Teachmeet @ Cheney School Wednesday 12 June 2013

 On Wednesday 12^th June 2013 Cheney School held its first Teachmeet event.  Thank you to Dr Rob Bown for organising this; I have no idea how he finds the time do these wonderful things.  I would also like to thank everyone that presented. It is not easy to come and present ideas to colleague, but it was a fantastic evening and a wonderful way to share best practice.  I left for home a little overawed by the range of ideas, but I was buoyed by the experience and reassured that I do the most wonderful job with the most wonderful people.  Teachers and teaching is so regularly bashed in the press – if only they would come and see what we do first hand; I am sure this would melt their cynicism.

Below are my notes.  They are far from perfect and a little more really than a list of presenters.  My apologies if anyone is misrepresented.  If this is the case; please let me know, advise me of what should be there and I will update the post.

Hannah Tyreman who presented also shares her experiences on her blog: 

http://hannahruthtyreman.wordpress.com/2013/06/12/tmoxford/

Welcome

Jolie Kirby Headteacher of Cheney School Opening

Rob Bown Languages AST Chair

Presentations

Sir Tim Brighouse

Features of excellent schools

·         Teachers talk about teaching

·         Teachers observe each other’s progress

·         Teachers teach each other

·         Teachers plan together- these are the success criteria for a high functioning department.

 

Helene Galdin-O'Shea

Walk through my last Ofsted Lesson – the magic happened in the lesson when the students got stuck into a silent debate .

Claire Hamnett  Science AST

Speed dating for learning

Sophie Burrows film

Film Club presentation

Tom Boulter

I can't take my eyes off YouTube; how using teacher videos accelerates learning because students can revisit explanations and work at their own pace.

 

Carina Byles

Using mobile technology be encouraging students to use texting so we can poll classes, www.polleverywhere.com

Amjad Ali

The power of Poundland Pedagogy - using raffle tickets, share and replace board, post-it note corrections for spellings, director of learning - make trailers for learning using iMovie. Think tax and knowledge bank.  Balloons and so much more…. check out his blog at bulmershetoolkit.blogspot.co.uk  and twitter - @ASTsupportaali

Macro Pontecorvi

The UFGWPA

Andy Wright

Literacy and thinking skills are intertwined.

Maximise marking by:

They check/ friend checks/ teacher checks- 3 way check with all work to reinforce the importance of editing and making corrections.

Rob Bown AST languages

Michel Thomas learning

Simon Davis

Thinking hats and self evaluation 

Hannah Tyreman 

Ict resources -  Padlet.  Today's meet.  Thoughtboxes.  info.gram.  S'more. Check Follow her on Twitter  @hannahtyreman

James Gurung

Celebrate making mistakes, because it is an essential part of learning.

Keven Bartle

@kevbartle Pedagogy leaders

Matt Gray

Mr Gray's Blog - http://cherwellenglish.typepad.com/  Thinking Squares an alternative to mind maps. Backward engineering. Works well with Bloom's taxonomy. 

Alexia Uhia

Using mobile phones in the class. Ipadio.com

Rebecca Bartlett

Killer questions - students questioning each other.  Ideal for homework - research a question that students think no-one else can answer; this has to be related to the topic being studied and students have to know the answer.  Use the killer question as a plenary, when using this for the first time lead as a group activity to get the concept of killer questions.  Ask the question, pick three people to answer, and get a reward if no one can.  Keep a tally to reward the people who collect the most unanswered questions.

How do Finnish kids excel without rote learning and standardized testing?

I came across a tweet from Steph Ladbrooke@learnbuzz containing the following link; it is an article exploring why the approach taken by Finnish Education is so successful.  Well worth a read!

http://m.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/economy/canada-competes/how-do-finnish-kids-excel-without-rote-learning-and-standardized-testing/article11810188/?service=mobile

INSET Wednesday 23rd January 2013

Working to Accelerate Student Progress

Feedback from departments on literacy strategies being used. 

Introducing the Onion

The onion has come out of a concern that teachers are working harder than the students at improving their literacy.

The aim with the Onion is to gain consistency; this will ensure the students understand what they need to do.  Students will be expected to self/peer assess their work for literacy before handing it in.  The students will assess their own work with a purple pen.  Pens will be provided to departments.  The aim is that this is less work for teaches and more work for students.

Know your Onions - developing feedback that has an impact on student progress

Exploring how we can integrate the Onion and Triple Impact Marking so they are seen to be aspects of the same development.  Groups discussed how to make feedback effective and how to ensure that it has a positive impact on students’ progress.

Leading Good Behaviour

This was an update on how much behaviour has improved and how high standards of behaviour are an expectation at Cheney School.  An overview was given about our expectations and how to be consistent at enforcing these.  Also what we need to develop next through the staff, student and parental charters was shared.

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"

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

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.

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