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LEARNING TEAMS FINDINGS:
Essex Day Two Feedback 16 March, 2006
1. Separating the Learning Objective from the context FOUNDATION STAGE All found it was a revelation: a complete mental shift in delivering Learning Objectives – teachers are more focused on teaching and children are able to say what they are learning. The LO is now easier: e.g. in learning to cut by cutting out snowflakes, they would previously have said they were making snowflakes. They now say “we are learning to cut.” The teacher involved said she now felt better about what she was doing. The TAs knew better what they were supposed to do with the children. TAs behaved differently with the children by saying things like “think how you are using the scissors” not “what a lovely snowflake you made”.
YEARS 1 & 2 Agreed with above but… Big difference is that they are verbally sharing …impact is that children are focused on their learning because they are able to articulate their learning much more precisely than before…”We are learning to do this…” When you remove the context you are left with something less wishy washy. Children more engaged with their own learning and becoming more responsible, independent learners because they can see the connection between what they are doing and the next thing to do – transferring skills, able to apply skills. Children can express this verbally. When they revisit something they can say “We did this before in so and so” and can get on with the next thing to do. This happened when we did information writing about dinosaurs. A few weeks later (elephants) they remembered what they had done when they wrote about dinosaurs – a different context but they knew the success criteria from before and were able to get on with it. They knew how to write, for example, instructions for any subject area because of losing the context.
YEARS 3 & 4 Felt it clarified the teachers’ focus by making them write down the skill they wanted children to learn rather than how they wanted them to learn it. Easier to generate SC with children because now clearer about actual LO rather than SC disappearing into the focus of the context. Actually led to a discussion about how they could use writing instructions elsewhere. Lesson observations: when questioning the children it was found they were focused on the LO. In a Y3 lesson, the LO clearly was quickly separated from the context within history. Lots of role playing was done, writing accounts showing empathy in role as a character – clearly focused the teacher’s objective – when the children were asked about the lesson, they answered that they learned what it felt like to be a Count, etc., rather than saying something context bound. Separating the LO from the context is still in development. In some cases they might have a weekly objective rather than a specific lesson objective. This might need modification of learning formats. ICT was easy to do as the QCA schemes of work are skills focused.
YEAR 5 Lots of us thought we were separating LO from context already, but we did feel that this course has made us think about making it all more explicit to the children, which had not happened before. One example has been the impact on the quality of cross curricular writing – has improved because the children have had the LO separated from context. (E.g. were learning how to do a history poster and could transfer those skills to a poster in a different subject. Before we would have had to start the whole thing again.) Now they can transfer skills across the curriculum without us having to re-teach everything. Also, it’s very closely linked to the SC –you can install these on an interactive whiteboard – most SC are context free, more or less, and you can always add another on the whiteboard. The children see this all as coming in a package – “write a poster” they get out the success criteria– this is lifelong learning, really. We would expect this sort of thing to start to happen about Y5.
YEAR 6 The children have a greater understanding about what they are learning about. The context is almost irrelevant –the transfer of skills has become very important. Information writing is something we can do regardless of the context, for example. Teachers are clearly focused on what they want to get out of the lesson. This also has implications for marking. Does it matter that they finished a worksheet? Possibly not. Transfer of skills: so much more easily done across the curriculum—leads to embedding the success criteria. Whereas at Year 5 they are still going to the list of success criteria, by Year 6 they have used them so much they don’t need the list any more-they just know them. They success criteria are in their head : huge, positive implications for their work in secondary school. The whole model of education recently has been to cascade down from the secondary schools. If primary schools were given the money we could do more. Primary should give skills to the sec schools!
2. Success Criteria issues FOUNDATION STAGE It has taken a lot longer to put success criteria in place when it takes two weeks to focus on being able to sit still! Once it has been established, teachers could see a difference being made—comes back to the ownership thing as the children feel involved as a team. They build a session together. This is what I want you to learn, how should we go about it? Very important to unpack the learning experience and not make assumptions that because they are only four they won’t be able to understand. Two main strategies used:
One teacher used A4 sheets made with the children: ‘we are learning to…’ and ‘remember’ which were then run off and used by the children. Teachers use the plenary for going through success criteria and use them at the beginning of the next related session, which is revisiting and reaffirming skills. Teachers in this group agreed that what the children are doing in literacy and numeracy now is usually done in the summer term because of the impact of success criteria.
YEARS 1 & 2 Children are more involved so everything is more effective. Self evaluation is better, as we often start by improving an anonymous piece of last years’ work or teacher created errors. It has helped with the plenary to revisit success criteria. Can now share with talking partners effectively as it relates to SC. Confidence has risen – they feel more successful and know what they need to do next – see the possibility for improvement within the SC. They can rate the SC with thumbs up or down. Quality issues – stopping within the lesson as teacher draws them back to the SC. Just looking at these very young people checking to see what they have or not have done is amazing. Makes things more achievable for special needs children. Can see improvement compared with previous year’s work at this stage. One teacher generates visual success criteria for spelling with children who find this difficult: say the word you want to write, say the sounds, try to write it down – children can say and point and tell how this process helps them – thus their progress has accelerated.
YEARS 3 & 4 Because planning now includes SC, they are becoming easier and embedded. Going into a lesson, the teacher has a much clearer idea of what you’re looking for so that when children give you ideas for SC you can better adjust it and add it in. When you get on to generating it, your ideas are clear but it is still coming from the children. Anecdote: adapting the SC – children took one aspect of performing a play, performed it, assessed against it, then went on to writing a play – how do you write a play to be sure that when it is performed it goes to plan? Children could then take over from a completely different perspective. Teacher is not always going in with a full written set of criteria—children generate from what they are seeing, their own experience, etc. They are far more confident and the process is quicker and more focused. S: how long on averagedoes it take to get the SC up on the white board? Five minutes max. At first it was closer to 15 minutes. Children now also think more broadly about all the things they are expected to see in a piece of work. There are different ways of using SC, but they are always visible for children to refer back to. Marked improvement in children’s confidence in tackling a task because the pressure is off by having SC to refer to.
YEAR 5 New planning formats need to come in across the school. There is a difference between the interpretation of SC between children and teacher. Teacher has in mind at the start of the week the SC and after talking with the children as the week progressed, he realised that some SC could be further subdivided and some of the higher achievers saw this, too. So that the lower achievers still generally knew the fundamentals but the higher achievers could see other approaches. Differentiation can develop through the SC and there is more collaboration with the children and teacher because of the ownership of SC development. Use of interactive whiteboard when doing this with children is very effective. We create banks of SC that are revisited. There is nowmore instant feedback for teacher and children. Children know what needs to be focused on next time. Research shows that the more instant the feedback, the more effective it is. Anecdote: One boy who is on the special needs register, a reluctant learner, said: “Do they do SC in secondary school because I really know what I’m doing with them.” In one IEP box it says what helps you learn? – Before the boy answered: “not annoying people around me.” Now he said: “SC help me learn.”
YEAR 6 As the LO and context are separated, the SC become easier to generate. Don’t always write them in the plan, but sometimes do them with the children as they come from the lesson and write in the plan later on. The children help with this and abbreviate them later in the plan. Has implications for planning formats so that LO-Context-SC are now on the plan. One teacher has her planning format on the interactive whiteboard, then involves the children in the process. If the whole thing is up lesson to lesson you can use the same success criteria again and add on if necessary and look back at previous lessons etc. Impact on learning is that they know where they are going. Generating the success criteria with pupils depends on the pupils achievement levels. Attempted brainstorming before they start to work or have a go for five minutes then what do you have to do to be successful, this has worked well (e.g. how to use a pencil effectively in art). By using a piece of anonymous text (written by an adult or a child) have generated SC successfully. Higher level writing worked well with adult text for punctuation. Have used SC for SATs for their planning – jot down what you are going to have to include to help you with your planning. Easier to spot difficulties (i.e. trouble writing intros), model it, let them have another go at it. Impact has been that pupils get on with their work quicker and self esteem is up – we know because they are telling us. They are not saying “I can’t do this”, rather, “I am stuck on Step 5 of the SC.” Teachers are not writing separate SC for different children but are highlighting certain SC as the priorities for some children. Success criteria are used for peer and self marking later on. Tracy Goodway: Every year the plenary is said to be the least developed part of a lesson. If teachers used success criteria, the plenary would follow.
3. Unit coverage (making sure children know how each lesson’s learning objective fits the unit coverage) FOUNDATION STAGE Already doing lots of coverage with the children for the whole unit as it goes straight on the white board. The point is, do they know for this lesson how it fits the whole unit coverage? For one teacher, the issue is how does it fit into the week for the 6 areas of learning for that week? Another does mind mapping about what the children want to find out – always done this for science but has now done it in other areas.
YEARS 1 & 2 One teacher working on report writing used the context of a dolphin. She started off with a picture of a dolphin then generated on the picture (in one colour) all the facts they knew or thought they knew already about dolphins. Alongside those facts, in a new colour, the actual facts were written as they were discovered: using resources within and outside of school (e.g. a dolphin sleeps/a dolphin sleeps with half its brain awake looking for danger). The teacher then had them use this as the basis for writing the report. This was much more effective than a static list of coverage. This method could be used for all subjects.
YEARS 3 & 4 Lots of teachers use ‘what do you think you know already?’ Did a unit on Egyptians, asked what they wanted to find out, used this a basis for a display, children highlighted bits they had learned and moved on to next bits. Key message: children are more involved with impact on their motivation to learn more, bring things in, greater enthusiasm. Different classes doing the same thing can visit the other classes and share, do show cases, older kids can help younger ones, etc.
YEAR 5 Some colleagues might not like the thought of children leading the planning process – one colleague plans one to two years in advance! Cultural change is necessary. We took the QCA ‘Keeping Healthy’ topic: here’s what we have to learn, but what would YOU like to learn? Children wanted to learn about other sports (ie elephant polo). It’s good for the children to try some things they might not have tried – we’re going to do some archery, for instance. We take a minimalist approach to the QCA stuff and expand on it to meet the needs and interests of the children – let them learn what they have to learn and be comfortable with and experience some new things. Extended piece of writing – need to know where they are going, so did a flow chart of the different aspects of what they were going to do (write something about the blitz, evacuation ,whatever) – we are going to research, study conventions, interview eyewitnesses, visit locations, link things cross curricularly. This gives access to other resources (like bring in a granddad who lived through the blitz). The LOs are embedded: to write an informal letter or persuasive poster within the context of WWII.
YEAR 6 Every day for the last term one teacher asked the class: what are we doing today? We want to avoid this now. So the teacher discussed things that fit together in a term – where they started, where they are going to. Quality of questions has improved dramatically. Took the topic to a deeper level and forced the teacher to provide other opportunities for the children (i.e. research independently) that otherwise might not have been provided to help them think more broadly beyond one line of enquiry.
FOUNDATION STAGE Talking partners: did it by modelling with TAs or other adults what a good/bad talking partner is. Children found it fun. They remembered their talking partners after the lolly sticks were drawn out randomly. Random partners is more inclusive. Tried using a microphone to encourage quiet children to speak – a roving reporter type approach during feedback time. Biggest problem is to make sure that children listen to each other. You can ask them what are the SC of being a good listener and they can tell you but they do not always put it into practice. Children come to school not having listening skills in place and knowing how to talk to others. This needs to be taught – promote the value of listening. One teacher had what she taught was a group of high achievers but they are not listening to instructions well. Potentially there will be huge gaps if the listening is not sorted out now. There still are some children who won’t talk for whatever reason, but they say now that they can’t tell you what their talking partner said because the partner did not talk to them – I tried, but he did not talk to me! This is complex – need to look at the task they have been given – it needs to be broken down, come up with one word or two things instead of something more complex. Questioning: they can’t do it because they lack the understanding of what is a question. This has been the least successful area. They want to agree with the teacher. If you do it in role play it’s a different story then some questioning can be used and the teacher can guide it to some extent.
YEARS 1 & 2 Talking Partners: positive feedback, good to change partners, improves speaking & listening, felt that special needs managed well, too. Those who are language delayed can at least listen better. Impact: children more confident to say what their partner said rather than their own ideas. This strategy works on two levels -- encouraging basic listening skills and explaining and paraphrasing. Having prompts to report back on, three words or pictures, SC for what you’ve asked them to discuss – talking about these things keeps them on task with their answers. Teacher can pick up on good suggestions heard and invite another pair to add to it. This is interesting – the role of the teacher while talking partners is in process has become one of listening to children and picking up on misconceptions and achievements. Questioning: right and wrong good for special needs children. Range of answers good for maths. New idea: the children come up with the range of answers (e.g. the wolf disguised himself as grandma because…” Possible answers harder for children to come up with but makes things interesting.
YEAR 3 & 4 All have made great use of random TPs…some for a week or much longer. Children are more engaged. The majority of children are forced to make some kind of response and this sharpens up their thinking and gives them confidence. The pressure is off by being able to share with someone else. Some initial resentment from a parent because of whom their child had to partner with. Agreed in response to the parent that he would be given a table at the back if he wished to sit apart from his partner and he chose not to go. He probably refused to separate because he was given a choice (but not the choice to have a new partner). Partners changed every two weeks in this class. Questioning: some lessons lend themselves more readily to this. Right and wrong worked well with maths, range of answers works well in science, good for discussion. Made one teacher stop and think about questions she asked – actually plans her questions now.
YEAR 5 Spent a lot of time and effort making it a structure that was the students’ so we discussed it a great deal before hand. If children were randomly given a TP what would they do, how would they feel, how would they deal with someone they didn’t like etc.? The impact was that it worked well. An OfSTED inspector a week ago commented on how well everyone was working together – thought they were all in the same ability group or friends, but they were in fact randomly placed.
YEAR 6 Mixture of everything tried. One teacher found that lolly sticks was the best method to use to draw out random pairs. Random pairs got some complaints from parents but if they understand the reason and the change every two weeks, they handle it better. We found that it focused the children’s talk when given one minute to respond. Also, children could not go off task easily. When hands down is used, the children know they have to have an answer ready. It keeps children involved. Quality of conversation has been enhanced as a result. They scaffold each other’s learning. It’s not always the teacher who does the majority of the talking. They learn from each other and manage their own learning by stretching their thinking across the board – even the lower achievers think more broadly on different topics. TPs: 25% of children did not like it as a result of a survey –“I like to work on my own” and” I do not like to share my ideas with anyone.” This means that 75% of the children like it! Questioning strategies the least of the areas worked on. All at different stages.
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