Our Director of Academics, Sasha Crabb, has a phrase she uses constantly when she talks about teaching. I've worked alongside her for longer than either of us tends to admit out loud, so I sat her down to find out what it actually means, and why she cares about it so much. She arrived with a cup of tea and an opinion, which is exactly how these things usually go.
Ben: Before we start, how would you like to be introduced?
Sasha: Nanna of the school. That's the official title now, I've decided. Director of Academics on the letterhead, Nanna everywhere else.
Ben: Noted. Right, let's start with the thing the children always go home talking about. The mummy lesson. Tell me about it.
Sasha: Oh, I love the mummy lesson. The costume chest comes out, a fish gets wrapped head-to-tail in linen bandages, and a few of my colleagues are gently press-ganged into helping with the canopic jars.
Ben: I notice you say "gently."
Sasha: I say a lot of things, Ben. I picked it up years ago teaching in Cairo and it's followed me around ever since. The children adore it. They go home and tell their parents, in far too much detail, exactly how the brain came out through the nose.
Ben: And the fish?
Sasha: It is, in every sense, a fish. And by about day three, it absolutely stinks.
Ben: So a sceptical parent hears "mummified fish" and thinks, lovely, but is that really learning?
Sasha: And they'd be half right, if that was all it was. But the mummy lesson only lands because of everything the children already have in place. They can read the tricky non-fiction text because we've taught them to read properly. They know the words because we've spent weeks on the words. They've already got the history in their heads from the lessons before. Take all that away and it's just a smelly afternoon. With it, you watch the whole thing click. That's the bit I never get tired of.
Ben: And that's where the phrase comes from. Fish and chips and bread and butter.
Sasha: That's it. The mummy lesson is fish and chips. Lovely, but you can't live on it. Most of what we do, the vast majority, is bread and butter. The plain, steady, everyday stuff. Get the proportions right and the children thrive. Get them wrong and you've got a problem, either way.
Ben: Let me put my pedagogy hat on for a second. What you're describing is foundational knowledge, sequencing, all of that. What does the bread and butter actually look like to you, day to day?
Sasha: You can keep your hat on, I'll keep mine off. To me it just looks like good, honest teaching. Children reading every day until it comes easily. Learning their times tables until they don't have to think about them, because a child still counting on their fingers hasn't got a hope of enjoying the actual maths. Going over what they did last week so it sticks. Handwriting, spellings, reading aloud, all the things that aren't going to end up in a photo on the newsletter. It's not exciting. It's not meant to be. But it's the difference between a child who had a nice time at primary school and a child who's actually ready for what comes next.
Ben: You've said that to me roughly a hundred times.
Sasha: And I'll say it a hundred more. Someone has to.
Ben: Fair. Now the fun stuff. Give me the highlights, because there have been a few.
Sasha: Fish and chips is the lesson they tell you about in the car on the way home. The mummy, fish and all. The morning I got kidnapped by a dinosaur over at Sports City last year, which turned into a whole week of the children playing detective to work out who'd taken me.
Ben: I remember the ransom note. Beautiful handwriting, for a dinosaur.
Sasha: It had been practising. Then there was Dragon Week, a proper Dragon's Lair built inside the school, and by Friday half of them genuinely believed in dragons. And the week we packed Mr Rob off to space so the children could track his mission and decode his messages. Anyone suggesting he simply had a week off is, frankly, spreading misinformation.
Ben: Completely unfounded.
Sasha: Shameful that anyone would even think it.
Ben: So why do those weeks matter, beyond the children having a wonderful time?
Sasha: Because they remember them. Forever. A child will forget a list of dates by Friday, but they'll remember the smell of that fish, or the costume, or the morning Nanna got carried off by a dinosaur, for the rest of their lives. The feeling sticks, and the learning comes along for the ride. And it tells them something about school, that it's a place where interesting things happen and the grown-ups love what they're teaching. That matters more than people think.
Ben: So why not do more of it? If they love it that much.
Sasha: Because you'd be doing them a disservice. I've seen schools that are all sparkle and no substance. The children have a marvellous five years and then can't read a chapter book or write more than a sentence. And I've seen the opposite, all worksheets, no joy, where they can do the work but haven't the faintest idea why anyone would want to. You need both. A child can't really gasp at a pyramid until they understand what they're looking at. Wonder without knowledge is just a magic show. Knowledge without wonder is just a filing cabinet. You want children who have both.
Ben: If a parent wanders through the school on a normal Tuesday, what should they be looking for?
Sasha: Honestly? They should be looking for the boring bit. Children at their desks, reading, writing, doing their sums, practising their spellings. It'll look a touch dull, and I mean that as the highest compliment. That's the engine room. But every few weeks they'll get the photo. The costume, the fish, the dragon's lair, the story they'll be hearing about over dinner for months. That's the treat, not the main meal. When a parent asks me what makes a good school, I tell them not to be dazzled by the wow lessons. Look at the quiet, ordinary teaching. If that's right, the magic looks after itself.
Ben: Last one, and then I'll let you finish your tea. After all these years, all the costumes and the kidnappings and the questionable fish, what keeps you coming back?
Sasha: Oh, the same thing every September. The costume chest comes out, some poor soul gets handed a canopic jar, and I remember exactly why I do this. The children will remember the dragons and the dinosaurs forever. But it's the quiet, patient teaching either side of all that nonsense that I'm proudest of. That, and being Nanna to a few hundred of them. You don't get that anywhere else.
Ben: You really don't. Thanks, Sasha.
Sasha: Anytime, love. Now go and find Mr Rob, he still owes me a coffee from the space thing.