reviewing what's gone on so far...

Felt it was time to take a look at the things we are supposed to do before day 2 of the learning team meeting, and work out what needs to be incorporated into next terms planning. (Already did this to an extent but lost all the work through an error in the blog so have been putting off doing it again since then! :( )

Shirley's list of things to do:

1. Separating the learning intention from the context of the learning (e.g. to be able to write an account/context: an underwater world...;rather than 'to be able to write an account of an underwater world')
2. Planning process success criteria (what children will need to do in order to achieve the learning intention). Start with one subject only and plan with someone if possible
3. Sharing/writing up learning intentions. Explicitly separate it from the context.
4. Asking children for success criteria just before they start to work and write it up.
5. At beginning of units of work, introducing the elements to be covered, involving children in some way.
6. Extending 'wait time' to 5 seconds or more after asking children a question. Experimenting with hands up at the end of the 5 seconds or no hands up at all so that anyone can be asked for a response.
7. Using normal voice for feedback about the learning intention and whispering other things.
8. Saying that 'if it's making you think' it means that you are learning something new-making this a good thing!
9. Dabbling with self-evaluation.

I think she said we could just focus on points 1-6, but looking over it, it seems like we haven't been doing only those ones! And it doesn't really mention talking partners...

Anyway, one thing at a time:

1. Separating the learning intention from the context
   Did this with the ES and writing planning. It was a lot easier to explain to the children seperately with the writing than it was with the ES. With the writing, they are all pretty clear that they have been learning to write (or continue) a good imaginative story, whereas they really seemed to think they were only learning how to make windchimes in the technology project. We talked about the skills we needed to use a lot, but of course, just like in life, they related them directly to the project in hand, rather than generalising them. And that seems to me to have been the best way, after all, you want them to be able to draw on the specific skills needed and recognise what those are, rather than treat it as though they could be making anything at all using the same skills. So in this series of lessons, I'm quite happy that I didn't choose to try and make the context of windchimes too seperate from the skills, as in a way, the skill of designing and making a windchime was the main crux of the whole thing, and it would have been silly to try and pretend it wasn't.
   In some ways I think I came away from day one under the impression that skills were often meant to be the main learning intention of lessons, and the actual activity was just the context. But the more I'm using formative assessment I think this isn't always, or even usually, the case, sometimes the actual content of the lesson is the most important. (for instance 'draw a picture of the seashore' can be the learning intention, rather than the context where the learning intention might be to do with the skills used for the drawing - I'm still getting this clear in my head so please excuse the waffling!)
   Next terms first topic is transport, as a social topic. Will need to look at the learning objectives in the East Lothian folder before deciding which way to separate those!
   
2. Planning process success criteria (what children will need to do in order to achieve the learning intention). Start with one subject only and plan with someone if possible.
   Unfortunately it's impossible to plan with someone, as there is no one else teaching infants in Stenton. We have used the success criteria with a lot of success in our writing - I had an email from someone asking for some more feedback about how I went about getting the children to come up with the success criteria, so rather than re-typing it, it seems sensible to quote my reply here...
   

Our Success Criteria are sort of based on what P3 are doing (as I have p1-3), and then brought down a bit for P1 and 2. The children came up with them and gradually refined them over a period of weeks - based on the model stories I was reading/telling. They started off by saying what was good about the model story - what made it a good imaginative story. Initially they came up with things like 'it had a fairy in it', 'it had magic in it', 'it was funny', 'it was exciting', 'it was made up', 'it had a good ending'. So we made a list on the flip chart of all the things 'that make a good imaginative story'. I didn't refer to them as success criteria at all. The next week, we read a story that wasn't fantasy, to get away from the fact that imaginative stories have to have fairies and magic in! We added to the 'things that make a good imaginative story' list as we went along. Then, we sorted the list into things that the story MUST be (it must have a good ending, must be made up) and things it COULD be (happy, funny, have magic etc). Eventually, we agreed that all of the COULD list was just 'things that make it interesting' - and that it must be interesting in one way or another, so we added 'interesting' to our success criteria. I was a bit concerned that the children were having lots of great ideas, but that they weren't getting down to the writing in sentences with finger spaces between the words! So I modelled a story on the board with no finger spaces or sentences, and they told me what was wrong with it. Then they decided (with a little prompting!) that those needed to be part of 'what makes a good story' too, so we added those. So in the end, our list has - good beginning- good ending- made-up- interesting- full stops and capital letters- finger spacesWe've also worked a little on the writers craft task, and for that we have added 'continues the same story'. I introduced the term success criteria, we talked about what it means to succeed, and how a successful story means one that is good. To make a successful story we have to include all of the success criteria in our story. I think they've got it - and they seem to understand what the SC are for. Certainly their writing has improved! P1 of course are just writing a little - 1 or 2 'sentences' with a lot of support, but they do try hard to think of something interesting to say, and to remember their finger spaces. We've recently decided that on each writing day, we (the CA and I) will pick a particular success criteria for them to focus on (or maybe 2), rather than trying to do them all. So it's all been a long process but I feel like they worked them all out themselves and that had probably made the difference. It has taken till now for their SC to match the ones that were in my plans - and we're more than half way through the term. But we're getting there.

I'm quite pleased that I let them take their time throughout the term to find out the 'important' success criteria. I'll probably do it the same way next term, although it may be a bit more clear cut for functional writing. In the end, we let the P2's and 3's choose the success criteria for P1 - they chose the ones which they thought were the most important but also achievable, which was great as it meant they showed more appreciation of the younger children's work. I haven't really used success criteria in other areas of the curriculum, although we did, as referred to before, use it with the windchimes (where it worked well also). But I feel it would also be beneficial in group tasks such as maths and comprehension, but just don't seem to be able to adjust my day enough to fit it in, although I'd love to! I feel that really, when you have such a range of abilities and groups, (for instance for reading we have 8 groups, ranging from P1 non-readers who still need some help to point to individual words, to P3 confident readers who easily read short novels, plays and poems) that it is hard to find the time to introduce SC with every group when you are teaching them all seperately. In subjects such as ES and writing, where the introduction is done as a class, it is much easier. I feel in a lot of ways the children would benefit from more whole class teaching with follow up work in groups, with support or independantly, and that would also make it a lot easier to use the SC in these areas. We'll see...

to be continued...