Learning Walk Feedback - June / July / September 2013

This feedback relates to the 37 lessons visited in June / July and September of 2013. Lots of very exciting learning was seen, with behaviour and relationships remaining a consistent strength - lessons were a pleasure to visit.

More successful learning was taking place where:
 -  Challenge was provided in every task - no opportunities for challenge and bringing student attention to excellence were missed. For example, in one Science lesson, students were drawing out a diagram of an experiment, and an emphasis  from the teacher on quality, precision and accuracy at every stage, alongside careful modelling of what was expected, meant that students were able to produce excellent work and make progress.

- In English, excellent use of simple but challenging success criteria was sued to guide students towards quality and excellence, referring to ‘increasing precision’ etc. This only required handwriting on the board, and was referred to as ‘remember to / aim for’, rather than clunky slides of dense text.

- In RS, Literacy Mats were being used very effectively to help challenge students to produce excellent writing, by using precise language and developing their ideas.

In MFL, the teacher was capitalising on a very clearly structured and substantial task, to enable her to spend time giving quality individual feedback to individuals.

Learning appeared less successful when:
- low-value, unchallenging tasks were given and completed in the same way by all students in the group, with little or no sense or modelling of how to achieve excellence in the task. It was notable that, where ‘this is how to do it really well’ was not explicitly addressed by the teacher, PP / SEND students were often unable to make good progress.  

- Group work was set with little structure or sense of purpose, leading to students focusing excessively on presentation / drawing out titles, or for some students to complete the work whilst other group members sat back.

Key question:

- How are we bringing attention to quality and excellence for every task that we give the students to complete? How do we do this in a way which is slick and doesn't take too long to explain?

HIGH ATTAINERS Learning Walk Feedback

LM and TB recently visited a number of classrooms with a focus on challenging high attaining students. Here's the feedback - please do get in touch with Laura in the first instance if you have any queries.

High Attainers Learning Walk Reflections

This learning walk focussed specifically on the level of challenge provided for and taken up by high attaining students in our classrooms. There was evidence that colleagues are implementing good practice in terms of demonstrating how to achieve excellence in tasks and in supporting the development of literacy.

Challenge was most evident when: 

•           Activities were clearly modelled, with student attention being drawn to high quality work - 'Excellence in Every Task'
•           Attention was given to quality, even in relatively minor activities, eg filling in a table, doing a diagram
•           Excellence was expected and modelled at each stage of the lesson
•           Literacy was promoted and used to enhance excellence through supporting resources – Literacy Mats / Planning Aides

 Next steps:

•           Continuing to share resources and ideas for successful modelling of excellence within faculties - how do we habitually bring attention to excellence in a fluid, non-clunky way?
•           Structuring student independence via clear instructions/models and holding students accountable for their responses
•           Continuing to identify students who are “coasting” in our classrooms and challenging them to achieve excellence in the tasks set

Learning Walks Reflections - April - July 2012

Features of excellence included:
- Use of the 5 B’s in Geography - when faced with a problem, Students are encouraged to consult their Book, Buddy, Brain, and Board BEFORE sticking their hands up and consulting the BOSS - develops student independence / resilience.

-Some very effective use of Mini-whiteboards was seen in Maths to get quick feedback from students, at which point the teacher was able to make decisions about whether to move on or to re-clarify teaching points. Some writing about AFL refers to this type of questioning as using ‘Hinge Questions’ - an account of what it’s like to try to build this area into your practice can be found in this teacher’s very readable blog here .

- Learning intentions in a Science lesson were deliberately not shared with students prior to the class taking part in a practical experiment - as a result, students had to work out and explain what they were learning themselves, and an exciting sense of enquiry was generated.

We could work on:
- Continuing to develop and experiment with Questioning for Engagement strategies, developing confidence and expertise in a wider range of strategies

- Continue to work on embedding and experimenting with success criteria and modelling on a task-to-task basis in lessons - how can we give students a sense of what quality looks like, in a way which is manageable and effective?

- Literacy and SEN - developing strategies to make sure that texts used in lessons are accessible and appropriate for SEN students in particular, eg by breaking them up, providing texts at different levels of difficulty, explaining key vocabulary prior to reading. We will aim to provide some training / guidance on this in the near future.

Learning Walks Reflections - 1st March - 20th April

Reflections from Learning Walks visited between 1st March - 20th April 2012 – 37 lessons visited

Features of excellence included:
 - Very positive behaviour and relationships were a significant feature of a very large proportion of lessons – it was a pleasure to witness students enjoying their learning in secure, positive and harmonious environments.
 - Once again, precise relevant subject knowledge and lesson content was impressive, with teachers displaying great enthusiasm for the topics and subjects being delivered
- In some lessons, a range of questioning strategies were used to engage students, with ‘think-pair-share’ and ‘Cover-the-Table’ being most commonly observed.

We could work on:
One thing that the LW programme has made very clear is that different subject areas have different strengths in their current practice, and also different areas which might be most useful to develop. This is important and will be central to the planning of future INSET.

In a number of lessons seen, the below points were noted as possible areas for development.

- Continuing to develop and experiment with Questioning for Engagement strategies, developing confidence and expertise in a wider range of strategies
 - Developing our use of Learning Intentions / Success Criteria to ensure that tasks are sharply learning-focused. Further discussion of the value and use success criteria is available here.

Reflections from Learning Walks - 9th - 27th January 2012

Focus for Learning Walks: Student Engagement

Reflections from Learning Walks between 9th – 27th January 2012 – 32 lessons visited, with 9 colleagues taking part on walks. Many thanks to all those involved in piloting this process.

Areas of strength:
- fantastic relationships between students and teachers was apparent in the vast majority of walks – students were engaged by the warmth, patience and humour displayed by teachers.
- Learning objectives which were engaging, clear, and well-understood by students. This was backed up with passionate, expert delivery of subject knowledge – in many lessons students were engaged through the expertise and enthusiasm of the teachers.
- There was some very effective use of mini-whiteboards to gather student responses – this allowed students to work in pairs to reach an answer, and allowed the teacher to see very clearly which pairs had grasped the concepts and which hadn’t.

Area to develop:

Questioning for engagement

One are in which we could develop our provision is questioning for engagement, looking for enhancement to teacher-led Q and A / whole group discussion. A key area seems to be the structuring of questioning to engineer high levels of participation, engagement and accountability from the students - how can we make sure that they are all required to answer and engage with the questions they are asked in class?

One strategy might be the use of whiteboards as detailed above. Other approaches might be through using Co-operative Learning structures. I'll link some training to the end of this post, and distribute powerpoint resources and structures which are adaptable to questioning in any subject.

Further training and guidance is available on www.cherwelllearning.blogspot.com by clicking here. If there are other strategies that you've used and you know work, please let me know and I will share, or leave a comment on this post.

Thanks,
Tom

Co-operative Learning Training available here
Questioning / Moving the Middle Presentation here

Welcome to Learning Walks

Welcome to the Cherwell Learning Walks blog, dedicated to providing high-quality sharing of best practice as observed during learning walks at The Cherwell School.