Teaching and Learning Magazine Issue 1

Issue 1 April 2013

What is this?

The first ever issue of the QE Academy Teaching and Learning magazine. That’s what it is. Designed to incorporate the views, opinions and ideas of ALL staff, teaching or supporting, to Inspire and Transform Teaching and Learning to help our students Succeed.

What’s in it for us?

This is YOUR magazine. It is YOUR ideas, YOUR experience, YOUR thoughts, YOUR innovation, YOUR strategies, YOUR opportunity to help OUR Academy to Inspire, Transform and Succeed.

How do I get involved?

Simples.

1) Join the forum on BlueSky. 2) Place suggestions on the TGI board (and risk winning some goodness!)

3) Anonymously submit ideas in the postbox!

Use VCOP to help promote and develop literacy within all subjects:

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Vocabulary - Key words/phrases to inspire Connectives - Words or phrases that can be used to join ideas and develop thinking.

(Transform that 4A to a 5C!) Openers - Ways of starting a phrase/ sentence/ paragraph Punctuation - Reminders of where punctuation can be used to create a successful piece of writing

Demonstrate progress with a learning journey Show students that progress is a journey. Inspire them to succeed.

Level 4A Draw and label a diagram to show the structure of the Earth's layers

Level 5C Level 5B/A

Discuss one characteristic of each Compare and of the layers, contrast the describing what it is characteristics of two like of the Earth's layers

We all know that showing progress is key to getting judged as Good or Outstanding. But how can we do this? Here we have a look at five tips for demonstrating progress at any stage of a lesson!

Learning Bags/Boxes: Display 3 bags/boxes either permanently on a display board in your classroom or on your whiteboard. Title them ‘Understand fully’, ‘need to learn more’, ‘don’t get it!’ etc or use your 3 learning objectives. Students can then put their names on a post-it and put them ‘into’ the corresponding bag. This can then either be used to inform the next activities if it is a mini-plenary or for next lesson if you do it at the end.

Pass The Parcel: A brilliant way of assessing progress and learning and great differentiation if you cheat with the music! Questions are wrapped within the layers of the parcel— students then pass the parcel around and when the music stops they unwrap one layer and answer the question.

2 stars and a wish: This is a very effective form of peer assessment whereby pupils look at each others work at a suitable point in the lesson when you do a miniplenary. Identify 2 good point ‘Stars’ and then a wish, which is a target for improvement. At the end of the lesson they can then discuss what progress has been made towards the target and tick it off if completed.

Continuum line: This can either be done physically with the students standing in a line or on a washing line displayed on the whiteboard. At one end of the line it is ‘understand fully’, in the middle ‘need more learning’ and at the other end ‘don’t get it!’. You can then either ask them questions or repeat the learning objectives and they either move in the line (asking each other questions to establish who knows more!) and shuffle about with a change of question or objective! Or they can again use post-its with the names on and place them on the washing line on the board.

Carelessly completed: What’s wrong with this? Give students a piece of work/display something on the board with inaccuracies for them to identify and correct—it is good practice to also pick out what is done well and accurately too!

Kirstie recently read an interesting article about how to engage learners and ensure that they are absorbing the information we are sharing with them. The book “Outstanding Teaching: Engaging Learners” by Andy Griffith & Mark Burns is available from Amazon and we are hoping to have a copy available for staff to read in the Teaching and Learning Centre soon. Until we are able to offer the book, here are the key points that Kirstie was able to pick out from the article.

1.We need to plan tasks that are appropriately challenging so that all ability groups in our classes are equally stretched but not over stretched. Offering students the ability to make progress based on their own prior attainment and work at their own level. We can use Blooms revised Taxonomy to guarantee deeper learning and flow. We can also use it to ensure that our objectives and outcomes are not too knowledge or content based.

students can work at considerably higher levels.”

4.When we plan our lessons we need to ensure that the goals we are setting for students are clear and worthwhile. We need students to understand not just what they are doing but why they are doing it. Students should understand the success criteria and be able to see how it fits in with their improvement. A good way to ensure students have fully understood is to ask them to explain the suc2.Teacher input is minimal. cess criteria in their own We should structure our words.

“When teachers take the lessons to ensure that there time to ...develop these are lots of chances for stuareas ... their students 5.Feedback to students on dents to work independent- can work at considerably their performance and their ly or collectively. This does higher levels.” targets needs to be immedinot mean that we cannot ate. They should be confihave sessions where the group is working dent in giving and receiving peer with the teacher but sessions where feedback and should be able to self asteachers simply provide information sess. This in turn will lead to students should be short and be followed by activiwho are less dependent on feedback from ties to consolidate this information. In a the teacher and in this way “flow belesson with plenty of independent work comes more common.” the teacher is able to circulate to support and track progress.

6.To ensure students are engaged in activities and that flow is able to take 3.As teachers we need to ensure that our place we need tasks that are intrinsically groups have the necessary learning motivating. If we have this type of task skills, attitudes and habits to enable then students will be completing tasks them to work independently and at a high because they want to rather level of challenge. We need than because they have to. In to make time within our lesturn they will contribute more sons to teach these skills so because they are enjoying what that we know students are they are doing. One way of doable to work on the more ing this could be to incorporate “risky” tasks we may set. the element of choice, giving “When teachers take the time students a variety of tasks to to teach the necessary stratechoose from or having a variety gies that develop these areas of ways in which students can they will discover that their present their work.

We all want to know what OFSTED inspectors are looking for so that we can ensure that we are doing everything we can to show ourselves at our best when they visit.

Recently I was able to attend a Teaching and Learning conference where there was an inspector present.

The inspector answered some interesting and pertinent questions and there is something we can all take from what was shared.

When asked the

main difference between Good and Outstanding he mentioned two things; Typicality and Differentiation.

With regard to typicality he said that there is a greater emphasis on work scrutiny and attainment and this would be through looking at books and data to track progress.

For differentiation he said that we need to show that we do this consistently and that this is evidenced in our books. He said that they would look at three student books on the same date and see if they had the same

work in each.

Finally he was asked what percentage of students needed to make excellent progress for a lesson to be Outstanding. His reply was ALL students needed good progress and “a number” to make beyond expected progress. He equated this to about a fifth.

A couple of ways to transform Numeracy across ALL subjects: Illustrate the importance of:being able to make sense of information in chart/graphical form and be able to describe the 'story' behind the graph. being able to make sense of calculation answers, check the reasonableness of an answer and select the most appropriate method of solution.

If students need to solve number problems in your lessons, support them to solve them mentally.

Don’t explain to them how you would do it … encourage them to reflect on their own knowledge about numbers.