Monday 30 November 2015

Secondary School Job of the Day!!

Maths teaching job in Ashford, Kent!

This Maths teaching position in Ashford, Kent is available on a full time basis, starting immediately and continuing for the full academic year.

The ideal candidate would be enthusiastic yet professional and have solid experience teaching Maths across the ability range at Key Stage 3, 4 and 5.

This mixed comprehensive school in Ashford, Kent has over 1000 students and is highly popular due to their specialisms, emphasis on quality teaching and learning, examination success and high standards of discipline.

This school continually seek to develop the skills, talents and interests of all their students as individuals within a supportive and caring environment. They offer a range of extra curricular and enrichment sessions including sporting or creative activities designed to develop skills and interests of students.

TimePlan Education are looking for a Maths teacher for a Maths teaching vacancy in Ashford, Kent. The successful applicant will offer the following:
  • Experience of teaching Maths to KS3 and KS4
  • Delivering good and outstanding teaching practices as the norm
  • A willingness to form part of a successful and enthusiastic team
  • Creating an enriching, supportive and high performing learning environment
  • Supporting the school ethos at all times during your working days.
  • You will be an imaginative and forward thinking classroom practitioner.
  • You will possess excellent teaching skills and an ability to lead classes with pace and sufficient challenge.
  • It is essential that you understand the schools academic standing and have a sincere commitment to sharing long-term aims.
In return we offer:

  • Pay to scale
  • opportunities to aid your professional development.
If you are interested in applying for this Maths teaching position in Ashford, Kent please apply online today or call Danielle Tilley on 01732 373340 at TimePlan, the number one teaching agency for teaching jobs in Kent.

Primary School Job of the Day!!

A NCY1 teaching vacancy in Greenwich, south east London is available starting January 2016.

Are you looking for a key stage one teaching job to start next term? TimePlan Education is working in partnership with a lovely primary school in Greenwich to appoint a hardworking and committed NCY1 teacher for a full time teaching job. This position could become permanent for the right teacher. Applications are welcomed from both UK trained colleagues at any stage of their career and overseas trained teachers.

They offer;

  • A vibrant and inclusive school.
  • Motivated and enthusiastic learners.
  • A supportive and enthusiastic staff.
  • Excellent resources and facilities.
  • Easy Access to central London.
This KS1 primary teaching vacancy in Greenwich, south east London requires an applicant who is able offer the following:

  • Experience of teaching at key stage one.
  • Ability to delivering good and outstanding teaching practices as the norm.
  • A willingness to form part of a successful and enthusiastic team.
  • Able to creating an enriching, supportive and high performing learning environment.
  • Who would support the school ethos at all times during your working days.
  • You will be an imaginative and forward thinking classroom practitioner.
  • You will possess excellent teaching skills and an ability to lead classes with pace and sufficient challenge.
  • It is essential that you understand the schools academic standing and have a sincere commitment to sharing long-term aims.

In return we offer:

  • Pay to scale
  • Professional classroom support from our team of Headteacher consultants throughout the length of your contract
  • A dedicated key contact at the south east office
  • TimePlan South East teacher socials where you can meet professional teachers from all over the planet who are teaching at schools in your placement area
  • Opportunities to aid your professional development.
If you are interested in applying for this NCY1 teaching job in Greenwich, south east London please apply online today or call Paul Chuter on 01732 373340 at TimePlan, the number one teaching agency for primary teaching jobs in south east London and Kent.

Why is Britain’s Minister for Women writing Feminism out of History? By June Eric Udorie


Nicky Morgan with schoolchildren

When I heard about the proposed changes that would see the removal of feminism from A-level politics I sighed, grabbed my politics textbook and went off to a lesson. Someone will do something about it, I thought. Someone will complain to the minister for women and equalities about the steps that the Department for Education is planning to take.
Oh the irony – Nicky Morgan is not only the secretary of state for education but also the minister for women and equalities. It is surprising that the very person whose role is to ensure that women’s equality is considered by the government, and to ensure that we do not do young people a disservice by what we teach them, was encouraging the deliberate erasure of women from history.
By 10pm that evening I had launched a change.org petition out of anger and despair. Just over a week later and it’s had more than 40,000 signatures – clearly I am not the only one frustrated by the proposal.
As a current A-level politics student, I can testify to the lack of importance placed on women already in the curriculum. Even when there are women such as Nancy Pelosi, the first female speaker of the House of Representatives, she is merely mentioned in passing before we continue our discussions about George W Bush.
It wasn’t actually the removal of feminism from the curriculum that particularly annoyed me, or even the insulting move to classify the suffragettes as a “pressure group”. Rather, that of the 16 key political thinkers students would be learning about, only one of these is a woman: Mary Wollstonecraft. Are Nicky Morgan and Ofqal really saying that there are no other women who contributed to developing the theories of liberalism, socialism and conservatism? I find it hard to believe that there were no female political thinkers that contributed to these ideas and movements. I won’t accept that.
There is obviously a huge problem with this writing women out of history. It is not hard to ensure that you have a gender-balanced curriculum. It is just lazy not to do so. I should not have to ask the government to create a curriculum that isn’t full of mostly white men, when there are women and people of colour who deserve to be studied. Having the opportunity to learn about these much-needed role models is essential for ensuring that young women know they can pursue a career in politics, have influence and make a difference.
In terms of feminist campaigns, this may not be the biggest issue. But these small things matter. Because, when you erase women from the curriculum, you teach boys and girls that women’s work is not important, that the contributions they made are not as valuable. If you start this drip-feeding early then you invite the sexism, inequality and misogyny that women are still experiencing today.
Feminism continues to be one of the most powerful political movements in recent times and deserves to be on the politics A-level syllabus. And if not, at the very least, students should be given the opportunity to learn about a few more female political thinkers.
I want to meet Nicky Morgan so I can give her some suggestions of women who deserve to be included in the curriculum, in case she’s forgotten about them. It’s not too much to ask. If for no other reason than it’s 2015, and by now this shouldn’t be something that we should have to fight for.

Sunday 29 November 2015

Shanghai Teaching Method 'Could Improve UK Results Within Four Years' By Sally Weale

Lianjie Lu, a maths teacher from Shanghai, delivers a maths lesson to students at Fox primary school in Notting Hill, London.
The government’s controversial experiment with Shanghai mathematics teaching in English schools could pay dividends with improved test results within four years, according to one leading expert.
David Reynolds, professor of education at Southampton University, said it was “not beyond the realms of possibility” that UK pupils could post better scores in the next round of Pisa international tests in 2018 (and published the following year) thanks to the Shanghai-style teaching.
The Department for Education (DfE) is in the second year of a Shanghai-England teacher exchange which aims to raise English pupils’ maths skills. Shanghai currently tops the international maths league table published by the OECD, while UK pupils lag behind in 26th position .
The Shanghai approach is to shape each maths lesson so it concentrates on a single mathematical concept, which is covered methodically and in great depth. The class does not move on until every child has mastered the lesson.
This month nearly 70 Shanghai maths teachers are working in English secondary schools, demonstrating their teacher-led “mastery method” to English counterparts. It involves whole-class, interactive teaching to an all-ability group.
“I’m an enthusiast,” said Reynolds, who is a member of the Sheffield Hallam university committee set up to evaluate the UK-Shanghai experiment. “Everything one hears about it is impressive and suggests it’s useful.”
Fifteen-year-olds in OECD countries have just sat this year’s Pisa test, the results of which will be published next year, which will be too soon to show any impact, the professor said. “But the Pisa after [in 2018 - the tests are triennial], we might be talking about making a substantial improvement.” Others believe it will take longer.
At St Mark’s Catholic school in Hounslow, west London, directly beneath the thunder of the Heathrow flight path, Miss Li Chen from Shanghai is trying to impart the commutative law of multiplication to a class of year 7 pupils.
English pupils would not ordinarily be aware they are learning the law of commutativity. They would learn the maths, without being taught the law behind it - a sort of “dumbing down” we favour here, one teacher observing the lesson commented.
Miss Chen is bright and energetic; she addresses the whole class in a teacher-led approach, which is less popular in the UK, regularly engaging with pupils, asking them to supply the answers and explain their work to the class.
“I think they are smart,” said Miss Chen, after class. A key difference is that her students in Shanghai get homework every day, with a test every week. (In England pupils can expect maths homework once or twice a week.) “We push them to learn more and try more. In England that’s not the way.”
Miss Yingzhen Guo, who is also working at St Mark’s, added: “They understand and answer the questions quickly. Next day I ask them and maybe they forget. In China they do a lot of work at home.” As well as homework, many children in Shanghai will have private tutoring and weekend school.
The St Mark’s pupils seem to have enjoyed their Shanghai lessons and have found them relatively easy. “First I thought it might be confusing, but then I realised it’s a bit easy,” said Jairus Gonsalves, aged 11. “I’ve been learning some of this before. I love maths.”
“It’s really interesting to have a teacher from another country,” said Antonia Woznica, 11, “but it’s not that different. This lesson was pretty simple. I didn’t have to work particularly fast.”
“I feel they are just the same as the ordinary lessons,” said 12-year-old Henry Beesley. “I assume it’s to boost our learning in maths but I see no difference. I would rather be in an English lesson.”
Schools minister Nick Gibb, who is leading the Shanghai project, writing in the Guardian, described it as “one of the most valuable education initiatives undertaken by our government over the past few years.
“Shanghai mathematics teaching works because it is meticulous. Every step of a lesson is deliberate, purposeful and precise. If the Shanghai teacher exchange can show enough English teachers the merits of such practice, it will have been a resounding success.”
Not everyone is quite so enthusiastic.John Jerrim, of the UCL Institute of Education, who has carried outresearch into the effectiveness of the east Asian maths mastery approach, welcomed the project, but urged caution.
“To their credit, the DfE are going about this in a reasonable way. They are doing a proper evaluation through an independent group.” He added, however: “The minister may want to wait for the results of that evaluation to see what they say before jumping to any strong conclusions.
“Teaching methods may differ but there’s a whole lot of other explanations [for Shanghai’s success], ranging from culture, to private tutoring and parental investment. To tease out the role of those different factors is incredibly difficult.”
Jerrim’s research focussed on the Singaporean mastery method - similar to that of Shanghai - which has been adopted in a number of primary and secondary schools in the Ark academy chain.
“What we know from that is that it leads to a small positive gain in maths test scores, but the emphasis should be on small. It’s not a silver bullet. It’s not game changing.
“Other countries could possibly learn from what the DfE here is doing but I would be more cautious about second guessing conclusions. We should wait for the evaluation results to see what it’s showing.”

Saturday 28 November 2015

Parents want Ofsted to Inspect Schools more Frequently, Survey finds By Sarah Marsh

Sir Michael Wilshaw visits a nursery school

The majority of parents feel schools should be inspected by Ofsted more frequently, a survey has found.
A YouGov poll of 1,067 parents, conducted on behalf of the inspectorate, revealed that 70% believe assessments should take place every one or two years, regardless of a school’s inspection grade. 
From September 2015 it was decided schools judged as “good” would have shorter one-day inspections every three years, as opposed to longer visits every three to five years. The system remained the same for schools that “require improvement”, with inspections every two years, and those deemed “inadequate”, which are assessed within three to six months after the judgement.
More than half of parents (53%) said that the new three-year limit for “good” schools was not regular enough, with just 35% saying it was adequate. This was voiced more strongly by mothers (57%) compared with fathers (48%).
This view varied across England, with parents in London (58%) and West Midlands (60%) more likely to believe Ofsted should visit more than every three years. Parents in the east of England (45%) were less insistent on this.
Nicole Ponsford, a mother and co-founder of TechnoTeachers, a global ed-tech consultancy, said: “Many parents are happy with their school choices and the progress their children make, but what if you aren’t? What if both the leadership team and board of governors are not accessible. Who do parents turn to then?”
She added: “Ofsted is a way that parents can be given a voice in education, when the school isn’t welcoming.”
Kevin Courtney, deputy general secretary of the National Union of Teachers (NUT), said parents would feel differently if they were made aware of the workload and stress placed upon teachers and students by Ofsted. “In our experience when parents are told about the disruption to their child’s education brought about by Ofsted visits and ‘mocksted’ rehearsals, they take a different view about the regularity of inspections,” he said.
An anonymous teacher, who left the profession earlier this year after 27 years, said: “Ofsted could inspect every week if they were genuinely supportive, but they’re not. They don’t offer advice or point to the way to improve. When they find problems they criticise, condemn and set up schools for academy conversion. Ofsted are widely perceived as being punitive.”
Russell Hobby, general secretary of school leaders’ union the National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT), said: “Parents usually know more about how good their school is than an inspector does after a day’s visit. They should be wary of attaching too much weight to these judgements. More frequent inspections would distract schools from the core work of teaching.”
The study, done to provide evidence on how the inspectorate is viewed by parents, also found that general awareness of the inspectorate was high: 61% said they knew “a lot” or a “fair” amount about it. The majority (72%) of parents also tended to believe that the information they got from Ofsted was reliable.
Perhaps surprisingly, half of parents said they had read an Ofsted report in the last year, the majority (62%) using it to inform their view of the school their child attends as opposed to offering guidance on where to send students (33%). And nearly nine in 10 parents knew the rating their school received at its last inspection.
A mother, who wanted to remain anonymous, said: “My views align with those reflected in the survey in that I think the reports are valuable to an extent, but I wouldn’t use them as a primary source by which to choose a school. There is a lot of jargon in reports and excuses made to shoehorn schools into a category.”
Tes MacPherson, of PTA social, an organisation that helps parents, carers and teachers in a school to work together more easily, said: “When parents are deciding on a school for their child, Ofsted reports are just one port of call. A really bad report might put parents off, however the difference between a good or outstanding school is not always apparent in the daily experience as a parent. Nowadays, parents also turn to online forums and social networks to look for anecdotal evidence and opinions of parents currently at the school.
“The quality of the school’s teaching can also change rapidly, especially if under new management, so reports that are more that two years old hold less significance. Parents at ‘good’ schools may well be anxious about waiting three years to find out whether that status has indeed been maintained or improved.”

Friday 27 November 2015

Secondary School Job of the Day!!

Are you looking for an English teaching position in Medway?

Timeplan Education are looking for a English Teacher for a English teaching job starting January 2016 through to the end of the academic year for the right candidate.

The ideal candidate would be enthusiastic and committed to achieving high standards and able to engage students across the ability range at Key Stage 3 and Key Stage 4.

This innovative and forward thinking Medway school is located in Chatham and has recently moved into a brand new academy building with state of the art facilities. They are a Church of England Academy, specialising in Maths, ICT and Music.

The modern facilities and resources are second to none and there are many opportunities for staff and pupils to learn and perform, using everything from traditional instruments to cutting edge electronic resources. This school aims to achieve two things: excellent behaviour and outstanding teaching and learning.


This English teaching job in Chatham, Kent will require a teacher whose key deliverables involve:

- Delivering good and outstanding teaching practices as the norm

- Supporting the English faculty in its aims to continually improve results

- A willingness to implement changes and developments in the National Curriculum

- Creating an enriching, supportive and high performing learning environment

- Supporting the school ethos at all times during your working days.

You will be an imaginative and forward thinking classroom practitioner. You will possess excellent behaviour management skills and an ability to lead classes with pace and sufficient challenge.

It is essential that you understand the schools academic standing and have a sincere commitment to sharing long-term aims and drive for continuous improvement.

All applicants must fulfil the following criteria:

* be UK qualified or hold a recognised teaching qualification

* be qualified to teach English

In return we offer:

* competitive rates of pay

* a designated Key Coordinator

* Pay to scale

* opportunities to aid your professional development.


If you are interested in applying for this English teaching position please apply online today the TimePlan office on 01732 373340.


Primary School Job of the Day!!

Year 4 maternity cover for January 2016 at an Independent school in Tunbridge Wells!

Are you looking for a Year Four teaching job in January 2016? Would you like to work at a highly successful independent prep school in Tunbridge Wells, Kent? TimePlan Education is working with this popular independent primary school to recruit a KS2 teacher for a maternity cover commencing in January 2016 and continuing until the end of the academic year. This is a full time vacancy with the potential to become a permanent appointment.

A highly successful prep school located in eighteen acres of grounds in Tunbridge Wells. The school caters for children aged three to thirteen and currently has just over 300 pupils on roll.

Established since 1832 the school benefits from modern well equipped facilities including a creative arts centre and theatre, a sports hall and swimming pool.

During their last inspection in 2013 the Independent Schools Inspectorate ( ISI) judged the schools as "excellent" in all areas. 

Are you interested in this independent prep school in Royal Tunbridge Wells? All successful applicants must meet the following requirements;
  • Hold a recognised teaching qualification
  • Have year 4 or KS2 teaching experience
  • Be available from October 2015
  • Be committed to the full duration of this role
In return you will be offered the following;
  • Paid to scale
  • Associated pay benefits to maximise your take home pay
  • opportunities for CPD
  • An experienced Headteacher consultant to aid professional training and support
If you would like to apply for this Year 4 maternity cover vacancy at a popular independent school in Tunbridge Wells Kent please call TimePlan on 01732 373340 or apply online today.

Government Seeks Teachers Abroad ‘to Tackle Crisis’ By Javier Espinoza

Many newly qualified teachers quit the profession

The Government is looking to recruit physics and maths teachers from abroad to tackle a recruitment crisis fuelled by rising pupil numbers and changes in the curriculum.
The Department for Education (DfE) has already identified the “target countries” where they believe physics and maths specialists can be recruited from to help with a shortage of teachers.
An email from a DfE official revealed the government has decided to look for teachers trained overseas as a solution.
It reportedly said that “the department has recently embarked on an exploratory Stem [science, technology, engineering and maths] international recruitment programme”.
“The aim of the Stem international recruitment project is to boost direct recruitment of high-quality mathematics and physics teachers coming from overseas,” continues the email, written in July by an official working in the department’s teacher-supply division.
The official added that the DfE is “building relationships with target countries”, and speaking to heads who are currently recruiting teachers internationally – and those who would like to.
The news comes despite ministers’ insistence that there is no teacher recruitment crisis, and amid warnings that another government department is obstructing existing attempts by schools to recruit foreign teachers.
However, the Government downplayed concerns and said teachers have always been able to recruit from abroad.
But there have been growing concerns of a crisis in recruitment of teachers as the Government has not hit its targets for hiring trainee teachers on a number of subjects. Some attribute the lack of teachers to growing pupil numbers, changes in the curriculum and growing workload, which puts people off the profession.
Mary Bousted, general secretary of the ATL teaching union, told the publication: “This is overdue recognition and acceptance by the government that we have a teacher shortage.
“But it is just a sticking plaster. Until the government recognises that teachers’ pay is too low and the impact of constant government-induced policy changes, and does something to improve working conditions, teachers will continue to haemorrhage from our schools.”
Brian Lightman, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said: “I am pleased that the department is taking seriously the very significant difficulties that schools all over the country are reporting in recruitment. The challenge will be to ensure that whoever is appointed understands the English schools system.”
A DfE spokesman said: “The quality of teachers in this country has never been higher. The primary school recruitment target has been exceeded; we are making sustained progress at secondary level and have launched a package of scholarships and bursaries for priority subjects such as maths and science to recruit the best graduates.
“Schools have always been able to recruit teachers from overseas. Outstanding maths and physics teachers are in demand across the globe and where schools wish to recruit from overseas we want to ensure they are able to do so from those countries whose education standards are as high as our own.”

Thursday 26 November 2015

Secondary School Job of the Day!!

Are you a ICT Teacher, looking for a January 2016 start?
Full time ICT teaching job in Greenwich. TimePlan Education, working in partnership with their client school, is looking for an experienced ICT teacher who has taught successfully across Key Stage 4 and Key Stage 5. The position is a full time contract starting January 2016. A successful candidate must be committed to achieving high standards and able to inspire students across the ability range at KS4 and KS5.
This brand new college provides students from Year 10 through to 13 with a sound GCSE and A level education alongside technical qualifications in engineering, construction and their related industries. They offer state of the art facilities and a comprehensive enrichment programme which are used to ensure students excel at their GCSE's and A levels as well as learn employability and technical skills. All level's of their curriculum are co-designed and supported by employer's and further education partners focussing on engineering and construction industries.
This ICT teaching vacancy based in Greenwich requires an applicant who is able offer the following:

Experience of teaching ICT to KS4 and KS5
Delivering good and outstanding teaching practices as the norm
A willingness to form part of a successful and enthusiastic team
Creating an enriching, supportive and high performing learning environment
Supporting the school ethos at all times during your working days.
You will be an imaginative and forward thinking classroom practitioner.
You will possess excellent teaching skills and an ability to lead classes with pace and sufficient challenge.
It is essential that you understand the schools academic standing and have a sincere commitment to sharing long-term aims.
In return we offer:
Professional classroom support from our team of Headteacher Consultants throughout the length of your contract
A dedicated Key Contact at the South East office
TimePlan South East teacher socials where you can meet professional teachers from all over the planet who are teaching at schools in your placement area
Opportunities to aid your professional development.
Pay to scale
If you are interested in applying for this teaching position in Greenwich please apply online today or call on 01732 373340, TimePlan the number one teaching agency for jobs in South East London and Kent.

Primary School Job of the Day!!

Year 4 maternity cover for January 2016 at an Independent school in Tunbridge Wells!

Are you looking for a Year Four teaching job in January 2016? Would you like to work at a highly successful independent prep school in Tunbridge Wells, Kent? TimePlan Education is working with this popular independent primary school to recruit a KS2 teacher for a maternity cover commencing in January 2016 and continuing until the end of the academic year. This is a full time vacancy with the potential to become a permanent appointment.

A highly successful prep school located in eighteen acres of grounds in Tunbridge Wells. The school caters for children aged three to thirteen and currently has just over 300 pupils on roll.

Established since 1832 the school benefits from modern well equipped facilities including a creative arts centre and theatre, a sports hall and swimming pool.

During their last inspection in 2013 the Independent Schools Inspectorate ( ISI) judged the schools as "excellent" in all areas. 

Are you interested in this independent prep school in Royal Tunbridge Wells? All successful applicants must meet the following requirements;
  • Hold a recognised teaching qualification
  • Have year 4 or KS2 teaching experience
  • Be available from October 2015
  • Be committed to the full duration of this role
In return you will be offered the following;

  • Paid to scale
  • Associated pay benefits to maximise your take home pay
  • opportunities for CPD
  • An experienced Headteacher consultant to aid professional training and support
If you would like to apply for this Year 4 maternity cover vacancy at a popular independent school in Tunbridge Wells Kent please call TimePlan on 01732 373340 or apply online today.

One of San Francisco's Toughest Schools Transformed by the Power of Meditation By Anna Leach

































































































































Students meditating in class








































































































































































































































































































































There was a time when Visitacion Valley middle school in San Francisco could have featured in a gritty US crime drama. Surrounded by drugs and gang violence, the kids were stressed out and agitated. One day children came in to find three dead bodies dumped in the schoolyard. “In 2006 there were 38 killings in our neighbourhood,” says Barry O’Driscoll, the school’s head of physical education (PE). He says the lives of students were infected by violence in the community, and several fights would break out every day.
In 2007 a meditation programme called Quiet Time was brought in to meet some of these challenges. “When I first heard about it I thought it probably wasn’t going to work,” says O’Driscoll. “We get thrown a new thing every couple of years so I didn’t put too much faith in it.” But in April, just a month after meditation began, teachers noticed changes in behaviour. “Students seemed happy,” says O’Driscoll. “They worked harder, paid more attention, were easier to teach and the number of fights fell dramatically.”
In the first year of Quiet Time suspensions at Visitacion Valley – which has 500 students aged 11-13 – were reduced by 45% (pdf). By 2009-10, attendance rates were over 98% (some of the highest in the city), and today 20% of graduates are admitted to the highly academic Lowell high school – before it was rare for even one student to be accepted. Perhaps even more remarkable, last year’s California Healthy Kids Surveyfrom the state’s education department found that students at Visitacion Valley middle school were the happiest in the whole of San Francisco.
A lot has changed over this period, including three principals coming and going, but O’Driscoll puts the turnaround down to the one constant: the calming influence of the meditation programme. “It’s provided a lot of stability to our school, helping staff and kids get through the stress they have in their lives.”
The impressive results have led to more schools in the city introducing the programme. But Quiet Time took years to develop. Its origins are in the 1990s when two Silicon Valley investors – Jeff Rice and Laurent Valosek – developed a programme to teach meditation in public schools, inspired by the tragic Columbine high school massacre. “After the shooting, the usual culprits were blamed: guns, violent movies and video games,” says Rice. “But no one touched on the real problem – stress.”
So the privately funded non-profit Center for Wellness and Achievement in Education (CWAE) was set up. When they started everyone said it would be impossible to get 12-year-olds to sit for even a minute, but through transcendental meditation (TM) they proved critics wrong.
The programme, introduced to all ages, sees students sit for 15 minutes of meditation twice a day. Classes take place at students’ desks after the qualified TM teacher rings a bell. Students then repeat a personal mantra (a word from Sanskrit, the ancient Indian language) in their heads until they reach a deep feeling of relaxation. Sometimes the whole school meets to meditate in assemblies.
Before the students learn to meditate, the Quiet Time programme requires all staff to be trained in TM. O’Driscoll was sceptical at first about mediating himself, but since giving it a try he can concentrate better and feels less stressed. 
The teacher has also seen dramatic transformations in his students. Eighth grader Stacy* has been meditating since she joined the school three years ago. “She used to have trouble at home and get into fights with her family,” says O’Driscoll. “Once Quiet Time started, she mellowed out and started getting along with people.” Stacy’s academic performance has also improved – she’s in the top 5% of the class.
But adopting the programme isn’t without it’s challenges. To do it properly Visitacion Valley middle school made the day 30 minutes longer. Other schools have taken a few minutes off lunch and tutorials.
As for getting the children to start meditating, O’Driscoll says the biggest hurdle was getting them to feel comfortable with their eyes closed. “They thought their classmates would be making fun of them, staring at them, maybe possibly even hitting them,” he says. Once the students got over that, they were open to trying to meditate.
O’Driscoll also says that leadership buy-in is essential for the programme to work as there needs to be support in terms of time and resourcing. It’s also important to start small. “Don’t just throw it into 2,000 schools,” he says. “Start with one class or year and let it grow from there.”
The UK has already started experimenting with meditation: 400 secondary schools offer programmes like the Dot B mindfulness meditation programme, which tends to take place once a week in personal, social, health education (PSHE) class. An all-party parliamentary group has also recommended the Department for Education designate three schools to pioneer mindfulness teaching, and set up a £1m fund to allow more schools to benefit from support in the practice.
In the outside world, TM has been criticised for the price-tag it comes with; Visitacion Valley pays $280,000 (£185,128) a year. That funds four and a half (full-time equivalent) Quiet Time staff on site to teach the classes and support students. Rice says they use TM because it takes those who do it to a deep level of relaxation, and it’s easy for children to learn. But he admits that “it takes a big time commitment in resources and attention commitment to do this. And that’s one of the challenges.”
However, Swarana Patel, a teacher in a north London secondary school where behaviour is often an obstacle, can see the benefits of a more intensive programme like this. “A lot of the kids have deep anger issues or problems focusing,” she says. “Maybe having half an hour just to focus on themselves so they get awareness and grounding, might have some impact.”
As for Visitacion Valley middle school, the area around it is still violent, but now the children are not as affected by it. “We might get verbal disagreements, but the kids are able to talk through it and move on instead of punching each other,” says O’Driscoll, adding that the last fist fight at the school was three years ago. “It’s very peaceful here now.”And it could help reduce costs later. “Young people are incredibly stressed,” says Michael Matania who teaches mindfulness meditation to young people in London through a programme called Mindkit. “There’s an explosion of mental health problems among young people and it’s going to be incredibly expensive to treat in the future. It’s much cheaper to focus on prevention and building resilience, and mindfulness is the single best tool that you could possibly give them.”
As for Visitacion Valley middle school, the area around it is still violent, but now the children are not as affected by it. “We might get verbal disagreements, but the kids are able to talk through it and move on instead of punching each other,” says O’Driscoll, adding that the last fist fight at the school was three years ago. “It’s very peaceful here now.”