Effective Papers For learning

Effective modelling - by which I mean showing students how to write well - empowers by enabling application of knowledge,  articulacy, and the expression of complex ideas. It’s also deceptively complex, it seems to me, and therefore a highly-skilled element of classroom practice. Here is an outline for a possible way to go about it. Many of us are sceptical about highly-prescribed processes, because they can appear mechanistic and lack an appreciation of context. The below is of course only one strategy and many others are possible. My focus here is on using pre-prepared paragraph models, written in advance and shared with students in completed form. Live modelling has advantages but also limitations: I've often found that spontaneously writing a focused and clear model paragraph, whilst simultaneously managing a full classroom of teenagers, is tricky and can  easily result in  confusing writing. Pre-prepared models, however, can be precisely tailored and tweaked to ensur...

I recently took part in a CPD session with the fantastic English team at Kingsdown School in Swindon, which comprised a talk-through and discussion of how to teach an upcoming unit on teaching Macbeth to Year 10. I feel a little behind the curve on this as I know that other schools and MATs do this regularly, but I was struck by  how much more useful it felt than a lot of other training I've received or delivered over the years. The content of the session was this: - Introduction to the philosophy / principles behind the unit . This included elements such as: teach first, then question (not the other way around), knowledge leads to skill, be the expert in the room, do a limited range of core activities repeatedly (more on the approach is here if you are interested. - Talk through of the medium-term plan , which the head of English had prepared meticulously, including dates, assessment weeks, core knowledge. It was only a side and a half of A4, with no further paperwork, so simple e...

Highly-structured knowledge-rich teaching is sometimes accused of being joyless, and schools attempting to move in this direction ought to take this concern seriously. A hastily-introduced, top-down, Ofsted-inspired move to KR could easily result in sceptical teachers, unaligned with the approach and untrained in its nuance, delivering a poorly-designed, cobbled together mishmash of knowledge organisers, quizzes and tests. This would be bad for students and teachers, and could do lasting damage. So how should schools pursuing a knowledge-rich approach avoid this, and find joy? The following might be worth bearing in mind. Fun and joy are not the same thing. I'm fortunate to go to a lot of lessons, in a wide variety of schools. In lessons where there is an expectation of highly-structured teaching, the students are often either listening to the teacher, having focused pair-discussions, or working independently, usually in silence. There's not a whole lot of what might be describ...

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...