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.