It's the end of the term as we know it...

And I feel fine. Apart from a tickly cough that's bothered me for a while now.

Regardless of Friday's impending cataclysm, an apocalyptic unveiling, it's been an eventful term. We've faced various challenges since the summer, and faced them with confidence and faith in our abilities as a team. New members of the team have made great starts, and we're focused on our goals.

Briefly, as I'm not prone to gushing, I'd like to thank HM for her sterling work as KS3 manager over the last twenty months or so. When the department was first shaken up, all of the focus went on blasting as many pupils through their GCSEs as successfully as possible, and that has, for obvious reasons, been a key focus. However, Helen has put in place excellent foundations for a high level of sustainable improvement, without which the work we have all done would be, in the long term, useless. Sustainable improvements are vital, and Helen has given us, and VQ a great base to build on. Thanks Helen, and good luck Vicky - I'm sure you can take KS3 to the next level, and we all look forward to working with you on this.

Interestingly, when the changes were being made, I wrote a list of priorities for KS3. I met with Helen, and asked her hers - they we largely the same. I then met with Vicky and, again, hers were largely the same. To me, this shows how closely we are working to the same ends.

Regardless of whether we're on the countdown to Armageddon, or if it's already Armageddon time already, or if Friday is the last day on Earth, let's enjoy this last week, and make sure we keep our standards as high as ever.

Thank you all for your hard work and great attitudes throughout this term, and I hope to be writing to you all in early 2013, when a mass coronal ejection hasn't taken down communication systems, Iran is still intact, the poles haven't shifted causing two kilometre high tidal waves to destroy civilisation and Michael Gove has proven to merely be the Antichrist.

Merry Winterval!

A time for...

It's great that we're looking, as a school and not just a department, at a range of ways to improve teaching, and it's vastly more important cousin, learning. But don't let this fool you. Not every lesson has to be, should be, or could be, flipped, flopped, thunked and crunked.

That's not to say that every lesson should be led from the front. Or the side. Or any direction in particular.

As the great Cliff Richard has said...

There's a time for didactic instruction. There's a time to flip the classroom and there's a time for thunking; a time hexagonal learning. There's a time for a challenge. As you may have spotted, there's a time for all types of learning and instruction. Break it up, break it down, do it silently, do it remotely.

Know your class well, and make sure they get what they need. Don't worry about the lists of criteria we've had drilled into us. There is no magic formula, as we've known for years. We have a strong repertoire of skills - let's use them.

If you don't believe me, read / watch the link on this blog - it reports the words of Ofsted Chief Wilshaw - words which, I believe, should give us all confidence in what we do. Because we do it well.

Bottom(s) up!

It's that time of year again. Mawkish adverts, Charlie Brooker writing sarcastically about said mawkish adverts, atheists moaning about Christmas before it even arrives and Christians bemoaning the fact that it's called Winterval by some non-existent PC town council run by Guardian reading Lib-Dem voters who don't think UKIP voters should be allowed to foster children. You gotta love it.

I'm sure that tonight you're all decking you halls with boughs of holly (I have always misheard that lyric) and decorating enormous trees. I hear that one of you is that annoying person on the street with a life-size Santa on the roof.

Take a minute, however, to peruse this blog, if you like, by a gentleman named Kevin. If you do not have time to peruse it, do not worry, for here are a few highlights - I'm not going to digitally dictate.

Agile processes promote sustainable development. School leaders, teachers and students should be able to maintain a constant pace indefinitely.

Simplicity - the art of maximising the amount of work not done - is essential.

The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organising teams.

At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behaviour accordingly.

Clearly, and understandably, there is a improvement agenda in place at out school. If that's a surprise, I'd be surprised, if that makes sense. Sometimes, that agenda can feel a little top down, a little heavy, and even overwhelming. This member of SLT is doing this, this one that, and then that annoying Middle Leader keeps harping on about Marginal Gains and making you draw on pictures of bicycle wheels. (Just wait until I unleash the full power of my twitter research on you - cue evil laugh).

Real change needs to be bottom up. We need to be the agents of change, the ones who make that difference. If it's dictated, imposed, it will get somewhere, but the real change won't happen, because it won't be owned and it won't be sustainable.

Real change and development comes from self-organising teams, teams who look at what they do, and what they need to do, and what constraints they face, and adjust and re-tune as needed.

We do a lot of this, and I feel we move forward each time we meet - Wednesday being a prime example of a meeting where small and simple strategies were shared, strategies I'll be using - but we need to ensure that we control what is ours to control.

The school is making a bold move - timetable, curriculum, expectations - and we are ahead of the curve. We started early. We need to be that change, lead that change and develop that change. Not to be the best, or to show off, but to maintain our progress, regardless of what is slung at us by Ofqual or any such people.

This week, remember those little things - that independence, relevance, purpose, engagement, meaningful discusion, cliched lightbulb moment. Remember that you lead the change, and if we lead it, if we improve ourselves, the rest will follow.

Now crack open that Advent calendar and enjoy Homeland / X Factor / wine - and also remember those marginal gains - breakfast, sleep and whatnot!

Road to Glory - Marginal Gains

This Wednesday, we will be exploring the idea of marginal gains in our meeting.

First of all, we'll be looking at it in relation to our overall work - where can we make those little gains in a day which will allow us to mark an extra five books a day, or get that time to resource that lesson ever so slightly more creatively?

After that, we will start taking it into the classroom - how can year 9 start making those gains to nail that new skill, or how can that pupil in year 11 with the painstakingly slow approach to work grab the grade you know they're capable of?

Some of it will be about working more smartly, planning assessed work carefully - you have the freedom to do this with the schemes. They're malleable. Move them about. Assess S & L the week before reports. This is one area I'm seeking to make marginal gains - if I learn to use calendars and diaries effectively, I reckon I'll get the time to be more on top of my marking, which often slips away, and to adapt and personalise more lessons, making the work I mark work I REALLY want to mark.

To get you started, here's a blog from Alex Quigley, Head of English at Huntington School in York, which appeared on the Guardian teacher network. Have a look at that, or a quick watch of the three minute video below, to start getting a few ideas.

Marginal gains, working smarter as well as harder, could be just the thing we need to do what we want to do. Which is teach to the very best of our ability at all times.

Ours is to reason why.

You do a hard job. It's hard every day, in a different way. It's that class, that period six, that head of department. It's that new initiative, that new curriculum, that challenging pupil.

There's a reason you chose to do it. You may have made it recently. You may have made it slightly longer ago. But you made it. Sometimes the reason you made it may slip your mind. In the middle of a perfect storm of assessments and parents evenings, it may vanish.

Ours is to reason why. Education without purpose is meaningless.

Today I was at the Institute of Educations. Michael Gove spoke. Michael Wilshaw spoke. When I say spoke, I probably mean dictated. Gove expressed his admiration for the British Communists of the 1950s. Even I don't admire them.

I wasn't listening though. I was, along with poets, MCs, the head of English from Peter Hyman's free school, and a doctor of philosophy - all working teachers in their spare time - arguing, debating and discussing. We weren't being spoken down to. We were planning and plotting. We were listening.

They reminded me why I came into teaching; to do. Not for any other reason than it's the job where doing is most useful and most productive and most beneficial for society. It's never far from my mind, but their passion reinvigorated me.

Why do you do it? What's your reason?

Ours is to reason why.

Sustainability.

Sustainability has been a buzz word around environmental issues for some time now. Our dependence on oil is unsustainable, but maintained for profit. Renewable energy is sustainable but largely ignored or held back by Daily Mail reading nimbys.

Sustainability is important for what we do, too. There's no point in developing working habits which aren't sustainable. We will only crash and burn. There's no point making unsustainable progress with students, for example with crazed interventions and infinite pathways, as, like a house of cards, it will flutter down dramatically in the slightest breeze.

Our working habits and aims needs to be sustainable and future proof. This week's meeting will focus on the iGCSE and the work LS has done to set us up for this. It's yet another change of syllabus, which is unsustainable, but hopefully the last one, or one which readies us for the introduction of Gove levels in a couple of years.

A key element of sustainability is nailing progress early. This means highly effective and well judged wave one teaching. It means intervention is is early and focused. We're getting there with this, but there's more we can do.

Let's make sure our lessons are personalised, differentiated, engaging and based on our knowledge of the classes we teach. Mark little, often and formatively - try 10 pieces of quality marking a day. Get a dialogue going in the book, open discussion about progress and lots of how.

Do this regularly, and our work is sustainable. Fail in this, and things tumble.

It's your choice.

Slings and arrows

To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether 'tis Nobler in the mind to suffer
The Slings and Arrows of outrageous Fortune,
Or to take Arms against a Sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them: to die, to sleep
No more; and by a sleep, to say we end
The Heart-ache, and the thousand Natural shocks
That Flesh is heir to? 'Tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die to sleep,
To sleep, perchance to Dream; Aye, there's the rub,
For in that sleep of death, what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause.

Not sure who wrote that, but they were right. That is the question. Should we suffer nobly as aspersions are cast, or take arms against the sea of troubles?

My answer: both. We suffer the Natural shocks we know so we can help our charges achieve. We fight, by remodelling what is done and sticking to our principles, so that the dreams that come are our dreams, not the dreams of the corporate elite who seek to trap the minds of the future within their narrow paradigm.

Dare to Dream. Refuse to lose.

Motivation.

This week, I'd like us to consider motivation. We all vary in our motivation; time of year, life, specific groups and more can all affect our levels of motivation. Indeed, I sometimes find myself differently motivated at different times of the day, depending on how lessons fall!

What about the pupils? What affects their motivation? Clearly, there are too many factors affecting that to be analysed here, but we should consider a few:

1. People don't always know what they want. Speaking to some pupils on the corridor, they haven't a clue why they're at school or what it can do for them. Help them know themselves - RP can be great for delving into these questions. Example - what does school mean to you?

2. Visible success. Do we always show pupils when they do well, and what they've done to achieve success? I'm not saying be more fulsome in your praise, so much as to be specific in both verbal and written feedback. Make it kind, honest and detailed. A sense of achievement is key to breeding further positivity. Example - I love your use of persuasive techniques... You could be a politician!

3. Make the learning relevant and real. Know what interests them, and take it further, embedding that into the curriculum. Let them lead the lines of investigation by interest. Adapt the schemes to suit their needs. Use current affairs in lessons on a regular basis and prove to them that English is the most relevant and purposeful subject - not just dead white men writing about obscure topics in barely understood language. Example - watching a controversial interview or documentary that's been in the news, or exploring a major world event.

Rewards, praise, punishment (at times) and much more links into this, but I am convinced that we must motivate the students to see the purpose of their education, or we risk wasting our efforts.

Culture versus Systems

We have culture. A developing culture, but hopefully a clear one. One which aims for excellence, to be purposeful, relevant, reflective and thoughtful.

We also have systems. These systems are developing too. They have to adapt to external pressures, unlike our culture.

This is what I'd like to see.

Systems which are elegant, relevant and effective. No clutter, no excess or wastage; just purposeful, useful systems for measuring and checking, planning and assessing. They need to be adaptable and we need to reflect on their use.

A culture which is thoughtful, and all of the other adjectives above, but also owned by all, shared, valued and believed in. Culture is an abstract concept, in some ways, but ours must be as tangible as jellied eels in the East End, dripping on bread 'up north' and potent cider in the South West.

To that end, I want to know what you think. Are our goals clear? Are they shared? Do the systems we has support the culture we're growing? So you have any concerns, worries or questions? What would you like to see, to discuss or to explore?

Finally. A confidence building link from my arch-enemy on twitter's blog. This man is a thought provoking opponent of any innovative teaching. He courts controversy and is often the devil's advocate in debates. But the blog below hits some nails on the head nicely. Teach!!! Be free!!!

http://teachingbattleground.wordpress.com/2012/10/13/what-ofsted-say-they-want/

Creativity

We discussed, in our meeting a week and a half ago, using master classes, lectures and break out groups to engage students in a variety of ways. This is vital, and can, I believe, be incredibly enjoyable.

Watch the video below to hear some of Kanye West's views on creativity. Translate them to teaching. I agree with him in several ways. I get bored easily. I need to be hit by something, to feel it. We can all do this individually, but with excellent collaboration we can create something special.

My thoughts have particularly gone towards year nine and the conflict module. I've been dipping into other people's resources - Eileen's Khartoum siege article and some of Dermot's lessons on modern conflicts. Each week, we've looked at poetry, prose, non-fiction, and created a range of writing. The poetry has extended from the Crimean war through to more modern wars of neo-colonial capitalist imperialism.

Bringing this all together would be great.

I envisage a lesson with the majority of the children in the master classroom, and others in break out rooms. They're writing dramas based on conflict - any form of text, that's up to them - and Dermot is tweeting from his room, with a group of top set students who have created a series of characters and a setting on which the others will base their stories. In another room are a range of physical objects to inspire writing. they link the objects to the characters who are tweeting their ideas.

After hearing the character's thoughts and feelings, they break into groups to plan. Some are taken to the room with the objects, as others carousel around various stations which include other forms of prompt.

Clearly, it needs more thought, but I want this thought to become common, to become regular, as we seek new and exciting ways to engage and enthuse learners.

Your thoughts are more than welcome.

I Know I Can...

We know what we can be. Let's be it. A nice touch of GLOBAL history in this track too; we need to show them links, show how everything is related. It's our class, they're our kids. It's their world. They need to understand it.

Whilst we develop those literacy skills and prep them for ever more competitive exams, the greatest service we can do our pupils is showing them that they matter, have a voice and are someone.

Word.

Finally - if you're pondering Twitter, read this. Sums the journey up nicely.

Equinox

On Saturday, we passed the autumnal equinox at 3.49pm. We are now well on the way to those short days and long nights we love so much. There's always a different feel to life as those nights draw in, the fireworks start ludicrously early, and shops are filled with Christmas tat.

This first week of autumn will be an interesting one. We have the sponsored walk on Wednesday, during which we will have a range of year 11 pupils completing and catching up on various things. If you volunteered to be there for that, please remind me. If you're walking, watch out for the cows and their kind offerings around by the reservoir.

There is also an interesting range of training this week, much of which focuses on digital media. AL is offering iPad and iPod touch training on Wednesday. I can't go due to a meeting, but would love it if one of you could. The training will be opened up to everyone later but we need to use this - relevance and engagement could be improved if we take this opportunity.

On Friday, we have a training day. Wahey. There will be a range of activities available. I'll be proselytising about Twitter as usual. To prove how great it is and why you should all be on it, here is  a blog from a head of English in York which is brilliant. Look at the tabs on the top for some details on iPads in English too - I'll be using this as a starting point as we get going.

Oh. Tuesday. Smash it.

Be inspired.

Today I was inspired by the following:

Parents running for ill children.
Children running for their parents.
A man carrying a fridge 13 miles.
Nicola Adams, Leeds' gold medal winning boxer.
Mo Farah.
Thousands of people lining the streets with support and generosity shown to complete strangers.

This week, I ask that you inspire others in the same way.

Strike!

Strike while the iron is hot, 'they' say. Quite what 'they're' hitting, I've never been sure, but we need to make sure that we do exactly that!

Last week felt long and hard, but good. The computers may have been frustrating at times, but when they're fixed they'll clearly be ridiculously superior to what went before. We have the enticing prospect of iPad suites, and other, modern, functional digital devices. I'll link to some blogs I've been collecting over the last year whig relate to using such technology effectively below.

We also have our new, and old, groups. So far, so good.

But if we want to make the most of this start, we need to look carefully at the notes from Wednesday's meeting, and reflect honestly on our lessons, and assess accurately, so that when these tantalising new toys are online, we still have our learners firmly in our collective grasp. We need to ensure that we strike, every lesson, getting to know their needs and providing them with the diet that they don't even know that they need yet.

Let's work hard together, to build on this good start.

Links:

Using Skype in the classroom http://po.st/fsWhEg

Gaming in English https://wordpress.wildern.hants.sch.uk/blog/2010/03/31/turning-gaming-into-writing/

https://wordpress.wildern.hants.sch.uk/blog/2010/02/08/using-nintendo-wii-as-a-stimulus-for-writing/

Let's go round again...

Firstly, welcome back, and welcome to Barbara and, in a way, Dermot and Lara, who'll also be teaching more / some English this year.

The main news: our priorities haven't changed at all. Our schemes are going to become deeper, thematic and as relevant to our pupils as possible, building on what we already have. Meaningful S & L opportunities will be a key part of these schemes. We'll assess regularly, purposefully and interactively, ensuring there is an outcome from all of our work. We won't do anything for the sake of it. Pupil voice will be taken often and acted upon. We'll swap classes, pupils, rooms and whatever we need to swap to make sure that the learning experience is as good as possible. We will enjoy teaching, because that's why we will do it.

By now, I'm sure you are aware of this summer's politically motivated attack on pupils who studied English. I'm sure you've read Ofqual's weasel like statement. I'm sure you've cursed AQA viciously, for their craven behaviour. Unfortunately for us, and even more unfortunately for the pupils we teach, it's an attack on students from poorer backgrounds. An unjustified attack, as we know they're actually benefiting from getting a fair crack of the whip at long last - or they were.

That's all I'm saying about that.

Good news: we're going to come back harder and show them that we are doing the right thing. We're going to play our cards right, and make sure we hit back. We'll use IGCSE and any strategy we can think of to make sure that we show the government and the right wing press why they're wrong.

Year ten are in a decent position - the top two sets are largely banked, despite the boundary shift. IGCSE was a success, and taught in more depth and detail, it will be even better. We will build on the excellent work at KS3, using the new banding and setting system to our advantage, and make sure that the improvements we're making are secured.

Read this, because this is, I believe, why we do this and who we are.

Let's absolutely smash this year.

Another year over.

Thanks for your hard work and commitment this academic year. You have made, quite literally, a difference to hundreds of young people's lives.

Not many people can say that.

You can.

Enjoy your holidays, like the young man below is preparing to.

Word.

Evening all. A dramatic day, kind of, at Wimbledon, where my prediction of someone lacking belief from last week came true. Remember to believe, in tangible and attainable things at least.

A final full week of teaching to hit hard. It's close enough, now, to the end of the year, to start reflecting and connecting thoroughly and deeply. Make it a truly reflective process. In our meeting, which should be this week, we will be doing just that - reflecting on what we've done well, where we can improve and what we'd like to introduce next year.

Start thinking now.

PS - there's a lovely little bit of writing attached as an image... Is it readable?

Outstandingness

To be outstanding at anything is a special thing. People may argue about what constitutes the truly outstanding, and I'm sure they will.

Some things are clear. Annoyingly, I'm about to use some sporting analogies to get us thinking about what we can do to become individually and collectively outstanding.

Spain. Heavily criticised recently, despite a consistently good tournament where they've never been threatened. Tonight they have turned it on when it really matters, hitting a peak of brilliance. Two lessons. Consistently being good leads to outstanding. Having the ability to step up when it matters is key. Can we do this this week? Aim to be outstandingly good and then brilliantly outstanding.

Andy Murray. Scotland's finest when he loses, best of British when he wins. Good. Very good. But not outstanding. Why not?

Belief. He's tormented. He doesn't believe he can match the three outstanding players who are ranked above him. He may be unlucky in having three all time greats playing at the same time, but it's clear watching him that he doesn't really believe.

Finally, le tour de France. I love it. The dedication shown by the top cyclists, the teamwork and recognition of individual skills and strengths, the bravery, the top class support... I could go on.

Aim to be peerless, yet heavily involved with your peers. Enjoy the week.

Marathon.

Genuinely, I'll be quick this week.

We teach some brilliant young people. Let's go even further than normal to give them a brilliant education this week. Make a difference.

Wipe the sickly sweet residue of that little paragraph away.

More QA this week. Last week was fascinating. The way our students, of all ages and abilities, could explain how and why they were learning, along with discussing their progress, was incredible. The new QA process, which I'm very keen on, works to your strengths. Consistent excellency and engagement. Enjoyment and inspiration.

Keep that going, and do what you always do.

Love Teaching Week!

This week is Love Music Week, but every week is Love Teaching Week, or should be. As you recover from a fit of vomiting caused by that obscenely nauseous statement, remember that this week is also QA week, and a love of what you are doing will shine through in these mini-observations. I'm excited about these observations. The repeated short visits over the week will show what we do well - deliver well prepared lessons from a well planned scheme in engaging and increasingly personalised styles.

 

Enjoy it, make sure your students do, and don't worry - do what you always do.

 

A couple more things on this patchy-skied Sunday morning.

 

Thanks to those who are working on their literacy starters. Let's make sure that these are sharp and engaging little lesson openers which ensure that all pupils know what they are doing with the whole school expectations. Talking to my year ten class this week, in the midst of their exams, they showed the best understanding I've seen yet of the cross-curricular need for their English and literacy skills; this needs to keep improving, until it's second nature for all students and staff. This can be a major contribution.

 

Edmodo appears to be gaining traction across the subject areas, and I am convinced it is the way forward for our department. It would be great to see resources shared in the English forum and hear about how you are using it. If we meet this Wednesday, we will focus on how we are using Edmodo, sharing tips and tricks for getting pupils engaged and, hopefully, evidencing progress through its use.

 

Finally - a link before I end. Below is a copy of a comment from one of the teachers I mentioned in last week's SOLO blog. Out of courtesy, I tweeted it to the people I had mentioned. Apart from numerous retweets, and 186 page views in two days, the comment below shows an approach @missjillyteach has used. 

 

 

http://youtu.be/8ESdn0MuJWQ

my kids loved this and it really got them fired up for the lesson...

:)

Flying SOLO!

Hello again, after what was hopefully an enjoyable and relaxing week off. Whilst the weather wasn't quite what it was the week before, I'm sure we've all worked out wonderful ways of enjoying worthwhile activities.

Following on from our last departmental meeting, I would love it if we could look more closely into SOLO taxonomy. Since that meeting, I've even found out what it means (this site gives some background, including some academic context for it), and even more information and ideas from the ever-growing #SOLOarmy on twitter. I'll link to a range of videos and blogs at the end of this.

Some 'traditionalists' and 'Govians' seem to think this is a fad. This is, I believe, a short sighted and naive viewpoint. Added to an engaging, personalised curriculum, which we are creating, this gives pupils the confidence and skills needed to successfully become independent learners, able to organise and relate challenging and abstract concepts. I'll certainly be using it to get my year nine and ten students planning and organising their thoughts as we prepare for CA - I have no doubt it can be used in all aspects of the English curriculum, extremely successfully, and I would love to see you all having a go, and to receive feedback from all of you regarding successes and failures.

So - lo, here are some videos... with lots more to be clicked on at the side...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gduQFFgzl4&feature=youtube_gdata_player

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYqKx2u20so&feature=related

Here are some blogs and websites:

http://jadamsteach.visibli.com/share/KPe2rL - using for poetry with year 7.

http://littlemisslud.wordpress.com/2012/06/01/first-attempts-at-using-solo/ - reflecting on a first attempt.

http://learningspy.co.uk/2012/06/04/time-how-best-should-we-use-it-in-the-classroom/ - a thoughtful and detailed blog on SOLO, including SOLO stations, which fits our personalisation and choice aims, and is my aim in these next few weeks.

http://whatwedoneatschooltoday.wordpress.com/2012/05/13/using-solo-mark-schemes-and-hexagons-to-target-a-unit-1-exam-responses/ - and a higher level KS4 application.

Have a watch, have a read, and dig into the resources on J Drive.

Enjoy.

SOLO taxonomy and Hexagons

Evening all. A slightly different tack this week - less ranty and more of some other people to read. Recently, I've stumbled upon a (insert appropriately witty collective noun - pretentiousness, stanza, set text?) of English teachers on some website I may have mentioned named 'Twitter'. It's this great place where you can insult celebrities, and read what Stephen Fry had for breakfast.

Anyway. Below are links to a series of blogs about SOLO taxonomy. It's a taxonomic system, with similarity to Bloom's, this fits English really well. Jake down in History is having a look at it too. I really think it could be a powerful learning tool across all age groups and abilities. Last week was the first time I tried to use it, with 8h1; some pupils who rarely complete tasks did a lot more work, perhaps due to this system, although other factors quite possibly contributed too!

Have a read - in a few weeks we will be looking at this as something to use as a key part of our practise.

This blog kicked it off for me - there's one graphic on it which sums up the idea of SOLO really well (made by a Leeds based teacher, incidentally, who has mentioned great feedback from those who've used it at his school).

http://whatwedoneatschooltoday.wordpress.com/2012/05/13/using-solo-mark-schemes-and-hexagons-to-target-a-unit-1-exam-responses/

These two blogs are reflections on first attempts at using this system:

http://createach.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/from-bloom-to-solo-to-exam-skills.html?spref=tw

http://exitpursuedbyabearteachingreflections.edublogs.org/

Enjoy!

Rolling

It's Sunday, and I've woken up early with Blake, and stumbled upon classic sitcom Desmond's on my XBOX. Episode 1 sees his son learning computer language, with Desmond keen to have a go, Matthew off to University to study the effect of tabloids on urban culture and his wife encouraging the daughter to learn French, albeit to meet a handsome Frenchman named Jean-Pierre. It's even funnier now, incidentally, perhaps because I was about 10 last time I watched it and the subtle social commentary went miles over my head.

This is exactly, kind of, the culture of betterment and self-improvement that we need to model as teachers and which we need to ensure our pupils can develop themselves. This challenge is just one among many which we face. Others include creating a more engaging experience, ensuring we make English relevant and realistic to our students, maintaining the progress we are making at KS4, securing faster progress in the early days of KS3 and so on.

All of these are vitally, equally, important, and, importantly, vitally, equal.

In order to help us reach effective and, I hate to say it (because it's a horrible management speak cliche), SMART, outcomes, we are going to start using a few little techniques that are coming in on a whole school level. Hopefully, these will help us to sharpen our focus and continue the excellent work that has been happening in the last couple of years.

Firstly, RP. We will use problem solving and non-sequential circles to discuss and plan.

Secondly, OBA. In a similar fashion to last Wednesday's training about Freaky Flexible Fridays, we will use an outcome based system to work through problems or challenges, ensuring we reach a solution which matches our aims for our pupils, who are the most important people we work with, and that we all have ownership (sorry) of this agenda.

I'm hopeful that this will help us to move forward, raising productivity and key indicators, showing stakeholders that we are working towards common goals, pushing the envelope of what can be attained within the parameters of a blue sky driven team engine. Or something.

Delivery

After last week's ramble about sustainability, this week I'd like to quickly prompt some thought about delivery.

It's easy to deliver content in a comfortable way, a way which does not challenge you, or a way which suits your teaching style and does not necessarily suit all of your learners. At the moment, I have one class where half a dozen students are not succeeding, in even the most basic manner. This week I'm going to change up my delivery. I usually avoid worksheets like the plague. This week, I'll use some for starters. I'll structure the lessons in a much more conventional way than I normally do for part of the week, to offer comfort to those who struggle with anything other than a standard lesson. I feel they need some small success to feel like they can get back into learning.

 Later in the week, I'll mix it up, slowly, to encourage independence, so that this challenging group of pupils don't cause those who are making great progress in the same group to miss out on an interesting and varied experience.

With another challenging group, who are currently making rapid improvements, I'm going to make sure that they work even more independently, building on the work I've done to develop their confidence and maturity in the last eighteen months. With my 'nice' class, I'm determined to plan the week with them again, and get back on using Edmodo consistently and effectively, as it really gets many of them excited about learning and working - and makes giving feedback / marking work extremely easy!

I guess the point of this week's blog is to think carefully about each class. Where are they right now? Where do we need them to be? What are their strengths and weaknesses? How do they feel about their learning in English?

Finally, a sporting metaphor. Nani and Cristiano Ronaldo are similar players; athletic, skillful wingers. Ronaldo has become one of the top players in the world. Nani's progress has stalled. Ronaldo used to be a one trick pony, running as fast as he could, cutting inside, shooting. He's added extra dimensions to his game - free kicks, a range of passing, slicked back hair and a clothing range. Nani hasn't. Make of it what you will.

Moving Forward

Hopefully, everyone has had a relaxing and enjoyable weekend. Thanks to your hard work over recent weeks, and further back throughout the GCSE course, things are, overall, looking good, and we're able to focus on a few specific pupils at this key time.

However, this is not, in my opinion, sustainable. Sustainability is vital. Capitalism provides us with an excellent example of this. It is not sustainable - environmentally, socially or economically. As such, it is collapsing around us, and the idiotic products of our class system and our prestigious universities are incapable of seeing that. A sustainable economic model would allow growth without leaving behind the proles, destroying the planet's fragile eco-system and stealing wealth from the masses for the benefit of the few.

We need to recognise the hard work that goes into what our students achieve and look, analytically and honestly, at how to keep that going. We've had some impressive firsts this year, in terms of pupils achieving from lower starting points than ever before. This, however, needs to become the norm.

Whilst we push our KS4 pupils towards the exam, we need to ensure that we are fully focused on progress at KS3. That progress, secured, becomes attainment and achievement. Now that I've stated the obvious, I'll move on.

How can we ensure that all of the pupils who come to us at level 4 are totally ready to start their GCSE producing C level work? How can we ensure that a significant majority of out pupils who enter at level 3 can access higher level work, competently and confidently, at KS4? How can we ensure that our higher ability children all leave with at least a B, and preferably a couple of A stars? How can we ensure that all of our EAL pupils achieve results that match their innate cognitive ability?

We need to answer these questions. The documents produced by our evil overlords Ofsted (Excellence in English and Moving English Forward) provide some clear ideas - which will help us become an outstanding department, in their eyes, as well as securing improved outcomes.

Real life context. Engagement. Two strands which, together with focused teaching and the systems we have in place already for monitoring progress, will lead us to long term success.

This week, adapt the schemes to make sure they have real life context. One teacher I follow on twitter had her year elevens write and publish blogs focusing on character analysis, aimed at other students. It was good. Consider strategies for engagement - change the classroom around, make them teach each other, use Edmodo to get extended learning going. And more. Whatever you can think of, really.

Enjoy it, because that is what makes life. As Roots Manuva said, "Do you live to work, or do you work to live?"

In brief...

A brief one this week, I promise.

Firstly, thanks for your well organised folders which were handed in last week. The vast majority of them were accurate, both individually, and between markers; one teacher's E folder was another teacher's E folder, and so on. It represents a huge amount of work for us, and a vital record of a child's progress which can make a huge difference to their life. The work which has gone into S & L and the Shakespeare intervention on Thursday is pushing us ever closer to securing excellent outcomes for all.

No meeting this Wednesday - 10S will be completing and refining their CA folders. Can the rest of us support by running exam revision sessions and perhaps helping 10S pupils improve their S & L grades? This will be of huge benefit. If this next 6 weeks are successful, we could be on track for further improvements in the progress made by our students, with another challenging cohort.

If you have time, please try to keep reading the Moving English Forward document. I'm nearly through it myself, and having read several articles about it, I'm convinced that it will be a vitally important document for all English teachers in the next few years. Most of all, it prompts us towards a deep and detailed style of teaching, with real life context prominent, matching many of the priorities we identified a little under a year ago, although it feels, paradoxically, like both five minutes ago and five years.

Until tomorrow, fare thee well.

Difference

A new term, but will we see the same difference? More of the same or a chance to work the way we want to, the way we know and hear that our pupils want to learn?

This week, I won't write too much. I'll just drop a few links on you, which are well worth a look and a read. With year 11 largely done and dusted, this is a chance to make something new, to take our teaching to another level. We teach well; the outcomes from the most recent learning walks support that view. However, we can do more to encourage engagement and enjoyment, and therefore attainment and progress.

These two links may help with this, not necessarily with ideas, but with the belief to stick to these ideas.

This is an article about the recent Ofsted Moving English Forward document.

This is the aforementioned document. Surprisingly worth a read. To me, this builds on the Excellence in English document that we looked at a year ago. Slowly, through the morass of assessment and scrutiny we inhabit, we are moving towards this, in a variety of ways. This recent document, I feel, sets us clear targets and supports what we are attempting.

Read these.

And think about this - how are you making English real and meaningful for your classes?

Finally, watch these... and see if you can spot a member of staff's son in one of them! The first is a TEDtalk from UK MC Akala about Hiphop and Shakespeare, in which he drops rhymes from both Shakespeare and the RZA. The second is a slightly different take on Shakespeare which some of our pupils will be involved in later this year.

Summer's here!

Weirdly, it appears to be summer outside. Spring sprung several times over winter, and appears to have done its work already. Obviously, this means snow by Thursday with apocalyptic rainstorms all summer. Equally weirdly, we're almost there with year 11. Some have noted that 'exam season' seems to last all year now; this certainly has an effect on all involved in education. Luckily, this means we will be able to focus on slamming plenty of year ten through their GCSE this summer!

Your work over the last few weeks has been hugely appreciated. Please keep sending results and numbers to me. It's great to see each number change a child's future - perhaps the only instance I can think of when a spreadsheet makes me happy. Years ago, I started a short story about an office functionary who was driven slowly to insanity by meaningless and mundane tasks using spreadsheets. I might head back to that when I get a chance.

We have one week to go - I'll need all results in by the end of the week so that we can intervene effectively with the tiniest of tiny cohorts over Easter. It's being a hectic and, at time, brain-frazzling in terms of the volume of questions and requests from pupils and staff alike, but it proves how much we care for the outcomes we achieve.

Finally, a non work related point, in a way. We're looking at creating a reading culture and a writing culture, as a way of ensuring engagement and progress in the future are independent and sustainable. There's no point in making rapid progress if it falls apart with, say, small changes in staffing, or in the face of ideologically motivated onslaughts from a fascist government (apologies for the Daily Fail link). As such, we must ensure that we are readers and writers, when we get a chance, even in a small way - annotating a text with a class, writing a post on edmodo, whatever. Do it - and remember the enjoyment it brings, the enjoyment of putting together some rhymes and ideas.

Long

It's called long, but it will be short. It's been a long journey with this new spec, but we're almost there. A long road, you may say.

The data points to a good outcome, in general, for our students. Levels of progress look good. So do most other measures. Team work like that on Thursday makes me confident we can sneak a few extra positive results in. Let's keep that going.

QA week. Wonderfully timed, I'm sure you will agree. However, as VT made clear on Wednesday during INSET, innovation and independence are what's being measured this week, not a simple box ticking exercise measured against some criteria handed down from the firmament.

Which is nice.

Because you are innovative, interesting and engaging. Do what you always do this week, and enjoy it.

Two weeks to go. Keep a clear head, a smile on your face and the end targets in sight.

Fergie Time

The blog's title may, this week, appear even more nonsensical than usual. It's nothing to do with a toe sucking Duchess who writes children's books about a helicopter. Or the lady from Black Eyed Peas who wonders where the love is. It's actually a reference to a man I intensely dislike, Alex Ferguson.

Don't get me wrong. Fergie has provided me with at least one great moment. Well, any time they lose a game, really. Seriously though, Sir Alex, as glory hunters fawningly refer to him, has taught me one great lesson.

His teams always win in injury time, those few minutes added on for the rolling about and general softness shown by professional prima donnas.

Our next three weeks are our Fergie time.

Thanks to your outstanding work, in lessons, and in the well attended and well staffed revision sessions, we're in a good place. It's testament to your hard work and high expectations with a challenging cohort. Some of the results stand out as truly exceptional - firsts, in many respects, for our school. I'm talking about fifth set pupils achieving C grades, EAL pupils in fourth set achieving C grades, diffident girls who often drop off achieving C grades, pupils making two grades progress in a year, despite difficulties in and out of school.

Nice one.

But that's the end of the ninety minutes. It's injury time now, and we're level. We need a winner. We need that dedication and belief that can secure what we have and push it further. There are pupils on D grades that need secure CA. Pupils on C grades that need a lot of extra marks. Pupils on A grades and F grades that can achieve something better if we work at it. All of SH band will have an extra piece this week, and another next.

We need them all there on Thursday to grab extra marks. We need those who have been absent for one assessment, but secure otherwise dragged in and caught up. Without this, we may concede a late equaliser.

And they're the worst type. The unexpected, last minute heart breakers.

Let's make sure that we don't let it happen to us.

Learning spaces.

What is a school? What does the word even mean? I just googled 'school etymology' and the results surprised me. To be honest, as a cynic, I was expecting it to be derived from some Greek word meaning 'place where people are moulded in drones, enabling them to contribute to society without ever questioning anything or beginning to possibly think for themself'.

But it doesn't. If you've clicked on the link above you will see that it has links to leisure and discussion. Clearly, the Victorians who set up our present system saw it more as a place for didactic instruction to get the odious oiks up to speed so they could produce some stuff, and earn some money to buy some of the stuff they made (my abbreviated version of the ideas espoused in The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists there).

Eventually, this brings me to my point. This year, we've had lecture style lessons delivered in the theatre, successfully engaging a challenging group of pupils. Friday saw the majority of three classes taught excellently by two staff, while a third interevned successfully with a smaller cohort. We've messed up the year 11 sets, long established into a hierarchy that has probably set many on a path to mediocrity, and the world hasn't ended.

This is brilliant. This needs to become our way of working. Next year, I want to see regular moving and rejigging within bands, so that the students benefit from a range of teaching styles and approaches. This will make a huge difference. And I think we will enjoy it too. Let's practise now. Can we, informally, swap kids about? Can we think of something for, say, 9S band, which allows a small minority to receive intervention, and the majority to engage in a dramatic and exciting learning experience? Instead of doing it as a reaction to some underperformance or concerns, let's make it our way of working.

Finally - in our classrooms, is there a way of adapting or utilising this approach? Click onto her older post for information on campfire, watering holes and caves. It's interested me for a while... incidentally, the blogger, Bianca Hewes, is a fantastic Australian English teacher, who is readily approachable through Edmodo and Twitter. #justsaying

Respite?

An early blog this week will give some respite, as this brief epistle will hopefully allow you to achieve a few things. It would be massively appreciated if you could scan a few of the links from previous blogs, as these are there to provide food for thought, a tool for reflection, and maybe even inspire some ideas.

Hopefully, it will also allow you to focus on the various pieces of marking and planning that I know are going on. Year 9 exam results need to be in on Thursday, and we'll be moderating on Wednesday in our meeting. Planning should be going on for the new year 11 groups -  a simple structure should be most effective: recap the topic / content, unpick the task, prepare, practise and do. Be focused and precise in task setting. Be efficient with time, information and lessons. We need to become more controlled in our teaching of Controlled Assessment - they should be relatively simple to administer if done correctly - and this will lead to greater success. This half term provides a superb oportunity to refine our work in this area and make a perceptible and vital difference to our pupils outcomes.

Thinking about this form of moderation and planning also got me thinking about how we moderate and plan, not on a daily basis but on a wider basis. Do we all moderate our own work, in and out of class? How do you reflect? Do you set yourself targets, try things out? I'm sure we all do, and it would be great to share the differing tools and thought processes which contribute to this. Perhaps we could begin to discuss such things, among other pedagogical issues? Thinking about thinking, and thinking about teaching, are vital if we are going to move progress on to the next level - the structures are in place, but structure without thought and reflection, a simulacra of success, will only get us so far. Managers and leaders create structure, but all of us who use the structures need to use them properly - recording data, saving and sharing idea -, so that we can accurately and effectively ensure that we all make a difference.

Enjoy the rest of Sunday - work hard, play hard and rest hard, ahead of a hopefully exciting week.

Development?

Hopefully, this missive will find you relaxed and happy, after a restful week. As the days get longer and the mornings brighter, I often feel energy increase, and feel strongly that the idea of continual change and development is a fact based in nature, and one which we should embrace as teachers.

We are making progress and so are our students, overall. However, we need to focus on maintaining and developing that progress, making sure that it is as excellent as possible. Our students deserve more; we must make sure they get more. We often note that we're playing catch up, for various reasons - literacy, socio-economic and linguistic, among others. We need to ensure that we control that agenda. The progress and attainment agenda is the heart of what we do. Today, you will have seen the new KS3 schemes with their added focus on literacy. This is one way we can control the progress agenda in a practical fashion. We must get that right; only then can we truly develop the wider skills vital for success at GCSE and beyond.

Clearly, at times we will need the structured approach. We need to provide certain standards, especially to those pupils vulnerable to potential underachievement or disengagement. This is indisputable.

However, we need to think of a variety of ways to teach. This is part of our development. We need to become confident in delivering lessons, facilitating learning and coaching skills, and confident in the knowledge of when we do what. If we can achieve this balance, and firmly embed it in our curriculum, it will make our provision outstanding and allow our pupils to experience English in a holistic, engaging and fulfilling fashion which will meet the criteria for a successful education which I'm sure we all agree on; emotionally and spiritually fulfilling, enjoyable, and helping them to find an independent and fulfilling future, including employability.

Each of us has a responsibility to work at this. It can be as simple as dropping into the Teaching and Learning toolkit on J Drive, and adapting / sharing resources. It can be as interesting as dropping into someone's room for a chat about a problem, or emailing asking for advice. It can be as involved and complex as researching a new-fangled educational meme, such as Game Based Learning or PBL, and fitting it into what we do. It might involve Edmodo, which you'll be hearing much more about. If you have ideas, or find out about something, make sure you share and let people know.

We're working on cultural change. I see that as a key part of my role. We're a lucky department. the KS managers control their areas well, with support from all of us. As Team Leader, it's vital that I explore the way in which we can develop. I'm passionate about it. That's not to say I expect everything to change overnight - I'll give you a few weeks at least. However, I strongly believe that we must develop a range of teaching styles and techniques and an engaging, independent and strongly functional curriculum. This may seem to be a paradox, or oxymoronic, but it's something we need to develop. And we need to develop in order to achieve it.

Finally, you may ask "What's he doing to develop?" This half-term, I'll be trialling a development in the teaching of reading novels. The aim is to have the pupils select and read one of two novels, and, in PBL style, create blogs tracking their thoughts and feelings about this. Lessons will be thematic, based around key themes withing the central novels, and linking to a variety of texts, encompassing the digital, the traditional, the fictional and more, showing them the wider resonance of reading a book. This will, hopefully, allow for literacy work, core skills work, and engaging, independent work. If successful, more of our schemes may be adapted to fit this thematic and wide ranging format - we're lucky to have strong schemes to base our work on.

Find your way. Share it. develop it.

Explore ways to teach reading. Develop them.

Inquire.

Be radical.

Wunder-department

Thanks to your general wonderfulness and team-worky-ness, the only reason I've lost sleep in this last fortnight has been the sacking of Simon Grayson as manager of Leeds United.

The fact that Mr Beaumont gave such high praise to you all shows what an excellent group of people and professionals you are, and that gives me great hope and confidence that we can work together to become a beacon of excellence and brilliance. It was also great to see the positive comments which you made about him, as it really demonstrated that you had worked with him over the past two weeks.

Thanks to all of you for the work you've put in, and especially to Rachel for supporting Helen and Lorraine over the last two weeks. We are, as ever, in the midst of a busy time, with key assessments coming up so soon after the year 11 exam, and this requires great consistency of effort and application from all; thank you all for ensuring this happens. With one more week to half term, and the return of year ten from work experience, we have yet more opportunities to do what we enjoy - teach.

Let's keep mixing it up, engaging learners, and moving towards a pupil led, innovative and relevant curriculum.

Some links: an interesting literacy website with a slightly primary focus, which may have some use with groups which we're trying to push to level 5 at KS3. Worth a browse.

This video features the great Noam Chomsky discussing the purpose of education.

And finally, a mock rap battle between Michael Gove and Rolf Harris. Something I'd pay to see for real.

Moving and Shaking

Change is a part of nature - butterflies flap their wings in the Amazon and a squall bursts over Lyme Regis; sand forms slowly as the sea softly breaks down rock. It will happen, and it is unavoidable. Sometimes, ideologues try to force their views on populations and groups, often with awful results as they mix their need for control with belief in outdated and clearly wrong notions.

Change will happen, wherever and whoever you are. It might be change you can believe in, it might not. The vital thing is that we are the change, you are the change. If that is the case, then we control the agenda. We move, forcefully and directly, where we want to be, with clear aims, knowing how to achieve them.

Make the change happen, this week and every week.

Some links: these two relate to classroom organisation - a video about innovative organisation, and an article on a similar theme. This one is about student centred lesson design. Thrilling!

Aha!

Good evening. I trust your weekends have been enjoyable and relaxing. An email I've just received from another Team Leader, and the performance of one of England's finest footballers, have got me thinking about the idea of teams and team work.

We're members of many teams at work. Our department is a team. Our classes are teams, after a fashion. The core are a team, aiming to get the same pupils the same outcomes so that we satisfy the vagaries of our unthinking, context free system. The whole school is a team, with shared goals and desires, focused on attaining the very best for our precious cargo.

Together, we are stronger. If we share, and discuss, and challenge fairly, we are stronger. If we work in the same fashion with others, our classes and the whole school are stronger. Let's bear this in mind this week - give and take, encourage and support. Be open and honest in discussion, be positive when challenging or questioning.

If the whole school push together, we'll go further, and faster.

Last week, I mentioned smiling. Let's keep doing that. With everyone.

A couple of links - one to about starting planning from outcomes, rather than objectives, and another about using a games based approach to develop character descriptions collaboratively.

Until tomorrow, farewell!

Back once again...

A simple start to the year; a start in a fashion which will be continued, albeit with less contorted and tortuous syntax.

A positive, happy and confident start to the year and to the term. My simple wish this warm, unseasonal January (watch that statement come back to bite me!) is that we hit the ground flying (yes, I meant that) with a confident, positive start. Smiling. Including smiling at children. It is after Winterval, after all. We spend an inordinate amount of time at work, so we may as well enjoy it. Also, think of the children; they spend what must seem like an eternity in classrooms, regurgitating scripted objectives and being thrilled by Flash animations in classrooms across the curriculum.

Let's get our teaching to the next level. Let's have weekly learning questions, pupils inventing their own plenaries, individual, pupil set goals for a section of a lesson - whatever you feel suits that child. Let's be innovative, and make sure we teach our charges to enjoy, achieve and work towards a goal that they care about. This will instill confidence, confidence which we need to ensure is present in our year 11 pupils this week. Confidence which we need to have, unshakable, when dealing with our more challenging groups. Let's get them all out of their seats, onto floors, into theatres and into English.

 Let's make our dream school.

My simple aim is to see confidence and enjoyment shining from every child and every room on our corridor. I'd love to be inundated with requests for more purple slips, to see emails praising pupils being sent regularly, and for us to begin dropping in on each other and seeing the great work we're all producing, and share the skills we all have, developing strengths and weaknesses with equal vigour and confidence.

Until tomorrow, farewell.