Knowing your students and giving voice to all

Thoughts and Ideas

Lots of low stakes opportunities to speak up at the beginning of the lesson - even asking about how their day is going helps with some quieter students. Engage quiet classes - teach without speaking for the first 5-15 mins (see Friday Gem #1) Small group conversations using silent debate on Teams. Good for the quiet girls or those who need more thinking time. Pause once you’ve asked a question. This allows all pupils to have an answer ready (good for neurodiversity). Share/prep questions in advance so pupils have thinking time before the lesson. Ensure questioning doesn’t encourage sound bite answers from students. Allow them time to fully develop and verbalise their response. Harkness method for purposeful pupil-led conversation that engages every member of the group. Music on quietly so there's some background noise for them to talk under with their neighbour. Assign a pupil/groups of pupils a focus/topic which they know they will be asked about so that they have an area of expertise to focus on in questioning. Ask a student to sum up their group’s ideas, rather than just give their own individual idea. Ensure questioning is democratic by using hands down (‘pounce’) to ensure that every student has been heard that lesson. If a pupil gets something wrong, praise an element beyond simply answering e.g. the process they used to get their answer/how they phrased it etc... Ask pupils to ask the questions rather than the teachers. Usually we get to know our girls through the day to day observations, trips, clubs etc... while this will be slightly hindered this term, we can use our colleagues’ knowledge and experience to find out at least something about our girls. We already know a lot about them. Quieter girls are often quiet because they lack confidence. Pick out those pupils and praise them, remembering something they have done in a previous lesson will be powerful - the child needs to feel attachment and belonging to the group; being seen by the teacher and by the group through peer feedback, enables them to feel like their contribution is valued. It's really important they get that peer validation so ask students to peer assess and respond to each other in class conversation. Being known is about being seen, feeling safe and feeling soothed so that you can reach out to your teachers to help. Harkness lends itself to this. Reflecting on our 11+ days - it is not about creating classrooms of extroverts but remembering the value of introversion too. Discussion around the fallout of two girls within a group of 8, which makes teaching difficult. Could have a conversation about psychological safety and the impact this has on the group.

Engage quiet child or quiet class: Teams questioning or use of Padlet or Mentimeter, then open up for class discussion. Pupils express thoughts in writing, then ask partner give positive written feedback. Use of mini whiteboards (takes away the fear of error) so that every pupil contributes. “So what..." questioning by one pupil of another (HJ effective with Y8) ‘Think pair share’ idea to allow all students to articulate themselves in a ‘safe’ way. Choose your leaders carefully so you're not always praising the same girls. Pupils cross Teams Channels to learn from each other. Make pupils feel known: know pupils through their work by personalised marking and feedbac. Give pupil roles in the classroom e.g. note taker, and praise them in this role. Use OneNote page encouraging girls to tell teacher about themselves; pupils strengths and weaknesses, likes and dislikes.

Tools (including from Guided Home Learning)

Padlet. Miro. Kahoot. Mentimeter. Team Forms for traffic light system –pupils tell you how they are feeling. Use Flipgrid to allow pupils to verbalise their ideas. Using silent debates via Teams. Be thoughtful who you choose to answer questions. Enable pupils to cross Channels on Teams and learn from each other.

All images created by ProSymbols in Noun Project. In order that they appear:

1. classroom by ProSymbols from the Noun Project

2. community by ProSymbols from the Noun Project

3. find by Alice Design from the Noun Project

4. voice by Adrien Coquet from the Noun Project