Roll and Read...

The game is called Roll and Read, I have attached a document with some examples from Ms Amber. Basically the students have to roll a dice, this will correspond to a row/column on a pre prepared table. Whichever number the dice lands on the students must read/answer/describe something in one of the boxes in that column. If they get it correct they get to shade it in their own colour and roll the dice again, if not it is their partner's turn. The aim of the game is to get as many boxes as you can in your chosen colour and it is an excellent use of peer assessment! 

Connect Four

I use this with my classes as a revision and reviewing exercise. It engages the students in a game activity and allows for easy differentiation.

How I have used it in class:

1. I provided the students with 64 simple recall questions on a topic (I also included some spell this word questions) I then gave them 5 minutes as a team to answer the questions and look up any they did not know the answer to. I found working as a team gave them an easy opportunity to discuss answers and explain their understanding to each other. They then played in groups of 3 or 5. 
2. I gave the students a blank question sheet and they had to come up with questions for other teams. 
3. I provided the questions but they did not have the opportunity to review the answers before playing. 
4. I split the class in two and I took the role of question master.

I hope you found this useful - please share in the comments any other ways you have adapted this for your classes. For my next post I will get some photos to show things working in class! 

Weekly Teaching and Learning Email Resources

As it comes to the end of the academic year and you are reflecting on lessons and making adjustments for the new term please remember all of the resources associated with in house CPD and the weekly teaching and learning email are available on staff shared!

Just follow the following folder tree to view all of the resources available:

Staff shared: Whole School: CPD

Weekly Teaching and Learning Email - Plenaries (Thanks to Sara for sharing additional ideas)

This week’s email is focused around the importance of reflection. At the start of a new year it is easy to focus, both ourselves and the students, on the year ahead and miss opportunities to reflect on the progress made all ready.

Plenaries are a vital part of any lesson and come in many forms for example;

·         Mini plenaries through out the lesson. Short, formative tasks which allow the teacher to assess student progress through the lesson.

·         End of lesson plenaries. A task at the end of the lesson which refers back to the learning objectives, summarises students understanding and helps a teacher identify any misconceptions.

·         End of topic plenaries. Summary sessions on a whole unit of study where students can map the progress they have made and teachers can challenge a students understanding or misconceptions.

Although, the typical three part lesson plan is not always suitable for every lesson, the importance of some form of plenary task is highlighted at the end of this article:

https://www.theguardian.com/teacher-network/2011/oct/31/pedagogical-excellence-primary-plenary

One simple technique to ensure a plenary is include in each of your lessons is the use of a plenary board. Pre-written reflection questions can be printed off and displayed in the classroom. Students themselves can then select the most relevant question to ask as a class and the students respond in whichever way you find appropriate.

Examples of reflection statements or questions could include:

·         The task I found most challenging today…

·         What went well

·         This links to last lesson because…

·         Next lesson I think we will be learning about… because…

·         The activity I enjoyed most today…

·         Something I need to revisit is…

·         This could also be used in….

This type of activity also demonstrates student engagement with their own learning – a whole school development target. And is an excellent way to demonstrate progress in a lesson for observations! 

Weekly Teaching and Learning Email - Top Gun for Teachers (Thanks to David Didau)

Dear Colleagues,

The teaching and learning email borrows heavily from a recent blog post by Divad Didau, The Learning Spy (read his blog by clicking here). For those of you who have been unfortunate/fortunate enough to have never watched Top Gun, you can watch the intro on YouTube.

So, what, if anything, can we learn from Top Gun and how can this be applied to a school context? I feel a fad coming on….In his new book, Peak, Anders Ericsson suggests the Top Gun model could provide a recipe for implementing the kind of (fad alert) deliberate practice (read more about deliberate practice) routine which leads to expertise. The trick, as Ericsson see it is find out what the very best performers do and emulate them. In fields where there are clear, objective measures of success this is relatively straightforward. As we know, nothing is straightforward in teaching.

What we have probably all experienced is, look for those teachers whose students perform the best and try to observe and copy what they do. But is this enough or could this be developed further into Top Gun for teachers?

If we’re really committed to maintaining and improving our performance it is suggested that we need the following:

• Frequent, low-stakes lesson observations. Ideally, teachers would get regular intensive sessions maybe weekly or bi-weekly at a time – where observation was followed by feedback and then further practice. At Traill the PEER teaching model could be developed into a more deliberate coaching model.
• Much better feedback on learning. This would require teachers to teach lessons which allowed students to demonstrate the retention and application of content covered weeks, months, maybe even years before. As you are updating schemes of work and planning for next year, can better feedback from learners be integrated into this?
• Guided, purposeful practice. Teachers will make more progress with a mentor or coach to help them focus and pay attention to the skills they are trying to develop.
• A codified body of knowledge (ideally phase and subject specific) which would give teachers a means to objectively assess where they need to make progress, isolate skills and practise – this could result in much better mental representations of what effective teaching looks and feels like. Lemov’s Teach Like a Champion taxonomy might provide a useful starting point in designing such a body. In producing such a document you would be deepening your understanding of your subject and identifying areas for development.

Finally, all this needs to voluntary. You can’t force someone to practice purposefully.

Reading the list above you’re probably thinking; this is madness, when do you have the time etc., but what’s the alternative? If you think everything’s fine, do you have any evidence beyond the anecdotal, I personally don’t? Furthermore, there is evidence to suggest that people actually decline in their profession and that experience is not directly linked to expertise. In order to improve we need to engage in purposeful, conscious practice. Ericsson provides many examples of professions where, because of the quality of the practice, people actually get worse over time. Radiologists are a case in point. In most cases, radiologists are sent X-rays to examine without ever finding out the consequences of their diagnoses. They rarely get useful feedback on the judgements. In such cases experiences may result in increasing confidence, but the judgement of experienced radiologists is, if anything, slightly worse than that of colleagues with about 3 years of experience. I’m now in my fifth year of teaching...suggesting my best days are behind me.

Have a great weekend everyone, apologies if I’ve sucked the fun out of Friday with this one.

Best regards,
Neil

Weekly Teaching and Learning Email: The Powers of Binumi (Thanks to Angus and James)

Dear Colleagues,

A huge thank you to James and Angus for putting together the teaching and learning email this week despite all their other commitments.

The Powers of Binumi

Binumi is a wonderful resource for students and teachers to create videos.  There is a huge range of content that is free to use and adjust.  

In primary we get the pupils to use binumi in order to share their learning in a variety of ways e.g. Create a video to share everything you know about the water cycle. Or create a video as a response to a poem.  This list is endless!

Students can then easily make the videos on the drag and drop platform and share their creations easily with their classes. 

If you haven't logged into Binumi recently the platform has been updated and now includes the facility to assign tasks that are curriculum linked!  AWESOME.

Below are some instructions to access the Traill page which has some examples of videos created in Y5.  You can share any of your videos on here also!

If you do want to learn more about how to use Binumi in your classes please speak to Angus or James!

Have a great weekend everyone,

Neil

Weekly Teaching and Learning Email:Using ClassDojo During Tutor Time (Inspired by Miss Faye and 10B)

Dear Colleagues,

I hope everyone is well, it is hard to believe it is almost the end of May. This week the focus is once again on ClassDojo (sorry), and providing some practical tips on how you can reward positive behaviours with your tutor groups and get the day off to a good start.

The latest trend threatening uniform standards

Practical Suggestions

Uniform Checks – On a Monday you can award a point to each student with correct uniform. Miss Faye has done this to great effect and 10B have consistently had excellent standards of uniform. This is particularly useful for challenging the recent trend of black shoes with white soles.

Being On Time – Select a random day each week and award students for being in tutor time before 7:30am. This can help to reduce lates, but there will always be “traffic”!

Award a performance point – If you have tutor activities like a quiz or morning puzzle award a point to the student or students who solve the puzzle. Thunks (A Thunk is a beguilingly simple-looking question about everyday things that stops you in your tracks and helps you start to look at the world in a whole new light) are a great way to start a day and get students brains working. http://www.thunks.co.uk/

Speaking English – Great suggestion from Sarah Bond, if she spots an ESL student speaking English with a fellow student she will reward them with a Dojo point.

Student of the Week – By clicking on your tutor group you can quickly review the scores of your tutees. You can then print off the monster of the student who has performed the best and display this on your tutor notice board.

Listening to instructions – If you have a specific routine that requires students to bring additional equipment e.g. silent reading on a particular day, you can reward students who bring reading books with a Dojo point.

Set a target behaviour for the week – For example, select teamwork as the target, then use the “View Report” function in ClassDojo to check which of your tutees achieved the most teamwork points. This can allow a very singular focus on a behaviour that you may feel is lacking for your tutees.

These are just some ideas to help you think about and further develop your own ‘in-house’ reward system. If you have any other strategies that you have tried and tested please comment on the blog post or reply to this email and I will update the post to include your suggestions.

Have a great weekend.

Regards,
Neil

Weekly Teacing and Learning Email: Pointless

Dear Colleagues,

The teaching and learning email this week is courtesy of Mr Ashley.  The PowerPoint is based on a game show called Pointless which can be downloaded by clicking here.  The aim of Pointless is to score as few points as possible. For example, the idea is that 'I' asked 100 people to name as many 'x' in 100 seconds. Let's say capital cities. The answers the 'people' gave are then collated and kept from the contestants until they submit their answer. So, the more obvious the answer e.g. capital cities - Bangkok, the more points you score; the more obscure the answer e.g. capital cities - Bishkek, the less points you score: the aim of the game.  Also note, if a player fails to submit an answer they score the maximum 100 points for that round.

Click on the link to watch a section of the show (from 3 minutes 39 seconds) which can be used to explain the rules to students.

Pointless

The PowerPoint attached is a version of the game I have created about idioms and idiomatic phrases. Feel free to use it or adapt it as you see fit.

Any feedback or suggestions would be greatly appreciated, please email Mr Ashley or comment below.

Thank you for your excellent idea Mr Ashley and have a nice long weekend everyone.

Best regards,

Neil

Weekly Teaching and Learning Email - Revision Ideas (Thanks to Ashley and Graeme)

Dear Colleagues,

I hope you are all surviving in-spite of the heat. This week the teaching and learning email is focused on revision, perhaps a little late for some subjects at IGCSE and A-Level now, apologies, but with KS3 and 4 assessment week looming it might also be useful for those students.

I’ve included a PowerPoint from Ashley which he developed as a means of getting students to learn new vocabulary. It outlines how to develop mnemonics and can be used to help with revision and learning new or key words. The techniques may also be used as a plenary as well. Thank you Mr Ashley.

Graeme sent the following which looks at effective revision.

Five tips for teachers to pass on to students:

1. Space out your revision
Revise a little bit every day. You will remember more than if you do a marathon revision session. Even if you wait until the night before, you should still space out your revision: take a break to get a snack or have a nap.

2. Mix up your revision
If you have three exams in, say, English, maths, and psychology, it’s best if you revise English for 30 minutes, then maths for 30 minutes, then psychology for 30 minutes and then cycle through again, rather than revising each one for a long time before switching.

3. Stop rereading and highlighting
While reviewing your notes might be valuable if you haven't looked at the material in a while, the two strategies below will provide far greater benefits than simply going over your notes or book over and over again. 

4. Put the material in your own words and connect it to what you know

See if you can translate your notes or book into words that you understand, and then try to think of examples from your own life or from other classes that fit this new concept. For example, if you need to remember that episodic memories are memories with time and space, you could think of examples from your own life such as a recent birthday party.

5. Practise retrieving the information
You don't want to get to the test and find out that you can't actually pull any of that studied material out of your memory. If you practise retrieving the information by asking yourself quiz questions, quizzing with a friend, or using flashcards, you will be able to review those areas that you have trouble recalling. Quizlet provides simple learning tools that let students study anything, for free using the techniques identified previously.

So, to summarise, for the best kind of revision... stop rereading and instead spread out your revision activities (or at least mix up the materials that you need to revise); explain confusing topics to yourself to make sure you understand them; and quiz yourself or ask a friend to quiz you.

Finally, if you're going to cram, you can still have a cramming session with frequent breaks, lots of quizzing and thinking of examples of material instead of just rereading.

Thank you Ashley and Graeme for sharing, I hope everyone can take some ideas from this. Please feel free to comment below if you have anything to add, thanks.  Have a great weekend.

Best regards,

Neil

Weekly Teaching and Learning Email - Written Student Feedback

Dear Colleagues,

My apologies for the delay in sending out the weekly teaching and learning email, I was waiting for the publication of the inserted report from the Education Endowment Foundation, “A Marked Improvement”.  With the upcoming inset on Thursday this could be a good starting point to review departmental marking policies and ways to mark smarter.  One of the main findings of the report was that the burden of marking has grown as teachers highlight errors, then comment on possible improvements and then add future targets.  Each increases the time required to mark just one piece of student work.  This review looks to streamline that process by discussing the most effective marking strategies, however, there is no magic bullet, and each department can discuss the most effective for their needs.

From the review:

“The review examines existing British and international evidence on marking. The evidence is presented in seven chapters, with further details of the research considered in each section in the references at the end:

1. Grading 2. Corrections 3. Thoroughness 4. Pupil responses 5. Creating a dialogue 6. Targets 7. Frequency and speed.

How to use this review

We recognise that teachers are regularly reviewing their marking approaches and engaging in professional conversations with colleagues around best practice. This review aims to provide information and stimulus to support an informed discussion about marking within and between schools. Each section defines an aspect of marking and summarises the existing evidence related to it, as well as highlighting particular areas where there is a need for more research. In addition, a consideration of workload is presented and three or four discussion questions are provided. The review might be used in three ways:

• To check where assumptions underpinning decisions about marking are supported by evidence and to be clear where they are not

• To encourage a discussion of the multiple trade-offs involved in many decisions about marking. Trade-offs might relate to workload, but also relate to other areas, such as the amount of work undertaken by the teacher versus the student, and the speed with which marking is completed versus how detailed feedback is

• To provide information about the wide range of marking strategies that have been studied or used in schools to support further innovation and evaluation.”

I hope this can help reduce the time needed for marking while also improving student attainment.  If anyone has any suggestions or ideas please comment below or email me directly.

Best regards,

Neil

Weekly Teaching and Learning Email - How to add new students to ClassDojo Groups

Dear Colleagues,

Just a quick reminder about adding new students who have recently joined.  I’ve updated and added the relevant students to each year group so you can now add them to your tutor and class groups.

In order to add/remove students you need to click on your Dojo Group in the relevant Year Group and edit it.  See the screenshot below.  Then you can tick and untick the relevant students and save your updated group.  Any questions or problems please email me or come and see me.

Have a great weekend and thank you once again for your help and support with Class Dojo.

Best Regards,

Neil

Weekly Teaching and Learning Email - Questioning and Engagement Strategies

Dear Colleagues,

Your group challenge was to solve the problem of 15% of students not answering a question in lessons.  Thank you for making this an easy email to write as these are all your ideas and suggestions.

Using a ball or cuddly toy or nominate

The teacher can pass a ball/toy to a student after posing a question.  After the teacher is satisfied that the question has been answered the student can then pass the ball/toy or nominate the next student.  This could be linked to snowballing as described by Mr Ashley allowing the next student to build on the first response.

Name Pencils/Lollipops/Random Name Generator

Very similar to the deck of cards idea described by Mr Ashley.  Each of these allows for each student to be asked a question during the lesson.  After a student has answered a question their name could be returned to the box or they can be put down to one side.  I would caution against putting them to one side as the student may think they no longer have to answer a question and as a result ‘switch off’.

I’ve also included a link to an example of a Class Tools random name generator:

http://www.classtools.net/education-games-php/fruit_machine

Use of external rewards

Students could be provided with an incentive such as a Dojo Point, free homework pass (which they can redeem at any point), a Magnum ice cream or any other reward to encourage them to engage and attempt to answer the question.

Use of entry/exit tickets

There is some more information on the blog about exit tickets which you can read by clicking on the link below.  They are an excellent resource and can really help planning for the next lesson as each student must complete the exit ticket before leaving.

http://cpdattraillschool.blogspot.com/2015/01/weekly-teaching-and-learning-email-exit.html

Use of eldest to youngest

A good way to involve all the students.

Thank you for your excellent suggestions, I hope these strategies will encourage greater student involvement and learning from our lessons.

Best regards,

Neil

Weekly Teaching and Learning Email - Starting the lesson. Thank you Mr Ashley

I hope everyone is well at the end of another busy week. The teaching and learning email this week is courtesy of Mr Ashley.

Starting a Lesson; why is it important?

Getting students engaged from the offset can be a challenge; especially if you have to move from classroom to classroom. However, the importance of gaining student interest from the get-go is very important and highly beneficial to the student. It’s very easy to lose 5 minutes here and ten minutes there, which in actual fact leads to a lot of lost learning time with a class. Imagine: 5 minutes 3 times a week over the course of a term – that is around 2 hours – essentially 3 lessons completely gone!

There are many factors that can affect the amount of time we have to teach that are out of our control, but starting a lesson promptly isn’t always one of them. Below are a few suggestions that I would recommend to get students in and interested straight away without losing a vital minute.

1. Anagrams – simply display the key words for the lesson in anagram form. Dojo points for the ones who manage it first.
2. Open ended questions – could be based on an idea or topic you are studying. You could structure the questions to allow all abilities to answer and challenge the more able.
3. Display an image and ask how it could be related to the lesson.                                          a. Also: who would win in a fight? Or who is the best musician? Mozart or Eminem?
4. Ask students to write 3 bullet points to recap what they studied in a previous lesson.
5. Provide students with a crossword/word search which can be put on their desk – no need for a projector and can easily be differentiated.
6. Challenge students with a task as they arrive at your door by meeting them there and speaking to them individually or giving specific instructions to start with immediately. For the more hyperactive, this could simply be to hand out books. For the more able, this could be to think of a question they could ask to challenge the rest of the class and use that as your question at the beginning.

Put simply, there are a million and one ways to get a lesson started and I’m sure you all have new and varied ways of doing it. If you could add any new ideas to the blog then that would be great, as the Go Group are always looking to share and improve ideas.

I hope you find some of these useful, have a nice weekend.
Ashley

Weekly Teaching and Learning Email - How to Edit Groups

Dear Colleagues,

Just a quick reminder about adding new students to your tutor and class groups and how to remove students who have moved on to pastures new. In order to add/remove students you need to click on your Dojo Group in the relevant Year Group and edit it. See the attached screenshot below. Then you can tick and untick the relevant students and save your updated group. Any questions or problems please email me or come and see me.

Have a great week and thank you once again for your help and support with Class Dojo.

Best regards,

Neil

Weekly Teaching and Learning Email - Teacher Comments on Reports. Thank you Praveen

Dear Colleagues,

I hope everyone has managed to survive inspection week. I’m sure you are all looking forward to the weekend.

The focus this week is on report writing. I know this is a little bit late now but it is an excellent website that Praveen was kind enough to share. The website provides some example statements, positive adjectives which can be used and some general tips. It is also very helpful to give provide fresh ideas for your prose.

http://www.kellybear.com/TeacherArticles/TeacherTip67.html

I hope this helps with future reports. Thank you once again for sharing Praveen and have a great weekend everyone.

Best regards,
Neil

Weekly Teaching and Learning Email - CIE Example Candidate Support Booklets

Dear Colleagues,

Hot off the press…example candidate response booklets from CIE. These can help us to see the level of performance needed to achieve key grades and understand exactly what examiners are looking for.

Each booklet contains low, middle and high examples of candidate responses which have been marked by examiners and show how different levels of candidates' performance relate to the subject's curriculum and assessment of objectives. Each response is accompanied by a brief commentary explaining the strengths and weaknesses of the answers.

You can print of answers from the sample booklets and ask the students to identify the key skills used, award marks and feedback and then compare with the examiners comments and grades. This can be particularly useful for revision of topics and approaching it in a different way for students. The latest list of booklets can be found by clicking on the link below:

http://www.cie.org.uk/programmes-and-qualifications/whats-new/teacher-support/exam-preparation-resources/example-candidate-responses/

If you have any ideas or suggestions on how you use these resources please email me or comment on below.  Thank you and have a nice weekend.

Neil

Weekly Teaching and Learning Email - Successful Differentiation Strategies at Traill

Dear Colleagues,

The teaching and learning email this week is thanks to Faye’s hard work. It is a Google Document which contains all the strategies used at our school that were discussed at the CPD session on Differentiation.

Please feel free to edit this document, add comments and ask questions about the different strategies. The aim is to share good practice and learn from each other. To access the Google Document please click on the link below:

Successful Differentiation Strategies at Traill

Thank you once again to Faye for all her hard work putting this together and to everyone for sharing the wonderful ideas you use in lessons every day to help help student learning.

Best regards,

Neil

Weekly Teaching and Learning Email - How to embed video into PowerPoint (Mr Praveen)

Dear Colleagues,

I hope this email finds you well and not too exhausted after another busy half-term. Thanks to Praveen for this week’s quick tip focusing on maximising the use of video within PowerPoint. This means you do not have to switch between YouTube and PowerPoint; relieving the frustrations this can sometimes cause.

The following link explains in detail how to embed a YouTube video into a PowerPoint
http://www.wikihow.com/Embed-YouTube-Flash-Videos-in-Your-PowerPoint-Presentations

The great advantage of this is the video will load within the PowerPoint, however, you NEED A WORKING INTERNET CONNECTION.

This also allows you to have definitions, learning objectives, questions or a focus on the slide while the video is playing (see screenshot below). Therefore, there is a constant reference for students so the quality of answers should improve.

If anyone has any comments, suggestions or improvements please email me or post them on the CPD blog post. Thank you once again to Mr Praveen for sharing this handy tip and have a great break everyone.

Best regards,

Neil

Weekly Teaching and Learning Email - Plickers

Dear Colleagues,

Just a quick post to introduce you to something called Plickers. Plickers is a powerfully simple tool that lets teachers collect real-time formative assessment data without the need for student devices. To find out more click on Plickers.  It can be used from Year 1 right up to Year 13.

There is one condition, you need a smartphone that can run android or IOS apps. I’m afraid that is the only catch.

I will run a short session on Monday 15th February about how to setup and run Plickers in your classroom from 2:20pm-2:30pm in B44 for anyone who is interested.

Best regards,

Neil

Weekly Teaching and Learning Email - AEN Training Needs Survey from James and Faye

Good morning all,

This week we would like to request that you take a few minutes out of your day to complete the AEN training needs analysis Google Form (the link is below).

The aim of this is to collect ideas upon which to focus an upcoming CPD session. We will be running the CPD session based around differentiation, especially focusing on provision for AEN students. For secondary staff this will run on Monday the 8th of February, and for primary staff we will be running a similar session but more tailored to a primary setting later in the term.

By completing the form, which is completely anonymous, you will be helping us to ensure that the CPD session is beneficial to you and we hope to provide practical strategies which you can adapt for your own classes.

Google form:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1FF77EExGKq8GnGo_fe8fsisQw4Bbr42CGXTziXN1G0g/viewform?usp=send_form

Many thanks and enjoy the weekend!

James and Faye