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What Every Parent Needs to Know About School – a conversation with Caroline Hudson the Kitchen Table Teacher.
31 Plays2 months ago
There can not be a parent of a school age child who does not want their child to do better at school than they did.
Every parent wants to play an active role in supporting their child to do well in every aspect of their school life not just their academic attainment.
But our memories of what school was like are not always happy ones, and the way schools teach even the most basic aspects of English and Maths today seems very different from how things were in our day.
It is easy to understand why parents feel frustrated. It is not easy.
There is help – Caroline Hudson is a teacher who left the classroom and became the Kitchen Table Teacher.
In this episode of The Independent Minds Caroline explains how small group of parents join her around her physical or virtual kitchen as she demystifies what happens in schools and helps parents provide the support their children need.
The Independent Minds is made on Zencastr.
Zencastr is the all-in-one podcasting platform, on which you can create your podcast in one place and then distribute it to the major platforms like Spotify, Apple, and Google. It really does make creating content so easy.
If you would like to try podcasting using Zencastr visit zencastr.com/pricing and use our offer code ABECEDER.
Find out more about both Michael Millward and Caroline Hudson at Abeceder.co.uk
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Transcript
00:00:05
Speaker
Made on Zencaster.
Introduction to Podcast Series
00:00:07
Speaker
Hello and welcome to The Independent Minds, a series of conversations between Abbasid and people who think outside the box about how work works with the aim of creating better workplace experiences for everyone. I am your host, Michael Millward, the Managing Director of Abbasid.
About Zencastr Platform
00:00:28
Speaker
As the jingle at the start of this podcast says, the independent minds is made on zencastr Zencaster. Zencaster is the all-in-one podcasting platform on which you can make your podcast in one place and then distribute it to the major platforms like Spotify, Apple, Amazon and YouTube Music.
00:00:51
Speaker
It really does make making content so easy. If you would like to try podcasting using Zencaster, visit zencaster dot.com forward slash pricing and use my offer code ABACEDA. All the details are in the description.
00:01:09
Speaker
Now that I have told you how wonderful Sankastra is for making podcasts, we should make one. One that will be well worth listening to, liking, downloading, and subscribing to.
Guest Introduction: Caroline Hudson
00:01:22
Speaker
In this episode of The Independent Minds, I am joined by Caroline Hudson from The Kitchen Table Teacher. Hello, Caroline. Hello. Thank you for having me.
00:01:35
Speaker
It's a great pleasure. I'm looking forward to our conversation. Thank you very much for being available. Please could we start by you telling us a little bit about Caroline Hudson and then we'll talk about kitchen table teacher. Certainly. Yes. So my name's Caroline and I am by trade, a primary school teacher. I qualified in 1994. So you could say I've been teaching since 1990. I'm a mum of three. I have twin boys who are 20.
00:02:03
Speaker
and they're still living at home and I have a daughter who's 25 who moved out in November 22 so she's had a year of living but in her own house. You still miss her? I do miss her but she pops round she's not very far away. and You've just got two 20 year old chaps now in the house so that must be and busy. It's interesting shall we say. It's lovely.
00:02:29
Speaker
and interesting.
Caroline's Educational Experience
00:02:30
Speaker
ah
00:02:34
Speaker
Yes, yes, I can imagine. So you're you're a teacher by trade. Yes, I'm a teacher by trade. I have worked in primary schools, often in ah very tricky places and places where parents have lots of tricky situations of their own. I've always found that that to be my place, really.
00:02:56
Speaker
and I've worked in schools in Leeds and Bradford mainly, although I did start off in Wakefield actually, and I've worked on the senior leadership teams of several of those schools developing curriculum, developing engagement for parents, developing many things to make life as equitable and fulfilling for those families and those people in education.
00:03:23
Speaker
Yes, I think one of the things that when you're a school governor, as I've been, is that you realize the school is not just about providing education for the pupil who is in the classroom. It's very often about being very supportive of whole families as well. Yes. We've spent as much time, I would say, supporting families in the in the life of the school.
00:03:48
Speaker
as we do thinking about the the children who are in our classroom learning a particular area subject area at any one time because we need to remember the whole child and that that child is part of a bigger picture and they come to school with a lot of different situations that affect their ability to learn in a good way or in a less than good way. So we spend a lot of time in primary schools really making sure that we are helping those children and families in as many different ways as possible. and bring It brings to mind that old, I think it's an African proverb, it says it takes a village to raise a child and the the whole sort of role of a teacher is not in isolation to the parents or grandparents and other people that that child interacts with. That's right and
00:04:42
Speaker
You know, when when we think about a particular child and what they are expected to learn in terms of national expectations from the Department for Education, that is a very small part of their life, really. And it's a part that's vital to their future development and their life chances. But it's not, it's absolutely not in isolation with everything else that is who they are and what they are part of.
00:05:12
Speaker
Yes, and it's that whole idea of taking a holistic view, I think, of the pupil as they're in
Motivation Behind Kitchen Table Teacher
00:05:19
Speaker
primary school. Well, it led to the idea for the kitchen table teacher. So tell us a little bit about what kitchen table teacher is. Kitchen table teacher is something that is unique as far as I can find out. It's a kind of an amalgamation and development of all things that are good about engaging with parents and helping parents to help their own children, helping parents to feel more confident about their own abilities to help their children. I left the classroom in December 21 because I felt that there was something that I needed to do differently that I wasn't been able to do.
00:06:05
Speaker
just by operating in the classroom and operating it as part of a senior leadership team. There was something extra that I wanted to add or give that was kind of a missing link. It was kind of a gap in in terms of what was needed to help children and families be as successful as they can. There are lots of people who are working within education systems and other support systems in terms of working with families and helping families to be successful in their family life. This seems to me something very particular that I wanted to offer, which was about helping parents in a very, for want of a better word, safe, but safe as in non-judgmental, open environment.
00:06:57
Speaker
where they felt that they could explore different bits of learning from where they were at right now and in terms of what their children were learning compared to how the and how they were learning compared to how they learned at school. So I had had lots of parents' evenings over the years and lot all I'd run lots of parent workshops and I'd run parent meetings and I'd had informal chats to parents many, many times But they were always very limited by sitting on tiny chairs, parents being available after work or during the day, parents not wanting to speak up in a public situation, parents only having five minutes to summarise absolutely everything. And to me, they seem to be a situation which
00:07:47
Speaker
we could create where parents could freely explore some of those topics in a little bit more depth but in a very specific way for their child in their class at that age. So a kitchen table teacher was born out of trying to fill that gap really.
Program Expansion
00:08:04
Speaker
like My first thought was in terms of my overheads but also in terms of creating a really relaxed environment was that I would literally do it at my kitchen table or at an equivalent kitchen table because kitchen tables around the world are places where people chat and talk and have and have arguments and discussions and learn stuff about each other. Kitchen tables are renowned for being the place where things get decided and thought about. So I felt that by offering refreshments and
00:08:38
Speaker
just a table in a kitchen in a house or in another ah neutral environment was a good starting point, hence the name. Kitchen table teacher. i Exactly. So I wanted to run these groups in small groups so that again parents felt able to speak up so that we would run a few sessions on different things mainly to do with English and maths but often we end up talking about all sorts of things like sleep sleep habits, different things to do with children and their behaviour, different barriers that parents were experiencing in terms of trying to help them with their homework. We would discuss lots of different things. I will give them lots of resources that they could take home that were really similar to the types of things that their children were using at school so that their children could go, oh yes, I know what that is, and be impressed that their parent had had versions of them and knew how to use them.
00:09:38
Speaker
and I always tailored tailor it to the age groups of the children. So that's kind of the basics of what it is in its in in initial form. That has developed over time to going into schools and doing it in a school neutral parent environment. It's evolved into online spaces as well.
00:10:02
Speaker
Okay. So from a parent's perspective, I suppose it's very easy to assume that their children's education is going to be very similar to theirs. There is of course the reality that lots of people didn't have a good experience at school, but want their children to have a better experience than they did and to come out of it.
00:10:25
Speaker
with more than they did. We already talked about how it's not just what happens in the classroom that leads to a child being educated and successful in the academic process of school is also the support of the parents. So I get the idea of kitchen table teacher is that you are helping the the parent to contribute to the education of their child.
00:10:54
Speaker
Yes, in in the first instance that was my aim. I have worked with several parents over the time since starting who particularly did not have a great experience of education themselves and felt very unconfident to be able to help their own children, particularly in the different modern ways that there are that their children are being taught.
00:11:20
Speaker
I've also worked with parents who've had a fantastic experience of education but who were equally unconfident. Yes, and I think part of that, having been a school governor and seeing parents and parent governors and even myself, is when you go into a school and you're talking to a teacher, you know they're an adult, you know you're an adult, but something in the back of your mind tells you that they're a teacher. You go back slightly to being a school pupil and what the teacher says must be right even though you want to tell the teacher about things that are happening with your child at home so that you can work together as a team but there's something psychological I think that that's a teacher that's a head teacher that we don't have that same sort of adult to adult conversation.
00:12:13
Speaker
There is that and it's really interesting that that's still ah still a thing, really, I guess, because of the the way that things are reported these days, you would think that that was that there was a different feeling about that. However, the more that we can
Parent-Teacher Communication
00:12:30
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do to work together,
00:12:32
Speaker
And so just be normal people sitting in their own comfort zones, chatting about things. The more that we can break down that because it almost feels like a barrier in its own self yes that you can't question or you can't have those level conversations. like it's It's often the case where you as a teacher, you would sometimes see a family in a different location to the school setting.
00:12:57
Speaker
it's It's almost as if that, particularly the children, are surprised to see you there, such as, you know, being in the supermarket and you see one of your children from your class. And they can't believe that you live outside the school building. Because that's the only place they ever see you. And and that's often the case that, you know, you' not as a teacher, you're not necessarily seen as a person who has to go do their shopping and just lives a life in the same way that they live a life. So it's really lovely to be able to break down those. You are someone special as a teacher, aren't you? Yeah. You're someone special in a child's mind. You're someone special. You see, we've certainly seen something different. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, we put so much emotional energy into our into our children in our classes and give so much of our ah whole self that it's really lovely to be then sort of recognized as actually actually a real person as well. Yes.
00:13:55
Speaker
Yeah, I can imagine. I mean, I'm listening to and I'm thinking with my HR professionals hat on, because my HR career was decided around a kitchen table when I was looking at the different job offers that I had when I left school. I sat around the kitchen table with my parents and we worked out which career I really wanted to have. And we went for the the HR job and and training program. But with my HR hat on,
00:14:23
Speaker
I was thinking about what it's like to have an employee at work who's doing a job, maybe a high pressure job, something in the NHS, something where there are critical decisions to be made, and yet they're worried about what is happening to their child at school. Are they doing the right things in the classroom? Are they progressing in the right way?
Impact on Parental Stress and Workplace
00:14:48
Speaker
And for many people, it it feels as if they're alone and yet what you're doing with kitchen table teacher seems to be giving people that access to something that is
00:15:02
Speaker
linked to the education of their child, but significantly distant from the school to make it much more accessible, more friendly, and understandable, and somewhere where the the parent can actually release all of that stress and reach a level of understanding about how they can contribute towards their child's education, which means with my HR hat on, that person is going to arrive at work a little less stressed. um Absolutely, and in thinking about some of the impacts that the work has had so far since its beginning, that is one of the major
00:15:46
Speaker
things that ah has come through that I guess was maybe slightly unexpected to start with that parents have come to me and said I feel much better about that now and that's off a weight off my mind which in teacher talk or ed psych talk would be more to do with cognitive load and your brain being so full of so many different things that you can't think properly or that you become anxious and you can't work at your full capacity All that you don't feel as engaged at work as you would like to do, because you know you've got all these other things that you're worrying about. And parents have come to me over the course of the time that I've been doing this work, really stressed and anxious and saying, you know, I can't concentrate at work properly because I'm worrying about what's going to happen tomorrow or the next day. I'm worrying about my child and his development. By the way that you talk to me, Caroline, the way that you show me things, I feel like
00:16:46
Speaker
It's going to be OK. I feel more confident about the future. I even had one parent who came to me who was a criminal lawyer and would sit at my kitchen table saying, I just don't get it. It's like a jungle in there. You know, I don't understand how to help my five-year-old. And I feel like I should because I'm a grown up. I'm actually a very educated, academically educated grown up. And yet I feel like a failure.
00:17:12
Speaker
because I feel like I can't help my five-year-old and I thought that when I had a baby I would certainly be able to help them through school certainly towards high school and this has all come as quite a shock to me and parents come to me in a state of despair and lack of hope because they feel like even at this level they can't help their children and they feel almost that the bond with them is not what they would like because they want to be able to just sit and chat and do homework together and help them. But they find themselves stepping back or even having negative conversations and having negative times together, which is not what they set out to do when they became parents. As you can imagine, it leads to lots of different ripple effects. And I've been thinking about this over time and thinking about the ripple effects in the workplace.
00:18:05
Speaker
because of that cognitive load of worrying about how you feel as a parent, how confident you feel as a parent, and worrying about whether your child is okay or whether you're doing the right thing, particularly in the light of social media these days, where everybody posts the best bits, you think you look at it and think about your own reality, particularly since COVID, when people were trying to teach their children at home, and particularly when people were sort of lacking in the resources to do that. And all of those things affect productivity. They affect attitude towards their own personal development and their own development in the workplace. Quite often I i think that ah the people that I've spoken to have even felt disengaged with their own development or disengaged with work development because their load was full, their plates were already spinning and there was nothing left. They were just getting through as the day.
00:19:05
Speaker
Yes, this gets us into motivational theory. Absolutely, yeah. ah When you're saying that you've got, you know, if I as a an employer, an HR person, professional an HR professional in an organisation want my employees to be as productive and as engaged as possible so that the organisation is as profitable as possible,
00:19:27
Speaker
then I need to make sure that all of the hygiene factors, for example, are sorted out. So we remove the worries of people having somewhere to live, having food on the table or these sorts of things by providing them with a decent pay and rewards.
Influence of Past Education on Parenting
00:19:43
Speaker
What you're actually saying is that through your work you've identified that one of those basic hygiene factors for many parents is that worry about what's happening at school and are they being as supportive as they can be?
00:19:58
Speaker
to that child or children as they're going through education and what's interesting for me with my development hat on is that if someone is not succeeding in supporting their children to learn that it switches off their own interest in learning because a feeling or yes I think that's the best way to describe it, a feeling that you've failed in one area of learning puts you off wanting to learn in another area as well and it's a problem that as a learning and development person inside organizations you're very often having to overcome people's feeling of education is not for me because
00:20:47
Speaker
I was not successful at school so it's really very interesting to hear you describing a parent who's feeling that they're failing their child in the learning experience then feels switched off from their own development as well. Yes and I think to add to that there is this it kind of works both ways so if a parent didn't have a particularly positive time at school themselves and doesn't feel confident in their own abilities at this primary school level. And that's exacerbated by the fact that there are so many new ways of doing things since they were at school. So not only did they feel like they'd not done very well themselves and that they didn't enjoy it, ah they felt failures in their own educational time.
00:21:39
Speaker
but they also feel that everything's changed, so not that adds to the problem. But then, so that then rubs off on the child, and you it also rubs off on that feeling about how how important parents feel that learning is for their child. There's that idea, well, I've managed so far, or, you know, ah well, I couldn't do it, so I can't help you. It's all right if you can't do it as well.
00:22:08
Speaker
And so there is that extra barrier here. Yeah. It's, it's, it's almost like the, the parent should be a role model. You know, the parents should be a role model of, I might not have been done very well, but look at me now. I am eager to learn, eager to develop, eager to, to improve. And that's a message that the child needs to get. And it's just so important, isn't it, that you're able to support your child as they're going through that learning process and that you feel positive about that process.
00:22:38
Speaker
I think there's also that little bit about self-esteem though, so it's not necessarily about a thought process, it's about a parent's own self-esteem to be able to help and therefore to want to help.
00:22:52
Speaker
For some parents, or for many parents who I've worked with over the years, that would be the case, that their own self-esteem was lower because of their own attainment and therefore they have developed an attitude of negativity and feel that they don't want to help because they don't, mainly fueled by the fact that they don't feel that they can help.
00:23:20
Speaker
And that's ah a big barrier for a lot of parents.
Employee Benefits Inclusion
00:23:24
Speaker
Yes, yes, but I have to say that it is for all of those sorts of reasons about how if we can get a parent feeling positive about the contribution that they're making to the education of their child and the impact that has on their own interest in learning then gets transferred to their workplace, that is the reason why we at Abecida have decided to include
00:23:53
Speaker
the kitchen table teacher in the employee benefits program that we offer to our own team and also to all of our clients as well. So it's really interesting Caroline to just have like this short period of time to just explore but there's so much more that we can explore of a very important issue.
00:24:14
Speaker
But for today, I really appreciate your time. It's been very interesting. Thank you for helping me to create such an interesting episode of The Independent Minds. Thank you. It's been lovely to talk with you.
00:24:29
Speaker
Thank you.
Episode Conclusion
00:24:30
Speaker
And thank you to you for listening to the Independent Minds. I am Michael Millward, the Managing Director of Abecedah, and I have been having a conversation with the Independent Mind, Caroline Hudson, from the Kitchen Table Teacher.
00:24:45
Speaker
You can find out more about both of us and more about how you can include the kitchen table teacher in your employee benefits program at abbacida.co.uk. There's a link in the description. If you've liked this episode of The Independent Minds, please give it a like and download it so that you can always listen to it.
00:25:07
Speaker
To make sure you don't miss out on future episodes, please subscribe. Remember, the aim of all the podcasts produced by Abecedah is not to tell you what to think, but we do hope to make you think. Thank you.