STAHS - The Teaching and Learning Journal 2022

VOLUME I

THE TEACHING AND LEARNING JOURNAL

It’s your time you’re wasting

EDITOR'S LETTER

Sir Tim Brighouse said that the heart of school improvement is this: teachers and leaders talking about teaching and learning. Great schools talk about teaching and learning all the time – and it is a sample of this ongoing discussion and reflection at STAHS, within the framework of the best educational research, that is presented in these pages. This reflection is not an end in itself; ultimately, we are in constant pursuit of ‘great teaching which consistently enables deep and robust pupil learning leading to improved student achievement’ (Coe, 2014).

Each issue will have three themes:

1. Programmes – reflections on components of our professional learning programme, for example, Book Club, Electives, Departmental CPD time, and the Early Career Framework (ECF).

2. Research – teachers are not researchers, but this header is the best descriptor for some of the more rigorous deliberate practice taking place at STAHS, including Enquiry Questions, Assessment Lead Programme, CTeach projects, and MA dissertations. In this issue, we have articles on the importance of peer relationships in creating a positive environment for learning, trialling the use of practice diaries to develop a culture of independence, the use of hinge questions for effective diagnosis of learning, and designing a system for assessing creativity.

3. Features – general articles (with reference to STAHS) on pedagogy or educational issues. In this issue, contributions include an evaluation of technology in the classroom, the psychologically privileged power of storytelling, reflections on the journey from novice to expert learner (and back again), the curriculum as progression model, and diversifying the curriculum in English and History. The title, borrowed from David Didau and Martin Robinson’s educational podcast* (and several book titles), neatly encapsulates the tone of this journal: a thoughtful and considered exploration of our classroom craft and our focus on continual improvement, but without taking ourselves too seriously. So, settle down, grab a cuppa and enjoy this journal. After all, it’s your time you’re wasting.

Stephen Ramsbottom Assistant Headteacher, Teaching, Learning and Teacher Development *Didau podcast: www.youtube.com/channel/UCSBHaqO9ehDgOBL-OJnAmaA

HINGE QUESTIONS IN HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHY

The History and Geography Department’s experiment with hinge questions this year was inspired by Responsive Teaching by Harry Fletcher-Wood. He identified a problem so fundamental to teaching and learning, that ‘it is hard to know what students are thinking, so they may maintain errors and misconceptions through the lesson’. One way of tackling this problem is hinge questions, which were a focal point of the Assessment Lead Programme (ALP) this year.

Hinge questions are multiple-choice questions where each answer option reflects an error or a line of reasoning, encouraging pupils to demonstrate their understanding. Whilst they may be imperfect, they represent a better way of assessing pupil understanding during a lesson than simply asking ‘does that makes sense?’ before swiftly moving on. The ideal use of hinge questions should be at a point in the lesson which determines whether you move on to the next activity. If it becomes evident that pupils have not understood a key point in the lesson, that the hinge question prompts the teacher to review the content that has already been covered.

This is a brief item of formative assessment that enables the teacher to know whether it is appropriate to move on. Too often, teachers move on with the next stage of learning too quickly, based on limited evidence and/or a predetermined agenda. Dylan Wiliam argues that this is the most important decision that a teacher has to make on a regular basis and, therefore, should be a quick snapshot: pupils respond in one minute, teachers interpret responses in 15 seconds.

Working in pairs, the Geography teachers had three meetings to discuss the approach and to work on writing questions. Some objectivity was lost in the process, so the ‘brutal’ interim evaluation by the ALP lead was a vital part of the editing process. The hinge questions (divided into ‘understanding terminology’ and ‘identifying patterns’) were utilised in February and March – followed immediately by pupil and then teacher evaluation.

In History, Year 11 was chosen to trial this method as four teachers in the department had the opportunity to experiment in their lessons. It was a very collaborative project as all members of the department were fully on board with the idea and helped to design a range of hinge questions. One of the great benefits of the project was the lively discussion within the department, as there was often disagreement about whether some questions in History could be either ‘right’ or ‘wrong’.

Being able to scan multiple responses in a short time allowed quick diagnosis of which pupils were struggling with which terms and concepts. In Geography, there were two pupils repeatedly struggling to identify intra-regional examples. These items were immediately retaught and the misconceptions addressed. A broader discussion ensued regarding inter-regional and intra-regional migration and what constitutes a region – which elevated the classroom dialogue to a more conceptual level.

An example of a hinge question in History (on the civil rights movement):

The sit-ins were successful because: a) They were initiated by civil rights activists from organisations such as NAACP, CORE, SCLC b) Martin Luther King visited Greensboro and spoke to the protestors to maintain confidence c) Businesses were negatively affected as they sold fewer lunches and goods in local stores

The correct answer is C. The sit-ins were supported by a range of civil rights groups, but not initiated from above. B is true but does not explain the success of the sit-ins, as Martin Luther King may have provided moral support but this is a less convincing answer. C highlights the importance of white economic interests and the need to make concessions.

Hinge questions are a means of quickly assessing pupils’ understanding of a topic. Joe Pepper, Teacher of Politics and History, EPQ Supervisor and Head of Atkins Scholars, explains how they work and why they’re so useful.

When using the History example above, all in class 11A got the answer correct except for two. Therefore, as a form of assessment, it served its purpose and was reassuring that most pupils had understood the main learning point of the lesson. However, a class discussion was needed to reinforce why the answer was C. This helped to reinforce the answer to all pupils before moving on to the next topic.

An example of a hinge question in Geography: Which of the following is an example of inter-regional migration?

a) Ahmed is seeking asylum in the UK having fled from Afghanistan at the end of 2021

b) In 2013, 55,807 people migrated into Belgium from other EU states

c) Robert has lived in Nottingham for the last 10 years. He came from the island of Montserrat in the Caribbean after a volcano erupted and devastated half the island

d) For the past two years, Dawid, a Keralan from southern India, has been working in Qatar, building stadia in preparation for the World Cup

e) Over one million Americans live in Mexico and over 11.5 million Mexicans live in the USA. Each of the two countries has its largest diaspora living in the other

Inter-regional migration means to move from one region to another. The correct answers therefore are A, C, D and E. The value of this is the subsequent discussion regarding what constitutes a region. For example, answer E - Mexico and USA are developmentally disparate but (along with Canada) are members of the trade region of USMCA (formerly NAFTA).

Pupils have responded to hinge questions in a positive way, with encouraging comments in Geography such as: ‘For me, the most useful part of this was the reteaching after the hinge question activity’; another pupil claimed that she thought ‘this activity has helped sharpen my grasp of the terminology. I enjoyed the follow-up discussion about what makes a region.’

It is believed that hinge questions might work better for a more conceptual topic, eg, global atmospheric circulation or political ideologies. This is almost certainly the case, but the pupil feedback demonstrates the value of using hinge questions in all settings. The focused discussion between colleagues around common misconceptions is an invaluable part of the process. The key is to assume nothing: pupils may often misunderstand commonly used terminology or basic concepts, which will hamper their learning.

Hinge questions are a valuable formative assessment tool in the teacher’s toolkit. The work is frontloaded – needing careful pre-planning to allow instantaneous diagnosis. This inquiry has demonstrated that the process is worthwhile and an ongoing goal in both departments is to identify hinge points in learning sequences and build a bank of hinge questions.

Reference: Fletcher-Wood, H., 2018. Responsive teaching: cognitive science and formative assessment in practice. David Fulton.

THE IMPORTANCE OF SCHEMA- BUILDING AND QUESTS

How

effective knowledge retrieval is the result of more than simply excellent day-to-day teaching.

By Jonathan Marshall, Assistant Head – Academic Development and Teacher of MFL.

An increased recognition of Cognitive Load Theory's significance – and the subsequent emphasis in our teaching on forms of retrieval practice – is perhaps one of the most impactful changes on pupils' learning in the past decade.

However, whilst we improve pupils’ recall of knowledge in our day-to-day teaching through, for instance, retrieval roulette, spaced starters and Quizizz – which are all useful tools – how much attention are we paying to how the knowledge recalled fits into a coherent whole?

When planning retrieval practice, I would argue that our focus should be as much on curriculum design, as on the teaching methods we use. In particular, Ruth Ashbee (2021) proposes that we should consider how we are building pupils’ schema through our subject curriculums. She defines schema as being ‘webs of connected ideas, whose organisation carry meaning’ (2021: 17).

In such curriculums, the content (eg, the rise of Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin) and procedural knowledge (eg, how to interpret sources) are sequenced in such a way that, together, they lead to understanding of the core concepts of our subjects (eg, how and why dictators emerge and historical narrative as something that is biased, partial and written to fulfil the ideological needs of the day).

When pupils are actively involved in building schema, they are challenged, and as a result the core concepts of a subject, supported with examples, are stored meaningfully in the long-term memory. Indeed, a coherent curriculum that builds pupils’ schema is probably the key tool in aiding retrieval, as thought has been put into what the learner already knows, before being built upon in a step-by-step manner that respects how memory works.

Note that a curriculum that builds schema effectively is not the same as an examination syllabus or assessment objectives. The latter are like the camera used to capture the winner of a race. Athletes should not be concerned by it; they should be focused on learning how to run well, putting their knowledge into practice and building on it.

Christine Counsell (2018) argues powerfully that one way of building pupils’ schema and understanding of core concepts is to view one’s curriculum as a series of quests. She states that each discipline is ‘a product and an account of an ongoing search for meaning, a quest for truth' (2018: 7). The truth might be the concepts concluded from empirical tests in Science, an ever-clearer argumentation in History, simpler logic in Maths, or greater beauty in the arts. In my own subject, Modern Languages, the quest is sometimes one of solving and producing (Ashbee, 2021). For instance, when faced with a particular situation, pupils learn to apply the language they know to communicate the most appropriate message. This requires careful sequencing of the teaching of grammatical structures and core vocabulary, such that one enables pupils to draw on the appropriate language required by the specific situation.

Similar solving and producing quests exist in Design and Technology and Computer Science. In English, History and Geography, the quest is interpretive in nature. In Art, Music and Drama, it is expressive. Counsell (2018) argues that the quest should include the types of questions one would ask when engaging in that discipline, as each pupil needs to understand how to make meaning in that subject, with reference to their existing schema.

As we adapt our subject curricula, perhaps spurred on by the change in the school day from September 2023, we may ask ourselves: ‘What are the core concepts we want pupils to know to prepare them for life at 25?’ Rather than asking ‘How do we justify the inclusion of each piece of knowledge in our curriculum?’, we should pose the question: ‘How do these parts together mean that our pupils leave with a good understanding of our subject?’ and ‘How do they connect into a unified whole?’

In the curriculum strand of our Electives series this year, we have focused on what subject curriculums built around core concepts look like. Head of History, Shilpa Darbar, presented the process that she and her team adopted to redesign their curriculum and we have explored variations thereof in Languages and Geography. You can read about Shilpa’s work and that of our Head of English, Alex Greenfield, in a following article. It has been peer-reviewed and recently published in Impact, the journal of The Chartered College of Teaching. Next year, we will focus further on how to design curriculums that are akin to truth quests.

References:

Ashbee, R., 2021. Curriculum: theory, culture and the subject specialisms. Routledge.

Counsell, C., 2019. Taking curriculum seriously. Impact, (4), 7-8.

ONCE UPON A TIME ... TALES FROM THE GEOGRAPHY CLASSROOM

The power of storytelling – and the sobering story of Mrs X. By Stephen Ramsbottom, Assistant Head – Teaching, Learning and Teacher Development and a teacher of Geography.

Everyone enjoys a good story. History shows that the very best communicators and educators understand the power of storytelling – we need look no further than the biblical parables. But stories are not just fun and interesting. Daniel Willingham (2004) argues that stories are ‘psychologically privileged’, meaning that our minds treat stories differently than other types of material. Stories can make the abstract concrete. They are easy to remember because they have an inherent structure and provide a web of interconnecting parts. Piecing the different elements of a story together can be cognitively challenging – and we know that we remember those things that we think deeply about (Willingham, 2004).

Yet, Tharby (2018) suggests that storytelling in the classroom has become a dying art. Too often, more attention is paid to the structure of the lesson and the sequence of activities than to the inherent emotional structure of the material itself – its human narrative. I’m not so sure. Rather, I believe that we are experiencing a Rosenshineinspired renaissance – an acceptance and improved understanding of the efficacy of direct instruction, of which storytelling is a compelling part.

There is relative agreement on the basic features of an effective story, sometimes called 'the four Cs':

The Four Cs

1. Causality – events in stories are related because one event causes or initiates another, thus providing inbuilt triggers for memory recall.

2. Character – strong, interesting characters are essential to good stories.

3. Conflict – in most stories, a central character has a goal and obstacles that prevent the goal from being met. This creates an element of tension that adds to the interest but, more significantly, adds an element of difficulty that initiates deeper thought.

4. Complications – the character’s efforts to remove the obstacle typically create complications, new problems or conflicts that need solving.

We could add to this list a fifth point: place. The late Rex Walford used to enjoy adapting Descartes' famous quote: ‘I think, therefore I am ... therefore I must be somewhere.' Stories must have a location; they must happen somewhere – which leads us on to storytelling in geography.

Storytelling in geography

The study of geography lends itself to storytelling. Storytelling is an unforced methodology for a discipline focused on people and place, underpinned by big concepts such as causation, change, conflict, development, distribution, futures, inequality, interdependence, process, and uncertainty. Note the overlap between the components of an effective story and some of the key geographical concepts. On the evidence of 25 years of geography teaching and the observation of hundreds of lessons, the following types of geographical storytelling seem to be most effective:

1. Personalisation

Comprehending a large-scale process, pattern or trend can be overwhelming for pupils. By personalising the general point into a specific example, it becomes less abstract and more manageable and relatable – often triggering an empathetic, emotional response. Although focusing on one individual simplifies the general trend, it allows the exploration of layers of complexity. For example, crafting the tale of one named rural-urban migrant to illustrate the complex, conflicting pressures involved in the decision-making process is an effective way to study the causes of urbanisation. It is straightforward to add in character (the age profile of a typical migrant), conflicts and complications, push and pull factors and the friction of distance.

2. Anthropomorphism

In physical geography, storytelling might mean developing an anthropomorphism for the formation of a physical landform. For example, Mark Enser (2019) outlines the well-used story of Old Harry and Old Harry’s wife to show how erosion led to the formation of chalk stacks in Dorset:

‘We can create the character of Old Harry using the features we want our pupils to recall: the hard, white chalk and the added complication that he is weakened with fractures. Now we have conflict: it is Old Harry against the sea, holding out for as long as he can but doomed to fail. All the way we through we have causality –this is happening because the thing before happened.’

3. Sequence

Effective character development comes from the action sequence as powerful storytellers ‘show’ rather than simply ‘tell’. Scott Fitzgerald argued that ‘action is character’ and, in geography, for action read process. A classic example of this is pupils creating a cartoon story of the rock cycle with the character Sediment Sid/ Sally transforming through time between igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic rock through the life-changing processes of compaction, cementation, heating, pressure, weathering, and so on.

4. Hinterland

Exploring the hinterland of the subject through stories adds colour and interest – but this is always a delicate balancing act with the management of cognitive load and the need to cut out extraneous detail. Examples include telling the story of continental drift and the humorous Alfred Wegener song by the Amoeba People. This song develops a strong character, complications and conflict –before some resolution as the mechanism for plate movement is hypothesised many years after Wegener’s death. Similarly, the discussion of geopolitical issues can be enhanced by a foray into the fascinating life story of one of the architects of modern geography –Halford Mackinder.

5. Simulations

Storytelling does not need to be only teachertalk. Although games and simulations have drifted out of vogue in recent years, some of the very best simulations work by immersing pupils in a character or role and then giving them a series of interconnected experiences. The roll of a dice or the randomness of a chance card demonstrates that the story is not fixed. There is little control and multiple outcomes, complications, and conflict – especially for those who are most vulnerable. Tried and tested examples include ‘Cojo – the life of a West African subsistence farmer’ and ‘Rosa –the Bangladeshi garment manufacturer’.

6. Space

The spatial dimension underpins all these approaches; at times a specific learning activity can be to map the story, either as it is being told or immediately after. In recent years, we have read a chapter out loud from The Boy at the Back of the Class by Onjali Rauf to Year 9. This tells the story of a young refugee who has fled Syria and, following a traumatic, hazardous journey, arrived in England. A follow-up activity is to map the route taken across Europe.

The sobering story of Mrs X

This example of storytelling was designed for a Year 11 A level taster lesson - focusing on the OCR Human Rights topic ‘Variations in women’s rights – factors that influence global variations in maternal mortality’ (2.2.3 Option C, 1b and 2a). The lesson was informed and inspired by the brilliant WHO animated short film ‘Why did Mrs X die?’,1 which in turn was based on a lecture by the founder of the Safe Motherhood Movement, Prof Mahmoud Fathalla.2 Eight hundred women a day die in childbirth and this lesson attempts to explore the causes of this shocking figure by looking at the life story of one woman.

Making use of a new breakout space (a glorified corridor), I decided to use the physical space to represent the pathway of Mrs X from cradle to grave. Along the route, I set up several stations, with props, to represent critical moments in Mrs X’s life. I adopted a cyclical structure – starting at the end of the story, with the death of Mrs X (and a clinical cause of death) – and then going back to the beginning to explore the deeper socioeconomic and geopolitical causes of this maternal death.

The story is set in Afghanistan – where the maternal mortality rate of 638 per 100,000 live births is the highest outside Africa – and specifically in the remote village of Qal’eh-Ye-Now in Bagdhis Province. Each stage of the story develops the character of Mrs X – Doris Xante. As layers of complexity and complication are introduced at each station, pupils are forced to question the original clinical cause of death. These include poverty, premature birth, ill health, poor diet, lack of education, child marriage, lack of antenatal care, and, ultimately, an under-resourced healthcare system. All these causes of maternal death are exacerbated by social injustice and the geopolitical situation in an environment that values women only for their ability to reproduce.

References:

Teacherhead, 2018. Great teaching. the power of stories. Available at: https:// teacherhead.com/2018/09/23/great-teaching-the-power-of-stories.

Hands on for Mothers and Babies, 2012. Why did Mrs X die, retold. Available at: www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpMwkbiH3eQ.

1 www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpMwkbiH3eQ.

2 Fathalla, M., 1987. Why did Mrs X die? Launch of the Safe Motherhood Movement. Available at: www.academia.edu/12200509/Why_did_Mrs_X_die_Launch_of_the_ Safe_Motherhood_Movement.

ONE CLASS AND THEIR MATHS

Pupils’ perspectives on learning mathematics within their classroom environment. Recently retired Senior Maths Teacher Rosemarie Frost on unlocking the joy of learning in all pupils – whatever their ability.

Teaching is not only about imparting knowledge; it is also about instilling a love of learning – but ‘love of learning’ is an elusive concept. My dissertation for an MEd at the University of Cambridge focused on this very aspect of teaching. The research was a case study for which the participants were my Year 11 Mathematics class who were about to complete their IGCSE course. Although they were in set five out of six, they enjoyed their mathematics lessons and did not seem intimidated by the subject’s challenges. This contradicted the findings of studies on the attitude of pupils in lower sets towards mathematics (Boaler, 1997; Boaler, Wiliam and Brown, 2000). Why had these pupils ‘bucked the trend’?

In his seminal work The Hidden Lives of Learners, Nuthall stated that ‘a teacher needs to understand how different students experience the classroom, and how their experiences shape the changes that are going on in their minds’ (2007, p.15). This informed my research, which explored my pupils’ experiences in their mathematics classroom. I asked them to complete two narratives and to take part in semi-structured interviews. The findings revealed that they had developed a high degree of self-efficacy because of three mediating factors that were inter-related, as illustrated in Figure 1.

Figure 1: Factors that endanger self-efficacy in pupils

Positive relationships with each other and successful collaborative learning had developed gradually, thanks to a classroom ethos that ensured a non-threatening and non-judgmental environment. I received feedback like: 'When I walk into maths and see the smiles of my friends, I feel instantly relieved. No judgment, no patronising smiles when you answer something wrong.’ The atmosphere facilitated risk-taking, since pupils were always, and patiently, given strategies to address misconceptions, along with assurances that they were capable of ‘getting it’. Pupils indicated that the classroom was a safe place where they could look honestly at their own and each other’s mistakes, a typical comment being: 'I have never felt patronised or insecure about my maths ability because we all have the same attitude and like to help each other learn. Sometimes I will ask an obvious or stupid question, and nobody seems to care – I think this has helped a lot of us be honest about what we struggle with because there is no fear of judgement.’ Collaborative learning, in particular, was mentioned enthusiastically by all pupils.

Rosemarie Frost

Many of the pupils’ attitudes towards mathematics had been negative in the past but, by the time they were in Year 11, they had developed a positive perception of the subject. Whilst they still did not necessarily love mathematics itself, they now loved learning it and felt they could achieve well in the subject if they wanted to. In other words, their mindset had changed from from ‘fixed’ to ‘growth’ (Dweck, 2006). One said: 'In Year 11, the more challenging questions have given me a confidence boost after realising that nothing is impossible if you work hard enough to get there.’ This came about because they had developed self-efficacy. Self-efficacy refers to beliefs concerning one’s capability to organise and execute courses of action that produce certain attainments (Bandura, 1997). Pupils with a high degree of self-efficacy work harder, participate more readily, persist longer, and have fewer adverse emotional reactions when they encounter difficulties (Bandura, 1997; Hattie, 2012). These attributes were evident in all the pupils. In addition, there was evidence of intrinsic motivation, where motivation is related to enjoyment in the task.

The classroom environment was key. A major factor in creating the environment was the way in which the ownership of lessons was shared. Each lesson was planned meticulously, applying the principles of Cognitive Load Theory (Sweller, Ayres and Kalyuga, 2011), but the pupils owned the lesson as much as I did, and those who were secure in their understanding of a particular problem were often asked to explain it to others on my behalf. This required a style of classroom management based on teamwork between teacher and pupils. A typical comment was: 'I can discuss with my friends and chat freely. Personally, this makes maths lessons more enjoyable and often leads to completing more work. A quieter, stricter classroom or an unhealthy relationship with my peers would negatively impact my

learning as I tend to work well with others. Mrs Frost allows for such an environment to be maintained. My class and I can quickly become loud and distracted as we are all close friends, however Mrs Frost controls an amicable balance of productivity and sociability.’

Conclusion

Evidence-based teaching methods, such as those based on Cognitive Load Theory, play a valuable role in pupils’ learning. However, affective dimensions and classroom ethos play a powerful part too, not only in pupils’ learning, but also in their perception of success. My pupils were coming to the end of a mathematical journey. Although mathematics was still a challenging and effortful subject for them, they relished doing and learning mathematics together with their peers. They knew they would meet IGCSE questions with which they would struggle. Nevertheless, they felt competent and comfortable with mathematics.

Whilst their mathematical ability would be measured by their IGCSE grade, the success of their journey should not be judged by that measure alone. The purpose of teaching should be more than academic achievement in the form of examination results. It should also be about instilling a love of learning. No teacher would deny that, but ‘love of learning’ is not measurable, so it may be overlooked. In participating in this study and describing their experiences and thoughts, these pupils offered an interpretation of the meaning of ‘love of learning’: they had developed mathematical confidence, become at ease with the subject, and taken ownership of it.

References:

Bandura, A., 1997. Self-efficacy: the exercise of control. W. H. Freeman.

Boaler, J., 2002. Experiencing school mathematics. Taylor and Francis.

Boaler, J., Wiliam, D. and Brown, M., 2000. Students' experiences of ability grouping – disaffection, polarisation and the construction of failure. British Educational Research Journal, 26(5), 631–648.

Dwek, C. S., 2006. Mindset: the new psychology of success. Random House.

Hattie, J., 2012. Visible learning for teachers maximizing impact on learning. Routledge.

Nuthall, G., 2007. The hidden lives of learners. New Zealand Council for Educational Research (NZCER) Press.

Sweller, J., Ayres, P. and Kalyuga, S., 2011. Cognitive load theory. Springer.

RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE

iSAMS, OneDrive, iPads, SharePoint ... these have all caused us a little teacher rage at some point (some more than others).

By Claire Turkington, Head of Academic Music and

EPQ Supervisor.

Technology in education tends to put people in distinct camps of ‘for’ or ‘against’. There is no doubt that there are plenty of pros, but there are also plenty of cons. If the adoption of technology for learning is to succeed, we need to make it explicit how a technology-rich environment will support teaching and learning.1

The Education Endowment Foundation’s guidance report, ‘Using Digital Technology to Improve Learning’2, is a great read with plenty of evidence-based recommendations:

• Consider how technology is going to improve teaching and learning before introducing it.

• Technology can be used to improve the quality of explanations and modelling.

• Technology offers ways to improve the impact of pupil practice.

• Technology can play a role in improving assessment and feedback.

Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) is a good introduction to the pedagogy behind integrating technology into teaching. TPACK attempts to identify the nature of knowledge required by teachers for technology integration in their teaching, while addressing the complex, multifaceted and situated nature of teacher knowledge.3 It can be used to integrate technology into the content and pedagogy of our classrooms, which in turn helps our pupils learn more effectively.4

SAMR is an acronym that stands for Substitution, Augmentation, Modification and Redefinition, developed in 2010 by education researcher Ruben Puentedura. As we integrate technology tools into our instruction, the SAMR model can be used to determine whether the technology is enhancing or transforming the learning.5 The model has four levels that explain the increasing impact of the integration from substituting another traditional learning method (such as writing with pen and paper) to creating a completely new learning style (such as pupils completing and presenting a team project using global videoconferencing and a virtual classroom).

Our iPad trial has provided us with a unique opportunity to start trying out many of these ideas, but let’s face it, trials like this are difficult. You can experiment with different teaching ideas, but often there is no follow up. You cannot commit to changing schemes of work when you know the same year group will not have access to the same technology the following year. We try things out, they either work or they don’t, and then we have to remember to implement this again when all year groups (hopefully) have iPads. As Bill Gates said in 2012: 'Just giving people devices, that has a really terrible track record. You really have to change the curriculum and the teacher and those things...'.6

I have spent a lot of this year trying out technology that might work with iPads:

• Augmented Reality – an interactive experience of a real-world environment. Objects in the real world are enhanced by computergenerated perceptual information, sometimes across multiple sensory modalities. There are lots of education apps, such as Civilisations AR, which brings historical artefacts into the classroom for History and Classical Civilisation; AR Makr, which pupils can use to produce interactive stories in English and MFL; and Froggipedia for bringing the frog life cycle to life in Science.

• OneNote – a smart digital notepad that allows teachers and pupils to get ideas down and organised. All the notes stay in the cloud, via OneDrive, so you can access it across multiple devices. OneNote is truly multimedia. It supports typing, written notes and drawing, plus imported images, videos, and audio notes. The audio notes, in particular, can be a nice way to annotate a pupil's work, for example, giving it a personal touch while also helping to clarify any point that needs to be made.

• Visualisers – a visualiser in the classroom can be used to help pupils gain a deeper understanding of a topic while boosting engagement. Using a visualiser, you can share a live image of just about anything with your class. A visualiser in every teaching room should be the norm, not the exception – and we can use our iPads for this. Screen mirroring is particularly easy to do and provides a quick and easy way to model strategies and give group feedback.

Daisy Christodoulou says there are two simple points that are excellent guides to device usage: How do you expect pupils to use them? What is the quality of the resources they’ll be using? Her blog post ‘Remote learning: why hasn’t it worked before and what can we do to change that?’7 explores many different ideas.

The Department for Education published a paper in June 2022 entitled ‘Future opportunities for education technology in England’. The conclusions drawn by the writers underpin what has been said above: it is how practitioners use technology and how they integrate it within their pedagogies and curriculum delivery, that will contribute towards learning outcomes and pupil wellbeing. A key study finding is that teachers, learners, parents and carers must become ‘experts by experience’ to make EdTech relevant and meaningful, having opportunities to develop and test EdTech solutions.8

The biggest piece of advice for teachers integrating technology into their teaching successfully: ‘Know Your Enemy’ and ‘Take the Power Back’ –do you see what I did there?!

1 Josepicardo.com, A digital strategy for teaching and learning. Available at: www.josepicardo.com/ education/digital-strategy-teaching-learning.

2 Education Endowment Foundation (EEF). Using digital technology to improve learning. Available at: https://educationendowmentfoundation.org. uk/education-evidence/guidance-reports/digital.

3 Castro, 2021.

4 McGraw Hill. What is TPACK Theory and how can it be used in the classroom? Available at: www. mheducation.ca/blog/what-is-tpack-theory-andhow-can-it-be-used-in-the-classroom.

5 Terada, Y, 2020. Edutopia. A powerful model for understanding good tech integration. Available at: www.edutopia.org/article/powerful-modelunderstanding-good-tech-integration.

6 The Verge. Bill Gates: tablets in the classroom have a 'terrible track record'. Available at: www. theverge.com/2012/6/27/3120302/bill-gatestablets-education.

7 Christodoulou, D. Remote learning: why hasn't it worked before and what can we do to change that?. Available at: https://daisychristodoulou. com/2020/03/remote-learning-why-hasnt-itworked-before-and-what-can-we-do-to-changethat.

8 Department for Education, 2022. Future opportunities for education technology in England. Available at: https://assets.publishing. service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/ uploads/attachment_data/file/1080930/Future_ opportunities_for_education_technology_in_ England_June_2022.pdf.

HOW CAN WE DEVELOP A CULTURE OF INDEPENDENT PRACTICE IN YEAR 10

'Don’t practise until you get it right’, says Danielle Lewis, Lead Practitioner Mathematics, ‘practise until you can’t get it wrong’.

Rationale

In our experience, pupils only revise in the run-up to tests. We are trying to embed a culture of regular retrieval practice throughout the year and to encourage pupils to be proactive and independent in their learning. We have observed that in music and sport (both practical activities) it seems natural to practise a skill until it is mastered. In academic pursuits, pupils seem to rely on their teacher to explain a task until they just ‘get it’ without putting in the effort to consolidate new ideas. Perhaps they don’t know how to practise independently and/or they don’t believe that practice will improve fluency. An important maxim for them to keep in mind is: Don't practise until you get it right; practise until you can't get it wrong.

Implementation

Two Year 10 Maths teachers designed a practice diary to be used throughout the Lent term. One homework per week was designated as a ‘practice homework’. We wanted to emphasise the word ‘practice’ – perhaps repeated use of the word would help to embed the idea. In music/sport, we typically use the words practice or training, but in academic subjects, it’s called homework or revision.

Initially, we suggested topics for revision with a selection of tasks from which to choose. It was then up to the pupil to choose a task, record it, rate their confidence, and then reschedule the topic so that they would revisit it using a different task in a timescale that reflected their confidence in that topic. If they had very low confidence, they were encouraged to seek help from their teacher.

Ideas from research

Graham Nuthall says in The Hidden Lives of Learners: 'To learn a new concept securely, a student must revisit it in its entirety at least three times over a few days or weeks.'

Practice for fluency: Knowledge and procedures become so well consolidated that they can be effortlessly recalled.

Deliberate practice: When pupils struggle at the outer reaches of their ability to learn something intrinsically difficult and stretching (Shaun Allison and Andy Thraby, Making Every Lesson Count).

Use of technology

This project coincided with the issuing of iPads to Year 10, so we implemented the practice diary in the Class Notebook within Teams. In this way, we could populate the teacher copy with suggested tasks from which the pupils would then copy and paste a chosen task into their area. The teacher could then monitor their use of the diary.

Dunlosky et al. (2013) note in Improving students' learning with effective learning techniques: 'Memory retrieval is most useful at the point of forgetting.'

The practice diary

For your practice homework each week:

• Write the topic title, followed by the activity you choose.

• In the 'fluency' column, write a number from one to 10 (where 10 is the most confident and one is the least).

• Schedule your next practice session of that topic in that number of weeks' time. Write it down against that date with the task you're going to do.

• If it's a very low number, seek help from your teacher or at Maths Clinic during that week, before your next practice session.

The comments are very strongly in favour of a paper system and can be summarised as follows:

Evaluation

At the end of the Lent term, pupils completed a questionnaire about their attitudes to the practice diary.

Conclusion and next steps

It is clear from the feedback that the pupils overwhelmingly preferred using paper to record their work rather than doing so online. They valued the opportunity to practise but have yet to develop the independence to choose their own tasks. We shall continue to set aside specific homeworks to be practice sessions. We shall aim to provide a paper diary with suggested tasks, as well as doing a starter activity relating to the practice task on the day the practice homework is set. In this way, we can begin to embed a culture of regular practice leading to proactive and independent practice as the pupils progress through the School and beyond.

I did a revision activity and recorded it in my practice diary

I did a revision activity and did not record it in my practice diary

I did not do a revision activity but recorded something in my practice diary

I did not do the activity or record it in my practice diary

The practice diary was a useful way to organise my revision scored 2.36 out of 4, showing a favourable but not overwhelmingly positive response

References

Introduction to thematic analysis of qualitative data. Available at: www.youtube.com/ watch?v=i7uLQvS7Zwc.

Focus Group Data Analysis. Available at: www. youtube.com/watch?v=VIYBEE-1GbA.

Bree, R. and Gallagher, G., 2016. Using Microsoft Excel to code and thematically analyse qualitative data: a simple, cost-effective approach. AISHE-J: The All Ireland Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, 8 (2).

TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE.

AN EXPLORATION OF THE LIMITATIONS OF COGNITIVE SCIENCE IN THE CLASSROOM

Cognitive science is a hot topic among teachers at present. Here Alex Greenfield, Head of English, considers the pitfalls of blindly applying its assumed principles in the classroom.

Without doubt, cognitive science is having a ‘moment’ in the educational spotlight. In 2017, Dylan Wiliam tweeted that 'Sweller's Cognitive Load Theory is the single most important thing for teachers to know', with other educational theorists and practitioners, including Tom Sherrington, likewise reinforcing its potential to transform teaching. Teacher-researcher Oliver Lovell lauded the Cognitive Load Theory as an 'incredibly rich and powerful model' that could 'fundamentally' change teaching and learning.1 Concurrently, a wave of educational literature, some more grounded in substantive research than others, has been published exploring the application of cognitive science in the classroom.

Indeed, so pervasive is its influence that, as pointed out by the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF), the assumed principles of cognitive science are already having an impact on teaching policy, with the 2019 Ofsted framework explicitly referencing its effectiveness in the classroom2. In a survey conducted by the EEF, 'over 85% of respondents said that cognitive science strategies were central to their own approach to teaching'3 and some of the key principles are being taught as part of the Early Career Framework to all new teachers. This includes those following the ECF programme written and developed here at STAHS. Such a buzz has no doubt popularised the theory; however, as with any trending theory of education, its nuances can easily be lost in the rush to keep up with swinging trends in education. Consequently, we as a profession can become blinkered to the potential pitfalls of blindly applying the assumed principles of cognitive science in the classroom. This article will explore just some of these pitfalls; however, given that cognitive science encompasses, in itself, an incredibly broad range of approaches and practices (including retrieval practice, interleaving, dual coding, and modelling to name but a few), this article is written with

the intention of simply starting a conversation, rather than as a full and complete review of the opportunities and limitations of the theory.

According to The Royal Society, cognitive science aims to 'characterise the mechanisms of learning and the sources of individual difference in learning ability … [to] help assess the performance and impact of different educational approaches'4 Educational researcher Professor Pooja Agarwal defines cognitive science as 'inside’ thinking'; that is, using science to interrogate the processes by which we learn, remember, and make decisions.5 The importance of these processes for pupils in education would suggest that a good understanding of cognitive science could enhance teaching practice, perhaps exponentially, and, consequently, suggests that teachers should know about it and should use it in their classrooms. However, such a black and white approach carries its own dangers.

Despite the many purported benefits of using cognitive science in the classroom, Daniel Willingham points out: 'The extent to which teachers understand cognitive science and the extent to which they need to understand it is debatable'.6 Willingham warns against the application of 'abstract theory at the expense of practical knowledge'.7 He argues that a 'lack of basic [cognitive] science [in lessons] doesn’t mean practice is bad', citing 'professional judgement' as a means of assessing lesson quality.8 In support, Brookman-Byrne and Thomas state that 'being prescriptive [with cognitive science practices] will interfere with a teacher’s professional autonomy' suggesting that, instead, 'providing new tools and information drawn from scientific research will enable teachers to choose the most appropriate method … within their own classroom.'

Indeed, an unquestioning blanket approach to cognitive science across all subjects and abilities can lead to lethal mutations; instances when the theory is incorrectly understood or oversimplified leading to a reduction in impact or even a negative effect on pupil progress (for more, see EEF 2021, page 11).

A further important consideration is to what extent particular practices apply to all learners. Citing Dunlosky et al., Robert Coe points out that 'many studies' of retrieval practice, for example, 'focus on "relatively simple verbal materials"… and some cognitive scientists have questioned whether retrieval improves performance in complex tasks.'10 Cat Scutt, Director of Education and Research at the Chartered College of Teaching, also recognises this, highlighting that 'research on the expertise reversal effect suggests that the approaches that are most effective with novice learners may be less effective when working with more expert ones.'11 This is also true when considering Cognitive Load Theory. Professor Slava Kalyuga acknowledges this potential pitfall, writing that 'the level of cognitive load and its classification as intrinsic or extraneous load are relative to the learner’s expertise level. Therefore, the effectiveness of the same learning materials will vary as a result of different levels of prior knowledge.'12

Furthermore, in their review of the literature surrounding cognitive science, the EEF noted that 'much of this evidence comes from studies in the psychology laboratory or from researcher-led trials',13 not necessarily from ‘everyday’ classroom practice in ‘everyday’ classrooms.

They also state that the evidence produced about the effectiveness of certain practices, most notably interleaving, have almost 'exclusively been tested in one subject area (mathematics).'14 While this is certainly hugely promising and important for teachers of maths (and also, in many cases, science) it should lead us, as critical professionals, to question the supposed effectiveness in our own classrooms. As with all things in education, context is key.

Considering all this, then, it may seem that cognitive science presents more challenges than opportunities, however to rule it out completely based only on the fact that it may be fallible in certain contexts risks missing out on the many benefits it may and can provide. There is a swathe of evidence that suggests that 'cognitive science principles of learning can have a real impact on rates of learning in the classroom' and that 'there is value in teachers having working knowledge of cognitive science principles.'15

The key to understanding how to make best use of such theory is to apply professional judgement when considering the context in which the learning is taking place. Neuromyths must be dispelled and lethal mutations corrected. Simultaneously, complex scientific theory must be translated into practical activities that can be used in classrooms. In educating ourselves about both the opportunities and limitations of any theory of education, we are consequently much better placed to make the best decisions in our classrooms, ultimately enabling us to strive for the very best outcomes for our pupils.

1 Lovell, 2020, 15.

2 Ofsted, 2019, 19.

3 EEF, 2021, 5.

4 Royal Society, 2011.

5 Agarwal, 2020.

6 Willingham, 2019.

7 Willingham, 2018.

8 Willingham, 2019.

9 Brookman-Byrne and Thomas, 2018.

10 Coe, 2019.

11 Scutt, 2020.

12 Kalyuga, 2020.

13 EEF, 2021, 6.

14 EEF, 2021, 7.

15 EEF, 2021, 7.

References:

Agarwal, P., 2020. How useful is cognitive science for everyday classroom practice? [webinar]. Available at: https://mypd.chartered.college/login/ index.php#section-6.

Brookman-Byrne, A. and Thomas, M., 2018. Neuroscience, psychology and education: Emerging links. Impact (March 2018). Available at: https:// my.chartered.college/impact_article/neuroscience-psychology-and-education-emerging-links.

Coe, Prof. R., 2019. Does research on 'retrieval practice' translate into classroom practice?. Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) Blog. Available at: https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/news/does-research-on-retrieval-practice-translate-into-classroom-practice.

Education Endowment Foundation, 2021. Cognitive science approaches in the classroom: a review of the evidence. Available at: https://d2tic4wvo1iusb.cloudfront.net/documents/guidance/Cognitive_science_approaches_in_the_classroom_-_A_review_of_the_evidence. pdf?v=1629124457.

Kalyuga, S., 2020. Expertise reversal effect and its instructional implications. Impact. Available at: https://my.chartered.college/impact_article/ expertise-reversal-effect-and-its-instructional-implications.

Ofsted, 2019. Education inspection framework: overview of research. Available at: www.gov.uk/government/publications/education-inspectionframework-overview-of-research.

Scutt, C., 2020. How much do teachers really need to know about the science of learning? Schools Week. Available at: https://schoolsweek.co.uk/ how-much-do-teachers-really-need-to-know-about-the-science-of-learning.

The Royal Society, 2011. Neuroscience: implications for education and lifelong learning. Available at: https://royalsociety.org/-/media/Royal_ Society_Content/policy/publications/2011/4294975733.pdf.

Willingham, D., 2019. Ask the cognitive scientist: should teachers know the basic science of how children learn? American Educator. Available at: www.aft.org/ae/summer2019/willingham.

Willingham, D., 2018. Unlocking the science of how kids think. Education Next 18(3). Available at: www.educationnext.org/unlocking-science-howkids-think-new-proposal-for-reforming-teacher-education.

CONFESSIONS OF A (NOT SO) NOVICE PIANIST

As teachers, we work amongst learners. In general, there’s a hierarchy: the superior, knowledgeable, authoritative teachers and the inferior, naïve learners. But how well do we remember the experience of being a learner? I have found that becoming a learner again has highlighted all sorts of pitfalls and challenges that our pupils face – it has made them real to me and helped me see the learning experience through their eyes. Even more valuably, it has reminded me of the distinction between novice and expert learners – what it feels like to be a wide-eyed, eager but unsophisticated student, compared to the sage and experienced approach of an expert.

Think about it: when was the last time you placed yourself in the formal position of the learner? Until recently, my last experience was really at university. Sure, I’d fiddled with the odd foreign language app, listened to some Italian podcasts, and attended many a professional training session and conference, but for a while I hadn’t faced the pressure of a teacher expecting me to make sustained progress in a particular skill or area of knowledge. Then, I made the new year’s resolution to play our piano and decided that I needed a teacher to help motivate and coach me. I signed up to fortnightly piano lessons with one of the Visiting Music Tutors in our STAHS Music Department.

I am not a novice pianist (and nor am I truly a novice learner) but my zenith in piano playing was nearly 20 years ago. At my first lesson this year, I was very rusty and feeling a distinct lack of confidence. Despite being fairly used to performing, I was nervous about playing in front of a professional. A few months in, I have made a few observations about what it feels like to learn.

It’s lovely to practise what you know ... but it gets boring

Playing an easy piece to start with gave me great satisfaction as a learner. I was able to build my confidence and feel pride in making a beautiful sound. Mastery gave me joy and playing faster, louder, and with more of a bounce was thrilling, despite the low difficulty level. This reminded me why pupils like to repeat exercises or do a Kahoot quiz on a topic they already know well. But soon, I became bored with that piece; it didn’t present enough challenge and as a result it became robotic.

Straying outside of your comfort zone feels scary

In my lessons, I could feel my teacher pushing me beyond where I was comfortable into that golden zone of growth. I’m not going to lie: it felt scary. When I was stretched, my fingers wavered, I got giggly, and I stumbled over the notes – but afterwards, I could sense that I had really achieved something. After a few lessons, I was more familiar with the fear factor, and I started to relish it. I knew it meant progress.

Zoë Briggs, Drama Teacher and EPQ Supervisor, on how resuming piano lessons after almost two decades has made her a more enterprising and empathetic teacher.

Zoë performing recently.

Expert terminology flatters me

When my teacher uses musical terms, and we converse in the specialist language of music, I feel flattered – it makes me into a musician. This reminds me that we must be ambitious in the way we speak to pupils; if we treat them as mini-experts, they will develop their own vocabulary and learn to speak specifically about our subject.

High support, high challenge

In my lessons, my teacher gives me a high level of support: she creates scaffolds for me to try new techniques, she models tricky passages, and she gives plenty of verbal encouragement. This gives me the confidence to make mistakes, so the high level of challenge feels appropriate. I’ve noticed that we can only truly challenge pupils when they feel supported to stretch their skills – so progress is possible.

Cramming is natural

As a teacher, of course I know that interleaving my practise will result in progress and improvement. Does this mean I practise every other day? Absolutely not. Like any normal human, I realise three days before my lesson that I haven’t practised nearly enough and I cram in time on the piano to try to compensate, then arrive at my lesson apologising to my teacher before I even touch the keys. It’s amazing how many times I take this impractical approach. Changing a habit is so difficult, and I realise now how tricky our pupils must find it too.

Success in something more difficult is more satisfying

Having enjoyed showing off my mastery of the earlier, simpler pieces, I have found that succeeding at a more difficult piece, and knowing it is difficult, is far more satisfying. A tricky Chopin nocturne is keeping me awake at night, but when I crack it I know that I’ll be secretly celebrating. This week I even took a deep breath and played that Chopin – haltingly – on the grand piano in the Jubilee Hall. No one heard me, but I felt such elation and pride in myself.

I continue to enjoy my piano lessons, and the initial raw feeling of discomfort of being in the learner’s seat (or piano stool) has eased. Becoming a conscious learner again has helped me to observe the attention, concentration, and commitment required to construct knowledge and re-build skill. I’ve become more alert to the fascinating, complex process of learning, and consequently more enterprising and empathetic in the classroom.

References:

Dweck, C. S., 2008. Mindset: the new psychology of success. Ballantine Books. Allison, S. and Tharby, A., 2015. Making Every Lesson Count. Crown House Publishing.

Young Zoë at the piano.

APPROACHES TO PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Professional development in England has undergone a rapid transformation in the last decade or so, coinciding with a general drive within education for greater emphasis on evidence-informed teaching and learning strategies. In 2016, the Department for Education CPD Expert Group provided the ‘Standard for teachers’ professional development’ on implementing good professional development, which, along with organisations like the Teacher Development Trust, has helped shape the direction of travel.

The best schools have moved away from the traditional approach of attending some external courses each year in the vain hope that it would bring about better outcomes for our pupils. These schools, with STAHS included, instead favour a blend of internally-run opportunities, such as our Book Club, Electives, Enquiry Questions and Departmental CPD sessions, with carefully chosen external professional development. These decisions align with the key ideas in the CPD Expert Group’s report, particularly that professional development should have a clear focus on improving and evaluating pupil outcomes, underpinned by robust evidence and expertise, and should be sustained over time.

There remain appealing options for external CPD, as there are elements that we cannot easily replicate internally, such as the Chartered College’s CTeach Programme and some of the exam board courses. The shift in CPD thinking means that teachers and leaders in schools ask better questions about the worthiness of courses: whether a day in London on ‘Differentiation’ for £400 is likely to lead to better pupil outcomes versus our own CPD programmes or building something bespoke from our talented pool of superb teachers.

There is a lot to be said about the informal side of professional development. At STAHS we benefit from an extensive CPD Library that is constantly expanding as teachers provide recommendations. Picking out a book related to an area of your own development gives you a route to learn and apply that learning, which can be more flexible than a timetabled programme. Most education books are set up in such a way that a chapter may be all you need to get going, rather than reading from cover to cover. Following other teachers and organisations on Twitter can allow you to keep abreast of the latest educational thinking and can lead to osmosis of fantastic ideas as you read through your feed. Everything from visiting other schools, to networking either locally or in subject-specific groups, can help by allowing you to ask questions of others in the same position as you. I would have struggled to survive through COVID without my HMC cluster group of Deputy Heads!

There is more to do though. The only explicit expectation of teachers comes in the Teachers’ Standards, where we are expected to ‘take responsibility for improving teaching through appropriate professional development’. It doesn’t become any more specific in the Ofsted and ISI frameworks. All teachers know they have areas they can improve upon, and many countries expect and provide funding and time for teachers to spend a specified number of hours per year on their professional development. According to the Wellcome-commissioned report 'The cost of high quality professional development for teachers in England', 35 hours of CPD time per year would require an increase of less than 1% to the total schools budget. The best professional development takes place when it is prioritised by school leadership, and improved Department for Education funding and explicit expectations would be an important way to help schools prioritise CPD in the most effective ways.

A shift in thinking means teachers and leaders now view CPD differently, says Drew Thomson, Deputy Head Academic and a Teacher of Physics.

Programmes

PROFESSIONAL LEARNING AT STAHS. CREATING THE CONDITIONS FOR GROWTH

Dylan Wiliam said: ‘Every teacher needs to improve, not because they are not good enough, but because they can be even better'. STAHS’ professional learning programme helps teachers achieve this goal, says Stephen Ramsbottom.

In 'Inconvenient truths about teacher learning’, Fred Korthagen1 argues that there is a gap between what is known about making teaching more effective and the practice on the ground. Unfortunately, the lived experience of this gap has not been a neutral one.

Building on Dylan Wiliam’s argument that ‘every teacher needs to improve, not because they are not good enough, but because they can be even better’,2 the professional learning programme at STAHS has several key pillars that collectively aim to bridge the gap between knowledge and implementation:

1. A sustained and strategic focus on teaching and learning, with a focus on enhancing pupil outcomes.

2. The development of extended programmes rather than one-off events.

3. A robust foundation of evidence and expertise: research evidence cannot provide all the answers but ‘it can provide a beacon of sorts to provide light where before we were stumbling around in the dark’ (Hendrick, 2018)3

4. A commitment to providing more domain-specific time for professional learning. Ultimately, the key question about any research is 'How can this be applied in my subject?' or: 'What does this look like in my classroom?’.

5. Providing choice – to cater for diverse levels of experience, interest, and departmental foci.

6. Encouraging deliberate practice to shift the emphasis from knowledge acquisition to implementation.

Operationally, this breaks down into six half-termly cycles, as follows:

1 Korthagen, F., 2017. Inconvenient truths about teacher learning: towards professional development 3.0. Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice, 23 (4), 387-405 at 387.

2 Wiliam, D, 2021. How do we prepare our students for a world we cannot possibly imagine? [Speech delivered at the SSAT National Conference, Liverpool, 4-5 December 2012.]

3 Hendrick, C., 2018. Ask the expert. Durrington Research School [online] Available at: https://researchschool. org.uk/durrington/news/ask-theexpert-carl-hendrick.

The next section of the Teaching and Learning Journal reflects on the intent, implementation, and impact of a selection of these programmes.

Programmes

THE CPD CURRICULUM: REFLECTIONS ON THE ELECTIVES PROGRAMME AT STAHS

The STAHS Electives Programme, involving a choice of twilight training sessions spread across the academic year, was introduced in September 2021. I am sure I was not alone in thinking that the last thing we needed after the dreaded previous summer of ‘TAG-min’ was extra training after school on a half-termly basis. Yet I can honestly say that I have enjoyed the Electives Programme this past year: the wide range of choice; the research-informed approach; the constant emphasis on ‘what does this look like in your classroom?’; and, of course, the delicious tea and cake on offer, that could rival even the Book Club breakfast pastries!

Firstly, I would like to elaborate on the main strands of Electives and the philosophy behind it. As part of our professional development here at STAHS, the Electives Programme aims to encourage our teaching staff to develop their classroom craft by exploring various aspects of Teaching and Learning in more depth, linked to the following four core strands: Pastoral; Curriculum; Pedagogy (sub-divided into Explanation and Modelling; Questioning and Feedback and Practice and Retrieval); and Assessment.

Secondly, the Electives Programme is designed to be integrated into our other professional learning programmes (Book Club, Departmental CPD, ECF (Early Career Framework)). In fact, the programme integrates itself naturally with our Book Club, since many Book Club enthusiasts have gone on to lead or attend sessions on a particular strand of Teaching and Learning following on from their educational reading and discussions with others. Both the Electives and Book Club programmes have in turn informed the direction of many departmental CPD sessions and have even spawned spin-off Book Clubs in some departments (minus tasty treats!).

Thirdly and most importantly, a few personal reflections on how the Elective sessions have impacted my own classroom practice. The most memorable and impactful sessions were those that involved several different departments co-leading the input. Drawing on teachers’ expertise from across many subject areas is, in my view, always beneficial, and the best training sessions gave practical tips or examples, which were both cross-curricular and easily applicable in the classroom.

Rachel Gupta, Head of German, looks back on what she learned during the first year of the STAHS Electives Programme.

"Truly great schools do not suddenly exist. You grow great teachers

first, who, in turn, grow a truly great school." John Tomsett (2015)

In this way, the session on ‘live’ modelling comes immediately to mind, as it allowed the teachers present to experience being novice pupils again. For example, we were shown how to make lino prints in Art by watching Sarah Brown live model how to use the ink, the roller, and the lino template on special paper to produce a print. A complex skill, which clearly requires a lot of practice to perfect, was broken down into manageable stages by Sarah in a clear, informative, yet also entertaining manner. Whilst watching and listening to Sarah talk through her own thought processes and actions, we novices were able to ask questions about how we would approach such a task ourselves. This led us to think about what further information would be required to feel confident enough to have a go ourselves at something so completely new.

I think if I had to pick one thing to take away from this session on modelling, it is the power and impact of an expert teacher in being able to model an ‘expert answer’ in front of a class live. In other words, allowing pupils to witness our thought processes explicitly when modelling tasks is invaluable to their own learning, rather than simply providing them with a ‘here’s-one-I-made-earlier’ template, à la Blue Peter. It challenged me to not only showcase or unpick amazing ‘ready-made’ answers in class, but also show pupils more frequently how to create an expert answer themselves by modelling this aloud in front of them. It is essential for us to remember what it is like to be a novice in the classroom if we are to model and explain tasks effectively to our pupils.

Regarding the pastoral side of Teaching and Learning, I found the session on ‘True Inclusion’ particularly useful. Awareness of SEND (Special Educational Needs and Disabilities) in the classroom is something that I strongly believe every member of our teaching staff would have benefitted

from, rather than as a voluntary Electives session, since we all have a duty to make our lessons and resources accessible to all pupils. Yet few of us teachers, even if we are experts in our own field, can say we are experts in SEND or fully understand how pupils with SEND think and interpret what we say in class. Knowing how to adapt our resources and teaching techniques to enable pupils to fully access what we want them to learn is crucial. I know that attending this Elective has highlighted my own need for additional training in these areas.

It is important to remember that any school can set up an excellent professional development programme but the biggest challenge remains implementation: transferring the knowledge from these sessions to the classroom. It is the responsibility of each teacher to focus on deliberate practice in the classroom to ensure continual improvement. That is why it is important that, wherever possible, we continue to use our own experienced teaching staff to create and lead the Electives, delivering sessions that are research-informed and robust in their approach, but also useful to all departments by providing practical applications across subjects, and (perhaps) a little entertainment along the way … . Using and developing our own internal, context-specific expertise makes these sessions more relevant and I would argue more likely to impact our own teaching practice in the classroom.

To round off, I would say that I highly recommend co-leading an Electives session in future, given that you learn just as much, if not more, by researching and presenting on a topic yourself.

And did I mention that there’s cake?

BOOK CLUB REFLECTION

You may think that attending an 08.00 professional development book club on a bi-weekly basis would be the absolute last thing a busy teacher would look forward to in the midst of all the last-minute lesson planning, photocopier-wrangling, and other myriad requirements of a busy morning here at STAHS. But you’d be wrong. Sitting down with my colleagues once a fortnight for half an hour to discuss matters of pedagogy, pupil inclusion, and, often, philosophy in a broader sense has been a highlight for me this year. This guaranteed anchor point of intellectual engagement and meaningful dialogue sustains me in unexpected ways as I spend my days bouncing from classroom to dining hall, topic to topic, PowerPoint to Excel spreadsheet with limited other opportunities to give any of it too much thought.

The benefit of professional development Book Club is threefold. Firstly, impetus. Despite the promises we may make ourselves, how realistic is it, for most, that in the absence of external incentive, we will sit down in the evening after tackling the pile of marking and pick up a heavy academic tome dedicated to teaching and learning? Having an impending deadline of a Book Club meeting, and not wanting to embarrass oneself with vague, inarticulate commentary, creates the sense of urgency many of us need to motivate ourselves to commit to professional reading. This has been supported by Stephen Ramsbottom’s sensible choice of publications: ‘page turners’ might be over-egging it, but everything we’ve read has certainly been engaging and manageable in terms of both content and length. Once the decision has been made to actually pick the books up and put Instagram/BBC Sport/WhatsApp [insert distraction of choice] down, of course the second benefit comes from actually reading them. We have tackled two books in their entirety this year as well as a number of blog posts and all have been stimulating. The first book we read was Teach to the Top by Megan Mansworth. This book questions a key orthodoxy in education: the value of differentiation. In an interesting parallel with STAHS' Challenge for All philosophy, Mansworth argues that all pupils, rather than only those of the highest ability, should be afforded the opportunities to think deeply and grapple with complicated ideas. She also makes the somewhat Govian case for the centrality of subject knowledge, arguing that it is a teacher’s grasp of their subject, not pedagogical skills, which makes the single biggest difference to their pupils’ performance. Kirsty Eddison guided us through our second pick, Diversity in Schools, in which Teach First alumna Bennie Kara asks teachers to consider how to create a school in which ‘diversity (of age, disability, gender, race and sexuality) is embraced and embedded.’ Among other questions, Kara reflects on the importance of the language used in our schools, how we

can use our curriculum and classroom practices to consciously cater for a range of voices and how to introduce pupils to the concept of social injustice. More recently, Henry Cullen has facilitated discussions on pupil literacy and the patterns of language in our respective subjects, using Ruth Ashbee’s blog on the topic as a jumping off point.

Personally, and I’m sure the other Book Club members would agree, simply reading the texts has made me question and refine my practice to some degree. However, it is the third benefit of Book Club that is most impactful of all and that is the benefit of collaborative discussion. The fact that Stephen has sensibly chosen books with contentious elements combined with the fact that the Book Club attendees are a diverse crowd in terms of length of teaching experience, background, and subject specialism means debate can flourish. As you can imagine, the concept that ‘differentiation is one of the darkest arts in teaching', discussed one lively Thursday morning, was met with an entirely different reaction from the Dylan Wiliam-era English PGCE graduates than it was by the, say, 2010s trained Chemistry teachers.

Likewise, whilst some of us agreed with Bennie Kara that it’s crucial for pupil self-esteem for teachers to keep up with what, for example, the widely accepted terms for ethnic minority groups are (people of colour versus BAME?), others of us worried that this, and subjects like it, are an unnecessary distraction from the real business of teaching and learning. These two topics are just a tiny sample of the range of subjects we have discussed this year, inspired by our reading and our day-to-day experiences in the classroom here at STAHS. We haven’t always agreed on the issues at hand, but I think all Book Club members would agree how enriching and revealing it is to hear how teachers with different subject backgrounds, different worldviews, different temperaments, even, respond to the same pedagogical premise. And, even better, people don’t hold back in their responses to the texts: Thursday morning, Week B in the Forum seems to be a ‘safe space’, as if we’ve all silently agreed on the first rule of Book Club: you do not talk about Book Club.

In sum, STAHS professional development Book Club has given me the incentive to read professionally, the ability to develop my practice in meaningful ways, and a means of dusting off those critical thinking skills in order to join in with healthy debate. It has helped me to see my colleagues in a new light and appreciate different perspectives more readily. I cannot recommend attending highly enough. Why not elevate your Thursday mornings by coming along? Kicking the photocopier can wait.

The benefits of STAHS' professional development Book Club have been plentiful for Politics and History Teacher and Head of Hodgkin Scholars, Cat Kordel, as she explains here.

KEEPING THE SUBJECT SPECIFIC – DEPARTMENTAL APPROACHES TO CPD

At STAHS the intent of the CPD curriculum is set by whole School priorities (Challenge for All, Teach to 25, developing great T&L: quality explanations, effective questioning techniques, thoughtful modelling and removal of scaffolding, impactful feedback that feeds forward, and creating memoryfriendly classrooms). But different departments have the flexibility to implement these priorities in different ways. This is neatly demonstrated by the Science Department: the overarching aims are the same, but they are reached in a variety of ways:

Making every lesson count in Biology

Departmental CPD for Biology took the form of a mini book club, reading Making Every Science Lesson Count by Shaun Allison. Each session involved reading a single chapter in advance and then using the session to discuss, initially using the prompt questions at the end of each chapter, but quickly moving onto our own experiences. Each chapter was chosen by a different member of the department with a particular interest in that area and that person initially took the lead on the discussion. While the book didn't contain a lot of unfamiliar ideas, it was an excellent opportunity to reflect on our own practice. The time set aside to think about the basics, which are so easily forgotten in the heat of the moment, was judged really valuable. Every teacher left the session determined to try something new (or old) and the second session on Practice was especially helpful for giving us structure to discuss why our newly introduced starter quizzes at the start of every Year 11 lesson were proving so problematic.

All the teachers agreed that the most helpful aspect of the sessions was the opportunity to sit down as a whole team and discuss our teaching but within a focused framework. This helped us avoid the pitfall of becoming too specific, or worse, obsessing about issues that are out of our control. The practical emphasis of Making Every Science Lesson Count naturally inspired small changes – but it was important to end each session with a concrete plan of how we would implement what we had been reading.

As the year progressed, we moved from the book onto articles in line with the School's CPD themes (eg literacy). In the final session of the year, our articles on literacy led to debate on our philosophy on homework and the creation of a pilot homework programme for Years 9-12, which will begin in September and run for the whole Michaelmas term.

Masterclasses in Chemistry – reimagining our potential

The Chemistry Department are a team of experienced classroom practitioners who often informally share ideas and strategies for teaching different concepts in our subject. However, through the Electives Programme, we decided that our departmental focus for teaching and learning should be subject knowledge of the ‘more challenging topics’ in the A level scheme. When we reflect, I am sure that we can all identify an area of our teaching that we wish we had more time to delve deeper into and, as a department, we mutually identified the same physical A level topics: electrode potentials and NMR spectroscopy. These two areas of study are commonly recognised by educationalists and pupils as highly conceptually challenging areas of the course.

To initiate discussion, members of the department taught a short lesson to the team. This practice highlighted quite different approaches in teaching these concepts and the common misconceptions encountered by pupils were discussed and explored. Through open conversations, and a mutually supportive progressive environment of teacher-led CPD, the team gained insight and new methodology to add to their toolkit of teaching. Fiona Sutton said: 'Following our department CPD on electrode potentials, I now have so many ways of modelling this highly conceptual topic.’

Continued Professional Development (CPD) is key to a department’s success. By Jo Scott, Head of Biology; Sally Legg, Head of Chemistry and Tom Seaby, Head of Physics.

Experimentation and improved feedback in Physics

In the Physics Department this year, use has been made of the new departmental CPD time in various ways, mostly by experimenting, as all good scientists do, with the new format. Departmental CPD time has been used for:

• Staff feeding back what they have learnt in elective sessions to one another.

• An in-depth discussion around helping students answer extended written questions at A level.

• Time for staff to research and share resources in line with the School’s Challenge for All strategy for GCSE.

• A thorough discussion around how to teach through thermal physics with Year 10, including major misconceptions pupils have and how to teach to overcome them.

• Finally, and most recently, a discussion based upon a couple of chapters from Adam Boxer’s Teaching Secondary Science around exam feedback.

Whilst much was learned from each of these, two of the more significant outcomes from these were:

1. The discussion around extended answer practice at A level was imperative to the department because this is an area many students have struggled in. It helped in the identification and isolation of two areas that it was felt students had to have exposure to. The two strands identified were student ability to break the question down into its constituent parts so that they could better tackle it and student exposure to laboratory work and equipment so they have sufficient experimental experience to draw upon. The latter was well catered for already, though there are plans to further this still, but the former was then taught explicitly in subsequent lessons. This has improved student confidence and quality of response.

2. Boxer's thoughts on exam feedback led to a trial in the way Year 10 received their End of Year exam results. Topics that proved challenging in the papers were retaught and questions practiced, before pupils had seen their own exam papers. At the end of the lesson, pupils then saw their results and were given access to a video of solutions to all questions in the paper as homework. The rationale was to get pupils away from obsessing about their marks and instead engaging with the physics they struggled in so that they were making progress in their learning and understanding. Staff feedback was positive and this is a change that will be rolled out to other year groups next year.

Programmes

WHO SAID BEING A TEACHER WAS EASY?

At STAHS we are somewhat sheltered from the gloomy storm clouds of teacher supply and retention issues that cast a depressing shadow over the sector. 15% of teachers will leave the profession within the first two years of employment, with a third leaving within five years. Reasons given are a lack of support and training coupled with the ‘reality shock’ due to unexpected personal and professional demands, and the unpredictability and complexity of the role.

The solution proposed by the DfE Teacher Recruitment and Retention Strategy in 2019 was the Early Career Framework (ECF). Introduced in all schools from September 2021, the ECF underpins the entitlement to two years of high-quality training, mentoring, and support for Early Career Teachers (ECTs) linked to the most advanced research evidence. Early in 2021, we committed to creating our own bespoke approach to delivering this entitlement – including a time allocation above mandatory requirements, a two-tier mentoring system, and a high-quality curriculum written by 24 members of teaching staff from 11 different subject areas. One year on, our delivery model has been described by the Independent Schools Teacher Induction Panel (IStip) as ‘creative and innovative’ with ‘the quality of provision such that IStip consider the School to be an example of best practice induction ... [with] a strong whole school commitment to teacher training.’ But, more importantly, what do our ECTs think about the ECF at STAHS?

What have been the highlights of year one of the ECF?

I have particularly enjoyed the opportunity to explore such a wide variety of resources that have been put together by a plethora of different members of staff at STAHS – it really does feel like you are getting to learn from the expertise of your colleagues, which is a great feeling! A particular highlight has been reflecting on my own growth in confidence. When I was training, I always felt restrained by lesson plans, fearful that if something did not go exactly to plan and I did not have every question written down on paper in front of me, I would end up caught out like a deer in headlights. However, expanding my toolkit through the ECF curriculum has given me the confidence to 'think on my feet' and adapt my lessons on the spot where necessary, which has made the whole experience of teaching so much more enjoyable!

What have you found most helpful about the ECF at STAHS?

Something that has helped me in my teaching has been the WalkThru

guides that we have had access to as part of the weekly readings and tasks. I found the short examples of ways in which you could bring modelling into the classroom particularly useful. The early module on cognitive science was potentially the most useful part of the ECF curriculum for me. It completely changed my mindset to stop viewing teaching as a 'performance' and instead focus on how the pupils are learning. Realising this took so much pressure off me too.

How has the ECF challenged your thinking?

The sessions on the value of teacher talk particularly challenged my thinking. During my initial teacher training, I was always told to 'talk less' and that I should talk for no more than 10 minutes in an hour's lesson. However, reviewing more up to date evidence on this in ECF sessions completely debunked this myth.

Have you got any sense of how the ECF at STAHS compares to elsewhere?

Many of the friends who I trained with are completing their ECT programme through large, centralised hubs and must complete online courses as their ECF provision. This is similar to what we had to do during our SCITT (School Centred Initial Teacher Training) programme.

It can feel more like a tick-box exercise rather than something useful. I feel like the activities on the ECF curriculum at STAHS are more useful as each week they encourage you to work on a part of a lesson you have coming up in the following week – so it feels like you are constantly making progress.

What would you change about the ECF curriculum at STAHS?

I would reduce the list of reading – sometimes it is difficult to read all the sources in an hour and complete the activities. I often finding reading the main information on the SharePoint page most useful but do not always have time to manage all the external links.

What are your aspirations for year two of the ECF?

I really hope the second year of my ECF induction will be as positive as the first. I hope to grow in confidence and ability even more, by continuing to refine my practice. I feel like now I have the basics in my toolkit I can focus on really improving and refining my teaching and resources.

Jess Grimmel is a Teacher of Psychology and a second year Early Career Teacher. Here, she reflects on the first year of the Early Career Framework (ECF) at STAHS.

MULTIDIRECTIONAL NARRATIVES

The selection of texts in English, and case studies in History, is crucial not only to engender student engagement and enjoyment of the subjects, but also in creating what Victoria Elliott defines as ‘disciplinary powerful knowledge’ (Elliott, 2021, 8): the texts, sources, and voices we choose to include in our curriculums create a culture that elevates certain values and belief systems, often at the expense of others. In their study of pupils aged 1214, Harris and Reynolds found that ‘although many students enjoy History, they fail to fully understand its value […] especially those from minority ethnic backgrounds, feel a lack of personal connection to the past, as they do not see themselves in the history they are taught’ (Harris and Reynolds, 2014, 46). Similarly, Barton and Levstik argue that identification is integral to the rationale for studying history; they illustrate that pupils need to identify with the past, at a personal, family or national level (Barton and Levstik, 2004).

Yet in our experience, history in UK schools has been more about identifying with a national story of progress and achievements. Likewise, in September 2020, Teach First surveyed to what extent black literature was being incorporated into the GCSE curriculum. Their report found that ‘the biggest exam board, accounting for almost 80% of GCSE English literature entries, does not feature a single book by a Black author, and just two books by ethnic minority authors’ (Teach First, 2020, 6).

Furthermore, a 2018 report by the Centre for Literacy in Primary Education found that only 4% of children’s books published in 2017 featured a BAME character and, additionally, only 1% of those characters could be considered the main character (CLPE, 2018). Such findings suggest the potential for many English curriculums, like history, to exclude or entirely ignore the experiences of those pupils studying that very curriculum.

In order to achieve, and crucially sustain, any meaningful change when creating a diverse curriculum, it is important to have a clear pathway; one that is coherent, joined up, and embedded in the culture of the department and school. It was clear to us that our curriculums were no longer reflecting the pupils in our classrooms, which was confirmed by the data acquired from our Admissions Department. Our School is an all-girls, independent secondary school with a diverse student body. We have a slightly higher than average proportion of pupils from non-white backgrounds, when compared to the Independent Schools Council’s 2019 census, which found that 33.8% of pupils who attended independent schools in the UK came from a non-white background (ISC, 2019).

Shilpa Darbar, Head of History, and Alexandra Greenfield, Head of English, on diversifying the History and English curriculums at STAHS.

The steps outlined below demonstrate how we approached a curriculum review in History and English, however the process is certainly transferable across subjects.

Step 1: Audit the current offer

Before implementing any new change, it is essential to thoroughly audit what is already in place. This not only ensures that positive elements are retained, but enables an open and hopefully honest conversation with the whole department about why we teach what we do. Having established an accurate understanding of the demographic of our pupils, we used this to ensure that our new curriculum achieved the personal connections we desired. Given that we have most freedom in curriculum design at KS3, we began by critically evaluating what topics, case studies, and texts we currently taught and what cumulative narrative was created through the teaching of those. Using Paul Washington-Miller's definition of an inclusive curriculum as one ‘which provides all students regardless of background and immutable characteristics with an equal opportunity to achieve the learning outcomes of their programme’ (Washington-Miller and Maharasingam, 2020), we questioned to what extent our KS3 curriculum achieved this. We were mindful of the potential danger of making changes as a tokenistic gesture; our route to avoid this was to create a multidirectional narrative that embedded diversity rather than ‘tacked it on’ (Teaching History, Dec 2016).

Step 2: Establish shared goals

In both departments, we knew that a clear, rational set of outcomes was essential from the outset. As such, open discussion and agreeing shared goals and a vision for the curriculum with our departments formed the bedrock of our path to change; in our departments we created lists of nonnegotiables, desirables, and absolute nots, cross-referencing this list with the findings of the audit to identify the gaps. This gave us a structure for what was needed next. We knew that we wanted to create what Bennie Kara calls a ‘culturally connected curriculum’ as ‘a far better way to promote diversity’ than just including content relating to BAME experiences ‘with no other purpose than to pay lip service to representation’ (Kara, 2021, 46-47). Therefore, we knew that a tokenistic inclusion of diversity was not only misplaced in terms of its pedagogical value, it actually had the potential to further the ‘othering’ of these narratives and by extension the pupils in our classrooms.

Step 3: Design alternatives

Based on these discussions, we moved to design alternative curriculum models. It was essential that the whole department in both subjects were a part of this and, as such, models were discussed and refined before reaching a consensus.

In English, we were driven by a desire to ensure that our curriculum was led by an aggregation of skills and knowledge, rather than text choice; in our minds, the texts needed to remain the vehicle rather than the driver. Our three principles when choosing a text were that: 1) they were the best placed to enable pupils to learn and practise the chosen core skill; 2) they were accessible to the class and year group; and 3) that pupils heard and saw themselves in the literature.

Figure 1 shows a simplified diagram of these principles in action for our Year 9, Term 1 unit, which teaches Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet concurrently with Malorie Blackman’s Noughts and Crosses. The objective here is that not only are pupils able to appreciate the structure of tragedy across genres, but also that Blackman’s work is placed on an equal footing with that of Shakespeare. This exemplifies the development of a multi-directional narrative in English through which pupils can appreciate the ways that texts ‘talk’ to one another, creating a tapestry of global literary heritage.

Figure 1: Principles in action in English

In History, we wanted the KS3 offer to be a coherent global history across the three years and for pupils to clearly see the importance of chronology and themes over time, as well as keeping an enquiring, question-based approach. Figure 2 shows how we implement this. The guiding principle was to establish a multi-directional memory of history, using diverse examples and case studies to enrich what is taught consistently throughout the three years. For example, in our

Figure 2: History KS3 curriculum structure

Step 4: Implement with regular review

The success of any new change implementation requires regular and honest reviewing with all stakeholders. For us, this meant gathering feedback from both staff and pupils. Firstly, through regular meetings with staff we were able to assess whether the new structure was working practically in the classroom; the feedback was exclusively positive, largely due to the collaborative approach adopted throughout the process. Teachers were receptive to and fully engaged in the shaping of the schemes of work and specific lesson resources, which encouraged ownership of the changes.

Likewise, we invited the pupils to feed back on their experience of the content; this allowed us to check that we had truly embedded the multidirectional approach we set out to achieve. Pupil voice is invaluable as part of an ongoing review of our KS3 offers. Ultimately, the goal is to ensure personal connection to their learning, so an annual survey will allow us to gauge the extent to which this has been achieved. Pupils and parents commented on how much they were enjoying the reformed curriculum; indeed, in History, Year 7 and 8s talked with excitement about looking forward to the new diverse content in Year 9.

study of the medieval world we take the students on a journey of experiences and practices in Britain, Europe, and then the wider world. With the topics established, we turned to plan our assessments. We ensured that all narratives were assessed like-for-like, so that the diverse stories did not become an appendage and were given the same level of importance and gravitas throughout the year (The Black Curriculum, 2020).

Conclusion

The demographic of our classrooms is likely to change and, as such, our curriculums need to be responsive to these changes. It is important that the curriculum does not become static but rather acknowledges and responds to the realities of the world in which our pupils live. This is particularly important for the subjects of History and English, which invite us, as both teachers and pupils, to question what exactly has made us who and what we are. However, the possibilities for embedding meaningful multi-directional narratives across all subjects present an exciting opportunity. Based on our experience, middle leaders should drive such change with confidence that their departments will be supportive of this need to make bold and necessary changes.

Alexandra is currently exploring the impact of diversifying the English curriculum as part of her CTeach qualification.

CHOICE BUY-IN AND MOTIVATION – A PATH TO INDEPENDENCE

Choice makes for motivated pupils, but Christopher Nicholls, Head of Economics and a Teacher of Product Design, says the options need to be presented carefully.

It makes sense logically, and has stood up under academic review, that intrinsically motivated pupils are more engaged, perform better, and have a more joyful experience of education. Furthermore, it has been found in work environments and managerial science that providing responsibility through choice is the best way to improve intrinsic motivation; individuals have even found that the task of administering electric shocks to themselves is less unpleasant when they felt they had an element of choice regarding the outcome – though this is not something to apply directly in the classroom! Within a classroom, these are two very important and connected ideas:

remains the practical challenge of how to meaningfully apply such principles in the classroom. Below are some examples:

Extension materials

Didau’s work points out that motivation of pupils is also driven by the challenge of the task that you set them. Within a classroom environment, differentiated teaching becomes a tool to ensure that pupils are developing and remaining motivated. This applies to work in class but also to homework; offering a choice of tasks and suggesting a driver of their choices is a powerful way to harness both of these drivers of motivation. For example: 'Your homework is to complete one section from this past paper – challenge yourselves by choosing the section you find hardest!’ or go even further in differentiation by proposing ‘I suggest that Section C would be most appropriate for those that found the recent test hard’.

The recent drive for coaching within education seems to tie into the idea of being less instructional and harnessing the power of self-guidance. However, a salient consideration for teachers is to establish how choice can be effectively used in a classroom setting – as numerous studies have found it to be ineffective at improving pupil performance when inappropriately used. The first obstacle is in making sure pupils understand the purpose of their choices. David Didau points out in his book What Every Teacher Needs to Know About Psychology that teaching pupils in a short termist fashion toward the next test or exam is a joyless exercise, whereas 'students whose purpose it is to learn for its own sake [will] ... listen attentively, work conscientiously and strive to relate new concepts and information to what they already know'. This ties into Tom Sherrington’s Learning Rainforest where, of the five shared attributes he identifies in great teachers, his fourth is that 'they celebrate the intrinsic reward and motivating power of learning'. Such evidence, therefore, suggests that getting pupils to understand the broader purpose and joy of learning is a vital foundation before giving them choices. Once pupils do understand the broader purpose and joy of education, there still

Focus of assessment/work

Giving classes the option to choose on what areas their assessment should be focused is a powerful way to get them to reflect on their areas for improvement. My subject of Economics requires aptitude in a range of skills, such as definitions, diagrams, use of examples, and evaluative skills – collectively asking the class which of these I should award double marks for is a method for getting them to take responsibility for the areas they need to work on.

Rewards and sanctions

Getting a pupil to choose what the rewards or sanctions may be for a certain achievement or non-compliance is a powerful way for them to show they understand the consequences of their actions and to motivate them to perform. Questions such as: 'How can we reward ourselves if we all complete this homework to "X" standard?’ or letting pupils select due dates for assignments has been shown to improve performance.

1. Motivated pupils are happier and perform better.

2. The most powerful way to motivate pupils is through giving them choice.

Others

The list of choices that could be offered to pupils is as long as the choices that a teacher makes during class. This could include further things such as the order of topics being taught, choices of case studies, forms of assessment, seating plans or in discussing pupil voice. Evidence from Avi Assor (developer of a related concept called ‘selfdetermination theory’) found that pupil choices impact on motivation when the pupils see a relevance to their personal goals – meaningful choices provided to pupils should have this criteria in mind.

When pupil choice is not appropriate …

The idea of endless student choice is certainly not a modus operandi at all times; evidence suggests it is a useful tool only when used appropriately. Peps McCrea writes about this in his book Motivated Teaching, and warns that misplaced autonomy can be worse than none at all, giving the example that just as medical patients typically lack sufficient expertise to diagnose their own ailments, pupils are not always best placed to make wise choices about their learning. McCrea highlights two ways to manage this: the first is to only give pupils choice when appropriate and over things that will improve their motivation; letting pupils choose which exam board to sit would clearly be excessive. The second way to avoid inappropriate choices is where the teacher must make decisions for the class – but McCrea emphasises here that teachers should then put in the effort to garner support for this choice, ensuring pupil ‘buy-in’. Ways to achieve this are suggested by McCrea below:

• Expose the benefits of a choice

Explain and frame the benefits of such a task over a spanned timeframe, without overselling.

• Offer the choice to ‘opt-in’

This may be as simple as asking the class if they are up for a task, but could be better driven by asking if they understand why the teacher has made a particular choice.

• Encourage pupils to be more self-aware

This often requires a more long-term strategy in self-reflection of pupils’ approach to their studies – assessment strategies by the Drama Department at STAHS are excellent examples of this!

McCrea proposes that getting pupil ‘buy-in’ is the next best alternative in circumstances when pupils cannot comprehend or be relied upon in their own choices. Such efforts are important for motivation and this is vital to pupil attainment and wellbeing in the long term. At STAHS, I would also emphasise that this provision of choice/buy-in will help to directly develop confidence, independence, and decision-making whilst having knock-on effects in improving pupil study habits – all things to strive for in teaching to 25! It is a murky science but one that I have enjoyed exploring and believe it has improved my teaching in an academic and pastoral sense.

Key takeaways

• Pupils must understand the purpose of their time in school.

• Once this is clear, giving pupils appropriate choices in their education improves motivation and performance.

• The choices given need to be carefully considered and – where not appropriate – should be supported with effort to get pupil ‘buy-in’ to the teacher’s choices.

References:

Brandisauskiene, A., Bruzgeleviciene, R., Cesnaviciene, J. and Nedzinskaite, R., 2021.

Connections between teachers' motivational behaviours and school student engagement. Electronic Journal of Research in Educational Psychology, (19), 165-184.

Deci, E., Koestner, R. and Ryan, R., 2001. Extrinsic rewards and intrinsic motivation in education: reconsidered once again. Review of Educational Research, 71(1).

Didau, D. and Rose, N., 2016. What every teacher needs to know about psychology. John Catt. Katz, I. and Assor, A. 2006. When choice motivates and when it does not. Educational Psychology Review. 19(4), 429-442.

McCrea, P., 2020. Motitvated teaching: harnessing the science of motivation to boost attention and effort in the classroom: 3. High Impact Teaching.

O’Reilly, F., Chande, R., Groot, B., Sanders, M. and Soon, Z., 2017. Behavioural insights for education: a practical guide for parents, teachers and school leaders. Pearson.

Sherrington, T., 2017. The learning rainforest: great teaching in real classrooms. John Catt.

ASSESSING CREATIVE THINKING

I started looking at this question from the perspective of a drama teacher in order to capture the process of rehearsal in the classroom. Through observing pupils as they discuss ideas, share stories, and develop characters, I have long felt that whilst this creative process develops fundamental skills, it is difficult to prove that every student is participating because it is a largely internal process.

World Economic Forum 2022 Skills Outlook

The World Economic Forum has identified the growing and declining skillsets that will be required in the future, and this shows a clear demand for us as educators to ensure that creativity is carefully nurtured and developed.

Research by the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) highlighted the necessity for this to be investigated. Creativity at first glance seems intangible and unmeasurable but in fact the creative process can be monitored and assessed. ACER identified three strands of creative thinking: generation of ideas; experimentation; and quality of ideas. This provided a starting point for our monitoring here at STAHS.

Zoë Briggs and I began by working on the Assessment Lead Programme to develop a framework to monitor and assess the rehearsal process of a devised theatre project with Year 9 pupils. I attended a conference on assessing creativity and was introduced to a trial programme in Scotland. Creative Bravery were responding to the World Economic Forum’s Skills Outlook and had developed projects specifically to nurture and assess creative skills. They had also developed a new way to monitor the creative process, identifying five areas that can be quantified during a creative discussion, task or rehearsal. Known as the ‘Stella Assessment Tool’, they designed

a star-shaped diagram with each arm representing an element of the creative process: research; communicate; conceptualise; fail and fix; and evaluate. After each lesson, pupils could then fill in their own diagram to evaluate how they had contributed to the lesson. This idea appealed to me as a quick way to gather information and for pupils to reflect on their work.

Using the Assessment Lead Programme’s four pillars of assessment, we devised a rationale for our project:

Purpose To give pupils understanding and ownership of creative process.

Validity Requirement to write about their creative process in the NEA.

Reliability ACER research and Creative Bravery research.

Value To develop creative thinking skills and give all pupils the opportunity to contribute to the process.

We discussed with our Year 9 classes how they perceived creativity and whether they thought it should be assessed. They identified creativity as hugely important but some were suspicious of why it needed to be assessed at all.

Can creativity really be assessed? Anna Bullen, Head of Academic Drama, investigates.

The project our pupils were working on was to create a piece of Theatre of Protest. They could choose a topic that was important to them and then work with peers to devise and perform a piece of theatre that would raise awareness for their audience. We gave them a starting point of three famous photographs from historical moments of protest and shared specific techniques to give voices to these moments, to develop characters and writing from them. We then provided them with the Stellar Assessment Tool so they could reflect

on the process after each lesson. Pupils were working in groups of around five and quickly started to fall into roles such as leading on ideas, agreeing with ideas or being passive. My hope was that the assessment tool would encourage the more passive pupils to consider how they were contributing and then help them to communicate. Likewise, the louder leaders might recognise how well they communicate and reflect on whether they were truly listening to others.

Figure 1: Image of the Stellar Assessment Tool

We also developed a table that pupils could annotate throughout the rehearsals, based on the structure of the GCSE NEA Drama written requirements. Pupils could make quick observations about the process and then notate more detailed bullet points as they went along. This was kept in their exercise books and could be reviewed by the teacher at any point in the process. We could immediately see evidence of the individual’s creative responses. Although we were focusing on the process rather than the outcome, having these measures in place led to improved outcomes in the final performances.

We now have a framework with which to measure the creative process in the classroom and hope to share and develop this with other subjects. We will also apply our findings to the GCSE Devising process in Year 10.

References:

Bullen, A., 2002. Can creativity be assessed? Students at STAHS. Recording. Good, H., 2001. Creative Bravery. Glasgow. Ramalingam, D., Anderson, P., Duckwork, D., Scoular, C. and Heard, J., 2020. Creative thinking: skill development framework. Australian Council for Educational Research.

Stellar Summative Assessment, 2022. Available at: https://stellarassessment.co.uk.

THE BEST INTENTIONS

The STAHS English Department set out to narrow the gap between teacher feedback and pupil implementation. Second in English, Kate Constantinou, explains how they went about it.

As part of the Assessment Lead Programme last year, the English Department focused on improving feedback practices surrounding our whole year group assessments. Our intention was to improve the feedback given to pupils by placing greater focus on the steps needed to make improvements, and, in doing this, limit lengthy written teacher feedback, which either summarised or praised pupils without encouraging direct interaction and implementation of the feedback given.

The logistics

Using Year 10 as a focus group, we edited the whole class feedback sheets presented in ‘Assessment’ (the researchEd series) to include four sections titled: ‘Areas of success’, ‘Targets’, ‘Next steps’, and ‘What does a successful answer look like?’. Within the ‘Areas of success’, specific positive feedback was given at a whole class level. This allowed for praise but also provided pupils with comments on subject knowledge particular to the given essay (which would prove helpful for future revision of the topic), as well as an indication of aspects of style or vocabulary an examiner would credit. A code on each individual’s work would refer them to the relevant feedback in the ‘Targets’ section; a maximum of three would be given per pupil. Providing all pupils with all targets allowed the whole class to see potential pitfalls alongside their specific targets.

As the year progressed, it became clear that fixing these targets, using the assessment criteria, helped the pupils (and us) in identifying patterns. Keeping the target the same but providing a more specific comment related to the task at hand was sometimes helpful in improving specific subject knowledge of a character or theme.

The ‘Next steps’ section directed pupils to activities connected to their target but were designed to ensure that pupils immediately focused on applying their target to make improvements.

Example of targets linked to next steps

Targets:

1. Consider the structure of your response. To help create a logical argument, focus on how Portia conforms to gender expectations and then look at evidence that contradicts this. This will help your reader to follow your line of argument.

2. Consider audience response in your essay. Remember, a modern audience and a contemporary audience might view aspects of Portia’s character very differently. Only do this after you have analysed your quotation.

Next steps:

1. Read each of your paragraphs again and summarise the key idea of each in a sentence. Order these sentences on a separate piece of paper to consider how you could improve the structure of your essay as a whole.

2. Write a couple of sentences about how different audiences might respond to this reference: ‘Happiest of all, is that her gentle spirit/ Commits itself to yours to be directed/ As from her lord, her governor, her king.’ You will need to consider context alongside audience reaction here.

The final section of the feedback sheet ‘What does a successful answer look like?’ proved to be essential in closing the feedback loop. In our survey of Year 10 pupils at the start of the project, responses suggested a lack of confidence identifying what a successful answer looks like in English and therefore, unsurprisingly, a lack of confidence in replicating a successful answer.

This section allowed for a mixture of live modelling and discussion of pre-prepared answers to be undertaken with either a specific focus on one area of difficulty the class faced (for example, the embedding of context in a response) or more general skills (using progressive evidence within the ‘Point, Evidence, Analysis’ writing structure). Colour coding these examples, so that pupils could explicitly see the targets being addressed in the model provided, proved beneficial; it also seemed to help pupils see the connection between target and next steps by providing an example of the final product.

Conclusions

Although the direct impact on learning was somewhat hard to assess, the department felt that this format of feedback had clear benefits and did provide an opportunity for the pupils to be more reflective. In my own classroom, I found that the sheets helped with the clarity of my feedback by placing greater focus on the fundamental skills required at GCSE and condensing delivery to one A4 sheet of information, as opposed to the all-too-often overlooked scattered comments

throughout an essay. It was felt by the department that although any extended feedback inevitably eats into teaching time, giving this time to really embed feedback and focus on not just what needs to be changed but how to do this could ultimately only have positive impacts. Similarly, the staff time taken in the creation of these templates could be gained back in the re-use of these at a later stage.

As a department, we feel that this process has allowed us to begin refining our feedback procedures, with individual improvement and progress firmly in mind. With further adaption and application, it is our hope that we will be able to continue to narrow the gap between teacher feedback and pupil implementation. Similar models have already been trialled in Key Stage 3 and it is worth noting that building in regular feedback sessions seemed to encourage a classroom culture that allowed pupils to be open about their work and positive towards the notion of constructive criticism.

WHAT I LEARNT FROM WRITING A LATIN TEXTBOOK

Immersed in the steady plod of writing a course book, it can be impossible to see the wood for the trees and to identify what you – as author – are learning in the process. This was certainly the case as I coauthored Latin to GCSE (Bloomsbury, 2016) in a stop-start fashion over the course of about five years. Reflecting now (from a safe distance), here are a few major insights I think I gained from the experience.

Setting out with a full(ish) road map is key

‘We must map out the vocab as the very first step,’ warned my coauthor, John Taylor, very sagely, ‘and tinker with it at our peril’. He was certainly correct: certain categories of Latin vocabulary naturally belong in discrete chunks – question words, for example, like quantus? (how big?), qualis? (what sort of?), quot? (how many?), and quando? (when?). But when do you want to slot them into the schema? What other types of words or patterns of endings do they need, or naturally pair with? Getting this right was essential and, since exercises and stories were designed to hammer repeatedly those items of vocab that had been met recently, it also meant that any later changes of mind necessitated lots of unpicking (no longer could prior knowledge be assumed). If you are building from the foundations up, then changing a building block in any given layer means that the ones above it don’t fit together nearly so well as you might have initially conceived – changes are much easier made at the outset than retrospectively.

Deep engagement with sequencing of knowledge is incredible fun!

Working out precisely which items of knowledge depended (in our eyes) on which prior items proved the most enjoyable – but perhaps the trickiest – part of the whole process. A straightforward example: say you want (as we did) your paradigm first conjugation verb to be a

nice regular one like porto (I carry). In chapter one, therefore, you need people to do some carrying and nouns which can be carried – hence the appearance of, for example, nuntius (messenger) and epistula (letter). In chapter two you want the sentences to get more varied: what else can you do with a letter? Hence, we had scribo (I write), lego (I read), and mitto (I send). But these latter three are all third conjugation verbs – so in order to introduce them, you are committing yourself to introducing that linked grammatical point too: that is, if you subscribe (as we did) to the principle that the spellings and forms of vocab and grammar you introduce should be comprehensible from things already explicitly introduced, rather than appearing without warning, and thus seeming arbitrary or even mystifying to pupils.

You can also engineer tangents that serve other purposes: we had people warning (moneo – our paradigm second conjugation verb) others by letter (the ablative case); and we had people giving (do) letters to others (the dative case). We could also have readers hearing the words (verba – a neuter noun) of a letter (genitive case).

On other occasions the sequencing links were more subtle: the future tense, for example, is often shied away from in Latin textbooks because it is seen as trickier (it has two sets of endings across the four main verb conjugations, rather than one). But it might be essential for some stories you want to tell along the way; we had Aeneas, for example, being presented in the Underworld with a vision of the Roman future, which proved the perfect vehicle both to tell a gripping tale and to introduce a grammar point very naturally: the Trojans will have a new homeland, for example, and the Romans will conquer many lands. Thinking through the possibilities in these ways – and the occasional bit of intellectual acrobatics – was a delightful early step. Though it may seem to reduce a subject to its dry fundamentals, it is key when thinking about how pupil schema-building will work.

Co-authoring a pupil's guide to GCSE Latin is not without its challenges, as Director of Studies and Teacher of Classics Henry Cullen explains.

Horizontal or vertical slicing both have their merits

By this I mean: do you explain the entirety of a concept, as manifested in many different items of knowledge (‘horizontal’)? Or the entirety of an item of knowledge, though it may involve many different concepts (‘vertical’)? Applied to the example of a Latin noun: do you meet just the nominative and accusative cases, across all three main noun declensions? Or do you prioritise meeting the whole of one declension (five cases), before moving to other noun declensions? Both approaches have their advantages: the horizontal allows a broad early range of examples focused on a single concept, while the vertical allows you to do more with an item of knowledge. They also both have their drawbacks: though the vertical approach may be more conceptually demanding, the horizontal might be more problematic in terms of making it harder, later on, to add ‘layers’ in such a way as to facilitate memorisation. And the choice is not always, to be honest, a binary one – often a middle ground is desirable. I think it’s helpful to steer clear of ideology on this front, and adapt a pragmatic approach, picking the method that seems best suited to a certain topic.

There

is no such thing as a finished explanation

Finally – and briefly! As soon as the first edition of any printed resource lands on your doorstep (or in your inbox), you’ll pick it up and think of countless different (better) ways you might have explained a point, or illustrated it with examples. You are invariably your own worst critic (to go along with the others out there you’ll be bound to have disappointed!). But there’s always a chance to improve, next time, next lesson …

The examples above are clearly Latin-specific (my apologies for the terminology!) but I hope that they can be applied more widely: how does the roadmap look in your subject? Do you agree, as a department, about what it should contain? Do you need to re-sequence a particular unit? Does the concept of horizontal or vertical slicing apply to your subject, and if so, when is it best to use each approach? Finally, are you tempted to write your own textbook to improve on all the others already out there …?