Guidelines to Headteachers
Guidelines for developing Learning Teams in your own school
Shirley Clarke Learning Team
Information for Headteachers
The basis of Shirley’s work with your staff will be on
Formative Assessment in Action – Weaving the Elements Together
The focus for teachers in their classrooms will be on the active involvement of children in their own learning.
From a pupil’s perspective this will involve :
· Self & peer evaluation
· Talking partners
· Making decisions and choices
· Feeling confident to question, challenge, seek help
· Being allowed to think about and articulate ideas and opinions
From a teacher’s perspective this will involve:
· Involving pupils in initial planning
· Sharing learning goals
· Negotiating success criteria
· Planning questions which further learning
· Using strategies which maximise pupil thinking and articulation
· Modelling ideas by using real examples
· Making evaluation and analysis of these examples part of the lesson
· Focusing feedback on success and improvement against learning objectives
· Train pupils to make and suggest improvements
· Make self and peer evaluation integral to lessons
Not… How can I fit it all in? But… How can I rethink the whole format of a lesson?
This will involve your teachers in being very clear about the learning objectives they set, sharing these with the children. Also they will practise separating the context from the learning objective so the children will learn a transferable skill not one they only associate with a particular context.
There will also be opportunities to set effective success criteria with the children so they know exactly what they need to do to achieve the learning objective and this becomes an integral part of the teaching not just something tagged on at the end.
Your teachers will also have input on effective questioning –
· Management strategies like wait time, talking partners
· Framing the question using a range of strategies like right & wrong, starting with the answer, giving several answers to select from
· Creating a supportive climate like accepting all responses asking who agrees, disagrees, can add a bit more? Develop the thinking by making a suggestion – it might be useful to….
Feedback will be an important focus – self, peer and teacher.
“Teachers should be aware of the impact that comments, marks and grades can have on learners’ confidence and enthusiasm and should be as constructive as possible in the feedback they give.”
Assessment Reform Group 2002
This session will tie in very closely to the success criteria and teachers will have practical examples to work through on how they help children to improve with differentiation a key part.
Throughout the time there will be a rich opportunity to further professional knowledge on a range of approaches and reading – eg Bloom’s taxonomy, De Bono’s Thinking Hats
The feedback from teachers is very positive but there is a limit to what two teachers might achieve on their own.
This brings up the question for headteachers –
Do we want a performance culture or a learning culture in our schools?
Will we allow / encourage our teachers to take risks?
Are we prepared to drop unnecessary planning or marking as better ways emerge?
Can we commit to supporting this work within our schools?
Your teachers will gain enormously from this opportunity.
It will be very practical, immediately useable and inspirational for them.
We need to try and capture some of that and let them share with their colleagues.
I know you will support your teachers and so I have attached a reading list which will enhance your professional reading library – you may probably already have them but just in case!
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