An Interview with Simon Turner, Practitioner at Valley Bridge School

An Interview with Simon Turner, Practitioner at Valley Bridge School

Practitioners at Spaghetti Bridge are members of the staff team who have real-world experience in a specific field, such as horticulture, construction, etc., and who bring these experiences into their work with our students. This unique role is one of the ways in which we connect each student’s learning to the wider world.

Simon Turner is a Music Practitioner at Valley Bridge School. Prior to working as a teacher, Simon was a Bafta Award winning producer, musician, and composer who worked for numerous organisations, including the BBC.

We recently sat down with Simon to discuss his experiences and how this informs his teaching.

Hi Simon, our first question is about your career prior to working in education. Could you give us a brief overview?

Yes, absolutely – to provide a quick precis, after I left school I didn’t really know what I wanted to do.  Music had always been a part of my life, absolutely massive, and I was heavily involved in choirs and things when I was a kid. After working in creative industries in a number of areas I became a production director for an advertising agency which was very rewarding, but at heart it was never really my thing. I ran a small writing studio and continued exploring music and sound so that remained my passion throughout.

When I was 27, I was offered this fantastic new job of heading up new business for a design company. And at the same time, somebody came along and said “look, we’re doing a theatre show, we can only pay you this much (and it wasn’t very much!)” and that they needed original music written for it.

And you know what? There was this weird light bulb moment that went off in my head and I thought to myself that this might be the right time to take a chance on what I really wanted to do. Some people thought that I was completely mad, but I knew deep down that I just had to do it.

I just didn’t look back. It was brilliant and I honestly felt  “Ah yes this is what I’m meant to be doing!”  And from that point onwards, I explored everything whenever I got the chance – composing, producing, performing, educating….., I was fascinated by all of it.

I ended up being commissioned by the Cheltenham International Music Festival and premiered a couple of original pieces there. I did a lot of work for television companies, theatre, radio and all sorts and had great fun doing it all.

I worked for the BBC heading up composition and audio in digital storytelling, which was a life changing experience – helping people tell their own stories in their own voice and creating sound and music for them. It’s anyone from any walk of life, as long as they’ve got an interesting story which was true and happened to them. It was originally only meant to run for six months and lasted for six years. We received a BAFTA for that.

A BAFTA must have been something!

That was fantastic! But the nicest thing was that we decided to find two of the storytellers we had worked with, and asked them to accept the award on our behalf. So they went and we celebrated at the Artistic Directors house!

So yes, the award was prestigious, but we were very keen to emphasise the fact that what we were doing was being a conduit – these weren’t our stories, but we were enabling and empowering people from all walks of life to tell their stories in the way that they wanted to.

Amazing! So we understand that you were also teaching in university at this point. What motivated you to start working in schools?

Yes I was Senior Lecturer in Music, and wrote and designed the Popular Music course and my research portfolio meant I was involved in a lot of outward facing developments. I’d done a lot of work with children and school students based on the deeper aspects of what effect music and sound has at a psychological/emotional level and working with other educational organisations providing music and sound projects, and it was just a natural fit. We had also done quite a lot of projects in schools with the BBC so it was really a continuation of all these things.

I took early retirement from the university to go on an international tour and then COVID hit.  I ended up living in a log cabin next to a huge woods just outside London, producing  audio books and radio plays.  Then I moved back to Gloucestershire and was just thinking “what shall  I do now?” I was doing some work with this local school and they ended up asking if I could come to work with them and be their music specialist, and I went for it.  I ended up doing a lot of work with their SEN students, which I absolutely loved. Music and technology was a way to get them engaged and as something they could be safely curious about and explore without the usual formal constraints that music so often brings to the table.

What drew you to Spaghetti Bridge and Valley Bridge School?

I think that when I first heard about Spaghetti Bridge, I said, like I do with everything, that I’d check it out and make sure that I was comfortable with the ethos. What I found was something that I’ve always carried with me, that first and foremost, alongside learning, there should be kindness and respect and understanding; because without those things, how are you going to learn anything? Also, I am always looking for ways to promote musicality through curiosity and exploration. I thought that Spaghetti Bridge was an organisation that has these core values and that we were definitely on the same page.

On that note, what difference does it make for the students that you are an expert in a particular field?

I think someone having done it “for real” means that it becomes less of an abstract concept and something that has a place in the world. Also, it really makes a difference when you can answer a question based on experience. I think that in all learning there needs to be trust, mutual trust, understanding and acceptance that everybody is different, and my take on working is unique to me and I can share this. Music can be terrifying if you think that all it is is notation, endless practice and requires a high level of skill, whereas I’ve got the chance to strip all that away and present it as accessible, and ask “what do you want to do with it”?

Do you think that nationally, the way that we approach teaching music, and teaching more generally, can make it difficult for students to actually connect with the experience of learning?

Massively. I remember my first piano teacher. He understood the value of learning notes and scales and all the rest of it, but what he did first and foremost was ask what music do you like, what would you like to play, what interests you and what would you like to explore? He also worked in sound design and technology so that was always part of the package. He would have me just play a chord, listen to it, play it back and play different notes t and find out what happens. Major to minor, for example. This might seem simple, but to someone new to it all it helped contextualise things so strongly and to begin to develop a genuine understanding. There was structure, but he also encouraged curiosity.

Like a conversation as opposed to being told what to do?

It was a dialogue, an absolute dialogue. And if you got it wrong, if you played a note that didn’t fit, he would say let’s listen to what was happening and to grasp what it actually sounded like and why. That way I could analyse it, understand it, appreciate it, and move on based on doing.

My next  teacher was someone who would plonk a score down, tell you to play it and yell at you and hit you with a ruler if you played a wrong note. Now, she obviously couldn’t do that anymore, but the fundamentals haven’t changed that much I feel. Some people take the attitude of why aren’t you doing that right? Haven’t you learned the notation? And for some people that’s incredibly difficult to go through.

So with the students at Valley Bridge, it’s more like let’s explore, let’s find your voice, let’s find your thing.  If they find their own way to express themselves, I’m going to encourage that. I’m not going to say no, you need to do it differently. Instead, it’s like how can we develop that?  What can we do to bring you to your next step?

Do you think it makes a difference to the students that they know that you have worked as a professional in music prior to teaching?

I think so, it must do, but you know you’d have to ask the students that!

In respect to real world experience, I think this is the other thing, which is that we have a bunch of students who have become used to a closed off system, they’ve been shielded from the world, and actually doing something based on real world experience and practice (especially in technology) helps them to ask “Okay why not me?”

It’s the co-creation of learning through real-world experience, isn’t it?  Our final question would be about what you hope that your students will learn through music?

I would hope that it changes them positively in their approach to new things. Sometimes students can think, ‘this is what I am familiar with’, and it can be difficult to get someone to actually step out of that pattern. It can be just this tiny thing that they’ve never done before, but maybe they have never played a piano before, and they just hit some notes and it intrigues them, and they are suddenly out of their comfort zone and you’ve expanded their experience and approach to things.  

And the point is that when you do that, when you look back to where you were, what you were familiar with, it’s changed because your perspective has changed. So the thought ‘I can’t, I won’t, I don’t want to look foolish’, slowly changes by doing something slightly outside of their norm. This is the creative process and is a massive step.

We’d like to thank Simon for taking the time to sit down with us and discuss his role as a Practitioner.

If you think the Practitioner role would be a good fit for you, or you would like to explore other roles we have available, all current vacancies can be found on our careers page.

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Why “beautiful work”? Creating opportunities for deeper learning at Spaghetti Bridge

Our Services

Accredited Learning

In addition to GCSEs and Functional Skills exams, Spaghetti Bridge students are offered a number of accredited occupational qualifications. These include NCFE Enterprise Skills, Business and Enterprise, and Occupational Studies for the Workplace qualifications and AQA Project Qualifications

Preparation for and Pathways to Adulthood

The unique nature of Enterprise Learning, with its focus on real-world learning, community activities, Industry Experts, Driving Questions, the experience of work-environments, and a project-oriented curriculum, means that students are prepared for life beyond school throughout their time at a Spaghetti Bridge school. All students are also provided with Independent Advice and Guidance throughout their Spaghetti Bridge journey.

However, as they approach the time of their transition to a post school destination, it is important that our students’ curriculum begins to focus more on deciding and preparation for a specific post-school destination through our “Pathways to Adulthood” programme. While each student’s wider curriculum continues, the Pathways to Adulthood programme focuses on students’ development of specific skills and knowledge in the areas of Continuing Education and Employment and Independent Living. At this stage, each student also has a transition plan that details the steps needed to successfully transition to their life after leaving school.

PSHE, SMSC, RSE and FBV

The Spaghetti Bridge Three Phase curriculum and our Relational Approach ensures that PSHE, SMSC, RSE, and FBV are integrated throughout each student’s curriculum in an individualised and student-centred manner. In addition, we have developed a yearly PSHE and RSE curriculum, consisting of termly and weekly themes, a bespoke target cache, and group and individual sessions.

In order to ensure that our students develop their cultural capital, each school has a cultural calendar which links PSHE and SMSC themes to events and activities in their community.

Mathematics

Mathematics is about so much more than simply getting the answer right. Instead, we believe that mathematics can facilitate a new perspective on the world and foster creative and analytical thinking, a growth mindset, and confidence in one’s ability to learn. Therefore, our mathematics curriculum contains three areas: mathematical content, mathematical thinking, and mathematical mindset.

Mathematical content consists of the twelve areas of learning that form the conceptual structure of a mathematics curriculum.

Mathematical mindset is about how students relate to mathematics, are resilient in the face of mathematical challenges, view themselves as capable of mathematics, and see mathematics in a positive light.

Mathematical thinking is the way in which students use logic, reason, and divergent thinking to solve mathematical problems and how they apply their mathematical learning across the wider curriculum.

Spaghetti Bridge schools deliver mathematics both as part of Enterprise Projects and through discrete mathematics sessions. We believe in teaching mathematics across the curriculum as a key part of all subjects.

Spaghetti Bridge schools do not follow the National Curriculum in literacy, but instead have adapted this curriculum into our Mathematics Pillar, which allows us to assess, plan, scaffold and sequence each student’s individualised curriculum.

All students have the opportunity to pursue accredited mathematics outcomes, including GCSE and Functional Skills exams.

Spaghetti Bridge has developed our approach to mathematics through collaboration with the Jurassic Maths Hub.

Literacy

At Spaghetti Bridge, we want our students to have a love of reading, the ability to understand and manage information, and communicate effectively. Our literacy curriculum contains content in five distinct areas: comprehension, word recognition, speaking and listening, spelling, punctuation and grammar, and writing. These content areas are supported by a vibrant reading culture and the fostering of a learning mindset.  Literacy is delivered throughout the curriculum, is embedded in Enterprise Projects and is integrated into all subject areas.

Each student has an individualised Reading Plan linked to their relationship to reading.

Our literacy programme is supported by a comprehensive phonics programme based on the Ruth Miskin Trust Fresh Start programme. For students on a phonics programme, their phonics is delivered through a bespoke curriculum, which may consist of 1:1 sessions or be integrated into their wider learning.

Each school has a termly reading curriculum that is linked to the wider curriculum map with links to the PSHE curriculum and the Driving Question for the term.

The Spaghetti Bridge literacy curriculum provides opportunities for accredited learning, including GCSE and Functional Skills exams.

Spaghetti Bridge schools do not follow the National Curriculum in literacy, but instead have adapted this curriculum into our Literacy Pillar, which allows us to assess, plan, scaffold and sequence each student’s individualised curriculum.

Spaghetti Bridge has developed our literacy curriculum in collaboration with the Cornerstones English Hub and the Right to Read Programme.

EHCP Outcomes

Every student at Spaghetti Bridge Schools has an Education, Health, and Care Plan (EHCP) and this forms an integral part of their curriculum. Our schools take a student’s EHCP outcomes and break these down into achievable termly targets as part of each student’s Individual Learning Plan. These targets are then integrated into the student’s projects and wider curriculum and assessed on a termly basis.

A Knowledge Rich Curriculum

Children and young people today have inherited a world in which they have access to more knowledge than ever before; however, the knowledge curriculum is often delivered without context or sense of purpose. We have instead designed our knowledge-rich curriculum using Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy to support students to not just gain but apply and create knowledge. Our curriculum map covers the subjects of science, human and social, creative and aesthetic, physical, and technology and design education, with termly topics in each area. The curriculum spirals every three years, ensuring that students revisit and build on prior learning through a sequence of three progressive tiers of knowledge for each topic.

This curriculum structure allows us to build individualised pathways for each student that support ambitious progress across the curriculum in line with their individual strengths and needs.

Skills and Understandings

In addition to our knowledge curriculum, our pillars also focus on skills and understandings. Skills are specific abilities that are linked to a particular subject and understandings concern the role that a specific subject plays in our world. Our skills and understandings are sequenced vertically and horizontally as part of our curriculum map and built into Enterprise Projects.

Enterprise Projects

As much as possible, our curriculum is delivered in the form of Enterprise Projects. In these projects, each student creates a piece of Beautiful Work of which they are proud. The projects are oriented around a shared Driving Question, which makes them meaningful, and are completed through Project Steps, such as brainstorming, creating models, doing field work, and presenting to the community. Projects are supported through collaboration with Industry Experts, who are professionals within a particular field and support our students to complete their Beautiful Work according to industry standards.

It is helpful to look at Enterprise Projects as the vehicle through which learning is delivered. For example, in designing and building a garden, students can learn any number of topics, such as botany, engineering, mathematics, etc. Reading is woven into projects through such steps as researching. Projects also enable students to work toward their EHCP outcomes by enabling any number of areas of learning, such as teamwork and cooperation, emotional resilience, executive functioning, and creative thinking.

Enterprise Projects give students a sense of purpose in their learning and build strong connections with their community, both within and outside the school.

The Three Phase Process

Our curriculum is structured by the Three Phase Process, which allows us to adapt each student’s programme to their current level of need and sequence all future learning.

Overcoming Barriers – students develop their sense of trust, belonging, self-image as a student, and sense of their own potential.  

21st Century Skills – each student’s curriculum broadens to focus more on the skills, knowledge and understandings that will enable them to thrive in the 21st century. 

Community Ready – the student’s curriculum prioritises more the steps that need to be taken in order to successfully transition to their life beyond school.

The Three Phases Process ensures that each student’s curriculum is individualised and ambitious and that they are supported and challenged at the appropriate level on the way to becoming themselves and changing the world.