This report will cover learning walks lasting two weeks. This is because only two walks were carried out during the week of the 23rd and it would be too specific to comment on those seen and this is not in the spirit of what we are trying to do. By combining both weeks we have been able to visit approximately 20 lessons. Once again thank you to everyone that has been part of our learning walks. We are seeing some really high quality practice and the process is leading to some excellent discussion about what makes great learning and teaching across the school. Well done.
Over the last week we have seen plenty of lessons where students have been really engaged and are enjoying their lessons. It is no surprise that when students have been enjoying their lessons they have also been learning. This is made possible by some of the wonderful relationships we have seen between teachers and their classes. Students have been learning best when they have been supported by their teachers to become fully involved in their tasks, whether this has been a practical or academic subject). This has helped students be more independent and solution focussed in their learning and was more effective than lessons where students were dependent on teacher direction. This dependency often makes keeping a purposeful pace to lessons difficult. We have seen some really good examples of AfL. Some excellent examples have been seen of teachers using strong questioning to check understanding and using effective feedback to help pupils understand what they need to do next. In the best examples of practice this positive criticism is reinforced with plenty of praise to encourage the students to keep working to make the next step.
The most common words from the record sheet that reflect the type of learning we are looking for are; active, purposeful, independent and opportunity. However, the term task driven was recorded more frequently than we would like.
20 lessons were visited.
