Programmes Keeping the subject-specific – departmental approaches to CPD

KEEPING THE SUBJECT SPECIFIC – DEPARTMENTAL APPROACHES TO CPD

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.

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.’

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.