Laura Augustus - How can I get the balance of challenge?
Am I challenging my students or do I let them coast?
How do I prove I have set the right level of challenge for my students?
High Expectations and Challenge
Even if I have high expectations, what do I do if my students don't have high expectations of themselves?
Do I encourage independent thought or am I encouraging them to be reliant on me?
Do I use enough data effectievly to ensure the right level of challenge?
I picked this topic as I like to think I do have high expectations for all my students in terms of exam results and expected work ethic (and performance management reviews have always commented favourably on this) but I still have students who under-perform and I wanted to do some research on how I could improve my teaching to target them in every day scenarios and not just long term goals. The reading, especially Lemov’s paper on “Setting High Academic Expectations”, has given me some ideas and things to reflect on. One idea that I have been using this academic year is ensuring that no students opts out in my lessons and as Lemov implies, the more you make students try, the more they realise “it is not okay not to try.” When I was with year 11 on a High Fives conference, that was aimed at students under achieving, one of the tutors responded to a student in a way that inspired me. When she asked a student a question he said that he didn’t know that answer. Instead of accepting that as an okay response she replied with, “If you thought you knew the answer, what do you think you would say?” The student then gave a relatively strong answer and one that was definitely more detailed than the “I don’t know” that they had initially offered. Having seen how simple it was to illicit a response from a reluctant student I decided to use that response with both my Key Stage 4 classes who, I have been guilty of accepting the, “ I don’t 13
