Chris Chivers (Thinks)

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All writing in one exercise book?

30/1/2015

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I was given to reflect on a change in school practice which had a significant impact on learning, especially writing, outcomes during the latter half of my headship.

We had developed the two page approach to capturing the writing process, linked with flip out personal targets, but still wanted to ensure that, at transition points, there was no drop in expectation, as was evident in a couple of year groups. We were especially concerned at the Infant- Junior point. The classic statement was occasionally heard, level 3 in Junior is not the same as in Infants, full stop.

This could enable lower expectations to become embedded, so was tackled by taking the writing books from the previous year, to continue their use into the next year, thereby establishing the earlier benchmark as the starting expectation. It also meant that the receiving teacher could not ignore the professional decisions of the previous colleague, as evidence was continuous.

Following this, we took account of the volume of writing that the children were doing, across the range of subjects and surmised that, if they did less of more quality that writing outcomes would improve. The hypothesis was propounded that because, at that time, there were books for several subjects, the imperative to have evidence in each was driving the writing dilemma. The solution was to have three exercise books, one for maths, one for written work and one for “topic notes”, for want of a better descriptor. They also had an art sketch book.

The two page approach, grown out of the National Writing Project ideals, embeds note making, ordering ideas, collecting vocabulary, among many other, process based elements, so we were happy with that approach. Drafting and redrafting, with an audience in mind, perhaps public display or a class compilation in book form. Making books, story, topic and records was a feature of school life.

So, as a result, every area of the curriculum could become the focus for writing during the week. A piece of art work, DT, PE activity, class visit or science experience could be written up as an appropriate narrative report, a set of instructions or an evaluation. Preparatory activities ahead of trips, or responses after could provide the vehicles for letter writing, to a specific audience. We found that every aspect of school experience could lend itself to a range of writing experiences, well beyond anything that was ever thought of in a purely literacy framework.

The writing process, as a result, became an even stronger aspect of school life, with teachers deciding what should be developed through drafting to presentation forms for display, or some other presentation. Dialogue about improvements, based on personal targets, enabled individuals to take some responsibility for their efforts and outcomes.

Quality of writing and presentation improved. It was a case of narrow the focus, but improve the progressive “baselines”.  

Notes (all writings) were kept, and stuck into the left hand page to show how the thinking had developed throughout. Photocopies were kept to a minimum, as was the use of the wipe on wipe off boards, but, if they were used, they would be copied. How much of children’s work is “lost” as the early drafts are wiped clean. If they produce something, it should be shown to have value.

On another note; Ideas books are far stronger than scrap books (what’s in a word?)

A holistic approach to the writing process, captured within one book, transferred to the next class, supports writing progress, through interrogation of outcomes. In other words, a personal portfolio.  

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Walk your school.

26/1/2015

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What message does a visit to your school communicate?

In the past week or so, I have taken part in a #Belmaschat and visited a school to discuss parent partnership in action. Both events gave food for thought. Where, over the past nine years, I have audited schools for both the Leading Parent Partnership Award (LPPA) and Inclusion Quality Mark (IQM), on every occasion I have had time in discussion with parents, leading to one of my nutshell series, on what parents want. In some ways the list is not too onerous, yet each statement embeds a number of elements which need some kind of coordinated action.

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I wonder how many schools actually take reflective time to consider how they come across to their “customer base”; the people who make the decision to send children to the school or not? Whose role is to walk the building and identify area for improvement? Everyone’s job can become nobody’s job, as “someone else” is held to be responsible.

In the days of the internet, the school website is likely to be the first port of call for internet-savvy parents, especially if there is competition for local places, when decisions can be very fine-tuned within specific parameters. So the website has to be easy to access, to read and to navigate. What is on there should be parent friendly. Policies, running to twenty pages, in very dense script and educational jargon, may not be as parent friendly as the school anticipates. Is it clear from the website that the school values the children within? Does it show opportunity, children taking part in a range of activities and does it celebrate their achievements and efforts?

Parents may telephone or email for information. Is the contact system simple to use, the reception is a friendly voice and helpful guidance, making the parent look forward to a visit?

When they arrive at the gate, is it very clear that it is the right place and, especially where there is intercom access, how entry is easily accomplished? Once inside, does signage enable easy finding of the reception area? What does a parent/visitor see when crossing playground areas? Are they developed to support activity? Are there murals on walls? Is there litter? Are there updated noticeboards with parent information? Is it easy with a pushchair or in a wheelchair?


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Does the reception area welcome the visitor with clear messages that children are valued, through quality displays of work and activity? Do photos show the range of children in the school? Are there photos and names of (significant) staff and Governors? If there’s a need to wait, is it in a comfortable, visitor friendly space? Does someone greet the visitor with a smile? Are visitors seen speedily, by an appropriate member of staff, enabling queries to be quickly answered?

A speedy resolution of issues can be an element of positive parent support. This is usually accompanied by an acknowledgement of the ease of communication with the school, a significant positive. Where conversation is in a member of staff’s office, what messages are clear from their space, their manner and the outcomes of the meeting?

If a parent or visitor is to be shown around the school, who does this? It can vary from children to different staff layers. The choice should be appropriate to the task, so that questions can be answered and an appropriate dialogue entered into.

Corridors and classrooms are the real hub of the school. The messages imparted through displays should enhance the experience for everyone in the school, eg, ethos, quality, celebration and encouragement. Corridors and classrooms should be tidy, clear, litter and clothes (coats) free. Where resources are housed in corridor or classroom, they should show that they are well stored, easy access and appropriately used. Relationships are evident as adults pass children in corridors. Using names demonstrates that children are known, especially important from the SLT.

Where visitors are able to visit classrooms, it should not disturb the learning. Where children are required to stand when someone enters the room, this disruption can be counter-productive, as there will be a need to resettle the class afterwards.

Behaviour management can be on display, during a visit, as some schools allow children to be placed outside a classroom, or raised voices might be heard. These need to be explained to the visitor, through an easily articulated rationale on behaviour management and sanctions.

A number of parents will be interested in opportunities within the school to become active partners, through school associations or PTAs, as Parent governors or through other opportunities such as parent forum or council. I’d advocate for Parent Voice, as other names can imply a top down approach from the school. Schools send out questionnaires, often multiple question, in school speak, in order to demonstrate to someone (usually Ofsted) that they “regularly seek parent views”. There is often disappointment that few parents respond, so any data is skewed from the beginning. Where there are 39 weeks in a school year, questionnaires can be split into smaller, accessible blocks, sometime just one question, to be shared through the various media available. If the school actually askes the questions to which it would like answers and has a track record of reflection and response, parents get the idea that it is worth participating. Any other response embeds a modicum of negativity.

In many ways, none of the above is “rocket science”. It is simply different forms of communication used effectively to ensure that information is passed with appropriate speed and accuracy to the people who need to know. Many school issues stem from poor communication systems.

How about the visitor equivalent of a “secret shopper”?

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Small thinking harms education

19/1/2015

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Running a school is a big project. A school today is, at one level a small or medium sized enterprise, some, at the larger end, with a turn-over of millions and with a staff base in excess of 100. Although they are mini-businesses, there is also a significant accountability model in place, to ensure that value-for-money is effective. The looking over your shoulder and the accompanying fear of being seen to “get it wrong” can determine development agendas.

We need to strengthen the organisational thinking as a whole, as well as focus on the smaller parts, to develop holistic methodologies.


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These thoughts were going through my mind recently, when I was listening to Tim Oates as the first speaker at a conference on assessment (without levels). Tim’s biography suggests that he has had a life in education research.

The essence of what he said was interesting, in that it was possible to see that he valued the earlier incarnations of the National Curriculum over the 2005 version, but saw the 2014 version as an improvement. The reasoning, however, for these statements were interesting, in that Tim seemed to suggest that the 1987 original and 1995 revision were easier to test, as they embedded a broader and, to his view, more detailed specification.

In reflecting on the impact on schools and ways forward (without levels) was interesting, in that he drew some “evidence” from his experience as a parent, dealing with a nine year old child. He repeated the claim that parents did not understand the previous levels and that the scale scores being suggested would be more understandable. There was a noticeable murmur in the room at this point. He used the example of The Wroxham School as embedding assessment without levels. He did develop this by sharing that the school did provide different challenges from which children could choose.

I was the second speaker and have blogged the essence of my talk here.

The third speaker was Senior HMI Mike Sheridan. I had heard his name via Twitter as one of the “good guys” and was not disappointed. He came from a Primary headship background, so could empathise with the needs of the audience. He gave a relatively simple message, which I paraphrase; think big for your children and their learning, have a clear rationale for all your decisions and be able to share the narrative coherently. He was clear that there was a need to validate internal decisions against other benchmarks. When sharing the platform for a Q&A session, I suggested that local area moderation would provide aspects of this, which Mike agreed.

There should be high quality outcomes demonstrable for each child. What’s in the books matters, as they are part of inspection scrutiny. They need to be part of the narrative.

I was given to reflect on the journey of education post 1987, having been a classteacher for the thirteen years previously. In the best schools at that time, a very rich curriculum existed. In the case of the school where I was DH in 1987, an audit of the provision in the school showed a 95% correlation between what we had been doing and what we were being asked to do. The difference was in seeking to embed the detail of the level descriptors into our collective expectation. As a result, our expectation became greater and children achieved even more.

So why are we where we are?

My simple answer would be estate-wide small thinking, more from the point of view of ever closer attention on the minutiae of teaching and learning, especially by some individuals who have made national and international names, and a lot of money from publishing, by a focus on small bits. The words that we use, such as differentiation, assessment, planning, writing, reading, phonics along with others, have been packaged and repackaged into formulae, then interpreted into book form, to be sold into the education spending market, which itself has grown significantly over the past 25 years.

The latest high profile areas are “growth mindset” and research. Each has the potential to become formulaic, distracting and ultimately to be devalued. The former, to me is what teaching and learning are all about, otherwise what’s the point and the latter, as an investigative mind-set, is what I’d want from all teachers, seeking to refine their practice.

The issue with buying a scheme for doing the thinking for you is that you can stop thinking about the whole and how things fit together, and that’s what I’d say some have done. These schemes can also dictate timetables, as children are packaged up into appropriate sized groups to undertake the specified activities, often led by the less well informed members of staff, so that, although “coverage” might be assured, the depth of understanding might be suspect for many. These groups are, by default, mini sets or streams, so can be self-limiting systems. Time is lost, as children move between areas of the school to be part of their small groups.

There has been successive reorganisation of priorities, with literacy and numeracy taking over from English and Maths, with a subsequent potential downgrade of other subjects, all of which provide the background information against which English and Maths operate in the real world. There is talk of the knowledge curriculum, but the knowledge areas of the curriculum, in some places and for some children are under some threat.

The small thinking arises out of a sound-bite need for politicians, to show that they are doing something to improve the situation. The Literacy Hour was not the be-all and end-all of the Literacy Strategy, yet it became the simplistic message given on the radio and TV every morning. For the past four years, we have heard phonics equals reading as the mantra. The problem with both messages is that it can distort practice to the point where other aspects of each subject, which are equally or more vital, are diminished, so teachers and children lose sight of the bigger messages. As a result, reading for pleasure is instated as a statement in the 2014 curriculum.

Levels became the bête noire of the system because they became distorted into data points, rather than remaining as the progress descriptors that they were in the beginning. From misuse, they lost their purpose and became distorting, as they became high stakes in showing progress. The number and the data point lost the accompanying words.

Like all things, I’d argue that a focus on the small aspects is essential, but that at every stage any change in one aspect needs to be reflected upon across the whole learning system, otherwise it can be distorting.

It’s a little bit like an exercise regime where concentration on one part of the body can create a distorting effect.
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Tim Oates bio; Group Director of Assessment Research and Development

Tim Oates joined Cambridge Assessment in May 2006 to spearhead the rapidly growing Assessment Research and Development division. He was previously at the Qualifications and Curriculum Agency, where he had been Head of Research and Statistics for most of the last decade.

Work included advising on a pan-European 8-level qualifications framework. He has advised the UK Government for many years on both practical matters and assessment policy.

He started his career as a research officer at the University of Surrey. He moved to the FE Staff College in 1987 where he helped run the Work-Based Learning project. London University's Institute of Education then appointed him as NCVQ Research Fellow. In 1993 he joined one of the QCA's predecessor bodies, the National Council for Vocational Qualifications, as Head of GNVQ Research and Development. Promotion to Director of Research followed two years later.

Mike Sheridan bio; Mike Sheridan is a senior HMI.

He first joined Ofsted as a seconded headteacher in 2007 and then went on to be appointed as one of Her Majesty’s Inspectors in 2009. Mike is a qualified teacher and, prior to being employed by Ofsted, held several leadership roles. Most recently he was the headteacher of a federation of schools. Alongside headship, Mike has worked as a consultant and a trainer for heads and teachers. He has particular expertise in teaching and the impact leadership structures have on raising standards.

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ITT observations

19/1/2015

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The role of the “observer” in ITT is an interesting one. As the student teacher is still learning, there is a need to be coach and mentor as well. The student is developing the skills of teaching, which are many and varied.

They will be developing their professional status, which is a nebulous way of saying “Do they look, sound and act as a teacher in all professional arenas?”


  • Are they ordered and organised?

  • Can they arrange classroom space and resources to allow ease of movement and access?

  • Can they get ideas across, manage transition, support learners with appropriately challenging, interesting tasks and engage with the developing lesson, giving appropriate, supportive feedback at the right time and expect learners to address this?

  • Do they give written feedback through their marking of work and are records supportive of decision making?

    Entering this “hot potato” arena, as I start a new round of ITT observations, might seem a little perverse. There have been a few recent bloggers sharing the horror stories of when observations appear to go awry and the insights into the uses being made of observation are useful. As reported, there are significant negative decisions being made on what come across as miniscule issues. The current TV programme Tough Young Teachers is providing interesting insights, of a more global nature, but we are really watching a variation of students in training.

    Everyone wants teachers to be operating at the highest possible level. I am sure that many teachers feel that they are only as good as the last performance, which puts teaching on the same plane as an actor, with elation or deflation the personal outcome. Teachers are, in my experience, very self-critical people, who want to get it right every time.

    I’ll start by summarising my overview of teaching and learning; know the learners, know your stuff and get it across effectively, appropriately challenging follow up activities, engage with the learners in lesson, fine tune to need, check progress during and afterwards.

    I am aware that the thoughts as a (sort of) (currently disliked?) “professional observer” may appear distant, but the insights might be useful.

    What is the purpose of the observation? Developmental or judgemental? How will the outcomes be used?

    In my case, I have dual role to fulfil; is the student showing competence as a teacher and at what level, and where are the areas for coaching to improve future practice?

    Criteria for the observation need to be clear to all participants.

    Is the observation based on the collective, school interpretation of the Teacher Standards 2012- outline in essence above? Is there a set of well-articulated expectations that has been shared extensively and is well understood by all participants?

    A number of the Teaching Standards have an equal amount of evidence outside as well as within the lesson.

    For example professionalism is a broad category, including the notion of being a self-developer, keeping abreast of curriculum and other developments. Equally, subject knowledge should have a breadth of evidence. Progress and outcomes need to be explored over time and through a variety of means, such as moderation of books.

    A teacher’s plans will show order and organisation, over time, embed the selection of subject knowledge and give a flavour of the lesson to be observed.

    By this point, any experienced observer will have “ticked off” a range of the standards, as a preparatory activity and be able to concentrate on the visual evidence of the unfolding lesson.

    Pre-armed with the plans (standard 4) embedding expectations (standard 6), the observer will be able to develop an insight into relationships, the teacher status and the ease with which the teacher expectations are able to be articulated, if necessary. Is the classroom ready for learning to happen from the beginning? (Standards 7, 8 and 1.)

    Getting the ideas across, with appropriately selected resources, is likely to be a major part of the initial stages of the lesson, sometimes with break-away groups where prior assessment suggests that some do not need that information. (Standards 6 & 3) The quality of discourse, questioning and follow up to clarify any misconceptions can be evidenced.

    Transitions are further evidence of effective behaviour management, (standard 7).

    The most significant evidence within the lesson will be the interactions and engagement within the lesson, of Assessment for Learning, aka thinking on your feet, and making adaptations to identified need. These two standards (6 and 5) are evidenced by more personalised questioning, support and in-lesson feedback, based on learner needs. At this point, the needs of the broad range of learners can be addressed. Notes on plans should have alerted the teacher (and observer) to prompted action, such as x and y might not “get this”. Spotting a child “not getting it” and doing something about it is likely to result in a positive outcome.

    To not spot is potential for questions to be raised.

    Or even more succinctly; analyse-plan-do-review-record…. 

    Teaching is thinking about learner needs, before, during and after the lesson.


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Towards a Learning and Teaching Policy

19/1/2015

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teaching_and_learning_policy.ppt
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There has to be a central theme to any school, in terms of their approach to teaching and learning, ensuring that there is coherence and continuity throughout a child’s experience within the school. An overview of a policy is offered as a starting point for discussion and adaptation. It could be used as a whole, but any policy must reflect the local situation.

Learning and Teaching Policy

A Statement of School Vision

  • Everyone involved with the educational process at X School is a partner in progress
  • This, in terms of children, is encompassed in the motto Thinking, Working , Playing together.
  • Educationally making guided progress, through individual and group effort.
Our Aim

A typical child leaving X School will have these attributes

  • Confidence in themselves, as people and learners.
  • Awareness of the world around them, locally and wider, showing sensitivity, an enquiring approach, and a developing sense of awareness of themselves as spiritual beings.
  • Capable of working in many different ways, with different grouping of others, and be able to sustain effort when required.
  • Solve problems with different, but developing, levels of independence.
  • Think creatively and reflectively when appropriately challenged, organising their needs, and being able to talk clearly to anyone with an interest in their activities.
  • Accept guidance to achieve the best they can, with a clear understanding of their strengths and areas for further improvement.
A policy for learning, achieving the vision

  • Children, their thinking and learning, are our core purpose, within the context of a broad, balanced and relevantly challenging curriculum. They are to become active producers of learning, rather than passive consumers of teaching.
  • Children will start as information gatherers, capable of clear description.
  • Children will progressively become problem solvers, applying a range of relevant skills, able to articulate clearly in speech and then writing, the detail of their learning, and to have a developing repertoire of presentational skills through which they can show their ideas.
  • Careful consideration of information, and logical thinking, together with the ability to explain their thoughts, using 2-D or 3-D models, will lead to secure links in learning.
  • Learning processes will be clearly articulated to children, who should be able to explain what they are doing, and why.
  • The processes through which the children will be challenged will be known to teachers, parents, support staff or any other assisting adult.
  • The potential for learning across and between different abilities needs to be maintained, to ensure that children derive learning from as many sources as possible.
  • The taught curriculum will be well taught, with teachers working to improve their personal skills and practice across the curriculum.
  • ICT in all its forms will be a central tool of development.
  • The school and each of its constituent parts, will see itself as part of a wider learning community, deriving information  and good practice from sources that complement our own developing practice.
Putting the vision into practice

Teachers at X School plan to ensure that the vision and aims are put into practice, employing methodologies outlined in the policy for learning, through an approach summarized as Analyse, Plan, Do, Review, Record, Report.

Analyse… Teachers will receive information from a range of sources about the prior attainment of each child. This will provide a framework upon which to base decisions about working arrangements, suitable objectives for learning and tasks to achieve these.

Plan… Teachers plan over different timescales, annual, based upon allocated topic specifications. It is for individual teachers to use these specs creatively to provide a dynamic approach to learning.

Contributing to Planning Detail

Whole of National Curriculum through School based Topic Specifications

Literacy and numeracy frameworks.

Planning at different levels

  • Content
  • Learning needs
  • Space, timescales and resources
Do… Tasks given to children will be creative, challenging and engaging, leading to defined progress.

Task design. Each task will have a definite purpose in progressing an aspect of a child’s progress, known to the child and any assisting adult.

Activity presentation. All activity will be clearly presented and understood by children before being active.

Independence levels, skill, knowledge and attitude will all be considered when devising the task parameters, as the different learning attributes of individuals and groups should be encompassed in the task challenges.

Children working

  • Understanding task… Children will have a clear grasp of what they are being challenged to achieve, be able to discuss and articulate purposes when asked.
  • Task behaviours… Children will be expected to demonstrate appropriate approaches to tasks, developing persistence to achieve.
  • Team working… Children will be challenged to operate as collaborative, independent learners on tasks specifically created to allow for qualities of cooperation to be developed.
  • Oral skill…Children will develop appropriate descriptive, analytical, exploratory languages to communicate clearly to a peer or interested adult.
  • Recording skill, written, pictorial, mathematical…Within any learning experience there will be opportunities for children to use different forms of recording to help them to remember sequences of events within an activity.
  • Evaluation… Children learn about learning by doing, by reflecting on the process and activity, and evaluating changes to approaches for future reference.
  • Review… Children will develop as primary evaluators of their drafts. Peer reviews will be developed over time, with the teacher giving informative feedback to help with the next phase of development.
By being given tasks that they will need to discuss, decide on action, carry out, review, re-evaluate and repeat, they will develop an insight into the ways in which adults work and solve problems.

Outcomes..Review

  • Teacher as reviewer and quality controller…Any piece of work from a child is the current draft capable of being reviewed and improved. Ongoing oral feedback should support the child within the learning process. Marking should provide opportunities for advice, and an overview of quality.
  • Feedback to children…should enable each child to review their own needs in learning for subsequent pieces of activity.
  • Room for improvement… advice on areas for development.
  • Objective and subjective…Correcting spelling or an aspect of grammar may be clearly objective, whereas a commentary starting “I liked…..” would be subjective.
  • Moderation…At intervals it is clearly good practice to share views on achievement. Moderation allows a consensus view about a discrete piece of produced work.
Record… Teachers will keep records which assist them in progressing learning for individual children.

Report… At half year and year end, teachers will write reports to inform parents about achievements and room for improvement.

Review, Recording and Reporting

  • To colleagues
  • To parents
  • Significant others
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#teacher5aday Succeeded!

18/1/2015

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At the end of last week, I wrote a blog where I had to admit that I had struggled to put my #teacher5aday resolution into effect. My challenge was to try to embed some painting into my routine, to find time when I could be absorbed in an activity, providing some often well needed rest from reading and writing.

This weekend, I have to say that I succeeded, at least in getting started. The catalyst was a chance conversation with a conference organiser, who told me the story of an art teacher who got students to deface pristine books to break the blank paper syndrome. So that's what I did.

Here are a few pieces where I have used left over paint to create washes. It's certainly a way to start.
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Most of my efforts are based on photographs, usually taken on holidays when I have time to look around for interesting scenes or artefacts. Some are just the scenes, but others might be composites or close-ups from digital zooming. Then I just play with the paint. Sometimes it works.

I am sure that my Grammar school art teacher who put me off for many years would still manage to find fault. But now, I'm not bothered. It's all for me, as a way to relax.

So, from a standing start, here are my first five efforts.

Enjoy (or not) ! ;-)
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A "poem" of frustration

17/1/2015

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A Cautionary Tale; are they ready?

After a lifetime of dedication to the cause of education,
I’m feeling much frustration at the machinations of an administration,
And the implementation of education policy based upon the fiction that all learners have a disposition
To arrive at the same fictional destination at the end of a phase of exertion;
By that token, many don’t arrive in Early Years “school ready” so have even further to travel!

For some the cause of celebration,
For others a feeling of desolation,
Being told they’ve missed the accumulation of marks,
In addition, subtraction, diction or story creation.
(The other subjects aren’t measured, so don’t count)

The prescription of specified method; by default the proscription of others,
Feels like the confiscation of tools which worked in the past, and still do,
Especially where the curriculum needs personalisation.
The thinking teacher’s invention or adaptation of an idea,
Helped the visualisation, by the learner, of complex concepts,
From which the child’s own imagination could indulge in acts of creation,
Exploration and experimentation, sometimes of invention,
Often through collaboration, supported by the intervention of an aspirational adult,
Determined to harness the combination of exertion and deliberation,
With a soupcon of consolidation, to arrive at a destination,
Worthy of celebration and appreciation.

The demonisation of a school of thought,
 Seen as the antithesis of tradition,
Has allowed a faction to develop, determined to create a new fiction,
Tradition good, progression bad, in contravention of common sense.
Real education is a balanced, nuanced affair, an oscillation between the two extremes,
Teachers selecting the best tools for the job, just like any master craftsman,
Dedicated to the cultivation of a living tradition.
Education is the sharing of the accumulation of understanding across time and space.
The world in which, without direct explanation, they learn to walk, talk, look and explore.
Their natural disposition to be curious, enjoying exploration, experimentation, discussion,
Expanding vocabularies and concepts through vocalisation,
In environments where error is the cause of reflection, adaptation and active intervention,
To ensure correct interpretation.

It starts with parents and the home, continuing with a school’s help.

The teacher organisation of the available space and resources,
Coupled with their interpretation of records, their perceptions;
Anticipation of the disposition of each child,
To decide whether individualisation of challenge will be needed.

Good teaching is a complex action, where the reactions of the learners can help or hinder the flow.
Good learning requires exertion on the part of the learner, in the clear knowledge of the destination,
Or direction of travel, the co-creation of a visual map,
For a specified duration. 

Intervention may lead to the need for consolidation or reinterpretation, to avoid a period of disaffection or alienation, both unhelpful to learning.

Celebration of outcomes might include the admiration of peers,
An appreciation of effort, capability or talent.

Good learning is only a competition with oneself.
Self-awareness, self-belief, self-reliance,
Being responsible for oneself, for how others and the environment are treated.

Just getting better every day.

Ps Did you know that there are over 2800 words ending in –tion, derived from Latin, changing a verb to a noun? Many of these words are shared across other Latinate languages.  

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#teacher5aday Midway reflections

16/1/2015

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Blank paper syndrome? Giving myself a good “talking to”.

You know that feeling, perhaps, when you have the blank sheet in front of you and can’t think of what to do? I’m not suffering from writer’s block. I’ve a list of possible areas for blog writing on a stickynote on my computer, but perhaps lack time to be able to focus totally on all of them.

No. what I have is what I will describe as “artist’s block” and that term I am perhaps abusing slightly, but it encapsulates where I am with regard to my #teacher5aday pledge. You see, I’ve been looking for inspiration as a first step, before getting everything out. I’ve gone through my photograph collection, going back several years for images that might grab attention. Many of these are of the more “artistic” type, taken with the idea of perhaps of making a painting at some stage. I have to say that a few came close, but, if I am completely honest, it might be a matter of confidence, in that I have, at some stage, to make marks on a pristine sheet of paper and they may not “be right”; once made, it can be hard to paint over an error.

Yet, as educators, we talk of “growth mindset” and learning from error.

Really, though, you’ve got to visualise the idea first and a have a strategy for taking that idea forward to some kind of imagined end point; a similar situation to story-telling, orally or in writing. That puts me in a similar position to many children in the classroom, who may want to do something, but lack ideas to take forward into the project.

What I might have to do is something that the course organiser said to me yesterday about a colleague of hers, when she was working in FE. His first act as a teacher of art, with a new group of students arriving with pristine sketch books, was to get them all to buy a cup of tea or coffee to bring to the first session. After they’d all settled, expecting the words of wisdom, he got the students to put the sketch books on the floor and to pour the drink over the books, so that they were no longer absolutely pristine and they would forever think that making art could, at times, be a little messy.

My second half challenge, therefore, is to start with the mess and work this out. I may not make a Picasso, but I do want to find the relaxation that concentration on working with paint can produce.

This weekend, I will find the images to build into an art form. I wonder what blocks others are facing?
I suppose, though, It has given me something to think about and write about. Some gain?  

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#teacher5aday Visages de Rouen

13/1/2015

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During our last visit to France, instead of driving past Rouen, a heavily industrialised town, on the outskirts, we stopped for a couple of nights and spent time wandering. We discovered many wonderful medieval buildings in the centre, the Jean d'Arc cathedral, Flaubert's house and, of course, pleasant places to sit and let time pass.  The Seine provided opportunities to stretch our legs. 

Faces were a feature of building decoration, so I made a small collection of those which we encountered.

Here's to the next visit. It is good to be able to look forward.
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In search of the Triantiwontigongolope

13/1/2015

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During the spring and summer terms, in classrooms across the country, mini-beasts will be a subject of learning. That was no different when I was an active classroom teacher, but my classes went in search of the Triantiwontigongolope. This came about after I discovered a poem, written by C.J. Dennis (1876 - 1938). With the help of a very talented musical colleague, we turned this into a song based on an Irish Jig, so it was at once catchy and engaging. It was able to serve a multitude of needs.

We did a range of searches around the grounds.

  • Using upturned light coloured umbrellas underneath low bushes to shake and catch the falling insects.

  • Putting sheets under bigger trees and shaking branches.

  • We put out jam jars and tins from the kitchens as traps.

  • We dug through the composting heap of leaves and grass clippings.

  • We looked and looked regularly and just spotted things, in flight, as well as static.

  • We got out pooters and magnifiers and classification guides.

  • We drew and labelled and classified and described in detail.

  • We drew and painted.

  • We measured and created fair tests; eg how fast does a snail/mealworm move over different surfaces?

  • We imagineered the Triantiwontigongolope, as pictures and personal writings and poetry, as well as making 3D models. One poem became the start point for a great deal of complementary learning.

In the end, we never found the Triantiwontigongolope, but the children learned a lot.

  Triantiwontigongolope.

There's a very funny insect that you do not often spy,

And it isn't quite a spider, and it isn't quite a fly;

It is something like a beetle, and a little like a bee,

But nothing like a wooly grub that climbs upon a tree.

Its name is quite a hard one, but you'll learn it soon, I hope.

So try:

      Tri-anti-wonti-

         Triantiwontigongolope.

It lives on weeds and wattle-gum, and has a funny face;

Its appetite is hearty, and its manners a disgrace.

When first you come upon it, it will give you quite a scare,

But when you look for it again, you find it isn't there.

And unless you call it softly it will stay away and mope.

So try:    

      Tri-anti-wonti-

         Triantiwontigongolope.

It trembles if you tickle it or tread upon its toes;

It is not an early riser, but it has a snubbish nose.

If you snear at it, or scold it, it will scuttle off in shame,

But it purrs and purrs quite proudly if you call it by its name,

And offer it some sandwiches of sealing-wax and soap.

So try:   

      Tri-anti-wonti-

         Triantiwontigongolope .

But of course you haven't seen it; and I truthfully confess

That I haven't seen it either, and I don't know its address.

For there isn't such an insect, though there really might have been

If the trees and grass were purple, and the sky was bottle green.

It's just a little joke of mine, which you'll forgive, I hope.

Oh, try!    
      Tri-anti-wonti-

         Triantiwontigongolope.

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Collegiate Teachers

12/1/2015

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Quotes (highlighted) are taken from Andy Hargreaves; http://andyhargreaves.weebly.com/100-quotes-to-teach-and-lead-by-1-25.html

“What we want for our students we should want for our teachers: learning, challenge, support, and respect.”

Online dictionary definition extracts. Collegiate; late Middle English: from Old French collegial or late Latin collegialis, from collegium 'partnership'. Relating to or involving shared responsibility, as among a group of colleagues. The shared authority between two or more people who work together.

Many of the definitions link the word to Roman Catholic bishops, through the College of Cardinals, so there was, at one stage a religious connotation.

There is much talk of the establishment of a national College of Teachers, who it should be for, what it’s remit should be and so on. This could turn out to be a very positive step in teacher development. On the other hand it could become a distraction, as a few worthy souls are elected or selected to this higher plane and are then responsible for and responsible to the profession for every pronouncement and decision. It could, by default, become another “top-down” organisation.

Too often, shared visions really mean, “I have a vision; you share it”

There was a General Teaching Council, which was disbanded by political decision. What’s to say that couldn’t happen again?

However the notion of a college of teachers in every staffroom does appeal to me and would be my personal starting point. As the dictionary definition says, it is in the form of collective (shared) responsibility, among a group of colleagues.

It was a singular pleasure after Ofsted visits, to have the positive reinforcement that my school was run on collegiate grounds. It was something that I believed in, wholeheartedly, in that my guiding premise was that I needed to ensure that the adults working with children were as well trained and supported to do their jobs as they could be. I was no longer in a position to do this myself, over the longer term, so I was reliant on others. So the space to work and the available resources had to be the best that we could afford.

All teachers are already leaders. It’s in the nature of teaching

Support for each other was a central belief. Subject leaders were allowed to lead and develop colleagues, through release time; I could provide that in different ways, before PPA time was a  reality.

One simple way was to link with the local ITT provider and to take students on a regular basis. This increased the staffing of the school at little or no cost, and, with finalist teaching students, once they were settled in and effectively taking over, enable the classteacher to withdraw for short periods, to undertake projects or to release other staff to do so. As we always took a pair of finalists, this allowed collaborative development.

We must use collegiality not to level people down but to bring together their strength and creativity.

Enabling colleagues to take a significant lead in developing others enhanced their personal professionalism, but also deepened the interpersonal relationships, so that mutual understandings were strong. Being aware to avoid group think, I was not averse to putting into the thinking pot something a little “off the wall”; I did often play “Devil’s Advocate”, if discussion seemed to be getting too cosy. The phrase “tongue in cheek” often prefaced a challenge. This also encouraged others to explore for a range of angles, so avoiding the pitfall of linearity through group think.

Staff meetings were often reporting back on research findings, new ideas etc, always with a discussion paper ahead of the meeting, so that discussion was based on reflection, rather than reaction. This led to security in decisions and a definite “storyline” for the school. The support staff were invited to all development activities, so were part of the continuing discussion.

Collegiality, to my mind, also embeds aspects of well-being, in that everyone looks out for everyone else. That removes the burden from managers, although they are just then seen as part of the team. Teaching, if done properly, is a team game. One star player cannot create the basis for success, but a cohesive team can achieve a great deal by working together, led  by a clear thinking manager.

Principles of collegiality.
  • Everyone’s a member.
  • Everyone has an equal voice, within collective discussion.
  • Everyone shares in reflection.
  • Everyone is party to decisions.
  • Everyone is responsible for carrying out collective decisions.
  • Anyone can bring questions back to the college for discussion and clarification.
  • Collegiality does not preclude an individual from trying out new ideas on behalf of the collective.
  • Professional trust is a process, not a state
  • The quality & morale of teachers is absolutely central to the well-being of students and their learning
  • In healthy individuals, emotions don’t distort rationality, they enhance it


To me, it seems self-evident that a “machine” such as a school through which cohorts of children pass over a time scale, needs to be run on collective grounds. Each individual decision is taken within the corporate body has to be seen as serving the needs of that body. An individual seeking to “do their own thing” can cause disruption or dislocation within the body, undermining the authoritative nature of the whole.

We will not achieve high performance in education if we replace teachers with machines or turn teachers into machines.

However, it is also evident that decisions cannot be mechanistic, within a human and humane system, dealing with the specific needs of individuals, so the system has to establish flexibilities within the system that allow for “human error”.

Teaching is a never-ending story. The work is never over; the job is never done

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#teacher5aday update2

9/1/2015

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A freelance perspective

How’s it going? @MartynReah asked this a couple of days ago and I have to admit that it has been an interesting week. As a freelancer, I have several areas of interest, so, by extension, I have multiple employers. All on zero hours contracts too, so an interesting state of affairs. It does mean that I can have nothing in my diary, or I can have a very full period with a number of fast approaching deadlines. Being the person that I have become, I have to get things done early, so that they don’t pile up and make the inevitable last minute rush.

This week, January commitments have meant pulling together a number of presentations, to be sent ahead of the event for editing or putting into a corporate format. In between I have tried to keep up with blogging, as areas of interest have come to the fore and distilled themselves into a form capable of sharing. Has blogging become my new hobby? That may well be the reality, I have to admit.

My #teacher5aday resolution was to get out the art materials and start making pictures again after a bit of a lay-off. Apart from one evening, I have to admit failure this week, as work has taken precedence. I am wondering if freelance time is less easy to organise than a day determined by school hours? That will be in the forefront of my thinking over the next period, as I am determined to get a grip on how my time is used.

Making pictures, even badly, is relaxing and that is important. I am not down-hearted, yet…

It has been pleasing to see that others’ plans have been more successfully implemented.  

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The loneliness of the long distance worksheet

9/1/2015

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The loneliness of the long distance runner was a short story by Alan Sillitoe, written in 1959 and made into a film in 1962. The essence is captured in the title.

In the 1970s, when I started teaching, classrooms were awash with card system approaches to learning, or the dog-eared textbooks which were piled on the bookshelves. We had SRA (Science Research Associates) cards for English and spelling, SMP (Scottish Maths Project) cards for maths, as well as Alpha and Beta maths and Fletcher maths which took over at one stage. R J Unstead had captured the history curriculum and geography was a pile of atlases.

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As the card systems were individualised, the children were able to work through the cards at their own pace, with the added advantage that they were also self-checking; an added bonus for the teachers!

However, there was a catch. In order to “keep up”, the children had to complete a specific box in a specific term, which meant that those children who found learning maths or English harder towards the second half of the term, if they, or the teacher had not kept an eye on their progress, would have to put extra effort into the diminishing time and, I remember distinctly, one colleague was sending home multiple cards each night to be completed.

There was an amount of work to be covered, in a specific time frame, by all children, who had to show a level of “mastery”, in order to move on. It put extreme pressure on those children who found learning more challenging and, as a result, were in danger of switching off certain subjects. To avoid that, I took a different view to some colleagues and, using the cards in a more discriminating fashion, created a more interactive approach, with much use of concrete apparatus, modelling and conceptualisation underpinning their activities, followed up with selected cards, rather than all of them, chosen to be appropriate to need. The children and I were therefore under less pressure and they actually enjoyed the experience. Those for whom maths, especially, was easy, were taken faster through the process, on an individual and group basis. It was useful, pre-photocopier, to have ready-made cards, as the alternative was hand written and laminated cards.

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The new National Curriculum, introduced in September 2014, embed some of the characteristics of the schemes described above, in that, at discrete points, at least 85% of children have to be able to demonstrate facility at or above national expectations. This will mean that, in many schools, in order to ensure that the children “keep up” with their peers, pressure will be placed on those who find learning harder. Their personal needs may be overlooked or sacrificed to the need to be seen to be “keeping up” with the others. This will depend on the pressures that the school feels from external evaluation.

Yet, it is personalised approaches that would ultimately give these children the chance to keep up. If their needs are known and appropriate strategies adopted, they have a chance. My evidence for saying this is the significant number of inner London, and other schools, in challenging circumstances, that achieve by outcome-based decision-making; children make progress through fine-tuned challenges that ensure steps are appropriate and secure before moving on.

There are current exhortations to bring back text books, by Nick Gibb, schools’ minister. My reservations about a return to textbooks is based on the use made of them by  less secure colleagues, who often use them indiscriminately, thinking that they, in themselves, provided all that the children needed. Often out of date, the information was written badly, illustrations were poor, so children could easily get the wrong impression. There was a lot of copying from the books, so interaction with information was low order and activity completion was paramount. The loneliness of the long distance textbook, could, for some, become a reality.

Readability levels of textbooks, or other text material can be a significant barrier to learners accessing the information. In undertaking a post-grad diploma in language and reading, I focused on readability of text material. I found that there was often a mismatch between the reading levels of the children and the material that they were being given. If this is not addressed, the learner will not extract what they need from the available resource. Another post looks at Readability issues.

With in-classroom ICT being more or less universal, the range of available information to support learning is extensive, through picture or video sources, maps that allow you to “fly” over countries and zoom down almost to ground level. Good, selective use of source and resource materials can significantly enhance learning. A well-stocked library can be a great boon to support research skills development as well as supporting reading and vocabulary development.

A feature of many topics, which enhanced research and knowledge gathering, was an open A-Z wall, where children could add their own researches to support the developing topic, as well as the results of in-lesson researches.

The ubiquitous availability of the photocopier has been a mixed blessing for teaching. It can be used to share appropriate information extracts, in a form that supports learning. However, it can also be used to provide essentially a blank sheet with a title, or a couple of ruled lines, something that children could do for themselves. In many classrooms, the work-card system of the 1970s has been replaced by worksheets, which may again make teachers’ lives easier but don’t always add value to learning. Equally, the need to stick these worksheets into an exercise book increases workload and wastes paper.

Like all systems, worksheets, work-cards and textbooks have to be selected with care, if they are to have a positive impact on learning. Select with children in mind.

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Calling a Spad a Spad; emperor's new clothes

8/1/2015

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The emperor’s clothes;

I’m often naïve, especially in politics, but I think I’m getting the hang of it. Politics reminds me of my cub promise; I promise to do my best, to do my duty to God and the Queen, to keep the law of the wolf-cub pack and to do a good turn to somebody every day. I think I’ve managed the first and the last. It is often a case of pragmatism, and politics is governed by real life events, except that there do seem to be a number of bizarre ideas that get proposed on the way.

What I didn’t realise was that think-tanks and other groups were formulating plans behind the scenes, which, far from becoming the subject of dialogue, became a question of “How much do you agree?”; often with ambiguous question contexts.

I remember swallowing the promise before the 1997 election, that this time around there would be a period of consultation before changes would be enacted. It was something of a surprise when, quite rapidly, the National Strategies were announced, with almost daily press briefings about Literacy and Numeracy hours. It was a case of out with the old and in with the new; except that the old was actually doing quite well, and the new was a great distraction for an extended period.



Perhaps it is this latter point which concerns me most. The amount of time that is spent distracted from the real job of educating the children in each class, by the needs of the changed Government.

With that in mind, here’s a tongue-in-cheek look back and perhaps forward.

Calling a Spad a Spad.

Sire, we really need to wrap you in some nice new clothes.

That will be relatively easy. The last lot made a bit of a hash of things, as far as people think. That’s why they voted for you. All the work we’ve been doing behind the scenes in preparation for this point means that we’ll have time to seem like we’re implementing clear plans, while we engineer significant change without anyone noticing.

Nobody will notice, if it doesn’t affect them locally, so, unless we go too hard on things, we’ll get to within a reasonable time of the next election, when you’ll be able to claim that a great deal has been changed and that it is all having a significant improving impact, due to your rigorous approach. You must be sure to use that word at every opportunity and get the team to use it too, so that it is quoted often and you get a reputation for toughness.

We’ll work on how to sideline the possible opposition; maybe call them a name that resonates with the press. “Blob” and “Enemy of Promise” have a great ring. You won’t need to worry about handling issues as we are very well geared up to give appropriate soundbites and press releases from “senior sources”, who of course, will be unnamed.

We advisors will be on your shoulder at all times, to field questions, to source answers to anything difficult, although we know that you can handle yourself really well in public debates. You have a great way with words and are obviously well read. People respond to you positively.



If things get really difficult, I personally will get involved. This blogging lark isn’t too difficult and on Twitter it’s reasonably easy to start a fight, so, one way or another, we’ll emasculate the opposition. I’m looking forward very much to this fight sire. The pen is mightier than the sword; we have the press on our side and they can be easily swayed.

To be continued…

May 2014… One year from the next general election and where are we? Among many things:-

  • Academisation; implemented and enforced in some cases.  

  • Free Schools; the main means by which additional school places can be created, despite there being a great need to accommodate a rise in the number of Primary pupils. Local planning therefore becomes difficult, if not impossible.

  • Universal Free School Meals (Infants), starts September 2014, still clouded in uncertainty, due to funding, space and kitchen infrastructure issues

  • National Curriculum change- starts September 2014.

  • Assessment change- starts September 2014, if schools have decided on a system.

  • SEND change- starts September 2014, but, as at May 2014, still clouded in uncertainty, not least because of assessment change impacting on decision-making, especially comparative data between schools.

  • GCSE changes

  • GCE changes

And more… to be continued?

It’s ok sire. We are one year from the election. At this point, we start to say just how much we have done to change things. It doesn’t matter that most are starting in September. All we need to say is that we have been rigorous in consultation, in devising the best possible schemes using the best available expertise and that will set things up nicely. People have divided loyalties in education. Their local school is great, but the public believe that education as a whole suffers from trendy, lefty idealists having had too much influence for the past fifty years. And in reality, they won’t check the details. If you say this often enough and get a group of colleagues to corroborate it, then it will become a de facto truth.

Of course, this is the point to win the hearts and minds of the public, by saying that we have excellent teachers, doing a fantastic job, or something like that. There’s probably no point in being too effusive, just enough to make sure that the feeling is that everything is on track, the professionals are well trained and ready to go. The change of tone might be a little difficult, but, over a period of time it will distil itself into a new narrative.

The agenda for the next year sire, to be shared as often as possible, is the following;

  • Schools are well managed and challenged by rigorous Ofsted inspections, weeding out the last remaining areas of concern.

  • We have strong leadership at regional level to oversee the current and future Academised schools.

  • There will be a return to very traditional values in all schools as a result of all the changes wrought and, from September, in place and having an impact.

And, while you are doing that, we’ll also start work on what we can do after May 2015, when we confidently expect to be doing more of the same.

In fact, I’ve been thinking. What if, now that we have set a target that 85% of Primary pupils will reach an “expected level”, which we have yet to decide, those children who don’t manage the expected level have to stay on in Primary education? In fact, we could have systems from the Early Years, with children having to stay behind to make the grade. Class sizes? I am sure that we can find a reliable study that shows that class size doesn’t make a difference.

We could, of course, also look at systems of accelerating some children, who achieve higher than their class, so they could transfer earlier. That would even out the class size issues and be popular with our voters, who hanker after a return to Grammar Schools. Actually, that’s something to consider. How about Free Grammar Schools?

I’ve got some other really great ideas brewing sire and can’t wait to get started on them. I’ll pop off and start work with my team and we’ll start to publish a few pamphlets and blogs, which reference the work of certain groups. They’ll get a press release too, so they’ll get some coverage, just dropping a few hints into minds in the run up to the election. It won’t hurt us to do that…

Post script. Nick Gibb, school’s minister wrote an article in the Independent on 7.1.15 which articulated very clearly a determination to pursue the basics agenda, backed up by textbooks.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/2015-is-a-year-of-historic-anniversaries-but-children-wont-know-them-claims-schools-minister-9963529.html

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Assessment WITH CHILDREN IN MIND

7/1/2015

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This month, I have two events at which I am speaking about aspects of assessment. Not being a salesperson for any specific product or approach, I want to focus on the purposes and approaches that can be adopted within a classroom, where decisions are taken, often on a minute by minute basis.

Everything is assessment, it’s the way good teachers think. Look up-down and sideways

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Assessment is thinking; about children and progress in learning.

Think engaging and appropriate activity, think learning, think progress and outcomes, think on your feet and adapt for evident need, Think before, during and after the event. That is assessment; thinking, about each and every child’s response to the learning situation. Spotting those whose behaviours show lack of understanding or effort and those who may be finding the task easy.

High awareness, high surveillance and rapid and purposeful intervention.

To me, assessment is just another way of saying “Know your children, well, and get to know them even better”; to define and constantly refine where they are academically, socially and personally, so that they can be challenged or supported through carefully planned activities and interventions. Assessment in one sense is about data, but, more importantly, it is about individual children and their life chances, developed through the best available teaching and learning opportunities.

To be effective, assessment has to be seen as informed, rational judgement, leading to specific adaptation of intention, through a variety of means. Most assessment is situational, being at one level a sense that something is not going as it should and seeking to make whole again. It can also mean that under-expectation means that the level of challenge (perhaps for a few) has to be recalibrated.

Looking for inspiration in the thesaurus, the following revealed itself. These are some of the synonyms for assessment. It is possible to argue that all assessment if formative, even a test, as it informs subsequent decisions about the direction and speed of learning.


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Classrooms comprise a random mix of children. They arrive at the same time into a school setting, from mixed home environments and having had often significantly different pre-school experiences, through nursery, child-minders, family environments and broader opportunities.

Information is gathered at discrete points before and during entry into formal education settings, which forms the start point for ongoing investigation and record keeping that then informs continuing decisions. It is often a case of moderating, validating and triangulating the available information to best effect, as very young children may be less willing or able to take formal tests of capability.

Information is passed through the system, for different purposes. Children need to know where they are with their learning and what they need to do to get better. Teachers need to know where they are so that they can plan effectively and monitor their progress. Heads need to know that the teachers know their children well and that they are making appropriate progress. External validators need to know that the school is achieving well and challenging itself to do even better.

But, too often, there is the sense that the top drives down on the system, wanting specific things, leading to a narrowing of focus and effort to ever finer demands.

For this reason, I have developed the idea of system wide dialogue, with information, rather than judgement being passed from one level to another. Again, moderation, validation and triangulation would seem to support system improvement.

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Take five children.           

If you take any five children at random from within a class, you will have a mixed ability group; even if you seek to group by ability, you will have a range. If each child is known individually, then it is possible to fine tune demand and expectation for each, even within a broad task. It takes some mental organisation, thinking broadly, rather than in a linear fashion, but the developing interactions within learning activities support insights and decision-making.

In making these decisions, the criteria descriptions are a far stronger aspect of progress than any numeric system that might accompany the words. This to me was the strength of the original Level Descriptors from the first National Curriculum, and did, in the early stages of the NC, encourage teachers to look for better outcomes from children, as the descriptors gave clarity to expectation, which could then be exemplified by developing outcomes.

While the children in a class may not be the same, they are entitled to the same quality of expectation, challenge, activity, support and feedback on outcomes, so that they each have the opportunity to celebrate progress, however small. It is demoralising to feel that hard work is not being translated into progress and therefore might result in limited praise, which may be the lot of more able peers, who manage to achieve more easily.

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It is the way that teachers think - Cycle of decisions=Expectations

Teachers make decisions all the time. I’m sure that many would be aware of the Plan-Do-Review approach to teaching and learning. I’d want to improve that to Analyse-Plan-Do-Review-Record (APDRR), to embed the idea of knowing the children well at the start of the process. Attached to each of the APDRR strands is a series of sub-tasks which seek to describe the holistic nature of the cyclic process.

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Seen another way, this time from the perspective of the Teaching Standards, it is possible to describe the process as cyclic from 2 (progress and outcomes), through 4 (planning) to 6 and 5 (assessment and adaptation) returning to 2 again with a better understanding of the children as learners. In order to make this a more dynamic model, I’d propose that 6 becomes thinking on your feet and 5 becomes having spotted inconsistencies, doing something about them.


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Teachers need a Frame of Reference- FORmative assessment=teacher judgement; what does a good one look like?

Working often with ITT students, one of the potential individual weaknesses can be a lack of understanding of progress through time and experience, with significant markers to be taught, sought and encouraged. Standard 2 (progress and outcomes) is therefore very significant in this regard. Subject knowledge is often embedded in the degree studied and the prior journey to achieve that. However, a degree level student may have limited memory of how they made the early part of the journey, unless their parents have kept examples and exercise books.

Knowing the journey from EYFS to year 6 in a Primary school is, for some a very significant development, from the early stages to level 5 or 6, as measured through KS2 SATs in Maths and English. This is a journey from early mark making that embeds some meaning, through to relatively sophisticated writing and maths. Knowing the staging posts along the way is an essential need for any teacher, at any stage in their career.

With levels being discontinued after this year, if I was still a headteacher, I’d want to follow a simple process to establish in-school expectations.

  • Set a whole school writing task. Consider the needs of different subjects as a second tier.

  • Collate selected outcomes in the school hall.

  • Moderate within the staff body, from least to most capable writing outcomes.

  • In the first instance, link to level descriptors to establish current (years 6&2) or prior expectation.

  • Reflect on the requirements of the new progress descriptors and adjust (up) accordingly.

If the school has examples that can be described from P levels to level 6 in old judgements, it can be expected that these examples will cover the new expectations. By using the above approach, across a range of genres over time, the act of moderation and discussing the relative merits of children’s outcomes will embed the necessary understanding that supports in-class decisions.

Capability?

It is essential for a teacher and the learner to understand what they are capable of doing. This capability measure is the start point for independence, as known capabilities can become non-negotiable and part of on-going expectation. Sometimes capability becomes apparent in tasks that demand the use and application of presumed knowledge and skills. This is an important development, as assumption of knowledge and skill can lead to a series of lessons continuing, but leaving learners behind, by default.

Some will hate a reference to Kolb, but I find the dynamics useful as a dynamic guide. In itself, the structure below can give a generic structure to decisions made about learning and the child’s approach to the activity.

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All, most, some? At Least? Group specific tasks? Self-selected challenge?

Tasking for learning has been a perennial issue. Do you go for whole class tasking with implied whole class expectation? Do you seek to differentiate across different groups? Do you see setting or streaming as pre-defining differentiation? Do you look to personalise challenge to each child?

I think it is possible to argue that there is no one way that will guarantee that you will ensure that every child is appropriately challenged from the start of the lesson. However, I do think it is possible to consider, based on current understanding of the learners, what will be the next area for learning and to set tasks that challenge appropriately above the current known position. If, using “old vernacular” you know your children are 2c, ask for 2c, then the children will be likely to achieve 2c. If you challenge above, with aspects of 3-ness, then you may well see the fruits of the expectation.

Articulating expectation is fraught with difficulties. I dislike the all, most, some approach with a vengeance, based on the thinking that if “some might” achieve and they are known, it is to me the bottom line expectation, for that group and therefore denotes the start point for learning. Being specific in articulating expectation, to me, is preferable. I developed aspects of this discussion in other posts, however, I do think that personalised targeting is an essential aspect of good learning dialogue, and that the use of “at least” can define more clearly the bottom line expectation than “all will”.

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Self-selected challenge can work, once children are guided and encouraged by their teachers to appropriate challenges. It is not something that can just happen. Challenge has to be considered with care and different levels of challenge considered, so that all eventualities are covered, at least as starting points.

More independence does demand a shift in classroom organisation though, as resources may be sought to need and that may not be capable of determination until the activities start, so adequate resource needs to be made available, together with access and return routines.

Something to think about, talk about and perhaps write about or record. Bringing experience into learning.

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The quality of the experience within which children are challenged to demonstrate learning is key to everything. If children have not had background experiences, they have nothing upon which to draw for inspiration, so may be somewhat adrift of asked to incorporate specifics into their writing. For example, if a child has not visited the sea, felt sand between their toes, seen boats on the water, smelt the ozone, heard the shouts of excited children, they can’t incorporate seaside images from memory, in the way that another child with the experience would be able to do. Reading comprehension and writing detail would be compromised.
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Open structures=inclusive approaches+ differentiation (match and challenge) +Personal targets=learning.

Process and Product + evaluation = Quality Assurance.

The two statements above could be applied to many school approaches, where they have taken the decision to be brave in what they offer their children in the way of an exploratory, engaging, exciting curriculum. During the past eight years, I have visited both Primary and Secondary schools, prepared to go beyond a very utilitarian model and to establish a framework within which teaching and learning can be quality assured, based on the development of a coherent curriculum, with defined building blocks, which, when put together, form a strong basis form which children can be challenged to make the best of what is available to them.

One school whose record is now the subject of an insightful book, is The Wroxall Primary, run by Dame Alison Peacock. In her book, Creating Learning Without Limits, she describes the school journey from Special Measures to Outstanding, by adopting the experience based approach outlined above. When I visited the school in the autumn term 2014, I was struck by the similarities with my own school from 1990 onwards, where I established an extensive experience-based framework, a broad, balance and relevant curriculum, within which we ensured that English and Maths had centrality, but within contexts that enabled the use and application of skills and knowledge learned in the more formal lessons.  

Up to standard? Primary Performance Descriptors; will Secondaries accept outcomes, more than levels?

When NC levels were discarded, we were told that this was because parents didn’t understand them, that they were not sufficiently rigorous, nor were they fit for purpose with the new National Curriculum. Secondary schools largely preferred to retest children on entry into year 7 to provide their baseline for progress within their own establishment.

They have not been formally replaced, but, with the advent of end of Key Stage Performance Descriptors, there is the potential to infer levelness requirements and the proposed labels attached will mean that while a large number are up to national standard, there will be a significant minority not at the national standard.

Schools may begin to determine whether children are on track to meet the national standard, so may well begin to track in that format and report to parents accordingly. So a child who would formerly have been deemed to have a special educational need may well now have a label of not up to standard.

I would also predict that Secondaries will continue to retest children, in part because they will still want to have their own baseline on entry, but will not want to explore the complexities of multiple assessment systems that might be in place in a range of feeder schools.

Investigate to refine?

I’ve argued for an engaging, broad curriculum, within which children can learn and learn how to become learners. I’ve also argued that it is possible to begin to fine tune tasking and expectation. Despite best efforts, there may be children for whom learning remains something of a mystery and for the teacher, the need to deal with their “enigmatic” problems becomes, in itself a problem.

The moderation exercise described earlier can give some clues to the achievement levels of the learners, so, if a child’s performance is significantly low, establishing the baseline is important, if progress is to be effected. It may mean the teacher in, say, year 5, talking with a teacher in year 2 to understand the needs of the child and to develop appropriate resources and challenges. Equally, the school SENCo might be needed, if there are concerns that the child might be exhibiting needs that are significantly challenging.

Teachers, in the situation of considering that a child has special educational needs would be advised to pay very close attention to the evident needs and to track tasking, support, outcomes and interventions so that they can have an informed discussion with appropriate colleagues.

This is the sharp end of assessment, when the need may well be to adopt a forensic enquiry to fine tune descriptors which may well then need to be discussed with external experts.

You are worried that a child has SEN, or has a “problem with” Reading/maths…

Please see the following blogs

  • TIC TAC TOE,

  • RADIO,

  • SEN cribsheet

Think engaging and appropriate activity, think learning, think progress and outcomes, think on your feet and adapt for evident need, Think before, during and after the event. That is assessment; thinking, about each and every child’s response to the learning situation. Spotting those whose behaviours show lack of understanding or effort and those who may be finding the task easy.

High awareness, high surveillance and rapid and purposeful intervention.
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Open book? Teaching as storytelling

6/1/2015

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LO, SC, Personal targets

When I see discussions about the utility and futility of activities surrounding Learning Objectives and Success Criteria, or WALTs and WILFs, I reflect on the fact that I had a substantial teaching career before the National Curriculum became a reality in 1987.

Someone recently entering teaching might think that it had always been as it is currently described, yet the LO/SC phenomenon is relatively recent. There can also appear to be a school of thought that before teachers were told what to do, they just did their own thing and as a result, it was all chaos.

I know there were some horror stories around, but most teachers in most schools got on with the job in hand, as they always have.

For the first five years of my career, I had fewer than 38 children in my Primary class only in one year and that was a class of 37. There was no such thing as a teaching assistant, technology was the Banda machine, with two colours when the school felt flush and I have vivid memories of the arrival of the overhead projector and the single BBCB computer into the school. Resources were limited and we had to make or find most of what we needed.

During these years, the integrated day was the norm, for many lessons, often with five different activities occurring at the same time, with a main focus group for teaching, with others perhaps pursuing ongoing activities, such as a long-term story with redrafting embedded, an art activity, science investigations, maths practice activities. Learning activities were deemed to be high or low teacher demand, so they were balanced to enable the teaching to occur and for independence to be developed. Each task had a purpose which was articulated to the children, so they were clear about the task and how it needed to be accomplished; even if over a number of lessons.

It is interesting to think that children in my first classes will now be approaching their 50th birthdays.

Planning took place over different timescales, lessons had aims and objectives and children had task achievement and personal targets. I often used the analogy of a book with different sections, which needed to be opened in front of the children; telling a good story.

So what’s different with Learning Objectives and Success Criteria? They seem to mean so many things to so many people that they eventually seem to lose their meaning. The act of being seen to be sharing them has taken over, in places, so these things become structural, formulaic and ritualistic, rather than enhancing learning.

Learning needs to be seen over a timescale, long, medium and short, with the analogy of opening a book of ideas/maps for that year.

Long term; essentially the chapter headings of the areas to be covered during the year. This can be produced as a Contents List at the beginning of the year. Like any good book, you have some idea of where the story is going. It’s even better if the author is sharing the book, as they are the creator and have the background understanding of their own thought processes. There will be overview plans for coverage needed and the anticipated improvement in learning for each learner.

Medium term; the sub-headings of the chapters, each sub heading providing the basis for the week by week development of ideas. Again there will be anticipation of progress within the context of the shorter term context.

Short term; what will be covered during the week and each day. I would, if I was currently a head, leave this level of planning to the teacher, unless I had concerns about the teaching, as I’d already be aware of teaching and learning issues from the medium term plan, discussions and book and classroom scrutiny.

A diagrammatic interpretation of this is below, in a presentational form, although on a personal level, I’d probably indulge in a series of interlinked “spider diagrams” to explore the potential for linkage between topics, especially at Primary. That’s just how my mind works.


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Planning, in itself, can sometimes develop to be a box-ticking activity and this in turn enables aspects of practice to become stereotyped.

Some box ticking may be necessary, but I’d currently put Learning Objectives and Success Criteria into the possible box ticking category, especially as they are regularly required to be written down at the start of an activity. If they are inappropriately phrased, they become meaningless to the learner and can only function as an aide memoire to the teacher, although that too can be debatable.

If they do need to be written down, they should possibly form the handwriting practice element of the week, so that they have additional purpose.

Let’s play “what if”, with LO and SC;

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I’d quite like to propose that LO simply becomes the lesson title, unless the addition of “so that” embeds a sense of purpose into the objective. See the work of Zoe Elder in this regard.  

SC would become the essential aspects to be covered or the scaffolds to produce a complete piece of work. Sometimes schools call these “Steps to Success”. These are structural statements, which if carefully phrased can also embed guidance on the expected use of available time to ensure concentration on specific areas. Success criteria can become de facto mark schemes, partial guides to the teacher for commentary.

My experience of visits to schools for audits for National Award schemes inevitably raises the question of the children’s personal learning targets and where they are kept. Often they are inside or outside the exercise book cover. Schools are often surprised to be challenged to consider where they are once the book is open. They effectively become hidden, from both the teacher and the learner, so play little, or no, dynamic part in learning development, yet they are deemed to be key to individual success.

LO and SC can be effectively supplemented with personal targets, so that, within a defined activity (title=LO) with stated steps to be taken (SC), individual targets can provide the detail for discussion within the lesson and afterwards in evaluation and marking.

For revision, of course, children could make their own contents list and index, for fine tuning.

It is the interplay of the three elements that enables learning conversations, oral and written to become purposeful and have impact.

Children need a clear picture of where their learning is going, to be able to fully participate, otherwise they are left watching the others, trying to make sense of things, with the effect that that behaviour can become an issue.

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Expert witnesses

5/1/2015

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There are currently many creative teachers sharing ideas through a variety of fora, Twitter and teachmeets as well as within their own staffroom and supportive groups. It is a pleasure to see.

Wanting to add to the pot, I’ve been thinking about cross curricular potential, an area where many schools are seeking possible links. In another post, I have argued that it is possible to look at the curriculum as wholly English, so providing double value to learning.

Continuing this theme, I’d propose the creation of “expert witnesses”, where a specific subject teacher might be asked specific questions on a theme that supports writing in English. The idea came while watching a discussion between Gavin Essler and Michael Frayn, the author. Michael Frayn told the story of how he started writing without research, but, with the example drawn from the approach of his wife, Claire Tomalin, had taken to active research to ensure the validity of his stories.
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Let’s say the task was to write a historical account of life at sea in Nelson’s time. In a Primary school, the whole theme is likely to be wound together, with research intertwined with the story. It might also be the subject of off-site visits or visitors into school.

This approach may not be common practice in Secondary, although some are moving to what can appear to be a more Primary based approach in years 7-9.

However, an English teacher could invite a History colleague to visit and allow questions from the class to fill in some specific details which could enhance their writing.

Take any setting for a piece of writing and invite a relevant colleague; history, geography, science, DT, ICT, music etc. This would enable the children to see the purpose of a broad subject based vocabulary and understanding of concepts to enhance their written outcomes. It’s another form of using and applying knowledge.

In the absence of a compliant or available colleague, expert witnesses can be created within the student body, through the judicious use of independent research among the class, all sharing information into a central bank for use by all. Brave individuals could be interrogated.

Failing both of these, the fall back is the teacher in the hot seat, taking a role. 

Of course, other skills can be also enhanced;-

  • First draft, without information.

  • Note making- while the discussion is taking place, as an aide memoire.

  • Peer-peer and child-teacher discussion and further note making.

  • Evaluative reflections and redrafting with new information embedded.

  • Evaluation of the process and identify continuing learning needs.

The whole enhances the learning process, with the outcome, in itself, capable of evaluation to determine the impact of different influences.

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Learning from PE teaching

5/1/2015

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It is health that is real wealth and not pieces of gold and silver. Mahatma Ghandi

As the only young, male member of staff in my first three Primary Schools, I inevitably ended up with the responsibility for PE and games. Not that I minded, as I thoroughly enjoyed sport in general. I’d had some moderate (county) success as a teenager, in a range of different sports. I trained to become a teacher at what was St Luke’s College in Exeter, which was a renowned PE college, although I did science and environmental studies. At that stage, my sporting endeavours were restricted to inter-hall events, as the main sports were filled with England, Wales and Scotland under 21s, many of whom went on to full national honours.

However, I did, throughout my career in schools, enjoy coaching sport, with all Primary age groups. It’s interesting how PE can, in an academic climate, begin to feel like a Cinderella subject, yet it embeds, as far as I am concerned, all the elements of what constitutes good or better teaching. I wonder how many PE lessons are sacrificed to more academic subjects, especially for children finding reading, writing or maths hard?


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  • The context for learning is clearly the sport, gymnastics or dance.

  • Embedded in each discrete sport or activity is a set of identifiable skills, which can be shown, practiced and utilised in the context of a whole game, whether small or large teams. I found the whole-part-whole mantra useful for PE teaching, but also for teaching in other subjects, especially for boys.

  • It goes without saying that, handled correctly, the expectations of sporting tolerance and team ethics can be strong.

  • As broad a range of sports as possible should be encouraged to offer every child the chance to shine in one. Narrow selection can lead to a “can’t do” attitude. Children will inevitably judge themselves against their peers.

  • Explanation, followed by demonstration, then a period of practice, allows the teacher-coach to pick out a few examples for peers to show each other what they have been able to do. The fine-tuning comments of the teacher-coach, coupled with further demonstration, starts the process of enhancing and improving, both of which are done through executing the skills.

  • Time to reflect, to practice and show, is important. This can be, and often is, slightly independent of the teacher-coach, while they focus on the needs of individuals requiring additional guidance.

  • Putting the whole together, initially in the form of small team games, allows the practice of the skills within a real context. Groups can be created to enable different abilities to participate fully and appropriately.

  • PE allows quite detailed self-evaluation of what individuals think they are doing well and what they need to do to improve.

  • Videoing for improvement has long been a part of sport practice.

  • The concept of marginal gains has gained significance over the past several years. Essentially this cyclic activity entails looking at processes and squeezing from each part of the process a slight improvement. In doing so, there is a knock-on into the next phase of the process.

Marginal gains, in reality, is what good teacher-coaches, in any subject, do every day. See the work of Zoe Elder in this regard.

The ethics of the teacher-coach should not be solely the province of the PE teacher.

Time and health are two precious assets that we don't recognize and appreciate until they have been depleted. Denis Waitley

 

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An oral tradition?

1/1/2015

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Previous generations had fewer electronic distractions than today, so they had to entertain themselves and adults had to make efforts to entertain children. Nursery rhymes, songs, stories and poems were the currency of the oral tradition, passed from one generation to another, ensuring a common heritage. These were learned by heart and passed on from parent to child. The past forty to fifty years has seen a reduction in this, in part as a result of the impact of other pastimes. There will be some benefits to offset the losses, but in reality are the embedded skills being replaced?

To be a participant in the telling of a nursery rhyme, story, poem or a song, the child has had to remember the word order and be capable of joining in appropriately. This demands engagement, memory training doing something enjoyable, repetition, cloze procedure by default, filling in gaps, having fun changing the words. In other words, playing with language.

Song and poetry also embed aspects of history or other cultural activities, so can serve multiple purposes.

Given the ease with which text can be scanned into digital format and be presented on interactive whiteboards (IWB), or shown through visualisers, how often are they used to allow rhyme, poetry, song words to be shared, as guided or shared reading activity? With the current emphasis on phonics, surely playing with rhyme is a natural addition to activity, putting the phonics into practice? To me, this approach was another form of collective guided reading, with potential for an end product in performance.

Perhaps we should explore the holistic nature of learning within this scenario. The words of a known song are shared with children, orally, to engage their interest then shown on the IWB to be explored line by line, gradually building to the whole, exploring the more difficult words as they progress. Is this a music lesson supporting reading, or is it a reading lesson supporting music? Does it really matter and has such a degree of separation allowed pressure to be put on the available time for learning? Should we not be looking at the potential for every learning opportunity to support many subject areas? If cross-curricular learning is to mean anything, consider the potential of every subject to support spoken, read and written language, through cooperative and collaborative activity.

Poetry can allow for complete stories to be told in a few lines. Each line is capable of expansion later, if the poem is considered as a piece of first draft writing, with each line being the essence of a developing paragraph. They are capable of being easily redrafted line by line, especially if written on computer, with the possibility of publication at the end of the process.

Children are at the heart of the learning process and should be developing the capability of seeing the whole as a series of parts, in the best tradition of project management, so that they can replicate the process for themselves at a later stage. The processes of production have equal importance with the end product.  

Have a look at the work of Iona and Peter Opie between 1950 and 2000 on folklore, nursery rhymes and poetry. A treasure trove of background information.

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The nearly children.

1/1/2015

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Are we there yet?

Almost there, nearly, not quite, not yet, close. How many ways can you think of to say that a child hasn’t achieved what they have attempted? If it is the adult making the judgement, phrased wrongly, or said with the wrong inflection, it might just have well been “wrong”.

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There is a great deal said about the power of not yet, or just yet, at the end of a statement. While I am a great believer, as a teacher with early infant teaching experience, I have also seen teachers use the technique badly. The child never quite gets to the stage of making the teacher happy.

Not yet implies to me seeking to achieve something, an agreed improvement to one’s personal best, a term that I’d want to use alongside yet, so that the yet judgement is a co-creation activity, with the child able to identify the gap between their current achievement and their future aspiration. However we may wish to wrap it up, it has to be linked to a target of some sort, the easiest being a descriptive narrative, with staging posts.

A recent post used the analogy of mountaineering to explore the notion of risk in learning. The same analogy can be applied to progress description, with different “camps” being the destination for different phases of the climb, with each climb described in visual and narrative forms. The climbers need to be able to “see” where they are going, so that they can make appropriate decisions en route. The same applies to learners.

Some school systems require children to demonstrate a skill several times before they are said to have that capability. To me this could be seen as a misuse of the “not yet” idea and could cause some learners to reduce effort.

I see significant potential in the term “at least” to drive effort during the available time. This can be differentiated to the known needs of the class and their previous efforts. If the learners are faced with a page of equations, to be asked to aim for “at least” 75% of the equations might be a reasonable bottom line expectation, while in written work, “at least” 10 sentences might be appropriate, in a 20 minute period. Of course expectation can be tweaked for individuals. Within the exercise expectation, using personal targets, on a flip out sheet, provides the learner with their own additional individualised expectation.

Going back to the climbing analogy again; for a child to have a clear view of the challenge ahead, to prepare themselves for the effort involved, to have a go and see how far they get, enables them to take charge of subsequent decisions. It should not be for the teacher to say “not yet”, but to support the child in visualising what they need to do next in order to succeed. That way children become more self-reliant learners, embedding skills which they can apply elsewhere, knowing that their effort in finding solutions can pay off.

Children learn from each other, watching what another is doing and “having a go”. Any parent with children of different ages will be aware of the younger child’s attempts to keep up with their older, more able sibling. Emulating is an important aspect of learning.

 Empower rather than disempower.
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    Chris Chivers

    Long career in education, classroom and leadership; always a learner.
    University tutor and education consultant; Teaching and Learning, Inclusion and parent partnership.
    Francophile, gardener, sometime bodhran player.

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