Effective Papers For learning

To lay my curricular cards on the table, I believe that the promotion of a knowledge-rich approach to teaching is the best available option to us in order to bring about sustainable positive change. For me, this means that we should:          Write and implement clear, well-organised enacted, which specify and prioritise the teaching of knowledge to a greater degree than is currently typical          Ensure that this increased knowledge-base is used meaningfully, to inform and enable domain-specific achievements in critical thinking, reasoning, increasing independence of thought etc It means that we should broadly avoid:          Attempts to build curricula around the development of generic ‘skills’ which transfer across subject domains, such as resilience or creativity          Approaches which try to downplay the value of subject content because technology or assumed conditions in ‘th...

The practice of intervention lessons during KS3 is well-established, but fraught with problems. The theory is that students who are struggling in English are given extra sessions – before or after school, or during the school day – through which they ‘catch up’. Often the reality has been much messier. It’s involved groups of students being taken out of other subjects (usually MFL) because either their attainment, attendance, behaviour or all of the above is poor. They are given three or four extra English ‘skills’ or ‘literacy’ lessons per fortnight, which can at times seem to do more harm than good. By U.S. Navy - U.S. Navy All Hands magazine U.S. Navy All Hands magazine November 1952, p. 4., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=32011162 The reasons are various: for students who don’t like the 6 or 7 hours of English that they already do, an extra 4 hours of it is unappealing to say the very least; groups can be tricky to manage; the planning and resourcing ...

Over the last couple of years, we’ve invested a lot of time and thought into improving our curriculum. In line with others, our leadership focus has shifted from considering ‘the lesson’ to be the most significant unit to a recognition of the power of underlying structures which support learning over time. We are convinced that a well-organised, expertly-designed curriculum, with exceptionally high-quality approaches to assessment, represent the best way to improve learning in our school. It’s not easy work; the process of improving curriculum content requires time, reflection and much professional skill. Here, in no particular order and knowing that we could have done this differently and no doubt better, are some of the ways that we’ve tried to work as school leaders to promote positive  change. 1 – Be clear about the direction and rationale In our case, we committed to the following principles for features of curriculum and assessment.  These were written up into a strategy...

The tone and content of what we say to students about learning in KS4 and 5 makes a difference to student and staff wellbeing, confidence and performance. It’s important that our messages are thoughtful, measured and consistent. Therefore, please consider the following when talking to students individually or collectively. Aim for messages and a tone which is realistic and reassuring . Do: Be  positive, optimistic and hopeful about the experience – tell students that the courses are worthwhile and the content interesting, they are in a good school, that they have every chance to be successful here, that we will support them. Keep things in perspective – exams shouldn't be presented as  the most important part of students’ lives - they shouldn't be part of every assembly, lesson or interaction. Promote and model gratitude and appreciation – thank students and staff regularly, and prompt students to think about what they have, as well as what they want to get. Promote effort and...

It seems to me we don't currently teach students enough about metre. It’s rare, for example, to see the subject given more than surface attention in revision guides, resources shared via twitter, or English teaching blogs. It's also far from common to see it deeply addressed in lessons outside of A Level (and often, not there either). This is an observation rather than a criticism – there’s clearly much good stuff that is being taught about poetry – plenty of themes, onomatopoeia, alliteration, rhythm etc, and I’m not suggesting that metre is being totally ignored. I’m also fully open to the possibility that I may be completely wrong, and that in fact the teaching of metre is in rude health. I'm not convinced; this post proposes that deeper understanding of metre could and should be given a more central position as part of the core knowledge to which students are entitled in KS3 and 4.  In my own teaching, I’m certain that, for the first few years at least, nuanced teachin...

Getting as much value as possible from mock exam feedback is crucial. Clearly, the specific style and approach will vary by subject, and there is no overall ‘best way’.  However, the below points are relevant across subjects. 1)       Think Diagnosis, Therapy, Testing -    Form Diagnoses to articulate the learning gaps in student work -    Plan Therapy – sustained attention to these gaps in and out of lessons between now and the summer -   Plan Testing –when and how will you retest students to establish if the therapy has worked 2)       Avoid overwhelming students with too much feedback in one go -     Providing students with a long list of weaknesses or areas to improve in one go risks swamping working memory, so that students. -    A ‘feedback lesson’ which covers multiple concepts in explaining what students have done well / wrong may be useful – however we do need to be mindful of wo...

Identifying where learning comes from is an inexact science, and despite the over-confident title of this post, we can’t say with full certainty what works. We especially can’t dictate what will work in other schools with contexts, challenges and opportunities that are unknown to us and different to our own. However, and with that caveat in mind, this post considers aspects of teaching at our school which seem to make the most difference in promoting achievement. English Literature GCSE results in particular make for an interesting case study. Our school is placed in the first percentile for progress according to FFT, and disadvantaged students make more progress than the average for the cohort. Last year, 120 /225 students outperformed FFT5 estimates. Something's going very right here - but what? Last week, we tried conducting a post-mortem on a successful former Year 11 GCSE student’s book, by photographing every page and analysing it to identify its key features. What did the te...