Teaching and Learning

  On 17 Jun 2015

It probably only feels like yesterday that you were sitting in September’s INSET listening to your head teacher talk about the year ahead or clearing out your cupboard and recycling old Year 11 exercise books. Ten months later, it’s June. GCSE, AS and A-level exams are well under way and you’re starting to anticipate the start of the long holiday that heralds the end of yet another memorable academic year.

The summer term has always been a time for reflection: a time to think about the school year stretching behind us and ruminate on what we would do differently if we were whisked back in time to the previous autumn. Taking the time to reflect is one of the most important ways of improving how we teach and how our students learn best. It’s part of every new teacher’s routine, and yet it’s a concept that can slip into disuse unless we’re prompted by feedback from a lesson observation or training event.

Asking ourselves important questions like ‘what’, ‘why’ and ‘how’ isn’t just a handy tool for critiquing the odd lesson plan, it’s an essential strategy for continuing to create outstanding learning environments for our students.

• What should I do differently to ensure they really get this?
• Why is it important I motivate my team this week to be the best they can be?
• How can I include the ideas given by my students in my next lesson?

‘Thinking teaching’ progresses teaching and learning within your school. Most of us entered the profession to experience the joy of inspiring others to transform their lives through learning. We can all remember a teacher whose lessons captured our imagination. In order for us to keep motivating our students, we need to find ways of constantly refreshing our approach to teaching so it doesn’t get stale. To paraphrase Quilan (2015), falling in love is the easy part. Staying in love, especially when you are snowed under with deadlines, lesson observations, meetings with parents and line managers, is the challenge.

So over the next few weeks why not:

1. Allocate ten minutes at the end of each week to reflect on your progress. Take time to think deeply about what you have achieved and how you can continue to be the best teacher you can be. It’s helpful if schools include an opportunity in weekly meetings for staff to share one reflection point.
2. Bin any unrealistic and unachievable targets: the reality is we rarely stick to targets. Performance management by our line managers serves its purpose, but often this does not drive us in our desire to be the best we can. Instead, commit to being a truly reflective practitioner.
3. Invest more into your own CPD. Read up on new pedagogies and practices and spend time developing your own skill-set. Be ready to share knowledge with your colleagues. Effective school leaders should ensure teachers are given the opportunity to disseminate up-to-date literature on teaching and learning during staff briefings and/or after school training events.

While you enjoy your last weeks of term, remember how we teachers ask our students hundreds of questions each week to stretch their knowledge and understanding. In the same way, let’s not forget the power of becoming reflective/thinking teachers and make sure we ask ourselves the questions that will allow us to improve our own practice.

Costa Constantinou (BA, MA, PGCE)

Director of Educational Services

   On 13 Jan 2015

As a teacher there is nothing more frustrating and disheartening when marking your students’ work than realising that their understanding doesn’t match your expectation. How best to address this issue to ensure your students continue to progress in your classroom?

Effective marking can raise standards in schools

I am pleased to see that we have moved on from the days of the simple ‘tick and flick’ of students’ work — schools are now applying effective creative approaches to their marking policies to help raise student attainment.

In my work as a teaching practitioner and a teaching and learning consultant I touch upon such issues frequently. Assessing students’ learning, beyond end-of-unit tests, is a valuable tool and frequent and meaningful marking, with carefully considered assessment points, is crucial. It is essential that students reflect and engage actively on the work teachers have marked, reviewing the feedback provided and creating an ongoing dialogue between the teacher and the learner. This helps students really understand where they have done well and where there is room for development.

So what works?

Working smartly and collaboratively within your departments, or even across departments, will enable you to develop good assessment-for-learning practices without increasing teachers’ workload. During meetings allow time for staff to share their ideas and bring along examples of good marking. Teachers should have the opportunity to discuss what has worked for them and to share this across the school.

During a teaching and learning seminar I recently led there were a number of teaching professionals that expressed the paramount importance of including students’ views when reviewing assessment for learning and best practice within their schools. Anyone working with children knows that when you ask for an opinion on a school matter you will get an honest answer. The student voice is one of the most powerful resources available to any school wishing to review teaching and learning practices.

At another school I recently conducted some interviews with students as a way for the school to gauge their views. Simple questions such as: ‘What do you like and dislike teachers doing when they mark your work?’ proved to be a good starting point in highlighting some of the key focal points for improving marking across the school.

10 ways to embed effective marking within a school:

1. Subject departments should frequently hold moderation meetings with standardised assessments to ensure teachers are consistent in the way they are assessing and marking. Evidence of this should be included in SEF activities and should be used to improve the overall quality of marking across the school.
2. Summative assessments alone will not get students closer to their target and predicted grades. In the build up to a formal assessment, especially the week preceding an assessment, formative feedback is imperative — students should always have written feedback before any formative assessment.
3. In teacher observations and learning walkthroughs, evaluations of teacher marking should be a focal point. We know Ofsted are examining this closely. That said, it also gives teachers and managers a clear picture of how feedback to students is being used to enhance their own learning and the progress they should be making.
4. Senior leaders should have an overview of the assessments taking place and the frequency and quality of marking. It is important to have a model in place to assess, measure and review the effectiveness of assessment for learning policies and the impact this is having on teaching and learning and in raising standards. Departmental Heads and Pastoral Leaders also have a responsibility to perform frequent self-evaluation activities. Deadlines for review and evaluation should be included in the school calendar.
5. Colleagues working collaboratively and sharing their experience is an excellent way for improving classroom practices and is good teacher CPD.
6. Students should be able to observe exemplar answers, peer assess and re-write answers after any assessment or marked work: this will motivate and encourage students towards their learning goals and can be a great morale boost. Reflection time and feedback lessons will enable students to review answers, share knowledge and practise questions again.
7. Teachers should use marking as a method of adapting their own teaching, planning lessons that meet the needs of their students. Teachers should be encouraged to use SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Timely) targets with constructive comments that enable students to review their work. A good example is using open questions like ‘what other factors led to the Second World War?’
8. Sharing the success criteria and making the mark scheme explicit to students is essential. If we want students to achieve they must understand how they will be assessed and what teachers or examiners will be looking for when marking their work. Providing prompts, even on assessment papers, is no bad thing. We should remember that we are training students on how to reach their goals and that this does not mean they will be perfect on their very first attempt.
9. Avoid general comments like ‘good’ and ‘excellent’ throughout students’ work (I can tell you now that using such comments do nothing for motivating a student to improve their work). Also, steer clear of using lots of red or green pen and remember that too much commenting and scribbling can often be counterproductive.
10. Avoid having moderation meetings that simply involve checking assessments and exercise books. Assessment moderation should be about reviewing latest examination criteria, pre-tasks and the appropriate action taken after the meeting with a clear review deadline.

As an educationalist I certainly feel it is important to constantly reflect on the teaching and learning practices taking place within our schools to establish what works best for our students and teachers. If you would like to read more on this subject, visit our website’s News & Media page or our LinkedIn page.

Costa Constantinou (BA, MA, PGCE)

Director of Educational Services

  On 18 Feb 2016

Like many, I was pushed to work hard from a young age to make sure I passed those exams.
Looking back, I realise instead of being praised for the effort I put in, my success was entirely
measured by the grades I achieved. My experience of rewarding achievement is typical, both
as a student and as an educator. This stems from a system where many schools are driven by
results-orientated approaches to measuring success. In turn, this is instilled in parents further
perpetuating the problem of setting limits on achievement.

Costa Constantinou (BA, MA, PGCE)

Director of Educational Services