UKED Magazine Nov 2014

November 2014

Issue 11

Supporting the Educational Community

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4 Testing... Testing

Summer Turner argues that testing, far from being the bad guy, is a great way to motivate learners - if it is framed correctly.

6 UKEdChatting with Tristram Hunt

We caught up with Tristram Hunt and discussed about his vision for the future of schools, teachers and learning.

9 Google Classroom

Expert Mark Allen explains how Google’s latest educational tool can be used in your classroom.

11 Stretching Your Students

Andy Knill shares an array of practical ideas to ‘close the gap’ for key stage 3&4 students.

12 Weaving Sentences

Rachel Preece-Dawson explains where sentence work fits into her wider English lessons.

14 Photography and your Surroundings

Jane Hewitt shares her amazing images and ideas to bring photography into the classroom.

16 Supporting EAL

Charlotte Harding shares her experience of teaching English as an additional language and ideas for your own students.

18 Mental Maths Today

Andrew Brodie discusses which ‘mathematical favours’ we can give to children to help them become numerate.

19 The Changing Face of CPD

Shaun Allison explores the myriad of professional development opportunities for teachers and how to access them.

20 Metacognition & the Growth Mindset

Rebecca Tusingham discusses the impact of developing a growth mindset has had on her school and its students.

23 Absence and the Cycle of Disadvantage

Jan Tallis writes about the spiralling effects of absence from school can have and tackles some of the main causes of absence.

24 The Power of discussion

Tom Bigglestone explores how discussion and debate is a key tool for teachers and a superb motivator for students of all ages.

25 Identify Theft

Chris Eyre evaluates what it is to be a teacher and the warning signs of losing your identity.

27 Keeping it short...

Nancy Walbank shares her insight into using short stories in her teaching and discusses her favourite titles and activities.

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From the Editor English... evolving, changing and adapting continuously with each new generation. How do we pin-down such a chameleon in our classrooms and tame it for our purpose? Should we attempt to subdue it, or instead set our language free to weave worlds, paint pictures and inspire minds? Perhaps both.

English lessons make up a sizeable chunk of curriculum in the majority of schools across the UK, it is scrutinised in the corridors of power like no other area of education, and for good reason. Being able to read is, for now, the main medium through which to consume knowledge from others. Writing allows one to communicate across vast distances and, perhaps, across the ages.

In this issue of UKED Magazine we take a in-depth look at English and offer you insight, ideas and inspiration for your own teaching.

Martin Burrett - Editor @ICTmagic @UKEdMag editor@ukedchat.com

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Summer Turner @ragazza_inglese Chris Wood @StatusCWO Mark Allen @edintheclouds Andy Knill @aknill @globalsolo @gasigict Rachel Preece-Dawson @rpd1972 Jane Hewitt @Janeh271 Charlotte Harding @charlieferrett Andrew Brodie @ABrodieWriter Shaun Allison @shaun_allison Rebecca Tusingham Jan Tallis @JanTallis Tom Bigglestone @the_tank Chris Eyre @chris_eyre Lisa Pettifer @Lisa7pettifer Kat Howard @Saysmiss Kymberley Joy Warby @kymberleywarby Nancy Walbank @nan282 The publishers accepts no responsibility for any claims made in any advertisement appearing in this publication. Whilst every effort is made to ensure accuracy, the publishers accept no responsibility for errors, inaccuracies or omissions.

Many images have been source under a Commercial Creative Commons License. See http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 Cover Photo Credit: Martin Burrett

Testing...

Testing...

By Summer Turner

Testing seems to be one of the most loaded terms in education. It comes with many a negative connotation and a whole raft of satirical cartoons. Indeed, I’ve seen first-hand what happens to the lovely, smiling members of my classes (not to mention me) during the GCSE years when faced with the horror of the English Language examination and it isn’t pretty. Yet allowing this to define our notion of testing in schools is at best simplistic and at its worst dangerous.

Positive Framing I work in a school where we test pupils at the end of every half term, followed by an end of year test which covers the material from the entirety of the year. Do we have a bunch of miserable, robotic, de-motivated pupils who have lost all chance to be creative? No, quite the opposite. So why is this?

Like most elements of schools, it comes down to ethos.

The half-termly tests form part of our general assessment system, which is driven by the curriculum, NOT the other way around. The tests are one key way in which to build our understanding of how best to support all the children at our school to achieve excellence. We don’t use levels, instead after each test pupils are flagged as red, amber or green to identify how far they are on their way to securing key areas of knowledge as decided by subject leaders’ curriculum maps. [Curriculum maps are mapped from KS4 back down to Year 7. They are designed based on the new National Curriculum, iGCSE specifications or equivalent and additional subject material as determined by subject lead.]

We then use these results to inform conversations with the pupils, which happen after every test cycle, and to make individual targets with pupils to help them progress. Framed like this, the tests becomes a positive way to interact academically with our pupils. Reporting back successes to pupils boosts their determination to continue securing knowledge and to engage with further challenges. The conversations with those who haven’t quite grasped the material yet - or at least have not found a way to communicate this in their test - can also be extremely positive. They provide an opportunity to explore and reflect on where pupils went wrong and create specific targets.

Most importantly they allow us to let the students know we’re there for them and that we’re not letting up in helping them to progress.

How Testing improves Teaching Designing and evaluating tests is an interesting process as a teacher. Firstly it allows you to reflect on the effectiveness of your curriculum. Increasingly, curriculums are designed to provide academic stretch for pupils and the test can stand as a measure of how far this has been achieved over 04 UKED Magazine

the term or year.

With this in mind, our KS3 tests are deliberately designed to be challenging, with 1/3 at GCSE level or above. In English this includes short answer and multiple choice questions to allow for factual recall alongside close text analysis and essay questions, which provide opportunity for students to explore more abstract concepts. In the end of year test, pupils were asked to take on tasks such as explaining what a bildungsroman was; completing a poetic movements timeline; analysing the grammatical choices within an unseen extract from ‘1984’ and answering an essay question comparing how texts such as ‘Macbeth’ and Blake’s ‘London’ may provide a response to the year’s philosophical theme: ’How Should We Live?’.

Designing tests with this level of demand is exciting and provides an opportunity to reflect on what you’re asking from your pupils.

Marking the tests provides a more developed insight into the impact of your teaching. You build up a clearer understanding of where your pupils are - not based on some generic notion of a level - but on a specific understanding of how far they have grasped the subject knowledge. This creates valuable insight into how to tweak future teaching.

Testing isn’t the bad guy.

This year has taught me that testing as a concept is not the arch enemy of creativity, nor is it an oppressive force which rids students of their individuality. Problems such as these come from weak design of assessment and a high stakes culture based around external monitoring. Within schools, when framed positively and designed by subject experts, tests instead become a formative part of the ongoing conversation that looks to move children onwards and upwards. That seems pretty good to me.

Summer is a Head of Faculty for English and Languages and leads on Teaching and Learning at East London Science School. She blogs about teaching at ragazzainglese@wordpress.com. Find her on Twitter at @ragazza_inglese.

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UKEdChatting with...

Tristram Hunt

With the next general election fast approaching and the rhetoric from politicians on education becoming increasing heated, what happens in your school and in your classroom is set to take centre stage in May. We caught up with Tristram Hunt, Shadow Secretary of State for Education for England recently and discussed his vision for education, teachers and schools if Labour wins the next election.

What is Labour’s vision for learning and education if you win the next election?

We have three priorities that we will focus on. The first is in the early years. Every piece of neurological evidence, every piece of research we see shows that we have to battle disadvantage and inequality in the early years. The Labour government introduced SureStart, introduced children centres and worked very hard to tackle inequality. We’ve seen a massive assault on that in recent years. A labour government is committed to rebooting our SureStart system, crucially working well with other agencies.

We would also focus on the quality of personnel involved in early years provision. If you improve the quality of those working in the early years the effect of children’s outcomes, so that children are ‘school ready’, so they gain those early skills which allows them to flourish at primary, is absolutely essential.

We also know that one of the greatest barriers to tackling poverty is having working parents. The Labour party is committed to 25 hours of free child-care a week for three and four year olds of working parents.

We also want to introduce wrap-around provision at primary schools, making sure that primary schools at open from 8am to 6pm. For teachers, this doesn’t mean teaching from 8am to 6pm. What it does mean is that we make use of facilities in our communities. So we have breakfast clubs and after school clubs. So we have the enrichment and extra curricular activities, which again we know, particularly for children from disadvantaged backgrounds, helps with building up the attributes and aptitudes, the character and resilience, all those forces that will work well for them in life.

Our second priority - Schools policy. We are absolutely clear that the most component of schools policy is the quality of teaching in the classroom. We have had a relentless focus in recent years on structural reforms and we now have in England and incredible array of school types - free schools, academies, voluntary controlled, voluntary aided, universities, technical colleges - we don’t lack for multiplicity of provision. But what we have lost sight of is leadership and teaching. So a Labour government is committed to focus on improving the quality of teaching. That does not mean that teaching is bad in our schools. It does mean that it can get better, just as everyone can get better in their jobs and professions. It is a Labour government’s duty to work with the profession when it comes to initial teacher training, when it comes to continuous professional development, when it comes to raising the status and standing of teachers by focusing on the standard of teaching. For the labour party and the movement, this is a social justice issue, because we know that children from disadvantaged backgrounds who come into contact with poor teaching suffer greatest. If you don’t have the backup at home, if you haven’t got the books or room to do your homework, you are even more reliant on having great teachers and having the good support and learning environments at school. So we want to focus on quality of teaching.

This begins by having qualified teachers in our classrooms.

So under a Labour government all teachers will be qualified or working towards qualified teacher status. We think that a government that thinks that any person can just turn up

and teach without having had the training, without having the professional development, has little understanding of how effective education policy works. But having qualified as a teacher is just the licence to teach. Then the journey begins in terms of training and professional development.

Also, we need to rebuild the ties between schools. What we learned from the London Challenge, a very successful program under the last Labour government, is that schools don’t succeed as islands. Schools succeed in networks of partnerships and challenge amongst one another. So we would have directors of school standards appointed by local authorities or combinations of authorities to commission new school places and to ensure schools are working together to raise standards. We will end the free schools program because we think it is a wasteful program that isn’t raise stands and at a time when we’ve got children being educated in classes of over 30, raiding the basic needs budget to build free schools in areas where you have surplus places, taking it from areas of basic need is the wrong priority.

Our third priority is in technical and vocational education, and as we mark the 70th anniversary of the Butler act (bit.ly/uked14nov01) this has been a long-standing issue of English education policy. But it is becoming more and more urgent and there is a growing skills gap for those with technical and vocational skills. So this will be my first act as education secretary, a white paper on technical and vocational skills. We want to create institutes of technical education through our further education colleges focusing much more closely on delivering for local labour markets.

We are going to have English and maths continue until the age of 18, as we know that without these skills your chances to progress and succeed are inhibited. But in contrast to the present government, we don’t think that you should just keep repeating your GCSEs. We also want to offer high quality apprenticeships at level 3 and lasting 2 years, and so rebuilding the notion of apprenticeship. Much of that is dependant on rebuild a career guidance service which has been dismantled under this government. If we believe in one nation politics, than education must be central to that.

Educationalist from around the world are looking at the PISA findings and looking to other education systems, but is it possible to import elements of other systems without importing the learning culture and ethos too?

By looking at other education systems it allows us to reflect on our own systems. You can’t just drop the Finnish or Singaporean system into England. What you can do is think about, for example, how to teach maths from Shanghai, you can think about how to develop cross curricular learning from Singapore, you can think about the Academy programme from Massachusetts. So you can reflect on your own policies by looking aboard.

You have been widely reported that you would like a ‘Teacher’s Oath’ for teachers when they qualify, an idea which has met with some resistance. Where is this idea now?

At the Singapore teacher training centre when teachers

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qualify there is a public celebration of this moment and they have a teacher’s pledge, which is not dissimilar to the kind of pledge that doctors have in terms of the Hippocratic Oath. It is entirely voluntary as they enter into the profession and my view was that the more symbols and events to celebrate people becoming teachers, celebrating the art and act of teacher, celebrating teachers’ commitment to professional development. This would need to be a profession lead process, but as part of the culture of teaching as you begin your learning journey as a teacher, showing your commitment to actively seeking out professional development opportunities is something we need to explore. It’s important, that teachers are also learners. It’s important to have this in the culture and to ensure that the school leadership provide the environment for teachers to be active learners and innovators. Schools need to have the confidence to innovate and allow exciting teachers to teach and share what they do. It’s part of a boarder package of building up the status and standing, building up the professional calling of teachers and teaching.

With ever tighter budgets, what is Labour’s vision for Teacher’s professional development if you win the election in May? We will have a Teacher’s white paper to develop our plans to create new careers pathways for teachers and to keep great teachers into the classroom. We will develop lead practitioners and master teachers, we with put in place UKED Magazine 07

You have spoken previously about the importance of the middle tier of education accountability. What does this mean in practice and how does this differ from local authority accountability?

We will go into the election with a policy of having local directors of schools, for commissioning new schools and supporting them. These will be appointed from a list of suitable candidates held by the department of education.

We also think that having one regional commissioner in charge of 2,500 schools, for example someone in Bristol working out what’s going on in Cornwall, which is the conservative viewpoint, isn’t a very effective mechanism for helping school collaborate and partner with one another. So we need a middle tier, but we hope to develop this into a democratic model of oversight. Under the last Labour government we had lots of centralisation, under this government and the Gove reforms we’ve had chaotic atomisation, what we need to do is rebuild the connections in a more autonomous schools landscape. We believe it should be more local and have strong elements of democratic accountability to it.

The difference from local authorities is that they are not running schools in our system, and it is about reflecting the more autonomous school landscape which we will inherit at the next election.

Will Labour reverse the governments decision to introduce performance related pay (PRP) for teachers?

We think that PRP can play a role in a boarder terms and conditions structure. We’ve had PRP in certain parts of the teaching profession for quite a long time. I think the best leaders use PRP as a part of a much broader employment package.

Will Labour roll out the recommendations of the Rose Review (bit.ly/uked14nov02) or the Blunkett Report (bit. ly/uked14nov03)?

Where the educational debate is in recent years is what happens at 14. That is the moment that our young people begin to think able different pathways. Now that FE can take 14 year olds, we need to think carefully about the rise in participation of 14-19 year olds bracket. This goes back to what I’ve said about careers guidance and advice. Colleges need to be allowed in to schools and talk about all of these different options. By saying that someone is more suited to vocational and technical skills it is sometimes felt like this is dumbing it down - it isn’t, or that it is low expectations - it isn’t. People excel on different pathways. We need to think about whether 14 is the right age to make these decisions, taking the findings of things like the report of Alison Wolf (bit.ly/uked14nov04) into account, but ensuring the academic fundamentals are in place at the same time. But this also requires a cultural shift too.

Finally, it has been said that Labour will be producing a pledge card for the election. What pledge would you like to see for education on the card?

We will develop a vastly improved technical and vocational education system, with apprenticeships and the institutes of education. These are the important things that our current system is not delivering and Labour will finish the job.

In the run up to the general election, we would like to speak with other prominent political educational figures from across the UK. Image Credits: https://www.flickr.com/photos/25031050@N06/4443536762/ by visual_ dichotomy used under Commercial Creative Commons 2.0 License.

All other images are by Martin Burrett

Scientific Facts - Don’t Believe the Hype

In Brief

mechanisms for career advancement in ‘hard to staff’ schools , so we get the best teachers in under-preforming schools. So we will lay these out and work with the profession to establish a Royal College of Teaching as part of that. But we don’t want to do ‘to’ teachers, we want to work ‘with’ them because we know that if government just imposes something, it is not going to work. But we will support teachers who seek their own development opportunities and be active teacher learners.

“Science teachers teach facts”. This itself is not a fact, but a theory which I seek to dispute.

Common wisdom suggests that the science curriculum is rigid; that we teach students to remember discreet skills and knowledge. Light travels in straight lines, oxygen has eight neutrons and evolution created biodiversity. While there are undeniably a great number of (perhaps far too many) facts in our curriculum, being able to transfer discreet knowledge to students is not the defining characteristic of an outstanding science teacher.

Instead, an outstanding science practitioner relentlessly encourages learners to investigate and challenge facts until they are proven beyond reasonable doubt. After all, today’s theories become tomorrow’s facts, while yesterday’s facts regress to become disproven theories but only if someone stands up to say “I disagree”.

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08 UKED Magazine

Not every disagreement is well-founded and not every rebel has a cause, but if even one in ten people has a bright idea that can move everyone else forward, then sharing all ten ideas is a worthwhile exercise. A skilled science teacher must not only to listen to and develop challenging thinking in their students, but demonstrate and model such thinking as well. @StatusCWO - Science Teacher, Birmingham

A Close Look At

Classroom “Simple trumps complex if you’re looking for widespread adoption by teachers” I tweeted that a while back, and I firmly believe it: we all lead such busy lives these days that nobody really has the time to learn how to use a complicated new tool. Change is hard, even for early adopters. I’m someone who wants to try new things: I sign up for a whole slew of new tools each month, and yet how many of them actually make it into my everyday workflow? Maybe one or two from time to time, but more often none…

Google gets this, and their design philosophy prizes simplicity over almost everything else. Last year, I handed out a set of Chromebooks for schools to trial. When it came to the evening before they went out to the first school, I panicked because I hadn’t written a guide to help them.

After a lot of deliberation, here’s the masterpiece I came up with: Turn it on... Log in... er… that’s it.

The point is that when tech design is really good, it becomes invisible. I can’t wait for the time that we don’t talk as much about technology: when it becomes as ubiquitous and invisible and unremarkable as electricity. All these religious debates over which operating system or which device is better are faintly embarrassing and the sooner we get beyond that to talking about how they actually help learning, the better.

in the class and outside it. In other words, to streamline teacher workflow. It’s not for everybody - if you’re already using an learning management system which allows you to squeeze a lot of value-added data from your student activity, you probably won’t be impressed. However, for the majority of teachers I meet there is an awful lot to like about a tool which: • simplifies the handing out of work • makes copies for students • correctly names each piece of work they do • ensures that they hand it in to the right place at the right time • lets the teacher mark it and provide feedback • returns it to them, and • allows an iterative feedback loop So what does Classroom look like and how does it work?

Well, by now there are of course many helpful blog posts and YouTube clips to help you answer those questions and to get you started here’s a link to a great video (bit. ly/uked14nov05) from the ever-helpful Amy Mayer at friEdTechnology:

Anyway, Google gets it. That’s why their approach with their web services is invariably to provide a user experience which as simple as it can possibly be, but no simpler. After all, they need interfaces that a billion people a day could use without calling the help desk.

So it is with one of their latest offerings: Google Classroom.

Although it represents an interesting departure from the norm in that it is an education-specific tool, it still adopts the now-standard approach of providing simple generic functionality, and leaving it to others to add the clever, specific extras in the forms of apps and extensions. That isn’t possible now, but I’m pretty confident it’s the way they’ve planned this and that before long the API will be opened up to allow third-party developers to work their magic.

Today, then, we have the simplest-possible expression of a tool which is designed to reduce the burden on the teacher around the whole area of the work that students do both

Teachers create classes. Students (and other teachers) can join classes. A class might be a particular collection of students (think secondary school), or a topic or subject (think primary school) or even a single student and their teacher (think e-portfolio). The ‘Stream’ is where things appear. The teacher (and, if you want, the students) can post Announcements to encourage or mentor group discussion and the teacher can also post Assignments to set tasks and homework.

UKED Magazine 09

As soon as you’ve set an assignment, there’s a live counter showing who’s handed the work in and who hasn’t. Click on the counter and it’ll take you to the list of students who’ve handed in their work - or those who haven’t.

Behind the scenes, Google creates folder structures in Drive for each class and each assignment and sets the appropriate permissions, which change as work is handed in or returned. It also correctly names the work for each student so that it can’t be mislabelled or put in the wrong folder.

Now, pretty much all of that functionality already existed in Google Drive, but the point is that the teacher needs to know how to do that, and not many do, or have the time to learn how to. Classroom hides all of the complexity behind the simplest-possible user interface. Simple trumps complex.

Click on each student’s name to see the piece(s) of work that they’ve handed in for that assignment.

Make comments and suggestions directly on that piece of work if you want using the options afforded

by Google Docs, Slides or whatever tool they’ve used to produce the work.

Return the work to them with feedback and, if you want, with a mark. They can un-submit and re-submit the work as many times as you allow if you prefer an iterative process.

Image Credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/kjarrett/8478257061 by Kevin Jarrett used under Commercial Creative Commons 2.0 License.

Other images from http://pixabay.com/en/google-search-engine-76522/ Google images have been used inline with the guidelines at https://www. google.co.uk/permissions/using-product-graphics.html 10 UKED Magazine

Paradoxically, though, this has caused some consternation among teachers and students who’ve already become comfortable with Google Drive and have been using it for a while. Classroom takes over the responsibility for organising folders, which expert users may find frustrating. They needn’t, because it all makes sense when you think about it, but change is hard, even for the most tech-savvy teacher.

The reaction to Classroom has been very positive, although of course some have been disappointed by the lack of functionality. You can probably tell that I think Google’s approach is spot-on. If we have to wait too long for the open-API approach to supply those missing features, I may have to eat my hat, of course, but that’s an occupational hazard in this era of perpetual beta, and trying to second-guess Google is particularly hazardous - last year they introduced around 500 updates and new products, and they don’t look as if they’ll be slowing down any time soon!

A Google-Certified Teacher and Trainer, Mark is wellknown in this country and abroad as well as online for his knowledge of the use of Google technology and a wide range of other web-based technologies. More helps schools become future-ready by working with them on the three essential elements of technology-oriented improvement: Technology, Pedagogy and Culture Change.

By helping them embrace and master these three elements, Mark helps schools transform themselves into adaptive learning organizations ready for the modern world. Find his on Twitter at @edintheclouds, at plus. google.com/+MarkAllen and www.edintheclouds.com

Stretching Your Students

Some Practical Ideas

by Andy Knill After returning from a recent parents evening with Year 11 it was clear that the prime topic of conversation was intervention... closing the gap, call it what you will, and it is an important topic which every teacher must tackle.

So how am I stretching students in my department?

Key Stage 3: Using solo taxonomy and hexagon scaffolding practically, we are looking at developing answers that link facts so PEEL /Relational answers. By moving ideas around there is the flexibility to try ideas out before coming to a final decision before committing to a final answer.

Developing extended answers and writing – collecting facts through a mind map and brainstorm task then adding to the network using additional connectives. This might include using Andy Day’s (@andyphilipday) solo wordmat.

Developing my co-operative learning skills - a favourite of mine in my new post.

Encouraging greater pace and student independence. Reducing teacher talk.

Key Stage 4: Revision - nothing revolutionary about that, meeting skills through a range of VAK styles to help a range of students. Exam answers, using mark schemes, examiners reports.

Super groups – for A / A* candidates – providing an identified group across a range of option groupings to enable awareness of fellow high achievers. They meet with the Head of Department from time to time, but develop a group identity.

Develop differentiated resources that enhance higher level exam skills and provoke discussion with a link to post 16 options.

They also look at use of Twitter and social media networking contact.

Image Credit Word mat image taken with permission from http://meridianvale.wordpress. com/2014/06/08/northernrocks-2014-solo-workshop-exploring-the-solo-path/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/15132846@N00/8197868606 by Ray Smith used under Commercial Creative Commons 2.0 License.

Andy Knill is Head of Geography at The Albany School, Hornchurch, Havering. Find him online at mishmashlearning.wordpress.com and globalsolo. wordpress.com and on Twitter at @aknill & @globalsolo.

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Up coming issue themes

December - Festival/Christmas January - Enterprising Children / Business February - China / Chinese New Year March - Lands and People (Geography) April - Computing & Digital Learning UKED Magazine 11

Weaving Sentences

By Rachel Preece-Dawson

“Sentence level” was the brief for this article. “You know, something where you reflect on classroom practice and draw your class into the article.”

I’ve been wracking my brains ever since. When was the last time I explicitly taught English at sentence level? I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s not something I do very often. Discrete sentence level lessons in my classroom are very few and far between because I think that there are far better ways of teaching children to become good writers and use sentence level skills effectively.

We use @alanpeat’s sentence types in my school. They are written into policy via a comprehensive progression document which describes and exemplifies sentence types for children, defined by year group. I’m English coordinator and so I have no excuse for not following agreed

policy, but I still rarely plan discrete sentence level lessons.

And yet, the vast majority of my pupils in my mixed Y4/5/6 class can use a wide range of different sentence types; explain their impact on the reader; know what genre of writing they are best suited to and, importantly, adapt the sentence ‘recipes’ to fit their own pieces of writing.

How do they achieve that without discrete sentence level lessons? Clearly, new sentence types have to be explicitly taught, but more often than not, I do this through ‘accidentally’ happening upon the sentence type in an exemplar text. As a class we can then unpick the sentence in context and by bearing in mind its impact on the reader.

12 UKED Magazine

We even have a go at naming the sentence type by looking at its recipe and considering what punctuation or word classes have been used in different places within the sentence.

A quick lesson starter the next day might reinforce the recipe for the sentence, and a mini plenary might involve asking a small group of children to help compose a sentence using that recipe to help a child in the group bring their writing alive. We look out for examples of the new sentence type in our class reading book, in the children’s own reading books and in cross-curricular reading. I include examples in modelled, shared and guided writing. Before we know it, the sentence type is becoming embedded and it begins to appear, as if by magic, in children’s independent writing.

I use @LearningSpy’s ‘slow writing’ after being introduced to it by @ICT_MrP, but increasingly, I ask the children to set their own constrained writing rules, which shows me just how much they understand about the different sentence types and their impact on the reader.

We also do a lot of modelled writing, with me drawing off small groups of children to work together. My

pupils aren’t grouped into ability groups for any subject, but I can pull together a group from across the three year groups who all share the same next step for some microteaching within a writing lesson. Modelled writing is, I believe, one of the most powerful tools we have to positively impact on children’s writing. We always share examples of small-group modelled writing with the whole class, asking them to explain what they like about what we have produced, and in that way, all the pupils are exposed to good quality examples of the genre they are currently working on.

In writing lessons, we also have regular mini-plenaries or “Pit Stops” as they are called in my school, where lolly sticks are used to choose random children to share their best sentences so far. The children always listen intently to examples from other children, and very often I see good ideas magpied by more than one child in the class.

Finally, something which I think has huge impact on children’s writing, on all levels, is providing engaging

contexts and, wherever possible, real reasons for writing. I have one notoriously difficult to engage Y5 boy in my class.

I taught him as a Y3, when he was an incredibly reluctant writer, and I didn’t think much would have changed over the intervening year. I was right: at the beginning of the year, he wrote virtually nothing. What he did write was of a low level and showed an obvious lack of interest and care. Most often, I base all of our writing around a single, high-quality text per half term, and so a careful choice of text (‘There’s a boy in the girls’ bathroom’ by Louis Sachar) engaged the boy so much that, when he asked if he could stay in at break to, “just write a few more sentences,” I stopped the whole class so we could have a collective “whoop!” at his enthusiasm!

Image Credit: Images provided by Rachel Preece-Dawson and Martin Burrett

Rachel Preece-Dawson is a Y4/5/6 teacher and English, ICT and Teaching and Learning co-ordinator at a small, rural school. You can view her blog at rpd1972.wordpress.com and find her on Twitter @rpd1972.

UKED Magazine 13

Photography and your surroundings Make sure you see what is around you

By Jane Hewitt

My favourite quote about photography is by Henri David Thoreau ‘It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.’ How often do we walk past the same scene and not actually notice what is there? By slowing down and asking children to really concentrate on one aspect of their surroundings you can help them to actually ‘see’ what is there.

One easy way of doing this is to set a collage challenge.

Try to do this yourself before you set it as a challenge for your pupils so that you are putting yourself into the shoes of the learner and can understand the challenge and the sense of achievement fully.

Choose a topic and take nine images which fill the frame of your camera/phone/iPad with an example of that. Then use a collage making app or program (Moldiv App (bit.ly/uked14nov06) or http://fotor.com are both easy to use).

Suggested topics Lines Patterns Textures Shapes Colours – individual colour or a rainbow challenge Buttons Seats Reflections Words and text Letters Natural Man made Angles Eyes Doors The list is endless and you can see from the list here that you can link this to other subjects such as Maths.

9 locks and fastenings – made into a collage using the app ‘Moldiv’ By limiting yourself and children to taking only nine shots you will actively slow down and concentrate fully on what you are going to photograph rather than just snapping away and taking 100s of images.

Once you understand how easy this is to do you can transfer it to your classroom and school grounds. Obviously you need to discuss safety rules and respect for others and property as it is important that pupils are safe and behaving responsibly whilst still having fun. This is a learning activity in its own right.

You could have a series of different challenges in envelopes or strips of paper in a basket for pupils in pairs or threes to choose their task. Alternatively you could set the whole class the same challenge and compare their results. These can be printed off and make stunning borders or displays.

To take this challenge even further you could set an ‘Alphabet challenge’ where pupils have to take 26 images of the alphabet in nature. This really concentrates your focus when outside. If your school grounds are quite limited you could perhaps incorporate a visit to a local park or woodland.

14 UKED Magazine

If you look closely there are two different types of image – letters that occur naturally such as the ‘C’ and ‘D’ and letter that have been made such as the ‘G’ and ‘S’. You could do this within school and ask children to be really creative - for example two pencils for ‘L’ pencil shavings made into an ‘S’.

The alphabet below was taken at Westonbirt Arboretum in Gloucestershire – well worth a visit if you are ever in this area but any area of woodland would work.

If you want to use this as an exercise in exploring your local area – pupils could photograph individual letters from shops and signs.

Once you have taken these and created a display try asking the pupils to make letters with their bodies and create an alphabet that way!

Jane Hewitt is a freelance photographer and educator.

Look beyond the obvious - there is beauty in everything.

Author of ‘learning Through a Lens’ & Author associate ITL. Find her on Twitter @Janeh271 and read her blog at http://janehewitt.blogspot.co.uk View on Amazon at bit.ly/ukedlearninglens

Image Credit: Images were provided by Jane Hewitt. Background image by Martin Burrett UKED Magazine 15

The ABCs of Supporting EAL

By Charlotte Harding

I remember back to when I was in the first few years of teaching in an inner city school in Birmingham, we had a 'new parents evening'...'Welcome, thank you for attending this information evening.' I then had to pause as the 5 interpreters translated my words into various Asian languages and dialects, Vietnamese, French and Spanish. I felt as if I was a member of the UN. Over the years I have learned various ways of saying 'hello' and 'welcome' in various languages, as well as trying to help students get to grips with speaking, reading and writing English.

My most recent venture, The International Club, came from a need for some of my most recent foreign students to be able to develop confidence in speaking English in a non threatening way. I set up a group, that is now in its second year, whereby they could come at lunch time, three days a week and chat informally. I laid on different activities, including discussions on pop artists, favourite food, cultural celebrations and football discussions; all fairly accessible and relaxed. I bought biscuits; they brought with them homework, worksheets and other items that needed deciphering or translating. The fact transpired that all these students from different countries had different levels of English and needed slightly different levels of support. A case in point was the time, just before Christmas, when I brought in a box of wrapped chocolates and asked the students to pick a colour. One boy struggled until I asked him what was wrong. He looked at me and finally said that all the time he had been learning English he realised he had got the colours orange and purple muddled up. It impressed me that he admitted this in front of the group. I was pleased that it was solved by a box of Roses chocolates!

We all work together, the more linguistically able helping the newer arrivals so that by the end of the first year, several of the students had made progress in their subjects, just because they felt that they had an 'English' voice to be able to share their ideas. I also invited English speaking students to act as language mentors. They helped drive any discussion and were a point of contact when I was unavailable.

As part of this, I set up a mini project where I took the students out to local landmarks, for example the library and museum as well as a trip on the local canal to help them gain an awareness of where they were living. We also used online maps for them to talk about where they have came from and to compare the cultural differences between here and where they have come from. This helped them form a stronger bond with the place they had moved to.

The club is a drop in, I don't insist on attendance but the students who have started to come since September have made it part of their weekly routine and I have already seen improvement; a young girl who seemed very quiet, chats to me non stop about her latest history class, formulating her sentences and correcting herself as she thinks things through in a more relaxed setting. I am able to keep a register and give informal feedback to staff, if they need it, to help them gauge how well a student attending my club is able to understand and comprehend what they are being told in class.

The other side of this has been that I have developed and found online glossaries and phrase sheets to help staff ensure students settle in quickly. I work with the students to help differentiate the work they are given so they can access it and from time to time staff ask me to go through homework with the students to ensure they know what to do. I know that there is a school of thought to say emersion in the target language is useful, but to help these students as quickly as possible I found a bilingual dictionary to be useful and effective in avoiding initial frustration.

One thing I have observed - just because a student is newly arrived and speaks limited English doesn't necessarily mean they need to go into an SEN group. If you are able to workout the students level of literacy in their home language then you can judge how quickly they will make the transition to English and from that predict their level of progress. I now have students who have been learning English for two years in my set 2 class who are performing above their target grade, just because they were able to develop their ideas and vocabulary in line with their natural literacy skills, supported by suitably differentiated work.

My work continues and with each new arrival I pick up more and more ideas about how to help them achieve. I have also started reading and researching the known wisdom on students with EAL and sharing that with whoever wants to listen!

Charlotte Harding is an English teacher at Castle High school, Dudley. In her 20 years experience she has developed an interest in various aspects of whole school life, including poetry and EAL. In her spare time she is a GCSE examiner and team leader. Find her on Twitter @charlieferrett Image Credit: Background image http://pixabay.com/en/alphabet-literacy-letters-read-99374

Book Shelf A Creative Approach to Teaching Writing

by Steve Bowkett

Teaching writing combines practical activities with insights into the attitude that experienced writers apply to their craft. Activities within explore different working methods – such as how authors tap into and develop their creativity and how they deal with ‘writer’s block’ – supported by strategies for thinking that will develop children’s literacy and the way they use language to express their opinions in all subject area.

Aimed at Primary School Teachers –the RRP of this book is £14.99.

View on Amazon at

bit.ly/ukedcreativewriting

A Creative Approach to Teaching Grammar

by Peter Burrows

Offering the busy teacher three simple steps to motivate and engage children, this book through: explicit teaching and modelling; over 40 practical games and activities; application and improvement within editing and proof reading. It draws on recent research as well as many years of classroom practice. Practical examples develop teachers’ understanding of terms and progression and present an exciting and interesting curriculum.

Aimed at Primary School Teachers –the RRP of this book is £14.99.

View on Amazon at

bit.ly/ukedcreativegrammar

100 Ideas Outstanding English Lessons for Secondary Teachers

by Angela Cooze and Mary Myatt

This excellent book provides accessible strategies to embed into everyday teaching to ensure English lessons are consistently outstanding. The ideas help students to develop strong foundation skills in spelling, punctuation, reading and writing as well as learning how to work together, listen to each other, give great presentations and analyse different types of text. Strategies are also included to help inspire a love of literature and for improving teaching practice.

Aimed at Secondary School Teachers – the RRP of this book is £12.99.

View on Amazon at

bit.ly/ukedenglishlessons

For many more book reviews, go to

http://ukedchat.com/category/book UKED Magazine 17

Mental Maths Today

By Andrew Brodie

What’s the biggest mathematical favour we can do for our children? Teach them number facts so that they know them confidently. What’s the second biggest mathematical favour we can do for our children? Teach them how to use number facts confidently.

For decades we have been struggling with both these ideas. Back in the fifties and sixties the tendency was to teach number bonds and multiplication tables so thoroughly that perhaps there wasn’t time to actually make use of them in real problem solving.

True, problems were set and children were taught techniques to deal with them but some teachers began to feel very concerned that the children were learning facts that they didn’t understand. So the educational pendulum began its swing towards ‘using and applying mathematics’ in context. What could be wrong with that?

The term ‘numeracy’ was invented in 1959 to represent the mathematical equivalent of ‘literacy’ in English. The aim of course was for all our children to be numerate and literate. ‘Literacy’ represented the ability to read effectively with comprehension and not just to ‘bark at print’, then to use this reading skill and to apply it to writing. In the same way, ‘numeracy’ came to mean ‘the ability to understand and work with numbers’ (Oxford Dictionaries). This was what we wanted then and that’s what we want now, isn’t it?

But some people misunderstood the message and decided that learning in context was the only way to gain effective knowledge in maths. Gone was any form of rote learning: number skills acquisition could only be achieved when the child was ready. What was the point in teaching multiplication tables, for example, if the child didn’t know how to use them?

The problem was that some children never did appear to be ready. Teachers, quite rightly, differentiated the curriculum to give greater access for pupils who were struggling but in some cases there was a squeezing out of essential content. Children who could have learnt number facts at primary level moved on to secondary school ill-equipped and unready for the maths they were to face. They very quickly fell out of love with mathematics.

What should we be doing now? Exactly what good teachers have been doing throughout every decade and despite every swing of the educational fashion

pendulum: teach a healthy balanced diet consisting of an effective mix of number knowledge and skills and of using maths in context. Every day, every child should enjoy the satisfaction of honing their mental maths skills through rapid recall as well as feeling the thrill of solving a problem in much the same way as working out the solution to a puzzle.

In much the same way as phonics may be seen as the building blocks of literacy and English as a whole, number skills are the building blocks of numeracy and mathematics as a whole. So what are those essential number skills?

Firstly, addition and subtraction bonds to 10, moving on to bonds to 20 then bonds to 100. In fact, if the child is confident with bonds to 10 the bonds to 20 or 100 will follow easily. (Here’s a quick test: ask a ten year old to subtract 64 from 100. Many children will produce the correct answer but many will say 46.

They have ‘half-learnt’ the number facts: they know that 100 - 60 is 40 and that 10 - 4 is 6 but they haven’t learnt to combine the facts effectively. Using a number line is just one way to overcome this.)

Secondly, of course, multiplication tables! The new national curriculum spells out clearly at what age pupils should be learning their tables stating that, ‘by the end of year 4, pupils should have memorised their multiplication tables up to and including the 12 multiplication table…’. So, do we stop practising after Year 4 because the pupils have ‘memorised’ their tables? Of course not - many pupils will need to revisit their tables time and time again until they really have memorised them to such an extent that their brain will automatically produce the answer 56 to the question seven times eight or can rapidly calculate the answer 138 when asked the question twenty-three times six.

But we won’t forget that alongside this we will be setting the children meaningful problems and providing them with number aids such as number lines, hundred squares, ‘base ten’ equipment and multiplication squares, so that they can access the number work in the problems before they have fully learnt every number fact.

What’s the biggest mathematical favour we can do for our children? Help them, guide them, nurture them, praise them and teach them to be truly numerate: it’s the best of both worlds.

Follow Andrew on Twitter at @ABrodieWriter Find books by Andrew on Amazon at

bit.ly/ukedbrodie

Read our review of Andrew Brodie’s ‘Let’s Do Mental Maths’ Apps at

bit.ly/ukedbrodieapps

Image credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/fdecomite/3777581384 (adapted) by fdecomite used under Commercial Creative Commons 2.0 License.

18 UKED Magazine

The Changing Face of CPD

by Shaun Allison

All great schools have something in common. They are full of classrooms of teachers who enjoy talking about teaching, sharing ideas and trying things out. Similarly, they will have leaders who facilitate and encourage this. It’s not a complicated idea, but it does require a shift in how we think about the leadership of teaching and learning and CPD across schools. The following points are worth consideration by school leaders: A ‘Tight but Loose’ approach – Gone are the days when CPD is centred around how everyone should conform to the same style of teaching i.e. the rigid ‘3 part lesson’.

Teaching is a creative profession and as so, as long as they are successful, teachers should be encouraged to teach in a way that best suits them. So identify some key aspects of teaching e.g. challenge, explanation, modelling, deliberate practice, questioning and feedback, and then allow teachers to implement these principles, in a way that best suits them.

Build your CPD programme around these principles.

Find the ‘Bright Spots’ – In their book, ‘Switch: How to change things, when change is hard’ (bit.ly/uked14nov08), Chip and Dan Heath describe what successful institutions do: they find what is working and do more of it – they ‘find the bright spots’. Do this in your school. Find teachers that are using successful strategies in their classrooms, and use them to lead CPD for other teachers. CPD strategies that do this, like 15 minute forums, can be explored in my new book ‘Perfect Teacher Led CPD’. You have a huge number of experts in your classrooms, in your school – use them.

Look outside – Use the experts within your school to develop teaching but also look outside. A growing number of teachers are sharing their thoughts and practice through social media such as twitter and blogging. Alongside this, it is now easier than ever before to access educational research papers and books. Many schools are creating new ‘Research and Development’ roles, to support their staff with becoming ‘research aware’ and then ‘research engaged.’ Do you know what academic research the education department in your local university is undertaking? Could this be coupled with your school? Is there a ‘Teach Meet’ happening locally that your staff could choose to attend? If not, could you host one? These are all excellent avenues of CPD that should be explored and positively embraced.

Read our review of Shaun’s book at bit.ly/uked14nov07 View the book on Amazon at

bit.ly/ukedperfectcpd Image credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/3oheme/5141328136 by Ignacio Palomo Duarte used under Commercial Creative Commons 2.0 License.

All other images provided by Shaun Allison

Layered approach to CPD – As a school, do you ensure that there is variety of CPD activities open to staff, that allows them to access CPD at a level that suits them? See above.

A fresh approach to lesson observations – lesson observations should be a really useful form of CPD. Sadly though, in recent years, they have become reduced to labelling teachers with a 1-4 number. This doesn’t need to be the case. We need to change our approach to observations – stop giving lessons a grade and make them a professional and supportive dialogue between two professionals. Allow all colleagues to be involved in lesson observations – not just those in a leadership role. There is so much to learn from watching our peers, so provide opportunities for staff to do this. Why not take it a stage further and set up a ‘Lesson Study’ programme in your school? Usually carried out in groups of three, teachers plan, deliver, observe and then review a series of lessons together – looking to develop a particular aspect of their pedagogy.

To summarise, Professor Dylan Wiliam says: ‘Every teacher needs to improve, not because they are not good enough, but because they can be even better.’

A fresh look at CPD is needed by school leaders, in order to create the right culture and climate in schools - one that is supportive, collaborative and encourages teachers to explore, challenge themselves and grow. This requires schools to develop a ‘bottom up’, teacher led approach to CPD as opposed to a ‘top down’, one size fits all approach. For too long now, teachers have been shackled by unfortunate fads and gimmicks, telling them how they should be teaching. This has disempowered and demoralised large sections of the profession. The challenge for us as educators then, is to seize back our profession.

We need to let teachers teach, make them excited about teaching and learn from each other.

Shaun Allison is Deputy Head at Durrington High School, West Sussex. He is author of ‘Perfect Teacher Led CPD’.

Read his blog at classteaching.wordpress.com and find him on Twitter @shaun_allison.

UKED Magazine 19

Metacognition & the Growth Mindset

by Rebecca Tusingham

Metacognition or ‘thinking about thinking’, as I like to call it, forms the basis of the Growth Mindset theory. As a society we seem to have moved away from the truth that no matter what your starting point you can always make a huge amount of progress if you apply the right kind of effort over time. Struggle is a natural part of learning, take a shortcut and you don’t learn as much; why then do we equate struggle with failure?

At Hanham Woods Academy we believe that getting the right mindset underpins the long-term success of our students and staff. We have highly valued resilience in our learners and have observed time and time again our ‘grittiest’ students overtaking those who may have had the initial advantage; thus proving the formula of effort over time = progress. We want all of our students to benefit in this way which led us to the work of Carol Dweck (bit.ly/ uked14nov09) and Growth Mindset.

Getting the right mindset is the key to enabling students to make the most of their learning. The right mindset means that we can raise our expectations even higher in lessons and see students enjoying the challenge. It means that students are more open to taking us up on all of the extended learning experiences that are on offer because we

want them to love our subject as much as we do. In short, the issue was never with what we had on offer, the sticking point was that we perhaps weren’t laying the metacognitive foundations for the learning behaviours we wanted to see.

One core long-term goals is to progress from metacognitive knowledge (being aware of how we think) being explicit in lessons to metacognitive regulation (the ability to manage your thinking process) being skillfully used as a means of maintaining learning discipline and ‘grit’ during challenging times. It goes without saying that this is hard to do but it won’t surprise you to hear that part of our Growth Mindset culture is tackling the hard stuff first, so what do we do? The staff agreed upon some key teacher behaviours that should form the bedrock of our pedagogical approach: • Establish an ethos of ‘multiple attempts’ at improvement and success.

• Provide effort focused feedback.

• Explore and understand the role of metacognition in the classroom though dialogue.

• Offer choices to promote autonomy and independence in learners.

• De-bunk the myths surrounding failure.

• Prioritise challenge over ‘safe’ success.

We have been doing this for about a year now and a student voice exercise showed some pleasing results: ‘What is Growth Mindset?’

• ‘A new way of thinking that helps you realise what your goals are and how to achieve them’ • ‘Not giving excuses’ • ‘Turning jealousy into inspiration’ ‘Why do you want to have a growth mindset?’

• ‘To know that I am strong’ • ‘To have pride in myself’ • ‘Because my character matters more than what I accomplish’ This is not true of every student and we still have a distance to travel, but we are starting to see the positive effects of our Growth Mindset culture. This has fuelled our motivation to keep going with our journey, which has evolved into a series of staff leadership projects that aim to dig deeper into the ways in which Growth Mindset could be used to drive further improvements: • Updating GAT provision; often our most able students get stuck in a fixed mindset rut. Can we support them in developing their attitudes towards challenge further?

• Developing the voice of Growth Mindset in the classroom using students to take the lead.

• Homework excellence as the path to mastery. Raising the profile of home learning through visibility and effort focused feedback.

20 UKED Magazine

The best websites from ictmagic.wikispaces.com

https://photomath.net

An amazing maths Apple, Windows Phone and (soon) Android app which works out equations by taking a photo of them.

http://www.checkio.org A superb online game which takes learners through coding activities with Python. Complete the tasks to gain points to move to the next area. More suitable for older students.

http://bbc.co.uk/cbbc/games/doctor-who-game http://bit.ly/sensorsense A great Android app which shows you the many readouts of the sensors on your device. Use them in science, geography and more.

https://www.educanon.com A superb online game which takes learners through Python coding activities.

• Metacognition as part of the mentor/mentee relationship.

• Growth Mindset Leaders as part of the student leadership model.

• Growth Mindset isn’t magic, tailoring our approach for our weakest students.

• Growth Mindset parent group – what are the challenges and solutions to GM at home?

Most of these projects are in their infancy and are likely to evolve as we get to grips with the unique set of problems and opportunities that surround each of them. Establishing a Growth Mindset culture has definitely led to increased expectations of ourselves and each other to share our learning as teachers for the benefit of our students; this is a great uniting goal to have when inevitably things get busy and we have to make choices about our priorities. In summary I feel confident in saying that Growth Mindset is definitely here to stay!

A wonderful Dr Who online game where players use basic coding ideas to complete levels.

https://plotagon.com Make 3D animated cartoon videos with computer generated audio via apps, PC and Mac downloads. Free for the basics, but payment is needed to unlock additional features/characters.

Rebecca Tusingham: Associate Assistant Principal at Hanham Woods Academy. My role is research and development with a focus on developing a Growth Mind-set whole school ethos. My work is informed my an MA that I completed with Bath Spa last year. growthmindsetjourney.blogspot.co.uk

Image Credit https://www.flickr.com/photos/admaust/7892653362 by Drew Maust used under Commercial Creative Commons 2.0 License. https://www.flickr.com/photos/somemixedstuff/2403249501 by Davide Restivo used under Commercial Creative Commons 2.0 License. https://www.flickr.com/photos/hmk/2741404653 by H. Michael Karshis used under Commercial Creative Commons 2.0 License.

UKED Magazine 21

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‘Here!’

Absence and the Cycle of Disadvangtage

This month saw the release of the latest school absence data (bit.ly/uked14nov20) from the Department for Education. There was positive news, with declining overall absence rates and persistent absentees (those who miss more 15% of sessions). In fact, absence is at its lowest since data was first collected in 2006.

This is obviously positive news, however the inequality in attendance between the most disadvantaged children and their peers has remained stubbornly high. A child eligible for Free School Meals (FSM) or with Special Educational Needs (SEN) is over three times more likely to be persistently absent than their peers.

This inequality in attendance is mirrored when we look at the attainment of these disadvantaged children. In order to close this attainment gap, we need to take a look at the child’s whole environment, and not just see schools as silos.

We know that a number of schools are funding services to go and pick children up from home to bring them into school to ensure that they are attending. This is a positive step, however once in school, it is important that a child is ready to learn and not worrying about what is happening at home. Research by School-Home Support found that children who were persistently absent faced a number of multiple and overlapping needs within the home, including substance misuse, mental and physical health issues, housing issues, poor family relationships and poverty.

In a recent report (bit.ly/uked14nov21), the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission highlighted the importance of strategies to engage parents in their child’s education. They noted that outreach and integration with other services are important steps to increase engagement.

As highlighted above, many families face a number of complex needs, requiring support from many different services and agencies. School outreach workers or schoolhome practitioners are ideally placed to ensure that families receive the support they need, giving children a more stable

Competition UK only

By Jan Tallis home environment.

We have found that when a parent isn’t engaging with school it is often linked to their own experiences as a child. They see teachers as authority figures and are worried about what will happen if they open up about challenges they are facing. This is when independent practitioners are able to break down barriers and bring parents into the school community.

Whilst persistent absence has decreased to 4.1%, there are still 262,255 children across England who are missing over 15% of their schooling. Persistent absence is a major factor in determining future life chances. Pupils who are persistently absent are four times less likely to achieve five A*-C grades at GCSE. Once leaving school, these children are four times more likely to not be in education, employment or training (NEET). In turn, we know 18 year olds who are NEET are more likely to be unemployed, have a criminal record and suffer from poor health and depression by the age of 21.

It is vital that support is provided to these children and their families to give them a greater chance in life and end the generational cycle of disadvantage.

Jan Tallis is Chief Executive of School-Home Support, a national charity that tackles the underlying issues that affect a child’s ability to make the most of their education.

Jan has worked across various roles in the third sector and is currently Chair of Governors at a secondary school in East London. Find Jan on Twitter @JanTallis.

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UKED Magazine 23

This house believes in the

Power of discussion

by Tom Bigglestone

As an educator, you are no doubt familiar with holding a debate. A debate is a staple activity for any teacher for practically any subject. And it has its place in any scheme of work. Its benefits for learners are numerous.

However, I would like to put the case for holding a discussion, rather than a debate, next time your class are set to tackle an issue with differing and opposing perspectives.

I am not suggesting we do-away with debates. As I've said above, they have huge importance and I use them regularly.

Nor I am not for a minute claiming that none of us hold discussions, but I feel they do not have as much prominence in books on lesson ideas - and so fear they do not occur with as much regularity in lessons. My discussions are heavily indebted to the work of Prof. Matthew Lipman and the 'Community of Enquiry' which plays a crucial role in the Philosophy for Children (P4C) movement. Further reading on P4C can be found at the bottom of this article.

Why, and how, can a discussion provide a much more enriching learning experience for pupils?

First of all, discussions allow pupils to be themselves, and think for themselves. And air their own views, immediately.

If pupils are themselves, they will normally speak in a more measured, thoughtful way, rather than putting their energy into finger-pointing at the other side. Furthermore, a discussion may also make pupils listen to each with greater care, rather than spending time just preparing their next jab at their counterparts. They will be encouraged to think about what has just been said, and internalise it for themselves, rather than highlight any flaw they can and bat it away in dismissive fashion in the hope of scoring debatepoints.

Allowing pupils to raise their own points means they can, at any point, find positions which may be between two polarised sides to an argument. For example, in my Year 10 lessons on abortion, it is often the case that pupils present opinions which support abortion under certain circumstances, or when conditions are met (as the law does). Demanding that pupils adhere to arguing from one point of view can make them feel they cannot explore this rich area in between a 'yes' and a 'no', or a 'for' and an 'against'.

Following this logic, a question can be explored with the pupils in charge. To take our discussions on euthanasia as an example, I could not begin without explaining to pupils that other questions will need to be tackled before we even contemplate coming to any conclusions. As shown below I sometimes show some examples on the screen to begin discussions:

Sub-questions provide avenues of enquiry, whereby pupils can actually spend time thinking about what the most pressing area of the issue is. For euthanasia: is it a matter of personal control and liberty? Is it about potential abuse and dangers? For our discussions on abortion: is it a question of the value of human life? Or a woman's right over her body? This will often help pupils come to their conclusions, by weighing up where a discussion should actually go.

Pupils can build on each other's points much more effectively in a discussion. They are not compelled to disagree, as they are during a debate. Appreciation and understanding can be developed by a pupil taking the opinion of a classmate and critiquing it and/or agreeing and building upon it.

Hugely influential in P4C, Russian psychologist Len Vygotsky said we learn to think in the same way we learn to speak: by internalising patterns we hear around us, and then doing it in our heads, and then out loud. When a lesson takes on the format of a discussion, pupils can listen to a series of points, which (hopefully) logically follow from each other, and can at any point add their perspective, without having to conform to any side. Indeed, I often present this image to new pupils, to encourage them to engage with each other, rather than just present a point of view.

Two clear sides can still be achieved through a discussion.

Points of view can be categorised on an opinion line. Putting ideas on such a spectrum is a far greater test of analytical skill than just clumping arguments in a 'for' and 'against' column. At the end of a discussion, I often ask pupils to form their own opinion line and then hear a selection of reasons from the 'far yes' and 'far no' (though I don't call them that!) and then those in the middle. This nicely summarises the discussion, but also provides clear compartmentalisation of opinions for the less able in the class.

Debates are absorbing, fascinating and fun. We watch them on television - through Prime Minister's Questions, for example - and hear them on the radio. In the latter especially, production teams will choose two opposing views to give the listener both sides. However, classes don't come with ready made 'proposers' and 'opposers'. It is likely that some pupils will have never even thought about the question or motion being discussed. If you want a clear outline of two sides of an argument then debate away. However, If you want to allow pupils to find their own voice on an issue, by hearing the ideas of others and presenting their own, then asking them to act from a particular perspective may not always be most effective. Allow them to be themselves, and to develop their opinions with the help of each other, and the results may surprise you.

To read more about Communities of Enquiry, I'd recommend beginning with an overview of P4C (bit.ly/ uked14nov22), before details about the process of enquiries themselves (bit.ly/uked14nov23).

Tom Bigglestone is a Head of RE and teacher of Philosophy at a North London girls school. He is on Twitter @the_tank and blogs at tombigglestone.wordpress.com

Identify Theft

By Chris Eyre

Sometimes it’s the little words in our sentences that give the game away as to how we’re thinking. How often we hear ourselves and others using the phrase ‘I am just a teacher.’ The word ‘just’ is interesting and in many ways more harmful that it first appears.

Firstly, I am just a teacher implies an inferiority complex.

Just in this sense means ‘only.’ Surely if we believe in our role as teachers there is no ‘only’ about it. Secondly, and more seriously, ‘I am just a teacher’ seems to imply that this is all there is to me. I am nothing else other than my job. However in one sense I AM NOT A TEACHER. At first glance that might appear to be a lie. What I mean to say is this - I am not just a teacher. It is not the whole story. I am a husband, a father, a son, etc. The label ‘teacher’ only describes part of me. It is not the sum total of my identity. I am a person who carries out the role of teacher and invests much of his life in ensuring that the role is carried out to the best of his ability but in terms of who I actually am, I am not just a teacher.

Don’t get me wrong, I am proud of the job that I do but it is not my whole life; however sometimes I carry on as though it is, as though there is nothing else to me, as though my whole identity is found in the classroom.

To be fair, stolen is probably the wrong word. We voluntarily or at least subconsciously give it away. It’s easy to do it, to forget that our work is not us. The job we do matters and it’s important we do it well. We invest so much time into the job that we often end up becoming the job.

Identity Theft - Spotting the Signs We are all on a journey with this and I admit that I’m not the finished article when it comes to this issue. Here are a few things I’ve noticed about times when I have begun to lose my identity.

Criticism – I become even more sensitive than usual to criticism! I forget that a criticism made in an observation about an aspect of my performance is just that and not a direct assault on me as a person. If someone criticises an aspect of your performance in the classroom (or more accurately a comment is made that we perceive to be critical) it is important to remember it is just that, a comment on how you have done an aspect of your job. You are not perfect nor should anyone expect you to be. One of our problems as teachers is that our identity and how we feel about ourselves is often wrapped up in how well we do our job, or how well we are perceived to be doing our job.

Remember just because someone thinks you should have done something better does not necessarily mean they are right. And even if they are right that doesn’t mean you aren’t doing the rest of the job pretty well. Remember that criticism is hardly ever intended to be personal.

Contentment – When I am beginning to lose ‘identity’ I begin to lose contentment. Learn to be content in what you’ve done. Teachers seem to have a default setting that drives them to be perfectionists. Aiming for excellence is one thing but driving ourselves mad in the process ultimately

achieves nothing for us and does not benefit those that we teach. Remember that teaching is a marathon not a sprint and that the best thing I can do for my students is to stay fit and well for the full academic year. Sometimes it takes courage to stop and say ‘this isn’t perfect but it’s good enough and besides I need to stop now so that I am fresh for the next day.’ If your lesson isn’t perfect that is often just as much a reflection of the constraints that you are working in as it is of you as a person.

Cultivate – When I am immersed too deeply in my teacher identity, the other aspects of my life start to resemble plants that need watering! It is important to cultivate other aspects of your identity. Deliberately do other things that are not related to work. Plan an evening with the children, have someone round for a meal, take up a hobby and plan time to do this, learn new skills. Of course as dedicated teachers we will probably protest that we don’t have time for such things but let’s think about that one. Are we really saying that our role as a teacher is so important that everything else has to be put on hold? And if so until when? Our students connect with us as people and, if all we are relates to the job we do, then slowly but surely we will start to die inside. We will become less interesting and less effective. A well rounded person makes a better teacher As a little thought experiment on this, why not try the following. Imagine that you are not a teacher. What will you do for a living? Imagine you are retired or in the privileged position of not needing to work. How are you going to fill your days once the washing up is done and the bills have been paid. If you find this challenge difficult, could it be that you are too wrapped up in your identity as a teacher to enjoy the rest of life?

So we are not just teachers. This week, this year - try to make sure that you preserve your identity in a demanding but fulfilling job. I am not just a teacher. What about you?

Chris Eyre @chris_eyre is curriculum manager for Religious Studies and Philosophy at Stoke-on-Trent Sixth Form College. He has also worked as an examiner for a leading exam board. He is passionate about teacher well-being and regularly blogs on this and other issues.

Read his blog at chriseyreteaching.wordpress.com Image Credit: Image by Martin Burrett

UKED Magazine 25

In Brief

More than Marks on Paper

Over the years, I’ve come to realise that the more I mark my pupils’ books, the more I like the class, the individuals and the efforts they are making. As an English teacher, there’s never any shortage of marking, so the issue is certainly one of quality, not quantity. This year, I’ve taken a slightly new approach, considering exactly what I ‘feed’ these pupils when I feed back and feed forward. I’m working on building a bank of key subject skills, revisited frequently, reviewed and revised regularly, corrected and improved where necessary, as often as needed. These improvements are recorded on the left hand pages of books, while the ‘new’ learning and independent notes go on the right. What has emerged now, a month into the two year GCSE course, is that patterns of errors, real stumbling blocks, the need for intervention and real breakthroughs in understanding can be clearly seen on the page and charted over time. Pupils number their pages and keep a contents page, so it’s easy to note something like ‘See p 16 for an example’ when directing pupils to make an improvement. Time for making the changes is built into the weekly plan, along with a ‘development’ task for those who don’t need to make so many improvements. Feedback and feed forward are personal, comments are ‘growth mindset’ orientated and, so far, pupil engagement has been high. @Lisa7pettifer - English teacher/CPD leader, Cumbria

Take Away The Spoon

Linear assessment keeps me awake at night, and every day that passes feels like a lost opportunity to prepare students with the coping mechanisms that they need to function in the big, wide, real world. Here are a few ways of ensuring that the children that enter your classroom stand a chance if left to their own devices: Mentor Roles - The most rewarding and empowering thing that you can offer a student within the classroom.

This does not have to rest with your more able student, but can simply be responsibility within the classroom. I find roles a fantastic way of ensuring engagement- administrators, class leaders, board writers, mentors that oversee tasks, annotators for whole class exercises using Word review.

Everyone likes to have a moment in charge.

Student Voice - regularly use Google forms to take feedback. You can gauge the temperature of the previous term, get valuable ideas from the students (homework suggestions, lesson planning) and again, empower them to take ownership of their learning.

Student-Led Learning - they create the learning objective, they set the task that will help them achieve it, they assess their progress, they decide on the next steps. You facilitate, rather than instruct. @Saysmiss - English teacher, Leicestershire

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Pace Does Not Exist

‘Pace’ is something that will often arise as an area for development following an observation. There is no point stating that a lesson deemed to be lacking pace was one where activities were not completed quickly enough. We have all been told at some point that pace is the appropriate speed for an activity - however long that is.

Well, actually, I think that’s a lie too. Pace as a standalone quality does not exist. It is not one specific area that can be cultivated, you can not simply set a target of improving pace and expect there to be any course to attend or a technique to master.

Pace is the culmination of effective T&L across the board. A lesson with outstanding pace is one which demonstrates questioning designed to challenge and to support. It involves planning a range of activities which stimulate and enthuse. It is the personality, presence and passion of the individual teacher driving the wider social elements of the lesson content. Pace is a prime example of the aggregation of marginal gains, Brailsford hit the nail on the head. When we seek to improve areas of our teaching, even by 1%, we inevitably develop pace.

If you are given feedback and pace is mentioned, you’re being asked to reflect on all of the core elements of your practice and tighten up, however slightly. Pace is an inevitable consequence of appropriate planning and delivery. @kymberleywarby - Lead Practitioner, West Midlands

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Keeping it short...

By Nancy Walbank One of the many challenges I have encountered when working with upper key stage two and lower key stage three is having the time to use whole novels in literacy lessons whilst still covering the curriculum content planned for each term. Reading novels takes time and in a few English sessions a week reading for extend periods can feel like a luxury.

Torturous links between reading and lesson objectives sometimes ensue to justify the lesson time. It is important that students begin to read and complete extended novels.

Short stories, however, can often offer the same learning opportunities as a complete novel and have the advantage of being used over a short sequence of lessons, rather than a whole term. Many authors of literary significance have obligingly written short stories, some of them free as e-books or as PDF downloads. Short stories offer an excellent model for students as their writing in school is often short pieces of work, not novels. (Think of the marking!)

The brevity of short stories means students are not overwhelmed by the volume of text and still read a whole story, not just an extract.

Doris Lessing’s coming of age story “The Tunnel” is a short and simple story which resonates with students in Year 6 and 7. The story simply describes a boy on holiday who discovers local boys ability to swim through an underwater tunnel.

Seeking acceptance, he persists until he is able to swim through the tunnel too, through this process, distancing himself from his mother who visits a different beach.

The vocabulary is challenging enough to use dictionaries for occasional definitions, it lends itself to a lesson on viewpoint and narrative voice, leading to character analysis of the boy and his mother. Students can also set each other comprehension questions to discuss key themes, why does the boy persist in his attempts? As the main character is eleven many of his fears and anxieties will reflect their own, which develops an opportunity to write their own stories about the challenges they will face in the school year, the effects of peer pressure and the beginning of independence from their parents that comes with secondary education.

Dr. Nancy Walbank is an educational consultant. She has worked across primary, secondary and tertiary education. She has held leadership roles in the primary sector. Her PhD focused on inclusion in faith schools. She is the author of "Six Top Tips for a Trainee Teachers." Follow her on Twitter @nan282.

Short stories also lend themselves to comparison of authors and genres. An example I enjoy is ghost stories.

Dicken’s “The Signalman” is a brilliant piece of story telling and introduces students to his writing style. It is a challenge and does need to be framed with some short explanation of the Victorian railway system, of steam trains and signals.

It is available on-line for free, therefore, reading it can be set as homework; it has been adapted by the BBC and animated on You Tube which creates a visualised frame of reference. The story slowly builds to a ghost story and questions whether the ghost was real or a product of the signalman’s isolation. In contrast, Neil Gaiman’s “Don’t Ask Jack” from his “M is for Magic” collection is a sinister story about a demonic Jack-in-a-box, told in less than seven hundred words. It lends itself to a study of how the writing style makes it frightening, nothing is ever quite seen or remembered, forcing the reader to infer their own fears. The use of the word ‘don’t’ in the title makes the reader imagine ‘asking Jack’ even though the instruction is ‘don’t’. As a children’s story, it allows analysis of how the author matches the vocabulary and narrative structure to the intended audience. Together, these stories offer students a compelling, if slightly scary, introduction to ghost stories, written by two great authors.

When using a short story, lessons become focused on understanding what has been read rather than the mechanics of reading. Reading is a vital skill but comprehension comes from discussion, identifying themes and evaluating what they have read. Short stories offer opportunities to: • Read • Recall • Interpret • Evaluate using higher order thinking questions • Analyse themes, ideas, characters, structure The only real difference between short stories and novels from a teaching perspective is length. Experience has shown me that reading novels is best done through reading aloud and enjoying the story rather than only using it for teaching and supplemented by reading clubs, challenges and certificates which allow some autonomy about what to read and reward achievement. Well written and well chosen short stories enable lessons which develop and progress student’s skills, are rich with variety and make reading exciting.

UKED Magazine 27

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