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.

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"

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.

Hugh Nelson on Teacher Learning Communities

What are TLCs and how do they work?

TLC stands for teacher learning community. The idea behind TLCs is fairly simple; namely that the people best placed to develop learning and teaching in schools are teachers. Consultants come and go, suggest ideas of varying quality, they may even inspire us to try something new, but by and large they do not really fundamentally improve our practice because we don’t own the ideas being proposed. Therefore, as we return to our lessons after a nice training day we tend to return to our old habits because we are so busy that we just jump back on the treadmill. Hopefully TLCs can have a greater impact on improving the teaching of all colleagues because TLCs offer us the opportunity to personalise the development of our practice. For example; I am encouraged to identify any techniques, activities or actions that I want to develop. I can discuss these with my colleagues (people that inhabit the same teaching world that I do), try new ideas out and refine them. I could ask a colleague to observe part of, or a whole lesson. I decide what I would like feedback on; and the greatest consequence of something going wrong will be that I get a change to talk about what happened so I can decide what I need to do to make that activity better. I like the philosophy behind TLCs because it says; “we have excellent practitioners in this school, there is a wealth of knowledge and experience here and I have colleagues that are supportive and will help me to develop professionally”.

TLCs are a group of ten or 12 colleagues from different disciplines; within each TLC we are further divided into twos or threes. The idea is that each small group can support each other with our personal development. The larger group is there to help provide some accountability, to ensure that we do commit to trying something new by making us report back on what we have been trying to do. I suppose it is similar to a self help group; “Hi, my name’s Hugh and I have been trying to use lollipop sticks to help me with no-hands questioning with 9d4 for three weeks now.” Therefore if anyone else is trying out lollipop sticks we can share our trials and tribulations. It also gives others a chance to benefit from my experiences and find out what other departments are doing.

What prompted the decision to bring TLCs in at Cheney? How are they intended to benefit staff and students?

I attended a training course on Embedding Formative Assessment with Sylvia. We were both really impressed with not only the pedagogy but also the principles behind it. I also feel quite passionately that teaching is a profession and that as such we should be responsible for our own continuing professional development; both as individuals and as a teaching body. I get quite angry about the way the National Strategy tried to impose particular approaches on teachers such as the three part lesson or the literacy and numeracy hours. I don’t think there is any way that medicine would have allowed such high levels of government interference. I also think that TLCs give us an opportunity to talk about what we think we do well in our teaching and to celebrate this with colleagues. It gives us a chance to feel good about what we do and find out what others are doing. Teaching in many ways can be quite lonely, and we are not always aware of what is happening in the classroom next to us. This gives us a chance to demystify what happens in successful classrooms.

I hope that TLCs allow us to share best practice and to take a few risks in our teaching. I believe that we can all develop and try new things and that by having the confidence to try something new we can further improve the service we give to our students. I hope our students will benefit by getting the best learning and teaching that we can deliver.

What do colleagues have to do in order to get the benefit from the TLC programme?

Different people will get different things from the TLC programme. I think the more you put into it the more you will get out. TLCs are merely a platform that gives colleagues an opportunity to discuss what they currently do and what they might like to try in the future. Each individual sets their own areas for development and is responsible for their own development. Their colleagues are purely there to offer ideas and to respond to what is asked of them. Ideally, colleagues are asked to find the time to reflect on what they do and what they would like to do more of. If they can reflect honestly on what works well and what works less well and why that is, then I think they will benefit. If someone can go a little further and do some reading around their area of development or conduct a small research activity, then I think they will be even more informed and be better positioned to develop. We all know that it’s difficult to find time for reflection because we are all so busy; TLCs are in part an attempt to create a bit of time, a supportive environment and provide encouragement for reflection to take place.

What are the concerns about TLCs? What could go wrong and how can we avoid this?

I’m hopeful that TLCs will be well-received; with all new ideas it will take a bit of time before everyone feels entirely comfortable, but I hope that early anxieties, teething problems or worries about the process won’t translate into cynicism. It’s obvious from speaking to colleagues that we all want the best for their students and that teachers are keen to develop. As such I am confident that Cheney staff will be positive in their approach to TLCs. I suppose my real concern is that we all work so hard and give so much, (particularly as we often put the students’ needs before our own), that we don’t make time to plan for reflection and introducing new ideas.

The conundrum is; if we really want to put our students first, we have to put a little bit of time aside to put ourselves first.

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