the mouse, plugged them into the back of the Raspberry Pi, and they would do their lesson off the Raspberry Pi. They had the documents, they had their Pi, they saved their stuff onto it. You didn't need to do that, it was a bit of faff. But of course, what what a great thing that they felt different. Yeah, I'm running off my little mini computer there, I can see all the components, I've got my Pi compiler on there, and you know, just little things like that. But it it it's it's fair to say as well. I mean, I agree with you. One thing we've said a lot before is the moment you stop innovating, the moment you stop asking why, and you just be content with where you are, is this time you start going backwards and becoming complacent. I've done that in my career. You said you start to do it towards the end, everyone would have done that. It's okay. You just need to recognise it and pick up. And I'm just gonna uh flip this a bit as we, you know, sort of get towards the end of the episode, Dave. We've not stopped that because obviously, as we that's one of the big reasons we met is because we were being reflective. What are you doing in your classroom, Craig? What am I doing? Well, that's interesting. I could share, and and we used to meet sort of termally, you know, through the holidays and and we would challenge, and we have carried that philosophy, I would say, proudly and boldly into Craig and Dave and our resource company. Because I want to say confidently, challenge me if I'm wrong, that every product we've designed or released since the start of Craig and Dave has come out of us asking why or trying to tackle and trying to solve a problem, not to make a quick buck and get something out of there. And one of the reasons why last week we were saying we held off Key Stage 3 for so long, there was no reason. It wasn't until we had a why and a reason and a problem that we could see needed to be sold for teachers and students that we did it. But I think that extends. We've carried that why philosophy, that challenge, throughout our entire company, which dare I say it, I hope is one of the major reasons for our success. But I mean, what do you think about what do you think about that? Because we still do that now.
SPEAKER_00No, I I completely agree. I do think that at the heart of Craig and Dave, it is about the connection. I think what makes Craig and Dave different compared to a lot of the other resource providers is that we connect with our teachers and we keep our feet on the ground and we know what teachers need, we know why teachers need it, we know how to implement it. But that comes with a great big dollop of challenge and saying, let's not just accept the way things are, because we will get what we get if we always do what we do. And because we want to reduce workload and raise attainment, those two things are at the heart of what we're trying to achieve here. We look at everything in teaching with that mindset. Can we raise attainment? What do we need to do and change to raise attainment? Can we reduce workload? What do we need to do and change to reduce workload? And we've got to try and make those two things connect so you both raise attainment and reduce workload at the same time. And I think that's that's what we've done. So our superpower as a resource provider really is about starting with why, yeah, having those two core principles that everything points towards. That's found the foundation is on the connection with teachers. I'm going to use that word connection all day now. I can just say You're welcome. Thank you. And um, challenging that orthodox and providing something different. There's no point just producing the same stuff as everybody else. Let's look at what everybody else is doing and saying, right, how can we raise attainment? How can we reduce workload and uh and do something better? So there are some things specifically that we've done, aren't there, Craig, that we could just point to quickly as examples of that?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, absolutely. I mean, well, from the very start, when we were simply just doing resources, we went flip classroom, and we've talked about that verbatim on loads of channels. We didn't go with the same teaching method we've been doing. We tried it ourselves, we thought this works, this saves time, engages students. It's not the most popular or common teaching pedagogy out there, so how we make money? No, we went for it, we doubled down on it, we hit some resistance, but now we literally know hundreds of teachers that are using it successfully, and others who still don't get on board, but they buy our resources and adapt them and use them in their own way. But we did that right from day one. You know, our resources were about on a different pedagogy to the one that we had been using for the large majority of our careers. But we didn't stop there. I mean, our next bigot product was Smart Revise, and I mean I'll hand over to you for this one, but each major feature of Smart Revise, because if you've been with us from the beginning, you'll know it was quite a small feature set to start with. But every major feature we've implemented has been answering a question or overcoming a problem we saw in classrooms and from our own. So, you know, that was the same as Smart Revise. Maybe, yeah, talk a bit about that because that was all problem-driven.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, absolutely. So the critical problem that we identified in our classrooms before SmartAvivise was that students were just forgetting the simple knowledge, you know. We joke about it now. Um, you know, what's the purpose of the program counter? And and the students could never remember, and it would be so infuriating because you'd be like, what was the point of teaching this if you don't remember? And of course, since then we've done quite a lot of studying into sort of memory and memory retention and what the problem really is from a scientific perspective, and developed SmartAvivise as a way of just continually reinforcing the core knowledge. And of course, teachers didn't quite understand what we were doing and why we were doing it, and they wanted something different from Smartervise. They they wanted something that was more of a an assessment tool. So the product has certainly morphed over the years into um being both revision, which isn't something you do at the end of the course, but it's a continual thing throughout the course, okay. Um, remembering the basics, so you don't have to then cram remember them all at the end of the course. And then, but but they wanted an assessment. And so we we turned Smart Revise into an equally an assessment tool as well. But one of the things teachers often say is, but the students can already see all the questions. So if I set them a test and they know they know all the answers, I'm like, exactly, exactly. Don't you want your students knowing the answers to the questions? Isn't ultimately this is what you know, this is what we're trying to achieve, right? So teachers quite often say to me, Oh, I set another uh test on smart advice, but it's pulling some of the same questions as last time. Yeah, see that as a positive. You want to continually reinforce the same knowledge to students so they don't forget and they're well prepared for exams. So yeah, that that's something else that we've done um with smart advice. I mean, it doesn't end there, does it? We've done so many other things as well that challenge the orthodox.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean I mean, every we won't go through them all, but every feature in SmartAvise was overcoming a problem we saw, and they still are to this day, addressing those two overarching kind of company mission statements, if you like, you know, raise attainment and reduce teacher workload. But then, of course, we moved on to the programming solutions, and you came out of time to code. And again, did you go for the easy solution? No, Dave, you didn't, did you? You combated the community and went, we're gonna go sub-programs, we're gonna start with sub-programs, we're gonna build it up in this way. You know, again, we challenge the the orthodox, we we looked at research, we we you you you you read you you read books, and yes, we've tweaked, we've listened to the community and adapted. Okay, maybe we went a little bit too far to the left there. Maybe I need to bring that a bit more into the center. But again, you know, sorry, look I you're dying to say something there because this is your baby. I do say that.
SPEAKER_00I think my other superpower is just my passion, right? I'm just so passionate about teaching and trying to teach better. Um, and the the thing with Times Code, I find it really, really frustrating that I say to teachers, what's the biggest problem that you've got with programming when you think about you know all the structures? Let's think about all the structures, you know, whether it's sequencing, selection, iteration, data structures, you know, whatever it is, from from that menu, what do your students find the hardest thing? Well, the hardest thing is, you know, sub programs and parameters and return values and you know, modular programming, all that kind of thing. Right, okay. Why do we think that is? What is it about that that they struggle with? Because it's not difficult, it's not a difficult concept. Why do they struggle with it? And and I identified in my own classroom the reason my students struggled with it is because I left it towards the end. So they'd had so much experience of programming without using subprograms that when I introduced them, they couldn't see the point. Yeah. And not only could they not see the point, but they found it hard. And so I thought, well, why don't we start with something that's hard and then it can only get easier?
SPEAKER_01Or start with something that's perceived as hard. Start with something that's perceived as hard. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00That's right. Um, but more importantly, if we expose students to sub programs early in the course and they get a lot of practice with it, then like anything that starts hard, it gets easier with practice. And yeah, it my students do not struggle with subprograms, they don't see them as difficult, they don't see parameter passing as difficult, they don't see return values as difficult. And I still have teachers today who's been like, oh, it doesn't work, oh, it's too difficult, you're mad, you don't know what you're doing. And I'm like, but the evidence is in my classroom that my students now find this an easy concept, not a hard concept. But teachers just don't believe me.
SPEAKER_01Uh, quite a few do. But yeah, you're right. And you know, look, um, just to bring it back to where we were, we we've brought this whole philosophy of um, you know, challenging and solving problems all the way forward to our latest product, which as we said is Key Stage 3. Now, we won't go into that massively. We did a huge episode last week on Key Stage 3. You know, check out in YouTube, it's the episode directly before this. But again, we thought, oh, opportunity to deliver an entire new suite of products from Craig and Dave. We've not touched Key Stage 3 before. And as you'll see from that video, we sat down and bent the sped of art of six months thinking why are we doing this? What's the purpose? What are we tackling? How do we make this the best it can be? You know, and and there's many things we've done in there. And if I start talking, we'll talk for 20 minutes on just Key Stage 3. We don't need to, there's a 40-minute episode. Please, please go watch it. Um, Dave, I know there was more we wanted to talk about. We were going to talk about effective teaching models and you know, where the where the sort of limits are and what we can, but maybe I think we need to spin that up into an extra episode. Yeah. Um, but uh yeah, you I really liked how you started though. You know, every teacher has a superpower in them, it's just realizing it. And I think if you can combine that with sort of the four key things I said, if I can remember them, relationships, consistency. No, I can't remember them. I thought that was dangerous going there. I know. No, relationships, consistency, fairness, and no, I can't. Uh then you know, I think you're you're well on your way. Dave, before I fumble anymore over not remembering what I said 20 minutes ago, do you want any last thoughts for our audience?
SPEAKER_00It comes down to connection, doesn't it? I think if there's one takeaway from this episode, everything can be summarised with the connection to young people. That's the thing to look at. Um, but you know, what is your superpower? I strongly believe that every teacher has a superpower within them. They just don't recognize it, they just don't nurture it, and they don't work on it. So, what is your superpower? Let us know in the comments below. And if you are a member of our exclusive Facebook group, Mission Control, which is open to anybody that has purchased anything from Craig and Dave, then join us with the conversation over there as well. Think of it like this if teaching is your product, what's your unique selling point?
SPEAKER_01Oh, always the businessman. Thank you, Dave, and thank you everyone else for watching or listening. We'll see you again soon, another at The Chortface. Bye bye for now.