Bitesize Lesson Planner

This looks great:
http://tips4teaching.co.uk/2014/12/06/the-bitesize-lesson-planner/

Success Diary

@IRIS_Connect keep a Success Diary to focus on the positives. These are priceless to me. #ukedchat #nqtchat pic.twitter.com/G3e5ZL7UrT
— Kelly McDonagh (@MissKMcD) January 29, 2015

I saw this tweet and thought - brilliant! It was intended for NQTs, but I'm inspired. I'm definitely going to do this.

Finding a passion for the subject

The best teachers I know are the ones still obsessed with their subject. For students that can be infectious.
— Carl Hendrick (@C_Hendrick) January 26, 2015

I came across this tweet recently. It's one I completely agree with. I don't know the context of the statement and maybe it's directed at secondary teachers.

But how could it relate to primary teachers? How can they show a passion for all of the subjects which they teach?

"Our very best teachers are those who have a real passion and enthusiasm for the

subject they teach. They are also deeply committed to the learning of their students

and use their enthusiasm for their subject to motivate them, to bring their subject

alive and make learning an exciting, vivid and enjoyable experience." Subject Specialism Consultatation, DfES, 2003 http://dera.ioe.ac.uk/9045/1/222_2.pdf

It's not easy, but it comes down to acquiring subject knowledge and using it to engage with pupils. You'll need to develop great subject knowledge. There is no excuse for poor subject knowledge. You'd be found out, not only by anyone observing you, but, more importantly, by the children. If you've got to teach it then you've got to make sure you know your stuff.

This is a great book for acquiring maths subject knowledge.

Use Twitter, Facebook and the internet in general to find ideas that inspire you. I know a lot of teachers use published schemes and sites like Hamilton Trust and that's fine; I'm not knocking them at all. But you've got to be inspired in order to inspire the children. Find the most engaging way to ensure the children learn. This means you may have to pick and choose from the schemes. It means that you might have to adapt resources. But if you aren't gripped by it then how can you expect the children to be.

Use technology - how can it enhance your lesson to make it more involving? How can it make the learning stick?

Work with your subject leader. What might they recommend?

Organise a educational visit. These don't half inspire the children and make the learning memorable. Would it inspire and excite you?

Find the passion for teaching the subject and you might just ignite the passion for learning in the children.

Snippets of advice

Earlier I posted about ingredients for an outstanding lesson. Here are some great practical ideas I wanted to share from The Art of Being a Brilliant Teacher: 1. This is a brilliant book and is definitely worth a read.

The average attention span for an adult is about twelve minutes. If you are expecting children to listen for any more than that, you are being over-optimistic.

Plan for 'awe and wonder' in your lessons. Build it in as a habit.

You won't possibly have time to keep changing every display continuously, but have a plan to change each display board on a rota basis. Good display boards send out powerful subconscious messages which say, 'this teacher knows what she is doing. She is worth behaving and working hard for.'

One of the best pieces of advice I was ever given was to collect in the books open at the right page, ready for marking. You will save yourself up to a third of your marking time because you are not flipping through each book trying to find the right page.

Let's ram home the importance of plenaries. Have you ever asked someone about their holiday? "It was superb. Lovely apartment right by the sea. And we went to the most fantastic fish restaurant on the Wednesday." And then, guaranteed, you will get this, "But it clouded over on the last day and the flight home was delayed by forty minutes." Your lessons are a bit like that holiday story, in that people will remember the highlight and the last bit. So, please don;t ignore the plenary, it will be one of the bits they are guaranteed to remember.

Make a note in your mark book when you have found out two things about each child, so that you can be sure you haven't missed anyone out. This will allow you to have mini-conversations whenever you meet these kids out and about.

Carol Dweck distinguishes between what she calls a 'fixed mindset' and a 'growth mindset', born out in her final test. She gave the children a test of equal difficulty to the first one: those who were praised for their intelligence showed a noticeable drop in their results, whereas those who were praised for effort increased their score by 30%.

10 Ingredients of an outstanding lesson from Jackie Beere

I recently read Jackie Beere's book, 'The Perfect Ofsted Inspection'. Included in the book are the ten attributes of an outstanding lesson. This is just a very quick summary - the book is well worth a read.

Engagement
First impressions are so powerful. Engagement from the start of the lesson is vital.

Challenge and Feedback
Having high expectations of individuals with various needs requires accurate assessment of potential barriers to learning, then having challenging targets that make the child aim higher. Oral or written feedback that is specific and positive and that guides students to make progress in their learning journey is crucial.

Questioning
Asking questions is the bread and butter of teaching. Use questions to develop learning and help students to make progress in their thinking. Good, open, engaging questions promote thinking at the highest levels are the basic tools of teaching.
I like the Plenary Review Grid.

Independent Learning
Spoonfed students who have not developed research or thinking skills and who have been scaffolded through their learning may not demonstrate real progress.

Embed the teaching of core skills in all lessons
This means taking every opportunity to connect classroom learning to the real world, modelling expert core skills and correcting mistakes relentlessly.

Progress for all
Make sure you know where the attainment gaps in your classes are and that you plan every lesson to help those pupils make extra progress.

Use assessment to support effective learning
Effective feedback that supports continuing progress, based on accurate assessment is a crucial aspect of outstanding teaching. Feedback must be focused exactly on what the student has to do to make progress. Clear, focused advice about how to progress must be evident in scrutinised books and oral feedback.

Subject expertise and progress in the subject
Good and outstanding teaching combines strong subject knowledge with effective teaching of the skills needed and a thorough understanding of what pupils already know. You and your students must be very clear about how to progress in the subject.

Behaviour for Learning
The leadership of the school must ensure that behaviour in the classroom and around the school is conducive to students thriving in an atmosphere of mutual respect.

Rigorous consistency
Planning engaging, challenging tasks that relate to the real world outside of school is the best way to ensure positive behaviour. You will also need to establish a consistent, relentless approach to a classroom ethos that has zero tolerance of any disruption of learning.

The exams aren't getting easier...

It's A-Level and GCSE results season at the moment. Here's a great analogy I learned from The Art of Being a Brilliant Teacher which I read recently.

"It almost seems like a yearly rite of passage now for teenagers and teachers together to pick up newspapers or turn on the news at the end of the summer to find that exams must be getting easier because more kids are passing them.

Let's apply the thinking to another industry to prove how faulty it is. The principle of 'Kaizen' or 'continuous improvement' has existed in car manufacturing for decades. Have you noticed that the quality of cars keeps improving?... Nobody seems to be arguing that we're lowering the way we measure car quality. Other industries seem to accept, without question, that methods have improved.

So, have our media colleagues ever thought that maybe, just maybe, teaching has improved significantly over the last few decades and pupils have been responding to it? We know many headteachers across the country who tell us that the new teachers joining the profession are arriving better prepared and equipped than ever before to face the rigours and challenges ahead."

Class Dojo

Since the start of the year I've been using Class Dojo with my class.

My class love it and I love it! If you haven't tried it yet, you should.

Class Dojo is a free system for recording behaviour in your classroom. It is a web-based tool, which also has an iPhone app meaning that it is really easy to use. When a pupil exhibits certain behaviours, you add it to their profile.

We already have an effective Behaviour Lights management system in school. Because of this, after discussing it with my class, we decided that Class Dojo would only be used for recording positive behaviour.

These are the behaviours we negotiated:

You can see that the Olympic values feature, but also creativity, participation, working hard and helpfulness. All of these were suggested by my class. 

It has made a real difference in the classroom so far, as pupils do their best to have their positive behaviour reported.

Do you use Class Dojo in your classroom? Has it made a positive difference?

Outstanding Teaching 4: Engaging Pupils

 I recently read The Managing Workload Pocketbook from the brilliant Teachers' Pocketbooks series. The book was written by Caroline Bentley-Davies.

In the fourth and last in a series of posts, I look at advice given about engaging pupils

Remember to do things FAST

F Focus - Get the pupils focused on the task in hand, settled and in the right frame of mind for learning.

A Activity - Get them going! Activities need to be simple, quick to set up, but sifficiently challenging to make them qorthy of completion

S Systems - Have well understood strategies for managing homework, forgotten pens, latecomers, etc.

T Teach! - Get on with the learning and don't waste time! Remember, getting them settled and quiet is a means to an end, not the end in itself.

Pupils are centre stage in great lessons. A silent lesson is rarely an outstanding lesson. In outstanding lessons pupils ate active in their own learning and engaged. The real test of a great lesson is what the pupils can do as a result of it. In the very best lessons, pupils learn a great deal; they absorb new skills and information and are able to do something for themselves - not just in that day's lesson, but days, weeks or moths later they can still recall it and put it into practice! Their progress is demonstrable. However, getting pupils to become independent learners can be a real challenge. Obstacles can include: apathy, lack of confidence, and an over-reliance on the teacher or teaching assistant completing the work for them.

Steps to ensure the pupils can demonstrate their learning/resilience:

1 Understanding the goal

2 Defining the challenge

3 Develop active and engaged learners

4 Lesson strategies - resources, display, teacher - think of 3 ways of finding out the answers before resorting to asking the teacher for assistance

Outstanding Lessons 3: Learning Objectives

 I recently read The Managing Workload Pocketbook from the brilliant Teachers' Pocketbooks series. The book was written by Caroline Bentley-Davies.

In my third in a series of posts, I look at advice given about learning objectives.

It is often good practice to share lesson objectives with the class at the start of the lesson. In many classes these are recorded on the whiteboard and explained to the students. When used effectively they can:

• Signpost the learning, keying pupils in to the purpose of the lesson and making clear what the teacher will be focusing on.
• Ensure that the lesson actually helps the pupils' learning because the activities clearly focus on the objective.
• Make a distinction between the tasks and the learning.
• Allow a clear way to review learning during and at the end of the lesson.

However, if every lesson starts with an explanation of what pupils will be learning - and especially if students have to copy this down - lessons soon become tedious, routine and ineffective. Those who are slow writers or who find literacy challenging will struggle. Sometimes you will want to:

• Surprise the pupils
• Make them think!
• Disguise the 'unpopular topic'
• Develop pupil independence by getting them consider: what is it you already know about this topic? And what do you think you need to know about it?

Outstanding teachers ensure it is clear what pupils are learning but they know there are many ways to convey this.

Outstanding Lessons 2: Planning

I recently read The Managing Workload Pocketbook from the brilliant Teachers' Pocketbooks series. The book was written by Caroline Bentley-Davies.

In my second in a series of posts, I take note of the author's advice about changing your mindset about planning.


Learning, not Doing

Before you start planning first consider what it is you really want them to learn. 

There is a significant distinction between learning and doing. Many lessons go awry because the teacher is too focused on the students completing a task or activity (doing), rather than on what they want the pupils to learn. 

The sequence for planning lessons should be:

1. Knowing where your pupils are in the learning.
2. Deciding what their next steps in learning are, i.e. the skill or knowledge you want them to develop in the lesson.
3. Planning a range of engaging lesson activities to support this.

The activities should give the children the opportunity to demonstrate and apply what has been learned. 'Nice' activities just don't cut it.

Outstanding Lessons

I recently read The Managing Workload Pocketbook from the brilliant Teachers' Pocketbooks series. The book was written by Caroline Bentley-Davies.

Although, I think, possibly more suited towards secondary school teachers, there is lots of great advice for how to deliver outstanding lessons.

Over a series of posts I will share some of my learning from this book which is well worth a read.

Bentley-Davies writes that in recent years, lessons judged to be outstanding have focused less on the teacher's demonstration of their expert knowledge and more on the students and their learning and independence. 

This is certainly the approach that I'm taking towards the way I teach, and also the way I observe lessons. When it comes to lesson observations, the focus is on the pupils and their learning, not the teacher at the front of the room.

The crucial questions to consider are:

• What helps the pupils learn?
• How are they encouraged to be independent?
• How much progress have they made in the lesson?

In excellent lessons the four areas below are carefully balanced.

Teacher Subject Knowledge

• Teacher knows their subject area
• they create engaging and memorable strategies for passing this on.
• They are able to anticipate, respond to and correct misconceptions.

Pupil Engagement

• Safe environment in which to learn and share ideas.
• Good management of classroom behaviour.
• Pupils are actively involved in the lesson and learn from each other.

Effective Climate for Learning

• Positive atmosphere - plenty of praise.
• Pupils feel able to respond and take a chance.
• Teacher fosters pupils' self-confidence.

Pupils Develop Independence in Their Learning

• Pupils know what 'good' work looks like and how to achieve it.
• They are aware of what their next learning steps are and how to tackle them.
• They are able to work independently and discuss their ideas.

Lesson Structure

I enjoyed an article in Primary Teacher Update January 2012 edition. Sue Rogers writes about the 'standard' lesson structure. She writes that your lesson structure is going to look something like this:

1. The big picture
• What is the lesson to be about?
• What are the learning objectives?
• How do long-term objectives link with short-term objectives? Put everything in context.
• Make links with prior learning and learning that is to take place in the future.
2. Focus on the day's learning objective
• Discuss.
• Explain.
• Ask question.
• Encourage questioning.
• Assess continuously.
3. Have a whole-class demonstration
• Look at examples.
• Make success criteria clear.
• Model the process(es).
• Ensure any support staff are utilised fully. Involve them in the demonstrations.
4. Independent session to practise skill(s)
• Make expectations clear in terms of time, amount and quality. What are you looking for?
• Scaffold/guide a focus group.
• At intervals move round and check on the progress of the others.
• Show learners how to scaffold/guide each other.
• Continue to mediate, ensure understanding of the task, assess and get learners to self-evaluate and assess each other.
• Use mini-plenaries or feedback sessions for the whole class where you notice common misconceptions or strengths.
5. Plenary where learners discuss learning
• Help pupils by bridging - connecting - the learning with the next lesson.
• Did they meet the success criteria?
• What have they achieved?
• How successful were the independent groups?
• Where can their new skills be consolidated and applied?
• What do they need to do next?
• Is there any aspect that needs more practice?
• What support do they need?

The article is interesting and is worth a read.