East Lothian Day Two Feedback 15 June, 2006

1. Separating the Learning Objective from the Context

Early Years

The focus on planning makes it more specific. Children are more aware of the skills and knowledge they are learning. Children are more enthusiastic and focused: they say ‘What are we going to learn?’ They also tell parents and staff what they are learning. Some teachers find it difficult still to separate the objective from the context. S: Why? Response: one teacher was doing pirates in an art lesson – “What do I want them to learn? To use the oil pastels or to draw the pirates?” What a pirate looks like, colours they wear, etc. was what she wanted them to learn. This was difficult because it was cross-curricular. S: The main skills involved were art as this was an art lesson, so this would be your main object (art skills,) context being a pirate.

One teacher showed an example of how having a clear L.O. helps planning. The class was focusing on functional writing. The teacher asked an assistant to look at the A4 sheet and say if she could follow it and do the lesson herself and the assistant said yes as it was so clear. It took half the time this type of lesson usually took and this sheet ‘was worth 20 others.’

Early/Middle Years

Children saw links between lessons. Learning was more specific and focused and teachers have narrowed their expectations of what can be achieved in a lesson. Fewer questions from children about what they are supposed to do because it is now clearer. WALT & WILF are no longer being used. Children are eager to see the L.O.s for the day. In subject areas where there are multiple groups it is harder to define L.O.s. Impact on overall planning is that people have to think in different ways.

One teacher found it difficult to put the L.O. on the white board as other teachers wipe it off so she put it on the flip chart. The children can now refer back to it throughout the week. If it is not there, the children ask straight away. The children like to see these in advance, too.

Small Schools (Early /Middle)

Teachers had modified WALT and WILF so that children understood the acronyms. They wrote the LO on the board and children ticked what they’d learned. Teachers found it easier to separate the context for writing than for Environmental Studies or Health. Overall teachers found they were more focused and children very clear about what they were learning. Children now found it easier to apply their knowledge to other subjects (e.g. using adjectives in other pieces of writing).

Composite schools ( Lower middle and upper)

Teaching was more focused and they had narrowed tasks more appropriately. Teachers had become aware of reducing the number of learning objectives to two. Children had started coming to class asking what the learning objective was today. One boy with Asperger’s Syndrome said that the LO had made him happy because he could think about what he was going to learn. Some teachers have a stamp with LO achieved on it. Children are able to transfer skills across the curriculum.

Upper Primary Schools

Children are taking much more responsibility for their learning, transferring skills across the curriculum.

2. Success Criteria issues

Early Years

Children were more focused and planning had improved. If you want children to devise success criteria you must have an idea of them yourself. Writing is a good starting point. When children just start to write you can come up with about 20 SC because when they are 5 years old it’s all new. You must separate technical skills from what you really want. We want to do a piece of writing, so what do we need to remember? Full stops, etc. Another teacher in P1 used long term criteria they could always refer to (e.g. key words written correctly, picture of a finger for a finger space, write an original idea - do not copy, used a light bulb to remind them of this)—found that these visual clues for young children permanently on the wall are very useful. They refer to them as they write. Teachers also noticed that children are very sure of how to get things right especially with closed criteria for maths or functional writing – they know if they have all the SC they have achieved. Teachers have found using pink and green highlighters as they move around the classroom are good for giving feedback for open skills or criteria. You can also say this was good, this was not so good and you can make it better by trying. Because teachers are more freed up there is more time for teachers to make verbal interventions. Attainment is raised but it is difficult to say just what did this – probably SC have gone a long way to help as they focus the children so well. The benchmark is much higher than in previous years. Eight children passed in P1 for national writing and teachers have never had this high a number.

S: do you notice FA having an impact on your students’ behaviour? One answered that they are now too focused to think about being naughty – they are busy doing the work, not doing the nonsense. Talking Partners have evidenced this, too. Children feel more valued as they are being listened to by others – self esteem rises.

Early/Middle Years

Used a model (eg: a letter) of good or bad or both for lessons to encourage discussion with Talking Partners and then eventually got to SC from this. Teachers found modelling the quality important before establishing success criteria (e.g. this is a letter/this is not a letter) S had not heard of doing it this way yet. I can understand them seeing one letter, but why discuss the quality to get the SC? Teacher said: ‘There are technical skills in all writing, I had a letter that was a load of rubbish but had all the capital letters and full stops. Although this was there the others things like who the letter is for, who it is from, etc. was not there. You need these quality things: what does this letter have that the other does not? The key here is: these wee ones have not seen a letter before whereas P5 students have. Discussing quality from bad to good and then truly identifying what this thing is and getting to SC is a great way of working with wee ones.’

Lessons have more structure. Children are able to check their work independently at the end. There are fewer questions from the children not knowing what to do. Sometimes to extend the children one teacher gives them a bad model and they discuss how to improve it –this leads to generation of SC.

One teacher worked on parts of a letter with a child who had complex learning needs – so the teacher had to break it down to tiny, tiny steps and personalise SC for him. She said in her SC for this letter he must write the address in the correct place. The boy wrote down “Put the address in the correct place”. As he did not understand very much he did not have the knowledge of what an address was. But he had written his little sentence in the place where the address should be! Something got through.

Small Schools (Early/Middle)

The children are more focused now. Initially they came up with too many SC and can now narrow them down. Good modelling, reading examples out as they are writing, keeps them focused on what to look for. Peer assessment makes them want to re-draft their work as they find out what they’ve missed. One teacher showed the Learning Team two pieces of writing displaying how much the children had improved (within two months the writing went from about three lines to a full page) – she believed this was due to the SC.

Composite schools ( Lower middle and upper)

Began by using good examples – good impact to have exemplars you can use with children first and have them later decide on the SC (used a document called A Case for Writing). At first children found it difficult to identify them. All teachers think that children now write more because of SC, probably due to increased confidence. Increased writing seems to be universal across the Learning Team. Children now have ownership of their learning and have become more responsible for self-editing. They go back and check SC throughout their writing. Children highlight the SC in their writing.

Upper Primary

Several teachers found that putting the L.O. and success criteria on the white board, specifically in maths, led to children enjoying highlighting which bits they could do. Some say ‘I can’t do this yet, miss’…but they talk their way through what they can do and then go to others and talk about it. Teachers found that there was increased interest and pace from all children and in one school attainment levels went up from 87 to 92%.

They ask specifically for work for aspects of the SC where they felt they had not achieved – this is a huge leap from “I’m no good at this” and giving up.

An anecdote: children from one class decided that open questions meant long answers while closed were short. In their own words, interview techniques used: closed = one word answer, open = wee stories which is what they wanted. They interviewed a famous musician and practised first on each other. Also interviewed Jack McConnell (PM in Scotland ). Success for the pupils is now seen as a global thing – their aspirations are sky high – all this is because of SC.

Much training is needed to get to good use of SC but it has become second nature. Lots of SC are up on the wall used and referred to again and again. SC becomes embedded and you forget how you used to do your teaching before.

Another good thing is that you are allowed to use other peoples’ brains as the SC allow you to see what others are thinking and you can use this as a platform for many things.

Anther teacher said there is a big brother room where kids can tape themselves talking about certain issues. Re: SC they made comments like “I’m on track with SC” “I can see where I have or have not achieved.”

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

Early Years

Conflict sometimes between what children’s say they want to find out about and the demands of the curriculum – getting the balance right is critical. Teachers felt that it is important you do this to extend the children’s learning beyond what they normally do/have done. The children enjoy knowing where they are going next and bring things in from home. They like being the teachers sometimes. Children as young as P1 research at home. Project on toys: because they knew what was coming next, they brought in toys appropriate to the next lesson.

Early/Middle Years

Children researched a lot at home often on the Internet as a result of knowing what is to be covered.

It is difficult to fine tune children’s ideas and cover what they need to know.

Children had real ownership over the topic –the coverage and the wall displays.

Lots of enthusiasm from all. Interest usually wanes in a topic, but now the level of interest and enthusiasm is maintained throughout.

Small Schools (Early /Middle)

One teacher working on a Transport unit started with ‘what I know’/ ‘what I’d like to know’. Children came up with questions on these and covered L Os. The children had ownership of what they were going to do in the topic and this reduced the normal coverage and refocused on key skills. At the end of the unit the class wrote and presented their own assembly on the topic and informed the rest of the school--- this raised their confidence, their knowledge was deepened by discovering what they wanted to know, they understood how the knowledge linked together, their presentation skills were developed. The key was that they discovered what they wanted to know. Another teacher digitally photographed her unit coverage at the beginning and is keeping a log of it on the flipchart.

Composite schools ( Lower middle and upper)

The visual aspect made learning more relevant – children were able to make deductions and could pick out what came next…they could see the component parts of learning.

The teachers were made aware of prior learning and therefore learning became more appropriate. The unit coverage provides a vehicle for communication with parents. S: re the conflict thing – should there be a starting point of minimum of what I want you to know? Teachers must judge this carefully because you do not want to limit their learning. You know it will come later at another level, but you can’t always go there.

Upper Primary

Impact on learning: children’s organisational skills are better if they see how things fit into the big picture displayed on the wall. Strong feeling about skills being more important than knowledge – the skills do not have to be contained in a particular context. Teachers and children learn from each other. Equipped with key skills children can go through life able to learn what they need and want.

One teacher used three different colours on a mind map:

• what we already know
• what we think we’ll learn
• what we want to learn

4. Wait time/no hands up/talking partners

Early Years

Felt that two things stood out – TPs made children think more clearly about what they were doing and TPs made teachers more aware of children’s misconceptions.

Used TPs regularly to question what the children were thinking. Right and wrong with discussion was good for decomposition in maths.

TPs had had the most impact of everything tried since Day One and the aspect that children had enjoyed the most. Children constantly ask when they can do TPs. They enjoy this most of all. Modelling TPs is beneficial, particularly modelling how not to do TPs, so they come up with points for how to do it well. Children enjoyed working with others they normally did not. Quotes: Teacher asked the children what they thought of TPs. They said things like this from a wee girl who normally gets lost. This child has really blossomed from the TP experience:

“If you have to talk you have to think.If you did not have TPs you’d feel left out. I get to learn things from others I did not know”.

All the children are involved and busy when doing TPs. Parents and visitors are amazed by this. Different ways to set the pairs were trialled but all chose randomly in the end. Teachers now have higher expectations of the children as a result of TPs.

Early/Middle Years

Teachers felt that TPs develops life and social skills. Children show more tolerance of each other, children who the teacher felt would never get along. It has challenged teachers’ perceptions of who would get on in class. TPs worked well for children with exceptional needs and a child with E2L also got involved. With TPs they now have ideas and answers and are more willing to share them. There is less fear of failure. Using lollysticks to draw out the random partners works well. In one class the children request the sticks to make other decisions as they see it as a fair system. Good for developing listening skills. They know when to speak and listen. Far more interactive teaching and working. Also seems to give the teacher more time with children – they have a longer attention span. More activities seem to be oral than work sheeted. As a teacher you are talking less as you get input from the children.

Small Schools (Early /Middle)

Most had random at beginning, some problems with kids who did not want to be together but stuck with it and it has improved and the children are making an effort to work together. Some let children organise how to do this and it worked well for them. A lot of effort went into modelling TPs to stop dominant children doing most of the talking, especially with older children dominating younger children. They are now better listeners, both the higher and the lower achievers. There are some gender differences as the boys don’t always respond very well. One girl with LDs can’t remember what was said by the time she gets to the feedback, so another child whispers remembrances in her ear. An egg timer is used so they know when to stop. TPs has helped behaviour as the children are not so chatty. They talk for a minute, then they listen etc etc. They are now talking at the right times.

Anecdote: impact of talking partners – topic on people who help us. Over the last 6 weeks visitors came from different professions. After the fire-fighter had talked to the whole school for 10 minutes he asked the question ‘What would you do if there was a fire in your house?’ Spontaneously one 6 year old child said: ‘Can we have TPs?’ The fire-fighter asked the teachers what this was and they ended up using a timer for a minute every time he asked a question! All the visitors have been amazed at how the children have taken ownership. They were involved all the way through. There is more interaction, less fidgeting through these 45 min to one hour visits.

Composite schools ( Lower middle and upper)

TPs benefits a composite class—younger children became more confident and were better able to discuss with older children. Teachers thought all were engaged and did not feel alone but part of the class. Lots of training needed up front – modelling good and less effective TPs. Children cooperated better as a result of TPS. Children were more focused as they did not know when they would be asked to participate so were attentive though the whole lesson. Needed to manage time well when given a task. Found that snowballing (2s join up with another two) needed more structured management because of moving from 2 to 4. Impact has been that children are learning and thinking more deeply but those with listening difficulties have found it difficult to do. In a small class (6 in a class) it is difficult to sustain because the partnerships are often the same. There has been a shift in control from teacher to student and the class has become constructively more noisy and active. When children were given the national attainment test to do and could not do TPs their achievement was not as good. Frees children from deskbound writing activities all day.

Upper Primary

Talked about increase in quality and quantity of interactions between boys. Mixed gender increased too. Quiet children opened up more. All can take part in lessons. Change in the ethos as they were allowed to use each others brains – felt they would never run out of ideas to try out. After a while found it hard to remember a time when they did not use TPs: teachers’ role is now more of a guide than a leader. Felt that more teaching and less controlling was happening.

Interactive whiteboards used to show what they learned leading to independent learning and confidence levels of understanding raised as they articulate to teachers what they’ve learned and gives better insight to their learning. Needed to change TPs every 2 weeks Behaviour improved in some cases. Training and quality checks using success criteria for good talking partners is effective. Used giving a card to a TP pair with a prompt on it to talk about (e.g. What would you do if your friend was caught shoplifting?).

Anecdote: one teacher used lollipop sticks for choosing TPs. The class had social problems and the teacher was desperate to try TPs – it revolutionised her class as it bought them together. Used lollipop time as an interpersonal social time, where children would find their partner, interact, socialise etc.

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

Early Years

Tried most of them and some might be easier with younger children. Teachers thought they had been using this kind of questioning already without giving it a name.

Range of answers : challenged them to give reasons for the right or wrong answers—had to give justifications for this—better quality answers. Provokes broader discussion.

Statement: Maths: 5-3=8 Teacher asked ‘why is the answer not right?’ TPs help extend the answers.

Right and Wrong : Used a lot as an infant teacher by modelling good and bad writing, asking why this was correct and this was not . Need to transfer this now to other subjects.

Starting from the answer : Used in maths (e.g. my number is 12. How did I get to it?). Kept children focused and motivated. Need to think of a different approach how to teach things. Could use at beginning or end of lesson.

Early/Middle Year

Range of answers: Made teachers aware of the children’s misconceptions: clear what to revisit. Generates lots of discussion.

Statement: This is a map. What makes it a map?

Right and wrong: This was a good for decomposition

Small Schools (Early /Middle)

Teachers felt that the whole question of questioning has given them food for thought and broadened horizons.

Range of answers : Lends itself to maths and science, especially problem solving because children have to think through processes and think differently.

Statement: This was used by one teacher as an assessment tool at the end of a topic (e.g. All metals are magnetic. Discuss.) S said might have been good to do it at the beginning, too.

Right and wrong: Empowers younger children and gives them a platform for discussion and thinking.

Giving the answer: Sometimes quite difficult. S: remember this is starting from the end. Maths is not the only possibility. Could give them a descriptive paragraph and say why is this a good description. It’s about tracking back from an end point.

Opposing standpoint: Anecdote: In a citizenship lesson it was the first lesson on children’s rights. The teacher was asking ‘Is it fair that some children in the world do not have what we have?’ The teacher in role gave all the blonde children a sweet. The children were upset and the ensuing discussion was at first difficult, but the children really got into it and appreciated how it would feel to be treated unfairly. Afterwards they understood that life is unfair and some people treat others that way all the time.

Composite schools ( Lower middle and upper)

Teachers recognised that early on they had not given long enough wait time. All children with wait time have a contribution to make, even shy children.

Range of answers : used concept cartoons

Upper Primary

Range of answers : Used in maths with great success with quality discussion and higher level thinking. Illustrated why wrong answers were given and chosen. Software that promotes this: Content Generator

Statement: Allows you to be controversial and provoke responses. Allows pupils to discuss their conflicts and perceptions and personalise issues.

Right and wrong: Can be restrictive but can provoke discussion.

Starting from the answer/end point: Allows tracking of logical thinking.

Opposing standpoint : Challenges, gives a chance for emotional responses.