AchieveMeet - an exciting event coming up in July 2015 at Canons High School

In September 2013, Canons High School hosted #TMCollaborate, a TeachMeet whose aims were: 1) to share experiences of effective collaborative working; and 2) bring teachers, departments and schools together in new collaborative ventures.

Almost two years on, Canons High, Park High and Bentley Wood School are joining forces once again to bring you AchieveMeet: a celebration of all the wonderful work that goes on inside and outside the classroom to help raise student achievement in its broadest sense. What exactly is ‘achievement’? Achievement is something that has been done or achieved through effort: a result of hard work.

This AchieveMeet, taking place on Wednesday 8^th July from 5.00pm – 7.30pm, will be made up of presentations and information stalls from a wide range of staff across Harrow schools in a variety of different roles. We would like to hear success stories from teaching staff, tutors, LSAs, support staff, pastoral staff – essentially anyone who has played a big part in ensuring that our students have the opportunities to experience a sense of achievement. It may be a considerable improvement in their attendance/punctuality, it might be their commitment to an extra-curricular club, their perseverance to complete a challenging task, their student leadership (mentors, prefects, peer-listeners, literacy leaders, school council, etc.), and so many more things.

Ideas for presentations/stalls could include:

• Mentoring
• Student leadership
• Academic achievement / progress
• Improved student attendance
• Successful and meaningful intervention
• Any opportunity that staff have given students to feel a sense of personal achievement!

It will be a chance for staff to celebrate the hard work we all put in to give our students plenty of opportunities to experience success in some shape or form during their time at school. As the focus is on student achievement, the hope is that a wide range of staff in a variety of roles will be interested in being involved in this AchieveMeet, either as a presenter (individual or part of a group), or to set up an information stall if you're not fond of presenting, or as an audience member.

Programme:

5.00-5.30: Refreshments served and opportunities to network with other attending colleagues

5.30-6.15: First batch of presentations

6.15-6.30: Break and networking opportunities

6.30-7.15: Second batch of presentations

7.15-7.30: Final words and networking opportunities

Please e-mail me tmegit@canons.harrow.sch.uk if you would like to discuss this in more detail, or if you think you would be interested in getting involved.

I don't understand sir! How it feels to be a student

Today I experienced what it was like to be a student in a maths lesson who didn’t know anything about a topic.  As a math teacher is admittedly was an unusual situation for me to be in but was very powerful.

 

Today was my colleague, CM’s  turn to chair our morning maths meeting and he had set us the homework of watching a clip prior to the meeting, much like we have been trialling with many of our KS4 and KS5 students in a bid to make them more independent (it’s also known as flipped learning).

 

As an interesting twist, the clip was related to an area of maths that I am not very familiar with, called decision maths. In fact it is a new module that I have introduced in A- level and is new to most of the maths department.

 

Just like a true student, I clicked on the homework last night before I went home. Saw that the clip was 20mins  and decided that it was too long so I’d do it the following morning just before the meeting. Fast forward to today and I’m sitting in my office at 7.45am  trying to understand what a bubble algorithm is, having never heard of it in my life.

 

Then I went it to the meeting, which my colleague had set up as a lesson, complete with mini whiteboards, pens and starter activity.  This is where he separated the sheep from the goats.  The first question was one that only made sense if we had done the h/w.

 

At this point 9 maths teachers were transformed into a class of students. Some of us had no idea what it was having not done the h/w, others had watched the clip but had not really understood it, some thought they’d done it at some vague point in the past,  some had watched and tried but weren’t confident about their answers.

 

At this point CM used the answers from the whiteboard to arrange us into groups so that those who understood could explain to those who didn’t by giving us alternative example to take them through.  It’s quite an interesting experience explaining a mathematical concept to a colleague that you are not even sure that you have grasped yourself.  It’s how students must feel all the time.

 

Soon our 10 min meeting was up and CM had raised some interesting points.

If we set flipped h/w

·         How do  account for the fact that not all students will do it (partially addressed by his demonstration)

·         What do we do in class for those that have to move on their learning?  More questions of the same is not really moving them on.

·         What is the hook to make them want to look at this h/w before hand. Why should they do it?

 

So as a subject specialist, maybe it’s worth spending  some time in a meeting learning something new from your own subject together.  Experience how students feel and what helps you to learn, it could help you to become a better teacher.

 

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Comments re this post are welcome below as CM is a bit shy re posting himself but would like to see what others think re what he tried.