This mind map (created using Bubbl.us) shows my main learning from my Leadership Pathways course.
Tuesday, 6 April 2010
Sunday, 4 April 2010
Spelling City
I've finally taken the plunge and had a go at using Spelling City. This is a great website which is designed to help children to practise their spellings.
Inspired by http://www.spellingcity.com/mrbarberturnham/ I created an account for our school and uploaded the spellings for the SATs spelling tests from 1996 to 2009.
The process was very easy to do - literally, as easy as typing in the words. The site then creates a sentence which uses the word to put it in context.
The children can go to the site and practice the spellings. Words are read out for them to spell! Simple, yet brilliant!
You can find our SATs Spelling lists at www.spellingcity.com/churchlane.
Inspired by http://www.spellingcity.com/mrbarberturnham/ I created an account for our school and uploaded the spellings for the SATs spelling tests from 1996 to 2009.
The process was very easy to do - literally, as easy as typing in the words. The site then creates a sentence which uses the word to put it in context.
The children can go to the site and practice the spellings. Words are read out for them to spell! Simple, yet brilliant!
You can find our SATs Spelling lists at www.spellingcity.com/churchlane.
Saturday, 3 April 2010
Shakespeare
A few weeks ago we studied two of Shakespeare's plays, Romeo and Juliet and Macbeth.
Here are some resources that I have discovered. I hope they may be of use to others:
It was a joy to find the BBC Animated Tales on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/shakespeareanimated#p/u
We bumped into the Classical Comics stall at the Education Show and purchased copies of the quick read versions of Macbeth and Romeo and Juliet. We also bought a copy of the teacher's guides which are excellent resources. http://www.classicalcomics.com/
Dawn wrote in her blog about her excellent work on Macbeth raps, inspired by this video:
This would be a great addition to our work for another time.
During the work we produced comic strips, retellings, newspaper reports, play scripts and newspaper reports. The children thoroughly enjoyed the project. Later this year perhaps we'll take a look at Hamlet too!
Does anyone else take Shakespeare in Year Six? Does anyone have any other good resources to share?
Here are some resources that I have discovered. I hope they may be of use to others:
It was a joy to find the BBC Animated Tales on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/shakespeareanimated#p/u
We bumped into the Classical Comics stall at the Education Show and purchased copies of the quick read versions of Macbeth and Romeo and Juliet. We also bought a copy of the teacher's guides which are excellent resources. http://www.classicalcomics.com/
Dawn wrote in her blog about her excellent work on Macbeth raps, inspired by this video:
This would be a great addition to our work for another time.
During the work we produced comic strips, retellings, newspaper reports, play scripts and newspaper reports. The children thoroughly enjoyed the project. Later this year perhaps we'll take a look at Hamlet too!
Does anyone else take Shakespeare in Year Six? Does anyone have any other good resources to share?
Friday, 2 April 2010
Leadership Pathways: Final Thoughts
The final day of Leadership Pathways was my favourite, and when I finally began to realise the message of 'reflection' that the course has tried to foster throughout.
I have never felt like much of a reflective practitioner. Being reflective requires time and time is something I haven't got enough of. But by the end of the LP course, I was becoming more and more reflective and continuing to do this after the course is over is something I am looking forward to. I need to make time to be reflective. I guess this blog is becoming the perfect place to do that! (Actually, looking back, I have used the blog less and less as an outlet to report news affecting Year Six, but more as a place to reflect on and to share my school-based experiences.)
Core Day 3 of the programme is subtitled 'celebrating success'. It was the day to share learning with each other and our coaches. We were asked to share a presentation about our 'whole-school change project' that we had been working on. I had been worried about this, but some good advice from @deputymitchell, @dawnhallybone and @primarypete_ on Twitter calmed me down. As a result of their advice, I decided not to use any ICT in my presentation. This was definitely the right decision. It was actually great to be free of the constraints of a PowerPoint presentation. I did, however, use PowerPoint to prepare and structure what I wanted to say.
A lot of this, I understand, won't make sense without some context. So this is what my project was all about:
Through the process of taking the online units, I realised that the school is good at informing, collaborating with and involving the community in its work. We weren't, however, as good at consulting and empowering the community. I decided to set up a questionnaire to learn more about the community and their thoughts about our school. At the moment we are part way through this process. The surveys have been distributed and returned and the analysis process is underway right now. The project is enabling me to gain experience in using data, using influencing strategies and work with the community.
Overall, I believe that I have developed as a leader through the Pathways course and I am looking forward to seeing my learning have an impact throughout my work in school.
I have never felt like much of a reflective practitioner. Being reflective requires time and time is something I haven't got enough of. But by the end of the LP course, I was becoming more and more reflective and continuing to do this after the course is over is something I am looking forward to. I need to make time to be reflective. I guess this blog is becoming the perfect place to do that! (Actually, looking back, I have used the blog less and less as an outlet to report news affecting Year Six, but more as a place to reflect on and to share my school-based experiences.)
Core Day 3 of the programme is subtitled 'celebrating success'. It was the day to share learning with each other and our coaches. We were asked to share a presentation about our 'whole-school change project' that we had been working on. I had been worried about this, but some good advice from @deputymitchell, @dawnhallybone and @primarypete_ on Twitter calmed me down. As a result of their advice, I decided not to use any ICT in my presentation. This was definitely the right decision. It was actually great to be free of the constraints of a PowerPoint presentation. I did, however, use PowerPoint to prepare and structure what I wanted to say.
A lot of this, I understand, won't make sense without some context. So this is what my project was all about:
Through the process of taking the online units, I realised that the school is good at informing, collaborating with and involving the community in its work. We weren't, however, as good at consulting and empowering the community. I decided to set up a questionnaire to learn more about the community and their thoughts about our school. At the moment we are part way through this process. The surveys have been distributed and returned and the analysis process is underway right now. The project is enabling me to gain experience in using data, using influencing strategies and work with the community.
Overall, I believe that I have developed as a leader through the Pathways course and I am looking forward to seeing my learning have an impact throughout my work in school.
Thursday, 1 April 2010
Leadership Pathways: Creative Resource Management
This online unit was suggested as part of my routemap analysis. With hindsight, I wish I'd chosen a different unit. C'est la vie...
The most important idea that I took away from this unit was that continuing professional development is important to keep a vibrant, happy workplace that is able to change and adapt.
I liked the idea of asking staff to 'bid' for resources - to encourage them to consider the value of their ideas, and the impact on the children and the school.
CPD should be integral to everybody's role - it should form part of job descriptions. This unit suggests that CPD should include developing skills as a teacher, but also different non-classroom related skills too. Provide a range of learning experiences for staff as well as pupils to promote creativity and a positive atmosphere.
Develop an ethos of learning - encourage people to 'have a go'. Find ways around a problem by exploring and inventing. Create an environment that is safe, comfortable and yet challenging so that creativity can develop.
The most important idea that I took away from this unit was that continuing professional development is important to keep a vibrant, happy workplace that is able to change and adapt.
I liked the idea of asking staff to 'bid' for resources - to encourage them to consider the value of their ideas, and the impact on the children and the school.
CPD should be integral to everybody's role - it should form part of job descriptions. This unit suggests that CPD should include developing skills as a teacher, but also different non-classroom related skills too. Provide a range of learning experiences for staff as well as pupils to promote creativity and a positive atmosphere.
Develop an ethos of learning - encourage people to 'have a go'. Find ways around a problem by exploring and inventing. Create an environment that is safe, comfortable and yet challenging so that creativity can develop.
Tuesday, 30 March 2010
Leadership Pathways: Data & Beyond
There are ten tips for making a difference with data. These are taken from the NCSL website:
- It's your data - use it internally to improve standards.
- Prior attainment - assemble as wide a range of data as you can.
- Follow through on the data - collecting data is only as useful as the use that is made of it.
- Review how your school uses data - does your school's use of data have a clear set of purposes or is it more of what we have always done?
- Take the evidence seriously - examining the evidence can shed new light on things schools take for granted.
- Use significant data - carefully identify the data items that your school needs to collect and analyse to inform its vision and strategy and to have impact.
- Look beneath the data - looking beneath the data to understand the individual experiences of the children it represents is a key part of validating its usefulness.
- Involve parents - parents can be essential allies in helping their children develop - if they have good information about how their children are developing and what targets they are working towards/
- Involve pupils - if data is being used to improve individual pupils' performance, it's all the more effective if the pupils themselves are involved and given awareness and ownership of their own learning.
- You're in charge - being familiar with your data and using it in a regular, planned way, within the context of your overall school's development, will ensure that the data serves you.
I learned some practical advice for data collection:
- Look for the right type of data - will it help you to show what you want?
- Often, the data produced for external reasons is not the data you need. It might be more effective to produce your own data.
- Data can be quantitative - in lists, tables, charts or numbers.
- But data can also be qualitative - opinions, feelings, pictoral, words. It must be rich in value.
- Find the right bits of information which will help us to teach better and, more importantly, the right kind of data to help my pupils learn better.
- A representative sample can be identified.
- Sensitivity must be used when monitoring practice.
- Surveys must be planned and organised thoroughly.
- Note the current model so that the impact of changes can be compared.
- Evaluate the impact of changes regularly.
- Data hasn't got to show what has gone wrong - try to discover what works best, or what will work better.
- Data should be acted on in a positive way - make changes which are for the better which will benefit the pupils, the staff and the wider community.
- When giving feedback about data explain why you are saying things - be specific.
- Use data to support anything difficult that you want to say.
- Don't just deliver a monologue - create a dialogue.
- Empathise, but don't sympathise. Don't back down - make it clear that support will be given to help people move forward.
- Make sure your message is clear.
- Consider how you want to open the feedback, and also the effect of how you want them to be at the end.
Monday, 29 March 2010
Inspiring people and blogs
UPDATE
Over the last few months I have read various blogs by various educators and it is hard not to be inspired when you read about the wonderful things that the children are enjoying in their classrooms.
Here is the list of just some of the blogs that I've found really interesting over the last few months. I wanted to share them just in case there's anyone out there who hasn't stumbled across them before. I apologise if I've left anyone out.
Maybe there's an easier way to share these links? I'll have to work one out...!
Webb's Wide World
Mr Mitchell's Blog
Simon Haughton
Mrs Spencer's Blog
Mike McSharry
Tales from a Trainee Teacher
Digital Teacher
Adventures In learning
Bits & Bobs
Chris Leach
Jamie Keddie
Mr Warner
Primary Pete
Steps in Teaching and Learning
Edte.ch
Doug Belshaw
Robert Drummond - Teaching resources, ideas and comments
Primary PGCE - Trainee primary teacher in Somerset
Ian Addison - The blog of an ICT Consultant and Primary school teacher
Over the last few months I have read various blogs by various educators and it is hard not to be inspired when you read about the wonderful things that the children are enjoying in their classrooms.
Here is the list of just some of the blogs that I've found really interesting over the last few months. I wanted to share them just in case there's anyone out there who hasn't stumbled across them before. I apologise if I've left anyone out.
Maybe there's an easier way to share these links? I'll have to work one out...!
Webb's Wide World
Mr Mitchell's Blog
Simon Haughton
Mrs Spencer's Blog
Mike McSharry
Tales from a Trainee Teacher
Digital Teacher
Adventures In learning
Bits & Bobs
Chris Leach
Jamie Keddie
Mr Warner
Primary Pete
Steps in Teaching and Learning
Edte.ch
Doug Belshaw
Robert Drummond - Teaching resources, ideas and comments
Primary PGCE - Trainee primary teacher in Somerset
Ian Addison - The blog of an ICT Consultant and Primary school teacher
Leadership Pathways: Effective Influencing Skills Workshop
For me, the Effective Influencing skills workshop was the best part of the whole course so far. It's just a shame that I only had the chance to take it two weeks before the whole course finishes!
The idea that there are many different ways to influence others is something that I just hadn't even considered before.
The workshop made me aware of the different ways that I work currently and the ways that I want to work in the future.
We began by hearing about the three different levels of influence - rational, emotional and political. These different influences have different effects on different people and do not necessarily work on every person and in every situation. But, in an ideal work, to have complete influence over everybody, you need to be in to middle, using all three levels of influence.
We were introduce to nine different styles of influencing.
I have always believed myself to be a 'puller' - someone who makes people want to change, but after taking an auditing exercise I believe I have become more of a 'pusher'. Whilst this is not necessarily a bad thing, I know now that I need to be more aware of the influences I use.
Force-field analysis is 'a strategic approach to influencing situations at work'. It analyses and prioritises the driving and restraining forces. More information is available here.
There are always pros and cons to a decision – nothing is ever that simple! The secret of good decision-making is figuring out whether the pros outweigh the cons BEFORE you take action. With force field analysis, you list and score the factors for and against a decision, total the scores and see which comes up best.
If it's a close call and the decision for or against is not clear, you can add an extra step. Review the factors affecting the decision and create an action plan to increase the “fors” and decrease the “againsts”. Simply repeat the force field analysis with the new conditions and your decision will be clear.
I found the idea fascinating. I can use this idea to consider any change I wish to make before I introduce it to staff to see how successful it could be. At any stage in the change process it can be used to evaluate the success of the project.
The ideas in this workshop actually link up well with the stakeholder analysis in the Leading Through Influence online unit.
The workshop made me aware of the different ways that I work currently and the ways that I want to work in the future.
We began by hearing about the three different levels of influence - rational, emotional and political. These different influences have different effects on different people and do not necessarily work on every person and in every situation. But, in an ideal work, to have complete influence over everybody, you need to be in to middle, using all three levels of influence.
We were introduce to nine different styles of influencing.
- Value-driven style
- Goal-driven style
- Need-fulfilment style
- Visioning style
- Rational style
- Pushing style
- Institutionalising style
- Educating style
- Supporting style
I have always believed myself to be a 'puller' - someone who makes people want to change, but after taking an auditing exercise I believe I have become more of a 'pusher'. Whilst this is not necessarily a bad thing, I know now that I need to be more aware of the influences I use.
Force-field analysis is 'a strategic approach to influencing situations at work'. It analyses and prioritises the driving and restraining forces. More information is available here.
There are always pros and cons to a decision – nothing is ever that simple! The secret of good decision-making is figuring out whether the pros outweigh the cons BEFORE you take action. With force field analysis, you list and score the factors for and against a decision, total the scores and see which comes up best.
If it's a close call and the decision for or against is not clear, you can add an extra step. Review the factors affecting the decision and create an action plan to increase the “fors” and decrease the “againsts”. Simply repeat the force field analysis with the new conditions and your decision will be clear.
I found the idea fascinating. I can use this idea to consider any change I wish to make before I introduce it to staff to see how successful it could be. At any stage in the change process it can be used to evaluate the success of the project.
The ideas in this workshop actually link up well with the stakeholder analysis in the Leading Through Influence online unit.
Sunday, 28 March 2010
Mystery Stories
During our project on writing mystery stories, we watched these Scooby Doo episodes. They fit in well with our fairground/theme park topic and helped the children to 'shape' their story.
The children used the mystery short story rubric at Intel's website to encourage the children to think about the quality of their writing.
This website was used to help to structure their stories.
Some great ideas and planning sheets are available at this Scholastic site.
Hope you find this helpful.
The children used the mystery short story rubric at Intel's website to encourage the children to think about the quality of their writing.
This website was used to help to structure their stories.
Some great ideas and planning sheets are available at this Scholastic site.
Hope you find this helpful.
Sunday, 7 March 2010
Education Show 2010
I attended my second ever Education Show yesterday. I really enjoyed it and acquired a tonne of information and ideas. It was great to meet some interesting people too.
When I got back, it took me a while to work through all of the free mugs, free pens, chocolates, flyers and brochures that I collected, but I believe I have various things that I will try to explore when I get the chance over the next few months.
Whilst I'm not endorsing any of these resources, I thought I would mention the ones that I plan to investigate further or those that I purchased at the event.
Software:
- I acquired a copy of 2Simple's 2DIY for evaluation. I have heard such a lot about this on Twitter, finding the 2Simple stand was a priority for me. I will enjoy exploring this and hopefully the school will be able to afford to purchase a site licence at the end of the trial.
Websites:
- www.peplanning.org.uk - this interesting looking planning resource is in its testing phase. It's something I will pass to our PE subject leader.
- www.millionaireforschools.co.uk offers eduational quizzes for the children. I like the look of this, but I'm not sure we can afford it yet.
- www.asthma.org.uk/educate
- www.thepuncs.com
- www.iamlearning.co.uk - whilst I'm not necessarily a fan of revision, I was really impressed by the learning through games at this site.
- I renewed our subscription to Education City.
Learning Platforms:
- After spending nearly three years establishing our Uniservity learning platform in school I am reluctant to move to a different LP provider. Having said that, I was very impressed by the simplicity of the service offered by www.dbeducation.co.uk.
Resources:
- I'm a big fan of Polydron resources. I bumped into a director of the company who asked a while ago if he could include some of the videos from our Polydron work onto their website. I told him that I had quite a few more so he should be expecting an email with details soon! (You can see them at our vimeo channel at www.vimeo.com/churchlane.) The Polydron Engineer sets look really promising.
- Classical Comics: I love their version of Macbeth and Romeo and Juliet and so I was pleased to purchase copies of the teacher booklets for these plays.
- We purchased some PDF ebooks for excellent prices which were produced by www.topical-resources.co.uk
- Filmclub sounds simple fantastic! The school will certainly be looking into this!
- We found some brilliant lino cutting materials which will be great for our William Morris art project in the summer. www.educationalart.co.uk
- I loved Rory's Story Cubes and I will definitely purchase the iPhone app!
- www.GoodMorningChildren.com seems like pretty good value and seems a pretty good way to start each day.
- www.memory4teachers.co.uk - After signing up for a free memory stick last year I was annoyed that I never received it. The salesman explained that there had been supply issues last year. Yesterday the memory sticks were given out at the show!
- www.lightningeducation.com - APP Assessment Angel looks like really good value and a great idea for a manageable solution to recording APP information.
- I'd love to get a Support Your School initiative started at our school.
Money & Careers topic:
- The Primary Enterprise Game produced by Halton Education Business Partnership looks amazing but very expensive. I'm not sure we'll be able to afford this just yet.
- www.credit4life.co.uk is a pfeg approved board game which encourages discussion about credit cards. I would love to buy these, but the cost may prove to be a barrier for a while.
- Raising Aspirations looks like a good resource for promoting higher education to pupils in the primary school.
Residentials:
- We chatted to a salesman from Manor Adventure who gave use some really good ideas for how we could further improve our visit to France next year.
As you can imagine, a lottery win would only just cover the cost of buying all of these resources. But it's great to know what is available, and, if finances allow, what could be bought to help to improve the quality of teaching and learning in schools.
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