Quick follow up to this post...
Middle set pupil voice
My set 3 year 11 LOVED the flipped approach. All watched the video (I planned strategic questions to check they had done), all nailed the related questions on a topic I'd not covered at all in class.
In addition they all had a look at another video of their own choice. Some looked at topics we'd covered before, others looked ahead at higher/extension topics and were able to give some key facts about them.
Across the class the students used all 3 methods of finding the links that I gave them - some typed them in, some clicked through a PDF hyperlink, and others used the QR codes.
When asked if they would like more homework set like that they all answered "YES".
Top set pupil voice
By contrast my very high ability top set year 10 really didn't like the flipped approach. They said they struggled to get on with the videos, and found them either confusing, patronising or just not very helpful (it was on a topic that I had spotted they were struggling with based on an earlier homework - the video covered all of the key bits of information that they needed to resolve the issues I had seen previously).
They all said they would prefer to be guided to a page in a textbook or revision guide than to use videos, and didn't really want me to set homeworks like this again.
A conjecture
Based on this spectacularly small sample I'm now wondering... Do we have a situation where the weaker students like the more prescriptive, didactic approach of an instructional video; and those with greater confidence in maths prefer support that allows them to gather information for themselves and use that to shape their approaches without straight instruction?
This is one off snapshot of data - the stark difference between the two classes stood out for me and hence raised the question. I need to look at how other classes in my school took to this approach to add or detract from my conjecture.
I'd be interested to hear if you have experiences that might agree or disagree with what I have found so far...
Showing posts with label Homework. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Homework. Show all posts
Monday, 7 October 2013
Saturday, 28 September 2013
Flipping homework!
I've read lots about flipped learning, via the likes of Bruno Reddy (@mrereddymaths) here, and Colin Hegarty (@hegartymaths) here. I like the concept but have never tried it myself... until now.
Not fully flipped but encouraging independence
This week's homeworks have all contained internet links to different resources.
One class had a link to some of the Hegartymaths videos to give them support with a topic I know they've struggled with, and then included some related exam questions. Another class had links to information about a topic we've not covered before, and the homework sheet required them to answer key questions about the topic (and the resource), then answer some questions.
Both of these classes included an extra task to find out about another GCSE topic and tell me 3 key facts about it.
To help the students to access the resources the sheets included the full internet link, they were given access to a PDF copy with a working hyperlink, and I also put on a QR code in case they wanted to scan it with a phone/tablet.
An example of one of the homeworks is as follows:
I'd be keen to hear about others using this kind of thing and any other ideas you might have to make it more effective. As always all comments welcome.
Not fully flipped but encouraging independence
This week's homeworks have all contained internet links to different resources.
One class had a link to some of the Hegartymaths videos to give them support with a topic I know they've struggled with, and then included some related exam questions. Another class had links to information about a topic we've not covered before, and the homework sheet required them to answer key questions about the topic (and the resource), then answer some questions.
Both of these classes included an extra task to find out about another GCSE topic and tell me 3 key facts about it.
To help the students to access the resources the sheets included the full internet link, they were given access to a PDF copy with a working hyperlink, and I also put on a QR code in case they wanted to scan it with a phone/tablet.
An example of one of the homeworks is as follows:
Early indications are good
I've not yet collected all of the homeworks - not due until Tuesday. However I've already had some submitted to me, and I'm really impressed at the results.
The students have grasped the key points about the main bit of the homework, and when questioned were able to go into reasonable detail.
What's more interesting though is the extra "choose your own" bit. They've chosen very different topics, none of which I've actually covered in lesson before. The 3 key points given clearly demonstrate that they have understood the new content to a reasonable extent.
Not making the classroom redundant
I should be clear that I will re-cap and double check any understanding gained via independent work to make sure it is sound and not riddled with misconceptions or really superficial. However I do think this is really powerful as a way to either consolidate a topic or introduce a new one and get a foothold on a tricky topic.
Doesn't just have to be videos
Of course I know that some people dislike the video tutorial - think the objections are along the lines that they are too didactic, possibly not engaging enough or encouraging enough deep thought? The same people are usually highly anti-textbook. While I do recognise this argument I also think there is a valid place for the straight tutorial alongside other teaching methods and approaches. For some students a traditional "chalk and talk" approach really is the best thing to do to maximise their exam performance.
It certainly seems to me that online videos can be very effective, and so far the students do seem to engage with it very well. However I should be clear that don't plan to use the same source or type of links every week.
Sometimes I'll be linking to our online textbook resources, other times tutorial videos, other times it might be a google doc or padlet to contribute to, a news item that might be relevant, and there are a few other ideas that I need to flesh out... The power of the internet is that there are just so many different types of resources out there that it is always possible.
Taxonomy of errors
A key thing I'm really interested by is that this approach makes response to individual student's needs far easier. This links nicely to the "taxonomy of errors" approach proposed by Keven Bartle (@kevbartle) in this post.
By spotting patterns in the mistakes made by students I plan to be able to personalise homeworks and responses far more by guiding the students to particular resources based on their needs. This kind of personalisation has always been a real challenge for me to do effectively without spending hours and hours creating the right resources, however using the power of the internet I think it becomes far more accessible.
Early days
As with many of my posts - this is early days and I'm going to keep an eye on how it progresses. Several of my department are also pushing this and developing it so there will be a large amount of feedback in a relatively short period of time.
I'd be keen to hear about others using this kind of thing and any other ideas you might have to make it more effective. As always all comments welcome.
Saturday, 14 September 2013
Rockets to A Stars
Something that one of our teachers is doing with their group - I really liked the idea so thought I'd share it...
Target centered display
One of our top set groups has this on the wall of their classroom:
Each student has a rocket, and there is also a rocket on there for the teacher. The teacher's declared target is to exceed the school record of 10 A* grades at GCSE. It's worth noting that this group has only has one student with an FFTD target of A*, the rest are A and B grade targets so this is a stretchy target to go after, but the way the group are progressing it is realistic (last year we had a target of 2 and delivered 10 so we have a precedent too).
Each student has been given a list of key A* topics loosely based on these excellent passports by Mr Slack. They have self-assessed on these lists and chosen one to focus on initially, and then written these as targets on their rocket... here are 5 examples:
Target centered display
One of our top set groups has this on the wall of their classroom:
Each student has a rocket, and there is also a rocket on there for the teacher. The teacher's declared target is to exceed the school record of 10 A* grades at GCSE. It's worth noting that this group has only has one student with an FFTD target of A*, the rest are A and B grade targets so this is a stretchy target to go after, but the way the group are progressing it is realistic (last year we had a target of 2 and delivered 10 so we have a precedent too).
Each student has been given a list of key A* topics loosely based on these excellent passports by Mr Slack. They have self-assessed on these lists and chosen one to focus on initially, and then written these as targets on their rocket... here are 5 examples:
Hopefully you will notice that the students are identifying how they will achieve their target as well.
Tracking progress
Shortly all of the rockets will be re-grouped at the bottom of the board, and the challenge will be that they climb up the board "towards the stars" by ticking off completed targets.
To mark a target as completed firstly they will need to do some work on the topic they have identified. Then they need to show their work to a classmate who will peer assess and decide whether they think they have mastered the topic. Only once the self and peer assessment is completed do the students then ask the teacher to tick off that topic - then they can move their rocket upwards.
Then they select a new topic, add this to their rocket and the cycle repeats.
Not for everyone
This approach requires the students to be fairly self motivated, but hopefully the visible nature of this will also encourage those that are a little more reluctant. Certainly the enthusiasm of the teacher involved and the outstanding relationship she has established with the students will also help.
Lets see if it works
If this can help us to deliver a few more A* grades for students then this approach certainly can't hurt. Even if they "only" get grade As it's still a fantastic idea. Importantly by asking the students to write down both what and how they are going to do this it requires a level of buy in that wouldn't be there otherwise.
I'm really looking forward to watching this develop - it looks like a great idea and will be the first to congratulate the teacher and students if it helps them to achieve their school record aims.
As always all thoughts welcome...
Saturday, 31 August 2013
A toolbox to help start your term
UPDATED JAN 2014. - Adding in #RAG123 info and updating download data.
I've posted at various points over the last few months about using common formats, excel sheets or tools to help make some aspects of day to day teaching easier. It's not about making everyone's teaching the same, it's about giving a basically good structure to help save time and allow outstanding teaching to flourish around it. A background to this philosophy can be found here in my very first post.
I thought it might be useful to collect the main bits together in one place with a bit of commentary, and I've also shared publicly a couple of the formats that I've not shared previously... Realise this is a bit of a clip show of a post, but hopefully it is also useful.
Transform your marking with #RAG123
Counter-intuitive it may be, but marking more often really can reduce your workload and have real value for students. I can't emphasise enough how much impact this has had on my day to day teaching and also helping to manage my workload. Powerpoint explaining the key points can be found in this post.
Seating plans
Seating plans are deceptively powerful and can be used as an assessment and monitoring tool as well as a way to manage behaviour. However the more data you put in the harder it is to change the plan at a later date - this is a tool to help with that... In this post I explained the thinking behind this sheet - basically it allows you to create and modify seating plans easily and include useful bits of student data at the same time.
The proforma is here. (over 800 downloads on TES as of Jan 2014)
Markbook and feedback proforma
The process behind creating this sheet is explained in this post - the resource is a feedback sheet that has been used in my department to transform the quality of feedback & marking, as described in this post.
I've not shared the proforma before, but it's now available for download here. (downloaded over 400 times on TES as of Jan 2014)
Formats for giving summative tests/assessment formative impact.
As discussed in this post and this post I really value testing in my department, but it's got to be about more than just grades and levels. The following resource allows analysis of any exam, assessment or test. I've even used it in the past to give feedback to book marking but that's been superseded by the feedback proforma above. I find this type of analysis really powerful and the students at our school also find them useful.
I've not shared this widely before, but again it's now available for download here. (downloaded over 150 times on TES as of Jan 2014)
Regular testing followed by good analysis and formative feedback has resulted in our department posting a second consecutive record year of results at GCSE. This year was the first time ever that the school's maths results passed 70% A*-C, with an overall figure of 76.8%. You can see how regular mocks and feedback led to improvement in the graph that tracked our progress during the year...
Prompts for questioning linked to SOLO
This has been one of my most popular posts ever, and the resource has been downloaded on TES over 360 times as of Jan 2014. You can find the sheet here.
Other SOLO resources can be seen here.
Sharing learning objectives with KS5
Sometimes I find it difficult to share learning objectives in a meaningful way with KS5 students - I've found this format useful as explained in this post. The format for the logs can be found here. (over 70 downloads as of Jan 2014).
Make yourself some promises for the start of term
As a HoD or as a classroom teacher it is good to take a few moments to reflect and make yourself some promises. I've explained the thinking behind the formats in this post, and the documents themselves are available here. (over 130 downloads as of Jan 2014).
Other tips to help this year to be better than the next
1) Get on twitter... why? see this post...
2) Do something different in your classroom - here are some ideas
3) If you want something to improve - find a good way to measure it an make it visible - as explained here.
4) Run a departmental open day - you'll get way more from it that you might expect. Details on our first ever one can be found here.
I hope that this coming academic year will be good to you and your students - if you have any other good ideas please do share them.
I've posted at various points over the last few months about using common formats, excel sheets or tools to help make some aspects of day to day teaching easier. It's not about making everyone's teaching the same, it's about giving a basically good structure to help save time and allow outstanding teaching to flourish around it. A background to this philosophy can be found here in my very first post.
I thought it might be useful to collect the main bits together in one place with a bit of commentary, and I've also shared publicly a couple of the formats that I've not shared previously... Realise this is a bit of a clip show of a post, but hopefully it is also useful.
Transform your marking with #RAG123
Counter-intuitive it may be, but marking more often really can reduce your workload and have real value for students. I can't emphasise enough how much impact this has had on my day to day teaching and also helping to manage my workload. Powerpoint explaining the key points can be found in this post.
Seating plans
Seating plans are deceptively powerful and can be used as an assessment and monitoring tool as well as a way to manage behaviour. However the more data you put in the harder it is to change the plan at a later date - this is a tool to help with that... In this post I explained the thinking behind this sheet - basically it allows you to create and modify seating plans easily and include useful bits of student data at the same time.
The proforma is here. (over 800 downloads on TES as of Jan 2014)
Markbook and feedback proforma
The process behind creating this sheet is explained in this post - the resource is a feedback sheet that has been used in my department to transform the quality of feedback & marking, as described in this post.
I've not shared the proforma before, but it's now available for download here. (downloaded over 400 times on TES as of Jan 2014)
Formats for giving summative tests/assessment formative impact.
As discussed in this post and this post I really value testing in my department, but it's got to be about more than just grades and levels. The following resource allows analysis of any exam, assessment or test. I've even used it in the past to give feedback to book marking but that's been superseded by the feedback proforma above. I find this type of analysis really powerful and the students at our school also find them useful.
I've not shared this widely before, but again it's now available for download here. (downloaded over 150 times on TES as of Jan 2014)
Regular testing followed by good analysis and formative feedback has resulted in our department posting a second consecutive record year of results at GCSE. This year was the first time ever that the school's maths results passed 70% A*-C, with an overall figure of 76.8%. You can see how regular mocks and feedback led to improvement in the graph that tracked our progress during the year...
Prompts for questioning linked to SOLO
This has been one of my most popular posts ever, and the resource has been downloaded on TES over 360 times as of Jan 2014. You can find the sheet here.
Other SOLO resources can be seen here.
Sharing learning objectives with KS5
Sometimes I find it difficult to share learning objectives in a meaningful way with KS5 students - I've found this format useful as explained in this post. The format for the logs can be found here. (over 70 downloads as of Jan 2014).
Make yourself some promises for the start of term
As a HoD or as a classroom teacher it is good to take a few moments to reflect and make yourself some promises. I've explained the thinking behind the formats in this post, and the documents themselves are available here. (over 130 downloads as of Jan 2014).
Other tips to help this year to be better than the next
1) Get on twitter... why? see this post...
2) Do something different in your classroom - here are some ideas
3) If you want something to improve - find a good way to measure it an make it visible - as explained here.
4) Run a departmental open day - you'll get way more from it that you might expect. Details on our first ever one can be found here.
I hope that this coming academic year will be good to you and your students - if you have any other good ideas please do share them.
Saturday, 11 May 2013
Things we've done to help year 11
This post is nothing to do with managing variability other than these are actions that have been taken across the department during the past year or so, and as such are shared core practice within our team... I just wanted to record all of the things we've done with our current year 11 that have contributed to a substantial improvement in results this year.
Some may seem obvious, others less so, but all have made a contribution.
1) Establish a progress measure and make it visible to staff and students
We started mock exams with full papers early in the academic year, assigning grades and sharing them with the students and staff. We then did these regularly throughout the year, progressing through different past papers. Early scores were low due to bits of missing content, but we could also identify gaps in knowledge of content we had already covered. All mocks were accompanied by formative feedback & self assessment as discussed in my earlier post. this is in addition to feedback given on book work, which is also a subject of an earlier post.
Tracking this data centrally made the department staff aware of where work was required with particular students. You can see the progress made at a headline level during the year below, but the data was held at an individual student and class level. We could cut it to look specifically at SEN, FSM or other raise groups as well as general progress:
(You may be thinking that these results don't look that impressive?
Yes I know we're still below the target line, but we've not finished the year yet! - we've got more students within reach of a C taking exams in June - this should close the gap and take us up to, and hopefully even past the target line - I'm also keen to point out that it's not all about C grades either - we had a target of just 2 A* grades this year but have already recorded 10 so far.
I'll agree that we're not yet posting results at a level that would put us at the top of league tables, however the school has been posting results in the mid 60% range for the last 6 years, with similar target levels to this year! Therefore to take a step into the mid-high 70%, or even 80% range by the time the summer results are in will be a big improvement, and the best the school has ever delivered.)
We had actually done this regular mock process with this year group during year 10 in preparation for their earlier unit exams, so they were used to the idea of seeing progress their develop during the year.
As well as nicely sloping graphs we posted visual summaries of individual student performance vs target grades in classrooms and talked about a path to improvement. Note that because some students were concerned about publicly displaying low targets or low grades we didn't talk about actual grades, just position vs their personal target via colour coding. This is an example of what they look like:
By keeping these sheets visible in every classroom and doing the regular mocks we were emphasising that the important thing to see during the year is progress towards targets, not necessarily step changes to target. Students were always keen to see how their colours developed as the mocks progressed.
I acknowledge it's not neat & tidy and doesn't show a flawless progression from red to green/blue, but real data often isn't. However it is clear for the students to see the progress they and their peers have made during the year, which is substantial.
2) Carefully targeted revision support
Where groups of students share a common need in terms of revision then we re-grouped them to maximise focus on these areas of weakness - this happened within classes as part of differentiation and also across classes where students were grouped with a particular teacher for a short time according to need.
We also selected some students for 1:1 withdrawal during lessons (including selected extraction from other subjects for those most in need), and also selected some for short 1:1 sessions during morning registration.
3) Be clear about what is required to reach or exceed targets
We used analysis of past grade boundaries and conversions to recommend minimum marks required to achieve both their target grade and the grade above. The students responded really well to knowing that they needed a particular score, and again this helped them to judge progress in mocks. e.g. if Johnny needed at least 55 for an overall grade B, and scored 34 then 45 in successive mocks he could see progression towards his personal target in a clearer way than two grade Cs would have.
4) Parental involvement
I've already mentioned parental involvement in homeworks in an earlier post, and this did help to push the visibility of maths as a subject at home and in class.
Communications home in addition to the homework information included notification of after school and half term/holiday revision sessions, early details of exam dates and expected equipment.
Ahead of exams revision packs of questions were sent home with students, but the answers were e-mailed to parents to help the parents help the students.
Parents have been really positive about the level and types of information that has been sent home.
5) Maximise access to revision materials
We offered revision guides and revision DVDs for sale at a reduced cost via the school at various points during the year. Approximately 65% of the year took us up on this. We also regularly shared revision website information with the students.
6) Use a range of revision lessons
This is still under more development as we think of and find more ideas (and will be the subject of a further more detailed post), but once we get to revision time it is important to give students a varied diet of activities. Things we've used are:
Is this just teaching to the test?
No, it's not all about teaching to the test. However there comes a time when we have to seek to maximise the results that the students can deliver. In the long term it is both in their interest and in the interest of the school.
Anything else?
In amongst this were other actions such as selected re-takes and some students changing from modular to linear exams, but with the changes to the exam structure in England this will not be possible in future years so it's not really worth discussing in detail.
What about next year and the switch to linear exams?
Our approach is intended to be very similar. We have already started using full GCSE papers with our current year 10 and will use the same tools for sharing the data to show progress through the year. Early indication suggests we're starting in a similar place on the curve as for the current year 11 We might selectively enter some in November if we think they will benefit from it, but we'll hold off if there is a chance that it means they might not achieve to their full potential in the end.
Any thoughts?
I'm keen to know if you've done anything similar, or different that has a beneficial effect to your students. Any suggestions for revision lessons? How are you managing the change to the linear specification?
Some may seem obvious, others less so, but all have made a contribution.
1) Establish a progress measure and make it visible to staff and students
We started mock exams with full papers early in the academic year, assigning grades and sharing them with the students and staff. We then did these regularly throughout the year, progressing through different past papers. Early scores were low due to bits of missing content, but we could also identify gaps in knowledge of content we had already covered. All mocks were accompanied by formative feedback & self assessment as discussed in my earlier post. this is in addition to feedback given on book work, which is also a subject of an earlier post.
Tracking this data centrally made the department staff aware of where work was required with particular students. You can see the progress made at a headline level during the year below, but the data was held at an individual student and class level. We could cut it to look specifically at SEN, FSM or other raise groups as well as general progress:
Yes I know we're still below the target line, but we've not finished the year yet! - we've got more students within reach of a C taking exams in June - this should close the gap and take us up to, and hopefully even past the target line - I'm also keen to point out that it's not all about C grades either - we had a target of just 2 A* grades this year but have already recorded 10 so far.
I'll agree that we're not yet posting results at a level that would put us at the top of league tables, however the school has been posting results in the mid 60% range for the last 6 years, with similar target levels to this year! Therefore to take a step into the mid-high 70%, or even 80% range by the time the summer results are in will be a big improvement, and the best the school has ever delivered.)
We had actually done this regular mock process with this year group during year 10 in preparation for their earlier unit exams, so they were used to the idea of seeing progress their develop during the year.
As well as nicely sloping graphs we posted visual summaries of individual student performance vs target grades in classrooms and talked about a path to improvement. Note that because some students were concerned about publicly displaying low targets or low grades we didn't talk about actual grades, just position vs their personal target via colour coding. This is an example of what they look like:
I acknowledge it's not neat & tidy and doesn't show a flawless progression from red to green/blue, but real data often isn't. However it is clear for the students to see the progress they and their peers have made during the year, which is substantial.
2) Carefully targeted revision support
Where groups of students share a common need in terms of revision then we re-grouped them to maximise focus on these areas of weakness - this happened within classes as part of differentiation and also across classes where students were grouped with a particular teacher for a short time according to need.
We also selected some students for 1:1 withdrawal during lessons (including selected extraction from other subjects for those most in need), and also selected some for short 1:1 sessions during morning registration.
3) Be clear about what is required to reach or exceed targets
We used analysis of past grade boundaries and conversions to recommend minimum marks required to achieve both their target grade and the grade above. The students responded really well to knowing that they needed a particular score, and again this helped them to judge progress in mocks. e.g. if Johnny needed at least 55 for an overall grade B, and scored 34 then 45 in successive mocks he could see progression towards his personal target in a clearer way than two grade Cs would have.
4) Parental involvement
I've already mentioned parental involvement in homeworks in an earlier post, and this did help to push the visibility of maths as a subject at home and in class.
Communications home in addition to the homework information included notification of after school and half term/holiday revision sessions, early details of exam dates and expected equipment.
Ahead of exams revision packs of questions were sent home with students, but the answers were e-mailed to parents to help the parents help the students.
Parents have been really positive about the level and types of information that has been sent home.
5) Maximise access to revision materials
We offered revision guides and revision DVDs for sale at a reduced cost via the school at various points during the year. Approximately 65% of the year took us up on this. We also regularly shared revision website information with the students.
6) Use a range of revision lessons
This is still under more development as we think of and find more ideas (and will be the subject of a further more detailed post), but once we get to revision time it is important to give students a varied diet of activities. Things we've used are:
- Team question paper attack & peer evaluation
- Question grenades
- A3 questions
- Question design
- Jigsaw & loop cards (e.g. this excellent selection on Mr Barton maths)
- Grade passports (e.g. these from Mr Slack)
- Revision/topical team quizzes
- Key fact guides - issued to every student (e.g. these from teemaths)
Is this just teaching to the test?
No, it's not all about teaching to the test. However there comes a time when we have to seek to maximise the results that the students can deliver. In the long term it is both in their interest and in the interest of the school.
Anything else?
In amongst this were other actions such as selected re-takes and some students changing from modular to linear exams, but with the changes to the exam structure in England this will not be possible in future years so it's not really worth discussing in detail.
What about next year and the switch to linear exams?
Our approach is intended to be very similar. We have already started using full GCSE papers with our current year 10 and will use the same tools for sharing the data to show progress through the year. Early indication suggests we're starting in a similar place on the curve as for the current year 11 We might selectively enter some in November if we think they will benefit from it, but we'll hold off if there is a chance that it means they might not achieve to their full potential in the end.
Any thoughts?
I'm keen to know if you've done anything similar, or different that has a beneficial effect to your students. Any suggestions for revision lessons? How are you managing the change to the linear specification?
Monday, 6 May 2013
Parent power improving homework completion rates & quality
Having just read back though this it actually seems fairly obvious, but it's made a difference to us.
The problem
Too many students not completing their homework or coming up with some kind of feeble excuse. Responses to incomplete homework varied from class to class and we generally had too many students viewing homeworks as optional.
The solution
Firstly one of the department analysed pupil performance in tests vs homework completion and got a perfect correlation between those that did more homework getting better grades. Sharing this with their class on its own spurred some students into doing more homeworks, but we wanted to ensure there was a clear and rigorous approach taken across the department.
We decided to get parents involved. Firstly we tried it in one class and e-mailed PDF copies of the homework worksheets direct to parents each week, alongside giving printed copies to the students. We also asked for a parental signature on the bottom of the homeworks to indicate that the student had shown it to their parents. This substantially improved both completion rate and quality. It had such an effect on this one class that we decided to roll it out across the whole of year 11 (we would have done more year groups but for the admin related to e-mailing home)
In the first week of this new process we had 17% of students fail to hand in homework - they all received a detention in line with the school behaviour policy. In the second week we had just 4% fail to hand in, and the figure has hovered somewhere below 4% since then.
All of the homeworks are marked and assigned a grade within a week of being handed in, alongside appropriate formative feedback.
Noticeably the quality of homeworks increased dramatically when we were firm about parental signatures. We even had calls from a few parents to inform us that they had refused to sign in a particular week as they felt the homework was not done to a suitable standard, meaning we were forewarned when the sheets were presented by the students in question and could take appropriate action.
Having the PDF copies e-mailed home means that students have no excuse for not doing the work in the form of lost sheets or "wasn't here when it was set", and it is surprising how many end up handing in a sheet printed at home rather than the ones handed out to them.
While we could simply upload sheets to a shared drive or publish them on a VLE or google docs type platform that would require the students or their parents to go looking for the work. The act of e-mailing it direct to parents means that there is substantially increased visibility and does not require them to go out of their way to find the information.
Is it worth it?
I'm well aware of debates around homework effectiveness and questioning whether it is actually useful. All I can say is that this year we have been much tighter on homework as a department and have seen a substantial improvement in test/exam performances. Clearly we have changed a whole range of other things as well (some already mentioned in this blog) so it is impossible to infer a true causal relationship for this, but I do believe it has made a worthwhile contribution to our school record performance for GCSE results already this year.
We have also had very positive feedback from parents on this initiative, and the pupils appreciate the certainty that the process brings.
Where now?
We're looking at further developments - partly in broadening the ranges and types of homeworks set, while still keeping this direct parental link. We are also planning on extending this further across the year groups as we develop the admin systems to allow this more easily.
What are your thoughts?
Do you do something similar? Something different? Can you suggest anything even more effective? All thoughts and comments welcome.
The problem
Too many students not completing their homework or coming up with some kind of feeble excuse. Responses to incomplete homework varied from class to class and we generally had too many students viewing homeworks as optional.
The solution
Firstly one of the department analysed pupil performance in tests vs homework completion and got a perfect correlation between those that did more homework getting better grades. Sharing this with their class on its own spurred some students into doing more homeworks, but we wanted to ensure there was a clear and rigorous approach taken across the department.
We decided to get parents involved. Firstly we tried it in one class and e-mailed PDF copies of the homework worksheets direct to parents each week, alongside giving printed copies to the students. We also asked for a parental signature on the bottom of the homeworks to indicate that the student had shown it to their parents. This substantially improved both completion rate and quality. It had such an effect on this one class that we decided to roll it out across the whole of year 11 (we would have done more year groups but for the admin related to e-mailing home)
In the first week of this new process we had 17% of students fail to hand in homework - they all received a detention in line with the school behaviour policy. In the second week we had just 4% fail to hand in, and the figure has hovered somewhere below 4% since then.
All of the homeworks are marked and assigned a grade within a week of being handed in, alongside appropriate formative feedback.
Noticeably the quality of homeworks increased dramatically when we were firm about parental signatures. We even had calls from a few parents to inform us that they had refused to sign in a particular week as they felt the homework was not done to a suitable standard, meaning we were forewarned when the sheets were presented by the students in question and could take appropriate action.
Having the PDF copies e-mailed home means that students have no excuse for not doing the work in the form of lost sheets or "wasn't here when it was set", and it is surprising how many end up handing in a sheet printed at home rather than the ones handed out to them.
While we could simply upload sheets to a shared drive or publish them on a VLE or google docs type platform that would require the students or their parents to go looking for the work. The act of e-mailing it direct to parents means that there is substantially increased visibility and does not require them to go out of their way to find the information.
Is it worth it?
I'm well aware of debates around homework effectiveness and questioning whether it is actually useful. All I can say is that this year we have been much tighter on homework as a department and have seen a substantial improvement in test/exam performances. Clearly we have changed a whole range of other things as well (some already mentioned in this blog) so it is impossible to infer a true causal relationship for this, but I do believe it has made a worthwhile contribution to our school record performance for GCSE results already this year.
We have also had very positive feedback from parents on this initiative, and the pupils appreciate the certainty that the process brings.
Where now?
We're looking at further developments - partly in broadening the ranges and types of homeworks set, while still keeping this direct parental link. We are also planning on extending this further across the year groups as we develop the admin systems to allow this more easily.
What are your thoughts?
Do you do something similar? Something different? Can you suggest anything even more effective? All thoughts and comments welcome.
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