1. Separating the Learning Objective from the Context

Nursery/Rec/Y1

Teachers agreed that they have a skill based approach e.g. scissor skills.  When teachers brought in success criteria, progress was greater.  It was important to keeping it simple for this group without too many objectives and they found it was mainly oral.  Where objectives were written they needed to be simple and pictorial.

Year 2/3

This group came up with 5 ways it’s had an impact:

• Children are more focused and understand what they are learning.  They settle to tasks more quickly and can give examples of what they are learning more readily.
• Children see which skills they are learning and are picking them up more quickly.
• Teachers are more focused on what they are learning leading to a more effective skills-based approach and therefore more confident teaching. This cascades to other adults working in the classroom. 
• Children are more able to transfer skills to different contexts within the same subject. 

Anecdote: One teacher did story writing with the title: The Amazing Pebble (this is all they were given as a starting point).  They took all the skills they learned in story writing over the previous weeks and came-up with fantastic stories based on what they now know about story writing. This is new – before they would only have been able to use those skills in known contexts.

• Finally, there is clear evidence of children transferring their skills across the curriculum: children are contributing ideas and making explicit that things learnt in one subject are useful in another.

Year 4

There seemed to be a split in how successful this had been. At first, children wanted to look at the context and not the objective, particularly in geography and history – they could not quite grasp the idea of the decontextualised objective. However, in literacy this was very successful.  Once they learned the skills of writing an explanation they could transfer these skills to other areas of the curriculum for instance.  In some of the foundation areas it had been difficult to start with.  Anecdote: science - habitats, looked at what a habitat is first of all then could transfer these to the Antarctic and other places.

Teachers found they really had to rethink the learning objectives they were giving the children.

Year 6

Teachers believed that this process was easier in literacy and harder when the subject was more knowledge based. Success criteria are much more transferable between the areas.  Children can transfer these skills because they can clearly see what the learning objective is.   Children can comment much more about the learning objective and how well they are on the way to achieving it. Marking is now more focused around the learning objective. 

Anecdote:  One teacher had a key skills geography curriculum and was using the context of rain forests.  Usually by the end of this topic project they know a lot about trees and animals etc. and have no understanding of the skills involved.  So, they tried studying a local area for a week (Woodgate Valley near Birmingham) and then showed the children images of the Amazon rain forest. Children were then able to identify the positive and negative aspects of the rainforest and are now using geographical vocabulary instead of context vocabulary.

Sec/Special

There was agreement with the previous groups.  The main impact has been that students’ vocabulary has improved and they now have learning language. Pupils are taking more ownership and are more involved.  Resources are now more tailored to the learning objective than the context.  Plenaries are improving as children have learned how better to talk about what it is they are learning.

All teachers said it had forced them to think about what they want the children to learn and that learning was now more skills based.  They also agreed that there had been a shift from curriculum to what is to be achieved.

Anecdote:  the whole process has helped one teacher learn how he has and still is becoming a teacher, primarily at first by surviving and being in control.   Now, nine years down the road, he is realising that he can give some of that control to the students. “I am now letting them in on the secret and letting go of my own insecurities in my teaching.”

2. Success Criteria issues

Nursery/ Rec/Y1

Teachers agreed that success criteria focus children and give them ownership. Teachers had shown the children good and not so good examples of work that were clearly obvious and kept reminding children of the success criteria throughout a task.  Children are now not so scared of making mistakes as a result of seeing varying work.  Use of a puppet to share success criteria had been very successful at the foundation stage and emphasised the importance of visual cues.  Children were now telling each other what they were supposed to do.

Year 2/3

Teachers found it easier for children to generate success criteria in Literacy than in maths. 

The main impact is that children are more able to see what they need to do to get even better, checking against the criteria and linking with their partner for peer marking.

Generating success criteria works well using good and not so good examples, particularly in literacy.

Even though not all were achieving the success criteria, the quality was better.

Children much more able to use success criteria vocabulary and remember what they are able to do.

One teacher described how, during a writing lesson, children sat together and checked their work against the criteria. They were happily scribbling, sharing their ideas and borrowing from each other’s work.

Year 4

Teachers agreed with previous groups and said that success criteria had enabled children to assess well, although mainly in Literacy so far.  Closed success criteria were much easier to generate.  Feedback is a lot more effective and assessments are more structured. End of year results had improved.  Success criteria also helped the teachers’ marking. Quote from a child:  “It’s great because we know what we are doing now and all my learning is expanding.”

Teachers knew success criteria were working because writing in particular had improved from where it used to be. SC for various learning objectives (those that come up in the SATs) were now in children’s heads so they no longer have to refer to them.

Year 6

This area had been very successful. When in talking partners and self assessing they refer to success criteria. Children can tell you how successful they’ve been and know the next steps in their learning – they know what’s missing, too. They have become more independent learners.  They have gone beyond saying things about punctuation only and say now, for instance, “we need more emotive language.”

There was a concern that maths often had success criteria which were a list of instructions. This was discussed and teachers agreed that they should focus in on those steps which children really needed to remember, rather than providing them with every single step. Nevertheless teachers across the schools were now developing common mathematical language as a result of the success criteria.

Sec/Spec

Teachers agreed that success criteria were making the learning measurable and celebrating prior learning. When students looked at success criteria, even before the activity began they could say what they already knew. This has given ownership of the learning back to the children. 

One ICT teacher described asking Y7 students to come up with success criteria for a good leaflet.  They generated exactly the same success criteria as in the QCA Scheme of Work.  

One special school teacher found that children found it difficult to generate success criteria. It was agreed that she should try more concrete, simpler contexts before Day 3 to see if that had been the reason.

The children seem happier in the way they are tackling the work given.  One teacher said “You do not need to be an expert to be a teacher or to be a student.”  Self esteem of learners has clearly improved. One student started the work feeling he would be successful because he knew the success criteria.

3.  Unit Coverage (making sure children know how each learning objective fits the unit coverage)

Nursery/Rec/Y1

Teachers said that being involved in the planning improves children’s interest and knowledge and is a good assessment tool as hear individual comments from children, illustrating their knowledge and their misconceptions.

This element has been the most successful for this group. One teacher used the theme of frogs and wanted to find out children’s understanding. They talked in pairs after looking at a poster of a frog.  The teacher emphasised that every child’s contributions must be accepted: one child at the beginning of the two weeks when asked about frogs, said “nanny” but at the end of the unit could string together one or two sentences about frogs). At the end of the two weeks on frogs the poster was revisited to find out what they now know and the impact on their technical vocabulary improved.  

Teachers had involved the children during the topic so that they could see what new learning had taken place.  The impact had been increased vocabulary, more ownership of the work, increased interest and motivation, improved knowledge and a better assessment vehicle for teachers to find out more about individual children.

Year 2/3

Teachers had started by creating a poster of what children already knew, which focused teaching and provided the appropriate pitch.  Moving on to adding to the poster what they wanted to find out made the children more focused and engaged. The remembered things better and had more ownership.  Many of the questions they want answers to they would have been taught anyway.  There was a lot more parental support and things coming in from home. 

Teachers agreed that a major finding had been that they had previously been covering things that children already knew, so they were now able to remove things that they didn’t need to cover.

Year 4

Teachers said that children had been more motivated, more engaged, more in control of their learning and it was clearly more fun as they had come up with their own ideas.  Parents are also involved.  The children go home and do research. 

When children bring in their ideas, in history for example, it expands what you can teach.  Without this, children would not have gone into such depth in their learning.

One teacher described how he gave the children too much freedom in deciding how they were going to design a chair so that the topic became unmanageable.  He said that next time he would give children choices from a given selection. 

Year 6

Agreeing with what had been said so far, teachers found there was more ownership of learning. Through mind mapping, refining what they already know and what they need to know, children start to take ownership with more motivation, they go home and find things to bring in. 

More boys are taking on independent learning.  Where one teacher saw this the most was early in the morning when they can come in for independent time. At first it was all girls who came in and few boys, but the more topics they have been involved in planning, the more boys have come in. The teacher thought this was partly because they can talk to each other and they love drawing big mind maps together. Also she thinks they like it because it is factual.

The topic runs more smoothly as children know exactly where it is going.  Children are asking more questions in class.  The teacher’s role is changing to a facilitator of learning. However, the teacher does need a good idea of where the topic is going.

Sec/Spec

One school had been involved in lots of work with QCA on the development of a skills based curriculum.  Children work alongside teachers in coming up with ideas on this.  This empowers the children and they see the structure of the lesson.  Pupils and teachers are beginning to use shared language.  They are motivated and engaged and are given new freedom.  Teachers are also learning from the children through the feedback they give, often blunt but informative when asked what they think about the planning the teachers are doing. 

In a series of English lessons, at the revision stage, pairs planned and devised some lessons and teachers helped them think about resources, etc.  The level of interaction and enjoyment of all in the group was high.  They asked what skills do you want to have by the end of KS3?  Thinking about success criteria, what will you need to do in order to get there?

This will support transition from Yr 6 to Yr 7. It won’t be the traditional complaint that this is just repetition of work, why are we doing the same thing again, because the students have been asked and are heavily involved in the skill progression. 

 
4. Talking Partners/Wait time/No hands up
     Questioning

Nursery/ Rec/Y1

Teachers thought that random partners were fantastic.  Children’s vocabulary and sentence construction had improved and they were willing to share ideas.  Confidence of less able children improves.  All like the fairness of random partners.

Teachers had found modelling talking partners worked well.  One teacher described how talking partners enabled a child with limited English to report back as a result of the ‘coaching’ by a high achiever.  When he reported back it was amazing what he had picked up.

Questioning
 
Not much time for this yet – all in the early stages. The range of answers and open ended questions had been used.  One teacher said, going back to basics, before they can answer a question they have to know what one is. 

Year 2/3

All agreed that talking partners works well. All children have to be involved, their vocabulary and confidence has increased and writing has improved as ideas are shared. They learn from their peers.  One child with Kabuki Syndrome is limited with language and other development – he did not really speak – but talking partners has helped him to interact more and be more accepted by the others.

One teacher an evaluation sheet children use before the changeover (see B with D team example from last year). Another showed complimentary slips the children give to each other, saying what they thought their partner had been best at as a talking partner.

There has been positive social impact as a result of talking partners.  Children have a wider range of friends.

No hands up has been hard, but one teacher found a random box used to determine who would respond was appreciated by the children.

Wait time had worked especially well for one child who the teacher previously thought was a daydreamer.  Given more time, the child now answers appropriately.

Questioning 

Teachers agreed the need to plan ahead.  The more you do it the more natural it is.  Maths:  perimeter & area, rectangle on board with measurements, which is which?  This generated some amazing talk.

Year 4

Teachers saw how children gradually developed higher quality talk.
Children who teachers had underestimated often demonstrated their abilities and this raised their self esteem.  Talking partners gave teachers more time to listen and interact with children.

Questioning

Teachers had used most of the strategies successfully.

 
Year 6

Teachers felt that the more able benefited the most for talking partners (usually the reverse from other teams!) because of the skills of teaching they have had to develop.  Random partners are used now more and more during lessons, not just at the start.  No hands up has been hard to do due to breaking of old habits, but has led to a greater contribution from girls.  This will require more training. Quotes from children:  “we work even better now.”  “I am looking forward to Friday as I will have a new partner,” etc.  

When giving feedback there is now no pressure on individuals as there is a shared responsibility for the feedback and they can say together if they don’t have a response. They encourage each other and develop good listening skills.

One worry – some children appear to be losing the ability to talk for themselves as they now have to share comments with a partner.  They might have lost the ability to answer for themselves. This was the result of a lesson taught by someone who went back to hands up and the children seemed afraid to answer on their own.  The teacher will, before Day 3, try it again, this time giving the children permission to speak without discussing first to see whether it was simply a matter of not realising they could….

Questioning

Using these questions focuses the teacher on what is being learnt. Using the range of answers links well with creating success criteria, because children have to analyse mistakes.  True or false questions promote good discussion.  Children’s answers and their thinking is becoming more creative. They now have to justify their point of view which improves their use of language.

Sec/Spec

Teachers found by raising the status of talk (talking is another way to learn) they noticed there was less off task chatter.  Talking partners had had a huge impact on self esteem and confidence because students’ views were seen to count.   Yr 9s were not as used to this so it was difficult to unpick established routines so this is really important to get going in primary,

One teacher expected many behaviour issues but this was not the case. The lessons have all been after lunch and lunchtime causes behaviour issues anyway, but the talk has been really successful. Giving the pupils one minute where they each need to come up with something is very successful as the short term targets keep them focused.   Where a teacher had not yet introduced random partners, some boys with severe behaviour issues did not want a girl partner.
Teacher assessment was improved – listening in and knowing what your pupils are talking about.  Learning is more fluid as this allows discussions to flourish. 

French lesson:  traditionally learned ten items of food, hands up if you know it.  Talking partners worked very well.

Questioning
 
Teachers had not spent as much time on this.  Key successes were students devising their own questions for key concepts; English – prove it - find the evidence to prove a statement.