An alternative way to record research information

First of all, apologies for taking so long to re-engage with my blog this term. It has been the usual very busy but energetic start to the year in our Outstanding school and 4 weeks in, there is much to celebrate. I conducted a Learning Walk this week and observed some inspirational practice. One thing I did see which fascinated me, was the way that the children in year 5/6 had been given the freedom to record their research taken from several film clips of the Gold Rush, on the table itself! Miss Hinton took the plunge to attach permanent rolls of white paper onto the desks and encouraged the children to record their findings in whichever way they chose. I found it very interesting to see the number of different ways children chose to lay out their writing.

This sense of ownership, freedom and flexibility to direct their own learning, undoubtedly raised the engagement of the children. It gave them a chance to tailor-make their notes to suit their own learning style; some pieces of info were linear, some almost like a flow chart, some pieces were set out in bubbles. Without prescribing the way it had to be set out, the children chose ways which made more sense to them. Interestingly also, despite these notes being the "rough" copy of their writing, the  presentation and quality of handwriting was incredible- I wonder if this is because they wanted their "creation" to be fabulous; the heightened sense of ownership compelling them to take an increased pride in what they were doing?

I was also struck by the quality subject specific language that the children had identified and copied down ready to apply to their own compositions. The key to success here is ensuring that the high level vocabulary is used in the correct context and is highly fit for purpose. I can't wait to see the finished pieces.

Observe the quality of the language, which will be applied to the children's own compositions.

 

Subject specific vocab is expertly drawn out by the children

The impact of good quality Teaching Assistants

I have been marvelling recently at the quality of the practitioners we have in school to help to support our teachers in the classroom. There have been some mutterings from the Government and in various reports which suggest that Teaching Assistants provide very poor value for money. I am sure that in some settings this may well be the case, but not here at Robin Hood. I was delighted to attend an awards event recently which recognised the value of outstanding Higher Level Teaching Assistants. It was clear that each and every one of the nominees in attendance were unbelievably passionate about providing high quality education to children and understood both the huge part that they play in driving progress amongst our learners and being able to nurture and support children in a more pastoral sense. Higher Level Teaching Assistants bring expertise, knowledge and professional skills which add huge capacity to teacher's and leader's roles and it is with some sadness that this is not always recognised by the powers that be.

I was very proud to join Robin Hood's two HLTAs, Carol Wathen and Gaynor Cookson, to receive a certificate to show that they had been shortlisted for Outstanding HLTAs of the year. After a little digging, I was informed that literally hundreds of applications to recieve this award had been submitted in our region so to end up having BOTH of our ladies reaching the final 5 in the Yorkshire and Humber region, is something which makes me incredibly proud. I value all of our teaching assistants hugely; they bring skills to our school which I know have a huge beneficial impact on the learning and experiences of our children.

 

How wonderful that our HLTAs magnificent contribution was recognised publicly and properly.

Truly well deserved, ladies.

 

Resilient learners

We promote and encourage resilience in our classrooms. I began this week with my assembly which focussed on "success in failure". I shared a real life story with the children (my own!) that involved several major knock backs in the journey to success. I am lucky enough to be in a profession which I absolutely love and relish a challenge so it was easy for me to talk about the journey to get to this point. The children listened as I explained how I had not been a Level 5 pupil at Primary School (not that there were such success measures around in those days, but if there had been, I know I would not have been operating at that Level!). At best, I consistently achieved at age related expectations and academic "success" came at a price of having to work relentlessly hard to achieve anything. The subjects in which I excelled (Art and Languages) even took a nosedive during my A Levels, meaning I didn't get into the University that I wanted to. The children were interested to hear that I found my passion for teaching by accident as I desperately clung onto a way to pursue a degree in Art in any way I could (the Education route with specialism). Sharing this with the children was not supposed to be self indulgent, but a way of showing them that passions can be discovered as part of a journey to be great at something. I truly believe that it is a persons mindset, positive outlook and determination not to give up which contributes mostly to success and happiness.

This brings me on to what I would like to share with you now.Mrs Mistry brought Jacob in Year 2 down to my office earlier this week, with 5 drawings- each one increasing in complexity and accuracy. The final (and rather brilliant) one was the result of Jacob's utter refusal to give up before he had produced something that he was less than very happy with. He recognised that he had to "fail" first in order to improve and that tied in PERFECTLY with my message in assembly at the start of the week. An inspirational learner!

 

Here is Jacob's journey to success.

THE FINISHED RESULT!

A display to show effective feedback

A display recently created by Mrs Mistry to exemplify the quality of our Key Stage 1 writing and how effective feedback is central to that

 

We routinely see displays in schools that exemplify the best outcomes created by children but how often do we get to see the feedback given by the teachers that has formed part of the fantastic learning journey that teacher and child have been on? Post it notes with personal targets- feedback against criteria for success- positive praise- double ticks where targets have been met- are all part of a consistent marking policy for writing across school.

 

The Ofsted School inspection handbook (2012) includes in it's grade descriptors for outstanding teaching that "Consistently high quality marking and feedback from teachers ensures that pupils make rapid gains".

Jackie Beere (2012) , a leading educational trainer and consultant backs this up by stating that "specific feedback needs to be present in students' books and in theclassroom dialogue, otherwise students can become demotivated, confused or misled".



Mrs Mistry has a very innovative approach to creating displays and this one has an added layer of value as we get to see the journey of the teacher and child when producing writing outcomes.

 

The images you see here are perfect examples to show you the time that teachers invest in making sure that children are rigorously supported in their writing; that they take ownership over aspects of their improvement by self evaluating against success criteria and by engaging with feedback given as a result of teacher's in depth knowledge of each individual child's needs. This style of marking is consistently implemented across school but worth noting is how impressive it is, that even some of the youngest children in school can engage with such sophisticated strategies for improvement.

 

 

Click on the images to see them up close and the detail of the feedback...

The power of collaborative learning

Last week, I was teaching a group of Year 6 children in my office. Nothing unusual there, but what I did notice was the incredible learning behaviours. I have been in this profession, for over 16 years now and I don't think I have ever experienced such positive learning behaviours as those that I witnessed last week. I simply asked the children to look back at a previous test they had done for Level 6 Maths and given that they had a further 3 months of learning under their belts, asked them to tackle the problems they had previously got incorrect. I did not want them to do this alone, however; I wanted them to use each other's understanding to collaboratively solve the problems. I asked this specifically because I wanted to see how the children worked together, to listen to who could ask the most efffective kinds of questions to their peers, and to see who could share their knowledge and strategies with others. But more than anything, I wanted to see whether the children solved the problems more or less effectively than if they had been asked to do this independently. I sat back and took stock of the situation, listening and watching intently, taking notes of what the children were saying out loud.

For at least 15 minutes, there was an audible buzz of interaction, a sharp focus from each child which faltered for nothing and an excitement in their achievements which was touching to see. Verbal interactions amongst the children included:

"What did you get for that?"
"This is how I worked this out"
"I can't believe I got that one wrong!!"
"I haven't a clue how to tackle that one- show me how you did it".
"I got that one right, let me show you what I did"
" I can definitely solve this one now- look!"
"We all got that one wrong, let's tackle it together"
"Ooooooooh yes, I can see that now- thanks"
"Would I use the grid method for that?"
"YES! I did it!"
The level of accuracy improved dramatically.

This is a great example of how collaborative learning is powerful and effective and impacts on the depth of the children's understanding. This approach to learning is something that Year 5 and 6 teachers are implementing more and more, especially with the higher achieving children.

Longer days?? Discuss.....!!

So hot in the news the last week was Michael Gove's proposal to extend the school day, as though that will sort out under achievement of every kind! I agree with the views of many, many other educational bloggers, whose opinions I have been interested in finding out.... get the time in school right; put outstanding teachers in front of the kids, embed robust systems to manage behaviour, make learning fun, invest in parental engagement and support and there really, really, really should be no need, surely?? Parents views would be interesting to hear on this one.
I too am a parent and from that perspective, I would oppose the extended day partially for the very same reasons. Also, I want my children to have time to pursue other interests and (heaven forbid) have some time to relax and reflect on their day! Childhood is precious and although we all want the best for our kids (including the receipt of strong academic standards), I think it is important to make the most of the time we have with our children outside of school hours; family values may suffer as a result.

A bit about how we improve our teaching...and what this means for the children.

Iris Connect- Cutting edge evaluation technique
My vision statement is "Success is in the journey, not the destination; we are ALL learners".
This year, we have implemented the use of an evaluation tool called IRIS to allow teachers to reflect on their practice and make improvements where necessary. Iris is the creation of a company called IRIS Connect, who describe the tool as an "innovative and powerful system for school improvement. By fusing a mobile system, data collection tools and a secure web community, IRIS Connect provides a practice based, effective professional development system for your school".
In a nutshell, teachers are able to film their lessons using a secure encrypted account, which can only be accessed by other members of staff if they are "invited" via the system. They can then analyse their lessons, picking out areas of strength, areas for development and direct their own self improvement. As a school, we are striving to create a learning community, where teachers and staff recognise the importance of learning, growing and improving just as much as the children. I am working hard to embed a culture of honesty and reflection amongst the teaching staff, which gives everyone the opportunity and confidence to share what they do best as a way of improving and exploring alternative teaching methods. I have already been in two classrooms this week where teachers have been filming their lessons, ready to share an approach to teaching literacy,which has evolved. Myself and the teachers now feel that there is an improved and highly effective model that can be shared across school via the video clips.
 I will be brave enough to say that there are times when approaches ornew ideas may not always be the greatest but the key factor for improvement in my opinion, is teachers knowing it wasn't great, why it wasn't great and what will be done in order to make improvements and  impact positively on learning. I am a great supporter of Sir Ken Robinson's message that “If you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with something original”. This is a message I give to staff and it is certainly a message that translates to children in class. I think it is important that we as the teachers can model reflective practice; show children that we may not always be right but strive to be the best we can be and continuously work together as a learning community to maximise our chances of success. Children perform best when they can take some ownership over their learning and improvement.They produce the most innovative and original outcomes when they are given the freedom to explore, make mistakes, find out for themselves, self evaluate, collaborate, share and enjoy!
At Robin Hood, our curriculum has evolved so that children are now taught how to be reflective learners and lead and direct their own learning. The skills involved in this approach will prepare them for life beyond primary school. Simply imparting knowledge is not sufficient to prepare children for life in our ever changing and rapidly growing world. To maximise the chances of success later in life, our children need to be exposed to a curriculum which prepares them for life in the 21st Century. It is a challenge to ensure that this happens but I feel more confident than ever, that the children of Robin Hood recieve an education which promotes skills for success in the future.

HOME LEARNING AT RH

I am so, so, so impressed with the home learning which has come in this week. I must give a special mention to our Year 6s who were given an optional project to carry out as they were required to complete some prep for their up and coming Sats. Not only did most of them create a Space themed outcome but the quality was phemonenal.
Here are some outcomes from Mrs Brook's class:

These outcomes extend beyond being "just an information poster". They are sheer works of art.

I think the quality of home learning has increased hugely over recent years. I put this down to a number of factors. School continually reviews the curriculum to ensure that the topics we study with the children are highly interesting and highly relevant. Of course we have have to fulfill our statutory requirements but the way we deliver our topics has really transformed in the last 2 years. There is a much larger emphasis on outcomes for a purpose (e.g performances, in house school museums, carnivals, charities etc...) adding meaning and a reason to succeed to the learning process. The children know that what they produce will be valued and will give them a great insight into the topic they are about to learn.
It makes me really proud of the children to see the level of commitment they give to thinking outside of the box and that healthy competetive streak that they show in striving to create something that will stand out of the crowd.

 

So many children choose to create 3D, interactive pieces with incredible attention to detail.

 

Phenomenal ideas, expertly constructed, lovingly prepared...........Inspirational!

I would like to start my blog by sharing a few interesting images that I have captured, whilst on my wanders around school.

An apt one to start with I thought is my shot of the school logo. I was so happy the day the previous Headteacher decided to ditch the rather old fashioned (actual) Robin Hood (himself) logo and it with this contemporary design, which represents us as a school so much better. I have set up four house teams this year. (Seemingly unimaginatively) named Yellow, Blue, Red and Green, they have in fact been named after the colours seen on the emblem and each class has a display which allows children to write their house points onto the colours themselves.

Our messages of encouragement adorn the walls in school and I found it interesting to "home in" close up on certain very small sections which exemplify in words exactly what I aim to achieve....

The robot models have been hanging from the ceiling in the mall for a number of years now and have in more recent times been joined by some bright Koinibori Japanese fishes. Our innovative approach to display is what sets our environment apart from other schools. We think outside of the box and maximise the impact of our large scale and collaborative outcomes....