Chris Chivers (Thinks)

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Just the ticket

31/10/2014

8 Comments

 
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Limiting factors applied by teachers.

In reflecting on the need to hold onto the big picture, I was reflecting on my first ever residential trip with children, in 1978. The fourth year juniors (aka yr6), went for a week to a study centre in Cirencester. There were trips to Roman remains, led by a very enthusiastic study centre owner, who brought out artefacts and told stories from the area in the evenings. The Cotswold Wildlife Park was a great success; the large animals held their attention and they were allowed to get “up close and personal” with smaller animals.

Then we visited the National Railway Museum. I’m not sure whether the party leader just had not had time to visit and structure activities more carefully, to match the needs of our group, as the shorthand approach was to use the worksheet provided by the museum. This was based on the need to find the details on some very small artefacts, such as names memorial cups and prices of specific tickets. Look at the image above. If the question was " How long could you stay on Birmingham New Street station platform, with a platform ticket?"  the answer is very specific.

As a result, the children walked past the assembly of trains and moved to the galleries which held the smaller objects. It soon became clear to me that, if the trip continued in this vein, the children would have filled in a worksheet, but would have missed out on the experience of the trains.

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So I took my group away from the galleries, into the hall with the trains, gave them a pile of blank paper and asked them to draw as carefully as they could, the trains, either in full or details, with associated words that looking closely made them think of. We talked about the technology of steam engines, looked at how the power was transferred from one part to another, to make the drive wheels turn. Slowly they began to ask questions, but these were then able to be asked of the volunteers. Soon there was a lively discussion taking place, with questions and answers developing supplementary follow-up requests. The learners took over, as their interest was fired and there were answers available.

The follow-up writing was of a very different quality. The children had a strong set of images on which to base their reflections, supported by their drawings and notes, which acted as an aide memoire.

From that point, any field trips that I led were based on guide sheets for the (parent) leaders to enable them to draw attention to specific areas of need, but then also open questions to allow them to reflect on broader issues. Children came back with their own notes and drawings, in addition to any guided answers/drawings. Topic areas allowed exploration, guided and independent. Follow up would be to explore at school and home for information to add to the general pot (Books, as ICT was not available). Talk supported learning and learning supported talk.

Knowledge/experience context, thinking, talk/interaction, recording, questioning, seeking answers, sharing, refining, revisiting…

Holding onto the bigger picture, rather than looking at small bits, enables bigger decisions that can have a bigger impact.

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Apprenticeship to mastery?

30/10/2014

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Tell me, I’ll forget. Show me, I’ll remember. Involve me, I’ll understand. Chinese proverb.

At every stage of our lives, we are faced with novel situations, some of our own choosing, when we are returned the phase of being a learner, or less independent that we thought.  New job, new child, new technology, problem with heating, plumbing, car, health, when we may have to call on expertise outside our own.

A particular example for me was joining the beginner guitar class at a school in my early career and literally starting from scratch. Motivation being high, I practiced as required and a bit more for good measure and managed to learn the seven chords with which I was able to accompany a number of simple, but enjoyable songs for children. Adding a few more over time extended the repertoire and as a head, I was then happy to take one or other Key Stage for a singing half hour to enable the staff to meet as a group.

Reading the excellent Tom Sherrington http://headguruteacher.com/2013/01/06/behaviour-management-a-bill-rogers-top-10/ writing about a part of his early career, where he describes feelings akin to inadequacy, echoing with each move I made as a teacher. While confident in my ability to teach, there was always a period of acclimatisation before comfort in the context settled in. We have phrases like “fish out of water” and “out of his/her depth” to describe these feelings at an extreme.

Apprenticeship is a teaching method used by educators to teach students how to solve problems, understand tasks, perform specific tasks, and deal with difficult situations (Collins, Brown, and Newman 1989).

The phases of apprenticeship as articulated by Hansman (Hansman, C.A. Context-based adult learning. New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education, 89, 43-51.2001) are:-

1)      Modelling. Showing the bigger picture to demonstrate both the skills and processes. Reflection

2)      Approximating. Trial and error phase, copying the original. Reflection.

3)      Fading. The master “fades” as the student tries more alone. Reflection.

4)      Self-directed learning. Learning by doing. Finding the points where reference to master or other source is necessary. Reflection and refinement.

5)      Generalising. Bringing to bear the experiences from a range of sources to make personal use of a broad range of skills and knowledge. Reflection, refinement and creativity.

I once worked with a PE inspector who used a very simple mantra that summed this up as whole-part-whole, with specific skills being added and practiced before being put back to whole game. Modelling came from within the group, feedback from the participant observer/coach. Time was given to reflection, evaluation and paired challenge.

According to Pratt (Pratt, D.D. (1998) Five perspectives on teaching in adult and higher education. Malabar, FL: Krieger Publishing Company), successful development through apprenticeship involves three key factors, the learning process must be active, social, and authentic. All three interlink to ensure that students understand the processes within which they are required to work, in real world situations. They can see the point of what they are doing.

Master synonyms include pedagogue, skilled person, expert, guru, leader, tutor, guide, mentor and also more dominant words such as boss, captain, chief, commander. The first group is more likely to describe teachers in the classroom, but there are some whose nature takes them more towards the latter group.

Apprentice synonyms include learner, novice, disciple, pupil, with disciple suggesting discipline, external and self-imposed.

So how does this all help learning and teaching?

We need to have a clear picture of where the learning is going and share it (whole picture), make activities enjoyable and social where possible (context), engage fully within the process (including purposeful observation) and tweak as necessary giving supportive feedback, review at different points to keep a steer on the direction of travel.

We all, at some stage, have the need to look something up, ask a friend or colleague, when we get to a point where we are “stuck” with an idea. Apprenticeship offers the potential for this to happen. Design and technology tasks are well suited to this end, as they offer the chance to identify the “resource tasks” to prepare for “capability tasks”, where the skills are developed within projects. Other subjects have their equivalents.

The principle is, “You need this to be able to do that”, and that probably sums up a lot of education, the use and application of a sequence of skills or capabilities that define a subject. (See current National Curriculum for examples).The problem is often that the skills are identified and taught outside a useful context, so in the absence of application, the skill falls into disuse.

The hallmark of good education is the progressive building of capacity, coupled with the learner’s developing confidence to tackle problems as they are highlighted.

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Homage to learning

30/10/2014

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I wrote this at a key point in my life, having reached 60, after an active lifetime in education, I came to a series of conclusions about learning. In summary:-

Learning is a skill, a habit; it is not a linear process, broken into neat bricks, hour-long packages to be delivered and put together one by one, inspected, found wanting but not necessarily supported to improve.

The school system works when it works and finds it hard to react when needed. Human systems are prone to human frailty, even illness and sometimes need TLC, not to be told to heal thyself.

Learning happens, if you actively are looking for it, accidentally when things happen, when you reach a point where you have reached the limits of a skill or a piece of knowledge and need to extend that to achieve.

Learning doesn’t just happen because a teacher talks.

Active learners listen more intently, allowing teachers to teach better and develop greater challenges.

Learning is messy, with errors and misconceptions to be identified and explored.

Learning for yourself is most powerful.

Imposed “learning” allows you to be engaged or not.

Learning from enthusiastic others provides the buzz from which further learning occurs.

Life offers problems for which school learning may not prepare you, requiring resilience, resourcefulness, strength of character, the ability to solve problems and sometimes pure survival skills. Experience outside school is as strong a teacher as teachers in school.

Unthinking teachers, politicians and parents can do damage to systems and structures and individual children.

The pursuit of simple sound-bites is in danger of devaluing the study of education as a whole, for example, phonics is not necessarily the remedy to reading skill or pleasure.

Fear and fear of failure has a significant, negative impact on learning.

Rote learning is one way among many. Being an imposed approach, it can become negative, especially if success does not follow.

The quiet child with a “nice” background may be carrying as much, if not more, trauma as the extravert from the “difficult” home.

Luck and fate can work for you or against you and you have to be able to react.

We all need a special someone at some time, mentor, teacher, relative, parent, partner and some kind of safe anchorage, in order to grow.

The 1950’s were not a golden age of education for everyone. I was lucky to be a learner.

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Would you want to be a child in your class?

29/10/2014

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The teacher is the director of all that happens in a classroom. The space, resources, accessibility and time available for tasks, are all held within the teacher planning.

Mary, Mary, quite contrary,

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Abraham Maslow developed a schema to exemplify the developmental purposes of a child’s life. It is the teacher purpose to support the child in their progress towards the notion of self-actualisation, perhaps to be called independence? Do schools and teachers sufficiently value independence to make this one of their learning goals? Independence can be stifled by restrictive tasking or over-exuberant adult support.
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The teacher mindset will determine the working methodology within the classroom. One teacher’s misconception is another’s failure and this decision is likely to impact on the subsequent learning journey of the child. If the teacher is not in tune with the child’s thinking, assumptions can cloud judgement and feedback can be given that is unhelpful or, in the worst cases, damaging.
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The tone of the classroom is set by the teacher language and the role model being shared. How the teacher phrases questions will determine the responses. The time given to reflection and discussion will have an impact on the depth of response. The teacher response to the reply will decide whether the child will volunteer ideas in the future.
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Where children work together, there are opportunities for substantive talk, sharing opinions, clarifying ideas, deciding a course of action, resource needs, both artefacts and skills and evaluating as the project progresses, so that the outcome can be shared with pride and be subject to scrutiny from others.
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The benefits of collaborative experience can be described within the following diagram.
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The teacher role is to think clearly about the children in their class, knowing their individual learning, social and emotional needs. They plan within a creative context for differential activity, embedding certain expectations as predicted or hoped-for outcomes. Stimuli engage the children into the context and the subsequent tasking permits the children to perceive and work within their own learning goals. The teacher or other adult seeks to engage with groups and individuals to gauge the dynamics of the progress being made, to inform feedback and subsequent learning plans. Summarised as the diagram below, the teacher’s role and the child role are complementary.
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So, would you want to be a child in your class? Consider your reasons.

What would you alter and what is stopping you from taking that action?

Is it possible that the teacher is a barrier to learning for some children in the class?

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Interpreting Principles into Practice

29/10/2014

6 Comments

 
The people who inhabit schools are significant, in that they set the tone for everything that occurs inside and, often, outside the establishment. This tone is governed by the rules that are decided by the management and the teachers. These in turn are then interpreted by individual teachers to respond to issues as they arise day to day. Interpretation will be coloured by the personal belief system of the adult, so may be seen as harsher or more lenient by others. This occurs in other walks of life too, not just education.

The continuum of views is likely to start from teacher/adult/ societal oversight and control, through explanation and discussion, to moderated self-control, which is where the majority of CYP / adults end up. The large majority learn how to behave and to take responsibility for their actions.

The notion of responsibility puts the onus on the individual to develop self-awareness. For some this will be easier than others, as their wider environment, family and friends, may well seem to allow other views to prevail.

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Using the idea of responsibility, as in the Nutshell example, coupled with the Hampshire Constabulary “Golden Rules”, enabled me to run my school in what I felt was a humane manner, for 16 years.

The Golden Rules are expressed as:-

  • think before you do

  • trust your own feelings

  • ask for help if you need to

  • make up your own mind

  • you can say NO!

In reflecting on this, I have sought to consider what makes up the centrality of the principles that govern my decision making. It’s not easy, and each time I go back to the list, I alter things slightly. But, at this moment, my list contains:-

  • Education is about people, one generation enabling the next to understand their world. Good communication makes it work better.

  • Children are children, learning about their world. They need to learn that everyone makes mistakes and (hopefully) learns from them.

  • School managements work with and through the efforts of others. Their role is to make the front-line job easier to achieve.

  • Life issues impact on everyone; be aware and on the lookout.

  • If you think it is going wrong, look at yourself first. It may not be other people’s fault.

What would be on your list? Please feel free to add comments.

6 Comments

Progress and Outcomes

27/10/2014

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If you are standing still, you are also going backwards. It takes great effort to maintain forward movement. - Reed B Markham, American Educator

Discontent is the first necessity of progress. Thomas Edison

Progress and Outcomes, teacher standard 2, is likely to be the area most concerning for a teacher, as they are judged on how well their learners do in their care.

Exploring the teacher standards as a continuum can offer the following. Let’s assume for a moment that teachers are displaying professionalism as described, run an effective classroom where children are enthused to learn, have status in the eyes of the learners and has sufficient subject knowledge. These four standards characterize the vast majority of teachers.

The more dynamic areas comprise those which are learner-based, their start points, or baselines, the teacher planning for learning over time, the teacher ability to work alongside learners and to adjust plans, even within a lesson, to developing, evident need.

Of course, quality control judgements, based on outcomes, need to decide just how good the work is and what support and advice is needed to remedy issues, or to continue the forward momentum.

Two diagrams seek to address these issues; the first looks at the teacher standards.

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The second looks at the teaching and learning process, with decision points highlighted.
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G.K Chesterton. The fatal metaphor of progress, which means leaving things behind us, has utterly obscured the real idea of growth, which means leaving things inside us.

With Progress and Outcomes being high profile, there has been much discussion through Twitter about the possibility of seeing in-lesson progression, with arguments on both sides. See several authors writing on: - http://blogsync.edutronic.net/?buffer_share=8a222&utm_source=buffer&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Buffer%253A%252BEdutronic_Net%252Bon%252Btwitter

Perhaps we have started to use the wrong word to describe what we want. What if we used growth or improvement instead of progress, as in a growing or improving ability in an area, so that our nurturing and feeding has sustained impact? Growth and improvement imply development. Progress on it’s own might seem to some to be an inevitable effect of their teaching.

There is a need to be able to describe progress through a subject, not as a means to determine the exact steps that will be taken, as learning in reality is slightly messy, but to enable teacher and learner to engage in dialogue which supports continued focus and effort.

While it may seem reasonable to argue that one lesson is not sufficient to see growth or progression, especially across all abilities, it can also be argued that through observation, the observer should be able to infer the likelihood of progress, from the lesson intentions, the challenge to different groups, the interactions between peers and between students and teacher, as well as looking at the developing outcomes.

Expectation mind-set supports the mental rehearsal of a lesson, where a teacher anticipates the points in the lesson where learners could exhibit misunderstanding or simply encounter a block. This allows preparations which ensure that issues are addressed appropriately and in a timely way.

http://chrischiversthinks.weebly.com/blog-thinking-aloud/expecting-something

The teacher/expectation mind-set:- analyse-plan-do-review-record

  • expects something specific to change as a result of the carefully matched learning opportunities being offered, (analysis)

  • supports the teacher in looking at the resulting activities and discerning the nuances of behaviour that suggest ease or difficulty being encountered. (planning)

  • drives conversations seeking to unpick areas of concern or to understand the fact that they’ve taken five minutes to complete a task you’d planned for twenty-five. (doing)

  • creates the start point from which adjustments to the expectations are made, (review and adapt)

  • ensures that the learner(s) make(s) progress and provides food for thought at the end of the lesson about next steps. (record keeping)

    There cannot be many lessons where some progress is not anticipated and planned for. However, unpicking contributory factors to progress is essential.

    Are lesson expectations clearly expressed, or are they sufficiently unchallenging as to allow all to make minimal progress, or some to make none? There is an interplay between the lesson activity success criteria and individual development statements, with the latter overlaying the former, adding value to reflective developmental discussions.

    Put even more simply, do the children know what they are seeking to improve, in sufficient detail that it has regular and sustained impact and, perhaps more importantly, do they have the capacity to do this alone or do they need support and guidance?

    In order to make specific changes in learning, the differential challenge embedded within a task will be a significant determining factor, even within so-called carousel activities, while the ability, engagement and resilience of the learners in the task will determine the ultimate outcome of the activity.

    Teacher and TA intervention and support need to be monitored to provide a true picture of the learner’s independent ability.

    Of course, many experienced (especially secondary) teachers will, intuitively, as a result of their teaching experience, be practised in how their subject develops across the age groups that they teach.

    The situation is different for less experienced or new teachers.

    During the year, the ITT students from Winchester University visit their school experience schools, getting to know the staff, the children and the realities of becoming a teacher. It’s a complex mix of personal, professional and practical knowledge and skills. They have had their preparatory lectures, as do all ITT students, covering the range of needs. Whether this is sufficient for each and every student is likely to be seen during the practice, with development needs identified by their teacher mentors, supported by the mentor, colleagues and the Link Tutor.

    Introductory conversations are inevitably illuminating, with simple questions often being the ones that throw the student into a slight panic.

    A recent question asked during visits was what a level x piece of writing might look like, dependent on the key stage and year group. (Many Hampshire schools are still holding to levels this year)

    Most students were unable to offer insights into what they might be looking for as an acceptable outcome and, as a result, were unable to suggest what they’d be looking to offer as next step challenges. These responses made me reflect on the place of progress and outcomes in the holistic aspects of teaching and learning, particularly for ITT students starting out and early career teachers. If they don’t really know what to look for when they are looking at work outcomes, they are not in a position to support development.

    It is, to me an argument for school and national exemplar portfolios across all subjects, as reference material.

    The end of the week (23rd October) also saw the publication of the Government end of key stage proposals for the 2016 tests. https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/performance-descriptors-key-stages-1-and-2

    The Government discussion paper looks at the testing criteria for KS1 and 2, with some suggestion of expectation, articulated through the notion of a “national standard”. Early reading of the document suggests that there will be a form of levelled judgement against a nomenclature as follows:-

    Mastery standard • National standard • Working towards national standard • Below national standard

    At this stage there is no suggestion as to where the notional “national standard” will be determined. Linked to the earlier (David Laws) statement of 85% being “secondary ready”, it is possible to consider that the 85th centile would be the bottom line of the national standard, but, the inclusion of two grades below this can also suggest that the national standard might be higher, perhaps at 50th centile, with 35% “working towards” and 15% below. 

    The 15th centile and below are inevitably going to be comprised mainly of the SEND children, with a proportion of EAL children new to the country, whose ability to take the test will be compromised by limited language. So SEND and some EAL children will be told that they “do not meet the national standard”, as if they are being graded like eggs on a conveyor. Apart from telling them that they have failed, they have not met the standard, so they are sub-standard. “Working towards” also equates to sub-standard.

    Has there been, in recent times, a more degrading vocabulary choice to describe children who find learning more difficult?

    But I digress, if only for a short while.

    C.S.Lewis We all want progress, but if you're on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive.

    Progress in a subject is likely to be somewhat linear, if only because learning opportunities, as determined by the teacher are created into a timeline, of knowledge transmission and activities and challenges, to seek to embed concepts and facts into a child’s psyche. However, acquisition of knowledge generally, is not linear. Life offers opportunities in a haphazard way. Walk down a street and information is available to you, if you look and take notice. Each learner is a product of their home and school experiences, with each one unique in retention, ordering and the ability to recall information at speed and with a fluency that enables rapid working. The chances are that in any situation where work is produced, the top child will always be top and the bottom will remain firmly stuck. There may be a little shuffling up and down in the middle, but this may, in reality, be insignificant.

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Progress is linked with capability, the development of a toolkit of learning skills, in different subjects, with capability being judged in a hierarchy, qualitatively as well as quantitatively, dependent on the nature of the activity.

At its simplest, judgement seeks to articulate the value or quality of the outcome. Where there is an arbitrary line, that says “beyond this is good”, clear articulation of the qualities expected at the outset of the task, with modelling and exemplars, is likely to give the learners insights into expectations. These are often stated as success criteria (SC), steps to success, or what I’m looking for (WILF).

Assessment language talks of baselines. In plain English, this asks where the children are now. The “now” describes current capability; they know a discrete set of things, skills or knowledge. If these become non-negotiable in lessons, it is the adding of further capabilities or skills within the knowledge context which can be described as progress, improvement or growth.

Any planning for learning needs to acknowledge this expected progress, at group level, but also with the potential to be very specific to individuals or small groups who fall outside the general remit for their work group.

If these expectations are articulated as progress ladders, attached to their workbooks in a way that allows them to be opened out during working sessions, they do not need to be carried in memory. With large class sizes, teachers cannot be expected to memorize every target for every child in every subject.

In summary

  • The two essentially practical teaching standards are (6) assessment and (5) adapting learning. If these are interpreted as “thinking on your feet” and “engaging and making adjustments to expectation and tasking”, they become active constituents of lessons, rather than being seen as something that is done after the lesson, as marking and feedback, although that contributes further to development and future progress.

  • Learners and their teachers need mental maps of progress, supported by overt descriptors as reminders. Evidence of achievement can be noted and celebrated at the moment, but also as a collation of evidence at summative points, perhaps as formal reports.

  • Progress is a fluid concept. Outcomes are reflection points, which determine the next appropriate steps.

  • Assessment judgements which imply “not at standard” will not support vulnerable learners.

Robert Kennedy. Progress is a nice word. But change is its motivator. And change has its enemies.
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Revisiting; If Level-ness became Year-ness?

26/10/2014

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Magic Roundabout

There are more questions than answers, pictures in my mind that will not show;
There are more questions than answers, and the more I find out the less I know;
Yeah, the more I find out the less I know………….



Rereading the NAHT review of assessment, from February of 2014, http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/news-and-media/press-room/profession-takes-lead-on-assessment-after-the-end-of-levels/ the principles stated a general acceptance that levels have gone, but that any replacement was likely to have similarities, at least until GCSE grades took over at some stage during Secondary education. Some Secondaries have actively looked at a five year grading system, based on the capabilities required to gain 5 A*-C grades.

Key recommendations announced by Lord Sutherland (NAHT) included:

  • Schools should adopt a consistent approach to assessment across the country. The commission also produced a ‘design checklist’ to underpin this;
  • Schools should retain the use of levels while designing a new system;
  • Pupils should be judged against objective criteria rather than ranked against each other;
  • All assessments need external moderation and that this moderation needs real teeth;
  • Assessment should be driven from the curriculum. 
Warwick Mansell’s review on 14.2.14,http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/news-and-media/blogs/warwick-mansell/naht-assessment-report-where-do-we-go-from-here/  included the following statement:-

  • Perhaps most significantly, in practical terms, the document includes an attempt by the NAHT to start the work of providing the outline of a model assessment policy for schools to use.
  • It mentions the need to translate the new “national” (note 3) curriculum into detailed assessment criteria, against which children’s progress can be judged. The NAHT, says the document, is now commissioning its own model version setting out the detail.
  • The paper then suggests that schools replace the levels system with a structure setting out what pupils should normally be expected to know by the end of each school year.
  • Pupils might be formally assessed every term, with judgements then made as to whether they are “developing”, “meeting” or “exceeding” each relevant end-of-year criterion. Those adjudged to be “exceeding” expectations would then also be judged against the criteria for the next year.

With the publication of the Government's "Performance descriptors for use in key stage 1 and 2 statutory teacher assessment for 2015 / 2016" on 23rd October 2014, I was drawn to what I wrote back in February, reflecting on the impact of assessment language on children's motivation, especially with the notion embedded in the new document of a "national standard". I am reflecting more on this, in a different post, on progress and outcomes as the  implications are potentially huge.

What if, as is stated quite strongly, instead of levels of progress, the new assessment tool judges learners against their capacity within a peer group, especially in Primary, where the curriculum is collated as either single, or two year blocks of study, using the “developing, meeting or exceeding” tags above, or the mastery, at national standard, working towards national standard or not at national standard, of the proposed assessment descriptors?

  • What’s the implication of still “developing”/ "working towards" or "not at national standard" at the end of, say, year 1? Is the child given permission to move on, as the curriculum for year 2 is very specific and this learner has not “completed satisfactorily” year 1?
  • What if you are “exceeding”, or have mastered the year group expectation and are significantly ahead, so needing the “borrow” the curriculum from the year above, if you are year two in an infant school, or year six in a junior/Primary? Will juniors or Secondaries want to “lend” their year 3/7 curricula?
How many schools will develop a numeric scheme such as much above (a*) above (a) below (b) or much below (b-), or revert to 1a,b,c,d with the 1 meaning year 1? The problem is to allocate criteria within the year statements into what superficially will be a hierarchy. Tongue, in cheek, I’d suggest “finding this easy”, “getting most of this”, “struggling”, with teacher comments ranging from “very good, good and satisfactory to see me”, because that may become a version of reality in some interpretations.

I could foresee some schools exploring the use of yearness grading to organise cross year setting, which may enthuse younger, advanced, learners, but is highly likely to demotivate older, struggling learners.

  • And there is a real question in my mind about those learners deemed not to be “year two ready”, “junior ready” or “secondary ready”, both in terms of their self-esteem at the point of decision, but also the impact on them at transition, when there are already likely to be embedded concerns.
  • Realistically too; if you are deemed to be “exceeding” the requirements for year six, why are you there, not in year seven already?
  • I am waiting for a politician to argue for keeping some children back while some move on faster, or, more simply, to have two grades of school at age 11, one for the academic half and one for the rest, or those that pass and those that fail. 
As always, some children will succeed easily, some will do largely ok and some will struggle and need additional support, guidance and adapted approaches, if they are to bridge any identified gaps.

It was the same before the National Curriculum and is the same now.

All this, it seems to me, to be in the cause of getting to the predetermined figure of 85% of children leaving Primary schools at the equivalent of level 4b (although the criteria in the new document appear to be higher than that, especially in Maths).

This begins to appear a very cumbersome means to achieve that aim and will have distracted the profession for the over two years, by the time any successor schemes are in place. With the same effort, we could have addressed any shortcomings in the existing system, creatively, instead of a mad scramble to fill the void.


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Fifty(ish) reading ideas

24/10/2014

1 Comment

 
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In looking through some papers recently, I came across a three page handout from some course in the past, which I thought might be worth sharing. I can’t attribute it, as there is no identifier. I hope the original author won’t mind me sharing the ideas with a broader audience.

Activate prior knowledge

  • Word association chain around the key word in the title or the heading or the image, perhaps with a time limit to provide extra challenge.
  • Spot the genre or text type from the title, cover, image used.
  • KWL; What do I already know about this? What do I want to know? Then after reading, what have I learned?
Prediction

  • How might the story continue? Sequence possible key events, words, phrases. What clues have led to this proposal?
  • Multiple choice endings. Give alternative scenarios, discuss and choose.
  • Use the text for cloze activities. What words could go into spaces? Discuss and choose.
Visualising

  • Learners given drawing tools and have to draw what they visualise while a story is being read to them. Share the images and reasoning how the images came to mind. Author intention?
  • Design a storyboard for a passage, key event or as a prediction.
  • Pictures of events, characters, with key associated descriptive language.
  • Freeze frame tableaux of key events- photograph.
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Summarising

  • Devise a subheading for each paragraph, to show the key message.
  • Highlight words in a passage for a specific purpose; eg adjectives/adverbs used.
  • Reduce the text to five sentences, then five words, then one word.
  • Sequence a list of points from most to least important.
  • Restructure the passage into a different form, spider diagram, bullet points, flow diagram, decision tree, labelled picture, time line.
  • Just a minute; learners have to talk on the subject for 1 minute. Rules as needed; repetition/hesitation/deviation… depends on age and ability.
  • Write five top tips/golden rules for…
  • True/false statements, based on a text. Select and justify decisions.
Questioning

  • Copy the text into the middle of an A3 sheet. Use the blank space to ask questions about the meaning, questions to the author etc
  • Hot seat the “author or a character”; probably the teacher or TA, if brave enough.
  • Give the answers, what are the questions?
Structural analysis

  • Text sequencing; reconstruct a text cut into chunks.
  • Narrative map/flow diagram of events, or ideas in the text. Order and organise.
  • Try to show changing levels of humour, tension, drama as a sort of “graph”/diagram.
  • Log the structure onto a grid; eg cause/effect, argument/counter-argument.
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Character analysis

  • Tension/emotion “graph”; horizontal axis =time/narrative events, vertical axis = tension/emotion.
  • Character on trial- summing up speech for/against or like/dislike a character.
  • Magazine profile of a character.
  • Dilemma; stop the story. List alternative courses of action, based on understanding to date. Review after reading next passage.
  • Draw character; label with key descriptive words/phrases.
  • Thought bubbles for specific characters at specific points in the story.
  • Retell a scene from the point of view of an alternative observer.
  • Character rank; most important to least important, powerful/least powerful, kindest/meanest.
  • Relationship mapping in some diagrammatic form; arrow graphs, logic grid- characters along top and side of grid, then discuss relationships in interlocking boxes.
  • Roles in a story. For specific characters, describe their relationships with others, friend, son, villain and how they affected the story.
Thematic analysis

  • Interview the author for a TV/radio show; link to film and audio recording.
  • Illustrate the main themes, with associated quotations.
  • I’m going on a “quote hunt”.
  • Select key quotes and how they impacted on the storyline.
  • Top theme; discuss the most important theme and the reasoning for selection.
  • Write a book blurb.
  • Write a postcard/letter to the author. If they are still alive, send. If not the teacher becomes the author and responds in kind.
  • Explore a moral or key message from the text.
Texts and personal experience.

  • Learner personal vocabulary notebooks. Keeping words, phrases from texts.
  • Word club; run like a book club, sharing and discussing new words.
  • Highlighters; Key language features; adjectives in a persuasive leaflet, emotive language in a charity appeal, imperatives in a recipe.
  • Rewrite a text into a different format; eg persuasive to informative.
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Hopeful journeying

24/10/2014

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Learning journeys; unpicking my own thinking

To me as a teacher, the best thing that could happen was a child coming back to school the following morning saying something like “After that lesson yesterday, I went home and…” This might be accompanied by a page of notes, a drawing, a model or some other offering. I meant that learning was a continuous thread, not just what happened in the classroom.

If there’s one thing certain in life, each of us, given the opportunity, gets older, hopefully a little wiser as a result of reflection on the wealth of experiences that pass us by each and every day. I know I am nothing like the person I was, as life has taught me significant lessons. In fact, as I’ve now spent far more of my life as an adult than as a child in school, I’d have to look back and think that school learning provide some of the early entry into the broader needs of work and home life. School learning on it’s own would not have been enough.

I’d like to share a diagram that arose out of a school visit, where the quality of discussion was very high and I was looking for a way to capture the holistic approach that I had seen. I allowed me to elaborate my thinking to encompass some broader themes, which enabled a rich discussion of aspects which were less clear. I’d argue that for me, to capture an idea in such form supports my broader thinking, where a written narrative might not.

The diagram is a composite which seeks to articulate some aspects of a child growing up, through a variety of experiences, home, school and outside, each of which contributes to the maturing learner, ultimately leading to their preparation for life beyond the education establishment.


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A child enters school having already accumulated a number of experiences, which have led to a developing vocabulary and a range of developing concepts, some of which will have been learned through direct instruction, some by copying, some self-initiated, learning through a variety of play experiences, which may have included a guiding adult, to prompt thinking.

They all start school at different stages, which can be compounded by other factors, such as physical disabilities, English as an Additional Language, undiagnosed learning or social and emotional issues. Their home environments will be different, ensuring that their readiness to learn will be variable. Early Years Foundation Stage teachers, and nursery teachers before them, if the child attends one, will work hard to try to understand where each child’s strengths and areas for improvement lie. Many pre-school and EYFS settings undertake home visits to see the child in their environment, as well as to meet with parents in a place where they are comfortable. They may be young, but these children have started learning, have a long way to go and need to be encouraged to become learners within a more formal setting.

From this early stage, the child becomes better known as a learner, with formalised tracking of progress and development allowing greater information to be passed from professional to professional.

A rich school environment will provide stimuli that engage the learner in new ideas, building on their prior understanding, or offering challenge to already held notions. As the learner progresses through the system, new strengths and areas for improvement may become apparent. They will not all progress at the same rate and achieve the same outcomes, without significant support and guidance for some at different times. Even then, it is not possible to ensure that all will retain that which has been taught, unchanged, or as intended.

Home, as a variable, will continue to offer different support to their offspring, dependent on finance, housing and available quality time. For some, their own educational experience may be a barrier, either in school relationships, or in their ability to work alongside their child.

The locality may also play a part in the child’s development, depending on it’s richness or poverty of freely available, accessible, cultural elements, such as a library or museum. Inner London children, despite possible low income households, and very high rental costs, might still be able to access the very best of art and culture, free, as long as they are prepared to travel, whereas children in rural area might have to make a long journey to access anything similar, at significant cost. Therefore, the backdrop to a childhood is likely to be a significant variable. This can be compounded by the home access to ICT and broadband access.

It’s probably a simple truism then that a child growing up in a poorer household is likely to be significantly disadvantaged compared to better off peers, but should not become an excuse for lower expectations from teachers.

The dynamics of the school experience are a significant factor in a child’s life, offering, as they do, the opportunities to make sense of the wold around them and to build the essential knowledge and skills bank necessary for them to engage at their own level with experiences as they impact on them, directly through presence at an experience, or second hand through images and the words of a teacher or other adult.

The early experiences are likely to develop their sensory awareness, looking, listening, touching, smelling and tasting, where appropriate. These are developed through interpersonal dialogue, sharing thinking enabling further questions to be asked or their own descriptors becoming the basis for adult scaffolded questions designed to broaden and deepen their understanding.

Learning deepens and becomes more complex with age, becoming more abstract as the child can retain information and manipulate it without the aid of memory joggers, such as concrete apparatus and diagrams. This is based on the earlier ability to sort, organise, classify, seek patterns and essentially hold a clear image when something is discussed.

The next phase is taking information and testing it, modelling, explaining, checking, clarifying, questioning, predicting, speculating, retesting, refining, exploring and experimenting. These are followed by comparison and evaluation, reappraisal and generalisation.

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This diagram seeks to flesh out the idea that a child is an active partner trying to make sense of the world around them. Their experiences, for many years, will be adult controlled, either through home excursions and possible limitations on freedoms, or through school experiences, which are topic, modular experiences across the range of subjects. These are timetabled to suit the teachers and the available resources in the school. So learning opportunities are presented to children, via a range of media, harnessing the available ICT resources, enabling the beaming into a classroom of images from around the world, across the full range of learning needs. In the best cases, these second hand experiences can give a good approximation of the reality which can be seen in the best museums, galleries, zoos etc.

As with the previous diagram, someone will dislike some element of this one… someone dislikes Piaget, another dislikes Gardner, a third finds Vygotsky’s ZPD baffling. Each of these was seeking to explore and explain their current thoughts about learning. Every teacher is probably baffled by the process, some seek to argue that you can’t see it happening at all. In that case, we have to give it our best shot, offer the broadest range of opportunities within which to learn, then check whether the learners have picked up what we needed them to do. Teachers have to travel hopefully and reflectively, broadening their experience with every encounter.

I’d like to think that school experiences, combined with life experiences, offer the developing learner the opportunity to look, to listen, to touch, to count and measure, to work with others and on their own as reflective individuals. I’d also hope that they have experiences that enable them to experience the joy of sound and music, as well as encountering wow moments, where they can feel awe and wonder.

School experience can sometimes be a limiting facto for some, depending on the teacher approach to providing challenge, but this can be enhanced by incorporation of external experience, enabling further depth and breadth to the experience. Extra-curricular opportunities, experienced and synthesised back to peers, shared as report talks, with accompanying images, provide others with insights into possibility.

Some learners require additional support to learn alongside their peers, in the form of intervention activities. The best of these enable sufficient progress so that the learner’s time away from peers is limited and re-entry is easy. Intervention should be a minor detour, rather than a major road block.

Homework is often the bete noir of the teacher and the learner. Where homework is designed to clearly enhance classroom, it has purpose, might encourage engagement and on return to the class, might enable the child to contribute additional information to support peers in their learning. More often, it can be an activity plucked out of the internet, to satisfy the need to set homework.

When at teacher training college, the lecturer set us a homework for the holidays. We had to spend time looking around us at the natural world and write down in a notebook questions that arose. I can remember watching a bird in flight and noting a question about it’s curved flight pattern. That wasn’t the only one… I did my homework!

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To me, the best educators encourage their students to look around them wonderingly,

actively collecting images and experiences, from a wide range of sources, first, second, third hand,

always checking or questioning the validity of the evidence,

playing with thoughts and information,

sharing their developing ideas, with peers and adults,

allowing others to ask questions, clarifying and refining,

exploring, testing out their thinking regularly,

always prepared to accept error and the need to rethink,

In so doing, making their way as learners in a world where there is just so much to learn.

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Principled education?

22/10/2014

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Hackney to Hampshire
I spoke for the first time at #FCTeachmeet (Fareham College, Hampshire) on the subject of what a county like Hampshire could learn from schools of all kinds within London, who deal with significantly greater levels of deprivation and additional individual need, yet manage to get their children to achieve at the highest level.

I was asked if what I had seen was underpinned by values education principles and the simple answer is yes.

Schools talk of ethos, principles and values, but, in practice, they meld into an amorphous mass, with the over-riding effect that "Every person matters", evident through relationships, accessibility and communication, in all forms. Schools make it easy for parents to make and keep in contact. In so doing, they reduce "stewing time", where a parent waits for a return call, or for a busy member of staff to phone.

In essence, it is a case of "Done with and through", rather than "Done to".

My slides for the Teachmeet will support further commentary. There are a number of significant visible methodologies evident across the broad range of schools.

 
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Teachers and everyone else in schools are exceptionally busy, not only as a result of their day to day activities in classrooms and beyond, but also considering the impact of system-wide change. It is not surprising if, in the absence of internal systems that enable easy access, that a hard-pressed teacher might overlook the need to ring "x's" mum urgently, and in so doing causing harm to their relationship.


However, if you look at those schools in London who achieve and are enabling schools more broadly, they show the following: -


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The self-help culture is an interesting phenomenon, as it results, in some cases, from necessity. Where a Local Authority is unable to offer expertise in an area, individual schools, federations and clusters are getting together to come up with solutions. Solution-finding creates group strength and a growth in confidence.

It is worth considering whether a strong authority creates more of a dependency culture. One phone call solves all problems, so disabling local decision making. This is not a call for academisation, more wondering if authority feeds on itself and its status, so relies on keeping others in their place.

The rich curriculum is created and available to every child, not just the Gifted and Talented, so it creates significant opportunities for learners to explore together, to share oral language and to bring back to the classroom the same experience to explore further with appropriate guidance and support. 
Many of the schools took advantage of the cultural wealth of the capital city, ensuring easy to reach venues were used extensively and harnessing the availability of additional adults through the local enterprise schemes. Some staff came in to read with children, during lunchtimes, while one used city business men to mentor older students into clear thinking about the world of work. 

 
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In each and every school, communication systems were exemplary, commented upon by parents, community members, Governors and external staff experts. Engaging with the local communities was a priority, with strong links in both directions. The communities saw the schools as a heart, a meeting place for many different groups.

Articulation of, often complex systems, was clear, with interpretation available as necessary. The schools went "above and beyond" in the words of parents, what they had been expecting. Parent support for the schools and for learning was a strong feature.

and, interestingly, every member of the school community saw themselves as the "eyes and ears" of the schools. They valued what they had and wanted it to be unviolated.
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Most importantly, they knew every child really well. They all had a "no excuses" culture, and, in the words of one head, they explored need "forensically". In that way, decisions were based on the best available information, so had impact, with "follow through", as actions were tracked through to the next decision point. Everyone was clear in their roles, carried out tasks diligently and were held to account on a regular basis. The accountability systems were strong at all levels.

The third slide articulates the process that these schools adopt. It is akin to the first slide, but articulates the actions taken.

It could all be summarised in the words of a song; Do what you do do well 

and as a result; don't they do well?
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Seeking to put all this "In a nutshell", it can be articulated as: -

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They are, in effect, doing the job at a high level, as articulated in the Teaching Standards 2012, with assessment and adaptive teaching being a hallmark of practice.
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What do I know? #wdik

21/10/2014

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The idea for this post came from a possible overuse of Twitter.

In the early days, I hadn’t got used to utilising the hash tag, as I found it was known, but thought it could be a useful tool in developing a rounded concept of current school experience. Every person seeks to make sense of the world in which we are living, teachers have to do that and interpret the world so that learners can begin the process of looking, exploring and learning themselves.

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So this post is a mish-mash of ideas connected by the #. It will grow over time. A forty year career might take time to unpick, but I have my journals. Please add to the post (using 140 characters) via the response box below.

What do I know, Teaching and Learning #WDIKT&L

#WDIKT&L Every child has always and will always matter.

#WDIKT&L Talk is an essential constituent of learning.

#WDIKT&L Most education reviews hold nuggets of insight for T&L improvement. Often rubbished by politicians, who want simple soundbites.

#WDIKT&L Piaget wasn’t all wrong. Children learn in different ways and at different speeds.

#WDIKT&L Piaget wasn’t all wrong. Some learners need objects to manipulate to support their learning.

#WDIKT&L Bruner proposed the idea that language supports thinking.  Broad language=broader/deeper thinking.

#WDIKT&L Dewey visualised visualisation as a learning tool. Can you see what it is yet?

#WDIKT&L Vygotsky suggested that an engaged “significant other” can support a learner’s development.

#WDIKT&L Gardner proposed different preferences for learning styles, to show difference, not to have seven different approaches in the same lesson.

#WDIKT&L Happiness does matter in learning. See Andrew Curran

#WDIKT&L Most teachers will adopt a variation on Analyse-Plan-Do-Review-Record as the basis for their classroom practice.

#WDIKT&L Analyse- Background thinking about all the children and their needs, subject needs, SWOT, SMART targets, time available, resources.

#WDIKT&L Planning over different timescales allows freedom in a lesson as “coverage” is covered. Plan for the whole journey and then concentrate on each step.

#WDIKT&L Differential planning is not a perfect art. It is a hypothesis with which the teacher must engage. Non-engagement=reduced progress.

#WDIKT&L Differentiation by outcome, once done, is a reductive approach. “Pigs don’t get heavier by weighing them.”

#WDIKT&L Summative assessment is the start point for progress. Formative assessment is the thinking teacher’s strongest approach. WILF lives!

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#WDIKT&L Teacher expectation of progress is embedded in learner targets.

#WDIKT&L Didactic, presentational approaches to T&L are totally in the control of the teacher’s knowledge and storytelling abilities.

#WDIKT&L Teaching is the art of engaging a group of learners. The needs of teacher and learners may at times be different.

#WDIKT&L Poor teaching characterised by low engagement of learners, possibly narrow focus of teacher.

#WDIKT&L Learning is not a linear process, especially with young children, and at times can get messy.

#WDIKT&L Learning levels=capability=can do measures=targets for future progress.

#WDIKT&L Can do is a stronger driver than can’t do. Can’t do… yet can help progress if support need discussed.

#WDIKT&L Barriers to learning can include low expectation.

#WDIKT&L Barriers to learning can include poor learning support.

#WDIKT&L Barriers to learning can be due to lack of assumed background experience.

#WDIKT&L Barriers to learning can be due to limited vocabulary.

#WDIKT&L Barriers to learning can include lack of time in a lesson, especially for slower learners.

#WDIKT&L Barriers to learning can occur when a child finishes a task earlier than expected then has to “mark time” until the others finish.

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#WDIKT&L Reading is not just phonics. Useful tool within a broader toolkit.

#WDIKT&L Reading is like riding a bike. Eventually you have to do it for yourself and sometimes you fall off. (Learning and bike riding are often messy)

#WDIKT&L Reading at home should be with a book that can be read with ease and pleasure. (See bike riding)

#WDIKteachingstandards Good teachers create high quality environments that enthuse chn to learn and celebrate achievement

#WDIKteachingstandards Planning will show creativity in T&L. Effective overview plans allow engagement with learning, differentiated.

#WDIKteachingstandards Teachers will evaluate outcomes, form ongoing judgements and adapt plans accordingly.

#WDIKteachingstandards Good teachers are self-developers, excited by ideas.

#WDIKteachingstandards All children will make progress, from clear effective plans.

#WDIKteachingstandards High teacher engagement and formative assessment evident, always aiming for good or very god progress.

#WDIKteachingstandards Wide teacher toolkit (pedagogy) from which to select appropriate approaches.

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#WDIKteachingstandards Good teachers are responsible, reflective, effective communicators, make professional relationships and contribute to school.

#WDIKteachingstandards Good teachers effectively adapt lessons to suit the identified needs of children.

#WDIKteachingstandards  Good teachers differentiate effectively, organising resources including TAs to support all learners.

#WDIKteachingstandards Reflective practitioners effectively evaluate the impact of lessons and adapt plans accordingly.

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Curricular reminiscences 

21/10/2014

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I have to start the process of sorting out a box of journals covering my 16 years of headship. They will make for interesting reading, well, reminiscences at any rate.

I came across a diagram from much earlier, during my time as coordinator for environmental studies, a great title covering all the topic based areas of the curriculum, pre National Curriculum. It gave scope to consider the needs of the curriculum from the point of view of the child, seeking topics which would be both within the child’s ability to comprehend, but also to present opportunities which would allow exploration at the child’s level.

Put simply, classroom learning is children, context, engagement, guidance and adaptation, evaluation of outcomes. The whole captured within communication.

Remembering always the maxim that education( life) is a journey not a destination. (Ralph Waldo Emerson, an American essayist, poet, and leader of the Transcendentalist movement in the early nineteenth century.)

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Curricula are usually written by experts, from the expert perspective, ensuring that information is delivered, whether or not it is appropriate for the learner’s current needs.  As teachers, unconstrained by predetermined curricular expectations, we were able to assume the mantle of experts, reflecting on what the four year olds brought with them in the way of life experiences which would be the start points for school based experiences and exploration.

So history started as My story, based on storyboards created with a series of photos, then developed into His or Her story, with reference to parents and grandparents. Local walks to look at houses of interest started a link between History and Geography, with sketch mapping, drawing in situ or photos being taken (development time, much easier now?). Parents and grandparents came to tell their own stories, recorded onto c45, 60 or 90 tapes to be replayed and reflected upon. For homework, children were asked to telephone grandparents to ask a series of questions. Timelines were created throughout, so historical perspectives were constantly being revisited, as knowledge was added. And we got back to the Victorians with photograph based family trees, together with the accompanying narrative.

Building materials became the stuff of science, complemented by Lego or other construction material, as well as clay models of houses, made out of very small bricks, fired in the kiln. Trials with garden clay compared to the bought variety. One child brought in a tile found in their garden, which we took to the local museum to be told it was Roman. Visiting the local church we discovered even more tiles, being used as wall bricks and on the way back a local aunt offered the chance to have a look inside a house originally dating to 1580. I know, risk assessments, CRB etc. The Tudor context allowed exploration of timber as a building material. One idea often led to another, with settlements, including the Anglo-Saxon beginnings of the village being explored, with the support of the local history society.

In reality, what is a curriculum? It is a series of related contexts within which learners will enhance their understanding of the world in which they live, allowing opportunities for language acquisition, broadening communication, real contexts for writing and other recording.  The mathematics of measures and data creation supported the core learning at every age. So the basics were the backbone of topic work. The contexts provided the creative structures into which the relevant subjects could be fitted. Asking questions and seeking answers were the basis for both library research and experiential science activity, which might be based on the notion of finding out interesting ideas to share with the rest. Every subject had value for what it brought to the child as thinking and learning opportunities. The art table was a permanent fixture within the classroom, with half a dozen children regularly interpreting information in picture form.

Those were the days.

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Topic; the long view

21/10/2014

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Thanks to Tim Taylor, @imagineinquiry, I agreed to look back over my career at what has at various times been called topic work, or thematic study or cross curricular learning. In many ways, the title doesn’t matter, as the principle is that some aspects of learning are worked together to make a coherent whole. To comment, please visit the IQM blog.

Put simply, classroom learning is children, context, engagement, guidance and adaptation, evaluation of outcomes. The whole captured within communication.

Remembering always the maxim that education( life) is a journey not a destination. (Ralph Waldo Emerson, an American essayist, poet, and leader of the Transcendentalist movement in the early nineteenth century.)

To me, education is the making sense of experience, captured in this diagram, from which I will no doubt be accused of being “Dewey-eyed”. Planning for learning is the bread and butter of teaching, more fully explored here.

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It has been a long time, but the essence of teaching and learning is very much like it always has been. There is an imperative to ensure coverage of the curriculum, in a way that allows all children to access ideas and to make progress across the year. Knowing the children is still central to this. To wok in any other way, ignoring the children and just concentrating on the curriculum, will inevitably lead to learning casualties.

We need to enthuse our learners to be significantly interested in the world around them, to engage using all their senses, utilising any prior knowledge to seek to further develop their understanding. Subjects are the means by which we explore the world, to define and refine our thinking. Because we examine them, they can become ends in themselves, but, a child who receives an enriching curricular experience has things to think about, to talk about and to write about. They can engage with counting and measuring within these encounters, within social contexts, based around cooperation, supporting the broader PSHE expectations.

I would start by saying that bad topic work is bad teaching, just the same as any other bad teaching, but, where it is done well adds significant value to learning, by creating a deeper texture. Where it falls down, like any teaching, is when disparate activities are chunked end to end in the name of cohesion, but the connecting narrative is so weak, that no connections are made.

The world’s a big place and the classroom is a small box. The ability to bring the world to the classroom has altered out of all recognition, with the advent of significant ICT. It’s also very easy to forget the real world outside the windows, where the locality holds the secrets of history, geography and the natural sciences. All capable of being experienced, explored and explained by enthusiastic learners, coming to the experiences for the first time.

Topic approaches appeal to lateral thinking teachers, with a broad range of interests. In my experience, more linear thinkers struggle to comprehend the complexities, seek the simplicities, including much borrowing from others, and struggle to maintain learner interest. For the lateral thinker, the world’s your oyster. But, and it is a big but, your thinking has to focus on the essentials of the prescribed curriculum. Again, this causes a difficulty, in that the lateral thinker might see the prescribed as the essential core around which other interesting elements can be woven, whereas a linear thinker may concentrate on delivering the essentials.

Training to become a teacher from 1971-74 at St Luke’s College, Exeter, after a period working as a lab assistant with ICI on biological projects, I naturally started with science as my main subject, very linear in many ways, although the approach was inquiry based. The previous head of science, one Edward Turner, had returned from a sabbatical year in which he wrote a book with George Martin of Northampton College of Education entitled Environmental Studies. I managed to get hold of a copy a year ago, just as a memento. An opportunity arose at the end of my first year to transfer to the Environmental Studies group, which I took and suddenly I was immersed in a cross curricular, analytical, rigorous series of studies with the world around us as the workshop. Within this approach, some subjects were the enquiry route, while other were seen as the communication routes. The whole derived extensively from the Plowden report. (1967)

In seeking to offer insights into this approach, I’ll make reference to other posts which appear on the IQM website, which are offered there as food for thought, rather than exhortations to copy. The beauty of the topic approach is that every teacher can develop the way forward in ways that harness their own strengths and the available resources, both physical and human; these can, however, also provide the contextual limitations.

I’ve always viewed topic work as a form of project management, akin to the building of a house. This gives rise to the analyse-plan-do-review-record idea that permeates a number of other posts.

The whole has to be described so that the journey can be mapped with care, including any interesting diversions. There has to be a defined beginning and end, with a clear series of activities between that create the narrative of the story being told. Some teachers are excellent storytellers and can ramble on for ever, embellishing and developing to the point where the topic runs out of steam and leads to an anti-climax. There is also the limitation of the 39 week school year and a certain amount of information to get across.

In my early days of teaching, the curriculum map looked like this and is written about as Curriculum Reminiscences.

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As an example, history started as My story, based on storyboards created with a series of photos, then developed into His or Her story, with reference to parents and grandparents. Local walks to look at houses of interest started a link between History and Geography, with sketch mapping, drawing in situ or photos being taken (development time, much easier now?). Parents and grandparents came to tell their own stories, recorded onto c45, 60 or 90 tapes to be replayed and reflected upon. For homework, children were asked to telephone grandparents to ask a series of questions. Timelines were created throughout, so historical perspectives were constantly being revisited, as knowledge was added. And we got back to the Victorians with photograph based family trees, together with the accompanying narrative.

Within each topic area, allocated to a year group, medium term plans would be drawn up, to establish the direction of study.

On becoming a headteacher, I established the credentials of the school through topic based enquiry learning. It needed some pulling together from a much looser, and less successful, structure, at least as far as outcomes were concerned. It had been a case of nice activities, with nice outcomes, none of which was greater than level 3, even in year six. Some significant learning was being missed. In order to do this we based thinking on this model, which allowed broader consideration of teaching and learning needs than that prescribed by the National Curriculum, which had not long emerged.

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This was then interpreted into a series of “Topic Specs”, which articulated the essential aspects which had to be covered, the potential for additional study, a complete list of available resources in the school and within the surrounding area. In this way, like a set of playing cards, the topics could be done in any order and, if a teacher could see a way to weave two or more topics together within an overarching theme, that was fine. All topic specs were discussed with County specialist advisers, every two years, to establish and maintain their validity and to offer the school subject manager some personal CPD.

Each teacher, when they were allocated their classes in the summer term, were also given the pack of their subject specs for the year group, with a need to develop an annual plan as an overall statement of intent for the year. The annual plan also included the expectation that weeks one and two would be a personal topic, to allow the teacher to get to know the children well and fully establish expectations. On the second Friday, we had a closure which, after the admin, was devoted to planning the detail of the rest of the term as medium term plans and the first topic in detail, based on knowing the children, rather than as a prediction. This style of planning also allowed trips to be booked and put in diaries, never as an afterthought.

With apologies for the poor printing, an example annual plan is shown below. It should be clear that there were lead subjects to ensure the curriculum coverage, with English and Maths potential within each topic fully developed. Where this was not possible, both subjects were taught as discrete elements. The same principle applied to all subjects.

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The advantages were that English was English, whether undertaken in English or within a topic area, so Speaking and Listening were developed through cooperative ad collaborative group discussion activities, writing derived from topic areas would be treated a writing and received appropriate feedback and marking. All writing was done in a writing book, and, as necessary, drafted to a point where it could be published in some way.

Equally, maths was maths. Much of the measures aspects of maths can be accommodated within cross curricular themes. Number and data can derive from many also. But, the teachers were always cogniscent of the need to ensure a narrative in maths, so some aspects would be discrete, usually taught ahead of the need to use and apply the skill.

When I stopped as head, our English, maths and science SATs regularly were above 85%, not 100%, but the feedback from our secondary colleagues was that our children were enthused to learn, and went on to success in that phase. I have since met quite a number of parents who have told me that their children went on to get firsts at degree level, so the foundations must have been laid. Not bad from an “off Leigh Park” school, 60% of intake. (Leigh Park was described as the largest council housing estate in Europe) One feature of this approach was the number of children who went home and found things out for themselves to bring in and share. Home activity was guided rather than set as must do activities. It was more a case of, “Go home and see if you can find out…” with all contributions valued as discussion aids.

My contention is, in all planning, that a long term overview supports the medium term, which in term support the short term. Keeping an eye on time meant that topics had a defined end time, with a certain amount to be covered within that time.

I’m working with an infant school, looking at planning and have developed this diagram to support the phases of thinking. It seeks to encapsulate all the above, as well as ways in which a range of issues can be embedded.

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It has been a long time, but the essence of teaching and learning is very much like it always has been. There is an imperative to ensure coverage of the curriculum, in a way that allows all children to access ideas and to make progress across the year. Knowing the children is still central to this. To wok in any other way, ignoring the children and just concentrating on the curriculum, will inevitably lead to learning casualties.

We need to enthuse our learners to be significantly interested in the world around them, to engage using all their senses, utilising any prior knowledge to seek to further develop their understanding. Subjects are the means by which we explore the world, to define and refine our thinking. Because we examine them, they can become ends in themselves, but, a child who receives an enriching curricular experience has things to think about, to talk about and to write about. They can engage with counting and measuring within these encounters, within social contexts, based around cooperation, supporting the broader PSHE expectations.

But most of all, I’d argue that, looked at this way, it allows teachers and children to begin to break out of some of the curricular and timetabled boxes that have come to dominate.

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Asking for spellings...

20/10/2014

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The need for spelling is integral to a child learning to write. By definition, they are learners, so they will need from time to time to ask for help in solving the problem that they have identified.
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So, a child comes to the teacher and says, “Please miss, can you spell ………?” The simple answer is, “Yes, I can.” Does just giving the spelling support the child as a speller? Does directing them to a dictionary, if they cannot spell a word, provide sufficient guidance to develop the skills? I’d answer no to both of my own questions. The first option reduces the child to a copyist, while the second might succeed at the cost of much time wasted.

A simple solution to the need for spellings would be to change the dynamics. Ensure that the child is always the producer, so asks “Is this how you spell….?” having had a go at the word. This provides overt evidence of a child’s thinking about the word, especially their phonic awareness and skill. A wrong spelling therefore becomes a teaching opportunity, having identified the need. Within the context of an extended writing activity, where asking for a spelling could interfere with the flow, the use of wipe-on, wipe-off boards can allow a child to attempt a word and hold it up for teacher scrutiny. Most times the word will be correct, so only requires a smile or thumbs up. If a need for intervention, this can be simple and quickly effected, as above.

The reassurance that this approach gives to a large number of writers supports positive teaching of writing. It also becomes easier for the teacher.

It’s quick and easy and, where words are asked for and maintained in an “Asking for spellings book”, they automatically become personal spelling lists to be taken home and learned, added to for those who find spellings easy.

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Rafting

20/10/2014

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A relatively simple investigation that embodies aspects of science and maths, while playing with water and can lead to reported writing supported by images through ICT. Have done variations on this from years one to six. Varied the interpretations and need to hypothesise, as well as the depth of maths involved..

Equipment- A4 squared paper, sticky tape, small masses. Tray of water deep enough for a raft to sink. Camera.

In a group of three, each child to make a “raft” by folding the edges of the squared paper at different heights, eg 1cm to 6cm high sides.

Use the finished rafts to work out the surface area of the bases and the volumes held by the shape. Could provide useful comparative information later, eg, is there a link between area of base and mass held

Place one raft on water. Add mass until raft sinks-record.

Repeat for two others. Identify potential patterns, then use to predict the succeeding pattern. Continue and reflect on outcomes.

Describe activity in detail, evaluate outcomes and seek to devise a summative rule for the experience. Share outcomes with others and compare findings. If whole class involved in groups of three, data can be collated to include averages, explore data at a deeper level.

History of rafts- Thor Heyerdahl,

Stories with rafts- Tom Sawyer/Huckleberry Finn

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Making engineers = DT in school

20/10/2014

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Consider the following as starting points for learning. All have been used to effect with learners.

Set up a fair test to find the best colour to wear when walking along the road.

Design and make a device that will project a ping pong ball 4 metres into a container.  

Using newspaper, build a framework strong enough to… hold a 100g mass 50cm above a table.. hold a cup of water… hold a cream egg… span a 50cm gap between tables and hold 100/200/500g

Consider how to find out of a full balloon weighs more than an empty one.

How much stretch does an elastic band have?

Using squared paper, always the same size, fold a series of rafts with different area bases and different height sides. Which design holds the greater mass?

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We are being pushed more and more to consider that English and Maths are central features of the English school curriculum, set in stone through testing at 11 and 16, with SATs and the introduction of the EBacc into current thinking.

In an earlier post, I developed the idea of a 200% curriculum; English is in every subject. I make no apology for that, as my early teaching career was influenced by the writing of Harold Rosen, whose notion that “Each school should have an organised policy for language across the curriculum, establishing every teacher’s involvement in language and reading development throughout the years of schooling.” became a central feature of “A Language for Life”, better known as the Bullock Report, published in 1975. Rosen had earlier written The Language of Primary School Children (1973).

However, a flight of fancy took me to the notion of putting other subjects at the core. The articulation of the need for technologists and engineers within the economy, pointed me towards Design Technology (DT). According to Wikipedia, Design Technology is “ the study, design, development, application, implementation, support and management of computer and non-computer based technologies for the express purpose of communicating, using various mediums, product design intent and constructability as well as to facilitate product operation and maintenance and to ultimately improve overall product design realization, construction, operation and maintenance.” Therefore it is the science of making detailed things, with a purpose, a very human activity, that distinguishes us from other primates. DT is a relatively new subject, in that it has been aided by the development of ICT, so the recent histories are linked.

Consider the following; design and make a paper aeroplane that will fly at least five metres. This is a very simple example which could be given to a child of 6/7 years. Where would the child start? Paper is the specified medium, so perhaps collecting a selection of papers would help. Exploring the papers to discover and describe (orally or in writing) the features of each would provide familiarity with the material. The need to create an aeroplane shape would require research, orally, by asking an “expert”, using library sources, or looking this up on the internet. Copying a previously made example provides the task to be practiced. To achieve the flight of five metres might require trial and error methodology, with adaptations and adjustments explored. Watching and collaborating with others, discussing refinements and persevering are all essential skills for life and work.

DT can support other subjects very easily. English is enhanced through discussion, recording, research and a final report. The mathematics of measurement is supported throughout and can be adjusted within the activity. Equally, if a number of planes are made and tested, the activity can create data activities. The history of flight and the geography of airports and air travel can be explored. Dance, drama, music and art can derive stimulus from flight. Problem solving, project management, collaboration and cooperation, persistence, evaluation are all side products. Working in this way can also support PSHE, as learners begin to see strengths in each other.

An example from my teaching career springs to mind. The topic for a period of time was sports. During one week, I decided to use the long, wide corridor near my classroom to set a challenge. On day one, the group of eight seven year olds whom I thought had the greatest independence were challenged to create (design and make) a crazy golf hole, using materials available within the classroom. They had the morning as their working time. In the first fifteen minutes, they collected a range of items which might be useful. This was followed with a group discussion around a large piece of sugar paper, with ideas drawn and discussed The build process started from the agreed plan, but soon adjustments were made, deigned to be improvements. After an hour, they had their golf hole. A period of measuring and drawing secured the design for posterity and allowed later consideration of scale, as drawings were tidied onto squared paper. Photographs were taken for reference. The main task was the use of the hole to see how many shots and how long it took for different class members to complete. This tally and timing data was later collated into charts. The group explained before starting what needed to happen to each class member, so everything was “fair”. Before lunchtime, the group sat together to reflect on what had been achieved, both in terms of measureable outcomes, but also in terms of their personal development. The maturity levels of all were enhanced, as they saw the purposes of the different aspects of learning and set the tone for subsequent groups to follow. Follow up included instruction writing, developed into reports, scale drawings for the more able, but sketch maps with measurements for all. The quality of discussion was very high, as children had had a shared experience.

Problem solving defines the purpose for learning. The clarity with which the learner can define for themselves the point of learning provides the driving force for achievement. How much learning is lost because the learner can’t see the point?

Consider WIIFM = What’s In It For Me? Would it be better to replace WALT (We are learning to) or LO (Learning Objectives) with WIIFM, so that learners are placed at the heart of their learning?

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the middle Muddle

20/10/2014

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 The announcement by the SoS for Education that levels would no longer be a constituent part of Primary school life led to broad acclamation from some quarters. However, the rider to the announcement, that you do have to have an alternative system, means that schools cannot just jettison the system overnight, but might wish to reflect on what might be a better alternative. So assessment has not disappeared from school life. If schools are to begin looking at a replacement for levels, whatever they choose will need to be capable of supporting individual progress, the basis of feedback to children, orally or in writing after completion of a piece of work.

In other posts there is articulation of teacher expectation as a driver for learning progress, as well as of differentiation forms. Both are argued in terms of personalised target setting, especially as personalisation describes aspects of Inclusive practice.

The main problem with levels, where it manifests itself in discussion, is the suggestion that they limit progress in some way and, where tasking for learning seeks to match exactly the needs of a learner, this can be the case. However, if they are seen as a baseline capability, with more open tasking, they can provide the basis for judgement through active engagement with the learning activity. Level descriptors can be seen as both capability descriptors, by achievement, and descriptors of the child’s learning journey.

The value of the SoS decision might be that schools look again at all their practices in Learning and Teaching. Other descriptors already overlay the personalisation/capability discussion; top, middle, bottom groups; HA, MA, LA; G&T, SEN. All of these, in the absence of individualised descriptors can become unspecific and unhelpful in supporting progress. Being “bottom” of the “top” group can lead to the frustration of the task being set above the ability of the most able child, or the reverse, with failure or coasting behaviours manifest.  “All must, most should and some could” success criteria, while seeking to articulate inclusive challenge, are unspecific and may not direct the challenge of specific learners.

Based on the classic bell curve of distribution, teachers sift and sort their pupils into working groups. Flippantly, this can become differentiation by the number of seats around a table, by available resources or by the wish to ensure that the class TA has a reasonable sized group. Sadly, this reasoning has, at times, been articulated to the writer.

The “muddled middle”

It is the case when meeting a class for the first time that the chatterers, the challengers, the articulate and confident manifest themselves early in the teacher mind. Those not in the able or lower ability groups can be lumped together as the middle. Whatever sifting methodology is adopted, the outcome is a label, the articulation of which might determine the progress made within a particular class.

The borderline pupils are worthy of consideration in this regard. What difference is there between the last name in the top group and the first in the next? If the answer is one mark on a test, are the learning needs sufficiently different that they cannot work together? In streams and sets this problem can be exaggerated. With ability sifting at age 11, this can be of greater concern, as it determines more overtly a child’s future.

The middle is simply a narrower ability range, with its own upper and lower ends. Those at the upper end will have similar attributes to the top, while some at the lower end will have similarities to the lower group. Some schools and some classes in some schools will not have classic bell curve cohorts e. g. the top of one class might constitute the middle in another setting, there might be an exaggerated upper group or lower “tail”.

Children with the same levelness description do not necessarily have the same abilities nor the same progress needs.

Accurate description is essential; learners can be grouped and challenged differently, but overlaying personalised expectation can redress some shortcomings of group tasking, or even of whole class activity.

What next? Reflective agenda.

In the absence of an articulated alternative, schools are likely to retain current systems, as they are a constituent part of the school vocabulary of learning description.

That creates time for reflection on alternative approaches that allow current practice to evolve .

Schools which have viewed assessment as action after learning might wish to consider the holistic aspects of Assessment for Learning, where the outcomes from one lesson inform subsequent decisions, turning AfL into descriptors of capability and expectation. Every lesson and outcome is an assessment opportunity, at a general or diagnostic level. Assessment does not need to mean a dedicated testing week.

Schools may wish to look at the impact of sub-levels and tracking through Assessing Pupil Progress (APP); whether a rigorous application of these has limited the learning of significant children. Is this system more useful as a diagnostic tool for specific individual needs?

NC level descriptors can be easily articulated as capability descriptors. This would allow schools to maintain some of their current data management practices.

Consider a differential approach to assessment, with learners taking greater charge of their learning through engagement with their individualised progress descriptors. This assumes that all learners have a personalised learning “ladder” relevant to their current ability attached to their exercise book so that it flips out and can be seen while working. If, at the end of the task, the child can look at the progress descriptor, identify a statement which is evidenced within their work and highlight this to the teacher, this can be acknowledged within marking, so creating a learning dialogue. This approach develops the child’s awareness of themselves as learners, their self-assessment skill; an improvement on traffic lights, smiley faces or thumbs up/down, which can all pay lip service to AfL.

We live in interesting times………






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Director of education or scriptwriter?

20/10/2014

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Down, down, deeper and..

It makes you think (on your feet).  Am I a script writer or a director of studies?

The latter part of my career in education has seen me spending a great deal of time in classrooms observing prospective teachers in training, against the prevailing standards, to quality assure entrants into the profession and to use the outcomes of the audit process to inform the next steps of their development. I have come to see both the simplicities and the complexities of the processes within learning and teaching and have sought to encapsulate them in short, pithy, understandable and importantly, useful feedback.

The drawback in any discussion within education is the ability of participants to visualise what the other is saying. This may be due to a lack of experience, but can sometimes indicate a possible barrier to progress. Visualisation is a significant factor in learning. Without it, it is not feasible to imagine further or possibly even to follow the detail of a conversation.

So quite often it is necessary to verbalise the journey along a continuum, which is articulated in terms of knowing the children really well (analysing), planning effectively, doing, reviewing and recording. The essential start point is the knowing children well, capabilities, attributes, inhibitors. Without this, the foundations of thinking about learning and teaching will be based on assumptions, which ultimately lead to frustration for both learner and teacher.

Part of the dilemma in these discussions is the thought processes of the students with whom I have worked. They are often young, 18-21 years old and desperately wanting to do the right thing to get the best possible grade. They are seeking to mould their own mental models, especially of “what works”. This can be a hindrance as they then codify what they are learning into a series of scripts to be repeated.

There are two main types of teacher thought, as summarised by students, those who write scripts to be followed and those who work within a framework, as a director of the learning within the classroom. The former will run the lesson to plan, with reasonable timings and utilising a variety of T&L strategies, but may further determine the process through photocopied worksheets, often aimed at the whole class. They are likely to keep to their script, whatever happens within the lesson.

The latter group will, within the outline that they have prepared, be more able to respond within the lesson parameters to issues that arise, especially from the discussions that take place. They will modify their plan according to their assessment of activities. They will have determined differential expectations of each identified group and will have some individual expectations beyond that. These expectations will be the focus for detailed discussions within the lesson. Tweaking expectations is the hallmark of good teachers, student as well as qualified.

Teaching is a thought process, ahead of and then alongside learners. “Thinking on your feet” is a great maxim for any teacher, as they engage with the detail of learning conversations, seeking to understand where their pupils are, how they are perceiving their challenges and whether they have the capacity to succeed on their own or the help that they need to be guided to succeed.

Good and better teachers are knowledgeable, enthusiastic thinkers. Their thinking is adaptable and purposeful, moderated by their perception of developing needs within their classroom.

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Learning between lessons

20/10/2014

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The spaces in between formalised learning are as important as the direct experience, in any field of endeavour. Practice makes perfect is a good way for children to remember a simple rule of life. You need to work at something to get better at it.

Jonathan Swift in the eighteenth century talked of “speculative investigators or projectors”, to describe an active involvement with an idea.

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Various activities in my life have required what some might be called practice, but which if reflected upon, suggests a more deliberate, reflective, engaged activity, more akin to rehearsal, whereas practice can simply mean repetition. Mental or physical rehearsal is an integral part of many life activities, where something has to be learned. Life itself is not in itself a rehearsal; you don’t get to practice the difficult bits.

Definition of practice

  1. the actual application or use of an idea, belief, or method, as opposed to theories relating to it: the principles and practice of teaching
  2. the customary, habitual, or expected procedure or way of doing of something: product placement is common practice in American movies
  3. repeated exercise in or performance of an activity or skill so as to acquire or maintain proficiency in it: it must have taken a lot of practice to become so fluent
Origin: Late Middle English: from practise, on the pattern of pairs such as advise, advice

Definition of rehearsal

  • The act of practicing in preparation for a public performance.
  • A session of practice for a performance, as of a play.
  • A detailed enumeration or repetition: a long rehearsal of his woes.
Origin: Middle English (in the sense ‘repeat aloud’): from Old French rehercier, perhaps from re- ‘again’ + hercer ‘to harrow’, from herse ‘harrow’

I’d link the idea of rehearsal with deliberate practice, a form of self-testing, with a personal assessment of performance, sometimes supported by a coach/observer.

As a teenager, I had a modicum of talent in sport, representing the school in several, the area at a few and county at cricket. I played for Paignton Cricket Club, was a regular attender at nets, with or without the coaches. In between sessions I would daydream about cricket, either batting, where all strokes were imagined, or bowling sometimes with accompanying actions, seeking to perfect the leg break or off cutter. All this was supplemented by wide reading around the subject.

At the same time, I was thoroughly immersed in things French, starting from lessons which allowed oral rehearsal of a wide vocabulary, supplemented with the necessary grammar. Like anything one finds pleasurable, there was a need for more, so I read and thought and rehearsed conversations in my head. Living in Paignton, selling ice creams as a summer job brought occasional French customers, to provide a small amount of practice with real people.

It took a long time to realise the dream of holidays in France. Armed with GCE French and limited confidence, I essayed conversation with friends of English friends and discovered that I could make myself understood. Between meetings, I’d rehearse possible lines of conversation; look up appropriate words, read the local papers and any free leaflets that came through the post box. The internal dialogue paid off. Fluency developed, as did confidence. Buying the house was the complete realisation of that dream.

As a teacher, I remember watching a gifted young pianist “playing the table”, rehearsing a piece through muscle memory, “hearing” the notes in his head.

Being part of an am-dram group required some hours spent reading and re-reading lines, then speaking them aloud, with a patient listener prompting when errors occurred.

Before interviews, I’d reflect on possible lines of questioning and rehearse potential answers, not to be word perfect, but to have a frame of reference which would allow for the unexpected form of a question. I got my headship because, so I was told, I could think on my feet and answer appropriately, not provide “book” answers. I even managed to argue with a Governor, which got a positive response.

There was a time when relaxation from management was provided by folk music, in the form of playing the bodhran (Irish drum) for a dance troupe and singing at Folk clubs. The former required practice, often playing along to CDs, while the latter needed the traditional singing in the shower or in the car, to be sure of words. The words can be in your head, but if they can’t come out, it somewhat spoils performance.

In school, we introduce activities such as Look and say, Cover, Write, Check as a means of learning/rehearsing spellings. The word has to be put into short term memory, retrieved without a prompt, then compared, with repetition if there is an error.

A more repetitive approach can be seen in Alpha to Omega, where there’s need to write a word many time over.

Like all things educational, the interpretation of a word can be crucial to determining whether an activity is mechanistic or challenges thinking. Practice spellings can be interpreted in many ways, as can learning tables. Rote repetition is only one way.

The retrieval and use and application of a skill, such as spellings or tables is valuable when required to solve everyday problems. In themselves they may have limited value. as a classteacher, I would model thinking through problems, then set some for the children to reflect on outside the lesson.

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Perhaps we should be sharing with children how they can be thinking about these matters between teaching sessions, so that they develop their reflective, rehearsal skills, which can only be of benefit to the classroom. We should also be discussing memory and retrieval, so that children can become more positive in what can be perceived as a passive, negative activity.

Do we want them on a treadmill or to be reflective learners?

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Projects need direction

20/10/2014

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Are we there yet, or lifelong learning?

Activity is not necessarily learning. Learning, like any project, needs purpose.

Have you any unfinished projects around the house? What got in the way? Was it a lack of time, losing interest, hitting a skill block or a lack of resources or just losing sight of why the project was really important in the first place?

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Or have you a substantial hobby, with the right kit, the right space and a very ordered approach to time that supports all levels of the activity, including the learning needed to succeed?
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Classrooms are awash with children being busy and active, but are they necessarily learning? What is the point of what they are doing? When I started teaching, aims and objectives had to be a part of the planning process, with the need to share the point of the lesson with the children at the outset. This has since morphed into Learning Objectives and Success Criteria, WALT (we are learning to) and WILF (what I am looking for) as well as other school or class personalised acronyms.

At the core of each is the purpose of the lesson. There has to be purpose or what is the point? At the lower end of purpose can be familiarisation with some new equipment, finding out some of the things that can be accomplished. This low level can be seen as play, but it is play with a purpose. The adult analogy would be buying a new piece of ICT kit and spending time linking what is already known with the capacities of the new equipment.

A discussion with an inspector in the early days of my career has resonated throughout. The essence was that play for the sake of play can be a very important part of learning, but this can often become incidental. If there is a purpose, then there can be upfront challenge, or the teacher/adult can intervene to ask questions that guide the child to think more deeply about the task that they are undertaking, scaffolded and aimed specifically at the individual needs of the child, depending on the responses.

Young children naturally play and explore, so in an early years classroom it is possible to set up activities which catch the imagination. Seeing the direction of learning, the intervention of the adult can ensure progress and deeper engagement, leading to enhanced learning. Older learners have the same capacities, but might need greater teacher input to engage with the learning. They are perhaps sufficiently experienced in self-generated activity outside the school environment that they need to be shown the value of the learning. They need, in Ian Gilbert’s words, to be able to see WIIFM (what’s in it for me?)

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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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