Learning Walks Term 2: November to December 2012

Once again I would like to give a huge thank you to everyone for all their hard work and professionalism.  We are continuing to make progress with our teaching and learning.  Students are getting a terrific deal and high quality lessons are being taught day in day out across the whole school.

We are being increasing consistent in our application of routines.  This helps give students a common experience that helps support their learning and development.  As the new term begins in January please make a concentrated effort in using DNAs, learning intentions and success criteria.  We have witnessed these techniques being used in all areas in the school over the last term and they really do make a difference in setting the tone for the lesson and framing the learning that is to take place.  If we are all consistent in applying these routines it makes teaching easier for allow us as the students know what to expect and they will respond accordingly.

Teaching is often about building relationships with our classes.  It is really important for us to have high expectations of our students and to manage their behaviour positively rather than reacting to issues when they arise.  This term we saw lots of good practice here; with teachers showing warmth and using humour to set boundaries.  Instructions were being given with clarity and teachers were stopping to check that students understood what was expected of them.  Some teachers are making excellent use of the suggestions on the desk mats. Some colleagues are making really good use of the traffic light cards in the planners.

Over the next term let's have a real push in being consistent in ensuring that we set homework regularly and that we are ensuring that students record this in the planner.  This is important as the planner is a key document for home school communication.  Often parents think homework is not being set when in fact it is.  The issue is that it is not being recorded.  If you choose to use blogs or Edmodo for setting homework please use this as a supplement to the planner.

Finally, it is important that we consider carefully how we plan to monitor how well our students are  understanding what we are trying to teach.  Again we have seen some really good practice in this area demonstrated by colleagues this term.  Think about how you can get feedback from the students as the lesson progresses.  Traffic light cards, post-it notes, no hands questioning, getting students to ask other students questions all help here.  Before handing work in ask students to check and correct their use of capital letters and punctuation.  You could persuade your head of department to by you a class set of green and pink highlighter pens.  Students can use them to identify parts of their work they think are strong (green for go!) and parts they think they could develop (pink for think!). You could even ask them to suggest an improvement.  We all spend valuable time marking.  Make sure your students appreciate this hard work.  Not by asking for their sympathy but by making them act on your comments. If you have asked them to underline titles, get them to do this at the start of the next lesson.  Ask them to write you a note telling you what they are going to try to do better.  Then next time you take their books in you can let them know how well they did against the challenge they set themselves.  

Literacy News (1: 22nd November 2012)

Thank you to Louise Marsh for providing us with the first of our literacy updates. I will also post these notes on the Learning Walks page.  In addition Louise has also found some helpful guidance on Ofsted entitled  Notes on the new Ofsted framework: how to be outstanding; just follow the link!  http://www.guardian.co.uk/teacher-network/teacher-blog/2012/nov/19/new-ofsted-framework-how-to-be-outstanding 

Thank you to the English and PHSE Departments who welcomed us for our first Literacy Learning Walks. We were lucky enough to spend time in KS4 and KS3 classrooms and noticed many areas of good practice in supporting our students’ literacy needs and development.

Displays and classroom environments:

• Wide range of displays of key words, sentence starters and essay structures
• High-quality, beautifully-presented student work, often side-by-side with professional work which highlighted our students’ strengths and similarities
• Key skills for the subject with the main features/key words highlighted

Active teaching of Literacy-related skills

• Strong focus on understanding exam-related vocabulary and words which were likely to feature in the upcoming exams (e.g. discussion and explanation of the words “deduce” and “infer”)
• Modelled answers which were used to unpick Skilled and Excellent criteria
• Dictionaries and thesauri which are easy-to-access

Assessment and feedback

• Marking codes on display in some classrooms
• Feedback which responded to written accuracy

If you would also like to display the Marking Codes in your classroom and/or stick copies in students’ books, please don’t forget that they can be found in Staff/Staff Resources/Literacy Resources/Marking and Assessment Support.

The Literacy Resources folder in the Staff/Staff Resources area also contains:

• Writing Skills folder containing Non-Fiction Writing Guides
• Reading Skills folder containing guidance about DARTs activities
• Copies of Literacy Mats and a range of subject-specific materials, grouped under subject area
• 2012 Literacy Guidance folder containing copies of INSET materials, overviews given to Departments and outlines of the year.

On Wednesday 14th November Jim Smith presented to Cheney School. It was a stimulating session packed with interesting ideas.  If you want a copy of Jim's PowerPoint and a copy of the notes below please go to:  My Computer/RM Staff/Staff Resources/Developing Lesson Planning/Inset Presentations.

These notes are an account of Jim's presentation and not a reflection of my opinions.

Outstanding Lazy Learning; without the spoon fed culture!

Jim Smith 14^th November 2012

Jim smith has a new book out that would be worth checking out; Follow me, I'm right behind you

Top tips to get students thinking 

1. Use wordle to analyse speeches, exam specs, any text that you use
2. Try to make links between words coming out from a wordle 
3. Crazy paving mind map, students draw shapes, write down their ideas, organise on a larger sheet and then discuss and explain
4. Discuss with elbow partners
5. Questioning techniques; Think, pair, square, share or Pose, pause, pounce, bounce, go to thunks.co.uk
6. Think about what pedagogy works rather than what content works
7. Get feedback from a group that you want to polish.  Ask them to tell you - Keep grow change - anything that is down for change ask them for examples and who is using this, find out where our best practice is on a ange of different issues and learn from this. Then find three kids to monitor each of these and get them to monitor and feed back to you.
8. EWAP, everything with a purpose 

Lesson starters: all about getting the students aligned; the independent RING, relevant, interesting, naughty, giggle.

1. Here's the answer what's the question?
2. Teach with expectation not with hope, be unapologetic for having high standards 
3. Prove it! 
4. What if?
5.  What is the biggest best most beautiful?
6. Magic numbers
7. Speed draw, draw what you learn last lesson? This could be last lesson, period 3 not your last lesson with me
8.  Would you rather; have foil teeth or feather fingers? Be a Roman or a Viking? Who would win in a fight, Basil a brush or Michael Gove?
9. What are the top five most important............?
10. Same answer different version
11. Odd one out
12. Can you link Barrack Obama to Cheney School in 5 steps
13. Know what you don't know, what do you know, what do you want to know, how are you going to find out?
14. Howbigreally.com
15. What's the story .....?
16. Your killer question .......
17. Captions ...... 
18. Top five things .......
19. What could have happened next?

Outcome focused delivery

Outcome spectrum, student led discovery ------------------------- teacher led didactic

MI learning, your 8 way angle, how do you ensure that you meet different types of learning style?

Tools and techniques

• John Davitt the learning event generator
• iPhone. Random activity generator
• Mark Anderson, ictevangelist.com
• Peter Dickinson Announcer
• Track thinking
• Games based learning
• Put student artwork online for sale
• Talk based learning
• Crazy talk software/puppet pals/Voki/ go animate
• Plan how you are going to chunk up the learning, do something different, get active!

Learning development, what to do when the kids get stuck?

What do you expect your students to do when they get stuck, without just asking you.  Get rid of "Put your hand up and I'll come and help you!"

Imagine you we're a person who was not stuck, what would they do?

Some kids want to be stuck to avoid having a go and getting it wrong.

"Ok, if you’re stuck have a go and I'll come and see how wrong you were." - "What have you forgotten to do?"

Differentiation around the room, have posters etc to stimulate thinking and problem solving.

Multi-plenary lesson, check progress in parallel with the learning, don't stop the learning to capture progress.  Get a student to be the progress paparazzi.  Give students some post it's and walk away, see how the pupils react when you give some messages.

What is brand new and fresh?  Get the students to mark or asterisk this.

Reduced learning company, a 30 sec script on what they have learned.

"What have we not done today that we should have done."

Talking triads, speaker, questioner, assessor - Silent debate. - Learning tree

How do you leave a lesson? How do you get them wanting to come back next time?  The Eastenders finish.

Ways to unlock capacity

•  Keep, trim, bin

Learning conversations

Have conversation observations, three hours of lesson observation is not enough to improve teacher development.  Why lead learning when learning can lead you?  Three hours of LO is about 0.29 of our output.

The live lesson observation, based round a series of questions.  During the lesson the teacher and the observer will have three conversations, one at the beginning, one in the middle and one at the end.  When being observed it is important to talk to the observer so they can see what you have been thinking.  This means that you are giving feedback as you go and you address the grade as you go, it should also de-stress it. More lesson observations means there is less stress and emphasis on each observation.  The conversation means that the why question stops being threatening and becomes curious.  Everyone should be able to observe, the more you observe the better it is. Get parents in to see learning.  Get support staff to see lessons. Put a bring and buy board in the staff room, what can you offer to show and what do you want to see?

Have questions for the students to engage them in what they want to learn.  Jim Smith has a script for his lessons that he can leave as learning develops but can come back to if he needs to.

Marking

Triple Impact Marking

NIM marking, tick and flick, no impact marking

DIM marking, might get the kids to do something, you then write a target, but you move on without making improvements and reflecting based on this, give them time to act on your comments, double impact marking, dirty time.

TIM give the students dirty time; they say something, teachers then mark, student then respond.  2 lots of TIM per term for core 1 for non-core.  Get the students to point out the bits they want you to see. Get them to mark spelling of key words, such as environment. Pre-empt what you expect to see go wrong.

Ofsted look at the data, look at the books and look at the lessons to see if this backs up.  Less pressure on the lesson,.

Penguins in the dessert, what do you call a penguin in the dessert? Lost? An explorer?

DOA, data + observation = action - do on at least five students.

Socrates " I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make them think"

Welcome back for 2012-13

Well I can't believe that we are back to school; no let me correct that.  I can't believe that we are approaching the October half term already!.  Thank you for everything you are doing towards making Cheney so successful.  It has been an excellent start to the year.  The new uniform looks fantastic, behaviour is better than ever and we have gone a long way to cracking punctuality.  We could not do this without your efforts  so thank  you and keep reminding the students about our high expectations.

We are continuing to develop our learning and teaching; and to help us on this journey we have launched our latest initiative - the Agile Teaching Team.  The aim of the team is to provide high quality, bespoke CPD to any of the teaching staff that would like it.  It does not matter what stage of your career you are at, it is available to all.  All you have to do is apply using the Agile Teaching Team Request form on the useful  documents link and we will try to pair you up with an AST.  It is our aim to give support for a half term, and what support is given is designed and agreed between you and your AST.  We think it is a really exciting development and we hope that it is popular.

School's Out - Have a Good Summer

Assessment for Learning

Stuart Dashwood has been rooting around on the Internet and look at what he's found.  Australia are also on the AfL journey; there are lots of useful resources here, especially on professional learning.  Click here to explore.

http://www.assessmentforlearning.edu.au/default.asp?id=912

Department for Education: Teachers’ Standards

In this latest post Phil Waters is going to introduce a series of articles on changes being made by the Department for Education to Teachers’ Standards and the knock on effect they will have for our working lives and salaries.  My earlier post on Thursday 17^th May highlighted Michael Goves’ intentions to radically alter Teachers’ Pay and Conditions; particularly the national pay deal.  Michael Gove wants to introduce regional pay deals and if possible, it appears, he would like to go further by having schools determine their own conditions of pay. 

How does this link to Teacher’s Standards?  In short; I think the intention is to link pay to standards.  Instead of teachers moving up through the pay scale from M1 to M6 based on years of service, teachers would move up the scale by meeting their career stage expectations.  Therefore it is important that we know what is being planned and that we engage with the implementation of this so we can have some ownership of the process.

What is happening to…..?      Teachers’ Standards 2012

By Phil Waters

In this mini series of articles, I intend to write brief accounts about our current thinking on the latest policies that will affect the way we work.

Teachers’ Standards, published February 2012, come into effect in September 2012.  They are statutory and will provide a benchmark against which we are all judged.

There are just 10 standards and a preamble which replace 33 QTS, 41 Core (C) 10 Post Threshold  (P) 15 Excellent (E) and  3 AST(A) standards.  Each new standard is subdivided into several parts, and is considered as being the sum of its parts.  In other words, to meet a standard we have to fulfil all of its parts.

The standards comprise 3 areas – an all encompassing Preamble, Part One -eight standards dealing with our capacity as teachers, and Part Two- standards that focus on our professional conduct.  Not yet published, but on the horizon are “Master Teacher” standards.  These describe an extraordinary level of ability and will subsume all colleagues who would under the present system move beyond M6.

The Headteacher (or appraiser) will assess our performance against the standards.  For those in training, the judgement is based upon a level that can be “reasonably be expected”.  For all other teachers, the standards define a minimum level of practice that can be expected at the relevant stage of their career. (para 6)

It is the phrase “expected at the relevant stage of their career” which is the core of the standards.  What does it mean?  How does the Headteacher, or their appointed appraiser interpret what is expected from a colleague on M4, and differentiate that from someone at M6?  There is no national definition or interpretation, and guidance varies across the country. For example, Oxfordshire LA has not published any guidance, yet all 600 Hertfordshire schools have already agreed upon what are now regarded as “Career Stage Expectations”.

In the scramble to define our career stage expectations, and align Performance Management to the standards, leadership teams have been attending consultancy -run workshops.  It is the consultants at these briefings who are leading schools and determining our interpretation of the teacher’s Career Stage Expectations as well helping us to interpret the Performance Management process by which teachers will be appraised against the standards.

Cheney School teachers will be asked to determine for themselves the career stage expectations against which they will be appraised.  This process is being repeated across the country in readiness for the start of the new academic year and implementation of the standards in September 2012.

Teachers Dancing Behind Students

Are we about the see the end of the National Pay Agreement?

A report is due to be pulished this autumn on teachers' salaries by the independent pay review board.  It is likely to suggest an end to the National Pay deal and propose that teachers salaries are to be determined regionally or even at individual school level.  It will also look at proposals to futher develop performance related pay.  For more information please click on the following links.  I have tried to give four different media sources to give a balanced perspective.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/may/16/michael-gove-schools-teachers-pay

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/9270202/Teachers-pay-to-be-overhauled-to-reward-top-performers.html

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/teachers-in-regions-may-be-paid-less-7758135.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-18089505

Let’s do something difficult!

I would like to thank Frank Havemann for his experiences on the difficulties, challenges and joys of taking on a challenge.  Frank encapsulates the importance of continuing to learn and how it helps us to develop as teachers and people. 

Let’s do something difficult! By Frank Havemann

One of the bits of advice that really stuck with me from my not-so-distant PGCE was the suggestion to try something genuinely challenging every once in a while. “Thank you very much”, you might respond, “my Year 10 are challenging enough on a warm Friday afternoon.”

Fair enough. What I really mean is attempting to learn something you find difficult, to empathise with the sheer frustration of “not getting it”, of the struggle with learning that some of our students encounter in our lessons. What does that mean in practice? Here are a few examples that have taken me out of my comfort zone over the last year and a bit.

Learning a new instrument:

I have always wanted to play the drums, so I finally started practicing. And it’s frustrating, because my ears are trained well enough to tell me how off-beat I really am. I want results immediately, and I want to play the exciting stuff, but instead it’s just lots of patient practice to get better slowly.

Planning a maths masterclass:

Planning and resourcing are my teaching nemeses, so taking on extra planning for a group of 40 G&T kids for a 3 hour session made me very nervous. Instead the process forced me to confront my process head-on, and to push through some of the blocks I had set myself. It was a lot of work, but it felt good to accomplish something genuinely challenging.

Learning a new subject:

I took a class in economics at university, and though interesting, it didn’t really make sense to me. Recently, the imminent collapse of western civilization(hyperbole alert!) suggested it might matter after all, so I started studying from the beginning, just to find out what parts of whose claim were nonsense, wrong, inflammatory or otherwise misguided. I’m still working on that one. It turns out some of the materials on economics are drier than, well, let’s just say they are quite dry. But I am trying to stick to it, and do a bit of revision (as it were) every week.  

So what have I learned ?

My students aren’t the only ones who want results immediately.

It is difficult to read something that is technical, even if you are interested.

It is really difficult to motivate yourself to do something if you are not interested.

None of these are surprising, but all of them feel quite different when you experience them for yourself. It is good to be reminded how it feels to struggle to

learn something.

Do you have examples of things you tried and struggled with? How has it helped your teaching?

Why we need a little fun in our learning! - Stairs Volkswagen Commercial.

It is easy to be very earnest about learning and teaching.  We all take it very seriously, sometimes too seriously.  We are all, (in schools, in Local Authorities, at Ofsted and in Government) very aware of the pressure to get the best examination results for students.  However, we must guard against the drive for effectiveness and efficiency actually having a damaging effect and turning our students away from learning. 


Why do I suggest this?


Well, we do not always look forward to or do what is best or good for us, do we?  How many of us eat foods high in salt and saturated fat, knowing what harm it can do?  How many people smoke, knowing full well of the dangers this entails?  Why do we do these things? Simply becasue they are pleasurable. 

So what has this to do with learning and teaching?  In fact what does it have to do with any type of leadership? 

Well if we want to get people to do things differently or get people to change their behaviours; it is not enough to explain to them why it would be better for them to change - we have to make this change more attractive or more fun.  So within the classroom, and in particular as we prepare for revision, we have to try to motivate our students to work hard and give up time that they might otherwise be spending playing in their X-Boxes or Playstations. So if we plan a little fun into our lessons by using games and competitions to learn; or by doing other mad -cap things that put a smile on our students' faces then we have a fighting chance of getting them to do that extra bit that might lead to success. 

I know it is not easy to always keep things fun but it is worth trying our best to get some fun in where we can.

Cambridge Don fixes the History Curriculum and solves our literacy problems in a single swoop

There is a really interesting article about the development of litercy skills and essay writing attached to this link.  Cambridge don sets out historic events pupils must learn  I can see and sympathise with the argument, and it is clear that we do have to address how we improve students' literacy.  Expecially so in the face of new technology; it is difficult to persuade students of the joy in writing when they are desperate to play on their X-boxes.  The problem goes way beyond teachers drilling students for exams.

However, I do wonder what Professor David Abulafia has included in his 31 key events in British history that all students should know. I hope he's included 1320 - The Scottish Declaration of Independence which was signed at Arbroath Abbey.  It would be a glaring omission if it's not there.  Or is that just my opinion? 

Is the UK really do poor at Maths?

There was a startling article published in the telegraph recently on the number of adults that struggle with primary level mathematics; Numeracy Campaign: 17m adults 'struggle with primary school maths'  What is even more worring is (if this article is accurate)the UK's attuitude and approach to maths. Can it really be true that we don't value this subject?  It seems obvious to me that if we are to genuinely have a knowledge driven economy, that we need to to promote the appreciation of maths.  It is crucial to so many modern technologies.  Just as happened with traditional industry; it looks like the world has overtaken us.  Quite frankly it just doesn't add up!

What can we learn from Finland?

Finland seems to be being something right in the world of education.  They have been topping the tables in internatioal comparisons;  In the OECD PISA survey of 2009 they managed to top the table alongside South Korea and Singapore.  Their high standards are achieved through a very different model to the one used in Britain - no league tables, targets or standardised tests.  So how do they do it?  Well it seems the following ingredients contribute to their success:

• A system based on equity
• Schools working in collaboration and not competing against each other
• No private or selective education - pupils go to their local school
• High levels of professionalism - teachers need a Master's level qualification to enter the profession
• Periodically, the Ministry of Education tracks national progress by testing a few sample groups across a range of different schools.

Read the article here:

What Americans Keep Ignoring About Finland's School Success

New data reveals the truth about school performance

http://www.education.gov.uk/a00202531/secperftables12


DFE Press notice setting out the secondary school performance tables for GCSE and A level exams.


Department for Education publishes 400 per cent more data about secondary schools
Schools Minister Nick Gibb condemns ‘shocking waste of talent’ of deprived children

New data, released today for the first time, reveals the truth about every secondary school’s performance.
The publication of the results of more than 3,300 secondary schools’ GCSE and A Level exams is part of the Government’s drive for greater transparency - giving parents more information than ever before about how their child’s school is performing. The Department for Education is this year publishing 400 per cent more data about secondary schools than in 2010.
The 2011 Schools Performance Tables now include:

• how well disadvantaged children perform in each school
• whether previously high, middle and low achieving pupils continue to make progress
• how many pupils at each school are entered into the core academic subjects that make up the EBacc.

The 2011 GCSE results reveal that hundreds of secondary schools are failing to help pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds achieve their full potential. Disadvantaged children - those on free school meals or in local authority care for at least six months – are approximately half as likely to achieve the national benchmark of five A*-C grade GCSEs including English and maths compared to their peers.
The figures also highlight those schools that are successfully achieving great outcomes for deprived children, setting a gold standard for other schools to follow.
 The results show that:

• only 33.9 per cent of disadvantaged pupils achieved five A*-C grade GCSEs including English and maths, compared to the national average of 58.2 per cent in maintained schools
• in 339 schools, with more than 10 disadvantaged pupils, fewer than 20 per cent of those pupils achieved five A*-C grade GCSEs including English and maths
• in contrast 21 schools, with more than 10 disadvantaged pupils, saw more than 80 per cent of those pupils gaining five A*-C grade GCSEs including English and maths.

The picture is similar with the core academic subjects that make up the EBacc. Nationally, only one in 25 disadvantaged pupils managed to secure good grades in a combination of English, maths, a language, history or geography, and two sciences. This compares to the national average of nearly one in six.
Schools Minister Nick Gibb said:

We should have high expectations for all children regardless of their circumstances. Today’s figures reveal a shocking waste of talent in many schools across the country. All too often, pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds aren’t given the same opportunities as their peers.

But there are great examples of schools achieving the best for their disadvantaged pupils. If they can get it right, then so can all schools.

Thanks to the introduction of the EBacc, we are opening up opportunities for all pupils to study the core academic subjects that employers and universities demand. And with the Pupil Premium we are specifically targeting funding at disadvantaged pupils, so that schools have the resources they need to make a difference.

For the first time, the Tables highlight how pupils have progressed since they left primary school.
The figures show the hard work by many secondary schools in turning around pupils who were below the expected standard at the end of Key Stage 2. 6.5 per cent of pupils who had been below Level 4 at the end of primary school, went on to achieve five A*-C grade GCSEs including English and maths.
However, this year’s GCSE statistics also show that thousands of previously high achieving pupils are being failed by their secondary school:

• 8,600 pupils, 4.9 per cent, who were excelling at the end of primary school, then failed to gain to five A*-C grades including English and maths.
• 45.6 per cent of pupils, some 120,000, who were at Level 4 at Key Stage 2 failed to make the expected amount of progress, to five A*-C grades including English and maths, at secondary school.

Nick Gibb added:

Children only have one chance at education. These tables show which schools are letting children down. We will not hesitate to tackle underperformance in any school, including academies. Heads should be striving to make improvements year on year, and we will not let schools coast with mediocre performance.

We are driving up standards right across the board. We are bringing the best graduates into teaching, developing a world-class curriculum, and restoring order to our classrooms.

We have introduced a tough new inspection regime targeted at the weakest performing schools and Ministers now have clear new powers to intervene when schools are failing.

The GCSE and A Level results for 2011 also show that:

• for the 166 academies with results in both 2010 and 2011, the percentage of pupils achieving five or more good GCSEs including English and maths rose from 40.6 per cent to  46.3 per cent, an increase of 5.7 percentage points. This means academies' GCSE results improved by nearly twice the level seen across all maintained schools
• there are 107 secondary schools below the floor standard. 132 schools rose above the floor from 2010 to 2011, with 48 schools dropping below the floor
• only 23.7 per cent of all pupils were entered for a combination of subjects that could lead to the EBacc – last year it was 22.0 per cent
• just 17.6 per cent of all pupils achieved the EBacc – last year it was 15.6 per cent
• the overall number of five GCSE (or iGCSE or equivalent) passes at A* to C including English and mathematics for all pupils has increased this year by 5.4 percentage points to 58.9 per cent –  in state-funded schools there was a 3.1 percentage point rise to 58.2 per cent.

Notes to editors:
1. The Performance Tables will be available at www.education.gov.uk/schools/performance
2.  Raising the attainment for disadvantaged children is an absolute priority for the Government. For the first time, this year’s tables include information on the performance of deprived pupils – defined as those either eligible for free school meals or who have been looked after continuously by the local authority for six months.
3. Low attainers are those who did not reach Level 4 at Key Stage 2. Medium attainers are those who reached Level 4. High attainers are those who exceeded Level 4.
4. A secondary school is below the floor standard if:

• fewer than 35 per cent of pupils achieve the basics standard of five A* to C grade GCSEs inc English and maths and
• fewer pupils make good progress in English between KS2 and KS4 than the national average and
• fewer pupils make good progress in maths between KS2 and KS4 than the national average.

The 35 per cent floor will increase. In 2012, it will rise to 40 per cent and by 2015 it will rise to 50 per cent.
The local authorities with the highest percentage of schools below the floor are:

• Middlesbrough (two schools, 28.6%), Knowsley (two schools, 28.6%), Kingston upon Hull, City of (four schools, 28.6%), Poole (two schools, 25%), Nottingham (three schools, 23.1%), Derby (three schools, 21.4%), Sheffield (five schools, 20.8%), North East Lincolnshire (two schools, 20%), Medway (three schools, 18.8%), Newcastle upon Tyne (two schools, 18.2%)

There are 95 local authorities with no schools below the floor.
5. The Department for Education is publishing 400 per cent more data about secondary schools:

Why should teachers be qualified to teach?

A free school in Oldham is being set up; the intention is to staff it with ex-armed forces personnel.  I am not against members of the armed forces working in school.  This has been proven to work; look at Skill Force.  However, Skill Force works within a school setting and follows the policies of the school it works in.  Nor am  I against a school being set up and run by ex-armed forces that are trained and qualified teachers.  I am sure that their previous experience would enrich their careers as teachers; as is the case with many who enter the profession from a non-teaching background.  My issue is whether this free school will be staffed by people qualified to teach in schools.  This legislation yet again shows how we, as teachers, have lost control of our professional identity.  Should we not expect our children to be taught by people that are qualified to do just that; teach?  Why do we think that the skills that make people successful in one sphere of employment; in this case the armed forces, will make them qualified to be successful in another.  As a qualified teacher am I then up to conducting a wee bit of brain surgery?  Possibly not.  I am sure there are some ex-soldiers who have what it takes to make excellent teachers without formal training, but are we happy to leave it to chance?  I'm quite physically fit; but I'm sure the army don't want me messing up thier finely tuned strategy by turning up on the front line.

As a society we have lost sight of the fact that teaching is an extremely difficult job that takes lots of training and experience to do well.

Read the article from the BBC here and watch here.

Michael Gove is on the Naughty Step in the TES

Michael Gove's actions this week have got him sat on the Naughty Step in this week's  Times Education Supplement.

Read the article here - On the naughty step - Conduct that deserves a ticking off

Developing Students' Evaluation Skills Fish and Chips evaluation

Thank you to Guy Goodwin for another thoughtful contribution to Agility. Here Guy suggests a technique to help students think about developing their evaluation skills.  The beauty of this tip is that it uses something all students know something about, food, to prompt them to think about how to evaluate.

Fish and Chips evaluation

Problem: how to get pupils to improve the ‘evaluation ‘ part of exam and essay answers as they move from GCSE to A level. At GCSE it is often enough to answer questions by saying ‘some people think this…others think that….and I think…’ for a conclusion. In examiner speak the ‘evaluation is implicit in a juxtaposition of different approaches.’ At A level this kind of approach will be credited but doesn’t reach the highest levels in mark schemes. Pupils sometimes struggle to see how to evaluate a range of material and come to a reasoned conclusion.

An exercise that can help is to hold a discussion on a topic that most\all pupils will have some knowledge of, one I like is ‘Which is the best fish and chip shop in Oxford?’

AO1 – what is a fish and chip shop? Demonstrate brief understanding of the kind of establishment we mean and identify a number of examples. Possibly also exclude KFC, McDonalds, etc. It may be necessary to define our terms at this point.

A02 – What are the pros and cons of the various outlets? Price, quality, proximity to home, friendly staff etc and a comparison of each shop on these criteria – this forms the bulk of the discussion – if ‘Posh Fish’ is commended for portion size, how do others compare? Is quality of fish more or less important than price? If people disagree about this how can it be resolved? Perhaps there is no single answer to the question that everyone will agree with…now we are seeing that there are not just a range of criteria to consider but also that people will disagree about which are the most important so we are no longer ‘juxtaposing’ but our analysis ‘falls out ‘of a consideration of many points (all of which should be illustrated with examples, obviously).

AO3 – the evaluation. We now, hopefully, can see that evaluation is the natural result of a proper consideration of a question from a range of perspectives (and hence not difficult or scary). Equally for those who tend to offer opinions unsupported it is apparent that evaluation can’t take place without the collection of a range of viewpoints; lack of illustration\examples spoils attempts to evaluate.

Obviously it needn’t  be fish and chips, but something easy and familiar so that you can focus on the structure of the discussion rather than the content.

Ofsted plans to scrap 'satisfactory' label for schools

It looks like being satisfactory is not longer satisfactory!  It has been a real week for announcements on Education, pretty much one major announcement a day.  However, we need to be aware that Ofsted has new boss, Sir Michael Wilshaw, and he wants to make his mark. It seems he is driven by a desire to shake things up and is uncompromsing in his drive to ensure students get the very best.  He is a controversial figure that will divide opinion and it is worth having a look at what he says.

For other announcements check the BBC's Education page.

Poor teachers face tougher system under shake-up

Click on this link to see the article from the BBC.  We all need to be aware of the actions being taken by government.  This simply adds to my belief that the teaching profession has never really taken control of its own professional standards or professional identity, and that the need to do so is still critical.

RSA Animate - Changing Education Paradigms

Professor Dylan Wiliam at The Schools Network Annual Conference

Ever want a quick and simple tool to help with plenaries?

Plenaries are often the Cinderella in our lessons.  We should plan for them, but often forget, and often when we have planned one we run out of time or forget it is there.  Well this little wonder of a PowerPoint can have you up and running with wonderful plenaries with little or no planning; sounds too good to be true doesn't it? The PowerPoint is really simple; ask a student to pick a number, the number they choose links to a question and you can use this to check student learning from your lesson.  Simple!

AfL plenary resource: Pick a number

How do we keep Students on their toes?

It is always a challenging task to ensure that we keep students engaged and involved in all of our lessons and that we are on top of assessing how well each individual is accessing what we are trying to teach.  There is a lot of advice out there about how we can make those minute by minute assessments to make sure we know students are with us.  You can find lots of ideas in books such as Jim Smith’s Lazy Teacher.  However, we also have good ideas at Cheney and below Toby Lockyer has been kind enough to share his 21^st century version of lollypop sticks.  These resources can be used to support no-hands questioning and for other activities that will help keep your students on their toes.

Once again thank you Toby for your contribution.

Toby Lockyer (Maths Department) writes:

I have organised the two types (for excel and power point) of virtual lolly stick resources into a folder including working examples.

They have instructions on how they work. Their uses are very similar as for lolly sticks.

They are in: staff resources/maths/toby/Random name and prize generators (virtual lolly sticks)

If you want me to pop over for five minutes and show you them in action I’d be more than happy to.

Toby π J