Learning Walks: Week Beginning Monday 17th October 2011

Learning Walks

Week Beginning Monday 17th October 2011

Thank you to everyone for their hard work over the first half term.  It has been a really good start to the year and overall the feedback on students’ behaviour has been really positive.  Again for the final week of this half term the focus of this learning walk has been on behaviour.

Once again the standards of behaviour observed by the team have been really good.  Students have shown high levels of engagement and standards of uniform have been really good.  Students have been engaged in a variety of tasks including discussion work, practical activities and silent writing.  Teachers are using a range of strategies to foster positive attitudes towards learning and behaviour including:

·         modelling respectful ways of speaking to others

·         using really positive language to set high expectations

·         developing pupils ability to empathise with others

·         giving clear instructions

·         finding strategies to promote discussion

·         rewarding enthusiasm and positive behaviour

22 lessons were visited this week.

Learning Walks: Week Beginning Monday 10th October 2011

Learning Walks

Week Beginning Monday 10th October 2011

The focus of this week’s learning walk was behaviour and this was another really good week with a lot of strong practice being witnessed.  Again I would like to thank everyone that was visited.  I am doing my best to share out the learning walks so that everyone is seen a similar number of times, but it is not easy to do this and I apologise if you were seen more than once, but, I’ll do my best to even things up over the coming weeks.

The students’ behaviours observed this week have been overwhelmingly positive and this is due to really thoughtful planning by colleagues.  Thank you for being tight with students’ uniform; it has been really good and has not been a significant issue in this week’s learning walk.  The following features have been witnessed in several lessons and all contribute to positive attitudes and behaviour:

·         teachers having high expectations

·         clear instructions being given

·         students being told explicitly what is expected and what they need to do to be successful

·         good use of prompts to encourage students to focus their attentions e.g. ‘3-2-1’

·         emphasis on listening skills and insisting on silence during teacher talk or discussion work

·         thoughtful planning for students’ seating arrangements

·         reinforcing high expectations with praise

We are now coming into the last week before the half term holiday.  It is tempting as we near the end of the week to relax our expectations as we all get tired and look forward to the holiday.  Instead can I ask that we ‘dig deep’ to continue to reinforce our standards and make sure students do what is expected.  If we can keep our standards high it will make things easier for us all when we return to school.

29 lessons were visited this week.
Click on the link for a wordle view.

Learning Walks: Week Beginning Monday 3rd October 2011

Learning Walks

Week Beginning Monday 3rd October 2011

Thank you once again to everyone that was seen teaching last week.  The atmosphere around school was really positive and a lot of high quality learning and teaching has been witnessed.  We are continuing to monitor behaviour around school and will be until half term.  If anyone has suggestions for the focus of the next round of learning walks, then let me know.

Although there were some instances of poor behaviour these were by far and away the exceptions.  A common theme was the calm, friendly and positive atmosphere in classrooms.  It is clear that it is well worth taking the time to set to get our teaching environment right, to have well thought out seating plans and to be ready to welcome our groups as they enter the room.  There were lots of good examples of teachers having high expectations of their students, and using humour and praise as a technique for reinforcing good behaviour.  The following strategies all contributed to positive behaviour:

·         insisting on silence during teacher talk

·         giving clear instructions

·         setting tight timescales for tasks

·         using the traffic light cards in planners to indicate when students were beginning to struggle

·         early teacher and TA intervention to support students that were beginning to struggle

·         praising and rewarding students for positive behaviour

Across the school more students are meeting our expectations but there is still room for us to be more consistent in enforcing simple standards and in establishing good routines.  For example, in some lessons some students still had earphones visible and bags were still on the table.  These two issues provide easy distraction for students and students that don’t put headphones away and bags on the floor should be challenged.  If students are refusing to co-operate over simple issues such as this please use the support of Heads of Department, College Leaders, ASC and Leadership Team.

21 lessons were visited this week.

Learning Walks Documentation

I thought I should post the documentation that I shared at the beginning of the year in case anyone would like to refer to it.

Click on the links below to access the documents.

What are learning walks?

Learnig walk form

10 tips for learning walks

Learning Walks

Week Beginning Monday 26th September 2011

Once again a really big ‘thank you’ to everyone who was part of this week’s Learning Walk.  The Learning Walks are really helping give us a better understanding of day to day lessons at Cheney.  Due to interviews for the English post and our INSET day we saw fewer lessons this week. 

Again we have been really impressed with the positive attitude and behaviour seen in the great majority of lessons.  There have been lots of examples of students being really interested and engaged in their work.  Excellent practice has been observed with teachers using positive strategies to reinforce high expectations and standards; for example, ensuring students keep to the seating plan, insisting on silence when giving explanations and ensuring coats and bags are placed on the floor.  It was also good to see really positive relationships between teachers and students where laughter was a feature to lessons and where pupils felt confident about being able to ask questions.

Let’s continue to try to be consistent about promoting the highest standards of behaviour and expectations.  We still need to be consistent about challenging students when uniform is not correct, about expecting pupils to have their bags and coats on the floor and having planners and equipment out at the beginning of the lesson.

This week we were able to visit 12 lessons.