Canons Creative Writing Club

The Creative Writing Club at Canons was set up several years ago to provide a space for students to develop their Creative Writing skills. I have taken over the club during this academic year, and from the very beginning have been amazed by the talent and work being produced by its members. These are students who come to have fun, but are also interested in crafting and developing their skills, and they return faithfully every week in order to work on their writing. They also enjoy writing creatively in a structured school setting with no concerns about mark schemes and rules passed on from an exam board. Students find it freeing to be able to take their work in any direction that they might choose.

Since my tenure began, we have worked on different mini-projects together. I have tried to vary these projects in order to appeal to different members of the Club. It is not simply a case of the students turning up and writing in silence- I also want them to read different examples of literature, and learn different approaches to writing creatively.

We started the term by reading the short story The Monkey’s Paw by W. W. Jacobs. The students used the story as a basis for their own short stories about wishes going wrong. Another reason for choosing this story in particular was to get students to read a piece of 19^th Century fiction with words they might not have come across before, in order to help them to develop their vocabulary.

Members have also made up three different ‘elements’- for example ‘a stolen ring, a fear of spiders, and a sinister stranger’- which another student had to use for inspiration for a short story or poem. This gave students a chance to think outside the box, and use their imaginations fully.

Students often enter National Competitions and have their work printed in the School Newspaper. I also plan to create an Anthology this year of their work. The other great positive with Creative Writing Club is the friendships that have been formed between students from different year groups. They all have something in common- the sincere wish to write.

Setting up a Creative Writing Club is relatively easy, and the rewards and growth of the students are well worth it. I now pass over to some of the members of the Club, with their own thoughts:

 

Student S, Year 10

I’ve been at the club since the beginning. When I first heard about the club, I thought that it would be a great way of having the opportunity to express myself through creative writing. Ever since then, I’ve always enjoyed coming to Creative Writing Club because I find it easier to write next to fellow creative writers. I wrote this haiku poem which is about how words can create worlds and characters that transcend reality:

Pen clasped in one hand,

Black ink sprawled against thin sheets,

Lives and worlds are made

                   

Student L, Year 9

I was introduced to the Creative Club by our Librarian, Miss Franklin as I was waiting to take a book out of the library. When I met the club members for the first time we all became friends. After that I introduced one of my friends to the club and then we started to make our memories together. This poem is about all the things that I remember and happened at the Creative Writing Club and what it means to me:

Miracles in Room 1

We meet each other in room 1,

Where the miracles are written.

We salute each other with a big smile and say,

“Nothing will come of nothing.”

If there are no hopes and dreams,

There will be no ideas to create miracles.

 

 

Promoting Positive Behaviour

Like most NQT’s, I was eager to learn and eager to improve my teaching. I wanted to become a consistently outstanding teacher. However, as observations of colleagues and regular staff training gave me more and more new teaching ideas to consider, I quickly found myself becoming overwhelmed and unsure of how I could implement all of these concepts at once. I soon realised that I needed to focus on one aspect of my teaching at a time.

A formal observation that I had as part of my application for the Ped Leaders post soon gave me a focus. My lesson was judged to be good with outstanding features. I was disappointed not to have achieved an outstanding, but agreed that my behaviour management was not as effective as it should be. There was one particular class with whom I felt behaviour was a problem. I had actually begun to dread the lessons I had with them!

I consequently began to ask colleagues about behaviour management strategies that worked for them and found out about ideas that I could try with my class. I regularly observed colleagues from a range of subjects who were renowned for their outstanding behaviour management and made it the focus of the fort-nightly coaching conversations I had with one particular colleague. Discussing the issue was not easy, as I felt embarrassed.  In truth, it is rare to come across teachers who confess to having problems with behaviour, as I suppose teachers fear that they may be judged as being a ‘failing teacher’. I really did feel that I must be the only person struggling to deal with the behaviour of my students.

Never the less, for each of my lessons I would come up with a grand plan for ‘taming’ this class and would feel optimistic that I would finally crack it. One week I would use the schools ‘ladder of consequence’ but when that didn’t work, the following week I would focus my attention on the handful of well-behaved students, showering them with praise in the hope that the more challenging students would follow suit in order to gain my attention. However, behaviour remained a problem and I would come away feeling a failure, not sure of what to do next. Each lesson, I tried something new.

I couldn’t help but feel frustrated. I had trained to become a teacher for four years and had learned about effective behaviour management strategies. Clear boundaries, high expectations, consistency, challenge for all, seating plans, warnings followed by sanctions. Each of these strategies was so straightforward on paper, but in reality I felt unsure of what to do!

I spent more time reflecting on the lessons I had taught this class, and after yet another conversation with a colleague about how I could tackle the problem, I realised that in attempting to improve behaviour, I was failing to be consistent, as I had been trying different strategies in every lesson. When things were going really badly, I wasn’t even enforcing strategies for a whole lesson, let alone a series of lessons.

I realised that it was about finding what made this particular class ‘tick’. What could I enforce that would make them want to change their behaviour, that would make them want to avoid sanctions? For this particular class, I discovered that it was not just about having sanctions for the class as a whole but also for individuals focused on their love for the practical element of PE. Throughout every lesson, I now tally up the minutes of a chosen activity that every student in the class will do at the beginning of the practical session, as a result of poor behaviour during the first hour of theory. I have found this to really improve the focus of students. It provides them with a challenge that immediately engages them, particularly as it involves an element of competition and also enables them to see progress week on week. Individual students are given a warning and then miss ten minutes of practical, followed by removal from the lesson and then detention if the warning has not been sufficient.

This strategy works effectively with this particular group. However, with another class it does not. Instead the use of a stopwatch to tally up the time they waste is what makes them ‘tick’. The class remain behind at the end of the lesson for double the time accumulated. Whilst they stayed behind for seven minutes the first time I tried this approach, they now average just eighteen seconds per lesson.

I am now finally seeing an improvement in behaviour with even my most difficult class, and can see that ‘consistency’ when it comes to behaviour management does not necessarily mean a one size fits all approach.  Strategies need to be tailored to individual classes. Once the most effective approach has been found, it is imperative that the teacher is consistent with it.

Now in my second year of teaching, I can finally see why those with more experience say that teaching becomes easier with time. Having worked for just over a year at improving my behaviour management, I recently received an outstanding judgement for a formal observation, where positive comments were made about my effective behaviour management. Both delighted and relieved to have made progress, I of course realise that there is still room for improvement and this will continue to take time and effort.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Literacy and oracy in a Mathematics Classroom

Literacy and oracy in a Mathematics Classroom

Why is oral literacy in the classroom important? What does literacy mean to students? And as a teacher what are our expectations of our student’s using literacy and oral literacy in our classroom? These questions could be asked to any teacher, teaching any subject.  As the reader of this blog I pose a question to you, what do you expect the answers to be?

Below you can see the following answers I obtained from different teachers. I will not identify which subject they teach, but will wait for your comments and any questions you may pose.

Teacher	Why is oral literacy in the classroom important?	What does literacy mean to students?	What are our expectations of our student’s using literacy and oral literacy in our classroom?
x	‘To assess the students’ understanding’	e.g. ‘Writing in full sentences’	‘When speaking in the classroom they should use standard English’
y	‘Students' ability and confidence to express their ideas clearly is vital if they are to progress and challenge each other’	‘Students' ability and confidence to express their ideas clearly is vital if they are to progress and challenge each other’	‘To be confident speakers in the classroom’
z	‘Many students are not exposed to subject specific language outside of the classroom’	‘Many students are not exposed to subject specific language outside of the classroom’	‘Answer in full sentences. Use and record keywords, definitions and terms’

Teacher ‘Y’ and ‘Z’ both felt importance of literacy in the classroom were the same as what literacy means to the student, could this be a common thought or maybe the questions were not clear enough.

We as teachers are labelling the communication between our students, their subject knowledge and the teacher as literacy and oral literacy. However to students they do not label the way they communicate or illustrate their thoughts. They simply call it ‘explaining’. I strongly believe we should not disregard students’ thoughts nor the way they are comfortable with expressing themselves. Instead we should implement the mathematical language into their ideas bridging communication and understanding between the teacher and student.

In my Mathematics classroom, I feel it is absolutely necessary that students use both the English language and Mathematical language correctly to develop their skills. When introducing the topic ‘Averages’ in my year 7 class I wanted my students to create their own definition, something that makes sense to them which they  can use  to apply their knowledge.

I wrote these key words on the board (see below). I asked the students to discuss what these meant (Think-Pair Shared) and asked them to explain how they remembered the definitions or how they were able to work it out.

 

In preparation for the next lesson I looked through my students’ books to see what they had written. I collected all their ideas together and created this card sort task as a starter for their next lesson.

Students were asked to arrange the cards into groups; they were not given any direction on how many groups or my expectations. I was more curious about how they thought and how I, as their teacher could draw conclusions on their perception of these keywords.

 

Below are a few examples of how the students sorted the cards. The most interesting aspect for me was not how they did it but their responses to the task. I asked my students to give a title to each of their groups; below you can see their thoughts.  One student said to me ‘Miss, I know it’s wrong!’

 

 

 

They had labelled one of the columns as the wrong way to define it and the other as the right way. I feel it is important for students to know it is acceptable to be wrong in a lesson. However this was a rare occasion, were the students actually wrong? Nearly every other table in this class had the same groupings. What could this possibly mean?

Students were aware that both definitions meant the same thing. However they refused to accept that both were correct. Reassuring ‘It is OK to be wrong’ students were given the opportunity to express their thoughts and discuss with the class a suitable name we could give these columns. As a class they labelled the columns as shown below.

 

 

We should not disregard the way students think. It helps them to express their opinions and become a confident speaker in the classroom. “If freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.” - George Washington.

If we as teachers are confident with the use of literacy in our classroom our students will rise to the challenge themselves.

 

 

Canons’ Pedagogy Leaders Network Day: a hit, a palpable hit!

Canons Pedagogy Leaders' Network Day: a hit, a palpable hit!

The following blogpost was posted on December 9, 2013 by drdawnie following her visit to Canons for our first Pedagogy Leaders' Network Day.          

‘Why pamper life’s complexities when the leather runs smooth on the passenger seat?’ asks Morrissey in The Smiths’ ‘This Charming Man’. How is this relevant, you may be asking, to a post about a day of CPD at a school in Edgware? Stay with me…

So often, we are treated to CPD which is ‘bolted on’, ‘parachuted in’, brought in from the periphery to tell us how to be better. It’s as if others have the answer to this riddle called ‘teaching’; they pop in, get paid (a lot!) and wow us with their solutions to our problems. I know that’s potentially an overly reductive view of CPD and I hasten to add that not all such sessions are dreadful. However, see what Rachael Stevens (@murphiegirl) has to say about teachers’ responses to CPD here: http://www.theguardian.com/teacher-network/teacher-blog/2013/oct/11/observation-classroom-teaching-development-schools

So, it seems to me that sometimes we do ‘pamper life’s complexities’ by making things seem more difficult than they are, by looking for a BIG solution to something that might not even really be a problem. We throw money at things, indulging in ‘external expert’ CPD because we’re following a pattern that’s been in existence for as long as we can remember.

Today, I had a fantastic CPD experience. In a school. It was about sharing good practice. Right next to me, in neighbouring classrooms and nearby schools, there’s learning to be done. If pedagogy is my craft then so is it someone else’s, someone else who operates in the classroom every day of their working life, doing the things that I’m likely to be doing, albeit in a variety of contexts.

Listening to the staff at Canons talking about their experiences of the Pedagogy Leaders programme (read about it here: http://www.theguardian.com/teacher-network/teacher-blog/2013/jun/14/pedagogy-staff-initiative-teaching-learning-project) was simply invigorating. Because it’s there and it works and the people involved came in to the room and told us about it face-to-face, it *is* a reality which may just be transferrable into my school, or yours. Getting out and about on a Learning Walk, seeing those ideas in action and interacting with students & teachers who clearly have learning at the top of their agendas certainly was the ‘Demonstration’ phase of today’s ‘Active Learning’ cycle.

And what I *really* liked was the ‘Impact’ session – what a fantastic idea! Why doesn’t more CPD take us down the route of showing us tangible evidence of ‘how it works’? Maybe because the people delivering it never stay long enough to see what happens? Harsh, I know. But possibly true? Investigating the soft, medium and hard impacts of the project means I feel so much more confident about ‘selling’ this to my school now. Not in its entirety, of course – it’s not a one-size-fits-all approach and neither should it be.

So, if you get the opportunity to sit alongside a teacher or group of teachers who have already started driving the bus, get in and check out the upholstery rather than calling in someone to pimp your ride for you.

Thank you, Canons, for a superb day. 

Debating Club

When I was asked if I would take on the challenge of setting up and running a debating club for KS3-5 students I didn’t quite realise what I was about to embark upon. After a nerve-wracking first meeting, to which three CV fishing year 11 boys showed up to, I was apprehensive about how successful this venture might be. After a lot of perseverance, persuasion and plugs in assemblies and lessons however, the second meeting rolled around but this time I was faced with a group of sixth formers, year 11s, year 9s and year 7s, and so began Canons Debating Club.

It was really encouraging to see lots of students who I didn’t teach at the club and I was immediately put at ease as students talked about some of the reasons why they’d decided to join, amongst these reasons were desires to improve speaking and listening skills, to help boost confidence talking in front of others and to meet other students from around the school and different year groups. It was particularly encouraging when I started to throw topic ideas at the group and they organised themselves into for and against through a variety of debating games such as debate circle and four corners voting. A lot of the students had never had the opportunity in a school setting to discuss and debate some of the controversial notions we raised, amongst which were: euthanasia, capital punishment, possession of fire arms and on one, more recent occasion, superheroes: actual heroes or just misleading icons?

From the outset the intention for the club was to not only provide an extra-curricular activity for students but also to establish a successful debate team who could compete at regional and national level, representing Canons at debating competitions. After a few warm-up sessions in which students got to know one another as well as me, I received the news that our application to enter the English Speaking Union (ESU) Mace Debating Competition had been accepted and we were soon hurtling full force towards our first competition.

As I begun to receive more information on who the competition hosts would be, who our team would debate against and what the motion would be I was anxious to share with the students the motion we would be proposing: ‘This house believes that football team supporter's clubs should lobby against the signing of players with a history of discriminatory or violent behaviour.’ A bit of a mouthful. I had, as I have come to realise time and time again with debate club, nothing to be anxious about. Immediately the students begun discussing how we could support the motion as the proposition and we all begun furiously planning and writing speeches, me included, and invited some of the English department to come along and watch some of the speeches and students who wanted to be considered for our team. After an encouraging and enjoyable demonstration from a number of members we voted for our two speakers: Lucy, a year 9 student and Fuad, a year 12 student and finally our first official Canons debating team was formed.

The entire debating club and I received so much support in the days surrounding the competition and although the mini-bus atmosphere was one of tension and nerves on the drive to the competition, it was an incredibly enjoyable evening that left me feeling so proud of our club and school. Our students put up an excellent fight in their debate against Chingford Foundation School, speaking with sophistication, passion and flair and although we didn’t win our debate our speakers were commended by both the chair person and the adjudicators for their enthusiasm and their potential as debaters new to the competition circuit. We even enjoyed a few humorous moments when Fuad, one of our speakers, ardently ‘denied’ rather than politely ‘declined’ every point of information offering from the opposition. After our debate we also had the opportunity to watch a live debate between two teams of year 13 girls from St John’s Senior school who have competed for several years, an experience that was invaluable for our new debaters and one which prompted one of our team to frantically make notes on how they were conducting their debate which she debriefed us all on at our most recent meeting. Suffice to say it was a fantastic experience attending our first competition and that was before we’d even had a chance to tuck into the complimentary canapés and quiche.

We jumped in feet first this term with our first competition but I am grateful that we did, it was certainly a steep learning curve but one that the students took in their stride confidently and left them feeling excited and enthusiastic to prove how far the promise and potential they already have could take us. Already on the lookout for the next competition, I have every confidence we will be ready to tackle whatever motion is thrown at us with even more passion, poise and conviction and who knows, we may even be ready to ‘accept’ some of those points of information!

 

Cross-curricular transition: The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas

       "Early in the summer term I was approached by Mary Campbell, Head of Year 7, to set up and collaborate on a KS2-3 transition project. Being an English teacher the first idea which came to mind was a transition book. Whilst doing some work experience in a Barnet primary school prior to starting my PGCE I had seen transition books working well. All students in year 6 across the borough studied Kensuke's Kingdom by Michael Morpurgo. During this time they read the novel and created a portfolio of work which they would take with them into year 7 (if they were going to a secondary school in the same borough of course). I wanted us to do something similar but, apart from the sheer amount of work it would take to get all primary schools on board and the late time in the year which we had begun to think about it, our students did not all come to us from the same borough. Instead, we decided to do something slightly different. I liaised with our librarian and we discussed the novels which students most often studied at KS2 and what texts might be appropriate for such a project. We decided on The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas and then we set about writing a proposal to SLT to secure the funds for buying in enough copies for every student joining in year 7. The proposal included our aims and objectives for students, parents and staff. We wanted as many subjects involved as possible on a two week project based around the novel. It would make transition into school more fluid and students would share a common experience no matter which school, borough or country they joined us from.
      A week later the proposal was accepted and we started putting things into action. An initial meeting was arranged for all Heads of Department, KS3 Co-ordinators and Year 7 tutors where we discussed the aims and objectives and talked through potential activities and any issues/questions which they had regarding the project. Most subjects attended and staff were really enthusiastic about getting on board. I set up a folder on our shared drive where we could save and share our ideas and we went away ready to plan lessons for the novel within each of our own subjects. Staff who had attended the meeting went back to their own departments and shared the project aims and the proposal was emailed out to all staff. 
      Next came sharing the project with the students. Our new cohort came into school for an induction day in the summer term. On this day each student received a copy of the novel and an instruction sheet. Their tutors read through this sheet and explained what they were expected to do. Students were asked to read the novel and complete one of two activities: write a review of the book or produce a piece of artwork/illustration based on a particular scene/chapter. An abridged version of the novel was provided for EAL students who would have difficulty reading the novel. In the evening of this induction day, students parents came in and, as Head of Year 7, Mary communicated the project, it's aims and the summer task to parents encouraging them to get as involved as possible and beginning to gain parental engagement before these students had even officially joined us. 
       When students came back to school in September nearly all of them had read the novel. Those who hadn't were honest and without having to tell them to, they quickly realised the need to get it read. It wasn't just in English where their learning was centred on the novel, it was in lots of subjects including Maths, Science, History, ICT, Textiles, MFL and Drama to name but a few. Without reading the novel students could not access the work as well and so they soon wanted to catch up. Over the course of these first two weeks, students worked on many projects based around the novel and produced some outstanding work. In the third week, parents were invited in to our usual meet the parents evening but this time with a difference. Each form set up an exhibition area to showcase their best work and share what they had done with their parents. The exhibitions were really impressive and parents and students had a great evening talking about their work and discussing their first few weeks at school with their new tutors.
       The transition project was a fantastic way to start the year and I feel that students really benefitted from the process. The novel gave them a common ground and they were able to access the novel in a range of ways and in a range of subjects. We will definitely be running this project going forward and have feedback from staff and students to allow us to amend, improve and adapt for future years."

- Athena Pitsillis, English KS3-4 Co-Ordinator.

"Any child moving from primary into secondary school would find the move quite daunting and unnerving for the first two months of the school year, especially those who are on their own with no friends from their previous school following them.  My idea behind this project was to get the children engaged in an activity during the summer holidays and involve most subject areas to plan an activity to coincide with the transition project to be delivered in the first two weeks in September. The book, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, was an excellent choice, and it worked. The departments involved delivered creative and engaging lessons that were received with excitement from the children. I talked to quite a few of the children about the project and the feedback was very positive.  The children had one thing in common because they had read the book, it was the centre of most lessons; they had something to contribute to each subject, to discuss, to argue over and to celebrate their achievements.  
      It also had helped quite a few students with their confidence, not just academically but socially, making new friends in their form and most of all reducing the fear of starting a new school. After the two weeks, the students had to display their work to be on show for the parents' 'Meet the Tutor' evening. The task was for the students to develop visual communication skills, by working in teams to display their work on a 170cm x 200cm display board. The best displays were rewarded with Vivos.  The day of the parents meeting the students were buzzing with excitement, organising themselves and planning their work. The atmosphere was electric.  The children were instructed to do the work on their own, but form tutors were deeply involved, leading to a fierce competition.  The outcome was stunning. Parents and the school staff were extremely impressed with what the children had achieved and positively commented on the standard of the work. 
      As Year 7's HOY I believe that the summer project was a success. It supported the children in the first month of secondary school. It helped the forms bond together and helped the children to settle comfortably and with ease. Behaviour has been excellent.  The project was a focus for all: children, parents, teachers and the school staff. I just want to say thank you to Athena, for seeing through my vision and thinking in the same path." 

- Mary Campbell, Head of Year 7.

"When Athena first asked me about my thoughts for this project my initial thoughts were ‘Wow, how are we going to teach the Holocaust to year 7 students?!’  How to teach such a sensitive and moving historical subject to 11 year olds was a hot topic of conversation amongst the humanities teachers.  We debated over how to teach this to students and what depth we should teach it in. However, once planning began my fears as KS3 humanities co-ordinator decreased immensely.  It became apparent very early on in the planning stages that the priority in the humanities lessons would be giving the students the contextual knowledge they needed to be able to understand the novel at a deeper level as well as providing some deeply important historical knowledge at KS3. The department planned 2 lessons following Canons pedagogy which centred on the question of ‘why was there a boy in stripped pyjamas? The lessons culminated in the students responding to the key question in an extended style response and thus acted as a baseline assessment for our year 7s.  
      As a department we were so surprised and thrilled with the level of enthusiasm that was displayed amongst year 7 students in their humanities lessons, so surprised that some teachers ended up spending 4-5 lessons on the project (mainly due to the vast number of questions students had about the Holocaust and the Nazi influence in Europe).  Not only did the transition project evoke a huge amount of enthusiasm, historical curiosity and empathy from our students, it also seemed to act as a calming influence on them in their first few weeks at secondary school.  It is certainly something we are planning to do again and striving to make the project an even more successful venture next year."

- Lexi Mawson, Humanities KS3 Co-Ordinator. 

"On the whole, Year 7 students thoroughly enjoyed reading the story over the summer holidays. A handful of students felt that the project became a bit repetitive across different subjects, but the vast majority enjoyed the cross-curricular nature of the project, and liked learning about broader themes of the story from different perspectives. In particular, students appreciated how different subject areas were working together, and it helped them to grasp the relevance of the story across the wider curriculum.
History, English and Maths were the subject areas in which students seemed to enjoy exploring the themes of ‘The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas’ the most. Other subjects where they enjoyed learning about the story also included Technology, ICT, Drama, Art, Science, Textiles and Spanish.
      Our students have provided us with some great ideas of how we can improve the project for next year’s cohort:

• more practical activities in lessons (making models, painting, designing);
• repeat the project but with a different story;
• more options for home learning activities;
• activities to be even more challenging;
• open-ended tasks to allow students to be more creative.

From the staff’s point of view, most teachers found it easy to plan and deliver a lesson/mini-project focused on the story (particularly English, Technology, Drama and Maths). It was more of a challenge to deliver lessons about the story in other subject areas, particularly right at the start of KS3 Schemes of Learning.  However these subject areas are planning to find opportunities later in the year to make links back to the story.
Staff, much like the students, saw the benefit of establishing clear links between different subject areas across the curriculum. They felt that students were enthusiastic and engaged throughout the duration of the project, and thought that it was good for students to see that different departments are working together towards a common goal. It gave students a sense of consistency and unity, providing them with a common shared experience to speak about to help settle in to high school.
Our next steps will involve seeking out feedback from parents, and subject leaders from across the school will reconvene and share experiences of project, which we hope will lead to setting in motion plans for more cross-curricular projects in the future."

- Tom Megit, MFL KS3 Co-Ordinator. 

GangA*star INSET day: Self- and peer-evaluation

Canons High School GangA*star INSET day – Thursday 3^rd October 2013

Self- and peer-evaluation session

One of my very talented colleagues from the CHS English department and I, a Modern Languages teacher and Pedagogy Leader (@tommegit), organised and ran a workshop for staff at CHS as part of the INSET day which was focused upon challenge and stretch (with the ultimate aim of increasing the number of students achieving  A/A* grades), and our particular focus was on self- and peer-evaluation. It was a wonderful opportunity to hear different staff members’  perspectives on these different forms of evaluation, coming from a wide range of subject areas and distinct classroom experiences; so wonderful in fact, that it has inspired me to reflect on it now and share it through the Canons Broadside blog!

After an excellent introduction to the aims and desired outcomes of the day’s INSET by one of our high-achieving Year 13 students, who already has an impressive set of exam results and qualifications under his belt, staff went off in groups to take part in two themed workshops that they had chosen in advance. Each workshop focused on a particular area of pedagogy that could be viewed as an integral part of helping students aspire to achieve to the highest standard. The hope was that these sessions would get us to delve deeper into the thought process of what it is we are doing as pedagogues to help our students to be the best they can be; to push them beyond what is expected of them by others, beyond what their minimum target grade says they ‘should’ be getting. We want to inspire our students to aim for the top and to strive to be better than they are expected to be.

Elsewhere around the school, thought-provoking workshops were taking place, each focusing on different aspects of teaching and learning that we felt played an important part in meeting the needs of our high attaining students. The themes of the workshops covered a good  mix of core teaching techniques, including scaffolding, questioning, group learning, investigation and enquiry, the use of SOLO taxonomy and the ‘Flipped Classroom’. Actually, looking back on the range of sessions that we had running during this INSET day, I’m very jealous that I couldn’t go around to see all of them! But in actual fact, I was extremely lucky myself to be part of some of the most stimulating conversations I’ve ever had about teaching and learning, and sharing our thoughts on how we go about supporting the students we teach to be successful evaluators in their own learning.

To get the ball rolling, staff in our workshop wrote down on their mini-whiteboards (an old favourite of mine!) one thing that they found particularly useful when receiving feedback from another member of staff, more than likely to be a line manager, after a lesson observation, for example. That could have been a specific comment that they had received in the past, or the way in which the feedback was given. Some staff prefer it when they are given practical tips and examples of good practice that will help them move forward. Others prefer more of a coaching technique, whereby they are encouraged to formulate their own ways forward after a reflective discussion with their observer.

What all staff seemed to agree on, however, was that in order to get the most out of an appraisal situation, there needs to be dialogue, discussion, two-way communication, questions, more questions, and fundamentally, agreement between both parties. Everyone is different, and individual preferences will vary, but it is good to identify some common ground when investigating what makes for productive evaluation. And by and large, teachers know what is expected of them by their students, by their colleagues, by their line managers, by published teaching standards, and by other external bodies (not mentioning any names!). But can the same be said for the children we teach?

Discussion moved on to identifying the strengths and limitations of teacher-, peer- and self-evaluation. In groups of three or four, staff gave well-balanced interpretations of when and how each should be incorporated into our lessons.

The groups who concentrated on teacher-evaluation identified the key advantage is that we, the teachers, are the subject specialists, the experts, meaning that we are suitably equipped with the appropriate knowledge to provide relevant, targeted feedback and feed-forward to our learners, guiding them in the right direction. Furthermore, when we provide the feedback, it is relatively quick, and it provides us with an opportunity to check progress, which then goes towards planning our future lessons. However, it came across very clearly from our staff that this was perhaps not the most effective form of evaluation in terms of the students really learning from feedback comments.

So how might peer-evaluation be better? Staff felt that it is beneficial to allow students to get together and discuss want is going well and what can be improved. A striking resemblance to what staff said made for effective evaluation in their own professional development. The key difference here, though, is that perhaps our students don’t know how to give high quality feedback on their peers’ work. Often, students can be overly generous or particularly stingy when marking other people’s work, and many are influenced by complex social relationships that naturally occur within every classroom setting. This went on to raise the question, ‘How important is it to model peer feedback’?

Finally, as far as self-evaluation is concerned, similar points arose from discussion. Allowing students to evaluate their own progress can lead to better literacy and articulation, it can help students to review their efforts, and improve their self-esteem. But all of this is reliant on the clarity and purposefulness of the success criteria with which they are using to evaluate themselves and/or their peers. It is evident that students need to be trained in giving constructive feedback that will help themselves and others to move forward in their thinking, in an effort to move them away from giving superficial comments such as ‘Your handwriting is very neat’, or ‘You have written a lot. Well done’!

Many teachers have noticed that students tend to focus more on what they have managed to get right or do well in their work, and tend to ignore what it is that they have got wrong, or have neglected to include in their work. Whilst it is obviously important to acknowledge on what has been done effectively and praise the positive elements, it is equally important, indeed essential, to require our students to explore what can be done to raise the standard of work towards fulfilling the top bands of success criteria, in order to challenge our students and provide them with the opportunity to be as successful as they possibly can be.

So how can we train our students to close  the gap between their original piece of work (first draft) and a higher quality piece of work after acting upon feedback (final draft)? At this point, I’d like to recommend reading two excellent blog posts that discuss these themes further: the first posted by Tom Sherrington, Making feedback count: “Close the gap”; the second posted by Harry Fletcher Wood, Closing the gap marking – give them a read, they’re very insightful!

As our group discussions developed, teachers were full of wonderful ideas of how to get students to provide, as well as act upon, constructive feedback for improving their work. Ideas included role-modelling constructive feedback dialogue, sharing model answers with a clear feedback commentary, sharing key success criteria with students, allowing them to be the examiners by providing students with mark schemes, and training students as experts or ‘lead learners’ in particular areas of work, based on their own strengths.

One colleague went into more detail about using expert groups of students and ‘lead learners’. Imagine setting up the classroom so that, on different groups of desks, you have different groups of expert students focussing on one particular area of evaluation (e.g. checking correct use of subject-specific terminology, checking the structure of paragraphs, checking grammar and punctuation, checking that relevant sources have been used to back up an argument, etc.). Pieces of work can then rotate around the different groups of experts, and on each rotation, they add Post-it ® notes with a targeted piece of feedback from their particular area of expertise to help the recipient improve their work on re-draft. This is an idea that I am keen to develop in my own MFL classroom, particularly with my GCSE classes when, during Stage 2 of their Writing and Speaking Controlled Assessments, the teacher is no longer permitted to provide students with support.

An issue that we discussed surrounding these ideas was that, potentially, providing students with mark schemes and success criteria can back-fire owing to the formal and often ambiguous language used in these sorts of documents. If, for example, one of the bands in a mark scheme explains how to award a certain number of marks for “an appropriate response”, well, what on earth does appropriate mean or look like?! It can sometimes be a challenge for teachers to consistently and accurately interpret some mark schemes, so I truly feel for our students on that front. It simply highlights the importance of making these kinds of documents accessible to our learners by adapting the language in mark schemes and success criteria so that it is more student-friendly and less alien.

We felt that it was essential to ensure that success criteria is well built up for students, allowing for clear progression and encouraging more complex compositions. It needs to be framed within a real context, in order to bring a piece of work to life and for it to carry more meaning for the students. They need to be able to interact and engage with the criteria rather than feel threatened by it. We discussed how adding SOLO Taxonomy symbols (pre-structural, uni-structural, multi-structural, relational, extended abstract) to each band of the success criteria could help students to meet this end. We also felt that we need to let our students practise marking on their own, then discussing the thought process behind their marking with a partner or small group, encouraging them to find evidence from the piece of work to support their decisions, before sharing it with the rest of the class (think, pair, square, share). Although this can be a daunting experience for students the first few times they try this, the group believed that having open forum discussions in this way will help raise their confidence and make them feel more familiar with and comfortable using marking criteria.

As the workshop was reaching its conclusion, I asked the group to write down a reflective comment or further question to consider on their mini-whiteboards as a way of consolidating what had been discussed around using different evaluation strategies to stretch and challenge our students, and I’d like to round off this blog post by sharing some of their extremely high quality reflections:

·         ‘If students are not trained properly how to peer-assess then this may affect the quality of the feedback and feed-forward’;

·         ‘It is important that time is dedicated to training students to peer-evaluate effectively. This should start at Key Stage 3’;

·         ‘Self-evaluation should be built in Key Stage 3 so that they can be trained for Key Stage 4. This will help push the A/A* students to think about their work’;

·         ‘Is giving model answers to students a good idea? Does it challenge them or does it help to spoon feed? I am undecided’;

·         ‘Asking us to consider the pros and cons of self-, peer- and teacher-evaluation made me realise how essential the first two are in ensuring students really understand how to improve – they involve thinking and doing, rather than receiving ‘wisdom’ from the teacher – active rather than passive learning’;

·         ‘Need to make criteria student-friendly. Close the gap. Key words in a good answer. Illustrate the criteria’;

·         ‘Allowing more time to share and reflect on the feedback when it’s been given’;

·         ‘Evaluation is effective in increasing the number of A/A* grades – the issue is that we need to take a variety of approaches to evaluation. Sometimes self, then peer, and of course teacher. Peer-evaluation and use of the micro-teacher very effective!!’;

·         ‘Making time at the start of the lesson to respond to marked work’;

·         ‘How do we make grade criteria easier to access for our students without removing challenge?’;

·         ‘Ensure students act upon feedback by regularly revisiting and reviewing their progress. Small achievable targets leading to incremental gains for all students’.

This variety of reflection reminds me of the challenges that face our school, or any school for that matter, in ensuring that we, as practitioners, have the time and space to digest this food-for-thought and consider what best suits us as individuals in our own unique teaching situations, whilst at the same being provided with the supportive frameworks to allow us to learn from, and with, each other.

Questioning techniques that worked for me

I recently took part in an inset, based on a Teachmeet style of sessions.   There were 8 different sessions that were focussed on improving challenge in the classroom, particularly for the most able in each class.  I took on questioning as I had been told previously in a lesson observation that I scaffold my questions well.  I nodded my head and acted like that was my intention.  Like any teacher, all I wanted was to just get more out of the students and enhance the level and quality of discussion.

I thought long and hard about what I would want as a teacher at my school coming to my session, I researched blogs, journals and internet articles on the subject and put together lots of techniques that teachers had used successfully in their lesson. The issue was that I hadn’t used any of these particular ones, like ‘Blooms’ and ‘Hinge’ and felt a bit of a phony standing up and saying how great these were when I hadn’t actively used them.  I started to speak more to other staff in the school, ask them about what they do and how they challenge the most able.  The conversations I had were really insightful and gave me a lot of good information. A lot said they don’t use techniques per se but open ended, higher order questions, getting students to explain their answers, reflect on what others have said and let the discussion flow, asking meaningful questions when they were needed. Again, I thought if I stand up there and say this, it doesn’t really give staff something concrete that they can take away.

One teacher talked about the ‘ABC’ technique. This is where you pose a question to the class, select a student to respond,then ask other students in the class, whether they agree, buildupon or challenge the response.  I thought this sounded a great idea and something similar to the basketball technique (student led discussion which moves around the classroom with little or no input from the teacher – you can actually use a basketball whilst doing this but my advice is not to do it in an ICT room).  I tried it in my classes and found it workedwell. I made sure students were informed of the technique first before carrying it in.  I also adapted the technique to involve all students in the discussion, for example, students had to listen to a person’s answer and ensure they noted down something for each ABC point.  This encouraged students toconsider all points and put together a well-reasoned argument. It actually started as something of a ‘connection’ or ‘starter’ and ended up being something that could structure a whole lesson. We practiced the technique in a discussion format and then students had a different question and had to build an answer around the technique in written prose considering all sides of the argument.  

The technique went down well in the inset. There were a few issues with subjects that are more fact based and teachers were asking how it could fit in there. My response was that this technique is not used for surface level knowledge, stuff students need to know, but when they need to analyse and evaluate. I use it at the end of topics in GCSE PE for example, we had just finished role models, sponsorship and the media and I posed the question, ‘is Cristiano Ronaldo a positive influence on young people?’ Students made notes under each section and then practiced their extended writing, including for and against arguments, including key words and linking together the three topics and how all can have a positive and negative affect.  

Another technique I introduced in the inset was something I named ‘Closing the gap’.  The technique encourages students to analyse their own answers in comparison to an exemplar and plan their own route for improvement and progression.  It is not a questioning technique that can be used in discussion, more a technique for how students can improve how they answer exam questions.  I am sure we all do something similar, this is just a technique I have found useful and it gives the students more autonomy over their learning.  Students are given an exam question.  The students will then write a response to the question. Instead of taking it in and marking it, you give students a perfect answer with highlighted key words or key phrases.  The students then analyse their answer with the one on the board and mark their own work. Afterwards, students then write WWW (what went well) and EBI (even better if) on marks they have achieved, key words included/missing and gaps in their 

knowledge and understanding.  The idea is that when you come to mark the book you are able to review targets and track whether students are making improvements on their exam writing.  This technique can also be done as peer evaluation or as a group activity.  It also enables students to know where they are in relation to the top grades and track their own progress.

It was my first inset and I really enjoyed it. I don’t think there is too much I would have done differently apart from maybe going to speak to more teachers about techniques that they have used which are effective in their classrooms, particularly maths.  I am far from an expert in questioning and these are only techniques that have worked for me in my lessons.  I hope this blog has given you some ideas or at the very least made you reflect on the questioning strategies used in your lessons.

DIRTy ToEs - Differentiation by Assessment

My main target as a teacher for this coming year builds upon the work I have done previously on using Taxonomies of Errors (ToEs) which you can read about in an earlier post on this blogsite. Although they are fantastic tools for sharing with students the common mistakes made by the whole class (to compliment the individual feedback given through my marking), these taxonomies do not of themselves cause students to make improvements to their practice. 

So, my target is to use DIRTy activities (Dedicated Improvement & Reflection Time for the uninitiated) in conjunction with my ToEs in order to ensure that the hours I spend on assessing an evaluating students' work are actually worth it. This post is my reflection on the first of my DIRTy ToEs lessons, with my Y12 Sociology class. 

The essay I had marked was one that I had asked them to do at home in timed conditions about the strengths and limitations of official statistics as a method for sociological research. 

In this follow-up lesson I wanted them to take the findings from an interview they had conducted with a family member on mortality rates and learn from their previous 'methods question' errors (individually and as a class) and act upon this learning. Having given them a whole period to feedback in groups and as a whole class about their positive and negative experiences of the interview process, comparing these experiences to the recognised strengths and limitations of the methodology, I then have them back their marked essays. 

When I mark essays at A-Level I scrawl my immediate thoughts on the essays as I read them, but then type up my overall impressions of strengths and areas for improvement on Fronter. I do this so that my comments are un-loseable and to enable the students to look at the comments I have made over time to see if any comments recur again and again. As this was their first formal feedback I printed these off and attached them to the essays. Here's what one of them looks like for Student A. 

After giving the students time to consider my comments and marking I then spoke with them about the Taxonomy of Errors for the whole class. As usual I categorised these into low level errors (ones that stop students achieving a pass), mid-level errors (ones that get in the way of a C) and high-level errors (ones that might prevent the awarding of the highest grades). This is what they looked like this time around.

At the lower level the issue of 'lifting' came about because I asked them to complete their essays at home and, being new AS students, they were more than reliant on the textbook. It's a problem that needs nipping in the bud, and the taxonomy approach helps greatly with this. 

At the mid-level, where most students found themselves, there is a greater array of errors. At this stage in the year, however, I am always keen to address the issue of wasted words (hence the point about repetitive conclusions) and the lack of examples to support points.

At the high level I was keen to stress the need to develop their understanding of 'validity' as a key theoretical construct for the subject, as it lags behind their understanding of 'reliability' and 'representativeness'. The other key point I wanted to focus on was students not accepting a supposed methodological strength or weakness without evaluating it or challenging it. 

The next step was to set them DIRTy activities that asked them to 'put right' an error from the class taxonomy that also featured on their individual feedback sheet. For those students who over-relied on the textbook the task was to rewrite a section in their own words. The students at mid or high levels of errors were given a little more choice to reflect the greater variety of errors that were made. 

The tasks they were given were:

Student A (whose feedback was shown earlier) chose to add a section on 'validity' from the higher DIRTy ToEs tasks. Her improvements looked like this:

All well and good. Not perfect but an improvement on what had gone before. 

Where the lesson really worked was in the main task that followed the DIRTy ToEs activity. 

In this activity, students were asked to go beyond the mistakes that they had already made and aim to skip the mistakes that those who had achieved more highly than them had made. If you want to strive for rapid progress, then this is the way to go!!!  Because Student A was already at the top of the taxonomy (do I need an even higher category for the highest level mistakes that haven't yet been made?) she had another stab at the validity issue and provided something much more coherent than even the DIRTy ToEs task. 

But Student A wasn't the only one to really improve the quality of her work in this lesson. Student B had made the mistake of copying chunks from the textbook, as this shows. 

 

She was required, by the DIRTy ToEs activity to take this section of her initial essay and rewrite it into her own words. This is what she produced. 

Much better!  And note the further addition of a sentence, showing evidence of evaluation and improvement. For her new essay Student B decided to focus on the following targets from the Mid-Level ToE. 

The section below shows how she managed to address the second of these targets. Notice the use of the qualifier 'can' used more than once in this paragraph. 

A third student, Student C, was halfway between A and B in her original essay, and her errors were at the mid-level of the ToE. 

As you can see from my marking in the picture above, one of the things that she needed to focus on in order to move closer to a C grade was to add specific examples of official statistic datasets to illustrate her general points about the method.  She responded wonderfully well to this in the DIRTy ToEs activity. 

As with Student B, C elected to retain the addition of examples from the mid-level ToE, as well as adding targets from the high-level ToE. 

She never managed to explore the term validity as she hoped, preferring instead to consolidate on her use of examples. 

This isn't a problem. When I feed back to her next time I will remind her of the unmet target and before then I shall be addressing the whole class's understanding of validity as a key issue that needs to be addressed. Remember that this post-DIRTy ToEs activity was about aiming to avoid mistakes that others above them had made: very much a stretch activity. The fact that she has addressed a significant issue for her and then consolidated it in a second piece of writing is good enough for me. 

Conclusion: Next steps on DIRTy ToEs

The addition of DIRTy activities to my already well-established Taxonomy of Errors technique has helped my teaching a great deal. 

Without the DIRT, my ToEs would simply be lists of what did and didn't work with a hopeful assumption that students follow up on these in their own time.  Without the ToEs, my DIRTy activities would be undifferentiated and decontextualised from the needs of the students. 

I shall be continuing to get my ToEs DIRTy in the coming months because the learning that was done this lesson, and the consequent improvement made by students, was exceptional. It took almost all of a triple period to get the students to that point, though, and I don't want to have to invest that amount of time in the future, so keeping it regular is going to be a key challenge for me. But I am also aware that repetition is a double-edged sword and, because of this, I want to look to vary the DIRTy activities as much as possible and even look to see how I can modify the ToEs too. 

I'll let you know how I get on.