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LEARNING TEAMS UPDATE Reading Day Two - 27th June, 2007 1. Separating the Learning Objective from the Context Foundation Stage Separating the learning objective from the context clarified teachers’ thoughts when they were planning, which meant that teaching was clearer. Support staff were helped, too, as they better knew their role. There is more specific vocabulary (e.g. the language of stories). Because of all of this it is now easier for children and teachers to assess the learning. Children have clear expectations and are therefore more on task and have more ownership. Those who did not quite understand things were easier to spot and were able to say why they did not grasp it. Anecdote: whereas before the children would simply retell the story of The Three Little Pigs, they were now able to identify and talk about the use of story language like once upon a time and happily ever after. They have shown that they can transfer this skill across other stories.
Yr 1&2 Children are now able to transfer skills to a range of contexts. They can recall the skills needed for their piece of writing and can quickly recall the success criteria. Teachers can begin lessons from a further point each time not having to re-teach all the time. Teachers find it easier to plan in the long run. Planning is much more specific with all having a clear understanding of what is to be learnt.
Yr 3/4 Children now use and apply skills in other contexts. One area of difficulty was maths. An example of transferring skills: the class created success criteria in literacy (explanatory text) then when asked in science to write an example of how rocks are formed they could do this using the literacy criteria.
Yr 4/5/6 There was at first some confusion about separating the learning objective from the context and getting the success criteria right. Some introduced the context orally rather than written. The main impact is that children can transfer skills more easily, so can use persuasive writing etc. in different contexts. They are more empowered as when faced with new learning they often already have the skills. Anecdote: writing a SAT persuasive leaflet, one child recognised he had done something like this before and said “This is exactly the same but a different subject!”
Yr 6 Children have clearer understanding about lesson goals, and are clearer about what teachers are aiming for. Consequently, it is easier for children to assess their own learning as they know all the objectives. Teachers found examples of children applying their learning in different contexts and saw this in SATs revision work. Anecdote Yr 5: one teacher in geography did persuasive writing then a few weeks later did it again in literacy. The literacy work done in this class was of a considerably higher standard than the work done by other classes which had not been done earlier in geography. Separating contexts and objectives helps students work out their own success criteria. All teachers agreed it was harder to do in numeracy.
2. Success Criteria issues Foundation Stage Teachers had looked at success criteria for groups first: what do we need to do for group time to be successful for everyone with their key worker? They talked about rules and all teachers tended to do the same thing: a poster or card they could refer back to, done by children mind mapping their ideas in child speak. The success criteria were not subject specific but rather transferable social skills (turn taking, listening, using scissors, etc). Teachers felt that it was impossible to create success criteria for everything in the nursery so are building these up. Success criteria were used as a common language across the nursery: a speech therapist brought in some behaviour management prompts for good listening, good looking, good sitting etc. so they adopted these for the entire class as a model – these were basically success criteria for good learning. Children generating success criteria was difficult because the children need some input about what they are. Anecdote: had a session where they did lots of music where three groups come together so did SC with all those groups. The one of the three that had prior experience with SC led the others.
Yr 1&2 Teachers had tried success criteria with numeracy, literacy, handwriting, science and art. The impact on writing had been significant. Children know what is expected and refer back and are now on task and therefore more confident in their learning. Children generated SC through comparing two pieces of work. Children want to do better in writing, they are inspired by seeing a child’s excellent work first and they are confident in saying how the poorer piece can be improved, as they have clear criteria to evaluate against. Children are now more able to evaluate their own learning because they have clear criteria to evaluate against. Success criteria also help classroom assistants. Anecdote for numeracy: “It’s just like a step of instructions for us to follow!”
Yr 3&4 It has been successful to get rid of ‘must, should, could’ as children can now aim higher. Teachers also now have higher expectations. Children want to achieve everything. ‘Must should could’ made it hard to put things in process order – teachers are much happier now. Process success criteria had been used a lot in numeracy. Children used them to identify their mistakes. Anecdote for numeracy: the goal was to subtract by partitioning; children came up with the success criteria, went through each step, worked out which part they had missed out then went back and self-corrected. Teachers had generated SC by showing good examples which had inspired the children to aim high. SC helps support learning as children know what they have to do and how to check their work. Yr 4/5/6 Children are now clearer about their next steps with fewer needing help. Whenever illustrative examples were shown, children were more successful. Children generated SC from an example they had been given. Children check their learning independently, the level of discussion has improved and feedback has become more specific. Anecdote: lesson on writing poetry about guardian angels. …the SC generated by the children made it quite personal. There was high quality discussion about why it was personal to them.
Yr 6 Success criteria promote independence, ownership for pupils and the ability to evaluate their own work. This approach is much more successful than ‘must, should, could’ which limited children. Some children are able to differentiate their own SC. Example in literacy: text forms, children built up features of these on the board as they found them, then turned these into SC.
3. Unit Coverage (making sure children know how each learning objective fits the unit coverage) Foundation Stage Teachers started off talking to children about what they already knew which ranged from nothing to very sophisticated answers. Keeping an interactive plan helps develop language. When you go from “what do you want to know?” to “what do you know now?” there is evidence of improvement in their language skills. Learning becomes a known quantity and children become empowered to ask questions.
Yr 1&2 One teacher described a science week: at the beginning of the half term children brainstormed what they already knew about caring for the environment and wrote these down. They discussed with talking partners what they wanted to find out and these activities were planned in to the science week. They were enthusiastic and wanted to take the lead. Parents commented that children were keen, talking about their work at home. Another teacher talked to the children about materials and found they had a great deal of prior knowledge, so she could plan beyond this. On the other hand another teacher put ‘Forces’ on the board, through talking partners children came up with their own ideas and revealed many misconceptions (e.g. like comments about dark forces from sci fi influences).
Yr 3&4 Teachers in this group found this one of the hardest things to do. In terms of preplanning, one teacher created quite a structured concept map in poetry and discussed with children what they wanted from the unit but found this hard. They did come up with ‘do poems have to rhyme?’ One teacher took apostrophes, asked what they already knew and what they wanted to know by the end of the lesson and they asked ‘Why is it called that? What is its history? What’s the purpose of them?’ Some went on the internet to find out, but they enjoyed the whole thing as they wanted to learn it.
The impact of involving children had been to increase their enthusiasm, to increase their ownership of learning and to make the planning more personal to the child. Children share the planning with parents and bring in related objects. Children said they found it helpful not having to relearn things they already knew and enjoyable learning the new things.
Yr 4/5/6 This approach was mainly used in science or topic-based work. The impact was that children were more enthusiastic and more motivated. Ownership of learning: “This is my lesson! This is what I want to learn!” Yr 6 Teachers felt that as a group that they sometimes do not always do enough planning with children in advance. In a media unit: children were very keen to put things on the board as they found out what they were going to do and were very motivated to ask questions and see where they were going to go. One teacher was quite surprised by this new unit where she thought the children would have some knowledge but did not. She felt that by doing this teachers were more aware of where the children were coming from and what the children brought to the topic, often not what the teacher expected. In one teacher’s class the children helped to plan lessons based on a worksheet given to the children to fill in with 8 boxes with headers about what to cover. This is the third time he’s taught this but the first time done this way and it was much more focused than before. Revision prior to SATS: teacher said to the class we have six sessions left, what do you want to revise? The children were very specific in their answers to find out the bits they really found difficult and success criteria were created.
4. Talking Partners/Wait time/No hands up Foundation Stage Initially the new children need lots of modelling and support and the level of adult intervention needs monitoring and careful management. Questioning Yr 1&2 One teacher described the impact of random partners in her class for their social development. One boy only referred to girls as ‘her’ but now uses girls’ names. Children work well with all children now and are making more friends. They accept that they have to work with everyone. They all have answers now, they feel no pressure and they are actively involved whenever a question is asked. Talking partners worked well in maths where the top two were paired together (the others worked even harder to see if they could get better, quicker answers than these two). The children are learning and teaching when they are talking with their partners. Questioning It challenged all of the children to be involved and they were more motivated to talk to one another about the questions and to explain something. Opposing standpoint about a rainforest: ‘people are good for the rainforest’: children were all up in arms about this. They talked and came up with lots of unexpected responses. Their thinking was definitely deepened. Range of answers: you can give higher level questions especially in maths: “I am thinking of a number, I doubled it and added 3 what is it?” This was a level 3 question for a level 2 class. They were given a range of answers, classically wrong. The impact was that everyone could have a go and the more able children got it right but the lower children could have a go and get closer wrong answers. They all did something and did not mind. Yr 3&4 Teachers liked random partners a lot. There were some initial problems with sulking, but this did not last. One parent complained but this was explained. The next time that child was paired with a friend, then after that someone they did not like but it did not matter anymore as the child them realised the fairness of the system. Teachers realised the importance of sharing the rationale for talking partners with parents and with children Magic spots where pairs sit on the carpet made it less disruptive. Amazingly, when disruptive children are drawn out together they tend to work better. One concern noticed: friends who sit in pairs close to a friend in another pair will ignore their designated partner and turn to talk with their friend. Overall they are more confident and teachers are starting to use this in all subjects. Children now give more detailed answers. At first teachers were a bit concerned when a high achiever is with a low achiever but both children clearly benefit. They like to teach each other and encourage each other. The random factor is very important to the children (e.g. the teacher has names on cards and shuffles them and the children insist one of them come up to verify that the teacher truly shuffled the cards properly!) Questioning Using ‘right or wrong’, one teacher showed two boards with different answers, and children were asked to justify which was right and which was wrong after discussion with their talking partner. A child who has made a mistake can immediately self correct. Some statements about plants were given (e.g. If I feed my plant coca cola it will grow) and through these the children gave detailed answers to justify their views. Children are also more prepared to challenge each other, challenge each other, too. This shifts the focus from I’m telling you this is the answer to what they know from having worked it out.
Yr 4/5/6 Random partners got mixed reviews: some enjoyed them, others did not. Different age groups and classes responded differently.Overall teachers thought that better quality discussions result and that children understand that anyone can be chosen and there is a positive competitiveness about wanting to do better. All children are able to give feedback and tend not to opt out of learning. Questioning Yr 6 One school had ‘Enterprise week’ where the children wanted to teach how they wanted to teach and talking partners were not used at all. This actually showed how beneficial TPs are as the classroom reverted to only a few children answering questions. Many children opted out as they were not involved and said the lessons were boring. It came home to the teachers how vital TPs really are. One child in class is an elective mute and through TP time is actually trying to share her ideas. One parent complained to see if her boy could be placed with another person but was told this was only temporary and he was not sent to school for the rest of the week. So the following week the teacher changed TPs again, he came into school and the teacher gave him the same partner but he kept coming to school anyway. S: important to inform parents of the rationale for TPs. You also need a whole school policy for this. The space for social team building with TPs, like putting two sets of TPs together (snowballing) works really well. Talking partners leads to better assessment by the teacher. All children are involved and their confidence and independence is positively affected. Questioning The ‘range of answers’ was used most. Children like the game of finding the odd one out ( e.g. in science – ‘what would you use to dampen the volume of the sound of an alarm?’ Options were given like bubble wrap, cotton wool, etc. Find the odd one out and explain to partner why it is wrong and why the others are better options that work. ‘Which material would you use for a bath mat?’ The phrasing here is good so they all can give their reasons for it. The children were comfortable giving their answers as it related to their own household circumstances. Teachers said it was more difficult to plan these strategies until you got into the swing of it.
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