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Live Lesson Obs: Making lesson observations formative

2013-07-19T09:22:37+01:00February 3rd, 2013|Featured, leadership, learning|

You can push and prod people into something better than mediocrity, but you have to encourage excellence. David Lammy We've all experienced the dread and agony of formal lesson observations, haven't we? We've sweated blood over our preparations, filled in inch thick lesson plans and obsessed over meaningless details in our presentations. Or is that just me? A while back now I read something (I forget exactly what) by Phil Beadle which went along the lines of "Be brilliant and they'll forgive you anything." This nugget has rattled around in my stony heart ever since with the result that I've started [...]

Anatomy of an outstanding lesson

2014-03-15T18:37:34+00:00January 22nd, 2013|English, learning, planning|

I'd want to make clear at the outset of this post that I no longer believe there is such a thing as an 'outstanding' lesson and would like to refer you to this post. Outstanding lessons are all alike; every unsatisfactory lesson is unsatisfactory in its own way. Leo Tolstoy (and me) It's all very well writing a book called The Perfect Ofsted English Lesson, but it does rather set you up for a fall. People expect you to be able to bang out Grade 1 lessons to order. Anything less than outstanding would be a bitter disappointment. I've reflected a number [...]

Building challenge: differentiation that’s quick and works

2017-01-02T15:16:55+00:00January 19th, 2013|English, learning, planning|

UPDATE: These two posts represent my latest think on differentiation:  Is differentiation a zero-sum game? April 2015 Why do we overestimate the importance of differences? November 2014 Since having a good long think about differentiation some while back it doesn't keep me up at nights nearly as much as it used to. But this is still one of my most visited posts so clearly other folks continue to be troubled. I want to set out my stall early by saying that this is yet another of those troublesome topics which is far simpler than most teachers imagine. My bottom line is that mucking [...]

Effective group work

2013-11-27T19:42:46+00:00January 12th, 2013|behaviour, Featured, learning|

Just another example of effective groupwork OK. I have 3 points to make: Group work does not make us more creative and it does not make us work harder. Learning is social and effective group work (apparently) doubles the speed of students' learning. Almost all teaching in schools depends on a teacher's ability to create effective groups because, wait for it, classes are just large groups. Let's deal with each of these in a bit more detail. Firstly, as I've discussed before, when we try to work together to work towards a collective goal we get, what is known [...]

Developing oracy: it’s talkin’ time!

2022-04-28T10:05:30+01:00December 29th, 2012|learning, literacy|

Talk is the sea upon which all else floats ~ James Britton, Language and Learning, 1970 Students spend a lot of talking, don't they? Everyone can speak, so why would we want to waste valuable time teaching them to do it? Well, while all this is undoubtedly true, many students don't speak well. This is, I hasten to add, not the same as being well spoken. As teachers we're pretty leary of the idea of talking in lessons. Teacher talk has got itself a very bad name. But in the best examples of talk lead lessons, teacher talk is generously interspersed with questions (both to [...]

Is there a right way to teach?

2012-11-24T12:49:47+00:00November 24th, 2012|learning, planning|

It’s become a trite and hackneyed truism that if they’re not learning you’re just talking. We’re all clear that teaching only happens when the little tinkers manage to make some sort of progress – preferably that of the rapid and sustained variety. But this simple truth, like so many others, seems to have been systematically and catastrophically misunderstood by many school leaders and inspectors. Until recently it was universally accepted that the key to a good lesson observation was showing that pupils are making progress in the 25 minutes available to us, and that the only way we could demonstrate this [...]

Go with the flow: the 2 minute lesson plan

2015-07-08T16:19:55+01:00November 17th, 2012|learning, planning|

NB: This post does no longer represents my latest thinking. I’ve updated my approach to planning here. Like all teachers, my main aim in life is to run, whooping, out of the school gates by 3 o’clock. My time is therefore precious and I can’t be wasting it mucking about planning lessons. Fortunately for us skiving scoundrels,  SMW recently told us that as far as Ofsted are concerned there is no need for lesson plans. As long as lessons are planned. These are my two guiding principles for lesson planning: Marking is planning Focus on learning not activities So, how’s this for [...]

Knowledge is power

2013-09-25T21:14:34+01:00October 21st, 2012|learning, myths, SOLO|

I've been having a bit of think this week. Firstly I read Daisy Christodoulou's post on Hirsch's Core Knowledge curriculum. She points out that Hirsch, oft-condemned for being the darling of ideologues like Mickey Gove is, in his own words 'a quasi socialist' and big mates with Diane Ravitch (who is nobody's fool.) Then I listened to the hugely entertaining Jonathan Lear give an excellent presentation at Independent Thinking's Big Day Out in Bristol on Friday and like any speaker worth their salt he got me thinking. His point, if I may make so bold as to attempt a precis, is that [...]

Outstanding teaching & learning: missed opportunities and marginal gains

2012-10-14T11:52:32+01:00October 14th, 2012|learning, myths, training|

I work at an 'outstanding' school where the teaching and learning is 'good'. As such we are squarely in Wilshaw's sights and almost certainly due an inspection at some point this year. We were last inspected in November 2011 but a lot of goal post moving has gone on in the intervening months. The new inspection framework is widely seen as a ravening beast out to devour schools that are not delivering to the lofty standards of our hero, the saviour of Mossbourne Academy. In essence, what this means is that if we want to retain the right to put 'outstanding' [...]

The Matthew Effect – why literacy is so important

2013-09-24T19:58:38+01:00September 30th, 2012|learning, literacy, reading, training, writing|

Whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them. Matthew 13:12 In the world of the 2012 Ofsted framework very few schools are going to quibble with the prominence being given to the teaching of literacy but I'm far from concerned that we're clear on precisely why teaching literacy is so important beyond the fact that Big Brother is watching you: running scared of Wilshaw is not enough. I saw the fantastic Geoff Barton deliver a presentation called Don't Call it Literacy at the Wellington [...]

Project Based Learning: I did it my way

2012-09-23T21:17:38+01:00September 23rd, 2012|English, learning|

I've finally managed to cobble together my first post since starting back in September. What with starting a new job, teaching A level for the first time in over a decade and languishing in post-publication blues after the release of my (hopefully) first book, I've not had much headspace for writing and I've missed it. Hopefully, this post marks a welcome return to the blogosphere. There's so much going on that it's been hard to pick what to write about but I've settled on detailing how I've gone about solving the age old problem of what to do about everyone's favourite [...]

The art of failing

2017-03-15T09:19:13+00:00July 6th, 2012|learning|

Why on earth would we ever want to fail? Failing’s bad, right? Obviously getting something wrong, performing poorly and making mistakes is uncomfortable. But these things are a part of life. An important part. Apart from all the stuff about failure being character forming there’s the more important consideration that if we only ever experience success then maybe we aren’t trying very hard? So why are we so seduced by the tawdry allure of success? TV screens are crowded by attractive idiots who are held up as contemporary models of success but really don’t seem to have tried very hard at [...]

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