Before day 2

Met with Heather last night after school for a few hours to talk over what we've been doing with this and discuss what we think we can feedback about at day 2. We've found it practically impossible to meet during the last two terms to discuss this- with Heather being part time and there not really being any cover for me (Heather does my PT time so that's not an option) it's just not really been possible. We really felt last night that we would have benefited from having time to discuss what we'd done, and what we could each work a bit more on. Maybe after the summer before day three we can try and arrange something a bit better. We wondered, did Anne or ELC contact headteachers and suggest that 1 morning a month that was recommended for people to meet with their partner/team.

Anyway, we went through each of the points we were supposed to work on for Day 2 and thought about what we had done and how it had benefited the children. Shirley' words were "what did you do" "what impact did it have" and "how did you know". So...

1. Separate the learning objective from the context in plans.
We were already doing this in writing which was the subject that we chose to pursue formative assessment with first. I also began to do it with some of our ES topics.
Impact: focuses the teacher on what you want the children to learn - which made me ensure the children were clear about the objective.
The impact wasn't that great because we felt we were already doing this.

2. Planning for success criteria.
Again we were already doing this in writing, and began to do it in ES. I don't think putting it in the plans had a noticeable impact on the children - after all, the plans don't, it's what you do with them that counts. Also, we were unable to plan with someone as there is only Heather and I, both teaching different stages.

3. Sharing the learning objective (separate from the context) with the children.
The learning objective was written up as part of the forward plans, which were written as the LO for each week in ES. In writing the objective was the same for the whole term eg 'Imaginative writing' and this was written up with the success criteria.
The children were very clear about what I wanted them to know and achieve. I know this because the feedback from talking partners showed that they retained knowledge of the previous weeks' learning showed that they could recall what they had learned - and knew that was what they were supposed to know.

We felt there was a lot of overlap between elements 1, 3 and 6, and 2,4 and 5. It's hard to separate the impact of one from the others.

4. Success criteria was written up during the teacher part of the lesson - partly by recall of criteria previously worked on and partly taken from a model produced by the teacher. (in writing) In ES I didn't put up the success criteria so much but intend to as we go on. Sometimes I've found it hard to do this for the whole class as the success criteria can be different for everyone dependent on both age and ability. For example in reading, we have 8 groups, 3 in P3, 3 in P2 and 2 in P1, so obviously this affects the success criteria in a range of subjects depending on the context. The children get confused when every group is given different success criteria, because we have to talk about it all together and they forget which bits apply to them as they overlap a lot.
However in writing, using the success criteria has been successful, there has been a great improvement in the children's writing, particularly in P2. They have been very focused on the success criteria, and this has increased their confidence when writing. Within a couple of weeks of using the talking partners and writing up the success criteria, the P2's were producing much longer, more coherent pieces of imaginative writing. This has also crossed over to their other writing - this term, when we have been reviewing a variety of genres the development in their writing can be seen. They are also able to say which success criteria apply to more than one genre.

5. Remind children to focus on success criteria throughout the working time. Impact: reminds the teacher to focus on the specific success criteria, rather than being distracted by other aspects of the work. For children the impact is much as the last element and also it encouraged self correction - they are finishing their piece of writing and then looking over the success criteria and realising there are aspects that they need to work on some more and going back and correcting their own work or asking advice on how to 'fix it'.

6. Involving children in the termly plan:
I tried to work with the children on identifying what we should learn in advance of the topic, but the things they wanted to learn were not the things ELC wanted them to learn, so that didn't work out too well. For example, for the transport topic, they thought important things to learn would be how a motorbike engine worked, and how camels survive in the desert, which, while worthy enough questions, did not relate at all to the learning objectives provided to me by the council - and with a 5 week topic, I'm afraid extras just don't fit into the timetable! However, I did share the term plan for our ES topics with the class in advance - with a list on the flip chart of the LO for each week (written during discussion with the children). This had a positive effect in that it stopped the usual "are we doing X ", "when will be doing Y" and "what are we doing next" questions, as they knew exactly what was to be covered. (Although it did concern me that it didn't leave so much room for flexibility as the children are more particular than most Headteachers about covering everything within the plan in order and at the right slot in the timetable!) However, i felt it had a positive impact on their learning as they were able to make connections between the various aspects of the topic, which I could see during discussions (eg talking partners) as they would refer to previous knowledge when discussing a new aspect of the topic. They also showed this knowledge of how it all linked together when discussing the topic with visitors and my PT supply teacher.

7. Wait Time:
I feel I was doing this before anyway to a large extent - it has a positive effect on the younger children as without something like this they always feel that the older ones will answer for them, so there is no point in thinking. When given time to think, they are much more likely to contribute to a whole class discussion. I have found that wait time for everyone has worked well in this way - it also is better use of time, because you're not going round the class asking people to answer who actually have nothing useful to say - if given time to think, most children have something pertinent to contribute. (although some p1's will spend the wait time thinking about something completely different and proceed to tell me about it as soon as they get a chance. Maybe they'll stop doing that in P2... ) However, wait time for an individual, where others are not thinking, and are just waiting for someone to come up with an answer while they do nothing, does not go down well, as the other got very restless and this just ruins the lesson. Heather however has found that with the older ones, they have become much more patient with each other and don't mind waiting for up to a minute for an individual to formulate their answer.

8. No hands up: We always use this after talking partners, as I usually ask all the pairs for a contribution, and we sometimes use it during class discussions, although after wait time I usually allow hands up and they nearly all go up! I think it's true that they don't switch off as much as they do when they see the hands of others shooting up and think that they won't have to give any contribution.

9. Talking partners: I've chosen my talking partners randomly every time (although I have a bit of a sneaky system which the kids haven't worked out so that I don't end up with 2 p1's together as that wasn't as successful. I think they would protest a lot if I suggested doing it in a way that wasn't random. Next session, I'm thinking about having talking partners with someone in their own group, as I think that might work out well in a different way (but it depends what the new P1's are like I guess! ) I think the impact of talking partners has been great on the class - the children all get a chance to contribute - I have seen evidence of children that might never have opened their mouths otherwise showing a good knowledge of various subjects. I think the talking partners have also reinforced the children's knowledge as well, as, rather than me asking questions about the aspect we are covering to one or two people, they are all giving their answers at once (even though I don't hear them all!) There is also an effect on behaviour, as they are not all sitting listening for such a long time, but are having little 'breaks' to talk to their partner, hence they do not get so restless. We haven't used many of the other ways of doing talking partners (envoying etc) but plan to do some of these in the future.

10. Questioning techniques: I already make an effort to ask lots of open ended questions however I haven't focused on this specifically so that will be my next step.