Learning Walks: Week Beginning Monday 7th May 2012

Thank you again to everyone for their hard work so far this year.  Everyone is working hard as we prepare for exams and as we try to finish off BTEC folders.  Fewer lessons were visited this week and the length of this post will reflect this.

The question of how best to motivate our students is a key issue we all face.  Preparing for an exam or finishing off a course often provides a little extra motivation which helps us keep students focussed and involved in their work.  But this is not always possible; particularly if you are teaching Key Stage 3 where you have no such external motivators.

What is clear is that our students are most engaged and learn best when they are encouraged to get down to tasks quickly, when they are set challenging activities and are encouraged to be independent.  Admittedly this is no easy task, but colleagues have had success by:

§  finding ways to make things fun such as introducing games to promote learning

§  introducing competition and teamwork

§  finding leadership opportunities for students to take control of tasks or give feedback on tasks

§  being relentlessly positive, aspirational and by giving lots of praise

Learning has been less effective when there has been a lack of pace or challenge to lessons or when activities have not been matched to the abilities of the students.  In such circumstances students have passed up the learning opportunities made available to them.

If you have any top tips, fail safe games that could be used or anything that will add a bit of fun into a lesson then please post your ideas the comments section below.

Learning Walks: Week Beginning Monday 30th April 2012

This week’s learning walk focussed on 6^th Form. Once again I would like to thank those staff that had us visit their lessons.  It has been a really informative experience and it was great to see so much good practice.

Good practice was witnessed in terms of exam preparation including the use of individualised tasks, for example:

§  students working silently on different tasks depending on their personal progress through preparatory assignments

§  students being encouraged to reflect on their preparation and self-rate their readiness

§  analysis of exam questions focusing on collaborative decision-making regarding what ideas to employ (rather than actually answering questions – enabling students to cover a large number of questions and ideas quickly)

§  clear evidence of detailed understanding of the requirements of exam questions in the questions posed by students.

§  In some lessons fast-paced teacher-led whole-class teaching was clearly engaging more able students, and eliciting plenty of evidence of their progress, but seemed to leave those with less confidence unsupported. This gives us some things to think about.

Therefore, the 6^th Form learning walk does raise questions on how best we support students to become effective independent learners.  In particular how we develop practice to ensure that students are being given the targeted feedback they need to move their learning forward in a way that they are able to digest and take action on.

There was variation in the visibility of feedback on students’ work in their folders. There were some very good examples of marking in some subject folders – linked to assessment objectives, clear targets for improvement and reference to overall trends in improvement of an individual student’s written work. Often marked work was not prominent in students folders though; perhaps during exam preparation the relevance and usefulness of work with teachers’ feedback could be emphasised, with students encouraged to keep marked work in one place in their folders for ease of reference when working on new practice questions.  There was an excellent example of intervention in response to concerns over independent study in an AS subject where, a student who underperformed in a progress test was given a tracking sheet on which to log hours of work to be done out of lessons, with parents informed.  The result is that students weren’t always able to clearly articulate what they needed to do in order to improve their work, or how feedback from their teachers helped them to do so; although this was generally a strength across the lessons observed.

We probably need to do some thinking about how effectively we use our lesson time.  There were several examples of students working in silence on exam questions.  In many ways this is a purposeful use of time, the student has to do the question under supervised conditions and the teacher can monitor how they seem to be using that time.  For example, how much time do they spend planning, writing or day dreaming?  However, this work does come at the cost of ‘lost’ teaching time.  Also well motivated and organised students often create mock exam conditions to work on answers independently, but less organised students often need a structure to help them to this.  Once suggestion has been to provide a supervised study room which could be booked by subject teachers for classes to do mock questions at set times.  This might be a more effective use of time, but the subject teacher would lose the ability to make judgements by watching the students work.  Please put any thoughts on the comments section.

Finally, thank you for everything that you are doing, everyone is working hard and wants the best for their students.  This learning walk has thrown up some things for us to think about and by airing these ideas it will help us try to further develop and improve our provision.

Week Beginning Monday 16th to Friday 27th April 2012

Learning walks are up and running again and thank you to all colleagues that were visited over the last two weeks.  This term the leadership team will try to encourage colleagues to come round with us so you may find that you have two of us in your room.  We are doing this because we are trying to create more opportunities for teachers to see what happens outside their subject areas.  It is also a good opportunity for us to discuss what Leadership are doing when we are on a learning walk.  This is an attempt to make the whole process more transparent and hopefully it will help stimulate discussion about good learning and teaching.

I have merged the feedback from the last two weeks as we only did a limited number.  I also apologise for being slow in publishing our observations; I will try to be quicker next time.

There has been a lot of really good practice seen.  Lots of active and purposeful work is being done by students.  We have seen some really good examples of Learning Objectives and Success criteria being used.  Literacy has also been at the forefront of colleagues work with teachers ensuring that students understand subject terminology and key words.  It is clear that some students are having an excellent experience.  The challenge for us is to try to ensure that all students are active and engaged in their learning.  In several lessons it was the same pupils answering questions during discussion.  Here we need to try to use strategies to encourage all students to take part; this could be achieved by using a random name generator, lollypop sticks, getting students to nominate the next person to answer a question or simply only allowing a pupil to answer one question. Be confident about planning in some wait time and using no hands questioning techniques when holding discussions.

Finally; well done I really appreciate how hard everyone is working and how much of your time you give to your students, particularly those who are preparing for exams.

Learning Walks: Week Beginning Monday 23rd and Monday 30th January 2012

This report will cover learning walks lasting two weeks.  This is because only two walks were carried out during the week of the 23^rd 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.

Learning Walks from terms 1 and 2 as a Wordle

Click on the enlage to enlarge the Wordle.

Alite learning walk form

The form we are trialing has now been added to the key documents list on the right.

Learning Walks: Week Beginning Monday 16thJanuary 2012

Here’s wishing everyone a happy new year.  We have started our learning walks again.  Please see this as an opportunity to let the students see staff working together and supporting each other.  The format will be as it was last term.  We are trialling a new record form for our visits; I’ll try to post a copy on the blog so everyone can see – but do ask if you have any concerns.  This term we are going to be inviting other colleagues to join LT from time to time.  Going on a learning walk is a fantastic CPD opportunity.  You get to see our staff doing an excellent job and it is a great way of picking up some top tips.  Once again; thank you for being so positive about welcoming colleagues into your rooms.

Last week’s learning walks gave a really positive impression of the school.  Many lessons had a very positive and purposeful atmosphere.  Pupils were engaged in their learning and in many cases clearly enjoying their lessons.  This was facilitated by a lot of hard work and careful planning by colleagues.  There were lots of good examples of learning objectives being shared with students in a way they understood.  As a result students knew what they were meant to be doing and what was expected of them.  Students were also witnessed having the opportunity to present their learning to others and to peer assess work.  The three most common features highlighted on our forms were; active, purposeful and responsive.  Well done.

10 lessons were visited.