Learning Walks - Week Beginning Monday 19th September 2011

Learning Walks

Week Beginning Monday 19th September 2011

Thank you to everyone who allowed the Leadership Team into their lesson.  It was a privilege to see so much high quality teaching and it is fair to say that we have learned a lot. We were really impressed by the range and quality of practice in our classrooms and although there are some suggestions for us to think about and to develop, the picture has been overwhelmingly positive.

The focus of this week’s learning walk was behaviour for learning.  We were not only looking at whether students behaved well but also at whether behaviours facilitated or limited their learning.  We also chose to focus on years 7 and 11 as we felt it was important to support colleagues set the right tone for the coming year with these key groups.

It was clear that across the school the majority of behaviour was very positive.  Lessons were calm and settled and teachers have been able to focus on good teaching.  Most students were engaged and motivated by their learning.  In the lessons visited, students being poorly equipped and being distracted by mobile phones and iPods was not a significant issue.  There were lots of examples of students working in silence but also working well in groups; where there was a real buzz about the lesson.  Many examples were seen of teachers being well organised at the start of lessons.  Positive student behaviour was facilitated by:

·         teachers giving of clear instructions and reminders of what students are meant to be doing

·         having activities ready for students whilst the teacher took the register

·         insisting on silence for teacher explanations

·         having well established routines

·         good use of praise and rewards for meeting expectations

Although the picture across the school was very good there are always things we can do to sharpen up our practice.  For example:

·         we need to be consistent on enforcing uniform.  Not all offending students were challenged

·         developing success criteria or being explicit about what success looks like for a particular task could help motivate students by making success feel more achievable

·         further thinking about questioning techniques and how ensure everybody is given the opportunity to or is challenged to contribute, this could be achieved by choosing respondents randomly through the use of lollypop sticks

Overall 27 lessons were visited.