Are we there yet? - A journey to develop whole school Learning and Teaching

As a mother of a vivacious four year old (affectionately known as The Zoaster or Plaster Girl) the question 'are we there yet?' is one that has formed the background noise to my life. It has also been the question I have asked myself at key points over the last three years since  joining Canons High School to support the school in its journey towards outstanding learning and teaching. In this my first post I'm going to liken the journey we have been taking at Canons High to learning to drive (those who know me well will smile.. as I finally passed my test on the sixth attempt). Learning to drive (well) can be characterised by five stages.

 

Stage 1- Learn about your vehicle
Stage 2- Know the basic skills
Stage 3- Understanding how to interact with others and avoid distractions
Stage 4- Learn how to park and do other turns
Stage 5- Master the advanced skills

As a new colleague ( in other words an unknown quantity) and in my first appointment to SLT ( in other words an unknown quantity with no experience) and joining an established and successful team, I did feel like a learner driver along this road. With a few weeks grace to settle into my office, label my files, navigate my way around the many rooms I was to teach in ( thanks Mr Timetabler) I was thrown in at the deep end as a learner driver with a provisional licence into Canons Outstanding Pedagogy Project (OPP). With a very capable driving instructor in the form of @kevbartle I launched into a full day of INSET with a group of teachers who knew they were good but wanted to be better and be better consistently. So back to the learner driver. We set off as a group of teachers with our provisional licences and permission to begin change. We were keen and green and knew we wanted to move our practice in the classroom to a new level but we weren't totally sure what it would look like. The SLT like all good parents watching their children step into a car for the first time gave us the keys to the car and the green light to begin to make change happen, but wanted to know that we were prepared to learn and direct change in a coherent way that best met the needs of the learners and teachers.

We spent that first INSET day unpicking what outstanding teachers might say, do and feel, and what an outstanding learning experience might look like. We took the stance that pedagogy could be viewed as a Science, Art and Craft and set ourselves the task of exploring each of those areas. OPP continued to meet over the rest of the year and our ideas began to gain momentum. We rarely agreed on anything (WALT, WILF, TIBs or all, most, some) but the fruit of these sessions were that we began to become a school that increasingly talked about learning. Our discussions around pedagogy began to inform a new Learning and Teaching policy in which we began to lay out not only our philosophy for learning at Canons but the aspects of our school that enhanced learning and teaching.

As we made it to the end of the academic year we began to feel like we had pointed our car in the right direction, turned on the ignition and taken our first drive around the block.

Like all new models for improvement taking a bottom up approach was messy, but out of OPP emerged a small group of teachers who felt ready to take their discussion and debate to the wider staff body and more importantly to put themselves forward as leaders of pedagogy. July came and it was time to park the car over the summer but not before convincing SLT that although we had nothing quite concrete yet in the form of a Canons Pedagogy, they could trust OPP to launch their view of pedagogy Art, Science, Craft with all staff through the Teaching and Learning Communities (TLCs). The thinking being that in a similar way to OPP, teachers would deliver the Canons Pedagogy to the school themselves. Are we there yet? No. But we had found the ignition, turned the key and were getting a feel for how our car might work. Stage 1 complete.

The car pulled out again in September 2011 with our new TLC leaders/OPP members inviting all staff at Canons to join one of our TLCs. The question was do you want to develop the Art, Science or Craft of your practice? Once choices had been made it was a delight to watch colleagues train students to observe lessons and give feedback ( TLC Art), participate in peer observations and create a peer drop in observation sheet ( TLC Craft) and develop the use of Fronter to share good practice (TLC Science). There began to be a buzz around teaching and learning and it began to feel like we were learning the basics. We had got into our pedagogic cars, passed our test and picked up our full licences. We had to harness the gems from all areas of discussion around pedagogy and pick out what could work at Canons. What were they key features of the areas we were developing that would create a Canons Pedagogy or Canons way of learning and teaching? 2011-12 was a year in which we learnt how to manoeuvre our cars and show awareness of our surroundings; make safe turns, stop smoothly , shift gears, and when necessary reverse. It felt like we were gong in the right direction but we needed coherence. Are we there yet? No. But stage two complete.

OPP was still in full flow. So far all that we had done, tried and tested had come from OPP and its members so it made perfect sense to entrust the next steps of our journey to them. The key discussion questions for OPP as we entered the Spring term if 2011-12 were:
1. How can we structure learning?
2. What does effective learning and teaching at Canons High School look like?

OPP thrashed out the key features of two models of learning and agreed that the Accelerated Learning cycle (ALcycle) with it's clear,simple and logical four staged approach to structuring learning, would give us the framework upon which we might hang the different elements of the classroom practice we had been exploring. Okay that was question one addressed. But what of the second question? OPP had shown us that we had the talent from within our staff body, and we knew from lesson observations that elements of the proposed Canons Pedagogy were already being demonstrated to some extent in the classrooms of Canons High. Enter the Pedagogy Leaders  (AKA the Peds).  Six teachers promoted from our teaching pool, all judged as being able to demonstrate aspects of outstanding teaching and all wanting to contribute to the leadership of learning and teaching across the school. With growing confidence as we embarked on stage 3 our car was about to pick up speed.

Locked away in a tiny hotel conference room on their own (having asked myself and @kevbartle to leave) the newly appointed Pedagogy Leaders worked through what they saw as the strengths and weaknesses of learning and teaching at Canons. They grappled with the issues that Canons like all schools face and identified the systems we already had in place and the ones we might need in order to speed up the pace of improving our practice. They also reflected on their practice and areas of specialism and how they might be interwoven into the areas of whole school practice that needed development. With the ideas from this initial session flowing into subsequent meetings what emerged was the Canons Pedagogy. The AL cycle upon which to structure learning (the science), six learning themes that could be demonstrated through our practice (the craft), and the Canons High School 8 teaching techniques that teachers could master (the art). As they took us through stage 3 the Pedagogy Leaders had to learn how interact with their colleagues; support them, lead them and gain their trust and respect. Of equal importance was their determination to avoid the inevitable distractions; it was and will always be about learning for them. Are we there yet? No. But stage 3 complete.

As we moved towards the of the end of the summer term the main objective of the Pedagogy Leaders was to present the Canons Pedagogy to the wider teaching body. As leaders of learning we knew that some among us were waiting to see what these Peds had been up to since they were appointed seven weeks earlier. We knew that most would welcome a clear and transparent model for learning that was personalised to the needs of our school, but equally we knew that there would be one or two who would feel they had nothing new to learn.

The Lazy Teacher INSET day (used with permission after the event- thanks Jim Smith) pushed the idea that students learn best when they do more in the classroom and teachers do less. By carefully planning learning in a structured way using the AL cycle and employing a number of simple techniques like SOLO, Forum theatre and the Flipped Classroom the Pedagogy Leaders demonstrated how as teachers we can ensure learning and progress. The teaching techniques were helpful and as colleagues carouseled around workshops and focussed on each phase of the AL cycle, new methods were embraced and old ones were tweaked. This practitioner-led INSET was a key moment on our journey because it gave us a common vocabulary around which to talk about learning but left us with the freedom to create varied learning experiences based on our different characters, experience and the resources we had to hand. Colleagues saw how they could graft their skills, talents and experience into the AL cycle. The summer break was upon us and inevitably we had to park our car sensibly in order to continue our journey in September. Are we there yet? Not quite. But stage 4 complete.

Learning by example

This week, I have been privileged enough to see 6 of my colleagues as part of our whole school review.

I love watching other people teach because I nearly always learn something when I do so.

I watched a maths lesson where students simultaneously learnt how to solve equations and how to count  in Swahili. I watched an Computing lesson where students collaboratively had prepared their own lessons at home using Prezis  and then used these to teach their peers a variety of concepts. I observed my first ever PE lesson and saw a teacher skilfully develop the physical skills of all students via judicious use of peer demonstration and questioning. In the same lesson, I also heard students evaluate their own performance using precise technical language.  I saw high levels of pupil engagement and a thirst for knowledge.  I saw pupils learn.

Across these lessons, I noticed an interesting thing.  Learning is obvious, practical or theoretical, year 7 or year 11, group work or teacher led. When you are in a space where people are developing in their understanding in a significant way it is clear and palpable. You can hear it, you can see it, you can feel it.

In many of the lessons I saw I was also able to make parallels with my own classes and consider how I could use the best bits to improve my personal teaching practice.  Some of you reading this may have deduced that I have a responsibility of some type if I was involved in so many observations, and I saw those as part of my responsibility. In this case you'd be right.

However, I got into the habit of watching others teach during my first year of teaching and I found it so powerful that I have made a point of doing it ever since.  I am a maths teacher but along side my own subject, for my own CPD, away from any responsibilities I may have gained with time, I have  observed colleagues who teach a range of subjects including Citizenship, English, Science and I have learnt something form each and every one of them.

In teaching there is never enough time, outside of lessons we are all too busy with data entry, marking, phoning parents, planning, breaking up fights, telling students to do up their top buttons, the list is endless. However I always make time to observe colleagues that I respect teach- irrespective of how heavy my timetable was- why? Because I learn more from that than going on a course, I learn more from that than reading a book and I learn more from that than being told what to do. These colleagues teach in my environment with my students and are always generous with their time and resources.  Over 8 years I have yet to have a teacher refuse when I have asked to observe them in a personal capacity for my own CPD, this is irrespective of whether or not my role has been more senior than the person I was observing.

So who do I ask? Anybody, that I can lean from. I ask to see teachers that my students are alway talking about, I see teachers who other colleagues that I respect mention, as a result I've observed NQTs as well as more experienced teachers and I've seen senior leaders and classroom teachers with no responsibilities. Learning is learning , who ever it is delivered by.

So what have I learnt? My now standard practice of asking students to evaluate the lesson so far and come up with the lesson objectives themselves was an adaptation from that citizenship lesson that I mentioned.  My questioning abilities were significantly developed after working a collaboration with a French  teacher and I'm currently in the early stages of working with a History teacher @MsHowardCHS regarding how I can adapt her very effective use of scaffolding to help students in maths better answer longer problem solving questions that are now a regular feature of GCSE exams which many of our pupils find difficult.

You'll notice that I haven't used he words outstanding or good during his post at all. That is deliberate, I feel that these words have become loaded in teaching because of OFSTED and when I observe m colleagues in a personal capacity, I don't even give them any thought. I look at what the teacher does, why, and the effect it has on learning after the lesson i usually thank the person and let them know verbally what I learnt and how it will impact me, it's one of the most powerful CPD and its free and easily accessible.

So if you want to improve your teaching or just get a fresh perspective, I urge you to arrange to see a colleague. It'll be one of the most enjoyable uses of your non- contact periods and 30-60min of your time once or twice a year, well spent.

Before you are wondering, yes I've had numerous colleagues come and see me too but you'd have to ask them whether they got anything out of it or not!


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From the Theoretical to Empirical using SOLO Hot Maps

 

Today was the day of my observation for our Whole School Review process with my wonderful Y12 Sociologists. They are a great class for this subject: opinionated, argumentative, personally informed and happy to share pertinent information about themselves. Prior to today though we had being doing work that suited them down to the ground, namely the broad sociological theories of Functionalism, Marxism, Feminisms (Marxist, Radical and Liberal), the New Right and Postmodernism and what each of them have to say about family structures. This lesson, the hinge point following the half term holidays, was where I wanted to move them from the theoretical arguments somewhat and demonstrate to them the importance of empirical evidence, specifically in the form of official statistics on recent and current patterns of marriage, cohabitation, separation and divorce. The learning objectives for the lesson, now separated in the Canons lesson observation proforma into statements about 'content', 'skills' and 'beliefs' (although I'm still insisting that there is an alignment with my tried and trusted WALT, WILF & TIBS) are shown here. I'm aware that the 'beliefs' section is a little pragmatic but I have been working hard on getting them to only target the B, A, A* grades (or sheep grades as Mr Baa-rtle likes to call them!!) and am reinforcing this challenge wherever possible.

I was concerned that this switchover from the really meaty Sociology of high level theory to the somewhat acquired taste of official statistics might not be to their palate so I wanted a connection and activation phase of the lesson that explicitly connected the two. With this in mind I began with my favourite kind of connection phase activity, a striking image that offers opportunities to test out the maxim that a picture tells a thousand words. This is the one that I came up with. In order that they 'telescoped' their way into the picture I asked them initially to approach it in a unistructural manner, identifying a single aspect of the image that struck them before then asking them to move to multistructural and relational understanding of the picture by identifying other elements that connected with their initial area of focus. Finally I asked them to consider the picture in an extended abstract way by considering how they might be able to apply it to the sociological theory that they had studied in the previous half term. In all of this I utilised a think-pair-share mode partly in order to help build trust in their new Home Groups (mixed ability, gender, ethnicity and friendship groups that they had moved into at the end of the previous half term) but mainly to allow me to target questions at the quieter students and those who had struggled in early assessments.

Of course this initial focus on theory and a rich source image played completely to their strengths which is, after all, the importance of a good connection phase activity. It also served as a very useful revision activity in this their first lesson of the new half term. The struggle was to keep them focused on following the 'telescoping' process and not immediately beginning their feedback by jumping straight into their relational responses; I felt it vital that they considered the individual details, not just the big picture, if they were to be able to make sense of the data sets that were to follow.

Having done this I then used one of Pam Hook's SOLO Hot Maps to ask them to predict what would happen to the family in the picture, or to one of the members of the family. I love the SOLO Hot Maps and I am always surprised at how little love they appear to get on twitter or blogs about the use of SOLO. In particular I like blowing them up to A3 to allow them to be used by pairs or groups for collaborative thinking with a real focus on process not product. Having made their initial suggestion of a possible outcome they then had to use their knowledge of sociological theory to suggest 'possible evidence for' their prediction and 'possible evidence against' it. This allowed them to interrogate their understanding of conflicting sociological theories, enabling them to pit New Right perspectives against Radical Feminism, or the socialisation of Functionalism against the ideological control of Marxism. As evaluation of competing theories is a vital element of the higher bands of the marks scheme, the structure of the SOLO Hot Map was absolutely perfect for this activity.

It was only after this point that I shared with them the learning objective (I have grown ever fonder of the notion of slowing the pace of activities in order to quicken the pace of learning), and because the 'skills' element of the objective explicitly mentioned that they needed to be able to link THEORETICAL and EMPIRICAL evidence I decided to take time out with them to explore the literacy of both words. As an English teacher by trade I much prefer using synonyms for exploring the meaning of words rather than using dictionary definitions. With this slide I 'hid' the synonyms for 'empirical' and asked them to make predictions of the kinds of words that they thought would come up having explored in discussion the range of synonyms for the word 'theoretical'. The unveil then revealed that the students had been able to use their antonyms for 'theoretical' in order to very accurately predict the meaning of 'empirical', which was a major improvement upon previous years when I have laboured to explain the vocabulary to students.

The next bit was the leap of faith into the official statistics as I showed them this graph from the amazing teaching tool that is Social Trends. For the uninitiated this is a summary document, published annually by the Office for National Statistics, of trends emerging from a huge number of governmental surveys and other research tools. It features commentary on a range of issues from education to crime, and transport to health and includes numerous tables, charts and graphs to illustrate this commentary. I use it massively for all units I teach, but this graph is my favourite because of the richness of its data. In order to wean the students onto the empirical data included here I followed exactly the same 'telescoping' process as they had used when exploring the image at the very start of the lesson. They had to identify one aspect of the graph that they felt was interesting (unistructural) and then talk with other members of the group to ensure a range of understanding of different elements of it (multistructural), before seeing if they could identify links between the different elements such as the relationship between first marriages and all marriages (relational). The implicit message from my structure of this lesson was intended to be that reading a graph involves exactly the same thought processes as reading a picture, in other words those of reading.

The final step in helping the students successfully move from being able to confidently use theoretical knowledge to being able to confidently use empirical evidence was to ask them to apply the data in an extended abstract way to the predictions they had made in the first part of their SOLO Hot Maps. Having included reference to their understanding of sociological theory as possible evidence for and against their predictions, they now had to use aspects from the graph as 'actual evidence for' and 'actual evidence against'. This worked better than I could ever have hoped for, with all groups being able to identify data from a single source in both support of their initial hypothesis and as a challenge to it. Simultaneously they learnt a tremendous amount about marriage, divorce and remarriage almost by osmosis through the process. In particular their assumption that divorce almost inevitably led to lone parent families was completely overwhelmed by the realisation that remarriage is a reality for a significant number of divorcees. It was noticeable that more groups changed their predictions in the light of the empirical data, with one student noting that he would never have thought that numbers could have so much to say about the real world of relationships.

The rest of the lesson involved the students being given other charts and graphs in small groups in order to explore in more depth the facts behind patterns in marriage, divorce, cohabitation, same-sex relationships and lone person households. The confidence they had gained in using both theoretical and empirical data during the first activity using the SOLO Hot Maps was carried with them into a pure data analysis task and we will square the circle on Friday when we add to their analyses of these new data sets with the theoretical information that attempts to explain the reasons for the patterns they have identified. For now I am simply happy that the students have managed to connect the poetry and the prose of sociological enquiry.

 

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Beyond Outstanding - The Challenge Partners Peer Review

This week we have hosted an Ofsted inspector and three senior leaders from other schools for our Challenge Partners peer-led Quality Assurance Review process. Their job was to come and look at the school in a supportive but challenging way and to provide us with a report, for our own consumption, to reflect their (and our) thoughts in light of the review.

I won't say too much about the Challenge Partners, as you can have a look at their website to find out more.

http://www.challengepartners.org/

What I will say is that it is a mutual organisation created to keep the work of the London Challenge (and Northwest and Black Country Challenges) going. The ethos that underpins the organisation is that schools can support each other to raise standards and achievement. The Quality Assurance Review is therefore the only part of the process that is mandatory. Every school in the partnership has to participate in one and every school has to give two of its staff a week off in order to conduct two reviews of other schools. It's a model Sir Michael Wilshaw seems determined to copy with his public pronouncements on Heads of outstanding schools being forced to become Ofsted Inspectors. What this model has in its favour is that it is based upon a willingness to help and to be helped: an invaluable quality in any school-to-school support process.

A month ago I was fortunate enough to visit two other schools as part of their review team and was struck by the collegial and supportive nature of the process. We reviewed two schools in Devon with very different histories and current situations. The discussions we had were powerful for all parties and I took away as much for my own school as I left for the schools ostensibly being evaluated. The experience left me both eager for our school's review and nervous about what it would tell us: there is definitely a rigour and robustness that undergirds the whole process (one for @learningspy @johntomsett & @missJLudd there).

The first challenge to overcome was to manage the potential threat of the process for Canons teachers, particularly in light of the current union action. I needn't have worried. Canons staff were more than happy to participate in a process that on the surface has a similar structure to Ofsted, but that in reality is far more empowering. They volunteered in huge numbers to be observed, to meet with the team members, co-observe their colleagues and to showcase our areas of outstanding practice (Science, English, Drama and Music if you'd like to know). It's a testament to their commitment and dedication to their own professional development that rather than having to twist arms to get people involved I had to console those who I had to leave out of the process.

The second challenge was to ensure that the team had all the information they needed. The process involves the team spending the Monday of the review week looking over the RAISEonline reports, SEFs and School Improvement Plans of both schools. We added more information about our latest exam results and other documents to help the team get a flavour of our distinctive ethos. I even took them over to their base in the other school so that the rapport-building process could begin. Peer review has empathy built into it in a way that Ofsted never could, and perhaps offers a way in which partnership working may one day supplant the current model of school accountability.

The third challenge was the review itself. The good thing about having other school leaders in to observe your school is that there is no shortage of inquisition involved. It may seem that there could be a problem with too little challenge and a cosiness borne out of a you-scratch-my-back over-collegiality. Alternatively it may seem that there could be a problem with too much challenge borne out of having too many successful school leaders all saying "in my school we do it like this". But actually the process managed to walk the line between those two potential perils. For teachers this manifested itself in lesson observations that generated a huge amount of developmental feedback from the external visitors and Canons co-observers, but which also resulted in Ofsted-style grading that sometimes thrilled and sometimes disappointed. For school leaders this meant sometimes sharing aspects of our work that we could see the reviewers wanted to take back to their school with them, whilst also having to answer tough questions about our assumptions and practices (or not actually get round to answering them as I was accused of on the day). All in all it was simultaneously tough and tender; an interesting combination.

The final challenge for us at Canons is responding to the feedback from the Challenge Partners peer review team. On the one hand we want to savour the fact that they felt that we were confidently outstanding in terms of pupil progress, school improvement strategies and (most crucially, as it represents progress since our last Ofsted), teaching and learning. The fact that they called CanonsOPP a "beautiful model of how teaching and learning should be done" and said both the teaching and the strategies to improve teaching were "amazing" is a testament to the work we have done, and continue to do, as a school. On the other hand we have to now meet the challenges that arise from our positive judgements, especially the agreed belief that we are well on the way to becoming a great school. In particular our English, Science, Drama and Music departments need to swiftly develop their capacity and capability to "strut their stuff on the national stage" (my favourite quote from the lead reviewer). The school also needs to shout increasingly loudly about our model for improving pedagogy, an area of outstanding practice they asked us to put forward for validation.

All of which leads me to one final challenge for any school leader who has made it all the way to the end of this blogpost. I challenge you to heave a close look at the Challenge Partners and take what you find to your next SLT meeting. If you're not a school leader then I also challenge you to send this blogpost you your SLT line manager and ask them if they think Challenge Partners would be right for your school. I make this challenge because I think that this model of schools working together to take responsible for both self-improvement and peer-improvement could be the start of something big; the end of a top-down, Ofsted-and-government-knows-better model of accountability and its replacement with a mature school-centred model of interdependent improvement.

A Coherent Architecture for Learning

On Thursday 4th October 2012 Canons High School welcomed Alistair Smith (or @alatalite to give him his correct twitter handle) to deliver the keynote speech at our second of five connected whole-staff INSET days. The purpose of this programme is to help the school gear up our Outstanding Pedagogy Project (@CanonsOPP) as we move - hopefully inexorably - towards an outstanding judgment for teaching and learning in the eyes of Ofsted that will validate the strengths we know the school, our staff and students possess. The theme of this particular session was the 'why' of outstanding pedagogy: the raison d'être of CanonsOPP and hopefully, the end of the start of the project.

As I sat listening to Alistair speak I allowed my mind to wander somewhat and I would argue that this is the best compliment I can give to him. When I have to listen hard to a keynote, it is usually because I have to tune in to find common cause with it's key precepts. On the other hand, when I feel that the speaker is completely on my wavelength I tend to hook in to a single concept that latches on to my core beliefs and then let it infuse me. I suppose it's a bit like listening to music that resonates; it transports you and there's usually very little that you can do to stop it. Judging from the conversations that I had with a number of colleagues later that day, I suspect that I wasn't the only one who was transported. And this week I have come across three colleagues who have taken an idea that came from his talk and made it happen in their classrooms (see above). In order to do this I imagine that they must have spent at least some of his speech making mental, or even physical, notes and to-do lists as he was communicating with them. I must remember this when my A-Level students drift away, and hope it is for similar reasons!!!

Anyway, I digress. I wanted to outline the nugget that set me off thinking and it was this. Alistair talked about a "coherent architecture for learning". I knew that this was coming, as he had been in the school a week before to talk with members of SLT and our Pedagogy Leaders about what we wanted from him in his talk. The one word that we thought was most important was the word 'coherent'; the sense that staff, students and their parents would see the links between learning across their different classrooms, subjects and teachers. But as I was listening to Alistair speak I realised that it was the rest of the phrase that struck me most: "an architecture for learning". I became fully aware that we have been engaged in a creative activity in its broadest sense, and that the end result of the process could be either a structure "built on sand" or one designed to last as a result of its solid foundations. We could be creating something to provide "shelter from the storm" for learners or a leaky and breezy shed of a structure. We have it within our collective powers to design a "hideous carbuncle" of a building or a thing of beauty to be admired by its inhabitants and neighbours in equal measure.

In other words that the Canons Pedagogy that we have been working on for three years now is about to leave the world of drafting board, design template and blueprint in order to become a real thing, and that Alistair was here to help us "turn the first sod" or, as the first day of the construction of a new edifice is commonly called, to help us achieve something "groundbreaking". Our aim, through our work as co-architects, has been to create something that is strong, is fit for purpose and is beautiful.

The most fundamental part of our "architecture for learning" is the main reason Alistair was with us in the first place, his Accelerated Learning Cycle which we (our CanonsOPP volunteer teacher group) have worked on for more than a year, have presented with (not to) staff and have built into our new lesson planning mechanism (although we know it is so much more than that). In short, it is the foundations of our pedagogic structure on which all else rests: the aspect of the architecture that provides us with strength. It is not intended to be a straitjacket and has been warmly received by teachers as something that they 'know' is the right thing to do, is strongly related to their practice at its best and puts learning at the heart of teacher planning.

The main thrust of the second half of the day was in getting groups of teachers together in cross-faculty groups to plan a learning cycle on a topic that could be related to subjects or delivered as a PSHCE lesson (I loved working on the 'Legacy of the Olympics' with a Chemistry and a French teacher that ended up being entirely about the political choices involved in spending more than £10 billion pounds). The emphasis was on the process of using the Accelerated Learning Cycle, not on the product of the lesson (or series of lessons) that emerged - although many colleagues liked theirs. The session finished with a peer evaluation of the process that was overwhelmingly positive. Much will remain to be done to keep these foundations strong in order for them to be built upon: the Canons Pedagogy is not a single architectural project after all. But the most positive thing to emerge from the day for me was that although staff were asking for more time and more support to be able to fully implement it, they were adamant that it was the right thing for the school to be doing.

The second part of our Canons Pedagogy, the part that ensures our collective learning is one that is fit for moral, cultural, social and even spiritual (in its broadest sense) purposes are outlined on the slide Alistair delivered shown here. These 'learning themes' are not drawn from the PLTS or BLP or any other pre-packaged learning to learn programme. Instead they are designed to reflect specific Canons contextual issues, linking closely with our school ethos as viewed by our teachers, students and parents. These have been the final piece of the jigsaw to be introduced to teachers and will form the basis of our new hybrid model of professional development that brings together the ideas of Dylan Wiliam's Teacher Learning Communities and David Hargreaves' Joint Practice Development. Teachers will choose their TLC focus and choose their JPD partners in a model that encourages autonomy (thanks Iesha) and interdependence between the incredibly able and focused professionals that populate our staffroom.

The final element of the "architecture for learning" that we call the Canons Pedagogy is the CHS8 of techniques that our Pedagogy Leaders presented on our June INSET day (I have blogged about this elsewhere), and that we will invest time and energy in over the coming years so that they become embedded in a number of classrooms, though not necessarily all as a core tenet of our work is that there is no correct way for teachers to teach. These techniques include some designed to aid areas as diverse as assessment (SOLO taxonomy), group work (Forum Theatre) and home learning (Flipped Classroom), but all are rooted in the principals shown above. Similarly all have been linked to an aspect of the Accelerated Learning Cycle, perhaps a touch arbitrarily but primarily done to ensure a sense of coherence. It is this coherence, ensuring that the fixtures and fittings of learning are in keeping with the structure without putting undue stress on the foundations, that we think ensures that our Canons Pedagogy will be a thing of beauty when it has been fully established.

I have no doubt that this has been one of the least obviously outward-facing blogposts on Canons Broadside, but as our "coherent architecture for learning" has finally fully left the drawing board I wonder whether or not it has a relevance beyond our own four walls. We have no belief that the Canons Pedagogy can act as a blueprint for other schools (unlike the DfE we appreciate that physical and metaphysical architecture needs to be context-specific), but our journey through the stages of the design and building process may well be of interest to others, for our failures as much as for our successes. The challenge I would make of any non-Canons teachers and school leaders reading this is "what does your coherent architecture for learning look like?" And if you can't answer that question maybe, just maybe, it is time for you to go back to the drawing board and begin the process of finding out.

 

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A Time for Renewed Optimism

It'll come as no surprise to any of you who have read any of my previous posts or caught up with me on twitter that I love the optimism of the start of a new academic year.

It's a time to welcome back colleagues somewhat freshened from their summer sojourns.

It's a time to welcome back students who have somehow managed to mutate into their new status (that strange, almost imperceptible difference in aspect and demeanour between late-Y8 and early-Y9).

It's a time to see the freshly scrubbed faces and starchily-crisped uniforms of the new Y7s (even the hand-me-down brigade wear theirs with a barrel-chested pride borne out of knowing that they are literally stepping into the shoes of their hopefully illustrious sibling).

It's also a time when blank pages in planners and exercise books offer us - teachers and students alike - the tantalising glimpse of a pristine future free from all the mistakes we made in the previous year (I've sometimes thought it would be good to issue fresh planners and exercise books termly rather than annually, but it just 'wouldn't be the same' would it?).

It's a time when the prospect of new groups of students coming into our classrooms is almost thrilling: which of them might we inspire; which of the 'known' students are going to turn over a new leaf; which of them are going to challenge us, and how are we going to meet that challenge head on.

It's a time when stunning results from Herculean efforts the previous year are fully absorbed in order that we may use them as mere springboards to ever greater achievements. Or alternatively otherwise stunning results from Quixotic efforts the previous year are wiped clean from our heavy hearts and burdened brains as we begin moving virtual mountains again with the forbearance of Sisyphus.

And I know that for the more cynically-minded of you out there it's also a time of optimism: The optimism that yet another year is going to pass during which you are going to make all manner of doomful predictions about how management are going to mess things up which are going to be proven right. Pessimism is just an extreme example of optimism in many ways, with most cynics I know caring that bit more about the lives and hopes of students than many of their more optimistic peers.

And finally, on a school-specific level, the start of the new academic year 2012-13 is also a time when the massively strong foundations of curriculum change, focused leadership at all levels and exam success can be built upon; when we can fashion a uniquely special edifice constructed from the bricks of wonderful teaching and the mortar of interdependent learning. It's a time for all of us to tweak our classroom practice in much the same way as an osteopath tweaks a nerve here and there, to help align the intentions of our classrooms and the actual outcomes.

So a Happy New Year to all of you. I wish you all the best with your New Year's resolutions. Let's see once more whether we can do much more, educationally speaking, than go to the gym a few times in January.

On Being Chefs not Food Critics

Here's my final post of the academic year, and I guess I have to revert to type and use one of my (now infamous?) extended metaphors. The difference is that this one is not new to me. This is one I've already developed and one I believe in more than anything else. I've used it freely with many members of staff and I even have it in a nutshell version which goes something like this.

Ofsted are food critics whilst we are chefs. We need to stop thinking like the food critics and think a lot more like chefs.

I come to this conclusion because essentially I see teaching as a creative process, not a reductive one. McDonaldisation is not something you can do to education and teaching because teachers, students and parents are not homogeniseable. There are too many variables that schools can't control and so to try to do so is a futile effort. You could set up the most restrictive academy chain, make all your students start in your nursery and run through to post-16, make all their families attend parenting classes and set up your own in-house ITT provision to train all your teachers and you still wouldn't get near to uniformity.

So why are so many schools trying to follow a recipe for success written by the non-teachers at the DfE and Ofsted (I know SMW is a former Head, but you know what I mean)? Every time Ofsted changes its focus and publishes a new inspection schedule we set off at a gallop to attend courses by consultancy firms, to gather to listen to horror stories from the guinea pigs from the trials and - most alarmingly - change many of the things we do to ensure we still meet the new 'outstanding' criteria or pull clear of the new 'requires improvement' criteria. This mania to ensure compliance runs from the local authority and unions to school leaders and to teachers. Sometimes it even finds its way into the consciousness of students and their parents ("we must get our happy parents onto ParentView").

Compare this to the much-coveted Michelin Guide stars awarded to restaurants. The first is awarded because its a place the critics feel is worth stopping to eat for. The second is awarded because its a place the critics feel is worth taking a detour for. The third is awarded because its a place the critics feel is worth making a special journey for. And that's it. No evaluation schedule. No tick boxes. No guidance notes. Nothing.

The net result of this is that if you're a chef with aspirations of being exceptional there is nothing that you can do to make it happen other than be exceptional for your customers, to make the experience uniquely wonderful for everyone who sits down at one of your tables. You can't second guess when a critic will come in (and even if you could, two more will follow at a later date to validate their judgement so its best not to even try to), but instead cook what you want to cook, how you want to cook it and do so brilliantly every time. And this is what I mean when I say teachers need to think more like chefs than food critics.

Of course it isn't easy in education. Ofsted aren't going anywhere anytime soon, and in the interests of openness they are required to publish their evaluation schedules and guidance to inspectors. Added to that recently we have even seen a return to the (in my eyes) bad old days of advance notice of when we can expect an inspection, a keep-you-on-your-toes mechanism if ever there was one! I can't imagine that the teaching profession would accept Michelin-style secrecy around the judging process (and nor should they) especially given the recent furore over zero-notice inspections.

What that all means is that it is up to leaders at all levels in schools to set the tone and to encourage and foster everyday excellence in teaching and learning. Michelin don't look any further than the food and, if the hype is to be believed, Ofsted won't be looking much further than the quality of teaching when making their judgements.

Since taking over as Chief Inspector Michael Wilshaw has repeatedly asserted that there is no single Ofsted way to teach that inspectors are looking for, and he has even urged school leaders to be a little odd and experimental in their approach. So let's take him at his word (we could always quote him to any disapproving inspectors) and then do our best to put him to the back of our minds. Instead we need to co-construct with all our partners in learning the way in which we want to be a place worth planning a special trip to go and see, and then we need to make it happen day in and day out for every teacher, student and parent we serve. And that's not easy, and it doesn't involve taking shortcuts or tolerating mediocrity or excluding people from the process no more than a Michelin star seeking restaurant can allow standards to slip in any way. But the standards we need to hold each other to need to be our standards, not Ofsted's or the DfE's. More than this, they need to be standards rooted in the shared experiences of our schools and their people.

iTeachFreely - SOLO Taxonomy 2: usage examples

Despite setting myself the target of writing one post per week, due to a hectic month I have fallen behind. Time to get back on track! This is a very wordy blog post but I hope you find it useful.

Recently, I delivered a small section of an INSET day at our school. The INSET was planned and led by the school's 'Pedagogy Leaders', a team of teachers whose task it is to share good practice and promote great pedagogy across the school. I've been very keen to work with the group to improve my own practice and share my ideas.

The day was laid out around the school's newly proposed Accelerated Learning Cycle. My section was contained within the 'Consolidation' phase and was specifically about the use of SOLO taxonomy. To make the taxonomy (which could fit within any section of the ACL) relevant to the consolidation phase, I had a slight focus on peer and self-evaluation.

I felt the day was a great success, with lots of positive feedback received from our colleagues. The two most common questions I have been presented with since the INSET have been how could we use SOLO in our assessments, and what sorts of classroom activities can you do with SOLO. The latter is going to be dealt with in this post.

I think it's important to point out that SOLO can be used in plenty of activities that you may already be doing. SOLO should be supplementary to what the pupils are doing and not the focus of it. I want my pupils to be able to engage with interesting activities, and through their familiarity with SOLO be able to comment on their progression, as well as see what they could do to improve. For me, SOLO is there to inform the teacher that learning and progression is taking place, and to inform the pupil of how deep their level of thinking is, and where it needs to head.

To help "SOLO virgins" get started, I'm going to write about a few ways in which I have used SOLO in the classroom. Some of these methods may already be documented about in my earlier posts, but the format here will be more of a scaffold than a reflection on what I've done.

SOLO Stations

in a nutshell - SOLO Stations is a fantastic way of incorporating SOLO into the existing Carousel technique we use all the time! Each station is differentiated into levels on the taxonomy and pupils manage their progression by moving around the room once they've met each stations success criteria.

how to set up the lesson - You will need 5 stations, one for Prestructural, Unistructural, Multistructural, Relational and Extended Abstract. When I move labs next year I intend to have these hanging from the ceiling, providing the students continuity and routine. At each station you should have a task which reflects its level on the taxonomy. Prestructural should usually provide reference material for students to use when they are unsure of something (part of 3B4Me). I like to position the prestructural station in the middle of the room and allow students to access it at any time, outside of the linear progression of the other stations. Each station should have a clear set of success criteria so the pupils know when they have completed the task and can move on.

how the lesson runs - Students are instantly engaged on entering with the presentation of a question related to the LOs. The question should be difficult enough for them to realise they do not have a grasp of the topic. Some pupils may be able to handle the question better than others, and this is what facilitates the spreading of students around the stations. Once pupils have thought about the question, they should express where on the taxonomy they believe their understanding is. This then needs to be justified in order to stop little friendship groups from forming and pupils starting above their station. The two methods I have used for justification so far have been either "turn to your neighbour and tell them which station you are starting at and why" or "write you starting position and why on a mini whiteboard and hold it up". Both work but the second one incorporates a bit of AFL. Once you have ascertained the pupil's starting stations, they begin their tasks. Instruct the pupils to move on once they have met the success criteria. If a pupil is struggling to meet the criteria, they should be advised to move down a station and come back to it later. If they have already completed the prior station they should look to the Prestructural Station. I like to tailor my tasks so that the lower level stations build up to the higher level stations. This means pupils transfer skills between stations to help them progress. The movement of students around the room shows their progression but I like to signpost the progression by chosing a child to explain what they have done at a station, why they are moving on and to where they are moving to the whole class. At the end of the session I start a discussion with the class about what they've learnt, let them demonstrate something and then consolidate.

pros - Clear progression is made as pupils move around the class. Pupils can talk about their learning at each station and where their learning is going to go next. Differentiation is achieved and all students can be stretched easily by moving on from the levels they're comfortable at.

cons - Requires a room that can easily be moved around. Behaviour for learning is key to keep students on task. You need to be more safety conscious whilst students are moving about the room (practical/equipment).

HOT maps

in a nutshell - HOT SOLO maps are basically mind maps that guide students through different parts of the taxonomy. There are different maps for the different verbs associated with each level of the taxonomy. The HOT maps are extensively described in SOLO Taxonomy: A Guide for Schools Book 1. I may in the future write a more at length guide on each of the HOT maps along with advice on how the pupils could assess themselves.

how to set up the lesson - Depending on the task set, you should choose the HOT map aligned to the most relevant verb. For example in science, if I wanted my pupils to hypothesise what was going to happen if we changed a variable in an experiment, I'd want them to use the "predict" map. Here is an overview of the HOT SOLO maps paired with their learning verbs.



how the lesson runs - the maps could be used on their own, or as part of a larger project in order to clarify the nature of the learning task.

pros - An advantage of using SOLO in this context is that the task and success criteria can be at different levels. The learning objective could be at a relational level, but using the maps the outcome could be at a unistructural, multistructural, relational or extended abstract level. An example by Hook and Mills (2011) goes as follows:

• A task set to Compare and Contrast is at a relational level, but students comparison statements in the map could be coded against SOLO - the task could involve the student:
  
  
  • listing similarities and differences (multistructural)
  • listing and explaining (relational)
  • listing, explaining and generalising or evaluating the extent of the similarity or differences

cons - There are a large number of maps that can seem overwhelming at first, introducing them slowly is recommended. I would suggest being comfortable with the way they work before setting them for your students.

Interacting with GCSE markschemes

in a nutshell- I recently visited the classroom of @7tbj to see how he was using SOLO taxonomy to help his pupils get better acquainted with the new style AQA science ISA. The difference in this new style of ISA to the old is the length of answers the pupils are expected to write. By using SOLO taxonomy whilst writing their answers, pupils could structure and connect their ideas better and we found it drew more information out of them.

how to set up the lesson- @7tbj had prepared a mock ISA, a mark scheme and a SOLO prompt sheet. He had arranged his classroom into groups and had a stash of numbered bits of paper for grouping. He also had post it notes to use as exit passes.

how the lesson runs- when I joined the lesson, pupils were grouped and were working on answering a different question depending on what table they were sat on. They first created their own answer before conferring with the group. Once they had all voiced their answer they were then given time to create a model answer and given the SOLO prompt sheet to help them.

pros - pupils made clear progress in the lesson and the length of their answers increased once given the SOLO scaffold. The new, slightly ambiguous mark schemes fit in nicely with the SOLO progression to reach higher marks.cons - only tested on Science ISAs.

Success criteria

in a nutshell - success criteria can be set by the pupils using SOLO taxonomy as the framework. Allowing pupils to set their own success criteria gives them ownership and gives you insight.

how to set up the lesson - when I have run this lesson, I have created an exemplar piece of work and opened it up to critique by the pupils. Instead of an example, you could just have clear learning objectives and ask the pupils how they can show they have met them. When I run this activity I like to have a SOLO display (more on this later) and laminated success criteria rubrics:



how the lesson runs - once pupils have evaluated the exemplar piece of work, I get them to write down success criteria they think is appropriate if they were to create something similar. Once the time is up, The pupils post it note these onto our SOLO display. From there, the class pick the "best" ones and we put them up on the whiteboard. We then have differentiated success criteria that the pupils have set and agreed on themselves.

pros - pupils take ownership of their learning and set their own, differentiated success criteria. All pupils should be able to meet at least some of the differentiated criteria.

cons - can be time-consuming if struggling to get through course content.

Peer and self-evaluation

in a nutshell - pupils are able to give useful feedback to each other using the taxonomy. They are able to identify clearly what they need to do to improve their work and/or level of thinking. I have grouped peer and self-evaluation together for the sake of this blogpost because I feel the methods in which it is executed do not vary much. The main difference is that a pupil will be saying I need to do this next in order to progress rather than pupil x needs to do this etc. Peer evaluation has been highlighted as a very effective tool in assessment for learning.

how to set up the lesson - in order to peer or self evaluate, pupils need to have done some work! I'll let your minds run mad with the possibilities here. As stressed by @CanonsScienceT at our recent INSET, it is important that pupils are given some form of training in order to peer evaluate. @totallywired77 recently blogged about Public Critique, definitely worth a read here.

how the lesson runs - once at an appropriate time in the task/lesson, an effort should be made to create space for some evaluation. Pupils can either look at their own work or feedback on another's. This could either be done by swapping books, or putting one pupils work up for everyone's to look at. I think it is very important that evaluation sessions should end with the critique of one piece of work by the whole class. It is important that pupils are trained to critique properly, and give feedback based on how to improve, rather than just commenting on how great or terrible it is. You could go down the route of two stars and a wish. The important thing to implement is the taxonomy. Pupils can use the taxonomy to clearly highlight levels of thinking in the work. For example:

• in a presentation, Pupil X is describing the different ways you can hit a ball in tennis. She describes how to play both topspin and backspin. She then describes why you would want to use both types of shot. All of her explanations have been described using the forehand.


• Class Y are "in-depth" evaluating Pupil X. One member of the class says that pupil X has shown a multistructural level of thinking as she has described 2 different types of shot. Another says pupil X has shown relational levels of thinking by relating them to the bigger picture, why would you use either shot? A third member then feedsforward, suggesting that in order to improve and reach an extended abstract level, pupil X should look at the shots in a new way, perhaps hypothesising how you would play these shots on the backhand. The class is able to contribute as a whole and the teacher can model good feedback along the way.

I often use peer and self-evaluation on the fly in alignment with my questioning to get more out of pupils verbally. I often will receive an answer from one student, and another student to mark where on the taxonomy the answer lies, then get that same student to add to the answer to move it up a level.Focusing on the self aspect, I find this extremely useful for approaching a child, asking them what level they are working at and what they need to do to reach the next level. They can tell me clearly and effectively what they plan to do to next, using the taxonomy. Since introducing this to my classes, I have noticed a marked decrease in the number of pupils with hands up asking "what do I do next sir?".

pros - differentiated feedback supplied by the pupils. Pupils are able to independently recognise what they need to do to improve. Cuts down on marking. Supplies an effective scaffold for feeding back and forward.

cons - pupils need to be trained in order to supply feedback, SOLO does make this much more straightforward though.

Planning

in a nutshell - I first saw this done by @tommegit in a first attempt at using solo. I hadn't thought of structuring lessons around the taxonomy in such an explicit way but I really like the way the lesson flows. The lesson takes the form of the taxonomy, beginning with a presumption of prestructural understanding and ending at an extended abstract level. I highly recommend this to practitioners just getting started in order to better acquaint themselves with the stages.

how to set up the lesson - take the progression of SOLO and plan an activity for each level. The class moves as a whole through the activities, building on prior knowledge and reaching an extended abstract level.

how the lesson runs - original lesson plan taken from @tommegit:

 

Prestructural: The verb "COMPRAR" (to buy) is written on the board when students enter the classroom. Students may wonder why? What is that word? Why is it on its own? Do I even know or remember what that word means?

Unistructural: Starter - In pairs, come up with at least one thing that you can tell me about this word.

Multistructural: Feedback by students from the starter activity. Feedback is written up on the board around the word "COMPRAR" to form a sort of mind-map. How do these ideas/observations/concepts link up with one another?

Relational: 3 sentences in Spanish written up on the board and on worksheet (students are already familiar with most of this vocabulary) -

• Normalmente, compro pan en una panadería (Normally, I buy bread at a baker's)


• Ayer, compré un CD de Michael Jackson (Yesterday, I bought a Michael Jackson CD)


• Mañana, voy a comprar un nuevo móvil (Tomorrow, I'm going to buy a new mobile)

Questions for discussion - What has happened to the word "COMPRAR" in these 3 sentences? Why has this happened? (Also remind students in this discussion that using 3 time frames in their written and spoken Spanish demonstrates understanding at an NC Level 6)

Extended abstract: What if I wasn't doing the buying? What if my sister was doing the buying instead? How would the verb change in each of the 3 sentences? What resources and support materials could you use to help you make the appropriate changes to the verbs? Try changing them now.

Extension activity - Try writing 3 of your own sentences in Spanish using a DIFFERENT VERB from "COMPRAR". Each sentence should be in a different time frame (present, past & future). Can you write sentences which are NOT in the 1st person?

Discussion and plenary.

pros - a great way for you as the teacher to become acquainted with the levels of the taxonomy. Lesson has flow and shows progression of pupils.cons - whilst great in a lesson/subject where a prestructual knowledge can be guaranteed, in a lesson where some prior knowledge could be entering the room, you could be left with a few activities that are completed very quickly.

Written feedback

in a nutshell - oh marking, time-consuming, but so effective. Feedback has time and time again been show to be one of the most effective methods in teaching, and whilst it doesn't always have to be written, it certainly is an effective method of delivery.

As a PGCE student, effective marking was drilled into me from the get go. "Very neat", "use a ruler", "underline" are all comments I'm sure we have used. It's easy enough to say these comments are worthless, but what can you write that does have worth? I used to struggle to come up with good feedback but now that I am armed with SOLO and my pupils understand it, it is easy to write feedback and targets using the SOLO language. Just as our pupils can peer assess using it, you can mark work with it.

• Well done, this piece of work shows you have a secure multistructural knowledge of the techniques you can employ as a SOLO teacher. I particularly liked the part where you talked about tennis. In order to progress, think about how these techniques could link together and how you could apply them to SEN students.

So that's it for now, when I try anything new I'll be sure to include it in a future update. Hope you found this useful.Joe

 

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Practitioner-Led INSET

As part of our drive to build capacity towards Teaching School status Canons hired 6 Pedagogy Leaders from across the staff to put rocket boosters onto our existing Outstanding Pedagogy Project (OPP as in our twitter handle). The project, as I have blogged about previously is to capture the art, craft and science of effective teaching as it best suits the context of our school community, students and teachers in order to gather the strands into a Canons Pedagogy or house style of teaching and learning.

The four-term role of the Ped Leaders, as we have come to call them, was to bring two years of work to a conclusion and identify the core ethos, structures and techniques of the Canons Pedagogy, to share these with staff and students and to create a sustained (and sustainable) programme for a full implementation through collaborative pedagogic development practices. Most of all, their job has been - and continues to be - to engage and enthuse staff in this process, to retain a bottom-up focus and to find the surplus of excellent practice rather than start from an assumption that teachers' classroom practice is a broken thing in need of a quick fix.

We are now at the end of the first full term of their work and the results have been magnificent. The team of Ped Leaders is made up of two Heads of Department, an AST, a TLR holder and two NQTs covering five different subject areas and they have attacked their brief with relish, skill and sensitivity. I'll leave @renniesherrie to share with you how they have developed over the term, but this post is focused on their first major public challenge; to plan and deliver an INSET day to introduce the core principles underpinning their Canons Pedagogy.

Their first significant task in the process was to relegate the Deputy Head (me) and Assistant Head (@renniesherrie) to the role of 'guides on the side' and to ignore our guidance on how they should do the day completely. I say 'relegate' but the truth is we were delighted at their chutzpah and sense of adventure (or risk as @alatalite might have it). They trashed everything about the way in which INSET days are normally done (not in the Hall, no Head or SLT introduction, a welcome breakfast, a full programme, Subway lunch, etc, etc) and they invited their SLT leads to get involved purely to assign to us admin tasks to support their vision of the day (our watchword became "what the Ped Leaders want, the Ped Leaders get").

And their product? The Lazy Teacher's INSET day (we have apologised in person to @lazyteacher and now hope that the copyrighting laws aren't too tough). The aim was to introduce the overarching structure of the Canons Pedagogy - essentially the Accelerated Learning Cycle - and to showcase a range of techniques to exemplify each phase of the cycle through pedagogy with our teachers as learners. Their determination to avoid a powerpointed lecture approach and to model the techniques and structure we were advocating throughout the day was a testament to their concern that the actual classroom be the focus of the INSET.

The only problem with this approach was that it made the Ped Leaders the teachers of their peers, and as the day approached some of them began to express concern that it might all fall flat and that colleagues might not participate as learners, particularly in the highly active sessions. This was where @renniesherrie and I were able to feel a real sense of participation in the organisation of the day. But, of course, their concerns were unfounded and once the day was upon us they came to realise that engaging and enthusing learners is pretty much a constant whether they are 13 or 31 or twice that age. They were helped by the fact that the cafeteria staff had played a blinder with their full English breakfast that got the staff buzzing from the first moment; a reminder that the little things often make all the difference to large groups of people.

On the other hand though food alone won't mask the faults of a poor INSET day and the real quality was in the sessions themselves. The Ped Leaders, @biomadhatter and myself (I was allowed off the leash as a teacher on the proviso I didn't let them down!!) delivered sessions that really did demonstrate how to get the students working. A typical comment between us was how little we were doing beyond the initial planning and our in-session facilitating (apologies but I had to use the F word) and how hard our 'students' were working - a fact that was not lost on the teachers we exhausted that day. At least three members of staff reported that this was the first INSET day where they had not looked at a clock or watch for the entire day.

At the end of the INSET day the six Ped Leaders, @renniesherrie and I got into taxis to Kings Cross to head up to the Cramlington Learning Village festival. The first task was to read the evaluations (written on cups in free form style as requested by the Ped Leaders) as we crushed a cup in the wait for the train. Watching the faces of our colleagues as comments like "the best INSET ever", and "can we get started now", and "so inspired", and variations on that theme emerged was truly one of the most pleasurable parts of my career, but it was the way that they immediately began buzzing about "what next?" that really flabbergasted me. And beyond that still, the way that they absorbed the phenomenal school that is Cramlington by being inspired by it but not overwhelmed by it was a joy to behold.

But of course INSET days have no meaning if they have no impact beyond the feelgood vibe of the day, however welcome that is. It's too soon to fully evaluate at the moment, but it is clear from discussions with key departments and individual teachers that the Accelerated Learning Cycle is liked and understood, that Flipped Learning has enthused many, and today I have worked with the RE department to apply SOLO to their lesson planning processes. In the meantime the only people in the school who are less than content with the measures of impact of the INSET day are the Ped Leaders themselves, and they have once again sidelined their SLT 'guides' to prepare the next phase of staff engagement in pedagogy. I'd wish them good luck in this, but they don't need it. What they need is for me and my SLT colleagues to stand back, let them loose, support them when needed and watch them as they change the nature of teaching and learning at Canons in a way which exceeds outstanding because it is practitioner-led to its core.

 

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Seeking Authenticity in Theory and Practice

Last night @informed_edu posted a tweet that said "Grrr. Every time someone in an education discussion uses the word 'authentic' a small part of me dies.... There's very little left now". This made me genuinely curious as I have full respect for his views expressed on Twitter but I am also one of those regular users of the word 'authentic' and I don't really want to be responsible for his slow death. I sought some clarification of why he so hates the word and got the response "I feel that 'authentic' is jargony, vague and inexplicable... Unless you're talking about an old painting". Fair dos I thought. Everyone is entitled to their opinion and the joy of social interaction, including through twitter, is the differences between us not the similarities.

And I could have left it there. And I would have left it there. And maybe by the end of this post you'll think that I should have left it there, but since using a phenomenological methodology for my Masters dissertation I have become fascinated in unpicking jargonistic concepts through exploration of the etymology of the words used to express them. There is an amazing amount of power generated by this process of revealing the original and varied meanings of words we take for granted and it was clear to me that I too had been taking the word 'authentic' for granted when I thought about @informed_edu's tweets (I gave the rather weak answer of 'authentic' being an expression of the inexpressible that must have made him die just that little bit more). So this morning I have had a dig into the rich soil of the word and been once again enthralled by the fossils I have found down there.

The first thing of note is that the modern notion of 'authentic' as meaning genuine or the 'real deal' has no etymological link, so let's dismiss that immediately as the thing that @informed_edu was being killed by. Instead the next most recent etymological incarnation of the word (from 13th century French) is to express a feeling of the 'canonical'; of something being 'original' or 'principal'. Now let me be honest with you here: I do love it when something I value as an ideology can be traced back to the word canon because it offers me as a Senior Leader of a school called Canons the opportunity to express our values ever more powerfully. We do strive at the school to be 'original' and to be a 'principal' (as well as principled) body within the community we serve and so are, in this derivation of the word 'authentic'. Similarly we ask our teachers and our students to be original in their thoughts and deeds: to absorb the many different ways in which people do learning and produce something that is authentic to us as a learning organisation, a Canons Pedagogy rooted in our very specific context.

In the next, ancient Greek, layer of the linguistic heritage of the word 'authentic' there is an etymological meaning of "one acting on one's own authority". In other words for a school to be authentic it must make decisions by itself and for itself, weighing up the strengths and limitations of an external accountability agenda, but not being weighted down by it. With rapid expansion of academies across the secondary sector in particular, and the opening up of those freedoms promised under it - not to mention the mothballing of the National Strategies as a what-to-teach-and-how-to-teach juggernaut - this vision of authenticity as "acting on one's own authority" has never been more relevant and more necessary. Even Ofsted are saying that there is no single type of lesson they want to see. We appear to be being given permission by all the key players to be authentic in our pedagogy, so let's take them at their word as teachers and school leaders. At Canons we are demonstrating this by investing heavily in time, resources and enthusiasm to develop a shared understanding of core structures and techniques that can underpin our Canons Pedagogy. We are striving to empower our teachers - both experienced and inexperienced, progressive and traditional - to lead in the identification, explanation and verification of these core structures and techniques so that our Canons Pedagogy is authentic at a personal as well as a contextual level.

The final and original etymological meaning of the word 'authentic' is listed as being "to accomplish" and "to achieve". Schools, their leaders, teachers and students need to have an end product to their activities if they are going to lay claim to being authentic, whether this is measured by the dominant performance measures of examination success and Ofsted recognition or by the so-called soft achievement outcomes of learner roundedness, exemplary citizenship and communal interdependence. At Canons we have had significant recent success and progress against the 'hard', DfE-recognised accomplishments and achievements, but the dominant ethos of the school has always overwhelmingly been built upon the 'soft', community-valued accomplishments and achievements. Marrying these two together in a Canons Pedagogy that values the former very highly but never forgets its fundamental duty to enable the latter is what the Canons Outstanding Pedagogy Project (OPP) has been all about.

In using the phenomenological process the word 'authentic', which some find so troubling and which I have used rather lazily in the past, has this weekend become much clearer and more tangible to me.

From now on when I use the word authentic about an institution I will be talking about it as being so original in its thinking and acting that it plays a principal role in the system it serves. It will be an institution that uses these thoughts and actions to be self-authorising and self-validating, respectful of external agencies and their evaluation but never slavish to them. And it will be an institution that enables all of its people to accomplish whatever they set their minds to and achieve success in all of the ways that it can be measured.

Now that would be something worth living for.

 

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