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.

G&T Learning Walk Thursday 24th November

Last week Sylvia Hawken and David Gimson did a learning walk to help us learn more about our provision for gifted and talented students.  They visited seven lessons in History (2), Geography (2), Maths (1), Art (1) and MFL (1), in Years Seven and Ten.  The Classroom Quality Standards for G&T were used as a framework for observation.  David has posted their findings below.

Positive Feedback

In all classes observed behaviour and uniform were good or very good.  There were no barriers to learning because of bad behaviour by other students:  there was a positive learning ethos and the great majority of learners, including G&T learners, were fully engaged in the work and often inspired or challenged.  We recorded a very large number of positive student comments.  G&T students were reflective about their own learning and sometimes aware of what they could be doing to challenge themselves further beyond the classroom (e.g. by further reading).  G&T students were aware of how their learning linked to real world issues.  In most cases they seemed in charge of their own learning.  Quite detailed subject specific vocabulary, skills and knowledge were being developed.  We saw skilful teacher questioning (including some very well thought-through questions) and dynamic interactive teaching.  There was some detailed summative assessment, and staff who we questioned were clearly aware of where their students were at.  It was very inspiring to see teachers at work. 

Points for Reflection

Several of the classes we saw had large numbers in quite small rooms; a couple in particular also had very wide ranges of ability.  This is bound to have some impact on the student experience. 

Some students felt they wanted a bit more ongoing feedback about where they were at – not necessarily in the form of marking.  We saw slightly less evidence, overall, of formative than of summative assessment.   While most students felt they had clearly moved up a gear from primary school or Year Nine, a couple said that they were repeating things they had already done before and were asking for more challenge.  In one case a student had attended special classes at a previous school and now felt that he was treading water (while the other seven students questioned in the class all felt they were being appropriately challenged).  In Year Ten we identified three male students who are underperforming (for reasons unrelated to individual subjects) and we plan to follow up separately with actions to support/engage them. 

Thank you very much indeed to colleagues who welcomed us to their classes.