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Guidance, ideas and examples to support schools in developing their curriculum, pedagogy, enrichment and support for more able learners, within a whole-school context of cognitively challenging learning for all. Includes ideas to support curriculum development, and practical examples, resources and ideas to try in the classroom. Popular topics include: curriculum development, enrichment, independent learning, questioning, oracy, resilience, aspirations, assessment, feedback, metacognition, and critical thinking.

 

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3 key ingredients for cognitive challenge
Posted By Ann McCarthy, 17 November 2020
Dr Ann McCarthy, NACE Associate and co-author of NACE’s new publication “Cognitive challenge: principles into practice”.
 
When you’re planning a lesson, are your first thoughts about content, resources and activities, or do you begin by thinking about learning and cognitive challenge? How often do you consider lessons from the viewpoint of your more able pupils? Highly able pupils often seek out cognitively challenging work and can become distressed or disengaged if they are set tasks which are constantly too easy.
 
NACE’s new research publication, “Cognitive challenge: principles into practice”, marks the first phase in our “Making Space for Able Learners” project. Developed in partnership with NACE Challenge Award-accredited schools, the research examines the impact of cognitive challenge in current school practice against a backdrop of relevant research.

What do we mean by ‘cognitive challenge’?

Cognitive challenge can be summarised as an approach to curriculum and pedagogy which focuses on optimising the engagement, learning and achievement of highly able children. The term is used by NACE to describe how learners become able to understand and form complex and abstract ideas and solve problems. Cognitive challenge prompts and stimulates extended and strategic thinking, as well as analytical and evaluative processes.
 
To provide highly able pupils with the degree of challenge that will allow them to flourish, we need to build our planning and practice on a solid foundation.
 
This involves understanding both the nature of our pupils as learners and the learning opportunities we’re providing. When we use “challenge” as a routine, learning will be extended at specific times on specific topics – which has useful but limited benefit. However, by strategically building cognitive challenge into your teaching, pupils’ learning expertise, their appetite for learning and their wellbeing will all improve.
 

What does this look like in practice?

The research identified three core areas:

1. Design and management of cognitively challenging learning opportunities 

In the most successful “cognitive challenge” schools, leaders have a clear vision and ambition for pupils, which explicitly reflects an understanding of teaching more able pupils in different contexts and the wider benefits of this for all pupils. This vision is implemented consistently across the school. All teachers engage with the culture and promote it in their own classrooms, involving pupils in their own learning. When you walk into any classroom in the school, pupils are working to the same model and expectation, with a shared understanding of what they need to do.
 
Pupils are able to take control of their learning and become more self-regulatory in their behaviours and increasingly autonomous in their learning. Through intentional and well-planned management of teaching and learning, children move from being recipients in the learning environment to effective learners who can call on the resources and challenges presented. They understand more about their own learning and develop their curiosity and creativity by extending and deepening their understanding and knowledge.

2. Rich and extended talk and cognitive discourse to support cognitive challenge 

The importance of questions and questioning in effective learning is well understood, but the importance of depth and complexity of questioning is perhaps less so. When you plan purposeful, stimulating and probing questions, it gives pupils the freedom to develop their thought processes and challenge, engage and deepen their understanding. Initially the teacher may ask questions, but through modelling high-order questioning techniques, pupils in turn can ask questions which expose new ways of thinking.
 
This so-called “dialogic teaching” frames teaching and learning within the perspective of pupils and enhances learning by encouraging children to develop their thinking and use their understanding to support their learning. Initially, pupils might use the knowledge the teacher has given them, but when they’re shown how to use classroom discourse effectively, they’ll start to work alone, with others or with the teacher to extend their repertoire.
 
By using an enquiry-orientated approach, you can more actively engage children in the production of meaning and acquisition of new knowledge and your classroom will become a more interactive and language-rich learning domain where children can increase their fluency, retrieval and application of knowledge.

3. Curriculum organisation and design

How can you ensure your curriculum is organised to allow cognitive challenge for more able pupils? You need to consider:
  • What is planned for the students
  • What is delivered to the students
  • What the students experience
Schools with a high-quality curriculum for cognitive challenge use agreed teaching approaches and a whole-school model for teaching and learning. Teachers expertly and consistently utilise key features relating to learning preferences, knowledge acquisition and memory.
 
Planning a curriculum for more able pupils means providing a clear direction for their learning journey. It’s necessary to think beyond individual subjects, assessment systems, pedagogy and extracurricular opportunities, and to look more deeply at the ways in which these link together for the benefit of your pupils. If teachers can understand and deliver this curriculum using their subject knowledge and pedagogical skills, and if your school can successfully make learning visible to pupils, you’ll be able to move from well-practised routines to highly successful and challenging learning experiences.

Taking it further…

If we’re going to move beyond the traditional monologic and didactic models of teaching, we need to recast the role of teacher as a facilitator of learning within a supportive learning environment. For more able pupils this can be taken a step further. If you can build cognitive challenge into your curriculum and the way you manage learning, and support this with a language-rich classroom, the entire nature of teaching and learning can change. Your highly able pupils will become increasingly autonomous and more self-reliant. They’ll become masters of their learning as they gain a deeper understanding of the subject matter. You can then extend your role even further, from learning facilitator to “learner activator”.
 
This blog post is based on an article originally written for and published by Teach Primary magazine – read the full version here.
 

Additional reading and support:

Tags:  cognitive challenge  creativity  critical thinking  curriculum  independent learning  metacognition  mindset  oracy  pedagogy  problem-solving  questioning  research  student voice 

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The future of education and data: 3 key questions
Posted By Chris Yapp, 30 September 2020
Dr Chris Yapp, NACE Patron
 
When thinking about the future of any part of the economy and society, most futurists will start by looking back. The reason for this is quite simple. First, it is important to understand the journey to where we are now, or where we think we are. Second, it helps us focus on past predictions about what would happen that did not and why. Finally, it helps understand if the sector being considered has taken full advantage of long-term trends and that trend has run out of steam, or still has a while to go.
 
Much hype in the tech sector over the last decade and more has been around “big data”. Since the exam chaos of the summer, there has been an increased interest in alternatives to the current systems of assessment and certifications. One topic, learning analytics, has been growing in interest in my email and social media conversations since lockdown. This is the “big data” in education movement in one of its manifestations.
 
Here, I want to look at the wider issues of data in education by contrasting my school years (the 1960s) with today.
 
Try this as a little exercise. Think of a year between 1990 and 2015. Now choose a F1 Grand Prix race. Then Google “winner 1997 Monaco Grand Prix” with your chosen years and race substituted for mine. In less than a minute from start to finish you can get the answer.
 
Now back in the 1960s, maybe some people would have had sports annuals and could look the answer up. Maybe you had a racing nut among your friends who would know the answer. If not, a trip to a local library which may or may not have had a book with the answer, during opening hours. Most people would have given up.
 
Note: it does not matter whether you are interested or expert in F1; the answer is available on demand.
 
So, the first question I want to pose to educationalists is this:
 

“How has what is taught, how it is taught and assessed changed to take advantage of the widespread availability of data on demand?”

 
This growth of availability also brings new challenges.
 
First, different cultures have different answers to the same questions. Try asking Siri who invented television. The Americans claim Philo Farnsworth. As you enter Helensburgh in the West Coast of Scotland the welcome sign says, “Birthplace of John Logie Baird, inventor of television”. Who is correct?
 
Add to this various conspiracy theories around COVID-19, vaccines, 5G and many more issues: the need for information literacy among teachers and pupils is clear if we are to benefit and minimise risk over this vast treasure trove of data.
 
So, my second question is this:
 

“Where in the school curriculum is this challenge addressed to ensure our youngsters have the skills to navigate the data landscape?”

 
If we try a more complex question, the possibilities become apparent. Jane Austen’s garden at Chawton House was laid out last time I visited using only plants that were known in England while she was alive. “What flowers were introduced into the UK during the life of Jane Austen?” would have been a PhD thesis back in the 1960s.
 
In an area of your own interest, think of a similar question when you have 30 minutes spare and research it online. Having worked in the industry for decades, it is amazing still to be astonished at what is available now – with all the necessary caveats about quality.
 
It is in this last area – quality of information – that I think support for the most able learners has the most potential. Rather than focus on teaching them against a fixed syllabus, there is potential for giving them learning challenges and developing their research capabilities and skills to discriminate among the contested claims in the information they can discover for themselves.
 
If interested, spend half an hour looking at the history of flight online. It is an extraordinary tale from ancient times, not just a story of the 20th century and the Wright brothers.
 
Online learning is not the same as online teaching.
 
Over 20 years ago I remember a young lad, who was a troubled individual, researching and building a history of boxing project of his own volition. His pride in demonstrating what he had discovered for himself and his desire to articulate and share his story changed his teacher’s perceptions of him.
 
So, here is my third question – and challenge – for you, dear reader:
 

“How can schools develop in the 2020s so that all our children have the skills to use the avalanche of data available on demand to stretch their imagination, creativity and learning?”

 
Under this there are many questions that need to be addressed, around curriculum, assessment, resources, inclusion, and importantly professional development.
 
In my talk at NACE’s upcoming Leadership Conference (16-20 November 2020) I will be developing this and other themes to encourage us all to imagine what schooling needs to be post-pandemic to tackle the challenges we all face as parents, teachers and citizens.
 
Join the conversation… NACE patron Dr Chris Yapp will lead a session at NACE’s 2020 Leadership Conference exploring how schools can optimise the use of digital technologies to extend, enrich and develop independent pursuit of learning. View the full conference programme.

Tags:  CEIAG  CPD  curriculum  independent learning  technology 

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Creativity in education: “Keep saying it, one day they’ll listen”
Posted By Chris Yapp, 08 September 2020

Dr Chris Yapp, NACE Patron

This past month has been marked for me by the death of two major influencers on my thinking and life over 30 years. Lord Harry Renwick died from COVID-related complications and Sir Ken Robinson from cancer.

Harry was a past Chairman of the British Dyslexia Association, a lifelong passion, and an early supporter of the societal and economic good that computing could bring. He was generous to me with his time and opened many doors in parliament, but also outside. Importantly, he led me to the work of Thomas G West. I still have a signed copy of “In the Mind’s Eye” (first edition) on my shelf. I have been delighted to discover that there is a new edition now available.

Tom’s work in the USA on visual giftedness ought to be as influential and well-known as Howard Gardner’s books. His evidence on visual thinking and creativity in science and mathematics made sense of various anecdotes I had collected over the years but could not make coherent.

That is where the link with Sir Ken Robinson comes in. I did not know him well; we met five times over around 15 years, the last time being a decade ago. I would like to add my tribute to him and address a criticism of his thinking that has been raised in many of the otherwise warm obituaries and tributes to a life well-lived.

I followed Ken Robinson speaking at a conference around 1995. My advice to anyone who would listen was, “Do not accept an invitation to speak after Ken Robinson.” At that time the usual reaction was, “Who is he?” I don’t think there is anyone connected with education now – since his famous TED lecture "Do schools kill creativity?" – who would ask that. He was a brilliant communicator, of that there is no doubt, but I want to pay tribute to him outside the podium.

He was as engaging and fun away from the speaker platform as he was on it. He was an avid networker who loved to connect people who he thought would find each other stimulating company. His network of contacts was truly global. An educator I much admire, Richard Gerver, who was mentored by Sir Ken, has written a very personal tribute here. It is well worth a read.

1999 was the 40th anniversary of a famous speech by C P Snow, “The Two Cultures”. I gave a talk at a conference on the “Renaissance of Learning”. After leaving the platform Ken came up to me. He wanted to talk about one slide. I had argued that there was a false dichotomy in education policy in the UK but also internationally, that the arts were creative, and engineering was a discipline. Drawing on C P Snow’s ideas I suggested that you could not be a great engineer if you were not creative or a good artist without discipline. I had given examples of “seeing” the mathematics as an aesthetic experience. Ken wanted the reference, which was to Tom West’s work. His advice to me was simple: “Keep saying it, one day they’ll listen.”

Over the years I have been contacted by people around the world on email or social media, where the opening line has been: “I met Sir Ken at a conference and he suggested I look you up. He said you’d been thinking about this for years.”

None of the exchanges that followed have ever been with timewasters. I think the last was around five years ago, five years after we last spoke. He used his global celebrity status to bring like minds together. He was far humbler and more cautious than the public speaker image may project.

The criticism I want to address is this: that he did not appreciate creativity in science and maths. In my opinion, for what it’s worth, he avoided the celebrity status trap of pontificating on things that he had little mastery of. I think he was right to do so.

Of course, he was a passionate about the arts, but he had a genuine interest in creativity in all its forms. The people he pointed in my direction were engaging with his ideas in physics, chemistry, mathematics and many more disciplines.

He will be much missed as an inspiration, but he has left a legacy of a life lived well.

If you are passionate about creativity in education, I can pay no finer tribute to Sir Ken than his own words to me: “Keep saying it, one day they’ll listen.”

About the author

NACE patron Dr Chris Yapp is an independent consultant specialising in innovation and future thinking. He has 30 years’ experience in the ICT industry, with a specialisation in the strategic impact of ICT on the public sector, creative industries, digital inclusion and social enterprises. With a longstanding interest in the future of education, he has written and lectured extensively on the challenges of personalised learning, lifelong learning, educational transformation and the knowledge economy.

Join Chris at this year’s NACE Leadership Conference (16-20 November) for a session exploring the use of learning technologies to extend and enrich learning.
View the conference programme.

Tags:  arts  collaboration  creativity  critical thinking  curriculum  math  myths and misconceptions  science 

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Beyond the “recovery curriculum”: moving forward with secondary teaching and learning
Posted By Neil Jones, 07 September 2020
Neil Jones, NACE Associate
 
This article was originally published in our “beyond recovery” resource pack. View the original version here.
 
In the context of “recovering” teaching and learning at secondary level, I want to suggest that the principles of working with the most able learners remain the same. The crisis – as crises do – has provoked polarised responses: Tiggerish optimism about opportunities to change the way education works on the one hand; Eeyorish despair on the other, doubting whether anything can be recovered during or after this hiatus.
 
There is no doubt that this crisis has brought disasters with it for young people and their secondary education. But crises reveal, in a sharp and heightened way, what is already the case. It remains the case that schools need:
  1. To include the most able students explicitly in their thinking, for those students’ benefit and the benefit of all;
  2. To use current technology (the word “new” gives away how slow we can be), intelligently and responsively, to enable excellent work from the most able students, independently and collaboratively;
  3. To remember that teaching and learning, with the most able and with all students, is fundamentally a human relationship, not a consumer transaction.
Below are some suggestions that you may already be considering as you gear up to get back into the secondary classroom.

1. Take “accelerated learning” seriously – but don’t use it as “cramming”.

Tony Breslin, in the draft preface of his forthcoming book Lessons from Lockdown: the educational legacy of COVID-19 (Routledge, to be published end of 2020 / beginning of 2021), writes: "from a societal and educational standpoint, post-virus rehabilitation is not about how quickly we can get back to where we were. Nor is it about reconstituting our schools in the image of ‘crammer’ colleges, obsessed by catch-up and curriculum recovery, as if all the last few months have left us with is a shortcoming in knowledge and a loss of coverage." [Emphasis mine]
 
This is an important point, worth serious reflection. Teachers and most parents will understandably be anxious to make up for lost time and lost learning, particularly those whose children and students are at the pinch points of transition between key stages. Breslin continues: "Rather, it is about how far we can travel in light of our shared experience, and the different educational and training needs that will surely manifest themselves in the years ahead. It is also about acknowledging those longstanding shortcomings at the heart of our schooling and education systems, around persistent inequalities of outcome, around the need to build inclusion and attainment alongside each other rather than posing them as different and sometimes conflicting opposites, and around attending to the wellbeing of children, their families and all who support their learning – as if we could build a sustainable education system without doing this." [Emphases mine]

Most teachers would agree, surely, with the wisdom here. “Cramming” or force-feeding our students course content as if we were fattening geese, would be horribly stressful, and pedagogically ineffective in the long term. Yet there is an opportunity for us, instead of “cramming”, to take accelerated learning very seriously indeed. 

In his article exploring current priorities and opportunities for primary schools, NACE Associate Dr Keith Watson highlights Mary Myatt’s insistence on professionals paring back course content to the essentials. He is, of course, right to point out the dangers of narrowing the curriculum even further. As an English teacher, I understand why the GCSE exam boards have elected to remove poetry from the exams, but it chills my blood to think of the lost potential for thought, feeling and understanding that this represents – particularly for our more able students. 

I do wonder, though, whether we now have an opportunity to introduce just a little more urgency – but not panic – into teaching and learning. Accelerated learning strategies aim to achieve both inclusion and attainment in learning, in the ways that NACE has advocated for so many years:  help your most able students to go as far and fast as they can;  teach to the top, support from the bottom, and so on. This approach should still be used; we will just have to use it on less material. Don’t over-rehearse, i.e. don’t plan to teach new Year 10 students six months of missed Year 9 course content first. Do over-learn, with regular, no-stakes tests to embed knowledge and build confidence and mastery. Crucially, teach what needs to be taught now and scaffold knowledge and skills “just in time.” 

A document that has garnered interest, originating from the US, is the Learning Acceleration Guide published by TNTP. Like anything, you’ll not want to swallow it wholesale, but it does give a range of sensible suggestions, including those set out above. The main thrust is that we should not panic about teaching new material, as if the students will never be ready for it. Instead, teaching new and necessary material, if scaffolded, can prompt memory of previous learning and help students “catch up” by stealth, rather than by “remedial action” that brings their learning up to speed to where they should have been, rather than where they could be now. This is clearly a leading attribute of the challenging classroom at any time in history, pre- or post-COVID. 

2. Be bold with remote learning – “homework” could be transformed.

You may have found yourself cursing Zoom, Loom, Vidyard, Microsoft Teams or Google Classroom at several stages over lockdown; or you may have been excited to learn how to use them, because you had to. Most likely, like me, you felt both. But I can’t complain any longer that I don’t have time to learn about “flipped learning”. For those students with access to a laptop, we should continue to experiment with how far we can enable students to work independently and with each other. Again, this is an opportunity for us to make a virtue of necessity.
 
At our school, and I’m sure at yours, our departments have put in place planning and resources that can be both taught in the classroom and remotely. A lot of labour has been put into producing packs of work. For the more able students, however, we mustn’t stop offering exciting invitations to push their interest further. 

For the last two years, I’ve been able to group the most able students by subject and year cohort and set them up to research and write up their own projects, guided by their interest. I have been impressed and inspired by how well I could trust students to be “entrepreneurial” in their independent work, supported pretty minimally by caring subject specialists, but a lot by each other. We use Microsoft Teams to enable this, and I would point you to Amy Clark’s blog post on this topic for further possibilities in using Teams. See too, the recorded NACE webinar on using technological platforms to develop independence (member login required).

Our students, in these times and in all times, should be putting in at least as much creative labour as their teachers. A remarkable result of more enforced student independence is how much more we can trust them to adapt, re-combine and invent new responses to the information and tasks we give them. Many students, at all key stages, are adept at using technology in a way that most of their teachers haven’t been.

Consider, too, how you can use technology to gather student voice so that you know how your most able students are faring; and even better, garner suggestions from them of how they would like to extend the curriculum, so that they feel they have a say in the direction of educational travel. As always, these students’ insights into their experiences of teaching and learning bring us priceless information on what’s going well and what’s not. Online platforms make this process so much easier now.

3. “Humanity first” – but that doesn’t necessarily mean “teaching second”.

Barry Carpenter’s work on the very notion of a “recovery curriculum” has received widespread coverage among school leaders and teachers. At one stage in his talk for the Chartered College of Teaching, Carpenter urged teachers to “walk in with your humanity first, and your teaching skills second.” In the context of the therapeutic, wellbeing-centred vision for recovery from the shocks and anxieties of the last year, this clearly makes sense.  With more able students in mind, however, and especially the exceptionally able students we teach, we must remember that study is an intrinsic part of their humanity: they are one and the same thing.

Again, then, crisis reveals what is already present. Our more able students will still need to know, in their relationships with their teachers and with supportive peers, that it is cool to be clever, interesting to be interested, exciting to be excited by the discoveries involved in learning. They do not need to be glum, or despair that they have stopped learning, because we can be confident that we are always learning if we have a mind to, and seek – as Dr Matthew Williams advocates – to turn work into study.

Those interesting questions that we pose; that palpable delight in our own subject interest; those personalised phrases of praise; the hints and foretastes of exciting future study and work – all those confident connection-points with our more able students are always vital, and continue to be so as we all move forward into an uncertain “first term back”. I found at the end of the summer term, teaching small bubble-groups of sixth formers, that they were desperate to talk and explore what was going on. So was I! This is clearly no surprise. The teaching skill required here will be to move between the personal and the abstract, as it always is in pedagogy worth the name. 

Our most able students often think and feel things at a greater intensity. Managing this intensity with the general intensity of the overall experience of socially distanced schooling will take skill and humanity – but we as teachers are not in uncharted waters here: it is what we do under normal circumstances, too.   

Join the conversation: NACE member meetup, 10 September 2020

Join secondary leaders and practitioners from across the country on 10 September for an online NACE member meetup exploring approaches to the recovery curriculum and beyond. The session will open with a presentation from NACE Associate Neil Jones, followed by a chance to share approaches and ideas with peers, reflecting on some of the challenges and opportunities outlined above. Find out more and book your place.
 
Not yet a NACE member? Starting at just £95 +VAT per year, NACE membership is available for schools (covering all staff), SCITT providers, TSAs, trusts and clusters. Bringing together school leaders and practitioners across England, Wales and internationally, our members have access to advice, practical resources and CPD to support the review and improvement of provision for more able learners within a context of challenge and high standards for all. Learn more and join today.

Tags:  collaboration  curriculum  independent learning  KS3  KS4  lockdown  remote learning  technology 

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Beyond the “recovery curriculum”: 10 dos and don’ts for primary schools
Posted By Keith Watson FCCT, 07 September 2020
Dr Keith Watson, NACE Associate
 
This article was originally published in our “beyond recovery” resource pack. View the original version here.
 
Whilst primary schools share some of the general issues faced by all phases following the pandemic, there are specific aspects that need to considered for more able primary pupils. Research on the impact of the pandemic is still in its infancy and inevitably still speculative; while other catastrophic events such as the earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand, are referred to, the pandemic is on a far greater scale and the full impact will take time to emerge.
 
What, at this stage, should primary school leaders and practitioners focus on to ensure more able learners’ needs are met?

1. Do: focus on rebuilding relationships

When pupils return to school the sense of community will need to be re-established and relationships will be central to this process. Pupils will need to feel safe and secure in school and the return to routines and robust systems will help with this. Not all more able pupils will have had the same experience both in terms of learning and home life. As always, creating a supportive learning environment will be vital.

2. Do: provide opportunities for reflection and rediscovery

All pupils need the opportunity to tell their lockdown stories and more able pupils should be encouraged to do so using their talents – whether written, artistically, through dance or other means. How best can they express their feelings over what has happened? This will allow them to come to terms with their experiences through reflection but also allow thoughts to turn positively to the future. In this sense they will be able to rediscover themselves and focus on their hopes for the future.

3. Do: use positive language

A key question (as they sing in Hamilton) is “What did I miss?” What are the gaps in learning and what is the school plan for transitioning back into learning generally and then with specific groups? We need to be careful of negative language; even terms like “catch up” and “recovery” risk suggesting we will never make up for lost time. Despite the challenge, we need to show our pupils and parents how positive we are as teachers about their future. 

4. Do: find out where your pupils are

Each school will want some form of baseline assessment early in the year, whether using tests or more informal methods. Be ready to reassure more able pupils who perhaps do not achieve their normal very high scores on any testing. For more able pupils a mature dialogue should happen using pupil self-assessment alongside any data collected. Of course, each child is different and it is crucial that teachers know the individual needs of the pupils. 

5. Don’t: overlook the more able

There is a danger here of the unintended consequence. The priority is likely to be given to pupils who have fallen even further below national expectation and this could lead to teachers having to divert even more time, energy and focus to these pupils at the expense of giving attention to more able pupils who may be deemed not to be a priority. More able pupils must not be neglected in this way due to assumptions that they are “fine” in terms of emotions and learning. They need to be engaged in purposeful learning and challenged as always.

6. Don’t: narrow your curriculum

Mary Myatt has previously talked of the “disciplined pursuit of doing less” and the pandemic is leading to consideration of the essential curriculum content that needs to be learned now. It may force schools to be even clearer on key learning, but we need to be careful of even greater narrowing of the curriculum, especially to test criteria. The spectre of “measurement-driven instruction” is always with us, particularly for Year 6.

7. Do: focus on building learners’ confidence

Pupils need to be settled and ready for learning, but this is often achieved through purposeful tasks. Providing more able pupils with the chance to work successfully on their favourite subjects as soon as possible can build confidence. It may be that pupils who are able across the curriculum have subjects where they fear having fallen behind more than in others. Perhaps they are very strong in both English and maths but worry about not excelling in the latter, and therefore feel concerned that they have fallen behind. It is important to gauge their feelings across the curriculum, perhaps through them RAG rating their confidence; this could then lead to individual dialogue between teacher and pupil regarding how to rebuild confidence or revisit areas where they perceive the learning is weaker. Learning is never linear; this needs to be acknowledged and pupils reassured.

8. Do: review your writing plan for the year

Teachers will be mindful of the challenges of achieving the criteria for greater depth, particularly in relation to the writing. It will be important to review the normal writing plan for the year to see that the key tasks are still appropriate and timed correctly. What does the writing journey look like throughout the year to achieve greater depth and will the normal milestones be compromised? The opportunity to experiment with their writing is essential for more able pupils, so when will this happen? Teachers in all year groups must not panic about the demanding standards needed, but instead remember they have the year to help their pupils achieve those standards, even if current attainment has dipped. 

9. Do: review and adapt teaching and learning methods

The methods of teaching more able pupils will also have to be considered in the changed learning environment. Collaborative group work may be more challenging with pupils often sitting in rows and also having less close proximity to their teacher. A group of more able pupils crouched around sugar paper designing the best science experiment since the days of Newton may not currently be possible. But dialogue remains vital and time still needs to be made for it despite restrictions on classroom operations.

10. Do: remain optimistic and ambitious

We must remain optimistic for our more able pupils. We must not shy away from the opportunities to go beyond the curriculum to encourage and develop talents. More able pupils need to have the space to show themselves at their best. The primary curriculum provides so many opportunities for more able pupils to push the boundaries in the learning beyond the narrow confines of subject areas. This can be energising. The London School of Music and Dramatic Arts (LAMDA) proudly declares its students to be:
  • Creators       
  • Innovators   
  • Collaborators
  • Storytellers 
  • Engineers   
  • Artists   
  • Actors
We can also add athletes and many more to this list. More able pupils need to develop their metacognition and seeing themselves in some of these roles can inspire and motivate them. Remember though, creativity can’t be taught in a vacuum. It needs content so that the creativity can be encouraged.
 
Given that the “recovery curriculum” may spend a lot of time re-establishing a mental health equilibrium and helping those with large gaps in knowledge to “catch up”, it may be that those more able pupils who are ready for it can be given license by teachers to experiment more with the curriculum, have more independence and get to apply their learning more widely.
 
Not merely recovering, but rebounding and reigniting with energy, vigour and a celebration of talents.

Join the conversation: NACE member meetup, 15 September 2020

Join primary leaders and practitioners from across the country on 15 September for an online NACE member meetup exploring approaches to the recovery curriculum and beyond. The session will open with a presentation from NACE Associate Dr Keith Watson, followed by a chance to share approaches and ideas with peers, reflecting on some of the challenges and opportunities outlined above. Find out more and book your place.
 
Not yet a NACE member? Starting at just £95 +VAT and covering all staff in your school, NACE membership offers year-round access to exclusive resources and expert guidance, flexible CPD and networking opportunities. Membership also available for SCITTs, TSAs, trusts and clusters. Learn more and join today. 

Tags:  assessment  confidence  curriculum  feedback  KS1  KS2  leadership  lockdown  metacognition  resilience  wellbeing 

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Recovery, reassurance, remarkable students
Posted By Robert Massey, 01 September 2020
Robert Massey, author, teacher and lead for high-attaining students, shares his “three Rs” for the return to school.
 
The ‘new normal’ is full of contradictions. As teachers and students prepare to return to schools this September, we face a unique set of challenges. Much will be new, but some of what we do will look familiar and reassuring; a lot will be strange as we navigate physical barriers such as one-way systems and Perspex screens and the technological challenges of virtual meetings, but at the heart of what we do will be lessons and learning. Same old, same old.
 
Some schools have used the work of Barry Carpenter on a ‘recovery curriculum’ as a helpful way of thinking about the new term ahead, and I hope that the points which follow about language, mapping and high expectations are useful as suggestions towards a way of thinking about what the ‘new normal’ might mean.

Recovery: words matter

The language which schools and teachers use in the first term back will be vital in setting the tone for learning. It will be so tempting to resort to good old standby phrases used in the past following, for example, periods of pupil illness or teacher absence.
 
“We’ve got tons to catch up on!”
“We’ve missed months of learning since March.”
“You’ve had all this lockdown time to get the work I set you done.”
 
This is unhelpful for many reasons. It will serve to heighten anxiety among students, some of whom will already be worried about what they’ve missed, and more nervous than they may let on about what the future may hold. It will imply that responsibility for the ‘lost learning’ somehow rests with them. It will depersonalise the classroom experience: we’re all in this together, and we’re all ‘behind’.
 
Heads and senior leadership teams can take a lead here by sanitising such language from the classroom, and by sharing more positive phrases with parents. A recovery curriculum might be framed around metaphors of building:
 
“I’m just checking that we have strong foundations of learning in biology by revisiting cell structure.”
“Now we’re reinforcing the use of key terms in poetry that we’ve used before.”
“How as a class can we build upon last year’s work on Tudor monarchy as we move on to look at revolution and civil war?”
 

Reassurance: mapping the learning journey

This is not mere window dressing and pretty words. I’m going to be spending time with Year 9 mapping where they are as learners. If I don’t know where they are now, I can’t set out a learning journey for this term, still less beyond. Each pupil will need individual reassurance that I know where they are and where they can get to. This will take time and will mean less time to deliver content, but that is a sacrifice worth making this term of all terms. Reassurance, reassurance, reassurance is what I’ll be offering to my Year 13s faced with the traditional UCAS term on top of uncertain A-level assessment outcomes. Small steps will be my building blocks, starting from the here and now rather than what might have been, with big topics broken down into smaller and accessible chunks of learning which can be more easily monitored and supported should lockdown return.
 
A recovery curriculum is a joined-up piece of collective thinking shared across a school. There has never been a greater need for departments to look closely at how they link with others. Pupils and parents will be confounded if, to take a very simple example, the English department puts in effort to focus on the wellbeing of students by revisiting key skills and encouraging the articulation of doubts and fears about the current situation, while in maths the emphasis is immediately on tests just before half term and ‘filling in gaps’ missed in past months.  

 

  • How will your department work together to share approaches to recovery and reassurance?
  • How will your faculty and school build shared attitudes and actions to support pupils’ return?

Remarkable students

I’m therefore emphasising for September the importance of pupil wellbeing and the reassurance of parents and colleagues. This does not mean a lowering of expectations. As children learn from our modelled attitudes and actions that the ‘new normal’ is more normal than new, they will understand that it is natural for us as teachers to set the bar of learning high, just as we used to do. 
 
We are not revisiting, rebuilding and reinforcing past learning in order to stand still and stagnate, but rather are doing so as a springboard for the skills and content still to come. Think of it as recovery revision ready for new challenges ahead. 
 
If I am teaching to the top with my Year 10s this term, as I hope I am, I will be doing them no favours if I simplify core content or fail to stretch them in discussion. The challenge for me will be to do this alongside the mapping and reassurance they need. So:

 

  • I’m building in more signposting: this is where we are, and the next three weeks will look like this. 
  • I’m increasing ‘hang back’ time as the lesson ends, so that students can catch me or I can speak to them individually.
  • I’m reviving a pre-lockdown good habit of three Friday phone calls home to spread the message of reassurance, praise and high expectations.

Summary

The three aims stated above will need careful balancing and blending. Context is everything, and you know your students better than anyone else, so you can judge and provide the scaffolding and support needed for each class and each pupil. This will be a rollercoaster recovery term, where the language we use to map our learning journeys will matter a lot. Equally, the one-to-one reassurance we offer has never been more important. This recovery curriculum needs to remain ambitious, with teachers teaching to the top – combined with a culture of high expectations continuing from pre-lockdown days. Remarkable teachers will model this curriculum for our remarkable students.
 

Further reading:

 
Robert Massey is the author of From Able to Remarkable: Help your students become expert learners (Crown House Publishing, 2019). For a 20% discount when purchasing this or other Crown House publications, log in to view our current member offers.
 
Join the conversation… at our online member meetups on 10 September (secondary) and 15 September (primary).

Tags:  confidence  curriculum  leadership  lockdown  parents and carers  resilience  retrieval  wellbeing 

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Lessons from lockdown: metacognition, remote learning and support for parents
Posted By Christabel Shepherd, 11 June 2020

Christabel Shepherd, NACE Associate and Trustee, and Executive Headteacher of Bradford’s Copthorne and Holybrook Primary Schools

Over the past few months, I have learnt a great deal about myself and, more importantly, about the conditions which are central to the effective education of the children in our schools.

In the two primary schools that I lead, home-learning during this crisis has taken two forms: printed packs of differentiated work for the core and wider curriculum (a mixture of practise, retrieval and application, as well as some new learning); and remote learning via the various sites and activities to which we have directed children (these include Mathletics, Times Tables Rockstars, White Rose Maths Hub, Accelerated Reader etc.). All of this has been supported with regular telephone check-ins with pupils and their parents/carers. The results in terms of pupil engagement have been mixed and, in turn, the impact on pupil progress is difficult to measure.

All good teachers know their children. They can spot immediately when a child has “zoned out”; one whose stress levels are increasing because they clearly don’t understand; the more able learner who is afraid to put pen to paper for fear of the work being incorrect or imperfect; or the student who is frustrated or bored due to insufficient challenge.

When children are at home, we are not there to pick up on these signals and support them appropriately, and it is not easy to spot these signs on a computer screen. Without this, it is more difficult to identify misconceptions and address them effectively and before they become ingrained; it is nigh on impossible to remind children to think back to the strategies they have been taught in order to choose the most effective one or to think about which “learning muscles” they will need to use for a task; it is much harder to encourage children to attempt a challenge and face possible failure without the culture of supported risk that we have so skilfully developed in our classrooms. Never has the need for that human interaction between teachers and pupils been so stark.

So, what can we do now to mitigate this and contingency plan for the future?

Metacognition and self-regulation

For months prior to the COVID-19 crisis, metacognition and self-regulation strategies had started to become a key focus for many schools. Much of what many excellent teachers already do by default has been given a name and its importance highlighted by the findings of evidence-based research. This has been widely shared through, for example, the work of the EEF, with more and more teachers beginning to see and understand the benefits of building these strategies into their everyday work.

Had this been going on for longer and such learning behaviours been entrenched in our children, I feel that the negative effects of lockdown would have been lessened. As it is, I feel that much more work needs to be done in this area. Many of our learners – especially in primary schools – are only at the start of their “learning how to learn” journey, so do not yet understand or have embedded the key metacognitive or self-regulation skills, nor in turn the levels of intrinsic motivation to enable them deal effectively with home learning. Whereas at school, we would have been praising children for thinking about and then using appropriate strategies, there is concern that – in many homes – children will be being praised purely for task completion rather than the way it was approached and their metacognitive strategies.

This has strengthened my view that the need for children to be taught metacognitive and self-regulation strategies should be made an even higher priority. By the way, I’m not talking about special “learning how to learn” slots in the timetable; I’m talking about those strategies being central to our pedagogy in every lesson. Although many teachers do this naturally, I believe that we must all make a conscious decision to do this, directly teaching and modelling those learning behaviours through our own practice and daily interactions.

At this point, I would like to mention parents. They are a piece of the metacognitive puzzle I feel is currently being overlooked. We engage them in workshops to help them support their child’s subject-specific learning, yet it is rare to hear of a school where work is being done to support parents’ understanding in this area in order to help make them real partners in their child’s learning. If we value metacognition for our pupils, then parents must be made partners in this too.

Remote learning

This has been on my mind a great deal. As we know, many children and their families do not have access to the internet, suitable devices, or both. However, where such provision is in place, I feel we can do better than the scattergun approach currently in place in some schools by considering the inclusion of some key features/approaches:

  • Introduce the lesson or theme by speaking directly to all the children in the class via a web-based platform such as Teams, Zoom, Google Classroom etc. During this short meeting, the teacher does a general check-in with everyone and maybe even a quick starter with children holding up their answers on whiteboards. The teacher then sets the learning task – and this has to be very carefully considered.
  • As part of this, the children are directed to a short, explanatory video such as those provided by the White Rose Maths Hub, Khan Academy etc. Whatever source is chosen, the key is to find examples where there is simplicity in terms of format and clarity of explanation, where children have the chance to practise what is being introduced, pause, review and then continue with the explanation. The production should not be at the expense of the quality of exposition. Teachers may even wish to make their own explanatory videos; these do not need to be “all singing, all dancing”, but must adhere to the school’s safeguarding policy.
  • A specified time is then provided for the children to work on the set task. During this time the teacher is still available online so that pupils can ask for help or guidance.
  • At the end of the time, the children return to the screen in – as necessary – smaller groups, to share what they have done and get instant feedback from the teacher. This Assessment for Learning is key as it allows for any misconceptions to be addressed quickly. Once this has been done, the next lesson can be in the form of the opportunity to practice and apply this learning through an online portal such as Mathletics, Learning By Questions, HegartyMaths etc., before the next live lesson is introduced.

There has been some scaremongering about not delivering live lessons remotely as it may leave teachers at risk of malicious allegations. Aren’t teachers just as much at risk of this in the classroom each day? In most instances remote learning allows us to record the session so that there is a clear log of what has taken place. Please do not think from this that I am saying we should deliver live lessons without careful consideration; but I do think that some remote contact between teacher and learners is essential.

Parents and carers

During this crisis, I have been metaphorically slapped in the face by the importance of parents and carers. Don’t get me wrong; I’ve always known they were important and I have always been proactive about ensuring – through the provision of workshops, letters home and open events – that they were able to support their children with homework. However, the notion of whether parents were in a position to “go it alone” when it comes to educating their children has never really been a consideration. This has now changed and it is something that is polarising concerns around the likely widening of the gap caused by social disadvantage.

This has made me realise that our approach towards parental engagement needs to change. This is currently still shaping up in my mind but I think we need to be far more strategic and passionate.

Initially, on a practical level, in a similar way that we do for pupils, we need to either prepare or signpost explanatory clips for parents covering each area of the curriculum so they have a resource available for reference and to help them feel more confident when home-educating. We have done this in the past for areas such as guided reading, but I think we need to go much further.

We will need to look, too, at how clearly and to what degree we share with parents our aspirations for their children. Has this been merely a paper exercise in the past, or part of the school’s mantra, rolled out for assemblies and on special occasions? Or is the heart of the school’s vision and ethos shared with passion, and its core explained? Do staff members have the opportunity to be open and honest about their own life and education journey to this point so that parents and children understand that education opens the doors of opportunity and helps to provide children with the cultural capital they need to succeed? Are we honest and open about the real difference each stage of a child’s education makes to their future, rather than making sweeping generalisations about this to parents? Have we truly explained, for example, why synthetic phonics and reading are so important? How often do we hold small discussion groups for parents, where we can drill down into the importance of education and their role in this?

These questions need to be posed to and explored by the whole school community in order for us to find the best way forward and ensure our reflections and learning from the lockdown period are put to good use.

On a personal level, lockdown has taught me the value of making time for both reflection and my own professional development. I have taken the opportunity to address this and as a result I see what I have been missing.

This article was originally published in the summer 2020 special edition of NACE Insight, as part of our “lessons from lockdown” series. For access to all past issues, log in to our members’ resource library.

Tags:  curriculum  leadership  lockdown  metacognition  parents and carers  remote learning 

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Rising stars: why are some students thriving out of school?
Posted By Elizabeth Allen CBE, 11 June 2020

Liz Allen CBE, NACE Trustee

Listening in to over 200 school leaders, teachers and young people in online forums and in personal conversations, I am hearing a recurring theme: “Some children have done better without me teaching them.” Some teachers add, “…which is a worry.” Most are keen to explore the reasons why some children are thriving on home learning, when many appear to be struggling. While it is vital that the reasons for this struggle are identified and addressed, there is also much that school leaders and teachers can learn from the “rising stars” – young people who were not identified for a particular ability, skill or expertise in the classroom but who are blossoming at home, surprising their teachers.

Why were they not noticed in school? Why are they thriving at home? What can we learn from them, for our future practice, as we prepare for more students to return to the classroom?

Limiting factors within schools

Although the rising stars appear to come from all phases, types of school and a range of socio-economic contexts, common limiting factors in their schools’ culture and organisation are emerging:

  • Less confident schools, that are focused on exam outcomes, attendance targets and rigorous behaviour management structures, where young people are lost in the drive for data;
  • Schools with highly structured, frequent testing, where young people have too few opportunities to be inspired, to be creative, or to learn in depth;
  • Schools with strict ability grouping and differentiation practices, built on assumptions of ability;
  • Prescriptive schemes of work that leave little scope for teachers’ creativity, or for young people’s expertise – there is no time for deep learning in a classroom where quantity matters more than mastery;
  • Pedagogies that are teacher-focused and controlled, leaving too little scope for young people to become independent researchers, problem solvers or learning leaders;
  • Schools that misconstrue presentations of negative learning character as misbehaviour: the window-gazer, who finds the ideas inside her head more interesting but has no chance to share or explore them; the disruptive, who wants to let the teacher know that he is capable of much more challenging stuff but doesn’t know how to say it; the angry or withdrawn, who doesn’t understand and can’t process the work because her learning needs have not been recognised; the passive, unconfident, who finds the classroom crowded and oppressive;
  • Schools that have an extended core curriculum at the expense of the creative/expressive arts, design and PE, where young people have little opportunity to grow into disciplined, collaborative, creative learners and critical thinkers, or to have their creative/expressive/physical abilities and talents acknowledged and celebrated.

Why are some students thriving at home?

Teachers are telling anecdotes about the “rising stars” they are noticing and are asking their pupils why they are more engaged and making more progress.

What is striking is the deepening mutual trust and respect which is clear in their voices:

“I am encouraging students to engage with their world, to discover new resources. They are enjoying daily, short skills practices that they self-assess with the help of a simple quiz. They enjoy gaining mastery, rather than marks.”

“I have discovered hidden stars from having personal learning conversations. I was bogged down in a mountain of marking and concerned that only 30% of my students were submitting any work. So I decided to abandon the prescribed written feedback procedure and give each student a two-minute verbal personal moment each week. I didn’t realise how important it was for students to see me, to be called by their name and to feel they mattered to me. I have been really surprised by how able many of them are.”

“I find that quiet students are benefitting from being at home, without the pressures and noise of school. I didn’t realise how capable they are and am wondering why they are not in the top set.”

“I’m in a school where we are expected to maintain the full curriculum and schemes of work. We soon discovered that it was impossible, so my department re-designed the study programme, built on two principles: students can follow their own interests; they should create something – grow it, design it, build it, then teach your teacher and class what you know. We are on hand with advice and we have created a huge bank of resources for them to use, including examples of the department’s special interests and their own creations. Some great experts are emerging – both students and staff!”

Creative writing is a struggle for many young people, who often have a fixed view “I can’t do it.” One Year 5 pupil was very anxious about having to do creative writing tasks at home. “In school, there’s a plan on the board and I can put my hand up when I’m stuck.” Finding it easy to come up with “lots of ideas”, but getting stuck on how to develop them further, he is enjoying sharing his ideas at home and on FaceTime with his friends. “It’s much nicer than at school and I think I am getting much better.”

One-to-one tutorials are building young people’s confidence and respectful relationships with their teachers, who are able to see their capacity. A Year 12 tutor was struck with how powerful the tutorial can be: “It’s fascinating to listen to him. He has great insight and knows more than I do!” Another Year 12 student is appreciating the value of having a trusting and mutually respectful relationship with her tutors. She had a difficult pathway through the GCSE years, excelling in the subjects where she had private one-to-one tuition but unable to achieve her best outcomes in the rest. Now, through daily contact with her tutors, personal advice whenever she wants it, constant collaborative learning opportunities with her peers and with new-found confidence in her capacity, she is totally engaged with her Year 12 studies. “I miss being in school and I certainly miss my friends, but the work is going well. And I am looking forward to going in after half-term for real, live tutorials.”

“At Key Stage 3, introverted students remain mute for the lesson, reluctant to engage or speak but still submit a high standard of work. In contrast, when speaking to these students on a one-to-one basis, they will be forthcoming with how they are feeling. One ‘live’ call a week from their tutor is making a big difference to their progress and their wellbeing. Key Stage 4 and 5 students have adapted exceptionally well. I should mention that they are used to independent learning: they do a lot of reading around their subjects.”

What can we learn for our future practice?

Good friends from the retired headteachers’ community are entertaining each other with tales from the home front. They are discovering that IT is not a mysterious world inhabited by the young but an exciting avenue into following their interests and exploring new places: playing in a huge online orchestra, singing in Gareth Malone’s choir, visiting the theatres, galleries, faraway lands. And they are clearing the loft! An opportunity to throw out unneeded items that must have been useful once, but you have forgotten why – but also to rediscover lost treasures, hidden gems, that deserve to be brought back into the home, polished and put to good use. Perhaps this period of home schooling is our chance to clear out the curriculum and pedagogy loft, to discard what is not useful and to rediscover and polish up the gems of our principles and practice in the light of what young people are telling us.

NACE’s core principles include the statements:

  • Providing for more able learners is not about labelling, but about creating a curriculum and learning opportunities which allow all children to flourish.
  • Ability is a fluid concept: it can be developed through challenge, opportunity and self-belief.

In its chapter on Teaching for Learning, The Intelligent School (2004) presents a profile of the Learning and Teaching PACT – what the learner and the teacher bring to learning and teaching and, in turn, what they both need for the PACT to have maximum effect. Features of the PACT are visible in the accounts of rising stars, where both learner and teacher bring:

  • A sense of self as learner;
  • Mutual respect and high expectations;
  • Active participation in the learning process;
  • Reflection and feedback on learning;

And where the teacher brings:

  • Knowledge, enthusiasm, understanding about what is taught and how;
  • The ability to select appropriate curriculum and relevant resources;
  • A design for teaching and learning fit for purpose;
  • An ability to create a rich learning environment.

“Place more emphasis […] on the microlevel of things […] It encourages a culture that is more open and caring […] It requires genuine connection.” – Leading in a Culture of Change (2004)

Chapter 4 of Michael Fullan’s Leading in a Culture of Change is entitled “Relationships, Relationships, Relationships”. Young people are letting their teachers know that personal conversations are enabling their learning. One group of Key Stage 3 students have asked their teachers to stop using PowerPoint presentations, which they feel unable to understand – “But it all makes sense when we talk about it with you.” Learning conversations may be a rediscovered gem in some schools, worth bringing down from the loft of forgotten treasure.

From the same chapter: “When you set a target and ask for big leaps in achievement scores, you start squeezing capacity in a way that gets into preoccupation with tests […] You cut corners in a way that ends up diminishing learning […] I want steady, steady, ever deepening improvement.”

Motivation comes from caring and respect: “tough empathy” in Fullan’s terms. The rising stars are being noticed in a learning environment free from classroom tests and marking. We may need to take a close look at assessment practices in our loft clearance and rediscover the gems of self-assessment, academic tutorials, vivas and reflective discourse.

Can we improve young people’s chances of stardom by considering some fresh thinking, as we prepare for more of them to return to school?

  • What will “homework” mean? Can we build on what we are learning about best practice in home schooling?
  • How will we inspire (rather than push) young people to high aspirations and outcomes?
  • How can we listen better and build respectful, healthier learning relationships?
  • Can we design learning for depth and mastery rather than for assessment/testing and quantity?
  • How can we open up the curriculum and learning to creativity?
  • How can we exemplify and model best learning in our lessons?
  • How can we give young people time, resources and personal space to learn how to learn, to become the best they can be?

References and further reading:

  • The Intelligent School (Gilchrist, Myers & Reed, 2004)
  • Leading in a Culture of Change (Michael Fullan, 2001)
  • Engaging Minds (Davis, Sumara & Luce-Kapler, 2008)
  • Knowledge and The Future School (Young, Lambert, Roberts & Roberts, 2014)
  • Reassessing Ability Grouping (Francis, Taylor & Tereshenko 2020)

This article was originally published in the summer 2020 special edition of NACE Insight, as part of our “lessons from lockdown” series. For access to all past issues, log in to our members’ resource library.

Tags:  confidence  curriculum  identification  independent learning  leadership  lockdown  remote learning  underachievement 

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Challenge for all: 8 key issues for discussion
Posted By Southend High School for Boys, 10 December 2019

Laura March, Hub Lead of the NACE R&D Hub at Southend High School for Boys, shares eight key issues discussed at the Hub’s inaugural meeting earlier this term.

Our inaugural NACE R&D Hub meeting was attended by colleagues from 12 schools, spanning a range of phases and subject areas. Ensuring the Hub meetings are focused on evidence and research allows us to respond to the masses of misinformation presented to us. A collaborative approach to understanding the needs of more able and talented (MAT) learners, and how to support them, enables colleagues to become more open and reflective in their discussions.

We started the meeting by sharing our own experience at Southend High School for Boys (SHSB), exploring our work towards gaining and maintaining the NACE Challenge Award over the last 15 years, and what strategies have had the biggest impact.

In the following discussion, it was interesting to explore what ‘differentiation’ means to different colleagues and key issues raised about what constitutes ‘good’ practice. It was also useful for colleagues from different fields – science, MFL, primary, physics, English and RE – to share approaches to developing writing skills, such as using ‘structure strips’, visualisers to model work, or tiered approaches to subject vocabulary. Finally, some questions were raised about communicating more able needs with parents; what should be included in the school’s more able policy; and how to monitor the impact of strategies on more able learners.

Here are eight key areas discussed during the meeting:

1. Strengthening monitoring and evaluation

This had been identified as an area for development at SHSB. MAT Coordinators and Subject Leaders are responsible for completing an audit to review their previous targets for more able learners and to outline opportunities, trips, competitions, resources and targets for the new academic year. This enables the MAT Lead to identify areas for pedagogical development so that targeted support can be put in place, as well as any budget requirements to purchase new resources.

2. Engaging with parents and carers

We shared the example of our parent support sheet. Not only are we bridging the gap between academic research and classroom practice, we aim to encourage a positive dialogue with parents by sharing the latest research on memory and strategies of how to stretch and challenge their sons and daughters at home. This has been very positive during parents’ evenings, with departments recommending extended reading; apps for effective revision such as Quizlet and Seneca; and You Tube videos for specific topics.

3. The zone of proximal development

As part of the Department for Education Teachers’ Standards, teachers must adapt teaching to respond to the strengths and needs of all pupils. This includes knowing when and how to differentiate appropriately and using approaches which enable pupils to be taught effectively (Department for Education, 2011). We looked at the Zone of Proximal Development (Vygotsky) and how we ensure pupils avoid the ‘panic zone’.

As Martin Robinson (2013) says: “We are empowered by knowing things and this cannot be left to chance”. We cannot assume that more able learners know it all and simply leave them to their own devices in lessons. In contrast, we must avoid providing work that they are too comfortable with, resulting in easy learning and limited progress.

4. Myths and misconceptions

We looked at common myths surrounding more able learners and agreed that many of these are unfounded and untrue. Not all more able pupils are easy to identify because the opportunities are not always provided for talents to emerge. Likewise, SEN can mask multi-exceptionalities and we should ensure we have measures in place to identify these. We are also aware that the more able learners are not always the most popular or confident; many will suffer from ‘tall poppy syndrome’ or ‘imposter syndrome’.

5. High expectations for all

The key message is ensuring all learners have high aspirations and expectations and are provided with different routes to meet these. The research indicates that good differentiation is setting high-challenge learning objectives defined in detail with steps to success mapped out. It includes looking at the variety of ways teachers support and scaffold students to reach ambitious goals over time. We should avoid using language that sends a message to students that this part of the curriculum is not for them and that high expectations are only for ‘some’. We know that teaching to the top will raise aspirations for all learners.

“Effective differentiation is about ensuring every pupil, no matter their background and starting point, is headed towards the same destination, albeit their route and pace may differ. In other words, we should not ‘dumb down’ and expect less of some pupils, but should have high expectations of every pupil.” – Matt Bromley (SecEd, April 2019)

6. Developing literacy and writing skills

As part of our School Improvement Plan, we have a renewed focus on disciplinary literacy. Embedding this in lessons is a key way to ensure all pupils are able to express themselves within their subject domain.

“The limits of my language are the limits of my mind.” – Ludwig Wittgenstein

The range of writing we ask students to do is broad: analytical, evaluative, descriptive, explanatory, persuasive. Expecting them to shift between these without a clear structure is understandably going to create problems, so good modelling is essential. To support this, our MAT Coordinators have been using visualisers to model how to use key words in writing and to close the ‘knowing and doing gap’.

7. Metacognition

Externalising our thinking aloud enables pupils to improve metacognition. This is an essential skill in critical thinking and self-regulated, lifelong learning. It is important for learners to have skills in metacognition because they are used to monitor and regulate reasoning, comprehension, and problem-solving, which are fundamental components of effective learning.

8. Curriculum planning

We finished our meeting by looking at the new education inspection framework, specifically the guidance on subject curriculum content. Does it emphasise ‘enabling knowledge’ to ensure that it is remembered? Is the subject content sequenced so pupils build useful and increasingly complex schemata?

Our next Hub meeting will focus on the most effective ways to build up pupils’ store of knowledge in long-term memory.

References:

 

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NACE’s Research and Development (R&D) Hubs offer regional opportunities for NACE members to exchange effective practice, develop in-school research skills and collaborate on enquiry-based projects. Each Hub is led by a Challenge Award-accredited school, bringing together members from all phases, sectors and contexts. Participation is free for staff at NACE member schools. Find out more.

Tags:  collaboration  curriculum  differentiation  literacy  metacognition  myths and misconceptions  parents and carers  research 

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Leading curriculum change at KS3 in English
Posted By Tracy Goodyear, 17 October 2019

Ahead of her workshop on this topic, NACE Associate and Head of English Tracy Goodyear shares three key considerations when planning a challenging KS3 English curriculum.

After getting the ‘new’ GCSEs firmly under our belts, schools and departments across the country are now being given the space to carefully consider the quality of the diet that all students receive in their secondary years.

For any department, reviewing the curriculum is an ongoing process. There’s no quick win or easy fix: it takes vision, clarity of thought and careful consideration – all whilst trying to navigate an educational, social and political landscape that is constantly shifting.

There’s an imperative to provide students with a curriculum that is enlightening, challenging and enriching. As emphasised in the current Ofsted education inspection framework, the curriculum should be ambitious and appropriate for all students. It’s vital that complex concepts or ideas are not ignored or brushed over, and that the expectation for success and high achievement is clear. A rising tide lifts all boats, after all.

Here are some key considerations, which we’ll explore in more detail during November’s workshop.

1. Start with the end in mind


When planning a new/revised curriculum, it’s imperative to consider what the end ‘product’ is likely to look like. In other words, ask yourselves: “At the end of Year 9, if we had given the students what they really need in our subject, what sort of behaviours, skills and attributes would our students display? How will we know we have been successful?”

This goes much further than hitting target grades; we have to think beyond that. As Christine Counsell has written, “If the curriculum itself is the progression model, then the numbers change their meaning.”

During a department meeting a couple of years ago, we brainstormed some ideas about our ‘finished article’ and came up with the following statements. These are core departmental values that drive our curriculum design and delivery.

As a result of learning in our department, students will:

  • Be creative, articulate, imaginative learners, who are confident and secure in their opinions and thoughts;
  • Be adaptable and flexible communicators in spoken and written word;
  • Be unafraid to challenge complex ideas and material.

Our students will develop these dispositions and habits:

  • Having a critical eye, so that they do not blindly accept things;
  • They will openly welcome feedback, criticism and differing views and interpretations and not feel threatened by these;
  • They will be skilled in planning, showing evidence of deep thinking;
  • They will take risks, knowing that the learning they will experience is more valuable than the fear of failure;
  • They will actively listen to and reason with the ideas and expertise of others;
  • They will construct meaningful arguments, supporting their ideas with confidence and conviction.

They will experience learning activities that:

  • Have pace, choice and challenge;
  • Provide a healthy combination of independent and collaborative work;
  • Give them ample opportunity to speak in front of others;
  • Give them the time and space to write independently;
  • Offer the choice and autonomy to self-select activities that best challenge their thinking and ability;
  • Are well-planned by the teacher/ department, where activities have clear direction and purpose;
  • Enable them to build a sophisticated vocabulary, consistently;
  • Are academically rigorous and personally challenging.

2. Why this? Why now?


Once you have firm statements in place and a clear vision, you can start to consider the content and the validity of current content being delivered.

There are a whole host of questions to consider. Here are just a few:

  • Is it important to you that students know the origins of stories/ origins of language?
  • Is it important that students understand how or why contextual factors may influence our reception of a text?
  • Is it important that they understand the five act structure of a Shakespeare play?
  • Is it important that they are able to speak knowledgeably in a debate or a group discussion?
  • Is it important to you that they can write with originality and flair?

Sitting as a team and deciding the answers to these sorts of questions is hugely valuable. It encourages teachers to share their particular passions and interests and leads to purposeful discussion about your curriculum offer. It’s important that you consider your own school’s context too – what is important here? What is it vital that we equip our students with? Vocabulary instruction? Cultural capital?

3. Timing is everything!


When planning a challenging curriculum, there is a temptation to hurtle through centuries of literature at a pace; the temptation to move on and cover as much content as possible seems attractive when teaching able young people. However, any successful curriculum needs to build in purposeful time to reflect – to recognise how concepts fit together as part of a much wider picture. All students require time to reflect on feedback (and time to act on it!), time for repetition, recall and a deeper investigation into a topic or idea.

Time is crucial in the breaking down of complex tasks, too. The EEF’s recent report Improving Literacy in Secondary Schools stresses the importance of modelling and scaffolding at all levels and dedicating curriculum time to this. Breaking tasks down (rather than simplifying them!) helps students to navigate their way through challenging tasks more effectively.

Consider the various demands on a student’s working memory when asked to write. How can teachers intervene to break down some of these processes to ensure working memories are not overwhelmed? How can we ensure that our curriculum plan incorporates the time and space to enable us to do this?

It’s not just the timing of what is being taught that’s key. Timely reflection for you and your team is also crucial. Wherever possible, make reviewing aspects of your curriculum part of your weekly/ fortnightly meetings. Speak about how students are progressing, where misunderstandings have arisen, how a scheme or unit of work needs to be adapted to suit the changing needs of the students. If all curriculum review does not take place while it’s still fresh, many of those smaller, nuanced observations about learning could be lost.

Enjoy the challenge!

Recommended reading:

  • Turner, S. (2016), Secondary Curriculum and Assessment Design, Bloomsbury
  • Myatt, M. (2018), The Curriculum: Gallimaufry to Coherence, John Catt

Ready to review your KS3 curriculum?

Join Tracy Goodyear’s workshop on 28 November: Leading curriculum change for more able learners in KS3 English

Tags:  curriculum  English  KS3  language  literacy  literature  progression 

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