HWRK Magazine: Issue 19 - March 2022 by HWRK MAGAZINE

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GettinG teacher Development riGht

MARCH 2022 / ISSUE 19 / FREE HWRKMAGAZINE.CO.UK

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INSIDE

BEhAvIOur: IS ThErE A SILvEr BuLLET? ThE JOurNEy TOwArDS BEINg rESEArch-INfOrmED ImpLEmENTINg chANgE mANAgEmENT IN SchOOLS BuILDINg AN ASSESSmENT mODEL: yOu cAN’T ALwAyS gET whAT yOu wANT 15 STrATEgIES fOr TEAchINg AND SuppOrTINg DySLExIc STuDENTS

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Pedagogy

in association with

Building An Assessment model: You CAn’t AlwAYs get whAt You wAnt

By Adam Robbins

Behaviour: is There a silver BulleT?

“…not enough time is spent considering the validity, reliability and personnel factors that different modes of assessment impact.”

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Behaviour: is There a silver BulleT? Is there a silver bullet, a magic wand, or a Mary Poppins works-wellfor-all for behaviour in our schools? No matter how much we dream and hope, I think we all know the answer: Nope, there isn’t. And in fact, trying to create blanket policies, policies-for-all and zero tolerance strategies can get us all in a lot of bother. By Adele Bates

leT’s Toork aBowT spelling: pearT ThrY Curriculum

Let’s toork Abowt speLLing: peArt thry

Embedding an evidence-informed approach in schools takes time, determination and careful planning. Jade Pearce describes the journey her own school has been on, from first exploring the idea five years ago, to where they are now.

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In part three of Neil Almond’s three-part series on Spelling, he outlines his strategy for maximising students’ chances of accurate spelling, by harnessing big-data and statistical probability. By Neil Almond

By Jade Pearce

FEATURE

Becoming An evidence-informed School: A five-YeAr JourneY

If you were to write a list of the most important things a middle leader must do, how high up would ‘developing an effective assessment model’ be?

The JourneY Towards Being researCh-informed

My school has been on a huge journey over the last five years. We began from the starting point of introducing our teachers to the idea that our practice could be more evidence-informed and that the evidence supporting great teaching existed. We now have two T&L groups, each with between 15-20 members, a large number of teachers who voluntarily complete additional CPD to engage with evidence, teachers reading and sharing research and evidence-informed practice embedded across the school.

Building an assessmenT model: You Can’T alwaYs geT whaT You wanT

any new strategies to be fully-embedded into teaching across a school, a small number of priorities (a maximum of three or four) should be focused on at any one time, and that these priorities should remain the only priorities for the longterm (at least three years). It is extremely difficult as a T&L lead to not move onto developing another area of teaching. There is so much that we want to improve, but this may lead to changefatigue and previous priorities fading away.

So, how did we achieve this and what lessons did we learn along the way?

2. Identify your priorities

1. Do fewer things, better

We are at a brilliant time in teaching where there is more high-quality CPD available than ever before (books, conferences, podcasts, online courses, a new suite of NPQs and more). Whilst this has undoubtably increased the use of

This journey to becoming an evidenceinformed school has taken a number of years for a reason: I truly believe that for

In the January 2022 Edition of HWRK Magazine, I offered readers some core conceptual knowledge when it comes to understanding some principles of the alphabetic writing system and how this relates to spelling. Those fundamentals are: 1) A sound can be represented by 1,2,3 or 4 letters. 2) One sound can be represented with different spellings.

However, I have found that it is crucial for school leaders to ensure that any new strategies address the problems and priorities that are specific to their own schools. Before introducing any new priorities at my own school, we gathered information on teaching and our main areas for development. We looked at examination results, pupil surveys, and pupils’ work, watched lessons and spoke to teachers and middle leaders. We were then able to identify our T&L priorities for the following year.

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3) The same spelling can represent different sounds (known as code overlap). In this final article, I want to talk about how we can get students really thinking about spelling sounds that they know multiple representations of. Most common errors, particularly at the end of KS2, come from when students are required to choose the spellings they know for a particular sound and what can be done to potentially increase the likelihood of students becoming good spellers.

“I saw it as my role to read research and distil this for staff in briefings, newsletters and summaries. While I still see it as a way to enable time-poor teachers to engage with research, I also now see the benefits of teachers reading the research for themselves.”

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LEADERSHIP

GettinG teacher Development riGht M A r c h 2 0 2 2 // h w r k M AG A z i n e // 07

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Getting teacher development right is a careful balancing act between giving teachers enough autonomy, while getting them to work with a level of consistency between them, in the best interests of the students. Here, Shannen Doherty describes the beginning of her own journey as a trust-wide teacher development lead. By Shannen Doherty

At the start of my career, teacher development wasn’t something that people in schools really talked about, and it certainly wasn’t something I felt I was getting. I knew that CPD existed, but I probably didn’t know what it stood for. I’m not embarrassed about it. You don’t know what you don’t know. This isn’t a criticism of the school or the leaders I worked with. It’s merely a reflection of the system I ‘grew up’ in as a new teacher. But this wasn’t just the situation for new teachers. Experienced teachers and leaders were working in this environment, too. Looking back, professional development didn’t feel joined up or cohesive for any of us. We didn’t have a shared idea of what good teaching looked like so how could we develop teaching effectively? So, in September I started a new role (alongside teaching) leading on teacher development across schools in the Aquinas Church of England Education Trust. We have 11 schools: two secondaries and nine primaries. Conversations about subscribing to Tom Sherrington and Oliver Caviglioli’s WalkThrus as a trust were happening last academic year and naturally, I showed my excitement and enthusiasm for what I think is a fantastic set of books.

“Our pupils deserve the best teachers, so our teachers deserve the best development.”

For anyone who doesn’t know (where have you been?!), WalkThrus are fivestep checklists designed for instructional coaching in schools. There are currently two WalkThrus books available to purchase, but number three is on the way! These checklists are breakdowns of good, solid teaching and learning techniques and strategies. They cover a range of areas that span age ranges and curriculum areas. This is our toolkit for teacher development, which means teachers in our schools have a shared set of principles and a common language, so we are all on the same page.

geTTing TeaCher developmenT righT

“teachers in our schools have a shared set of principles and a common language, so we are all on the same page”

While WalkThrus has been designed for instructional coaching, there’s no way that we can start on that journey until there’s a solid understanding of what makes good teaching. So, we’re holding off while we lay the groundwork! When I started this work, I knew I had to be clear about the vision I had for teacher development in our trust. Through discussions and lots of thinking and rethinking, it boiled down to these principles:

• Teacher development is purposeful. • Teacher development has an impact. • Teacher development improves outcomes. • Teacher development requires granular and incremental steps. • Teacher development is part of a continuous learning model. • Teacher development is nonjudgemental. • Teacher development is not about accountability and tick boxes. • Teacher development empowers teachers. I wanted our teachers to know that their best interests were at heart, along with the best interests of our pupils. Our pupils deserve the best teachers, so our teachers deserve the best development. But that development needs to be carefully thought about. We had to move away from one-off trainings and expecting overnight successes. For me, teacher development is about small steps, revisiting them and building on them (much like what we do for our students!). We need to invest the time in our teachers, so they know they are valued. It’s no secret that teacher retention is an issue nationwide, so now is the time to reconsider how we show staff that they are appreciated. We can do that by reducing workload, but we can also do it by investing in their development. So how were we going to do it? The Trust knew that to make this a success every school should have its own teacher development lead. Headteachers and senior leaders put their heads together and chose the right person for their school. I have to say the team are fantastic. I am so fortunate to work with this group of educators. We have differing levels of experience and knowledge, so it isn’t just an echo chamber of yes men! We knew WalkThrus would be our toolkit, but how should we roll this out to schools? I created a three-year plan of how I saw it being implemented. The key for me was that we didn’t rush. You can’t

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a Year awaY from The ChalkfaCe: whaT’s Changed?

The impact of weekly drop-ins or learning walks that enable teachers to continuously develop is far greater than waiting a whole term between observations to see if the areas of development have been worked on. This way, teachers are focusing on one thing at a time and can get incrementally better rather than feeling overwhelmed with three ‘even better ifs’ to work on at once!

“The sheer disparity between differing opportunities for home learning that children from different backgrounds have experienced has never been so obvious and it must be challenged.”

While I know this is just the start of the journey, I feel incredibly proud and excited about what we’re doing. I hope that teachers feel the shift in culture, too. We are changing the face of teacher development in our Trust. It’s so important that we get this right for our teachers and our pupils. As I said earlier, our pupils deserve the best teachers, so our teachers deserve the best development.

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CONTENTS 5 2 // H W R K M AG A Z I N E // M A R C H 2 0 2 2

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05. IT’S ALL AbOUT CULTURE: Why creating the right school culture is vital

FEATURES

PEDAGOGY

CURRICULUM

07. bEHAvIOUR: IS THERE A SILvER bULLET?

16. THE ART OF ANNOTATION: TEACHING STUDENTS TO TALk TO THEIR TEXTS

32. HOw TO ANSwER... AQA GCSE ENGLISH LANGUAGE PAPER 1

What would a one-size-fitsall approach to behaviour look like? Is it achievable?

Is effective teaching of annotation the key to unlocking success in text-analysis?

Strategies for tackling questions on AQA GCSE English Language Paper 1

21. 15 STRATEGIES FOR TEACHING AND SUPPORTING DYSLEXIC STUDENTs

37. HOw I wOULD TEACH... THE PUzzLE OF GOD

10. THE JOURNEY TOwARDS bEING RESEARCH-INFORMED

The practicalities of embedding a researchinformed approach in your school

What approaches should we be using to help support our dyslexic students?

Tips for RE teachers on how to teach the Puzzle of God topic

25. bUILDING AN ASSESSMENT MODEL: YOU CAN’T ALwAYS GET wHAT YOU wANT

43. LET’S TOORk AbOwT SPELLING: PEART THRY

How can we build an effective assessment model that we can rely on?

Using big-data and the laws of probability to maximise success in spelling

LEADERSHIP 50. IMPLEMENTING CHANGE MANAGEMENT IN SCHOOLS

What do we need to do to ensure changemanagement in schools goes smoothly? 52. GETTING TEACHER DEvELOPMENT RIGHT

What does effective teacher development look and feel like?

EXPERIENCE 56. TEACHING IN Uk AND US

A personal perspective: Teaching in the US vs teaching in the UK - what’s the difference?

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58. A YEAR AwAY FROM THE CHALkFACE: wHAT’S CHANGED?

Has teaching changed in the past year? What have we learnt? M A R C H 2 0 2 2 // H W R K M AG A Z I N E // 0 3

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CONTRIBUTORS WRITTEN BY TEACHERS FOR TEACHERS

Adam Robbins

Andrew Atherton

Neil Almond

Shannen Doherty

Adam Robbins is a Science teacher at a large coastal comprehensive He is a Lead Practitioner responsible for whole-school CPD. In his spare time he writes about education and provides training. He is the author of Middle Leadership Mastery.

Andrew Atherton is a Teacher of English as well as Director of Research in a secondary school in Berkshire. He regularly publishes blogs about English and English teaching at ‘Codexterous’ and you can follow him on Twitter @__codexterous

Neil was a classroom teacher for 5 years before leading Teaching and Learning in a small academy trust. Now he is a deputy headteacher on Thornton Heath. He regularly blogs and speaks at educational events around the country.

Shannen is a senior leader and class teacher at a primary school in London. She loves all things Maths and enjoys getting nerdy about teaching and learning. Shannen’s debut book, 100 Ideas for Primary Teachers: Maths, came out in May 2021.

@MrARobbins

@__codexterous

@Mr_AlmondED

@MissSDoherty

Ben King

Steve Chiger

Rob Potts

Jasmine Lane

Year 5 teacher/reading lead from Horsham. Advocate for Chartered College. Creator of The Teacher Book Awards. Guardian of the HWRK podcast and occasional blogger over at kingintheclassroom.blogspot.co.uk

Stephen Chiger is a director of literacy for U.S.-based Uncommon Schools and the co-author of Love and Literacy with Paul BambrickSantoyo. Find him on Twitter and at stevechiger.com

Rob Potts is an experienced teacher and senior leader. His book ‘The Caring Teacher - How to make a positive difference in the classroom’ (John Catt Educational Ltd) is available for pre-order on Amazon now.

Jasmine is a KS3 coordinator for English and blogger interested in leveraging evidence-informed instructional practices. When she’s not writing, Jasmine enjoys spending her time outdoors and exploring London.

@thatteacherguy_

@stevechiger

@RJP_LEARNS

@MsJasmineMN

Joe Kinnaird

Jade Pearce

Lekha Sharma

Adele Bates

Joe Kinnaird is Head of KS3 RE at Coopers Company and Coborn School in East London and is interested in all things RE, philosophy, and curriculum.

Jade Pearce has been teaching Economics and Business for twelve years. She is an Assistant Headteacher leading on Teaching and Learning and CPD. She is an Evidence Lead in Education with Staffordshire Research School and a member of the Education Endowment Foundation Expert Voices Group. She is a primary school governor.

Lekha Sharma is the Head of Lower School at The John Wallis Academy, Evidence Lead in Education and Author of ‘Curriculum to Classroom’.

Adele helps schools to create a positive behaviour and relationship culture by equipping staff to support challenging behaviour. She’s an International Keynote Speaker, a featured expert on teenagers and behaviour for BBC Radio 4, the author of “Miss, I don’t Give A Sh*t,” Engaging with Challenging Behaviour in Schools, as well as teaching for nearly 20 years in mainstream, primary, secondary, PRUs, APs and Special schools.

@josephkinnaird

@PearceMrs

@teacherfeature2

@AdeleBatesZ

HWRK MAGAZINE PUBLISHED BY HEALTH NEWS qUARTERLY LTD 5 Hackins Hey, Liverpool L2 2AW, UK E: enquiries@hnqgroup.co.uk T: 0151 237 7311 EDITOR Andy McHugh PUBLISHING DIRECTOR Alec Frederick Power DESIGNER Adam Blakemore MANAGING DIRECTORS G Gumbhir, Alec Frederick Power Legal Disclaimer: While precautions have been made to ensure the accuracy of contents in this publication and digital brands neither the editors, publishers not its agents can accept responsibility for damages or injury which may arise therefrom. No part of any of the publication whether in print or digital may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior permission of the copyright owner.

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It’s All About

Culture Schools can be frustrating places for staff and students alike. Everyone is busy ALL OF THE TIME and that busyness doesn’t always lead to the right place. Sometimes it’s just busyness. But great schools make that busyness work. They do it by having a relentless dualfocus on prioritising the students while also developing staff. They do this by building and maintaining an authentic culture: one where everyone is treated as though they are incredibly valuable members of the same team. And that team is on a journey.

What is school culture? School culture isn’t something you can define or write about easily. It doesn’t sit neatly in a folder waiting for the inspectors to arrive. It isn’t something you can always put your finger on when observing a lesson, when flicking through books, or when analysing exam results in the summer. But it is tangible. You hear it in the corridors between lessons. You see it in interactions between teachers and students. It’s something you feel when you walk around the school building for the first time. But how do we create the right culture? What does the “right culture” look and feel like? And why, ultimately, should we prioritise it?

Do the right work There are always lots of things we can do when trying to improve the status quo. But which option should we choose? A good rule of thumb is to weigh up the answers to the following three questions and to do only the things you can justify: Is there robust evidence that it will work? Do we have

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to ditch another valuable thing in order to do this (and is it worth the tradeoff)? Is it sustainable over the longterm? Many shiny new things that schools routinely try out don’t meet these criteria and they are often the things that inevitably lead to burnout and to staff-retention issues. Ignore them at your peril.

Do it the right way You’re all on the same team, so make sure you leave nobody behind. Leadership is always a delicate balance between pushing on to new things, in pursuit of improvement, while balancing the needs of staff who may not share your own values or priorities. This is why prioritising these things makes sense. They not only make a difference to staff buy-in and impact, but they also demonstrate the culture you want to build in a highly visible sense. Nothing says “I don’t value our teachers” like the heavy-handed implementation of a new policy that doesn’t consider teachers at all. If you want to build a culture of mutual respect and trust, you need to consistently demonstrate it in your actions, especially when it is hard. Otherwise, your mission statement, your website headlines and your wellbeing policy mean nothing. Your actions are the only things that matter. Words are cheap.

for a while, as teachers are naturally wonderful people who try to do their best for the students. But you can’t rely purely on the goodness of teachers over the long-term without building a positive school culture where those teachers can grow. We’re in this job to prepare our students for the world. But the world doesn’t begin when they leave school. They are part of it while they are with us. So we also need to model a good culture, setting it as the norm and enabling them to contribute to it, while giving them the confidence to replicate it beyond the school gates. As Muhammad Ali famously said, “The fight is won or lost far away from witnesses – behind the lines, in the gym, and out there on the road, long before I dance under those lights.” In schools, that’s what it boils down to. Successful schools build a culture where constant attention to improvement over time is paramount, for staff and students. It’s about the things you do when nobody is looking, not ticking boxes for an observer. Reliance on the fool’s errand of using gimmicks or trying to game the system is to be avoided at all costs. Building the right culture is your best bet. It’s all about doing the right work, in the right way and for the right reasons. When everyone in your school has this principle foremost in their minds and in their actions, there’s your culture.

Do it for the right reason If you want your school to thrive, you need your staff to have the energy and enthusiasm to make that happen. You might get away with ignoring culture

Andy McHugh

Editor | HWRK Magazine

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We work tirelessly to change the lives of those affected by bullying and we know we make a difference. We see it in the way young people engage in our projects, how we empower them to Make a Difference and how they develop confidence and learn new skills. By developing a positive ethos across a whole school/organisation community, we can create an environment that meets the emotional, academic and social needs of pupils and staff. Creating an anti-bullying and respectful ethos is a powerful way to Inspire Change. Our Youth Ambassadors are a dynamic team of young volunteers working together to help deal with the issue of bullying. They are committed and dedicated and all have a passion to Make A Difference in their local communities. The programme is open all year round and you can join wherever you live and whatever your background and interests are.

FEATURE

BEHAVIOUR: IS THERE A SILVER BULLET? Is there a silver bullet, a magic wand, or a Mary Poppins works-wellfor-all for behaviour in our schools? No matter how much we dream and hope, I think we all know the answer: Nope, there isn’t. And in fact, trying to create blanket policies, policies-for-all and zero tolerance strategies can get us all in a lot of bother. By Adele Bates

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As a Behaviour & Education Specialist supporting schools, pupils, staff, Trusts and Local Authorities up and down the country I see the detrimental effect the ‘silver bullet’ belief has on helping us progress with behaviour or how it can hinder us in supporting some of our most vulnerable young people. I have worked across mainstreams (all settings), Alternative Provisions, Pupil Referral Units and Specialist SEMH (Social, Emotional, Mental Health needs) Schools for nearly 20 years, and the closest I’ve ever found to any kind of ‘silver bullet’ is this: Behaviour approaches and policies must work for your staff, for your school, for your pupils, for your communities, in the context of everything that affects each of those groups; missed breakfasts, a change of catchment area and global pandemics all included – and those factors will often be different from the school down the road, let alone schools across the nation.

Behaviour Policies In an ideal world, your behaviour policy is a living, growing document that supports the practice, culture and ethos around the values, relationships and behaviour across the school. It is also created by all of the stakeholders affected by it – yep, that includes *those* pupils most known for their negative behaviour in school. More often than not though, they usually become a document written by SLT and Governors that is too long to read, let alone implement for those who work on the ground – and so they sit on the shelf gathering dust (or the digital equivalent) or look good on the website in time for the Ofsted inspection. I saw on Twitter this year a snap-shot poll on behaviour policies showing that over half of Headteachers believed that their behaviour policies were working well, whereas nearly three-quarters of teaching staff disagreed. I wonder what the pupils would have thought – it’s telling. The reason behind it is the silver-bullet illusion: We cannot write a document long enough that would account for every possible behaviour scenario in a school. 0 8 // H W R K M AG A Z I N E // M A R C H 2 0 2 2

And yet, it’s really attractive to think we can.

then ergo, there is only one type of teacher who can do it.

The Department for Education often plays a similar game, particularly when negative behaviour in schools hits the headlines – we will often see a response from the government that quickly churns out a ‘let’s-all-be-more-disciplined-and-pullour-socks-up-and-everything-will-be-fine’ response.

For example; I am increasingly being asked to support schools in which there is a high number of early career, young (in this context 20-30 years old) female staff. Why? Because they can relate to me.

Most recently, in a reaction to the increasingly challenging behaviour for staff in schools post-lockdown, the Minister for Education responded with a crackdown on mobile phones. Quite rightly, many teachers, schools and anyone who has been near a child in the last two years were exasperated – mobile phones are the least of our worries right now. We have an education system to re-construct. Our government are not stupid, I believe they know this too – so why do this?

Most experts on Behaviour and people of influence on the subject are from one demographic – white men who are old enough to be the ECTs’ dads. To be clear – I have learnt a lot from these men – and still do. The discussions we can have with people unlike us about behaviour are incredibly valuable. AND, the way that my dad approaches behaviour (he’s worked in children’s homes for excluded teenage boys), and the way I do, is completely different. It has to be different because we are different people.

Our minds love to have solutions to problems – and particularly for the media. If we can find a one-size-fits-all that’s easy to remember (‘see it, say it, sorted?’), we like to believe that will work. We go against our longer perspective instinct, hoping to gain a quick win.

We know this – at your school, Mister Brookes’ style of behaviour management is like a glorious community pantomime with a fabulous dame – it works for Mister Brookes; the pupils know and respect the expectations in his classroom and lots of learning takes place.

But in reality, we know the truth. If behaviour in schools had an easy, one-off solution we would have solved it by now. Our prisons would be empty, all our staff would teach in the same way and every school would be the same. No one would ever be put in detention and we wouldn’t even be having this conversation at all.

On the other hand, in Ms Singh’s classroom, she rarely moves from her spot at the front of the classroom, no one’s heard her raise her voice since 1982, and her left eyebrow is famous for bringing even the most extreme behaviour from a pupil into line; the pupils know and respect the expectations in her classroom and lots of learning takes place.

But it can’t be that way. Again, it comes back to context – our world is forever changing, and so is the behaviour of the human race, which must be responded to differently in different situations. Our pupils are part of that human race. Our staff are too.

Both members of staff work within the behaviour policy and both members of staff engage pupils well in learning. To ask Mister Brookes to be more like Ms Singh, or vice versa, would be a disaster.

The Staff

Hence again, why any rhetoric that says there’s only one way to do behaviour can be detrimental, particularly for new staff.

As I support staff across the country and across into Europe, one common downside I see of the ‘silver-bullet’ thinking, is this: If our rhetoric is that there is one superior way to successfully approach behaviour,

“Don’t smile before Christmas?” That depends on whether you’re a smiley person and what works for you as a human being, forming a relationship with another human being. @hwrk_magazine

FEATURE

The Pupils Jo and Irena are both late. Jo overslept – his dad shouted at him several times, but he just couldn’t get up. In the end he rushed down the stairs, missed the bus and his dad agreed to give him a lift in. Jo enjoys playing computer games throughout the night. HWRKMAGAZINE.CO.UK

Irena got up early. She is the main caregiver in her household as her mum is ill and her dad lives abroad. She looks after her two younger siblings who are 6 and 8 years old. Irena is 12 years. Each morning she makes breakfast for everyone (including her mum), and takes her sisters to school. Jo and Irena are both late. Should they be treated the same?

The answer to this matters and is a topic I write about and train on extensively. I am passionate about us holding boundaries for pupils around behaviour so that learning is paramount and learning what the behaviour might be communicating in each scenario. From my experience, it is only then that we will find real, lasting solutions to behaviour issues, rather than one-off quick fixes that can cause more trouble in the end. M A R C H 2 0 2 2 // H W R K M AG A Z I N E // 0 9

BECOMING AN EVIDENCE-INFORMED SCHOOL: A FIVE-YEAR JOURNEY Embedding an evidence-informed approach in schools takes time, determination and careful planning. Jade Pearce describes the journey her own school has been on, from first exploring the idea five years ago, to where they are now. By Jade Pearce

So, how did we achieve this and what lessons did we learn along the way?

2. Identify your priorities

1. Do fewer things, better

This journey to becoming an evidenceinformed school has taken a number of years for a reason: I truly believe that for

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It is extremely difficult as a T&L lead to not move onto developing another area of teaching. There is so much that we want to improve, but this may lead to changefatigue and previous priorities fading away.

evidence-informed practice and improved the teaching of many, it also means that it always feels like there is something else we should be addressing or implementing in our schools. It is also very tempting to see something that has worked extremely successfully in another school and to want to implement it in your school straight away. However, I have found that it is crucial for school leaders to ensure that any new strategies address the problems and priorities that are specific to their own schools. Before introducing any new priorities at my own school, we gathered information on teaching and our main areas for development. We looked at examination results, pupil surveys, and pupils’ work, watched lessons and spoke to teachers and middle leaders. We were then able to identify our T&L priorities for the following year.

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FEATURE

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“For an evidence-informed culture to thrive, effective relationships and trust must exist between school leaders and teachers and between one teacher and another.”

3. It’s all about active

ingredients

When introducing any evidence-informed strategy it is crucial to be clear on the strategy’s active ingredients – those aspects that are crucial for the successful implementation of the strategy. This ensures that the technique is implemented most successfully. For example, when introducing retrieval practice this included that it should be low-stakes, include corrective feedback and both factual and higher-order content.

4. Autonomy is key Alongside being ‘tight’ on the active ingredients, it is also important to give individual departments and teachers’ the autonomy to decide how best to implement whole-school teaching strategies in their subjects and lessons. Leaders should also trust teachers to have autonomy over their professional development for example by being able to decide areas of focus and activities.

5. The importance of the why When introducing any evidence-informed strategies it is hugely beneficial to go through the supporting theory with teachers in depth. For example, if concentrating on the strategies supported by cognitive science it is absolutely crucial that all teachers have a good understanding of the model of memory including working memory and long-term memory, but also of desirable difficulties and the concepts of retrieval strength 1 2 // H W R K M AG A Z I N E // M A R C H 2 0 2 2

and storage strength. This will help to ensure they understand why the strategy is effective and how to implement them most successfully. Similarly, it is also important to explicitly explain the research that supports the strategy you are advocating, including referring to specific papers and their findings. Feedback from our teachers showed that this gave new strategies additional credibility.

data driven performance management targets, and focusing only on all teachers getting better. Alongside this, leaders must prioritise the development of all staff. This includes leaders modelling their approach to their own professional development, providing time for professional development and reducing workload from competing demands such as written marking and data and reporting.

6. Teachers reading research 8. Trust When we started this journey, I saw it as my role to read research and distil this for staff in briefings, newsletters and summaries. While I still see it as a way to enable time-poor teachers to engage with research, I also now see the benefits of teachers reading the research for themselves. We have achieved this through a T&L Research Group, research twilights and giving time for independent reading. We have found this leads to greater understanding of and commitment to evidence-informed teaching. It has promoted the view that teachers reading research is the norm.

For an evidence-informed culture to thrive, effective relationships and trust must exist between school leaders and teachers and between one teacher and another. This allows teachers to feel able to trial the new practices, make mistakes, evaluate successes and failures, and make refinements over time, all without the fear of judgement or consequences.

7. Development, not

9. Culture takes time

A culture of development and not judgement is crucial to an evidenceinformed approach. Teachers will not feel able to engage with research and trial new techniques if they are concerned with the quality of their teaching being judged with high-stakes consequences. This means removing formal lesson observations and

It is important to note that this has been a five-year journey, with elements of our T&L strategy and CPD offer being added to over time. Hopefully my own school’s experience will help other teachers and school leaders such as yourself, whether you are someway into your own journey, or if you are just starting to explore evidence-informed practice, as we were five years ago.

judgement

This can be achieved through reduced monitoring, distributed leadership, and autonomy, and through leaders demonstrating personal integrity and a high level of competence in their own roles.

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PEDAGOGY 16. The Art Of Annotation: Teaching Students To Talk To Their Texts

Is effective teaching of annotation the key to unlocking success in textanalysis?

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21. 15 Strategies For Teaching And Supporting Dyslexic Students

What approaches should we be using to help support our dyslexic students?

25. Building An Assessment Model: You Can’t Always Get What You Want How can we build an effective assessment model that we can rely on?

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PEDAGOGY TEACHING STUDENTS TO TALK TO THEIR TEXTS Can the teaching of effective annotation be the key to unlocking students’ learning of texts? Steve Chiger explores this idea and how we might go about building it into our classroom practice. Stephen Chiger

Back in 2019, researchers made one gem of a discovery: what appears to be Milton’s copy of Shakespeare’s first folio. As you’d imagine, it was a finding met with wide-eyed, bookish glee. Cambridge fellow Jason ScottWarren reported that as he put the clues together, he became “quite trembly… You’re gathering evidence with your heart in your mouth.” And why shouldn’t he have felt this way? Scott-Warren notes that Milton’s annotations “give you a sense of his sensitivity and alertness to Shakespeare.” It’s a bit like we’re getting to peek into Milton’s mind. Readers have long used annotations to provide commentary, mark memorable passages, simplify complex ideas, or even – as Edgar Allan Poe put it – to let their mind “unburden itself of a thought; — however flippant — however silly — however trivial….” For those reasons, most of us encourage them in student work. But we could be leveraging annotations for so much more. With the right classroom coaching, your students’ marginalia can become the key to unlocking their

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reading comprehension. Here’s how.

COACH STUDENTS TO NAME THE CLAIMS

into the classroom of Indiana University’s Professor of History, David Pace.

In many ways, annotation is just thinking made visible. But when students are making sense of challenging texts, what sorts of thoughts do we want them to have? To answer, we can step

Concerned about his students’ reading skill, Pace wanted to demonstrate what was important to him as he read a text. Here’s an example he modelled for them; the larger the font, the more important the idea. What do you notice about the lines he emphasised?

While Pace’s students may have been inclined to spend more time on small details, as a more experienced reader he knows to watch for something else: the text’s claims. Watching for those, he argues, helps readers trace and make meaning of the thesis. Pace’s approach highlights a powerful insight: the heart of any writing is the statement it makes.

From editorials to tweets to encyclopaedia entries, everything we read makes claims about the world. These range from the obvious (“here are five reasons your class should use retrieval practice”) to the less so (“here are the causes of World War I”) – but all texts make arguments about our world. For students, there is power in realising that these can be debated.

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Our students don’t need to believe everything they read. Far from it. Their job as readers is to find the claims of a text and to then decide whether or not they accept them. Developing that critical eye is one way we can empower them to take on an information-rich world. Annotations give us a way to coach them how.

CREATE HABITS OF MIND Pace’s approach calls to mind the topic-comment model described by researchers Peter Johnston and Peter Afflerbach in the 1980’s. In simple terms: the central idea of a text is the topic plus the comment it makes about it. The approach has the potential to help students read with far more sensitivity and at the same time develop a healthy

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skepticism about what they encounter. But for this approach to become a habit of mind, students need to practice it. What better place than how they annotate? Imagine your students encountered the following paragraph. In terms of comprehension, what might you want them to note as they annotate? For years, researchers have believed life on Venus wouldn’t be possible. The planet was too chaotic. There wasn’t enough oxygen. The atmosphere was car-battery-level acidic. However, recent findings are leading us to question everything. As an experienced reader, I see a number of things. I can see the

topic is about life on Venus, so I might jot that right away. But I know there might be claims later in the paragraph, since not every claim shows up in the first sentence. So, I also take note of the word “however” in that last sentence. I know a word like this usually means the claim of a text is about to shift, typically in an important way. This helps me notice that there’s another argument to consider, that new findings are encouraging researchers to consider whether life on Venus may be possible after all. In our minds, this happens almost automatically, but annotations can allow us to help students work in slow motion. The process for annotating a non-narrative text then becomes like this:

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PEDAGOGY • After reading the ﬁrst few paragraphs: jot the topic and your early sense of the text’s claim

- Underline claim-shifters: “however,” “despite,” “but,” “others argue that”

• Jot a quick note when you encounter key claims - Underline claim-revealing lines: how/why statements, rhetorical questions, “I” statements, charged language

• After reading the full text: Review your annotations and jot the author’s overall claim about the topic That’s just a start. You might adjust

this process for your discipline (for example, in History I’d also spend time considering the speaker, occasion, audience and purpose). Or you might do as our English teachers did and ask students to think about metacognitive strategies to use when they struggle. (If you’re interested in the full strategy we employ, you can find it here: stevechiger.com/resources.) Love & Literacy Teacher Handbook

Reading and Annotating for

Claim

Make sense of the most challenging informational texts.

Every text is arguing something. Read to find the topic and claim about the topic, and you can unlock the most challenging texts. Read the Beginning to Identify the Topic & Opening Claim Start with the title, blurb, and the first paragraph(s) carefully read and annotate: o Identify the speaker and genre; note any obvious bias Beginning o Jot the topic in the margin after 1-2 paragraphs o Jot the opening claim

Middle

Read the Middle for Sub-Claims & Shifts Annotate words/lines that develop the initial claim and/or establish additional claims: Annotate arguments: o beginning of paragraphs) o Circle ke , I statements) o Jot a claim note next to key claims, sub-sections and charts/graphs Annotate shifts in thinking/transition words: o Circle words that show a shift in thinking (e.g., o Circle phrases that signal the author is addressing counterarguments (e.g., mi Generate an End Note that Captures the Claim

End

Write a final end note: What is the claim about the topic that this text makes (the central idea)? Check your end note for precision: o Does it articulat o Does it synthesize all of the key sub-claims you annotated?

When You Struggle, Level Up Anytime you Struggle with a Paragraph or Sentence, Level Up Slow down and reread increase your annotations to every 2-3 lines Paraphrase the most difficult lines If the o Identify subjects & verbs (particularly when there are unclear pronouns and/or multiple subjects) paragraph o Chunk a sentence into smaller parts and try to paraphrase each or sentence o Unpack challenging vocabulary use context clues to define terms or for connotation is o Review the surrounding text for phrases that provide additional context challenging Skip ahead and come back later o Learn the future content and use it to come back and understand If a larger section looks challenging

Scan to the End [difficult texts only] Shorter text: read the final paragraph & opening/closing sentences of each paragraph to ID key claims Longer text: read the final section, subheadings, and the end of each section to identify key claims Gut Check your Knowledge

? If so, look it up.

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PEDAGOGY

Shared annotation systems help students develop reading habits that will serve them well with difficult texts in any content area. But that’s not even the best reason to use them. When you have a shared system in class, you won’t have to wonder about whether or where students are struggling as they read. The answers will be written all over their page.

MAKE THINKING VISIBLE Imagine you were teaching that Science article we discussed. You’ve annotated it in the same way you hope that students will, and you’ve noted three key claims you’re hoping they can spot accurately. Because you and your students share an annotation language, you can keep an eye out for what students are writing and how their work compares with yours. Of course, students are welcome to jot notes on whatever else they’d like, but with this mutual core, you can see if students are tracking the text’s big ideas as they go. Let’s use that that first paragraph from our Science article. Your note says something like “scientists once thought life impossible on V, new disc. say maybe.” As you scan student work, however, you see a lot of responses that read more like: “scientists: no life on V.”

“When you have a shared system in class, you won’t have to wonder about whether or where students are struggling as they read. The answers will be written all over their page.”

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PEDAGOGY A-ha!, you think. Students are missing that shift in the first paragraph. Now, you know exactly where understanding is breaking down, in real-time. Because you’ve made students’ thinking visible, you have the power to act on it, whether individually or as a classwide response. As Paul Bambrick-Santoyo and I

write in Love and Literacy, what is often seen as a helpful study tool becomes something far greater: an engine for supporting student reading. In their book Annotation, Remi Kalir and Antero Garcia recall a quote from Kenneth Grahame, author of The Wind in the Willows: “the child’s scribbling on

the margin of his school-books is really worth more to him than all he gets out of them.” There’s wisdom in this observation, and it’s wisdom educators can add to. Students can use annotations to better understand texts. Teachers can use them to better understand students.

“Because you and your students share an annotation language, you can keep an eye out for what students are writing and how their work compares with yours.”

References:

“When Milton Met Shakespeare: Poet’s Notes on Bard Appear to Have Been Found.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 16 Sept. 2019, https://www.theguardian. com/books/2019/sep/16/when-milton-met-shakespeare-poets-notes-on-bard-appearto-have-been-found. Poe, Edgar Allan. The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe. Edited by James A. Harrison, vol. 16, Thomas Y. Cromwell and Co., 1902. 2 0 // H W R K M AG A Z I N E // M A R C H 2 0 2 2

Pace, David. “Decoding the Reading of History: An Example of the Process.” New Directions for Teaching and Learning, vol. 2004, no. 98, 2004, pp. 13–21. Johnston, Peter, and Peter Afflerbach. “The Process of Constructing Main Ideas from Text.” Cognition and Instruction, vol. 2, no. 3/4, Taylor & Francis, Ltd., 1985, pp. 207–32, http://www.jstor.org/stable/3233630. Qtd. in Kalir, Remi, and Antero Garcia. Annotation. The MIT Press, 2021. @hwrk_magazine

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15 STRATEGIES FOR TEACHING AND SUPPORTING DYSLEXIC STUDENTS There’s a perennial question that keeps many conscientious teachers awake at night: how can I best support my dyslexic students? It’s a complex question, that doesn’t yield a single solution but, as with so many things in our profession, it has a simple and universal starting point: care. By Rob Potts

I feel fortunate to have worked in schools with a high proportion of dyslexic students. Helping any student to attain heights that they may not previously have felt were within their grasp is the payback most of us crave. But when those same students include those who have previously felt like square pegs in an education system designed primarily for round holes, the rewards are even more profound.

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15 USEFUL STRATEGIES FOR TEACHING DYSLEXIC STUDENTS

difficulties they’ve experienced are their fault.

1) Start by getting to know

Some of your most creative, perceptive and articulate students will happen to be dyslexic. Your job is to give them the tools, support and confidence needed to work around their dyslexic difficulties and achieve their full potential.

the individual child and, where necessary, focus on building their confidence/self belief. Often dyslexic children will have spent many years not having their needs adequately met and will assume (wrongly) that the

2) Don’t make assumptions.

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PEDAGOGY 3) Make sure your lessons are

planned & differentiated to suit the needs of all learners but don’t assume that all your dyslexic students will fall into the ‘less able’ group (I hate this term anyway). Sometimes all they’ll need is the security of knowing that mistakes are ok.

4) Make sure that all the necessary resources are consistently in place (eg. if a child needs coloured overlays, they need them every lesson) but, *where appropriate*, encourage autonomy from the child in making sure they have the correct resources. 5) Identify access arrangements as early as possible. If a child is entitled to a laptop, Voice Activated Software, etc make sure this need is established as early as possible and becomes part of their day-to-day routine. This shouldn’t wait until KS4. The earlier this becomes ‘normal’ the better. 6) Avoid putting students in situations that are likely to exacerbate their insecurities or crush their confidence. For example, use a traffic light system for reading aloud in class. Some dyslexic kids will actually go ‘green’ every time and love it but for some it’s torture. 7) Make sure oracy is an integral part of the learning experience in your classroom. Invite the students to articulate their ideas, encourage them to expand and develop initial points, praise success and then ensure that the resources are in place to allow

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them to reflect this understanding in their written work. If they can say it confidently, with the right support and access arrangements they will eventually be able to write it too.

8) Establish a classroom culture where barriers to learning are de-stigmatised and there’s a shared growth mindset. Being dyslexic is just one facet of who the child is and should not present a glass ceiling. 9) Important one this: don’t

assume that the only dyslexic kids are the ones listed on your SEN register or that it’s someone else’s job to flag up concerns. It shouldn’t happen but some kids go years without being diagnosed or having their needs met. Always look for early signs. The sooner a need can be identified, the sooner the necessary support and intervention can be put in place.

10) This one is MASSIVE too: lose

the fixation with spelling (at least as far as your dyslexic students are concerned). If a child has incredible vocabulary and you can understand what they’ve written, praise the positives. If it’s not legible, revisit your access arrangements.

11) Be sensitive to the needs of the individual when marking books. A flood of red ink may not be legible anyway and has the potential to crush fragile confidence. Always try to prioritise verbal praise/feedback and share this with parents and other key staff where possible.

12) Establish a partnership with

parents ASAP. Share your high expectations with them, notify them if a particular piece of homework

may be challenging and provide them with an alternative if the wheels fall off.

13) Encourage reading as much as you can. Many dyslexic kids will have been put off reading very quickly but work with parents to encourage them to persevere, taking their needs and interests into account. Audio books are not a poor relation and can be a game-changer for some kids 14) Offer meaningful praise at every opportunity and use your encouragement to empower the child to overcome not only their difficulties but also any emotional trauma caused by past experiences. 15) If any of this feels as though it could apply to all students, rather than just those who happen to be dyslexic, that’s because it should. It’s just good teaching; the only difference for dyslexic children is that the impact will be greater.

Final thought: we often use dyslexic ‘success stories’ to inspire children but do we ever stop for a second to consider why it’s often easier for dyslexic people to mitigate for their difficulties in the workplace than it is in the classroom? More to the point, when was the last time you were forced to hand-write an important letter or report? There are countless dyslexic people making a huge impact in the world - you might even have one or two future role models in your class. Let’s ensure that their time in education is a formative part of that journey rather than an unnecessarily difficult one.

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BUILDING AN ASSESSMENT MODEL: YOU CAN’T ALWAYS GET WHAT YOU WANT If you were to write a list of the most important things a middle leader must do, how high up would ‘developing an effective assessment model’ be? By Adam Robbins

“…not enough time is spent considering the validity, reliability and personnel factors that different modes of assessment impact.”

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PEDAGOGY I imagine it would not be top five. Maybe it would be top ten, at a push. In many cases, developing an effective assessment model would not be prioritised because, in general, middle leaders have an enviable confidence in the way they assess students and in their response to the data they gather. Either that or they think assessment must be done the way it has always been done and so there is no benefit to exploring it in more detail. I argue that not enough time is spent considering the validity, reliability and personnel factors that different modes of assessment impact. I want to take some time to discuss some aspects of assessment with the aim of encouraging us all to think carefully about what assessment model we choose and what it will deliver. For the purpose of this article, I am focussing on the use of formal summative assessments, which I will call tests. I recognise that assessment also includes informal and more formative strategies, but they are not the focus of this article as I consider them to be less part of an “assessment model” and are more to do with general teaching and learning.

ASSESSMENT IS ALL ABOUT CHOICES Assessment is an imperfect solution to a complex problem: How do we know what our students know and can do? This means that when we make decisions about our assessment model, they have consequences. We should start our review of our assessment model by considering carefully What do we want our model to achieve?

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Do we want to generate data that shows a student’s performance in each area of the curriculum? Do we value an assessment style that guarantees markingaccuracy or one that embodies our subject’s intent more holistically? Do we need to report this to parents regularly? How often? Will performance in these assessments be used to determine future classes or a tier of entry for students? The list goes on. Once we have decided what our utopian ideals might be, we may find that the practicalities of time, budget and expertise force us to make some pragmatic compromises, but at least we will get as close as we can.

TEST VALIDITY In my opinion, the first place to start is to decide how valid we need the test to be. A valid test is one that accurately measures what you intend it to measure. We need to ask ourselves what does a test in my subject need to contain to make it a true representation of that subject? For some subjects like Maths this is straightforward, for others like Drama or History this might be a more complex discussion.

TEST RELIABILITY Test reliability is best interpreted as inter-rater reliability. This is a measure of how likely two markers are at awarding the same mark. Again, a subject like Maths benefits from high-reliability intrinsically. However, a subject like English has a choice to make. A more valid testing format, like essay writing, drastically impacts the reliability of the marking. This is not to say English teachers are poor at marking, just that marking essays is inherently

harder to mark reliably than MCQs, as there is the natural subjectivity of the marker to consider. Therefore, our first big decision is to decide how much we value validity and reliability and agree on a format we think suits our subject best.

TEST FREQUENCY How frequently you assess your students has a greater impact on the inferences you can make from the data than you might initially think. Some people think that when it comes to assessments, more is better. But often this is not the case. One of the key things leaders often want to do with assessment data is to generate some sort of grade to indicate student performance. Then the logic goes; if we do more frequent, but smaller, assessments we can generate more granular data that might give us an indication of student progress within the year. Unfortunately, this is probably not possible. By increasing the frequency of testing we probably need to shorten them. By shortening them we reduce the amount of the domain, the subject content, that can be sampled. If the assessment is only assessing a small section of the domain then the inferences we make are going to be limited. Our students’ score on this test will not, therefore, reflect their overall performance in the subject as there will not be sufficient marks available to test a representative sample of the subject. So frequent shorter tests are good at providing a level of informal data to the teachers about what aspects of a topic

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the students grasped well and what areas need more time, but they cannot give us reliable performance data that allows us to award a grade. If we decide awarding the grade is a valuable thing then we will need to prioritise less frequent, but longer assessments, that cover a representative sample of all the content covered up to that point and have a high degree of test validity.

COMMUNICATING WITH STUDENTS AND PARENTS Awarding grades or scores is the most common way we communicate performance to our

students and their parents/carers. But, it is also incredibly difficult. Middle leaders can easily fall into the trap of thinking they can just assign grades based on external boundaries, like previous GCSE grade boundaries. This only works if the test is of a similar length and is as challenging as a normal GCSE or other terminal assessment. My personal rule of thumb is, if the total marks being awarded are not at least 50% of the total marks awarded for the final grade then it’s probably not worth awarding a grade at all. At least, that is what I have found in Science. Other subjects might have sections that are smaller but are comparable and representative of the whole. I

would worry that this would only hold true if performance between the sections was consistent. If they get a grade 6 in section A will they get a grade 6 overall? Students also have a right to know how they performed. With shorter tests, it might be better just to give them their score as a percentage. You could then contrast this with a class or year average so they have an idea of how they performed relative to their peers. Some prefer to give a rank order, but this can create problems and sometimes middle leaders feel it is cruel to those at the bottom. This makes ranking a value-judgment that will need to be made independently and very carefully.

“…we may find that the practicalities of time, budget and expertise force us to make some pragmatic compromises.”

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PEDAGOGY DEMONSTRATING PROGRESS

MANAGING WORKLOAD

Middle leaders ideally want an assessment model to measure a student’s progress within or between years. Often, they do not realise how incredibly difficult this is to do with any certainty. To measure performance over time we need to ditch the percentages, as there is no way we can create tests of equal difficulty. We will probably need to use some statistical analysis like creating standardised scores for each student. Then if we track a student’s progress over a series of tests, we will have an idea of how they have moved within our cohort. This is not literal progress but relative progress.

Any decision a middle leader makes around assessment drastically impacts on the team’s workload. Moving from two to three assessments in Year 7 increases the workload of the teachers by 50%, as all students need their assessments to be marked. This is time that those teachers cannot spend planning lessons, etc.. and this opportunity-cost is a huge consideration. Often middle leaders are tempted to resolve all these conflicting issues by trying to do a bit of everything. This is when the workload can balloon if not carefully considered.

Going further than this requires a stronger set of skills. We will need to dip our toes into item response theory and the Rasch model. If we design our assessments with commonly recurring questions, then it will give us a way of comparing students’ performance with more certainty. Even then, the elusive “progress over time” goal is challenging to achieve. So, it’s probably best to just keep it simple and do our best to avoid making such comparisons.

FINDING THE WAY FORWARD Where does this leave us as leaders then? We have competing objectives that we will most likely have to balance or compromise on. What I have found to be the best approach is to figure out which of the priorities I can shift out of formal assessment and into informal classroom activities. For example, if I want to know which parts of a particular topic students have grasped,

instead of doing a ‘topic test’ can I find this information in a more informal way? Can I used regular AFL to build a picture? Or can I reduce the test to a practice activity that is pupil-marked and low-stakes? This way we keep our teachers’ time and effort focused on the things we can’t do effectively another way, a more robust measure of performance. To do this we may need to have longer tests that are less frequent but will inevitably cause more intense periods of marking. Assessment is a difficult thing to get right. When designing an assessment model it is vital we are clear about what we want it to achieve and accept that by making these choices there will be consequences that we will have to live with. However, an assessment model that suits your highest priorities will be highly effective and provide you and your teachers with a useful tool, so it is worth the time to discuss, debate and plan a comprehensive model that has its aims deliberately stated and its constraints acknowledged. After all, as the Rolling Stones said “You can’t always get what you want, But if you try sometimes, well, you just might find, You get what you need”.

“…can I reduce the test to a practice activity that is pupilmarked and low-stakes?”

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EXPAND YOUR MIND ONE SUBJECT AT A TIME

32. How To Answer... AQA GCSE English Language Paper 1

Strategies for tackling questions on AQA GCSE English Language Paper 1

37. How I Would Teach... The Puzzle Of God

Tips for RE teachers on how to teach the Puzzle of God topic

43. Let’s Toork Abowt Spelling: Peart Thry

Using big-data and the laws of probability to maximise success in spelling

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CURRICULUM

DEMYSTIFYING AQA ENGLISH LANGUAGE PAPER 1 One of the most important things we can do in our classrooms is to ensure our students experience a feeling of success. However, for the English Language GCSE this, perhaps, is often trickier than it might at first seem. By Andrew Atherton

English Language can be frustratingly difficult, whether we’re tackling the notorious “structure” question on Paper 1, or on Paper 2, the question that requires “inference” (which, somewhat ironically, expects students to infer this). I’ll take you through each of the questions on Paper 1 (Fiction and Creative Writing), offering tips and strategies in the hope that our students might find the paper just that little bit easier to respond to.

Firstly, Question 2 Ignoring Question 1 (hopefully, for obvious reasons) the first question we arrive at is the 8-mark languageanalysis task. This question presents students with a short paragraph of text from the given extract and asks them to analyse how the writer shapes meaning through their use of language. For this question, I teach my students to read the passage, highlighter or pen in hand, and look for three “diveable” images. (A diveable image is the kind of image that is rich and replete with meaning, the kind we can really get to grips with, ‘diving’ into their many layers of meaning.)

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When teaching this question, I go to great lengths to stress that, as ever, what matters is quality and depth of analysis. Exploring three images in detail is always better than exploring five briefly. Less is more. Imagine, then, that students have read the passage and highlighted their three diveable images. What next? How do they take this raw material and produce a cogent and streamlined “8 mark” response? To help students to do this, I use “What, How, Why”, a strategy with which they are already familiar. In the case of question 2, it looks like this: 1. What: What is the overall idea that the writer is communicating, in relation to the question? 2. How: How does the writer achieve this, using an analysis of the three diveable images already identified. 3. Why: Why does the writer seek to convey this overall idea in this specific way? What are they hoping the reader thinks or feels?

Working their way through these prompts helps to create a really coherent and streamlined response, with your students cued to grapple with both the language and the meaning of the passage. However, I’ve found that students struggle with how to move between points, often reducing their answers to a series of bullet points. One way to help with this is by explicitly teaching sentence stems, for example: • This sense of X is further reinforced by… • The writer continues this sense of X by… • This is further explored when… • The writer’s developing motif is continued when… A final strategy to help students with this question is to embed the following routine into questioning and short bursts of analysis. If, when looking at a specific image your students are unsure what to say about it, then a really easy and effective way into thinking about it is for them to ask ‘what other

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words could have been used’ and then ‘what is the exact difference between that chosen word and its alternatives’? By offering a point of comparison, as opposed to thinking about an image in the abstract, the task of unpicking its specific effect becomes a lot easier.

Question 3 This question tends to be really tricky for students, mostly because the kind of structural analysis called for will likely be unfamiliar to them. It doesn’t tend to be the kind of analysis that we teach or students engage in. due to this, the slight difficulty it presents is not altogether surprising. However, it’s crucial to remember it is worth just 8 marks. When teaching this question, I try to keep it as simple as possible using the following prompts: 1. What is our attention directed to at the start of the passage and why? 2. How does the passage develop and then shift our perspective and why?

at the end of the passage and why? In this way, we focus on three structural moments just like, in Question 2, where we focus on three diveable images. I’ve found that this helps to focus students’ attention and makes this question a lot more manageable. When they are discussing what their attention is directed towards and the subsequent shifts, I encourage students to focus on physical objects within the world of the text, which helps to avoid them slipping into language analysis. Why not begin, for instance, by focusing on a crowd of people and then, as the passage develops, zoom into one specific individual? A further aspect of this question that can cause some difficulty is why the chosen structural moments or perspective shifts cause interest. How do we talk about the effect at the level of structure? One strategy that I’ve found really helpful is to think about this in terms of questions that the passage causes us to ask through the manner in which it structurally develops. Here are a couple of sentence stems that help to cue this kind of thinking:

“…what matters is quality and depth of analysis. Exploring three images in detail is always better than exploring five briefly. Less is more.” • This [perspective shift] causes the reader to wonder/question… • As the passage develops we begin to consider… • By shifting our attention to X, the reader perhaps begins to ask…

Question 4 The most helpful strategy I have used for question 4 is use of the table below:

3. What is our attention directed to

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At a single glance, this table helps students to transpose all they will need to answer the question. Firstly, it’s divided into two columns labelled (A) and (B) and this is to help capture the fact that the given statement will always include two aspects to it and that students need to engage with both of them.

I think it’s a lot more productive to think about it in terms of the statement. We are not evaluating the writing, but evaluating the statement and our view of it. For this reason, students want to keep the statement “alive” throughout their response by connecting their points of analysis to whatever point of view they have adopted.

Your students can express a different point of view to either statement: they need not agree to both or disagree to both. What is important though, and what this question is really all about, is expressing a clear and analytical point of view and then justifying this position through a detailed discussion of the text.

Question 5

This is where the next section of the table becomes most useful: for each aspect of the statement, students identify three diveable images, with a total of six across the whole response. This could also include a discussion of structure, too. The really great thing, here, is that this question now effectively becomes two 8-mark responses, with the table guiding what your students will discuss. But, the table also has another clever benefit. The cells in the first row in the table, where the student identifies their point of view, are taken together to produce the introduction and the columns, filled with images, become the main body of the response. As such, once students have filled this table in, everything they need in order to answer the question thoroughly is right there in front of them. This is why I encourage my students to spend five minutes of their allotted time for this question drawing and completing this table. One further aspect of this question I think it’s important to address is how to approach the evaluative element. The temptation is to think about this in terms of language, but

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It’s easy to forget that the creative writing question is worth half of this entire paper and so a quarter of the English Language GCSE! For this reason, it is crucial students don’t mismanage their time on the Reading section, ensuring that they leave enough time for this question. Yet, it’s also crucial students don’t assume the route to success is via length of response. This question all depends upon a short, wellcrafted and thoughtful response, displaying clear and consistent evidence of manipulating language and structure for effect. In order to help students to achieve this, I teach them the following overall shape: 1. Drop: begin with a sense of movement, with something happening to the point of view or with the point of view doing something 2. Zoom: zoom into and describe a specific object or detail that was mentioned in passing in the drop section 3. Flash: a flashback that includes some kind of tonal shift to the overall piece 4. End: conclude with either a cyclical structure by returning to the start (perhaps by repeating a certain image), or with a cliffhanger This overall shape allows a great deal of creative flexibility, but also

a scaffold onto which students can hook their ideas. I also suggest they include some kind of motif or recurring phrase, typically sandwiched between these four main sections. Finally (and in order to further help scaffold their response to question 5), I teach the planning structure below. It allows a certain degree of automaticity and puts more focus on crafting their use of language. Here is a useful series of prompts that your students can work through, in order to generate their initial ideas: 1. What is the point of view you will adopt? 2. Is this point of view feeling happy or sad and why? 3. What might happen in the drop? 4. What might happen in the zoom? 5. What might happen in the flash? 6. What might happen at the end? 7. What motif might you use? 8. What is the big idea you hope your writing will express? I hope the tips in this article help your students with AQA GCSE English Language Paper 1. With a little planning, the strategies I’ve outlined should enable them to experience the level of success we all work so hard for.

“By offering a point of comparison, as opposed to thinking about an image in the abstract, the task of unpicking its specific effect becomes a lot easier.”

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Religious Curriculum Education

TEACHING THE PUZZLE OF GOD I have always enjoyed teaching the puzzle of God. It’s a topic which appears briefly on the RS GCSE specification yet I dedicate more time to the topic because students love discussing the various philosophical and theological issues which arise from the traditional attributes of God. But how can we teach it effectively? By Joe Kinnaird

What do students already know? For this lesson, I will be focusing on the puzzles relating to the Judeo-Christian concept of God. When planning this lesson, I start by considering what students would already know about the topic of the nature of God. In Year 7, students would have explored the nature of God as shown through the stories in Genesis and Exodus. They would have been introduced

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to the traditional attributes of omnipotence, omnibenevolence and merciful. They will have looked at what is revealed about the nature of God and his relationship with humanity. In Year 8, their understanding of God’s nature is built upon when they look at additional qualities such as Tawhid, the 99 names and the supremacy of God’s will. The relationship between God and humanity is further explored in their study of the New Testament, Jesus as the Incarnation and the guide for

humans on what God expects. In Year 9, students begin a more philosophical enquiry about the nature of God when they study the traditional philosophical arguments for God’s existence such as the Design and Cosmological arguments. Their KS3 curriculum ends with a study of The Shoah and Jewish/ Christian responses to the Shoah. By the time students reach KS4, they have a rich understanding of the nature of God in the Abrahamic faiths, upon which we can begin a philosophical enquiry.

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Misconceptions students may make As this lesson forms an introduction to their KS4 RE, students may have some misconceptions about the nature of God or gaps in their understanding. These may include: • Not all religious believers share the idea of an omni-God • Not all religious believers believe in one God • Many religious believers will have a different interpretation of how these qualities should be understood or interpreted To deal with these misconceptions, I do the following: • make clear to students at the start of the lesson that we are focusing on the Judeo-Christian concept of God. • Introduce different interpretations of God’s nature as potential ways of solving the puzzles which they will look at in the lesson

How would I structure a lesson on the puzzle of God? I begin the lesson by getting students to recall and map out what they already know of the nature of God by asking questions such as ‘What qualities is God said to possess? and ‘What evidence do religious believers give to support their belief that God has these qualities?’. As a result of class discussions, I would hope students would be able to recall

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qualities such as: • Omnipotent • Omniscient • Omnibenevolent For these three qualities, I would introduce the meaning of the word ‘omni’ - latin for all - so that students are aware of the etymology of the words they are using. • Just • Merciful • Creator • One Then, for each of these qualities, I would ask students to provide references to religious scripture in order to evidence these qualities. I would ask specific questions such as ‘How is God shown as omnipotent in the Bible?’ or ‘Remember when you studied Islam in Year 8, why do Muslims believe that God is One?’. They can add these references to their mind map. At this point, I would say we are going to look at philosophical and theological puzzles which arise from these attributes. Usually, we start with omnibenevolence as this is often the most straightforward. I give students 30 seconds to talk to their partner about the question ‘What reasons are there to think God is not omnibenevolent?’. After paired discussion, we will share ideas as a class. Some potential problems raised by students may include the following: • Why would an all-loving God allow evil and suffering? • Why would an all-loving God send people to hell?

• Why does God appear to cause suffering? With any problem posed by a student, I’ll ask probing questions such as ‘Why is this a problem?’ or ‘What evidence can be given to highlight this problem?’, to elicit a deeper, response from students. At this point, I may introduce Plato’s Euthyphro dilemma to get students thinking about a fundamental problem with God’s omnibenevolence: (i) God loves action X because it is good Or (ii) Action is X is good because God loves it. I’ll pose this question to students and give them 30 seconds to discuss it with their partners. After discussing as a pair, I’ll take a class vote. If students have voted for option (i) then I ask them to explain the issue for God’s benevolence - which is that morality is independent of God. If students have voted for option (ii) then I ask them to explain the issue for God’s benevolence - which is that morality is purely arbitrary. With both options, problems are raised for the idea of God’s benevolence. At this point, I say to students that we are now going to consider possible responses to these problems which we have mapped out. Yet again, in pairs, they are given time to discuss the problems posed for God’s benevolence and to consider possible responses. This also provides an opportunity to recall knowledge acquired

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Religious Curriculum Education

over their RE study in KS3. I’ll ask questions to frame the discussion such as ‘How might a religious believer defend their belief in God’s benevolence?’. (I emphasise the use of the word might as I don’t want students to worry about providing definitive answers.) I see this lesson as providing the space for setting

out the puzzles and the web of theological and philosophical problems posed when thinking deeply about the nature of God’s existence. After considering some possible responses, we move forward to follow the same process with the other qualities of God:

1. What are some issues with this attribute of God? 2. What evidence is there to support these criticisms? 3. How might a believer respond to these puzzles? At the end of the lesson, a set of notes may look something like this:

It’s not everything that has been discussed in the lesson and nor does it provide any definitive answers. Rather, we are setting the scene of the puzzle of God. In future lessons throughout KS4, we will look to unpack, solve and attempt to resolve these puzzles as students continue their study of what may be like.

Resources to supplement the teaching of the puzzle of God Traditionally, when teaching this lesson, I tend to rely on just a whiteboard pen. However, there are a host of other resources which can supplement the teaching of this topic. This Crash Course Philosophy clip

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provides an excellent overview of the puzzle of God and gives some useful scenarios to get students thinking deeper about the nature of God. Similarly, I use this clip to illustrate the Paradox of the Stone which is very useful for exploring the philosophical problems with God’s omnipotence.

Finally, based on an idea shared in Kate Jones’ Retrieval Practice, I may use a “Make the Link” resource. The reasoning behind using this particular resource is to get students thinking about how concepts or keywords regarding the nature of God link. Students can make any connections they like but they need to be able to justify them with their own knowledge.

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Curriculum Literacy

LET’S TOORK ABOWT SPELLING: PEART THRY In part three of Neil Almond’s three-part series on Spelling, he outlines his strategy for maximising students’ chances of accurate spelling, by harnessing big-data and statistical probability. By Neil Almond

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One theory of how researchers believe that we become good spellers is through a process known as statistical learning. Statistical learning is a bigdata game. Like the social media and internet giants that analyse searches, likes, posts and browsing habits in the background (usually done on servers owned by the companies) to build up profiles of ourselves to serve us with highly specific targeted advertisements, our brain works in a similar fashion when it comes to reading, and therefore, by extension, when it comes to spelling. Becoming a highly skilled reader is big-data for people. The data we need to do this is not what our friends and family post and like over the internet, but rather the successful decoding of text. Every time a word is read correctly, in the background, much like the servers of tech companies, our brains are constantly and without conscious awareness scanning for statistical properties. Which statistical properties of English orthography do we subconsciously process? We learn about patterns within words, for example that <y> at the end of the word is likely to spell the /ee/ sound. Patterns that could occur e.g. ‘florp’ could be a genuine spelling of a word should the word exist. But we also, and equally important, learn which probabilities are highly unlikely or impossible to occur within English orthography. For example, a true word is unlikely to be spelt ‘xplx’. Linked to this is the idea of orthographic redundancies. Players of the internet game ‘Wordle’ will have experienced this redundancy property first-hand. Assuming you had

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correctly identified 4 of the letters ‘WORR_’ the statistical properties of what could be and what could definitely not be the final letter come to light. While there are 26 letters in the alphabet, we do not have to go through each of these letters individually to find the correct word. Instinctively, we know that ‘x’, z’ and ‘u’ are unlikely to be correct. A bit more thinking and we can ascertain that <rr> of the spelling /r/ further reduces the possibilities of what the final letter could be (y). It is important to note that none of this will have been explicitly taught. It is the big-data game of learning to spell, in action. We can use the above to our advantage in the following ways in making sure students become good spellers: 1) Feed the data machines (our brains) with plenty of text to read accurately. Reading mileage is important, but unlikely to be enough. 2) Do not provide incorrect ‘data’ to our brains. In order to learn these orthographic patterns we need a lot of correct data. Asking students to select words from a list where some have been spelt incorrectly will feed the brain bad data and could possibly interfere with the statistical learning process. 3) Jump start the statistical learning process by teaching the likelihood of a certain soundspelling correspondence being used. As mentioned previously, I see spelling lessons not as time to teach students to spell certain words, though there will be some of this, but to lift the veil of complexity of the

English language. This means teaching all the sound-spelling correspondences. These should be organised in the following way: “The first category comprises the major spelling alternatives beyond the basic-code level. Spellings that did not qualify as major were classified in one of three ways: as a special group (few words, improbable spelling, high frequency in print),…or omitted (singular spelling, low frequency in print).” (McGuinness, 2004) Categorising sound-spellings in this way is useful. It helps us to decide which word needs to be learnt, to spell like those in the category of the special group ( <ea> spelling of /ae/break, steak) and conversely which sound-spellings can be avoided ( <pph> as /f/ in sapphire) due to their frequency in print. Break and steak are likely to have high frequency in print but I can only think of a handful of examples where <ea> spells /ae/. Likewise, sapphire has a low frequency so teaching <pph> as /f/ has a high time-cost benefit. These categories also help provide a ‘ceiling’ for what to include in the major spelling alternatives. While <pph> is a spelling alternative of /f/, I would not teach it as such as it is only used in one word. The major spelling alternatives, which make the up the largest group of spellings, are what I would want to teach in terms of spelling frequencies, and not as learning to spell individual words. For example, here are all the major spellings alternatives for / ae/. ey eigh

a-e ei

a ai

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Curriculum Literacy

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Students need to know all of these so when they come to a word like ‘investigate’ they stand the chance of spelling the /ae/ sound accurately. Revisiting the end of the of the part 2 of this series, we want students to realise that while they are not sure on how to spell the word investigate, they can spell many sounds of the word. Teachers need to reinforce this idea by asking students which sound they are not sure how to spell. Assuming that the student is struggling with the /ae/ sound, the next step is to ask students which spelling is most likely. To do this, it is not enough for students to know the sound-spelling correspondences of the sound, but to know which spellings are most likely to be the case. a-e ei

ai eigh

a ey

Here is the same list but arranged in order of most likely to least

likely. This may be something that readers with a high reading milage may implicitly pick up (though in my experience, something they find difficult to convey) but what I believe need to be taught explicitly. Students who know all the sound-spelling correspondences for a sound and know the order from most likely to least likely can then make educated ‘guesses’ as to how to spell the sound they are unsure of in the word they are struggling with. Armed with this understanding, they could write down the four most probable spellings. Investigate Investigaite Investigat Investigayt Statistical learning tells us that the third spelling, given the position of the /ae/ sound, is unlikely to be correct.

Investigate Investigaite Investigat Investigayt From here, students could use their visual memory to see which spelling ‘looks’ correct – another reason why exposing students to plenty of print, and reading being part of spelling instruction, is crucial for teaching students to spell. This means that the vast majority of spelling instruction needs to move away from the spelling of individual words and instead move to teaching students the sound-spelling alternatives in order for most likely to least likely and ensuring that students know these. N.B. A possible arrangement of these spelling alternatives by most to least likely can be found in Diane McGuinness’ Why Our Children Can’t Read, And What We Can Do About It: A Scientific Revolution In Reading.

References: McGuinness, D., 1997. Why Our Children Can’t Read, and what We Can Do about it: A Scientific Revolution in Reading. Simon and Schuster.McGuinness, D., 2006. Early reading instruction: What science really tells us about how to teach reading. MIT Press.

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LEADERSHIP 50. Implementing Change Management In Schools

What do we need to do to ensure change-management in schools goes smoothly?

52. Getting Teacher Development Right

What does effective teacher development look and feel like?

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IMPLEMENTING CHANGE MANAGEMENT IN SCHOOLS While we can increase our chances of success in terms of WHAT we do, there’s still the tricky business of HOW we do it. In this article, Lekha Sharma explores three key concepts that could act as powerful catalysts to the successful and impactful implementation of change in schools. By Lekha Sharma

Navigating the Complexities of Implementation The educational landscape at present is exciting, characterised by a constantly evolving understanding of how we, as educators, can maximise the effectiveness of our practice. ‘Best bets’ derived from educational research provide a useful, guiding force to support schools in adopting evidence-informed approaches. They are most likely to make a difference to pupil outcomes, but the implementation of these approaches and the process of managing the change that often comes with delivering new approaches is an entirely different ball game, fraught with complexity and rooted in individual, unique contexts.

Rethinking it ‘The purpose of learning is not to affirm our beliefs it is to evolve our beliefs…’ Adam Grant, Think Again Before any new approach, initiative or directive is implemented, there needs to be a common and shared understanding of WHY the current practice requires rethinking in the first place. Often, we become overly attached to the way we do things. After all, we are all creatures of habit. If we invest time and energy into doing something a certain way for months or even years, it can be difficult to come up

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against opposing ideas that tell us ‘there may be a better way.’ To support the delivery of a new approach, we should, perhaps, rethink it. Organisational psychologist, Adam Grant, explores this extensively about this in his book Think Again which explores the power of rethinking and questioning our opinions and beliefs, with the goal of evolving in understanding. If this concept of rethinking can be modelled and woven into our school cultures and practices regularly, we can normalise the process and encourage risktaking and a culture of error. Collective rethinking could be a potentially powerful way to gain buy-in, enabling all members of staff to engage in the process of evaluating the effectiveness of an existing approach before rethinking. What might this look like in practice? This may involve a leader sharing candidly ‘I’ve been rethinking our approach to reading for pleasure and perhaps we need to go back to the drawing board on this one. What do we think? Let’s explore this together’. Or it could be a teacher feeling empowered enough to say, ‘I need to rethink my approach to delivering this unit, it just didn’t quite work, and I need to address some gaps in understanding.’ If this language and the underpinning attitude becomes habitual, then fear and anxieties towards change reduces and teachers can invest their cognitive

energy into trialing new initiatives wholeheartedly, in turn reducing resistance, partial implementation and resignation to new approaches not working for them.

‘Tight but Loose’ In his paper ‘Tight but Loose: A Conceptual Framework for Scaling up School Reforms” Dylan Wiliam and Marnie Thompson share a tool that can support implementation, entitled ‘Tight but Loose’. ‘The Tight but Loose framework focuses on the tension between two opposing factors inherent in any scalable school reform. On the one hand, a reform will have limited effectiveness and no sustainability if it is not flexible enough to take advantage of local opportunities, while accommodating certain unmovable local constraints. On the other hand, a reform needs to maintain fidelity to its core principles, or theory of action, if there is to be any hope of achieving its desired outcomes.’ This tool highlights a very real tension in the implementation process that can have a significant impact on the utility of a given reform in schools. If evidenceinformed approaches are drastically changed to fit the context of individual schools or classes, then the very substance of the approach that led to its efficacy can be lost, reducing its impact on pupils. The ‘tight but loose’ concept defines a ‘sweet spot’ where approaches can be tweaked to address the individual needs of schools @hwrk_magazine

LEADERSHIP and classes, but the integrity of the active ingredients are maintained, therefore maximising the chances of success in terms of outcomes. But what might this look like in practice? I would argue this tool can be used actively for leaders and teachers to collectively define what ‘tight but loose’ means for them and to exemplify what this looks like so the perfect balance between fidelity and responsive teaching can be achieved. If this concept is explored explicitly and there is a shared understanding of ‘what good implementation looks like’, this could potentially reduce the margin of error in terms of a delivery which is inclusive of the key active ingredients. Once the approach is being delivered, this can be built upon by curating ‘benchmarks of excellence’ that showcase the optimal balance, which can then go on to reduce the variation in provision and impact.

Multi-Disciplinary Evaluation It can sometimes be the case in schools that evaluation is confined to senior and middle leaders. Leaders will explore data, explore outcomes, and perhaps chat with pupils to decide if the approach works or not. The concept of multi-disciplinary teams has been utilised in multiple fields including Medicine. In Medicine, a multi-disciplinary team, made up of individuals with diverse expertise, comes together to decide on the care of an individual with complex care needs (NHS 2018). I’ve always been fascinated by the application of this approach for pupil progress meetings and for evaluating the impact that certain practices have, once implemented. Leaders may be experts in strategy or

in their subject, but this alone paints an incomplete picture of what is working with regard to the successful implementation of a new policy. Anyone engaged in a Mathematics intervention, for example, will have valuable qualitative data to contribute when deciding whether it is working, which can supplement and strengthen the quantitative data that may be acquired from assessment. For example, speaking directly with pupils, teachers and support staff can unpack the common challenges of implementing a certain practice and the opportunity-cost this presents in the reality of day-to-day teaching. This information cannot be gained from test results alone. But by building a more holistic picture, leaders can make more informed decisions about whether to commit to a course of action, or whether to rethink or readjust the course entirely. This article, of course, has not explored the full range of factors that influence implementation. Plus, the concepts discussed overlap significantly with issues surrounding school culture, relational trust and psychological safety. But by considering these ideas, perhaps we can develop our understanding of implementation as an ongoing process, vulnerable to many moving parts and complex factors that need to be considered, in order to maximise their effectiveness. This is certainly far from simple but the long-term pay-off in terms of impact on pupil progress and outcomes is undoubtedly worth it.

“If evidence-informed approaches are drastically changed to fit the context of individual schools or classes, then the very substance of the approach that led to its efficacy can be lost.” HWRKMAGAZINE.CO.UK

References A. Grant (2021) Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know, Penguin Publishing Group, 2021 D. Wiliam, M Thompson (2017) Tight but Loose: A Conceptual Framework for Scaling Up School Reforms, Institute for Education London Sharples, Alber and Fraser (2018) Putting Evidence to Work: A School’s Guide to Implementation, EEF

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GettinG teacher Development riGht Getting teacher development right is a careful balancing act between giving teachers enough autonomy, while getting them to work with a level of consistency between them, in the best interests of the students. Here, Shannen Doherty describes the beginning of her own journey as a trust-wide teacher development lead. By Shannen Doherty

“Our pupils deserve the best teachers, so our teachers deserve the best development.”

“teachers in our schools have a shared set of principles and a common language, so we are all on the same page”

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LEADERSHIP At the start of my career, teacher development wasn’t something that people in schools really talked about, and it certainly wasn’t something I felt I was getting. I knew that CPD existed, but I probably didn’t know what it stood for. I’m not embarrassed about it. You don’t know what you don’t know. This isn’t a criticism of the school or the leaders I worked with. It’s merely a reflection of the system I ‘grew up’ in as a new teacher. But this wasn’t just the situation for new teachers. Experienced teachers and leaders were working in this environment, too. Looking back, professional development didn’t feel joined up or cohesive for any of us. We didn’t have a shared idea of what good teaching looked like so how could we develop teaching effectively? So, in September I started a new role (alongside teaching) leading on teacher development across schools in the Aquinas Church of England Education Trust. We have 11 schools: two secondaries and nine primaries. Conversations about subscribing to Tom Sherrington and Oliver Caviglioli’s WalkThrus as a trust were happening last academic year and naturally, I showed my excitement and enthusiasm for what I think is a fantastic set of books. For anyone who doesn’t know (where have you been?!), WalkThrus are fivestep checklists designed for instructional coaching in schools. There are currently two WalkThrus books available to purchase, but number three is on the way! These checklists are breakdowns of good, solid teaching and learning techniques and strategies. They cover a range of areas that span age ranges and curriculum areas. This is our toolkit for teacher development, which means teachers in our schools have a shared set of principles and a common language, so we are all on the same page. While WalkThrus has been designed for instructional coaching, there’s no way that we can start on that journey until there’s a solid understanding of what makes good teaching. So, we’re holding off while we lay the groundwork! When I started this work, I knew I had to be clear about the vision I had for teacher development in our trust. Through discussions and lots of thinking and rethinking, it boiled down to these principles: HWRKMAGAZINE.CO.UK

rush the implementation of anything. If it’s worth doing, then it’s worth doing well. Our primary schools identified three WalkThrus that they wanted to focus on to begin with. We found that most schools worked on Deliberate Vocabulary Development and quite a few chose Live Modelling. Other chosen WalkThrus included Open Response Tasks, Positive Framing and Weekly & Monthly Review. As a Trust, we didn’t want to dictate how schools rolled this out, so part of my role has been consulting and supporting the different schools on what would work for their school. What works in a three-form entry school might not work in a halfform entry, so we wanted flexibility. Some schools introduced all three WalkThrus at the start, while others are phasing the rollout. As I said, schools are keeping their autonomy by choosing how WalkThrus works in their school this year. They’re exploring how it works and trying out different things. For some schools, this meant moving away from the old-style termly formal observations and moving to a collaborative and continuous development model of weekly learning walks where every member of staff gets to be involved and everyone reflects and works together. This has been particularly exciting for me to see because I have always disliked the three observations a year model. The impact of weekly drop-ins or learning walks that enable teachers to continuously develop is far greater than waiting a whole term between observations to see if the areas of development have been worked on. This way, teachers are focusing on one thing at a time and can get incrementally better rather than feeling overwhelmed with three ‘even better ifs’ to work on at once! While I know this is just the start of the journey, I feel incredibly proud and excited about what we’re doing. I hope that teachers feel the shift in culture, too. We are changing the face of teacher development in our Trust. It’s so important that we get this right for our teachers and our pupils. As I said earlier, our pupils deserve the best teachers, so our teachers deserve the best development.

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56. Teaching in UK and US

A personal perspective: Teaching in the US vs teaching in the UK - what’s the difference?

58. A Year Away From the Chalkface: What’s Changed?

Has teaching changed in the past year? What have we learnt?

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EXPERIENCE

On LOsing AmericA And Finding myseLF Being a teacher isn’t just something we do. It is also who we are. Jasmine Lane explains her move from the US to England and the impact it has had on her, both professionally and personally. By Jasmine Lane

The byline of my blog reads ‘an American teacher teaching and living in East London’. That’s the gist of what I thought I would be when I moved, keeping my blog up to date with implementing all the new evidence, assessment chat & keeping myself in-the-know about all things education. I now realise that the

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reason I put so much effort into that part of my teaching career in America is because my actual teaching life was so unfulfilling. The majority of my former school experiences were not places of joy. They were places to be suffered until I could

be rid of the memories: Abuse from students, families, and a toxic culture from leadership led me to question whether teaching was even for me. How many times did I ask ‘is this really all teaching is?’ only to be met by the resounding “yes” of cynical, veteran teachers.

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What I really wanted was to teach and to teach well, but the most I could do was blog about why we needed to take the illiteracy rates in America seriously. Now that children being able to read is the baseline, my former drive to be engaged in education discourse is mostly gone, or is at least shifting. My current school is not perfect. There are bad days, there are good days, but I can always tell a story about something silly that one of my Year 9s did and it will make me smile and laugh. I can point to their progress across the curriculum I’ve planned and say ‘this is working’. I sit with my colleagues after a long day in the English office and look to my Head of Department for her kindness, courage, and strength. I’m able to think about the nuances of classroom management, whether there is a hint of truth behind ‘they’re fine for me’, and what building a positive school culture looks like. In short, even though who I was in America is changing, I am happy with who I am becoming. Despite this, I can’t help but feel something is amiss. Every time I see my students succeed, every time they laugh with their friends, every ‘thank you Miss’- I can’t help feeling a twinge of guilt for what and who I left behind.

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I am a good teacher and a great one. I know I have a bright future here even though I don’t know what it will look like. Yet, I couldn’t find a tenable situation in an American school that allowed me to thrive or invest in my development beyond the diversity tick box of empty words; The system that helped make me into the person I am spat me back out. I see myself now succeeding and realise I am succeeding because I left. I am succeeding because I gave it up. But reader, as I reflect on my situation now, I am reminded that just under six months ago, as I was preparing to leave America, I went through my special box of stuff that I’ve kept since 2004. It contained old poems, a short story I wrote in 2009, and journal entries stamped with dates and times among anything else I deemed as special over

the years. Every painful moment, every teenage thought, every time I was hurt, every time someone called me a friend or told me they loved me, it was all in that box, in those 600 pages, in the 100 birthday cards. In short, it contained me. Back then, as I sorted through the cards and read the messages: ‘reach for the stars’, ‘I love you’- I realised that I really was leaving, and that I wouldn’t be coming back. The shadow of 27 years, 29 home moves (and now one across the ocean), the people I was attached to, the places I’ve been, the seasons I’ve lived and connections I made: I left it all. I left behind that season of life in search of myself so I could be something different from who I was. And London is helping me find her.

“I know I have a bright future here even though I don’t know what it will look like. Yet, I couldn’t find a tenable situation in an American school that allowed me to thrive”

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EXPERIENCE

A YEAR AWAY FROM THE CHALKFACE: WHAT’S CHANGED? Ben King recently left the classroom to pursue a new career beyond teaching, but he returned, with a new perspective, both about the job of teaching, but also about the education sector and whether it is now fit for purpose. By Ben King

Is teaching a calling? A vocation? Just a job? I don’t know. To be honest, it is probably all of those things and none of them all at once. For many it is something their parents did, they have dreamt about and that they are genuinely tearful for achieving. And that is spectacular. But does the idea of the job match up to reality? It certainly isn’t the cliche of ‘colouring in’ or ‘just playing’ (and yes I have said that to EYFS colleagues in jest). So what happens when the shine or vanish wears off ? Is the alternative, the non-teaching world, what people imagine? Having done ten years in a classroom I took a step away. I gave up a good job as a KS2 teacher and Reading Lead in a genuinely brilliant school with forwardthinking leadership that trusted and supported me. I gave up a good salary - not as good as many of my university friends but good nonetheless. Why? The year before, I had welcomed the nationally renowned Reading Rocks to my school and hosted workshops alongside many well-known teaching experts. I’d not long achieved a Masters in Educational Leadership. I just felt a little jaded. And that’s OK. If you feel the same, you are forgiven. Doing essentially the same job every

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single day, year after year is tough. In the private sector, you may work similar contracts but you don’t literally teach why it was that Sparta takes boys away before puberty to train them for military conduct every week. The horror for me was opening ActivPrimary and realising I had taught identical lessons literally the day before 365 days ago. Obviously I adapted lessons for the correct pitch, etc, but this is a genuine threat for teacher retention and needs to be taken seriously. Yet I returned. Why? Now that is a question. Mainly because I missed the process of teaching. I missed the feel of being in school and I missed being able to watch progress and development. Did I miss endless meetings? No. Did I miss doing things for Ofsted or even leadership? No. Did I relish the thought of it being frowned upon to nip for a pee midlesson in some schools? No. So what has changed? What is the same? What have I noticed, having taken a year away? Well, that largely very little has changed. I have kept a presence on EduTwitter and I have seen it transform slightly from a place

of exchanging resources to one of exchanging emotional support and that is truly invaluable especially for those that perhaps don’t have friendship groups, or partners that are also in teaching, or who are familiar with it. Our sector has taken a battering. Of that there is no doubt. Those outside of it can not grasp that while the people of this country were straining under the burden of covid, we were attempting to stop children from imploding because of it. We were attempting to “catch-up” children who suddenly missed two weeks (imagine that pre-covid), while also trying to hold our own health and emotional stability together. The first few weeks of school closures is a time I hope to never see again. However, it is worth acknowledging that teachers aren’t the only ones that have been put under pressure, nor are they the only ones working hard. My time away from education did shine a little light on that. Outside of teaching there is a degree of ‘us’ and ‘them’, the new non-teaching colleagues that I had didn’t really understand the challenges that teachers faced either before or during the pandemic and to be honest I saw little to no explanation of it either.

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“The sheer disparity between differing opportunities for home learning that children from different backgrounds have experienced has never been so obvious and it must be challenged.”

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EXPERIENCE In the year I was outside of the classroom, the only mention of unions I heard was a brief soundbite on the news occasionally and literally zero from the Chartered College of Teaching. This, I think, is where a level of distrust from those who don’t have children comes from.

Now, that is not to say that no child can succeed without piles of books and supportive parents at home, but teachers have been saying for years that more support needs to be directed at not just extra funding for certain children while in school but some sort of support system for families out of it.

In terms of the job, I genuinely believe that very little has changed. I taught before, during and now “after” (I am well aware Covid isn’t over but you know what I mean). The day-to-day teaching, the building blocks, are the same. What is not the same and what should be a primary concern for all educators is that the total inequity that has been brought to the front of our thinking. The sheer disparity between differing opportunities for home learning that children from different backgrounds have experienced has never been so obvious and it must be challenged.

A new branch of Children’s Services perhaps, one that is focused on supporting not just health and wellbeing but also learning in the home. I had some children completing every single piece of work I set for home learning and screaming for more, sitting comfortably in their own study on a personal laptop and some children who didn’t even own a pen fighting over the one pencil in the house then not doing their work as they couldn’t access it online regardless.

We talk of schools being engines of social change and of course they are, however if once a child returns home there is little to no support, or little to no access to the required learning materials, then we are pushing against a locked door to a degree.

These problems did not just spring up out of the ground. They were put in stark clarity due to new circumstances and should be acted upon. Follow that trail and this in my opinion has had the single biggest impact on teaching and learning that I have seen in my ten years of teaching. Children have missed months of learning in

the desired way and many haven’t been able to engage in their education in any meaningful manner at all. When schools returned, those gaps of knowledge have, in some cases, been huge. No teacher has been trained in how to “catch up” children who all completed such differing amounts of work during a lockdown, let alone how to catch them up when different children have then also had to isolate themselves. This poses a genuine risk to our teachers and to our children and a new plan is needed. The gap between our highest achievers and those that find learning a challenge also puts untold pressure on children, teachers and schools and the proposed solution, the National Tutoring Programme, is not fit for purpose. Give the money to schools, trust the heads of these schools to know what their children need and how best to achieve it and let’s take a long hard look at whether we are actually serious about supporting our most vulnerable and to create social change. If we don’t, I fear retention and recruitment will continue to struggle, as more and more teachers buckle under a burgeoning crisis of learning.

“No teacher has been trained in how to “catch up” children who all completed such differing amounts of work during a lockdown”

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