Improving Standards

I recently read Jackie Beere's book, 'The Perfect Ofsted Inspection '. There are some real gems of advice given from the head teacher of a large primary school which will help to drive standards of teaching and learning.

• Spend time together with your staff wisely through giving them time to share good practice and generate good ideas. Regular mini-Teachmeets will help with this.
• Give teachers opportunities to plan together, prepare and assess together.
• Give the middle leaders time together to share the strengths and weaknesses in teaching and learning in their phases.
• Engaging the skills and knowledge of the support staff about the children they work with is vital. "Identify what the targeted group of children are finding difficult and then working on the issues and measuring the impact."
• Make sure that teachers are given time to watch each other through a buddying system based on their strengths and development needs. I hope to introduce 'teaching trios' this year.
• Take your pupils and staff to other schools to observe teaching and learning.
• Always allow your staff and pupils to take risks together and make learning exciting! Let them make mistakes and learn from them!