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.