Teaching and learning magazine may 2015 1 by Emma Platt

Welcome to Philips High Schoolâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S Teaching and Learning Magazine â&#x20AC;&#x201C; May 2015 - Sharing ideas with teachers! 1

Contents 1) 10 Great Form Tutor Tips

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2) 90 Lessons – What we do well at HGS

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3) Can I be that little bit better at understanding that how they say it, is as important as what they say Page 10

4) I wish my teacher knew…

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5) Processes, Outcomes and Measuring What We Value Page 16

6) This Much I Know About…What Really Works When Preparing Students For Exams Page 18

10 Great Form Tutor Tips by @TeacherToolkit Posted by @TeacherToolkit ⋅ May 3, 2015 This is a blog about what makes a great form tutor! As the end of the academic year approaches, here are some reminders, 10 great form tutor tips to help teachers maintain high standards until the end of term. 10 Great Form Tutor Tips: 1. Great form tutors spend time observing and listening. Any experienced form tutor, head of year or senior teacher will tell you that the greatest significance, or influence a form tutor could have, is to invest a great deal of time and energy on building relationships. Over a significant period of time, you will not be able to rely solely on your own discipline skills as a classroom teacher. For example, you are a secondary school teacher and you have a form class over the course of a child’s time at school. That’s a full 5 years! You will have many ups and downs together. At times, you will see them more often than your own family members(!) so it is vital to invest in building relationships so that you can pull out the ‘joker card’ when you need. This may be to save them from exclusion; a last minute reference request, or going off track when the exam season reaches fever pitch! Having some kind of banter or interaction with your students, you will probably pick up on any current issues. 2. Great form tutors are regimented. Any tutor new or old, experienced or not, will soon realise that routines are key to maintain discipline, relationships and sustain high standards. A sure-sign to see what a tutor class is typically like, is to observe how they behave when the form tutor steps out of the room, or on days when the tutor is absent from school. If tutees within the group respond to your instructions first time (as a cover teacher), or remind you that on Tuesdays that they always complete silent reading instead of what you’ve asked them to do, then you know that you’re working with a great form tutor. It’s clear that the hard work has been invested by the tutor, and over a longer period of time, today or any other day you can reap the rewards of your labour. 3. Great form tutors are the link between home and school. They will help them deal with various problems, including missing PE kits, late homework, detention disputes, lost locker keys, mobiles phones or letters from parents. More importantly, they may often be the first port of call for any Child Protection issues. Sometimes, needing to lend out equipment such as pens and pencils (and maybe even money).

4. Great form tutors connect the student with school staff and with other students. This is often under-estimate in day-to-day registration. I’ve seen countless tutor groups wallowing for 20-30 minutes everyday because tutor time has been left to rot, with no concrete activity or planning involved on the part of the year group or the tutor. Great tutors are checking that planners are completed and signed. They are often holding a tutor group 3

discussion of some kind or processing and recording your students’ awards, detentions, homework and general problems. The energetic tutor will be often seen meeting to mentor or coach one or several tutees’ about their school work and progress throughout the school, dealing with a student’s academic life in some way via a letter or a phone-call home, a simple email, text or note in the planner. Whatever the case, the small detail makes all the difference. 5. Great form tutors monitor academic and personal progress of the students in their tutor group or form. Great tutors will help students organise themselves for whole-school events. Running, or being involved in, some kind of activity, assembly, tutor programme, or whatever is on that day! They may even help their tutees take part in a chosen charity event, often sacrificing themselves to do something embarrassing for Children in Need, or Red Nose Day! 6. Great form tutors provide relevant information to other staff about their tutees. They provide important announcements in staff briefing, place a piece of work up on the staff room wall, or share a piece of information about the child, whether a bereavement or an academic celebration. Great tutors make all staff aware. 7. Great form tutors co-ordinate the way the school can meet their students’ needs. They are active in their year teams and contribute to whole-school pastoral planning. They are involved in the small detail, feeding back on school planner updates, annual activities and resources that can have an impact on other tutors in all year groups. 8. Great form tutors are human. They share the occasional story with their tutees to allow children to gain an insight into their own life. Tutors use real stories to motivate, to sadden and to raise awareness when each child encounters a particular milestone or conversation throughout school. 9. Great form tutors have great relationships with every member of the family. They go the extra mile in supporting families and their children throughout school, so much so, that in a difficult situation, the most irate parents are putty in their hands. They break down barriers and follow up, every single action. 10. Great form tutors have their safeguarding radar on everyday. They notice any change on appearance, behaviour or attitude. They keep an eye out for anyone who seems upset, especially quiet – or indeed noisy – and notify the right people at the right time.

90 Lessons: What we do well at HGS. Posted by Tom Sherrington ⋅ April 25, 2015

Staff presentation on the 90 lessons review This post is based on a document I produced and circulated to the staff at Highbury Grove called 90 Lessons: A review of teaching and learning. It is an account of my observations of 90 teachers at my school between October 2014 and March 2015. Each observation was one full 50-minute lesson, followed soon after by an informal feedback discussion, working through the staff department by department. At our best, these are the features of excellent lessons at Highbury Grove. (Comments on areas for improvement are in italics) Behaviour and Relationships. Over and above the BfL system, there is a strongly positive rapport between teacher and students; teachers model kindness, conspicuous warmth and promote a sense of being ‘in it together’. Teachers give lots of encouragement alongside the discipline and justice is seen to be done. Within a culture of positive regard for students, teachers use the Behaviour for Learning system effectively to secure excellent behaviour, often pre-empting issues and preventing escalation to higher level sanctions by assertive, firm early intervention; C1s are given for low level issues; the signal for attention is used decisively with impact. Crucially, in the best lessons, standards are very high: off-task talk is always challenged in any listening phase and work phase; silence means silence; automatic C3s (eg for being late) are given without fuss. Teachers model a mature response to secondary behaviours and focus on the learning or the required behaviours. Where behaviour is problematic, often it’s because too many low level issues are tolerated before the system kicks in: tolerance of being late, missing equipment, calling out, undercurrent of chat etc Teachers teaching In the best lessons, teachers’ expert subject knowledge is used as a key resource. Students’ confidence in their teacher is evident. Effective teachers give clear explanations, going beyond the basics as needed, re-explaining in different ways to secure better understanding, adjusting the questions in response to students’ level of accuracy and confidence. Teachers engage in effective modelling: of writing, problem solving and practical tasks, showing how it is done for students to emulate and practise. I saw good examples of whole-class writing with teachers walking through the process, using writing frames to enable students to get over the initial hurdles before letting them go on their own. In the best lessons, the supported practice stage moves into a phase where scaffolding and crib sheets have been removed, making the degree of actual learning more evident.

In a few lessons, insecure subject knowledge led to unchallenged misconceptions or difficulty answering students’ questions. Secure subject knowledge needs to be a dominant priority for CPD and discussion within departments. Let’s keep studying and talk about the content of our subjects more and not assume everyone already knows everything! In general, I think too much work is orientated to performance in an assessment process. Whilst ostensibly a sensible strategy (they are often really good questions and there are mark schemes available), exam-question orientation can stifle the ‘love of learning’ element that is so important. More pragmatically, a focus on, say, the structure of writing can over-shadow the underlying understanding of the material or the inherent value of studying and appreciating the subject. PEE/PEAK/PEEL writing strategies are a means to an end, not an end in themselves; shouldn’t we allow time and space for more organic responses to questions which can be shaped into effective structures subsequently. Top End Challenge. In the best lessons, high level challenge is beyond doubt: teachers use probing questioning techniques, base lessons on rigorous material and maintain high expectations of extended verbal answers exploring the depth of understanding or process questions – eg ‘How did you work it out?’ Students are given opportunities to organise information in original ways – not always following prescribed structures; they have opportunities to design experiments or to explain concepts in creative ways. There are high expectations of outcomes eg an emphasis on ‘going for A*s’ or using GCSE questions at KS3. There is a sense that, for even the highest attainers, the work is challenging, sophisticated, not dumbed down or patronising. Top end challenge means students are never left waiting, killing time or forced to grind through questions they can do easily; they have options. Set-piece opportunities for student input/ co-teaching/ coaching/ peer support are part of the mix of a lesson sequence – students are trusted to deliver inputs with expectations set high and planning time given. I saw some very high level student-led expositions of key concepts and excellent examples of students given coaching roles based on activities they had co-constructed with the teacher. Creating an environment where hard work is normal. This is done effectively in many areas with teachers using time cues for tasks – (count-down clocks on the IWB are commonly used) and the expectations for the work completion rate are made clear. The selective use of silence (real silence) and individual working are part of the mix. Very selective use of group work. Effective group activity is structured so that there are group goals and individual responsibilities within the groups. There is a reason for students to be working together – sharing ideas, creating products or presentations, sharing equipment. Presentations are structured so that the audience has a role – eg the need to generate questions, give structured feedback or check for errors. Where group work is ineffective, often the task could be completed equally well by one person within a group or could be done better by each person individually. (ie the group itself adds nothing to the learning.) Invariably, in weak group work, one person does most of the thinking; the others do little – eg colour in the heading, copy data into a table or simply 6

watch. Group work isn’t inherently ‘a good thing’ unless it takes learning further than other strategies would. Clear Learning Objectives: The most effective lessons have a clear learning purpose; ie they are not merely a series of tasks – it is clear what concepts and ideas the tasks are designed to explore. Importantly, Learning Objectives are articulated and explored not merely presented via PowerPoint or copied down. Beyond the immediate lesson in hand, the overall long-term plan is clear and regularly referred to. Students know where the lesson sits in a larger scheme of learning. Some residual Must- Could-Should learning objectives are used, locked into old PowerPoint presentations. I see these as self-limiting and I’d suggest we shouldn’t ever use this structure. All students should be aiming for the top even if the steps are set out clearly. Copying down LOs is a bit of an unnecessary security blanket; a process that is unlikely to contribute to learning in itself. ‘Settler’ tasks could be more challenging – asking questions and so on, from with the LOs arise in discussion. LOs need to be understood and writing them down doesn’t equate to students actually understanding them. Learning for memory as well as for understanding The process of learning for long-term memory is explored explicitly; it matters that students will know things tomorrow and next week, not just today. Very simply, this is made explicit; simple techniques requiring students to recall facts and explanations from memory are routine. Synoptic and interleaved elements are woven into lessons eg as starters or in tests. Presentations are given from memory using only images or simple cue cards as prompts. Where activities do not support memory and recall, often these tasks are based around information processing with no element of unsupported recall. For example, students select key bits of information from various sources to re-assemble it in a grid – but can’t remember what they’ve done or why afterwards. The processing isn’t enough to secure learning. Similarly, the illusion of learning can be created where students reproduce content, bits of knowledge or sentence structures in the moment, using scaffolded prompts. However, without sufficient unsupported practice, real learning doesn’t happen. This needs to be considered very seriously – giving students ample opportunity to struggle, to fail, to try again – unsupported. This is where the learning happens. Testing appears to me to be rather too linear and too summative; too orientated towards data collection rather than learning. We need to use tests more formatively, informing students and ourselves of where we can improve. We also need to consider deliberate planning for interleaving to secure higher levels of recall over time. This will require an overhaul of our testing regimes in some areas – the age-old ‘end of topic test’ isn’t sufficient to build up learning and recall of a whole curriculum over time. Homework. It is clear from discourse in the lesson that the teacher is routinely setting homework; homework is a planned part of the flow of lessons, not tacked on and the arrangements and expectations for homework are given due weight and time. Students have the resources for independent study; they could go home and continue their learning. 7

Marking and feedback The best practice includes sensible sustainable routines with a clear focus on actionable improvements. The Red Pen strategy is widely used to good effect. ‘Red Pen’ equates to ‘acting on feedback’ in several areas which reinforces students’ understanding of the process. Marking frequency is not the key factor; it is selective marking that generates a response that has the greatest impact. Peer and self-assessment opportunities are part of the routine – eg with marking in class, use of video in PE or group critique sessions in Art; application of mark schemes to essays or samples of writing. In all of these cases – a focus on wrong answers and improvements generates effective learning and progress. In general there is too much marking that students don’t respond to – lots of questions, instructions and corrections that appear to be ignored. Directed Improvement and Reflection Time (DIRT) is not a luxury; without it some students will never ever respond to marking – and therefore it is pointless unless time is given in class or explicitly for homework. Given the workload issues at play here, let’s make sure we make it count when we take the books in. Well-presented books and efficient workflow. There is a range of practice between and within departments but where the practice appears most effective, books indicate clear systems that teachers enforce: presentation is excellent, corrections are made, worksheets are stuck in, redrafting is evident and teachers use the assessment records to follow up on missed or sub-standard work. Some students’ learning is hampered by excessive use of worksheets and/or poor workflow routines. Often books are impossible to use as a record of learning – there’s too much unfolding or too many scattered sheets. Similarly, standards of presentation are highly variable. Middle-set Y10s might have far worse presentation than Y7 Nurture students – simply because the expectations of them are lower. Literacy Reading is given high status. Material presented in the lesson is read aloud and explored for meaning as part of the learning of the subject content. Talk at whole class level or in pairs is used as a precursor for writing with answers rehearsed and extended verbally. Expectations of the quality of verbal responses are high; low level answers are challenged, speech errors are corrected and mediocrity is not accepted. Various structures to ensure full participation are deployed including the use of randomisation methods so that all students prepare to share contributions – even if not everyone can answer each question. There is still a lot more we could do. Simple routines such as “Say it again but say it better” could be far more deeply embedded, correcting errors in language, asking for more sophistication. Giving weaker students more structure with options (eg alternative connotations in English) rather than open-ended questions (‘what does X connote?’) might help students to develop the vocabulary they actually use. Giving words and phrases to use as options – eg options for openers and linking phrases – need to be consolidated to the point that students are comfortable to use them – not merely to understand them when they arise in a text.

At a basic level, we don’t use enough simple ‘think-pair-share.’ Students can be mute for successive lessons. ‘In your pairs discuss’ – it solves lots of issues and gives every student an opportunity to engage. SEN Teaching small groups can be flat and rather awkward. However, effective tutorial style methods seem to work really well with students gathered around a central table with the teacher. LSAs with clear roles and briefs to support individuals support learning effectively – rather than simply being present, scanning and supporting in an ad hoc manner. It is good to see some LSAs given opportunities to teach small groups or the whole class at certain points. Expectations of SEN/Nurture students can be higher in their specialised environment than can be the case in mainstream. Eg – the amount of writing, the opportunity to give extended presentations, to take responsibility, to present work at a high level in books. Contenders for Whole-School approaches: A lot of these ideas relate to some subjects more than others. However, it might be powerful for us to agree some whole-school approaches so that we have a common language and students experience improvements in specific areas across the school. Here are some suggestions, structured using the Three Arts of the Trivium: Grammar (Knowledge)   

‘Close the gap’ marking: systematic student responses to all marking and feedback with DIRT and redrafting. A feedback and marking policy based on quality, not quantity. Learning by heart; learning for recall – a school-wide focus with micro-tests and the expectation that material that is ‘covered’ is learned and memorised. Subject Knowledge: mapping the knowledge required for both students and teachers at KS3, KS4 and KS5, using CPD time to deepen, extend and build confidence.

Dialectic (Exploration)  

Talk for writing – the practice of rehearsing writing through dialogue. Celebrating authentic learning within disciplines –beyond the confines of our assessment regime. the emotions evoked by a poem, painting or play; the awe and wonder of the thermit reaction or the simplicity of some code; the inherent reward of exploring history or of ‘thinking like a sociologist’.

Rhetoric (Communication)  

The art of rhetoric: every student expected to give extended verbal expositions of ideas to demonstrate their learning, without notes; a protocol for giving presentations. Reading aloud: Every text is read aloud; student work is read aloud. Reading is a shared experience.

Every department should also have an agreed set of routines for workflow and the presentation of work. http://headguruteacher.com/2015/04/25/90-lessons-what-we-do-well-at-hgs/ 9

My Learning Journey Thinking out aloud, reflecting and sharing thoughts about my teaching. @davidfawcett27 April 22nd 2015 http://reflectionsofmyteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/can-i-be-that-little-bitbetter.html?spref=tw

Can I be that little bit better at.....understanding that how they say it, is as important as what they say? Over the years I have been in many colleagues classrooms. As is part of the observation process, you focus on a number of things, ponder on what you see and generate discussion afterwards. Everything you do is focused on moving the teacher forward in order to have better outcomes for the students they teach. Most of the time I am asked in to focus on specific elements of teaching which colleagues wish to improve. Feedback, planning, ways to differentiate and developing student writing are just a few. One area in particular, questioning, has made me rethink what I thought I knew. I wrote a couple of posts last year about the complexities of good questioning and what might actually make this fundamental component of a teachers repertoire effective. Although I'd never say I am anywhere near an expert of good questioning, I would say I have a pretty good grasp of it in my lessons. However, a curious thought popped into my head whilst chatting to a member of our focus group a few terms back about what we observe when watching teachers pose questions. I had been wooed under the illusion that a teacher who can skillfully pose questions that unpick, dissect, delve or expand on an element of knowledge must be a master craftsman. The well worded question that simultaneously causes a student's head to hurt whilst still providing scope for an answer to be found is a thing to behold. All hail thee, who when being observed, both stretch and challenge students through well designed questions. And that there maybe the problem. A lot of the time, the skill of questioning focuses on developing what or how the teacher poses the question. We work with teachers to craft better questions. We look at how we word a well designed question. We use a variety of techniques to increase student response or even deploy techniques like 'wait time' to ensure an answer can be provided. But what about the quality of the answer? Having done a lot of work on our school's feedback policy, we focus a lot on the quality of written work that students produced. And why wouldn't we? It's easy to look through a book, read an answer and be able to analyse the quality of it and even suggest improvements. Here's a question though. When looking through an exercise book, what would you think if a student provided this written answer to the following question?: 10

Instantly many of you might be focusing on the overuse of the word 'like', the vagueness of the content, or even the weak example. When written down it is easy to analyse, correct or challenge. As a teacher I can mark their books and provide feedback to improve the depth of their answer. As an observer I can check books and question students to see if this happens over the year. We spend a lot of our time and focus on what students write that maybe we've forgotten about what they say? For instance, if the same answer was given verbally, would we scrutinise it so intently and in as much depth? Or, might it go something like this? Teacher: So, we've been looking at the various aspects and methods of training, can anyone explain, using an example, what altitude training is? Teacher: [Deploys wait time and uses a no hands up technique for selecting] Teacher: Josh, what do you think? Josh: Well, it's sort of like, when a runner like goes running up high, you know, like a mountain, to get their body systems and their blood cells better. Teacher: Nearly Josh. You've got the basic idea. What Josh is saying is an athlete might train..... Or how about this?: Teacher: So, we've been looking at the various aspects and methods of training, can anyone explain, using an example, what altitude training is? Emma, what do you think? Emma: Umm, I'm not sure? Teacher: Ok, anyone else? Josh? Josh: Well, it's sort of like, when a runner like goes running up high, you know, like a mountain, to get their body systems and their blood cells better. Teacher: Sort of. Can you add to it? Josh: Umm, well, don't they have to train at altitude for a few weeks or months and then come back to their normal home and compete? Teacher: Yes Josh. It's to do with the fact they go away at altitude for training and then..... Both versions might seem either very common or a million miles away from what you do in your classrooms. The problem with these is that it's the kind of avenue I would take after an answer was given. I know it's not technically correct, but I focus on the content technicalities rather than the quality of the language used. The first example results in me producing the better answer for the student myself. I've ultimately done the improvement for them. The second results in me trying to develop it but instead I take an answer which is a new question. Have I therefore tackled the inaccuracies of language use? Have I made the answer more academic? No. 11

So, back to my earlier ramblings, here is that curious thought that popped into my head when chatting to a colleague in a focus group and it all stemmed from him saying: "If students can't give high quality verbal answers, will they be able to give high quality written ones?" I'm not sure. When observing others I know I focus on teacher questions but I'm not sure I've specifically focused on the quality of student answers and that direct link. Have I missed an important component? I do know that in my own teaching I don't tackle low quality verbal answers anywhere as near as I do with low quality written ones. And that's what needed to change. In the frantic hustle and bustle of a lesson, do we have the time, the confidence and the environment to challenge answers like this? Or do we do what I highlighted before and do this for them and correct it ourselves? So what could we do? Be aware of it There can be no simpler piece of advice than simply be aware of it. Be reflective as you teach and identify times when you pose questions. What was the quality of the answer? What exactly did the student say? What was the language use like? How was the strength of their communication skills? Where they able to eloquently explain their thoughts? Did they use high vocabulary or specific terminology? These are just some things to be reflective of and clearly not exhaustive. Once you know when these moments happen and you pay more attention to the response, then you can begin to change the habits of both yourself and your students. Identify a link? Are those students who provide poorly constructed verbal answers the same ones who produce poorly worded written ones? It's something of interest that I'll be looking at. Create that culture that we will improve it Changing students written work can be a very private and safe process. A student makes an error or misconception and you can provide feedback in their books. If a student doesn't use language of a high standard as you might want, you can make a note of it or write down some suggestions. In a book these are read by the student without the focus of peers and other observers. Apply the same process in an open class discussion and all of a sudden pressure, unease and anxiety may overcome a student. The fear of being openly critiqued on the quality of their spoken answer can be a daunting one for many. It's therefore important that you build the culture of your group that highlights that this public dissection is not an attack on them but is instead a process to help improve the quality of their communication. Highlight why you're doing it and the benefits of doing it. Choose confident individuals to begin using the process. Build it up using a random selection process for getting answers. Model the 12

improvement. Explain why suggested changes will create a better and more academic answer. Involve the class and make it as supportive, and challenging, as possible. Ensure that the class realise that with support, the intial answer has been developed into something much better. Culture takes time to build but once it is there, challenge the quality of answers continuously. Have the confidence to actually improve it From a teachers perspective, it can be a daunting task actually developing students answers. There is the worry that suggestions you pose may be taken as a blow to their self-esteem. The challenge of trying to improve an answer from a student who displays little interest or effort. The worry of how peers may react. The confidence to actually challenge and set high expectations. It can be daunting but we need to remember that we don't do it to display our power or ridicule. Instead we do it to help students develop their ability to communicate in a high quality way. Focus on how they say it, not just what they say Being subject specialists it is easy to be drawn to the content element of an answer. Are they talking about the correct definition when we ask them? Is that a strong enough example to support their thinking? Have they pulled out a relevant quotation or piece of evidence? As well as doing that, focus on how they say it, exactly as we would in a written version. Have they got a powerful opening to their argument? Have they used quality connectives that pull together parts of a statement? Do they use an unnecessary amount of redundant words that we can ask them to remove? Highlight what they have said. Point out areas of improvement. Get peer support of alternative words. Question them about how they should make improvements. Use questioning techniques If a student is unaware of how to construct a good verbal answer then they aren't going to produce one repeatedly. Speaking at a high level requires time, practice, guidance and thought, Techniques as simple as wait time allow individuals to construct better answers before they share them. Using ABC questioning allows you to build an answer as a class. Modelling what a good answer looks like provides examples of excellence. Snowballing allows students to build up the quality of their answer with a group of peers. If high quality verbal answers are going to be the norm, then scaffolding the process is going to be required. Now this post may be making a bigger deal out of student answers than needs to be? It may actually resonate with a lot of people and be something more common than first thought. The idea though that settling for poorly constructed answers does bother me in my own practice. If I want individuals to communicate in an academic way, whether in written or verbal format, I need to ensure that I help them achieve that.

‘I wish my teacher knew…': Young students share their ‘heartbreaking’ worries in notes April 18, 2015 | by Tony Harbron | The Independent is reporting that an elementary school teacher in the United States has shared ‘heartbreaking’ notes after she asked her students to share their worries and encouraged other teachers to use her approach…

Kyle Schwartz, teaches a third grade class at Doull Elementary in Denver, Colorado. The majority of her students come from underprivileged homes, as 92 per cent are entitled to free or reduced school lunches, she told ABC News. “As a new teacher, I struggled to understand the reality of my students’ lives and how to best support them. I just felt like there was something I didn’t know about my students,” she told the broadcaster. To tackle this problem, she asked her students to complete the sentence: “I wish my teacher knew…” While some children used the notes to jokingly complain about homework or to request more playtime, Ms Schwartz said some of the answers were “heartbreaking”, as children revealed the tough struggles they are facing…

I’m sure this isn’t a new idea but no less powerful because of that. Some of the notes really are heartbreaking but the full report goes on to report Ms Schwartz as saying that, since starting the initiative, the students have become more supportive of each other, and the one without anyone to play with has been invited to join calssmates in the playground. Your thoughts and feedback on this #iwishmyteacherknew idea?

http://schoolsimprovement.net/i-wish-my-teacher-knew-young-students-share-theirheartbreaking-worries-in-notes

Processes, outcomes and measuring what we value. http://headguruteacher.com/2015/04/25/processes-outcomes-and-measuring-what-wevalue/ Posted by Tom Sherrington ⋅ April 25, 2015

I produced this diagram as part of a paper ‘Measuring Success and Securing Accountability’ for my governors and SLT. One reason for writing it is that, along with everyone else, we face a very turbulent period in our examination system. Over the next few years, there are so many changes to the measures we’ve been using to gauge success, phased in gradually, that year-on-year comparisons will be difficult to make; predictions will be based on unreliable assumptions of linearity in the baseline-to-outcome trajectory and targets will be hard to set. I want my governors to have some tools to use that go beyond the data so that we can have realistic and meaningful discussions about success and improvement. A second reason for writing the paper is to fuel a wider discussion about ‘measuring what we value’ – rather than ‘valuing what can be measured’. I don’t want Highbury Grove to be a 16

school where the headline GCSE figures dominate our thinking at the expense of broader notions of quality and success. With recent (necessary) changes to exams, that bubble has burst – and we can’t go back. The data outcomes matter a great deal to the students as passports to progression; they matter as proxy records of the knowledge they have gained – but they don’t tell the full story of the richness and depth of the learning experience – the Real Learning Outcomes. My view is that focusing on Data Outcomes is a self-limiting process; if the results matter too much, we don’t care enough about the underlying learning. We prioritise Y11 intervention over support for deep learning at KS3 and get caught in a never-ending cycle of 11th-hour scrambling to patch things up. Conversely, if we focus on Real Learning Outcomes, students receive a deeper, broader education and the results will take care of themselves. However, the main reason for making this diagram is to consider the process of improvement and the nature and value of feedback. If I know that our Progress 8 score is 0.3 (farcically, 0.3 +/- 0.2), how useful is that in terms of improvement? Does that piece of data tell me anything helpful? Answer: No. It might do if the teachers in my school had low expectations of students and a low Progress 8 score helped to challenge that. But, if we’re already aiming high, most of the aggregated whole-school data gives us no information that can be used to inform an improvement plan. Over time we might see if we’re getting better or worse in terms of a particular data set but that’s not enough to tell us what to do to improve. For teachers, leaders and governors, this is problematic. If our results are disappointing, I don’t think it is good enough to simply say ‘do better’. Generalised striving to ‘do better’ is dangerous groping in the dark; it is hopeless. We must always ask “what specific actions should we take in order to do better?” and have some idea of the answer. I think governors should be able to have this discussion just as teachers and leaders should. For this to happen, we need to focus less on interrogating the Hard Cycle data and more on understanding the processes. In truth, we don’t need much data of the aggregated kind. If we’re all working flat-out, the data that really matters is the micro formative data that tells a teacher which bits of knowledge and skill each individual child needs to improve on; this in turn informs how and what they teach. Even when exam results come out, the micro postresults data is the most useful: question by question feedback that gives clues about where to change emphasis in planning subsequent teaching sequences. Governors can’t know all of this detail – but they should know how it works and learn to ask questions about it. What other data might be useful in providing actionable feedback? I’d say that there is rich material in student and parental feedback via focus groups and ad hoc communication as well as feedback from teacher-led lesson observation processes. These are all aspects of what I’ve called the Soft Cycle. For example, I know three or four parents at my school who give me very sharp feedback about their child’s experience; they provide more actionable feedback than any number of sets of data. Soft Cycle data has many forms and we should gather it up where it can tell us something useful. If we focus more on processes, the accountability role of a Governing Body and an SLT shifts away from at-distance requests for data – sucking up precious time and energy collecting information that can’t change anything – and moves towards the close-up process that builds up a detailed picture of the activities that actually make a difference. We start to focus on questions such as:  

What does a teacher do in Maths if a student doesn’t understand a concept or performs poorly on a test? How are pastoral leaders supposed to respond to report grades that say ‘Poor attitude to learning’? 17

  

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What is the optimal topic sequence in History at KS3 to provide a coherent preparation for GCSE and A level? How do French teachers use grammar test scores to inform next steps? Do the ‘Growth Mindset’ assemblies have resonance in the classroom or is there a fundamental contradiction in the way we give value to performance goals over mastery goals? What are the features of an effective feedback and marking policy that secures improvement over time without creating unsustainable workload pressure? Do our very most able students have a positive experience in Geography? How do we know? What does that actually look like? Is there a teacher CPD issue to address in this specific area? Have we got our setting policy right and how would we know?

This transition is a gradual one. It requires a degree of trust on all sides. You need to let people get closer to the details if you want them to understand them; if you keep scrutiny at a distance, then you have to accept that flawed Hard Cycle data will dominate – because that’s all there is. This is a live discussion at Highbury Grove. It’s challenging, not just in terms of the principles but also in practice. Do governors have time to really get in amongst the details? Certainly school leaders do but working governors can’t rely on attending meetings to understand the schools they govern. Not any more. And that’s a challenge. Importantly, accountability informed by Soft Cycle feedback isn’t actually soft. In combination with the hard data it’s more rigorous and, hopefully, it is more accurate, more meaningful and more productive. It’s just a bit messy and rough around the edges. I think we can live with that. Especially if we’re serious about measuring what we value.

This much I know about…what REALLY WORKS when preparing students for their examinations! Posted on April 24, 2015 by johntomsett I have been a teacher for 26 years, a Headteacher for 11 years and, at the age of 50, this much I know about what REALLY WORKS when preparing students for their examinations! I am keener than ever to spend as much time as possible in classrooms. As I wrote in a post last October, leading our teachers’ own learning about teaching, is, I feel, the most important thing I do in my role as a Headteacher. It’s not often you innovate in your teaching and the impact on students’ learning is so clearly significant. My recent post about meta-cognition and self-regulation described an obvious tactic for helping students perform better in examinations. Thing is, whilst it now seems obvious, it took me 26 years to discover. It’s probably worth quickly reading my metacognition and self-regulation post here before looking at what follows. 18

Lead teacher learning by sharing. My meta-cognition and self-regulation post was picked up by some of the teachers at Huntington. Tim, a truly great teacher of Music, annotated an A level paper just as I had done and then explained his thinking to his A level class during their mock debrief. View this document on Scribd

He then sent me this email:

Reading from the bottom up, here is my reply and then Timâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s response, which I feel is the fruit of sharing as a Headteacher.

Observing lessons judgementally, or leading teacher learning? I try really hard to make lesson observations a developmental experience for colleagues I performance develop. I cannot see the point of spending time observing a lesson if I am not actively helping teachers to improve their practice. We co-plan, I play an active, helpful role in the lesson and then we spend time reflecting upon how the lesson could have been better. Quite often we wait a week or two to meet so that the teacher can bring along work completed in the interim period by the students so that we can see whether the teaching has resulted in improved student progress â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the Golden Thread!

This particular meta-cognition technique is spreading. In the following lesson another truly great teacher, Lisa, uses a visualiser to demonstrate her thinking when completing a particular simultaneous equation question from the mathematics GCSE mock paper the students sat recently. Everyone has a fresh blank copy of the question sheet. She describes her thinking and the students are directed to copy down verbatim, on their own copies of the question sheet, what she writes as she writes it in real time. This helps ingrain the teacher’s meta-cognitive processes in the students’ memories, with the physical action of the writing playing some role in making the teacher’s meta-cognitive processes more tangible for the students. As well as the video, Lisa’s completed answer is below so that you can follow what she says, as well as the staged approach to answering questions which we are training the students to master.

Modelling meta-cognition

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Practice makes perfect. Once Lisa has modelled the meta-cognitive process for completing the question the students are given a similar question to complete on their own, with the brief to mimic the meta-cognitive processes learnt from Lisa’s modelling. Once the students have attempted the process themselves on the similar question she asks one of the students – whom she has seen complete the question well – to use the visualiser and explain his meta-cognitive processes when completing the question. The video of Kallan’s visualiser monologue is below as is his completed question. Listen for the round of applause from his peers at the end…

S to S modelling of meta-cognition

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An evidence-based profession? All this work is rooted in the Sutton Trust-Education Endowment Foundation Teaching & Learning Toolkit. Think about it…meta-cognition; effective feedback; peer tutoring all combined in the one lesson…and then look at the Toolkit’s now ubiquitous evaluation of high-impact/cost effective activities to improve student progress:

When I asked the students about the usefulness of Lisaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s meta-cognition lesson they gave it anywhere between 9 and 10 out of 10.

http://johntomsett.com/2015/04/24/this-much-i-know-about-what-really-works-whenpreparing-students-for-their-examinations/

There are people in your life whom you unknowingly inspire simply by being you.