Why some schools excel

Ofsted have just published a report that showcases twelve schools in challenging circumstances that have been rated as 'outstanding' in at least two inspections and examines the elements that have created this success.
To find out more go here.

Working with Gifted and Talented pupils

Teachers TV has a new programme that examines how one school in London supports its Gifted and Talented pupils across a range of subjects. Their strategies could be used and adapted in your own lessons. Watch the programme here.

From good to oustanding

Teachers TV have produced a series of programmes that are designed as case studies of how to improve the quality of teaching and learning. They cover a range of subject areas and Key stages. Check them out here.

e-learning

I have mentioned the work of Doug Belshaw in previous entries. A History teacher in Yorkshire, Doug has been pioneering the use of web based applications to enhance learning with his students. He was recently given responsibility for e-learning at his school and has produced a blog to highlight useful applications. Check it out here.

Learning and Thinking Skills

The Teaching Expertise website allows you to sign up to regular e-bulletins on a variety of topics. One of the latest ones is Learning and Thinking Skills (linked to PLTS). To sign up go here.
Below is a section from the latest bulletin:

Welcome to the new Learning and Thinking Skills e-bulletin. Every fortnight we will provide you with strategies and guidance for effective learning and thinking at key stages 3 to 5. Topics will include: learning preferences, thinking skills, creativity, problem solving, group work and more.

This week's e-bulletin continues our in-depth focus on developing 'independent enquirers' – the first of the six areas of the QCA's Personal, Learning and Thinking Skills framework – by looking at the value of enquiry tools when organising and making sense of information..

The model of enquiry shared in issue no. 4 – the Enquiry Wheel – shows the main stages of a generic enquiry process as well as linking them to related 'thinking tools' to support each stage. These thinking tools can be used as practical, structured activities that help make the skills of enquiry 'visible' and explicit to students. As students grow in confidence, however, and become ready to take more responsibility for mapping out the process they will follow – choosing relevant tools and resources – the Enquiry Wheel can also serve as a useful toolkit that students can learn to use independently. (See enquiry progression model shared in issue no. 3)

In our last issue, we looked at strategies relating to the first prerequisite of any successful enquiry - creating a 'need to know', including tools to help students devise their own enquiry questions. In this issue, we will look at three thinking tools specifically designed to help students make sense of the information they uncover. All three tools help students to process new information more effectively – ordering and organising it so that it becomes both more manageable and more memorable. These tools are:
* Relevance Checker
* Knowledge Mapping
* Concept Mapping
Taken together, they involve students in collecting then sifting through information for its relevant to the area or domain of enquiry (Relevance Checker); constructing categories that provide conceptual control over territories of information (Knowledge Mapping); and exploring relationships within that domain (Concept Mapping).

Enquiry Tools for Organising and Making Sense of Information

Thinking tool no. 1: Relevance Checker

This thinking tool is designed to help students filter the information they have gathered for its relevance in relation to their enquiry question. Many students find it difficult to discern relevant from irrelevant information, particularly when browsing the internet. The nature of the question chosen – open, closed, broad or narrow in scope – will affect the criteria they will use for making judgments about relevance. As with all three tools, it is crucial, therefore, that students have first identified the enquiry question that will guide their research. The Relevance Checker also encourages students to look at degrees of relevance; prioritising ideas and information on the question, and discussing justifications for their choices.

Relevance Checker: Instructions
1. Students can work individually, in pairs or groups, at a board or wall space on a large sheet. Alternatively, groups can work around a table using A3 or A4 sized sheets.

2. Each student brings along one or more sources of information that they have discovered during their research, which they think might help them/their group to answer an enquiry question. Depending upon the teaching focus, ability level or stage of the enquiry, the information shared could be:
* A book, article or website
* A single piece of data or data set
* A key idea, argument or interpretation or
* A picture or diagram
The information can be written on separate cards or post-its. Pictures and longer pieces can be labelled, numbered or coded. Longer pieces can also be 'tagged'; in other words, the key ideas within the source are extracted and written on separate cards in preparation for the Relevance Checker activity.

3. Students are given a Relevance Checker Template and should write their key question in the centre. Alternatively, students can draw their own template.

4. Students work through the information they have uncovered, deciding which items are relevant or irrelevant to the key question. If they decide that an item is relevant, they must consider the degree of relevance in relation to the question and place it at an appropriate place within the template.

5. Students then give feedback on their decisions, justifying their choices and decisions.

Relevance Checker: Teaching tips
For students who would benefit from more 'structured' enquiry – the first stage of the progression model shared in issue no. 3 – each group could instead be given a pre-prepared set of cards with words, pictures, short phrases or longer extracts, each representing both relevant or irrelevant information for a given enquiry question. Students then work through the cards, deciding whether each one is relevant or irrelevant to the key question and placing relevant cards in an appropriate place within the template. If all groups are working with the same data set, they can then give feedback on their decisions, justifying their choices if they happen to contrast with the decisions of another group.

The Relevance Checker is also a useful revision tool for exams, as it encourages students to think about the most effective and relevant responses to questions.

Relevance Checker: Talking about thinking
Students may find the following words useful to help them talk about their thinking:
* relevant
* irrelevant
* useful
* reliable
* important
* significant
* criteria
* judgement
* decision
* evaluate
Other talking points might include:
* How did you decide whether an item was relevant?
* How did you decide upon the 'most relevant' items?
* Can an unreliable source be relevant?
* When might 'deciding what's relevant' be a useful skill to have in everyday life?

From Good to Outstanding

Teachers TV has produced a programme with the above title. They describe it thus:
Sydney Russell School has rated secondary English teacher David Pollicutt's lessons as 'good'. His challenge is to gain an 'outstanding' rating in just three weeks, using the help of a range of experts.
School inspector Clare Gillies assesses one of David's Year 8 lessons on characterisation within Great Expectations, and highlights some clear areas for improvement.
David heads off to get some one-to-one CPD and to work on pedagogy advice with English advisor Sabrina Broadbent, and received more tips from voice and communications expert Ulrika Schulte-Baukloh.
David then has just three weeks back in the classroom to put their advice into action before the inspector returns to observe a second lesson and deliver her final verdict.
Will David succeed in raising his game sufficiently to go from 'good' to 'outstanding'?

Find it here

What is learning?

The Scottish Educator Euan Macintosh reports on the work of a school in the US where pupils are pushing the boundaries of learning - they're taking part in a project to create a new type of biodiesel which would be more efficient than existing methods. The class applied for two patents this year, and two communities in Guatemala are developing the product to provide fuel for real.

Planning is undertaken along these five structures:
Desired results: where do you want to go
Learning objectives
Understandings: the big ideas - why are we teaching or learning this?
Essential Questions: The throughline - what do we keep coming back to throughout the inquiry?
Skills and Content: What is the stuff that we have to know to get to those big ideas?
Assessment
If, after a period of learning, you assess by giving out a test, you are not doing project-based learning. Tests and quizzes are but a dipstick, a quick snapshot of where everyone is at. The projects themselves, the projects that are the creation of the students themselves, are the main assessment tool.

Read more here.

Better presentations

For anyone who has started to glaze over during a Powerpoint presentation, there is some extremely helpful advice here about how to make them more effective.
There are links to practical tips here.

Linited choice

The Teaching Expertise website produces a regular bulletin that focuses on Behaviour Management. A recent issue looked at how offering pupils a limited choice can help to improve behaviour in the classroom. Check out the article here.
Thanks to Claire Fleming for the link.

Blooms' resources

There are a lot of resources for using Blooms' Taxonomy in the classroom as a tool to develop pupils thinking skills at this website here.

Thanks to Zoe Newbery for the link.

Learning and Teaching Update

The Teaching Expertise website produces a monthly newsheet called Learning and Teaching Update. The April issue has some useful articles on

• Creativity and the new cuuriculum


• Teachers views on pupil achievement

Download a copy here.

Formative assessment and Personalised Learning

There are a couple more stimulating programmes over at Teacher's TV on the subject of Formative Assessment.
There is a useful 15 minute introduction to the subject here.

There is a 30 minute programme here on how John Cabot Academy in Bristol is using Formative Assessment with ICT to promote Personalised Learning.

Pupils respond to a teacher's marking

There is an interesting article here on how pupils respond to different approaches to marking.
One of the main conclusions is this:

I think that teachers sometimes forget that the first thing most pupils are looking for is reassurance that they are doing the right thing, and/or that we respect their efforts. Without that initial support, the formative comment can seem negative to the pupil. They can perceive being told what to do to reach the next level as criticism rather than support. ‘I thought I’d done really well and you’ve just written three things here which I need to do next time… I don’t understand.’

Outstanding

There is a great deal of discussion at present about what makes an outstanding school so it may help to know that there are examples out there.

Ofsted has rated Outwood Grange College in Wakefield as Outstanding in all areas.
Read more about them at their website here.

They are currently adopting a two year KS3 and a three year KS4. To read more about their curriculum structure go here.

They are also adopting vertical tutor groups. To find out more about that go here.

To get a flavour of what the school does download a copy of their school magazine here.

A touch of CLASS

Creative Learning And Specialist Subjects (CLASS) is an initiative from the Specialist Schools Trust that aims to support and celebrate creative approaches to teaching and learning. As they write at their website:
In the creative classroom, children find their own pathways through the world of learning. In these pages you will find examples of how our creative learning lead practitioners have made this happen in their own schools. You will also learn how you can develop similar work in your own schools and classrooms, as well as links to all kinds of useful web sites and organisations which can help to get you started.

Find out more here.

Peer Observation

Many teachers, myself included, have benefitted greatly from being observed informally by their peers. There are some guidelines and case studies on peer observation here.

Teaching and learning styles

I'm reading 'Dombey and Son' by Charles Dickens at the moment and as a big fan of his work I'm enjoying it immensely.
As is often the case, his observations on society then seem strangely relevant still . Paul Dombey (the son of the novel) gets sent to school at the age of six, where he is expected to be force fed the requisite skills and knowledge for a future Captain of Industry. Dickens contrasts the 'teaching style' of his first teacher there, Miss Blimber, with that of Paul's sister Florence. At their first lesson Miss Blimber presents Paul with a pile of books which he is asked to digest while she leaves him alone, asking him when she returns:

`Now, Dombey,' said Miss Blimber. `How have you got on with those books?'

They comprised a little English, and a deal of Latin--names of things, declensions of articles and substantives, exercises thereon, and preliminary rules--a trifle of orthography, a glance at ancient history, a wink or two at modern ditto, a few tables, two or three weights and measures, and a little general information. When poor Paul had spelt out number two, he found he had no idea of number one; fragments whereof afterwards obtruded themselves into number three, which slided into number four, which grafted itself on to number two. So that whether twenty Romuluses made a Remus, or hic haec hoc was troy weight, or a verb always agreed with an ancient Briton, or three times four was Taurus a bull, were open questions with him.

`Oh, Dombey, Dombey!' said Miss Blimber, `this is very shocking.'

Paul's older sister Florence, in contrast, buys copies of his textbooks herself:

With these treasures then, after her own daily lessons were over, Florence sat down at night to track Paul's footsteps through the thorny ways of learning; and being possessed of a naturally quick and sound capacity, and taught by that most wonderful of masters, love, it was not long before she gained upon Paul's heels, and caught and passed him.

Not a word of this was breathed to Mrs. Pipchin: but many a night when they were all in bed, and when Miss Nipper, with her hair in papers and herself asleep in some uncomfortable attitude, reposed unconscious by her side; and when the chinking ashes in the grate were cold and grey; and when the candles were burnt down and guttering out;--Florence tried so hard to be a substitute for one small Dombey, that her fortitude and perseverance might have almost won her a free right to bear the name herself.

And high was her reward, when one Saturday evening, as little Paul was sitting down as usual to `resume his studies,' she sat down by his side, and showed him all that was so rough, made smooth, and all that was so dark, made clear and plain, before him. It was nothing but a startled look in Paul's wan face--a flush--a smile--and then a close embrace--but God knows how her heart leapt up at this rich payment for her trouble.

I quote this as illustration of something I have to remind myself from time to time; that it is not enough to present pupils with information and assume they will understand and appreciate it for themselves because of some inherent value in that information. Our role as teachers is 'to make all that is rough smooth and all that is dark plain', to explain things in terms that children understand so that they can then use that information for themselves.

What makes a good teacher?

Some of the best minds in the field of British education have been thinking this over and have recently presented their findings.

Professor Patricia Broadfoot, a former Professor of Education and now vice-chancellor of the University of Gloucestershire, argued that the evidence from international studies showed that "the highest quality teaching and learning comes when we have the greatest autonomy for the teacher and the learner".

Professor Debra Myhill, from Exeter University, argued that while good subject knowledge and intellectual ability were both important, they were not "sufficient" to be a good teacher.

The crucial ingredient, she argued, was a teacher's ability to reflect on his or her own performance and then to change it.

The third expert is Professor Mary James, from the Institute of Education. One of her top 10 requirements was that the teacher should "promote the active engagement of the learner".

Citing studies that showed the academic gains from children working collaboratively in groups, she argued: "If learners are not involved in their learning, they do not learn".

Read more about the report here.

We are not alone

Lead Practitioners at Campion are part of a wider community of colleagues in other schools. To find out what they are up to and maybe to consider sharing (y)our own practice go to this site.

What in the world makes a good school?

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) commissioned a report last year to investigate why some countries' school systems are more successful than others.
The report confirmed that the three main factors were:
1: Getting the right people to become teachers
2: Developing them into effective instructors
3: Ensuring that the system is able to deliver the best possible instruction for every child
That might seem like stating the obvious but sometimes the obvious gets forgotten.
Factor 1 includes ensuring that pay and conditions need to be attractive to the best graduates. Politicians please note.
Factor 2 includes supporting the continued professional development of teachers , something we Lead Practitioners are contributing to.
Factor 3 includes the effective monitoring of progress within the school, celebrating success and addressing weaknesses.
You can read the report here and some commentary on it here.