Chris Chivers (Thinks)

  • Home
  • Blog-Thinking Aloud
  • Contact
  • Contents
  • PDFs
  • Sing and strum

Reference Points

17/7/2017

0 Comments

 
Picture
It’s the end of term; hooray say all the tired teachers I meet and my grandchildren. The tiredness is not just from the past year, ending with the usual flurry of activity days; sports, parent evenings, discos, leaver’s assemblies, but also thoughts turning towards next year. Planning classroom or year group moves, possibly even moving schools and changing jobs altogether.

Changing class or year group can cause a few headaches, especially now, with a year-based curriculum. A move requires a complete learning of requirements of the year, in some significant detail. As for assessment systems; each school may have a variation on several themes, for the new member of staff to get to know.

Change is hard enough for experienced teachers, but will cause considerable concern for a newbie, fresh from their university experience, suddenly having to make all the decisions for themselves. Hopefully, they will be in a situation where they have an experienced mentor, with the time and professional space to really mentor and be working in a school where they have some background planning available for the newbie to consider against the specific needs of their class.

It would help transitional decisions if a piece of work from the recent few weeks was chosen by each child, as an example of their best current work that they’d like their new teacher to see, perhaps even to have in their new book as they write their first pieces in September, to be able to compare with the earlier benchmark. It tells the new teacher what “good” is for each child, to calibrate and refine their expectations for the near future.

As a HT, the last exercise book of a year transferred to the next year, together with personal targets, to provide simple continuity and progression information to the receiving colleague.

Adults need reference points against which to make decisions. Children can see from one piece of work to another whether it’s a better effort or not. We need to use the available evidence to ensure that transition (and transfer) doesn’t mean that progress stalls because the children reset the expectation through a blank page approach.
​
There is a need for some (few) to have a fresh start, but all start from a known point, or they can regress through their own (lack of) effort. Teachers need to remain in charge of the learning agenda.
0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    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.

    Archives

    March 2021
    January 2021
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    September 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014

    Categories

    All
    Assessment
    Behaviour
    Differentiation
    English
    Experience
    History
    Home Learning
    Inclusive Thinking
    Maths
    Parents
    Science
    SEND
    Sing And Strum
    Teaching And Learning

    RSS Feed

    Picture
    Click to set custom HTM L
Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.