Series 6, Episode Three, Liminality and The Making Of A Teacher

Continuing the exploration of liminality, join Dr Lisa Cherry in conversation with Tracey Smith, who taught for many years in primary schools in Oxfordshire.  She was Headteacher for Bladon, Tower Hill and New Marston Primary Schools in Oxfordshire, before becoming Head of Primary Teacher Training at the University of Buckingham. Tracey returned to Headship as Executive Headteacher of two Faringdon Primary Schools before continuing working with teacher training and supervision at the University of Buckingham. Tracey is also a trainer and consultant for Values-based Education and is in the process of completing her EdD entitled 'Working-Class Teachers and the Issue of Belonging in a Middle-Class Profession'. She has co-authored a book on Teacher Training with Barnaby Lenon (Hachette) and is writing her second book entitled: A Framework for Values-Based Education: From Vision to Practice (Emerald Publishing)

In this conversation, Lisa and Tracey explore how liminal transitions shape teacher identity, belonging and retention, with a focus on working class teachers navigating middle class norms. Stories, theory and practical steps show how mentoring, culture and values-based leadership turn the uncertainty of a liminal space into growth and transformation.

Topics covered include:

• Defining liminality and communitas in schools
• Class, accent and identity pressures in early career
• Values-based leadership, psychological safety and agency
• Reading culture through staff room signals and tacit rules
• Representation as aspiration for pupils and teachers
• Gramsci, Hall and the theory behind belonging
• Practical rituals that build shared trust and ease transitions
• Leadership attention to staff wellbeing as a lever for outcomes

You can connect with Tracey on LinkedIn HERE. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:03

Welcome to the Liminality series, where we're exploring the theory of liminality alongside various different themes and concepts. Today we're looking at liminality and teachers, and my guest, as usual, is rather special. She taught for many years in primary schools in Oxfordshire. She's been a head teacher, executive headteacher, and now is the head of primary teacher training at the University of Buckingham and also a trainer and consultant for values-based education. She's currently coming to the end of her Ed D, which is entitled Working Class Teachers and the Issue of Belonging in a Middle Class Profession. She has co-authored a book on teacher training with Barnaby Lennon and is now writing her second book, which is A Framework for Values-Based Education from Vision to Practice. Welcome, Tracy Smith.

SPEAKER_00 1:02

Thank you very much. It's lovely to be here. Can I just add a little correction to that? I was the head of primary teacher training at the University of Buckingham for three years, but I'm not any longer. I'm still working for them as a tutor for trainee teachers, though.

Introducing Tracy And Her Research

SPEAKER_01 1:17

Oh, thank you. I just wanted to say head a lot. You're your head teacher, head of primary training. Anyway, it's it's really lovely to have you here and to talk to you about liminality. Um, and I started as as as anyone who's listened to any of these podcasts will know, thinking about liminality in the context of being in that space between living and dying. And you noticed some of my posts on that and said, I'm looking at liminality too. And this really intrigued me. And in many ways, it's those conversations that I've had with people that have really inspired this series. So I guess the first kind of question really is around what drew you to think about liminality and belonging in the context of newly qualified working class teachers?

From Anthropology To Communitas

Belonging, Identity, And Retention

SPEAKER_00 2:12

Well, how long have you got? It is a long, a long-winded answer. And it sort of came uh it sort of came in from various different angles, if you like. So when I first started doing my uh degree many, many years ago at what was called uh Oxford Poly in those days, um, in the first year we chose some modules that were not linked to our degree, and I chose to do some anthropology modules. And I came, we were we were learning about rites of passage and liminality and the idea of liminality crossing into or from a liminal stage becoming much easier if the the conditions are correct. So uh Victor Turner and uh Van Gennep, who who introduced these many, many years ago, these these concepts, talked about communitas, which is having a community to help you through the liminality period. It's it's probably something that you're experiencing as being helpful to you at the moment, I imagine. Um, so I was looking at teacher identity, and I stumbled across the work of Stuart Hall, um, and he suggested he was talking about identity as a matter of becoming, and he said it's never complete as a fixed state, but as a process through which our identity is strongly determined by affinity with similar people or people whom with whom we share ideas, values, and beliefs. Um I was looking at the issue of belonging, and I had two experiences that I had one experience when I spoke to somebody that had a similar one. And um I decided to look at the issue of belonging. Um for working class teachers, it's also spread now into people from any kind of minority background. Um and I I I I I also from Stuart Hall, I've then decided I wanted to find some kind I didn't want my thesis to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. I didn't want it to come from my experience and my experience alone. I didn't want it to be a deficit theory, if you like. So I was looking for something which could make um the experience of belonging for people from minority backgrounds a positive one. For how it could how it could be framed in a more positive light. Um, and I came across the work of um Ibara and Obidaru, and they were talking about how the liminal experience at work in professions can be made positive. And so I was really, really interested at looking at the conditions which might help to make it more positive. There is a lot, we all know that there's a huge crisis of teacher retention at the moment, and a lot of people, there was a teacher workforce survey that came out a couple of months ago, which basically said that 76% of teachers are are experiencing stress and don't see themselves staying in the profession for a long time. So I've been looking at what kinds of factors could we potentially look at or potentially put into place to help to retain teachers so that they feel happy and a strong sense of belonging within the profession. And liminality appears to be something which is crucial to get right. So either entering the teaching profession from not being a teacher or transferring from one school to another. We all know that transitions can be challenging periods. So it's looking at what conditions might help to support people through those liminal experiences.

SPEAKER_01 6:14

So you were talking a little bit there about two experiences that you came across, one that you had and one that had been quite similar.

SPEAKER_00 6:23

Yes.

A Hostile Start In Teaching

SPEAKER_01 6:25

What were those experiences? Because we can't really remove ourselves, can we, from our research or from our practice? And you'll know that um out of my own research developed the triad of knowledge where I looked at lived experience, practice, and academia. So I kind of want to press you on what that experience was because I know that that would have had a big um impact on why you're doing this now.

SPEAKER_00 6:56

Well, when I first became a teacher um in 1993, um I got myself a job in a little village primary school, and the head teacher said to me two things before I started. The first one was she said that she wanted to me to work on my accent because I had a West Midlands brummy kind of accent, I guess. And she felt that because it was a professional um set of parents in a you know a nice little village in Oxfordshire, um, that that might not go down too well. She also said that I needed to wear skirts and that even I was a single parent, and she said I had to call myself Mrs. I had to be known as Mrs. Smith, um, just in case the parents didn't like the idea of me being a single parent. So I had those, I had those three things which really made me question my uh identity. So my identity was almost taken away from me, and I entered that role having to be somebody that I very much wasn't. So I had to dress myself in skirts, I had to be called Mrs. And I had to try to speak with the home county's voice.

SPEAKER_01 8:15

Which I think you've mastered very well. But can I can I just say that that was 1993, right? We're not talking about 1893.

SPEAKER_00 8:28

No, it sounds like Werlow, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_01 8:30

It really does. Um, I mean, um does it speak to teaching? Does it speak to Oxfordshire? Does it speak to village life? I mean, there's also a whole range of kind of uh aspects of that person's whole positionality as well that really give us some key indicators as to where such uh an oppressive and offensive and um absolute hostile kind of approach came from. I mean, but it's remarkable that you stayed.

SPEAKER_00 9:05

Well, I had to stay, and and this is one of the things that forms my sort of uh positionality, if you like, in my thesis. So I had to stay because I was in my twenties, I was a single parent and I'd just taken on a mortgage, and I used to spend every Friday buying the Oxford Times and looking for other jobs. I absolutely hated it. For the first five and a half years, I stayed at that school and I couldn't find a job that paid as well as as teaching did at that time. All my salary did was covered my mortgage and my childcare. Um and I could I just couldn't leave. It wasn't an option.

SPEAKER_01 9:48

Wow. Yeah, and I mean that's going to be familiar to to lots of people. I mean, five and a half years in such a hostile environment is is impressive and really speaks to your research question about how do you find belonging in in that kind of environment.

Hearing It Twice: Accent And Fit

SPEAKER_00 10:11

Um the other, if you want me to tell you about the other example. So this so I thought that that was just my experience, but when I met this other person, that's when I decided that actually there might be something in this for me to research. So I was I'd taken over a failing school in 2016, and I was interviewing for new staff, and this very bright, very talented person came into the interview, and when I asked why they were leaving their previous position, um, the answer was I there's something about me that doesn't fit in that school. It's probably my accent, which was very East London. Um and he felt that that the school was um it was it was in a it was in another nice Oxfordshire village, but he felt that there was something about that aspect of him that meant that he didn't belong in that school as far as the leadership was concerned. Um so he came to my school, he's he was a brilliant teacher, a fantastic role model to young kids, um, and hasn't looked back ever since. But he did say it was the last throw of the dice coming to apply to that school because he felt that only a failing school would potentially take him on. So that was another really interesting encounter.

What Makes Liminal Spaces Stick

SPEAKER_01 11:38

Again, incredibly telling. Um I mean, what have your kind of initial findings told you about how class background intersect with identity in these transitional liminal spaces?

SPEAKER_00 11:56

So if we start with liminal spaces, it it appears that if the conditions of the liminal experience are right, then belonging is more likely to occur and stick with people. So I've had lots of people talking about the fact that there were um, for example, uh there were a lot of us that started at this large school at the same time, and we all used to socialize together and help each other out. That sort of thing seems to really, really make a difference, and it's made me reflect on the fact that new teachers have mentors, which is fantastic, but I wondered about I'm wondering about whether or not teachers that move from one school to another, you know, the organizational um climate culture can be very, very different, and whether there should be some sort of this communitas, this sort of communal experience, whether there could be groups of teachers who help to support newbies, if you like.

SPEAKER_01 13:02

So, like a kind of a proper mentoring.

SPEAKER_00 13:06

Yeah, for everybody rather than just new teachers.

SPEAKER_01 13:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:10

New to a school.

SPEAKER_01 13:12

I think they do mentoring in different professions very well in in the States. It's very a cultural thing to have a mentor. I I don't think we do that very well here at all.

Mentoring And Communitas For All

SPEAKER_00 13:25

I guess if you listen to anybody like Simon Sinek, he talks a you know, he he works a lot uh in mentoring, doesn't he, in businesses. I think across all sorts of organizations, you're right. I think that does happen. But perhaps it's something that we need to look at a bit more closely.

SPEAKER_01 13:43

And I think it's really interesting to think about what are those conditions that make the liminal space transformational. I mean, that's one of the things that I've been looking at is, you know, what makes what makes a liminal space transformational and what makes it something, you know, I suppose it's that make or break here, isn't it? And what the ingredients are for that transformation in in the teaching profession are actually really, it's really important.

SPEAKER_00 14:15

It is really important, it is. Um like I said, one school may not be anything like another school. Um schools which, I mean, I do work in values-based education, schools which are values-based do tend to be very nurturing environments where teachers experience a strong sense of belonging, don't want to leave. That's because the culture is one of psychological trust and safety. Teachers are given agency to try things out, um, voices are listened to. Um, but in some schools that's not the case. Yeah.

Values-Based Culture And Safety

Reading The Staff Room

SPEAKER_01 14:50

Let's talk about the school staff room. Yes. I I think it's such a fascinating. I mean, I've been in, I don't know, hundreds of schools, probably like yourself, when when you're working in the ways that we work, you you go into so many different school environments. And one of the things that really tells me, so there's a few things that really tell me that I'm in, I'm not in a great environment. So one of them is when I walk in, is the person who's greeting me behind glass that's also got posters on? So that's number one. Um, how on earth am I going to see this person without having to tap on the window and and and all of that? And then the other thing is when I go into a staff room, and I know anyone listening will be cringing because you you may well work in a staff room like this, but where everything is labeled. That's my cup, that's not the cup of my cups, my my sugar, the milk has, you know, sometimes if you're lucky, the milk will have like um a section of the school or a year or a year group or something, but that can be very um individualized. I've even seen um do not touch exclamation marks stuck on various things, and then there's lots of teleoffy signs stuck on the dishwasher and by the kettle. Um, and those kind of environments, I'm like, oh hello. I know I know exactly where I am when I go into an environment like that. Um so we can think about that, I guess. And you may disagree, I'd be really interested in your view, as this as the staff room as an indicator of the school culture, potentially. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:47

Would you agree with that? I would. I mean, I was going to say, woe betide anyone that picks up the wrong cup. Um, but something that I have found in schools, uh, and I used to do myself, and it sounds like a really silly measure, and somebody needs to do some research into it because I'm just saying this off the top of my head. But I think that nurturing leadership teams tend to buy big quantities of bland white mugs. So anybody coming into the staff room can pick up a bland white mug and know that it's okay to use it. And I think that leadership teams that think about little details like that, um, well, I shouldn't really say it, it's probably not generalizable. But for me, I think that's a really positive sign that someone talks about the fact that a visitor might need a mug.

SPEAKER_01 17:35

Yeah, and you can say whatever you like. I mean, at the end of the day, you have, you know, you've ran schools, so you know about all of these little details. So I think it's really helpful for people, you know, who might be for the first time thinking about some of these things.

Communities Of Practice In Schools

SPEAKER_00 17:52

Just to put a slightly academic spin on it, um, the work of Lave and Wenger, if you haven't Wenger, Wenger, if you haven't come across it, is is really helpful here. They talk about communities of practice. Um, and that their theory of communities of practice can really be applied to the school environment. So it starts with your introduction to this community of practice is very much you as the the newbie that needs to be nurtured and mentored, and you you gradually sort of move through the community to becoming somebody who's uh you know more experienced. Um, and I think that's a really, really interesting theory as well that you might like to look at.

SPEAKER_01 18:32

That's great, thank you. Um, so when we think about these school cultures and staff room dynamics, how do they shape the liminal stage of being new? So we're thinking, you know, not just about being a visitor going into that school culture, but what about if you're a new teacher going into that environment in the staff room?

Tacit Knowledge And Newcomers

SPEAKER_00 19:00

Um again, I think it comes down to um to the community of practice. That's more of a sort of professional spin on it, but the whole uh theory of communitas, I think, um, is is is really interesting. And I think that when that's in place, then people are much more likely to have a um a positive liminal experience. So things like um knowledge. So Laive and Venga talk very much about uh through participation in the community of practice, new teachers gain access to sort of tacit knowledge, you know, things things that may not be written down, uh the the the hidden curriculum, things like that, school culture, traditions, knowing about some of the families, knowing about some of the expected things to do, perhaps. Um, and it's the whole thing that you know, practices discuss. Collectively, new newcomers to the community learn from others. So it's a very much a kind of an open community where we're all learning together. And it's you and you should be encouraged to ask questions. You know, it's not it's not daft to admit that you don't know something, because this school is probably very different from the one that you've been at before. So I think it's that sort of um that sort of tacit knowledge and sharing of knowledge which um is is really important. The more experienced teachers hold, you know, vast amounts of practical knowledge about routines, about shortcuts, about strategies, about sanctions, about families, staff room rules perhaps as well. Um that new teachers to the school can't possibly know. Um and so I think it's about having that sort of open culture of sharing, which which means that that sort of staff room culture is is safe.

unknown 21:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:01

Okay, to admit that you don't know anything about it.

SPEAKER_01 21:05

Yes, that that's something very profound, the being safe enough to not know.

SPEAKER_00 21:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:13

Because especially in education, people really want to know the answers to everything. You know, there's like something almost implicit in being an educator that you know things and you know stuff, but actually, how do you create an environment where it's okay to not know and it's safe to not know? Um, we might come back to that, but my brain just wanders off because I delivered training in one of your schools. It's got to be over 10 years ago.

SPEAKER_00 21:46

Yeah.

Safety To Not Know

SPEAKER_01 21:47

It's got to be over 10 years ago. And one of my favorite things about the school was one of the teachers um also taught Zumba. And in the morning, all the children would gather, not in some boring assembly, which I'm sure you had some, but to do Zumba. So all of the children, and you'll know from for me that's great because they're releasing that buildup of toxic stress, they're moving the bodies, and it just felt like a very alive, warm environment where you could just move your body how you wanted to. And I think that for me was so striking through a trauma lens, um, but also through an acceptance lens, because there's something very you have to feel safe to dance, don't you?

Wake Up Shake Up And Belonging

SPEAKER_00 22:43

You have to feel safe to dance, definitely. And it I think we called it Wake Up Shake Up, didn't we? It was it was um a lady called lovely lady called Gail who led it, and it was the whole whole school participation, and there was no sense of getting anything wrong. It wasn't like being an adult and going to a Zumba or an aerobics class and thinking, oh, I can't quite keep my steps in line here. It was very much whatever you can do. It's great, it is great, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:11

And another thing that I came across in in other schools that I really liked that I think add again something to that sense of belonging because anyone could take part was there, it was called, I think it was called Walk a Mile.

SPEAKER_00 23:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:27

I haven't seen it for a while, but it was very popular for a while.

SPEAKER_00 23:30

Very mile, yeah.

Identity, Imposter Syndrome, Class

SPEAKER_01 23:31

Yeah, and it involved sort of marching around the playground uh until you'd completed a mile. Um, and I arrived at this at this school to deliver to deliver some training, and they would they were on their mile walk. And literally I arrived and I just had to keep walking with them all, you know, going around the playground before we could sit down. And it it was just so lovely because already I belonged because I was part of this walk, and I'd literally just walked in the door, they hadn't met me before or anything. And there's different things, isn't there, that can really support and help people. They don't, you know, what you described earlier was such a hostile experience of unbelonging, of if you want to ever belong here, which let's face it, you're not going to be able to. There are certain things that you need to do that actually are quite unachievable potentially. You know, like you can't stop being a single parent just because it doesn't suit the school. And and a home county's accent does take quite a long time to cultivate.

SPEAKER_00 24:36

Um I can't go back to my old one now, which is a shame, really. It is, you've lost your brummy tone. I have, yeah. It comes up a little bit when I go home, comes back a little bit when I go home, I think. But no, that that what that did was um it knocked my identity. So I felt very much that I would, you know, I I was I was shedding my personal self as as I entered the school gates and I was adopting a persona of somebody that I didn't really know. And you you know, imposter syndrome is quite a strong senses, uh sorry, experiences imposter syndrome in their more likely to be in their profession than in their home life. But I had that anyway, that sense of who am I to call myself a teacher. But then those rules that were layered on top of that made me feel like I really did not belong. You know, I shouldn't have been in that job. That's the way I felt.

SPEAKER_01 25:38

Yeah. Which leads us sort of nicely into thinking about how does working class identity or thinking about working class identity complicate or enrich existing theories around professional belonging.

SPEAKER_00 25:57

Oh gosh, that's a hard question.

Clash And Enrichment Of Class

SPEAKER_01 25:59

It is a hard question, actually.

Representation And Role Models

SPEAKER_00 26:02

It might complicate it. Let's think about complicating first. So it's a great question. I think that um complications could be around how different sort of class identities shape the experience of entering the profession. So their working classness might uh uh sometimes clash with the sort of middle class norms embedded within the school. Um you know, a lot of people find that difficult if they go and work. I I've got a colleague, in fact, one of my supervisors, does a lot of work on working class in higher education and and how the structures within higher education are very much still middle class, and so that can make it difficult for working class students, working class lecturers who who might work there. So I think that there's an you know, there's that that kind of clashing of norms might potentially complicate things, leading to feelings of being out of place. I think people who have a deserving right to be in a an institution might feel that they don't really belong in it. But in rich, I think there's a there's quite a lot of research suggesting that there are potential educational benefits for young people when taught by a teacher from a similar background. So we should be encouraging, you know, the the the percentage of teachers that come from minority backgrounds in this country is vastly out of uh out of sync with the amount of pupils that we've got. So, you know, we should be encouraging more and more people from um from from minority backgrounds to be entering the profession, whether that's um an ethnic background or a class background, you know, teachers working class teachers understand working class kids as well. And it's it's the white working class children that we all know are doing the worst in our education system.

SPEAKER_01 28:11

Yeah, there's something about that I talk about which is around that I see you in me.

SPEAKER_00 28:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:20

So or I see me in you. So if you're a child, do do and do the adults around you, can you see yourself in them?

SPEAKER_00 28:31

Yeah, absolutely.

Gramsci And Cultural Understanding

SPEAKER_01 28:32

Without that connection, it's very difficult to aspire to connect, to make sense of. I suppose I think about that with regards to children in care, you know, who might have no understanding or knowledge that there are adults in the world who are also who have been in care, um, who are standing in front of them, offering that potential for aspiration, which of course is all further complicated by what people feel they can share or can't share, or what's breaching boundaries, you know, and all of all of those kind of things. But I do think I can see me and you is hugely important and and vastly lacking.

SPEAKER_00 29:23

Absolutely. And it is more I I think it is very, very important, a lot more important than people necessarily understand. That you know, understanding the kind of cultural and societal norms that that those children live with, they if they can see an adult who understands who also lives within that um culture, societal norm, they they then see that person as a as a potential for themselves, as a role model, um, but also as somebody that understands them.

unknown 30:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:04

Yeah, it's really important.

SPEAKER_01 30:07

Any other enrichments? Because I kind of interrupted you.

SPEAKER_00 30:13

No, it's okay. I was going to talk about Gramsci actually, Antonio Gramsci.

SPEAKER_01 30:17

Oh, dude.

Finding A Place To Belong

SPEAKER_00 30:19

So going back almost a hundred years ago, he started to develop uh theories about a child's understanding of the world in which the child is situated. And he he made the point, I think it was around 20, 1924 or something, that the importance of teachers recognizing and understanding the difference between cultural and societal values that they represent and those of their students, um, and their role in guiding children's development underlines the importance of the teachers' full understanding, um, highlighting the need for teachers from a similar background to those of the pupils. So that's that's from a hundred years ago, and then there's been plenty of people who have who have said the same since. Um, so I think what we need to do is think about how we can encourage teachers who perhaps don't see themselves as teachers coming forward in training. But we need to have the conditions where they feel accepted.

SPEAKER_01 31:21

When did you start to see yourself as a teacher who belonged in the profession?

SPEAKER_00 31:28

Uh well after five and a half years, I didn't have the confidence to apply for another role. But um there was a lovely lady who used to come and visit the school, and she told me that a friend of hers, a headteacher friend of hers, was looking for somebody, and she said that she thought that I should apply for it, and she put in a word for me, and so I applied for it, and I went to this other school. Um, and the the head teacher was incredible. She was the most nurturing, caring person. Everybody loved working for her. Um, she had time for everybody, she understood, she took the time to get to know everybody. Uh, and you know, you know, those people who remember everybody's children's names and where you go on holiday, what books you've read, that sort of thing. She just gave everybody the space to be themselves. I think that was the difference. And so entering that school felt like I belonged, I belonged there.

Leading For Staff First, Then Pupils

SPEAKER_01 32:39

And I think what I love about what you've just described and about this conversation is that what's really what can get lost is that so much focus is on the children that there is a misunderstanding that it is the adults who have to be in the best space to give the best to the children and the young.

SPEAKER_00 33:06

That's that's great that you've come to that conclusion because that's something that I've forgotten to mention. Um, I interviewed one person, one head teacher who'd been um head teacher of many international schools, and he he he put it really quite succinctly. He said, I'm the person who does their emails in the evenings because during the day it's my job to go around and check in on my staff. Because if the staff aren't in the right headspace, then they're not going to be the right teachers for the children. So when he said emails, he meant any amount of paperwork. That that wasn't to be done during the school. And I'm not advocating that people, you know, start threatening their work life balance, but I think that's a kind of symbolic sort of way of describing the fact that he felt he was there for the staff first, and by doing so, that meant that the pupils were going to be in a good place.

Closing Thanks

SPEAKER_01 33:58

I think that's an absolutely beautiful place to end this conversation. And I would just like to say a really big thank you for joining me today to talk about teachers and liminality. It's been a real pleasure. Thank you for having me.