Anna Collins Court Moor George Knights Court Moor

Anna Collins Court Moor George Knights Court Moor Neil Chance Brookfield Roger Hutchin Brookfield

Embedding Best Practice through Professional Development LAS Conference – July 18 th 2011 Court Moor School / Brookfield Community School

• • Where are you now? The Court Moor and Brookfield models Examining and discussing some of the ideas What can you take away from this session?

How do you mainly share best practice? 1. 2. 3. 4. INSET Days Twilight sessions Departmental meetings Other

Who decides the content for the INSET in your school? 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Senior Leadership Team Subject Leaders External trainers Staff consensus Students Others

Who generally leads the Learning & Teaching INSET in your school? 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Senior Leadership Team Subject Leaders External trainers A mix of the above Others

Do you know who the best teachers are in your school? 1. Yes 2. No 3. Unsure

Who are the best teachers in your school? 1. Senior Leaders 2. Subject Leaders 3. Others

Are you making best use of your best teachers for professional development? 1. Yes 2. No 3. Unsure

LTG @ Brookfield Director of Learning Deputy Director of Learning Practitioner Learning Practitioner

Learning & Teaching Group Outcomes • Consistency across and within departments; • student use & understanding of target language – nature of progression; • spreading practice: innovators–core– foundation

Learning & Teaching Group Process (1) • Identify weaknesses through Staff Skills Audit (now Blue Sky) – Action Research Groups • Provide L&T workshops – department requests & visits • Lead school INSET – ‘Good to Outstanding’, ‘G&T’, ‘Differentiation’, ‘Learning to Learn’….

Learning & Teaching Group Process (2) • Participation in Whole School Observations support offered to staff/departments • Identify best practice across the school: - central collection of ideas (Teachers Pool) - ‘best practice’ videos recorded in-house - ‘bring ‘n’ buy - regular sharing of ‘best practice’ ideas (‘Gems’) via email (=‘Gemails’!)

Reasoning behind Court Moor’s focus on Af. L: What does the school need to do to improve further? Ofsted 2009 Reduce further the proportion of teaching that is satisfactory through more explicit and focused use of the outstanding teaching in the school to model best practice. In particular, to improve: • the engagement of students through directed questioning and targeted learning activities • the feedback to students on their current work • the level of challenge for the most able students.

Implementing Af. L requires changing teacher habits: • Teachers “know” most of this already • The problem is not a lack of knowledge • That’s why telling teachers what to do doesn’t work • Experience alone is not enough - if it were, then the most experienced teachers would be the best teachers—we know that’s not true (Hanushek, 2005) • People need to reflect on their experiences in systematic ways that build their accessible knowledge base, learn from mistakes, etc. (Bransford, Brown & Cocking, 1999

The Court Moor CPD model = Research & Developments groups • Historically worked in collaborative Research groups • Emphasis is on collaboration across the school, as well as within departments • What are the benefits of engaging in crossc curricular dialogue?

That’s what R&D Groups are for: • R&D Groups contradict teacher isolation • R&D Groups offer a steady source of support for teachers • They grow expertise by providing a regular space, time, and structure for that kind of systematic reflecting on practice • They facilitate sharing of untapped expertise residing in individual teachers • They build the collective knowledge base in a school

Structure for R&D Group meetings: • Every month R&D Group meetings should follow the same structure and sequence of activities: Activity 1: Introduction & housekeeping (5 mins) Activity 2: How’s it going (25 minutes) Activity 3: New learning about Af. L (30 minutes) Activity 4: Personal action planning (25 minutes) Activity 5: Summary of learning (5 minutes)

Key Aspects of each meeting: 1. Personal Action Plan 2. Peer Observation (Records of the meetings and/or action taken are useful forming evidence for performance management).

Two. Year 1 – Trialling Year Programme Techniques • Staff to choose a different technique for each key strategy every Year 2 – Embedding month, observing & Af. L evaluating success • Staff to initially choose one of the 5 strategy areas they wish to embed following discussion with other members of their Staff focus on one team/department class/year group and plan in Af. L techniques from the toolkit for the whole term Each term, staff will try a different strategy area so they will have focussed on

Learning & Teaching Fortnight: Purpose: To engage in a dialogue about the learning that occurs within your classroom Aim: Every teacher is observed twice and carries out a minimum of four observations over two weeks

L & T Fortnight Logistics: • All meetings cancelled for a fortnight – this is the priority • Not an official observation – no records kept • Not Ofsted graded • All observations carried out in pairs • Pairs observe two 20 mins sections of different lessons • All meet immediately after school in staffroom for discussion about findings • Focus is on Learning and opening up discussion • Pairs allocated randomly – mixture of experience & subjects OVERWHELMINGLY SUCCESSFUL!

Embedding good practice: Planning Placemat • The planning placemat encourages you to react according to your learners needs • It forces you to check/assess for learning • Teachers need to be brave enough to leave the So. W • Could be used specifically for a target student

KS 3 Planning Placemat PROPOSED PLAN 1 Week 1 Topic _______ Focus ____ Group ___ LINK TO HSW MILESTONES: Week 2 WHAT HAPPENED 2 BLOCKS : Week 3 NEXT STEPS: Week 6 3 BLOCKS : 4 NEXT STEPS: 5 Week 4 NEXT STEPS: Week 5 . BLOCKS : 6 BLOCKS : NEXT STEPS: 7 NEXT STEPS: BLOCKS : NEXT STEPS:

Student Feedback, key points: • Majority of lessons have learning intentions –either written or verbally. • Students felt strongly that they wanted the objectives explained so that they knew what to do and how to achieve them. Refer back to them in lesson. (Tasks are explained) • Modelling used in more subjects, particularly DT, ICT, MFL, Science, Geography, Art. • Some like Music, DT and English use level descriptors or criteria (but these are not always easy to understand) • Students much more aware of the purpose of techniques such as wait time, no hands up and whiteboards. Random name generators still work! • Other techniques such as thumbs up/traffic lights only useful if the information is being used in a formative way • APP impact clearer when discussed • Many liked verbal feedback in lesson where points/criteria explicit, whilst walking round class. This was also evident in fact that some commented on the fact that they wanted time to focus on comments when books marked. (Even discussion!)

PROS: CONS: • Everyone has been involved • Doesn’t take into account realistic differing levels of expertise • Everyone has trialled a range of techniques • SMT-led - are they the best ‘experts’ in the school? • Allocated time for meetings and lesson observations • Year 2 has not felt as purposeful and lost some momentum over time • Truly collaborative – cross-curricular & departmental • T&L observation fortnight was an overwhelming success and enjoyed by all (doing again next year) • Students aware, without being explicitly told that all staff ‘doing’ something!

Where does Court Moor go from here? • Growing Powerful Learners Af. L/PLTs/4 Rs etc. • Continued through R&D groups next year

Have you found anything today you can take away with you? 1. Yes 2. No