Lincoln Day Two Feedback 4 April, 2006

1. Separating the Learning Objective from the context

RECEPTION / Yr 1

Some found it hard at first to separate the LO from the context but once they got the idea it switched on like a light bulb. Biggest impact has been in nursery. One teacher, for instance, used to focus on making robots but now teaches the joining skills to join boxes together. Some teachers use pictures for the LO. Yrs 1 and 2 write them up. Everybody shares the context orally with the children. Two teachers asked children what the context might be after the LO was shared and the children started coming up with it themselves and were able to transfer ideas. LOs are much more focused now. Some said it tends to work better for numeracy than literacy. One teacher found it harder to separate the LO from the context in literacy because of the way it was written in the literacy strategy – the issue is making sure that the language there could be translated into child speak.

The main impact on learning is that children transfer skills and now talk using the language of the LO – when they initiate play, they reflect skills learnt in lessons.

YEARS 1 / 2

Children are beginning to transfer LOs across all subjects. At the start of lessons teachers are asking children how, for example, a list can be used in other subjects to emphasise the application of the skill.

One teacher initially tried to help other staff to separate the LO from the context and as a result found it easier to do same exercise with children and ask them where else they could use the skill.

One teacher displayed these, others did it verbally. One person had children write the LO in their books so they could see what they were learning Main impact: if LO is not put up in the morning, the children want to know what they are learning.

YEARS 3 / 4

Found that teaching is more focused. You can see in the planning when the LO is separated from the context. Children are more aware of their own learning and ask about the context more. One teacher talked to children about what context and LO meant – after a while she decided to see if they noticed so she muddled up the two and the children then asked what the right way should be – what’s the context? They were very aware of what was going on!

This has given children more of a purpose. Teachers focused on literacy to start. The quality of children’s work has improved, especially with lower achievers. During plenaries they saw how the children could better transfer skills when they talked about their learning.

YEARS 4 / 5

Separating the LO from the context has had a major impact on writing …

Anecdote: one teacher deliberately did a lesson twice, once with the context contained within the learning objective and without the context. She asked them to write a traditional tale from a different narrative perspective. Children got sidetracked with the features of a traditional tale (e.g. recognisable characters etc. not writing from a different perspective) but let them continue for evidence. On Day 2 she took out the traditional tales context, and asked children for the success criteria for the learning objective, and it seemed like a light switched on. They could write from a different perspective now effectively – there was a dramatic impact on the quality of their writing. They were able to get inside the character. The teacher did it again later in the week in history to see if they could write from a different perspective and they could do it there, too. She said the whole experiment had been amazing.

Children are able to relate back to previous work; it has improved writing across the curriculum, and they are relating learning to other things in different contexts. It is harder to do in maths.

YEAR 6

Struggled at first with separating the two, but it became better. More difficult in maths but it makes the SC more focused in all areas. One teacher focused on literacy skills across the curriculum. Children are better at transferring skills (e.g. writing instructions) within a subject and across the curriculum. All make it more explicit in planning and planning is tighter. Some put it up on the board, others on laminated sheets with different colours. Impact on learning; children more able to verbalise about what they are learning, better discussions between children and they are transferring skills across the curriculum.

2. Success Criteria issues

RECEPTION / Yr 1

Teachers have success criteria in their planning. Young children have difficulty, because of the time issue to generate them and keeping them on the carpet. Two teachers made visual aids with symbols they can understand. Anecdote: one teacher made a poster with the children about skills needed for writing. Yr 1 and lower achieving Yr 2 could come up with ideas for SC (letter formation, etc) and the teacher copied the A4 poster which they now have on their tables. If there is a TA in the room they can refer back to these with her.

We found that good questioning from the teacher was essential to generating SC with the children: open rather than closed. Impact: teachers have done a whole school monitoring exercise on independent learning to see how well they could reflect on and use the SC… Children’s responses showed that they were more reflective. Collected work from children confirms this.

YEARS 1 / 2

Three teachers plan in teams, the others individually. When they asked the children for SC they sometimes think of things the teachers have not thought of – perhaps smaller steps which the teachers saw as obvious. SC are displayed on walls. One teacher has a must-should-and could device for numeracy. One teacher has medium term plans with built-in SC but this became a bit cumbersome and now the children’s SC have made this better. Children check their own work against the SC and are more focused.

Anecdote: We all mark against the SC but in my class if there are 3 SC for literacy they traffic light their work so if you’ve achieved one you give yourself a red, two a yellow, three a green.

Impact on learning is that using the SC means that the children are much more focused when they do the tasks and more able to say what they’ve learned at the end of it.

YEARS 3 / 4

One of the main things noticed is that children are more analytical and reflective about their own learning. Discussion when creating SC enhances their speaking and listening skills. A few teachers have tried this with Talking Partners. All have changed planning to include SC and keep it more focused. Children are encouraged to reflect on SC using pencils or highlighters – “Can you see what you have not included so far?”, etc.

Success and improvement: after lots of work on SC and examples looked at, one teacher gave each child post it notes and asked them to find 3 things they were really proud of and one thing they could improve. The teacher then took the work home and wrote her own post it for each child. These were then looked at by the children to see how closely they matched. The children went through these with Talking Partners and then did some very effective improvements.

YEARS 4 / 5

Most started doing SC in literacy. One teacher found it difficult at first as she did not know where to start with it. Teachers first gave the children SC and over time the children can now create their own and understand where they are coming from. Give good and bad examples of work and the children constantly see the differences and learn about quality and can more easily generate SC. Standards in writing have improved greatly. So has independent learning.

Some children are self-motivated to create checklists while they work. (S: ticking off isgood with closed skills). Teachers regularly stop the lesson and refer back to SC. These are used in all subjects in their classes. SC do not have to be created anew each time. Generic SC can be saved and used again.

YEAR 6

Having generated the LO, the SC seem to follow automatically. It gets better with practice. All teachers altered their plans to include SC which are now more effective. It is great to generate SC with the children. Various ways:

One teacher puts them on the white board, hides them, and then reveals them as children come up with them.

Pieces of effective writing are also used to generate SC. (e.g.) YR 6 lower literacy set…good at generating SC with teacher prompting. Did direct speech, looked at previous work (cartoons, novels), children found they needed things like inverted commas in correct position – list was put on white board, children referred to it during their work.

SC are available to refer to during lessons. All teachers found it useful to generate SC with Talking Partners, too.

Impact on learning: at ends of lessons the children talked about what they had learned. They could say more about what they learned and could analyse their learning.

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

RECEPTION / Yr 1

Mind maps and thought sharing – what do you know at beginning of topics. Two teachers use questioning bubbles of what we want to find out and put this into planning. Have done a lot on mind maps – do this at start encompassing the entire curriculum. Start with, for instance, ‘Lions live in a jungle’ – question that and investigate later as a challenge. Add different aspects they’ve learned. Complete mind maps at the end inform the children about what they’ve learned and the teacher about how much they have progressed. Children refer to these.

YEAR 1 / 2

Mind map done a few weeks before the end of one term to facilitate planning for the next term. Two teachers break this done into what we want to find out, etc., and see where it fits into the big picture. All LOs are written in a book for the entire term, each week they go through these and traffic light them. There is a learning wall where children tick off the activities that were done and see what’s coming up. The impact is that children go home and do more work as they become more motivated and interested (e.g.: model making for DT).

One teacher wrote questions on feathers. As each question was answered the feathers were put into a display. If any feathers were left, children look at the questions on the feathers and try to answer them. Lower achievers are helped by the higher achievers.

YEAR 3 / 4

Used by one teacher in science and literacy. Started with children’s ideas on a topic web and the children add to it as they go along. Interesting to see what the children want to cover – added these on the smart board. Children are excited about what is coming up, especially in science. Children went home and did extra research.

One teacher starts with what they already know then the children create their own questions from that. The bits come together. Teacher found Sue Palmer Skeleton books helpful with pictures/diagrams on walls.

YEARS 4 / 5

Learning journeys are permanently displayed – referred to and annotated all the time. One teacher makes posters showing the areas children will cover. Higher achievers use these but they are not used much by the lower achievers.

Others said they helped with independent learning especially if children set their own questions. Teachers felt the biggest impact is that children like to know where they are going and what they are going to be doing – motivating.

YEAR 6

Most teachers do cross curricular topics. Used at beginning of topic to find out what they know. Often children think they know nothing but lots ‘tumbles out’. At the end of the session they get to see what they’ve learned. Teachers think this benefits the lower achievers – they go home and talk about it and bring things in.

Impact: children are enthused and like the independence – motivation and interest.

4. Wait time/no hands up/talking partners

RECEPTION / Yr 1

Teachers trained the younger children to talk and listen. Focus on quality of the talk. Made mind maps of what makes a good TP. Sometimes one partner talks, then the other, or one has to tell what the other said. Impact is confidence building. Independence as a talker develops.

TA helps to monitor the TPs and writes down on a clipboard what the children have said.

Talk about quality not quantity of the work done.

They have introduced the “seal activities” Social Emotional Aspects of Learning from DfES on PSHE site which are very effective

YEARS 1 / 2

One teacher displayed a list of rules as to what makes a good TP and modelled these in role play with the TA. One way of teaching children to listen to each is to get one child to tell the other their news, then the second child has to tell the class what their partner has said. Good impact. They sit and talk now more effectively. They ask each other questions now where before there was not this level of interaction.

Problem of TP where one will talk to the other – perhaps the TA should be a TP for a for a week for a child who is not socially able– or maybe the child should work alone for a week.

The children in general have become more confident.

Anecdote: story writing – used Talking Partners for six weeks – added in SC and LOs – not just speaking and listening that improved but also the writing that came after that. Brainstormed with TPs about what to expect to find in a fairy story, then they wrote it, at the end of the six weeks (after doing things like character studies, settings, etc) they did an unaided piece of writing and the improvement was fantastic – this was down to TPs (gave confidence and made them think) and SC.

One teacher introduced “R Time” (www.RTime.com):activities for TPs/listening –teacher thought it worked brilliantly for her: gets down to the nitty gritty of team working.

YEARS 3 / 4

Social impact: children discussed how they got on with TP and felt their relationships with each other had improved. Sometimes when with a TP for the first time they are asked to tell each other something the other does not know about them – ice breaker.

Ability grouping – better to have mixed ability. Higher and middle achievers mixed but lower achievers work better with others of the same ability.

Random partners can be done within an ability group.

Reading comprehension activity with mixed ability partners – fed into writing a biography – worked well and all children really achieved.

Some teachers had children choose where to sit in the classroom and this had a good impact on their learning. “Where do you think we will work best?” was overheard.

One teacher increased her repertoire of getting children involved by using word ping pong. Did a project on rocks and soil – you have one minute to ping pong with your partner all the words you learned last week about this.

YEARS 4 / 5

Generally this clears up misconceptions in children’s learning. They like only being with a partner for one to two weeks. Important to follow guidelines of SC of what a good TP is.

YEAR 6

One teacher suggested putting the one child who won’t talk with a TP into a group of three instead of working on his/her own. The impact in her class has made one child get involved and hasn’t left someone with a silent partner.

All in this group do random TPs, some changing weekly others two weekly. Children are enthusiastic. The new TPs are made to welcome each other by shaking hands. One boy had a boy/girl friend pairing that was a problem, but these are exceptions. Sometimes there is a cultural problem re: race issue – one boy would not talk to his TP all week. At the end of the week it was clear it was a racial thing as the girl was a Hindu and the boy thought she should not be here. The next week when he had another TP he readily joined in. The problem had been noticed and revealed too late.

Impact on social development: lots of children have reassessed their perceptions of each other and got to know each other more readily after finding out about each other. One pair did not normally get on but met up at the weekend to complete some school work.

All thought this was confidence building especially for special needs children. Noise level in the classroom was reduced. Children’s explanations better – in general more articulate. Noticeable improvement in writing – higher quality.

5. Questioning strategies ( range of answers, statement, right and wrong, opposing standpoint, starting from the answer )

RECEPTION / Yr 1

Range of answers: used in science, promotes discussion. Example: why do we wear poppies? Older children could identify the correct answers; younger ones said the soldiers wear them because they might have had pets with them that died during the war.

Statement: batteries go flat . Some children thought they went flat as in flat like paper. Teacher picked up on that and the children wanted to experiment and tried to flatten a battery. Some children still insisted they could get them flat so they mind mapped what it means to have a battery go flat, they even took a hammer to them, but eventually they got to understand that the batteries would not physically go flat.

YEARS 1 / 2

Really improved thinking skills in maths. Statement used by one teacher in science and PE. Useful to have statement on board to teach warm-up lesson. To warm up today we are going to------------. Do you agree or disagree, why?

Right & Wrong used on number line work in maths. If they come up with a wrong answer they determine why. Starting from the answer was used a lot in maths and in unpicking a story (the prince kissed sleeping beauty and she woke up. What needs to be put in place beforehand to get this to happen?)

Opposing stand point : used in stories, characters. Next term will use to discuss whether or not animals should be kept in a circus. “All animals should be kept in a circus.”

YEARS 3 / 4

PHSE: feedback was good and children more fluid with their answers. Children have lots of different viewpoints and ways to think.

YEARS 4 / 5

Really liked range of answers: seemed good to use at beginning, middle and ends of lessons particularly in numeracy and science as vocabulary was seen to improve; and statements: geography – began by saying All Kenyans live in mud huts/ Farming is the only job in Kenya . Discussed these and finished with more of the range of answers – do you think all of Kenya is like it is in ………….?

YEAR 6

Used range of answers extensively in maths and it improved reasoning with better articulation of ideas. It has pre-empted problems. The statement: used – all living things eat – got to how plants do this, etc. Right and wrong used in maths encouraging them to estimate before they started. Starting from the answer – this is a complex sentence, explain. Used a question on staff training day with TAs – do not make children aware of a learning difficulty as it will damage their self esteem. Very useful for staff discussion