Teaching and Learning Magazine Oct 2016

Welcome to Philips High School’s Teaching and Learning Magazine – Oct 2016 - Sharing ideas with teachers!

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Contents 1) Engagement: Just because they’re busy, doesn’t mean they’re learning anything.

Page 3 2) Marking Marketplace

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Seven Questions to End Your Week

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4)

Productive Methods of Sharing Good Practice

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5) Reducing teacher Workload by Re-Thinking Marking – The Michaela Files, Part 1 Page 11 6) 12 Smart Steps to Reduce Teacher Workload

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How do I know how good my Teachers are?

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Engagement: Just because they’re busy, doesn’t mean they’re learning anything.

I’ve long thought that one of the weakest proxy indicators of effective learning is engagement, and yet it’s a term persistently used by school leaders (and some researchers) as one of the most important measures of quality. In fact many of the things we’ve traditionally associated with effective teachers may not be indicative of students actually learning anything at all.

At the #ascl2015 conference last Friday, the always engaging Professor Rob Coe gave a talk entitled ‘From Evidence to Great Teaching’ and reiterated this claim. Take the following slide – How many ‘outstanding’ lessons have been awarded so based on this checklist?

Prof. Rob Coe From Evidence to Great Teaching ASCL 20 Mar 2015 Now these all seem like key elements of a successful classroom, so what’s the problem? and more specifically, why is engagement is such a poor proxy indicator – surely the busier they are, the more they are learning?

This paradox is explored by Graham Nuthall in his book ‘The Hidden Lives of Learners,’ (2007) in which he writes: “Our research shows that students can be busiest and most involved with material they already know. In most of the classrooms we have studied, each student already knows about 40-50% of what the teacher is teaching.” p.24 Nuthall’s work shows that students are far more likely to get stuck into tasks they’re comfortable with and already know how to do as opposed to the more uncomfortable enterprise of grappling with uncertainty and indeterminate tasks. A good example of this 3

as Alex Quigley has pointed out is that engagement in the form of the seemingly visible activity of highlighting is often “little more than colouring in.” Furthermore, teachers are more than happy to sanction that kind of stuff in the name of fulfilling that all important ‘engagement’ proxy indicator so prevalent in lesson observation forms.

The other difficulty is the now constant exhortation for students to be ‘motivated’ (often at the expense of subject knowledge and depth) but motivation in itself is not enough. Nuthall writes that: “Learning requires motivation, but motivation does not necessarily lead to learning.”p.35 Motivation and engagement are vital elements in learning but it seems to be what they are used in conjunction with that determines impact. It is right to be motivating students but motivated to do what? If they are being motivated to do the types of tasks they already know how to do or focus on the mere performing of superficial tasks at the expense of the assimilation of complex knowledge then the whole enterprise may be a waste of time.

Learning is in many cases invisible as outlined many times by David Didau and is certainly not linear but rather more nebulous in actuality. As Prof. Coe reminds us, ‘learning happens when people have to think hard’ but unfortunately there is no easy way of measuring this, so what does he suggest is effective in terms of evidencing quality?

Ultimately he argues that it comes down to a more nuanced set of practitioner/student skills, habits and conditions that are very difficult to observe, never mind measure. Things like “selecting, integrating, orchestrating, adapting, monitoring, responding” and which are contingent on “context, history, personalities, relationships” and which all work together to create impact and initiate effective learning. So while engagement and motivation are important elements in learning they should be seen as part of a far more complex conglomerate of factors that traditional lesson observations have little hope of finding in a 20 min drive-by.

This is where a more robust climate of research and reflective practice can inform judgements. It’s true that more time for teachers to be critically reflective will improve judgements but we also need to be more explicit in precisely what it is we are looking for and accept that often the most apparent classroom element may also be the most misleading.

https://chronotopeblog.com/2015/03/22/engagement-just-because-theyre-busy-doesnt-meantheyre-learning-anything/

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Marking Marketplace How can we improve the process for teachers and observers when looking at students’ books?

This week, in departments and then paired up for collaborative CPD, we reviewed work sampling as a school as part of our on-going drive to improve the quality of feedback and how we assess progress when looking at students’ books.

Context:

Since September 2014, lesson gradings have been removed, yet it is reported (ASCL) that 50% of schools are still grading lessons or teachers. For those schools who no-longer grade, there has been much discussion that work-sampling or ‘looking at students’ exercise books’ has replaced the fear or frenzy of grading, or determining the quality of teaching. There has also been a call for evidence to validate how reliable work-sampling can be to judge quality.

I would support the need for evidence in this area, but for too long myself and probably you reading this too, have either conducted or have been on the receiving end and part of worksampling, without context: we (the observers) have been ‘fishing without the bait‘.

Sometimes, we can’t measure what we need, so we invent a proxy; something easier to measure.

(Seth Godin)

‘Fishing without the bait’ means observers looking at evidence without any context. In this case, classes, students and teachers are not pre-determined. They may be often left to ad-hoc procedures that lead to ad-hoc judgements and conclusions. For example, [an observer] arrives to your lesson; sits down quietly at the back where there is an empty seat and 5

proceeds to flick through the book of student A and B who are sitting next to them. Then, an assumption is made of the outcomes.

Instead, [an observer] could select a group of students based on their prior data/starting points (e.g. key stage 2 results) and use this information to assess progress over time. This could be conducted with:   

a) the teacher to have a sensible conversation. b) have an interview with a group of students. c) arrive to the lesson with prior data and a targeted group of students, then look at those pieces of work.

In all instances, it would be recommended to select a high, middle and low attaining students; and students who are pupil premium and SEND/G&T. In all instances, it would be important to stress, that when looking in students’ books, that this is just one source of evidence, not all, and that every book/student has a story. This is why it is so important to involve the classroom teacher in the process so that they can share information, observers may be unaware of; e.g. absence.

Training Resources for Schools:

Before the training, I would recommend that every teacher receives a printed database of students’ prior data across the school. This is important so that you can conduct this CPD exercise effectively.

This post is offered as a resource to you – for schools and teachers – to help build their own CPD session to lead with departments (in pairs) to encourage support and a more reliable process for teachers to self-assess their own students’ exercise books in their own classes, as well as being equipped to visit another teacher/class and use a valid methodology for assessing progress.

Objectives:

The aims of the CPD session were: 1.

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To understand how to look at student books WITH context.

To moderate High / Middle / Low attaining students in your class.

To understand how we should sample other books in lessons.

To moderate another classroom set of books from another department.

Develop your ‘over time’ methodology CPD and improve teacher moderation.

What do books tell us?

When looking in students’ exercise books, what can we decipher? Firstly, it is important to remember that books are just one source of ‘over time’ evidence. This must be stressed.

Then, consider books show:       

If students are making ‘expected progress’ Teacher expectations Classroom routines Access to the curriculum The school’s Marking Code Attitudes to learning (i.e. if students take pride in their work) The quality of feedback 6

 

If effort is recognised … (i.e. if students are proud of their achievement) If students are ‘acting on feedback …’

Here are some of the slides form the presentation.

Click to enlarge

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Developing All Staff:

Every teacher should have the opportunity to look in each others’ books and schools should provide training for all staff. The findings should then be shared to help teachers teach better and more work needs to be done to eradicate schools using book-looks as a process for judging individual teachers. More research is needed to find out what system works best; what methodology leads to reliable assessments about the quality of teaching and until we either, training your own staff to do this collectively and reliable, will reduce in-school variation.

This resource shows you how you can address these issues.

Download:

#MarkingMarketplace

Download the PDF here. http://www.teachertoolkit.me/2016/10/14/markingmarketplace/?utm_content=bufferd8d0f&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&ut m_campaign=buffer

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Productive Methods of Sharing Good Practice

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DOUG LEMOV'S FIELD NOTES Reflections on teaching, literacy, coaching, and practice.

10.14.16Reducing Teacher Workload By Re-Thinking Marking–The Michaela Files, Part 1

Last week I visited London’s faintly notorious Michaela School. A few days ago I wrote an overview framing the visit in the ‘big picture’ sense. Now I propose to begin sharing a series of posts–the Michaela Files– describing some of the useful things I learned there.

As I walked through London’s Michaela School I was struck suddenly by a strong intuition— call it fear maybe–that recalled my days as a teacher in a high performing urban school. I was in my late twenties then, and my colleagues and I were seeking, like Michaela, to engineer every moment for maximum student benefit. God, we loved those kids. And they needed every ounce of what they had and what we had to have a fighting chance. So we pushed them hard and worked long hours. We were going to do every single thing we could. But the hours were often unsustainably long I can now see.

So when I glimpsed the artful intentionality of every moment in student’s lives, the impeccable designed and executed systems, I feared that this was also true of Michaela. I knew this would challenge the long term sustainability of the school. Those brilliant teachers would tire. Many would leave. Organizational memory, the culture, the will to sustain it all would be diluted. The school would regress to the mean.

But happily like many intuitions which we presume are accurate, mine appears to have been in large part unfounded. And this is very good news, not just for Michaela but for every school seeking long –term, sustainable excellence—because one reason teachers at Michaela told me they leave by five is that they do something brilliant, simple and replicable to reduce workload without eroding outcomes. And you can copy or adapt it tomorrow.

Ready for it?

Teachers at Michaela do not mark student essays and other writing. They read the essays their students write in English and History and French and Religion and they grade them but the grade is all the written feedback students receive.

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How could they? you ask- perhaps thinking of the personal dialogue you establish with your students when, late at night or on Sunday morning, you fill the margins of their essays with individualized comments—“Nice, use of evidence, David, but you’ve left out an important piece of evidence from page 62.” “I love this sentence Sarah. You capture Hurston’s vision perfectly.”

This task, as Joe Kirby and Jo Facer described it to me is ‘maximum effort; minimum impact.’ It takes hours. It almost always happens at home for teachers, blurring the lines of the workday and making you feel like you are never done as you stare guiltily at those accusing stacks of essays and writing pieces. Over time you perhaps assign less writing. Or you grade them when you can and give that artful feedback weeks after students wrote the papers—and hardly remember writing them. Or you toil away and just maybe work yourself towards unsustainability. And maybe once or twice you’ve even wondered- do they read them with as much intentness as you put into the writing of them? Do we know whether they read them at all in some cases?

“We seek the opposite,” Joe said, “Maximum impact at minimum effort.” So they re-worked marking. And the solution is pretty logical.

When students at Michaela write essays, their teachers read them all and take notes to inform re-teaching the next day. Instead of marking each paper that needs a better topic sentence, they jot down themes and maybe example: “better topic sentences” and “brilliant example of topic sentence from Gabi.” The next day show up in class and say: “Many of us are struggling with our topic sentences. So let’s look at how to write them better.” and then: “Let’s look at why Gabi’s was so good.” And then: “Now go re-write your topic sentences.” Or perhaps its content focused: “Many of us misunderstood what the results of the battle were. Let’s review the events and then you can rewrite.”

And there it is. Time spend writing comments becomes time spent re-teaching. And students then must be responsible for using and applying what they’ve learned. And the greatest amount of energy can be spent on what’s most important to the group. And then—without the disincentive to assign writing—students can write some more.

Honestly, it’s brilliant. And it actually draws on what many of us already do during class, when we circulate, observe work and then address common misunderstandings. But it asks the question-is a focus on always individualizing feedback for every student always the best use of our time? Or even usually? Especially if it’s in writing? When you consider alternative uses to a teacher’s time, the answer is probably no.

Take three hours spent writing comments, allocate 30 minutes to identifying trends and planning a short re-teach and then do other things, including some non-teaching things. This is hugely important because workload has historically been an Achilles heel in the high performing urban schools movement. To change the lives of students otherwise cut off from opportunity is an immense job and often presents a brutal choice. Do you reduce the hours for the adults—the adults you love and honor and who give deeply of themselves to help others—and know that the cost will be lesser outcomes for the students and families you also love and have dedicated you professional life to serving? Or do you push for maximum outcomes for kids and know that people you care about will sometimes—often—work too hard and suffer?

In the end the core social good—the expectation shifting inner-city school—will only be as expandable as we need it to be if we can unlock large scale efficiencies- ways to continue to get maximum value for kids at more sustainable cost for adults. Insights into game changing 12

efficiencies and synergies are rare. But Michaela School is on to one. And, as I pointed out in my first post, you can borrow it no matter what your school’s approach.

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12 Smart Steps to Reduce Teacher Workload How can we help schools reduce teacher workload?

Last week, I co-lead a professional development session with ASCL (Association of School and College Leaders) on workload.

Teachers’ workload is too high. Teaching has always been demanding, but why has the issue reached epidemic proportions? At a time when teacher recruitment and retention is under severe pressure, school leaders need to understand the issues, challenge their own thinking about their policies and be open-minded to new ways of working in schools.

This course considered what drivers have aligned to create this situation and what government, OfSTED, school leaders and teachers should be doing about it. During the session, we covered in detail the three areas which teachers raised as causing their biggest workload issues: marking, lesson preparation and resources and managing data.

The course offered practical advice on ways to reduce workload in all these areas, based on research evidence and drawing on a wide range of practice and experience. In the post, you will be able to view and download my ideas (only) for my part of the training.

The training:

Below is a presentation you can download. It is divided into the following sections and is designed for 3 hours of training > these are my 12 current solutions for making schools, teachers and school leaders work smarter.

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Warm-up (slides 4-18) Research: what does the data tell us? (slides 19-26) Initial self-valuations about personal workload. (slides 27-30) Emails: how to switch off? (slides 31-37) Leadership reviews: self-evaluation of workload on others. (slides 33-52) Mark Plan Teach ideas for every school. (slides 53-106) The work-life balance fallacy … (slides 107-110) Teaching smarter ideas. (slides 112-135) Strategies for meetings. (slides 136-137) Workload groups findings (slides 138-143) Organisational suggestions for schools. (slides 144-168) Speed dating ideas: share and compare. (slides 169-179) 13

There is a huge amount of information here for you to adopt for your own training and lead in your own school.

Presentation:

The DfE Workload Survey in 2010 and 2013 reported: Type

2010

2013

Primary

50.2 hours per week

59.3 hours per week

Secondary

49.9

55.7

Primary SLT

56.1

60.2

Secondary SLT

57.3

63.3

*6753 teachers were sampled and 1004 (15%) completed a usable diary survey.

In the Workload Challenge analysis, conducted by the Department of Education in February 2015, teacher consultation responses said that the drivers of workload – most commonly – was created by:  

accountability/perceived pressures of OfSTED (53%) tasks set by senior/middle leaders (51%)

Clearly top-down demands are damaging those working tirelessly at the chalk-face.

Therefore, as a current school leader, I have an obligation of the work I do and the impact it has on other teachers.

Here are some images from the presentation (section 4) where I show ‘how emails are becoming part of the problem’.

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Workload Self-Review:

In the session I ask people to consider, what is:   

your personal workload challenge? your school’s workload challenge?

In one section of the training, I ask to review ‘how teachers and school leaders approach and manage their own

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workload?’ Steven Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and the Urgent / Important Matrix is offered as one strategy that could be deployed. I have been using this since I became a deputy headteacher and you can see it in action in this blog series.

Click the image School leaders have as much responsibility as anyone else who manages their own workload, but leaders also have a responsibility to look out for the impact of their work on others. Every time you add something to your own or another person’s workload, you should commit to also take something away.

Download:

Before you download the file, please click a tweet of thanks and do let me know how you get on: #WorkloadSolutions

Click the image Download the PDF here. *This resource is copyright of @TeacherToolkit and @ASCL_UK. TT.

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How do I know how good my teachers are? https://headguruteacher.com/2012/12/04/how-do-i-know-how-good-my-teachers-are/ At the heart of the discourse about effective schooling is the well-evidenced view that teacher quality plays a massive role in determining student outcomes. John Hattie, Dylan Wiliam, Michael Wilshaw, Michael Gove…they’d all agree on this. We’d all agree on it. As a Headteacher it is one of my core responsibilities, no…it is THE key responsibility, to ensure that teacher quality and the quality of teaching are as good as they can possibly be. I try hard to create the conditions for great teachers to grow and to thrive...but how do I know how good they are and what impact they are having?

There are broadly three inter-related areas that combine to develop a rounded picture of a teacher’s effectiveness: Data: Most obviously this is about examination results and internal assessment data. If a teacher can secure good assessment outcomes, you’re inclined to be less concerned about how they achieve that. There are degrees of success too; sometimes results are good but not excellent; sometimes the rate of improvement is slower than it could be; it is a subtle business and you need to know about the ability profile of each class and other factors. Beyond the numbers, of course, there is much much more to learning than can be measured. It is possible to grind out results from uninspiring teaching (I’ve done it myself). Conversely, teachers who shine in observations might not be quite nailing the exam preparation and results might be disappointing. So – data is only one factor and it cuts both ways. There are other metrics – such as information on behaviour incidents and referrals – that might tell you a teacher rarely uses or is over-reliant on support systems. Again, context is key- but it is all part of the picture.

Observation: This is the headline grabber; the big focus during OfSTED inspections and a bone of contention with some unions. (‘Surveillance’? Get over yourselves…) Seeing a teacher in action first hand is a rich source of information but we need to be cautious.

Whether it is a drop-in or a full-blown formal observation, it doesn’t always follow that what you see is typical…. things might not be working well or you might be seeing a one-off performance. Observations are always slightly artificial because of the observer effect; they are limited to being snap-shots in a continuum of lessons – so you never see a full learning episode – and, ultimately, what you really care about are the 99% of lessons that you don’t see. Over time, you accumulate information about a teacher over multiple observations of all kinds… but need to be careful not to fix your view of someone based on the past. People change – they might improve or they might drift. The more current your observation data-set is, the better – and of course, observations can be done by lots of different people.

Knowledge: This is the cumulative store of micro-feedback that accrues over time around every teacher in a school. Teachers generate feedback continually – from students, via parents, via colleagues, from line managers, through conversations, snatched glimpses of lessons, comments in staff meetings, parents’ evenings, CPD events, email 18

exchanges… drip, drip, drip. Teachers have reputations – it is unavoidable. This could be because they are inspiring, strict, funny, eccentric, know their subject, soft, talk too much, make lessons exciting….. In my experience, this knowledge store is underestimated in the formal accountability processes. If I’m asked how I know the strengths of my teachers, there is truth in saying ‘I just do’. Students and parents will rave about some teachers and not about others; – that tells you a lot. I reckon my daughter’s evaluation of her teachers would be a fair indication of what I’d see in her lessons; I know them in ways that I bet their Headteacher doesn’t. This information seeps out and around us…. And it gets back to me as Head one way or another.

Again, there is context. RateMyTeacher, for example, is a disgusting disgrace –I wish we could shut it down. You obviously need to apply a filter to this noise of feedback… but it is real enough; it matters; it counts – and in many cases, it is more accurate than the one-off observations, most often in a teacher’s favour.

The important point is that all three forms of data inter-relate in a complex non-linear fashion. Ideally, a teacher will rate highly in all three areas. That is the sign of really great teacher – when they create a virtuous circle. Their lessons are great – evidenced by any number of observations; their teaching generates excellent outcomes and both of these things create strongly positive reputational feedback – the knowledge data.

But it is quite common that only two would apply. I’ve known every scenario: •A teacher who has a reputation as a fabulous teacher, who produces superb lessons during formal observations… but where, frustratingly, the results aren’t what we’d expect. Often this is due to some technical issue with matching the curriculum with the assessment or preparation for formal exams. But you have hope. Usually these issues can be resolved with support.

•A teacher who gets great results and who scores highly on the reputational scale, but underperforms during formal observations. Here, you need to have confidence in the two positive data-sets and question whether the observation process has given you good information. Is it fair to over-ride the other data-points in your knowledge bank, based on a couple of lessons that didn’t impress? You need to work with the teacher but take care not to over-state the hoop-jumping aspect of formal observation.

•Finally, a teacher who seems to get great results and can nail an Outstanding formal observation but, for one reason or another – generates negative reputational feedback; either parental or student complains, concerns from colleagues or line managers and so on. Here, you need to be super cautious but it can indicate that day-to-day lessons may not be providing the rich learning experience that they might be. (For example, I can think of a teacher I’ve known who made students copy extensive notes off the board literally every single lesson – oh, except during the OfSTED observation.

Seriously!) Of the three, this is the greatest problem. It is hardest to tackle and often suggests some attitudinal issues that are tricky to resolve.

Obviously, falling down in more than one area is where more serious support and intervention are required and ‘capability’ normally only kicks in if you’re worried about all three. You may notice that there some omissions. Teachers need to do a lot more than meet basic professional standards and follow school policies; it doesn’t matter if they are a ‘great person’ or give a lot time to extra-curricular activities when you are evaluating their work as teacher. Some people work incredibly hard and give their all for the students – but that isn’t enough to make them effective. We need to be honest about that. Weak teachers are not bad people and often play an important role in the community…. And the converse is also true!

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What does this tell us?

Firstly is suggests that external accountability processes are flawed in a fundamental way. There is a place for external inspection of lesson quality – but the whole process needs to be more sophisticated, taking much more account of the school’s view of its teachers. Is it possible or meaningful to assess the quality of teaching in a school by seeing 30 or 40 or 50 half-lesson snapshots? It would certainly tell you a lot about the school but it won’t be the full story. I’m confident that I know how good the teaching and teachers are in my school – and I’m not sure that inspection processes allow me to get that across.

Secondly – and here is the main point – it tells us that the 99% of non-observed lessons are the ones we should be more bothered about. So much energy is wasted on hoop-jumping for inspection – but it is all the other lessons that drive excellent assessment outcomes and generate positive feedback from students, parents and everyone else. What we should be doing is worrying less about the snapshots, the oneoff showcase circuses, and worrying more about ensuring our routine practice is as strong as it can be. Securing strong assessment outcomes and having lessons that are engaging and inspiring are not mutually exclusive! We can aim at both. To stop the hoop-jumping, we should apply a more critical eye to our own practice, ensuring assessment evidence feeds back into the learning in our lessons. Doing this individually and in our teams allows us to move forward without feeling we are wasting energy on artificial external accountability.

Finally, the message for leaders at any level is that we need to generate a rounded view and be cautious in making partial judgements…. How well do you know your staff? How do you know what you know? Which bits of information do you value over others? Let’s make sure we are acting intelligently, using the most sophisticated tools we have to see things in the round so that we can create the trust culture we need for growing outstanding teachers across our schools.

UPDATE: Soon after writing this, the Government made an announcement about pay scales being linked to performance. I wrote this article for Labour Teachers. http://www.labourteachers.org.uk/blog/2012/12/18/performance-related-pay-wrongdiagnosis-wrong-solution/

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