The info shared in the presentation picks up on aspects covered in these posts:
Using measures to improve performance
Using seating plans with student data
RAG123 basics
As always feedback is always welcome...
Showing posts with label Variability. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Variability. Show all posts
Saturday, 12 July 2014
Managing with colours - SLTeachmeet presentation
These are the slides I presented at #SLTeachmeet earlier today. Click here
The info shared in the presentation picks up on aspects covered in these posts:
Using measures to improve performance
Using seating plans with student data
RAG123 basics
As always feedback is always welcome...
The info shared in the presentation picks up on aspects covered in these posts:
Using measures to improve performance
Using seating plans with student data
RAG123 basics
As always feedback is always welcome...
Saturday, 14 June 2014
Powerful percentages
Numbers are powerful, statistics are powerful, but they must be used correctly and responsibly. Leaders need to use data to help take decisions and measure progress, but leaders also need to make sure that they know where limitations creep into data, particularly when it's processed into summary figures.
This links quite closely to this post by David Didau (@Learningspy) where he discusses availability bias - i.e. being biased because you're using the data that is available rather than thinking about it more deeply.
As part of this there is an important misuse of percentages that as a maths teacher I feel the need to highlight... basically when you turn raw numbers into percentages it can add weight to them, but sometimes this weight is undeserved...
Percentages can end up being discrete measures dressed up as continuous
Quick reminder of GCSE data types - Discrete data is in chunks, it can't take values between particular points. Classic examples might be shoe sizes where there is no measure between size 9 or size 10, or favourite flavours of crisps where there is no mid point between Cheese & Onion or Smoky Bacon.
Continuous data can have sub divisions inserted between them, for example a measure of height could be in metres, centimetres, millimetres and so on - it can keep on being divided.
The problem with percentages is that they look continuous - you can quote 27%, 34.5%, 93.2453%. However the data used to calculate the percentage actually imposes discrete limits to the possible outcome. A sample of 1 can only have a result of 0% or 100%, a sample of 2 can only result in 0%, 50% or 100%, 3 can only give 0%, 33.3%, 66.7% or 100%, and so on. Even with 200 data points you can only have 201 separate percentage value outputs - it's not really continuous unless you get to massive samples.
It LOOKS continuous and is talked about like a continuous measure, but it is actually often discrete and determined by the sample that you are working with.
Percentages as discrete data makes setting targets difficult for small groups
Picture a school that sets an overall target that at least 80% of students in a particular category (receipt of pupil premium, SEN needs, whatever else) are expected to meet or exceed expected progress.
In this hypothetical school there are three equivalent classes, let's call them A, B and C. In class A we can calculate that 50% of these students are making expected progress; in class B it's 100%, and in class C it's 0%. On face value Class A is 30% behind target, B is 20% ahead and C is 80% behind, but that's completely misleading...
Class A has two students in this category, one is making expected progress, the other isn't. As such it's impossible to meet the 80% target in this class - the only options are 0%, 50% or 100%. If the whole school target at 80% accepts that some students may not reach expected progress then by definition you have to accept that 50% might be on target for this specific class. You might argue that 80% is closer to 100% so that should be the target for this class, but that means that this teacher as to achieve 100% where the whole school is only aiming at 80%! The school has room for error but this class doesn't! To suggest that this teacher is underperforming because they haven't hit 100% is unfair. Here the percentage has completely confused the issue, when what's really important is whether these 2 individuals are learning as well as they can?
Class B and C might each have only one student in this category. But it doesn't mean that the teacher of class B is better than that of class C. In class B the student's category happens to have no significant impact on their learning in that subject, they progress alongside the rest of the class with no issues, with no specific extra input from the teacher. In class C the student is also a young carer and misses extended periods from school; when present they work well but there are gaps in their knowledge due to absences that even the best teacher will struggle to fill. To suggest that either teacher is more successful than the other on the basis of this data is completely misleading as the detailed status of individual students is far more significant.
What this is intended to illustrate is that taking a target for a large population of students and applying it to much smaller subsets can cause real issues. Maybe the 80% works at a whole school level, but surely it makes much more sense at a class level to talk about the individual students rather than reducing them to a misleading percentage?
Percentage amplifies small populations into large ones
Simply because percent means "per hundred" we start to picture large numbers. When we state that 67% of books reviewed have been marked in the last two weeks it conjures up images of 67 books out of 100. However that statistic could have been arrived at having only reviewed 3 books, 2 of which had been marked recently. The percentage give no indication of the true sample size, and therefore 67% could hide the fact that the next step better could be 100%!
If the following month the same measure is quoted as having jumped to 75% it looks like a big improvement, but it could simply be 9 out of 12 this time, compared to 8 out of 12 the previous month. Arithmetically the percentages are correct (given rounding), but the apparent step change from 67% to 75% is actually far less impressive when described as 8/12 vs 9/12. As a percentage it suggests a big move in the population; as a fraction it means only one more meeting the measure.
You can get a similar issue if a school is grading lessons/teaching and reports 72% good or better in one round of reviews, and then sees 84% in the next. (Many schools are still doing this type of grading and summary, I'm not going to debate the rights and wrongs here - there are other places for that). However the 72% is the result of 18 good or better out of 25 seen, the 84% is the result of 21 out of 25. So the 12% point jump is due to just 3 teachers flipping from one grade to the next.
Basically when your population is below 100 an individual piece of data is worth more than 1% and it's vital not to forget this. Quoting a small population as a percentage amplifies any apparent changes, and this effect increases as the population size shrinks. The smaller your population the bigger the amplification. So with a small population a positive change looks more positive as a percentage, and a negative change looks more negative as a percentage.
Being able to calculate a percentage doesn't mean you should
I guess to some extent I'm talking about an aspect of numeracy that gets overlooked. The view could be that if you know the arithmetic method for calculating a percentage then so long as you do that calculation correctly then the numbers are right. Logic follows that if the numbers are right then any decisions based on them must be right too. But this doesn't work.
The numbers might be correct but the decision may be flawed. Comparing this to a literacy example might help. I can write a sentence that is correct grammatically, but that does not mean the sentence must be true. The words can be spelled correctly, in the correct order and punctuation might be flawless. However the meaning of the sentence could be completely incorrect. (I appreciate that there might be some irony in that I may have made unwitting errors in this sentence about grammar - corrections welcome!)
For percentage calculations then the numbers may well be correct arithmetically but we always need to check the nature of the data that was used to generate these numbers and be aware of the limitations to the data. Taking decisions while ignoring these limitations significantly harms the quality of the decision.
Other sources of confusion
None of the above deals with variability or reliability in the measures used as part of your sample, but that's important too. If your survey of books could have given a slightly different result if you'd chosen different books, different students or different teachers then there is an inherent lack of repeatability to the data. If you're reporting a change between two tests then anything within test to test variation simply can't be assumed to be a real difference. Apparent movements of 50% or more could be statistically insignificant if the process used to collect the data is unreliable. Again the numbers may be arithmetically sound, but the statistical conclusion may not be.
Draw conclusions with caution
So what I'm really trying to say is that the next time someone starts talking about percentages try to look past the data and make sure that it makes sense to summarise it as a percentage. Make sure you understand what discrete limitations the population size has imposed, and try to get a feel for how sensitive the percentage figures are to small changes in the results.
By all means use percentages, but use them consciously with knowledge of their limitations.
As always - all thoughts/comments welcome...
This links quite closely to this post by David Didau (@Learningspy) where he discusses availability bias - i.e. being biased because you're using the data that is available rather than thinking about it more deeply.
As part of this there is an important misuse of percentages that as a maths teacher I feel the need to highlight... basically when you turn raw numbers into percentages it can add weight to them, but sometimes this weight is undeserved...
Percentages can end up being discrete measures dressed up as continuous
Quick reminder of GCSE data types - Discrete data is in chunks, it can't take values between particular points. Classic examples might be shoe sizes where there is no measure between size 9 or size 10, or favourite flavours of crisps where there is no mid point between Cheese & Onion or Smoky Bacon.
Continuous data can have sub divisions inserted between them, for example a measure of height could be in metres, centimetres, millimetres and so on - it can keep on being divided.
The problem with percentages is that they look continuous - you can quote 27%, 34.5%, 93.2453%. However the data used to calculate the percentage actually imposes discrete limits to the possible outcome. A sample of 1 can only have a result of 0% or 100%, a sample of 2 can only result in 0%, 50% or 100%, 3 can only give 0%, 33.3%, 66.7% or 100%, and so on. Even with 200 data points you can only have 201 separate percentage value outputs - it's not really continuous unless you get to massive samples.
It LOOKS continuous and is talked about like a continuous measure, but it is actually often discrete and determined by the sample that you are working with.
Percentages as discrete data makes setting targets difficult for small groups
Picture a school that sets an overall target that at least 80% of students in a particular category (receipt of pupil premium, SEN needs, whatever else) are expected to meet or exceed expected progress.
In this hypothetical school there are three equivalent classes, let's call them A, B and C. In class A we can calculate that 50% of these students are making expected progress; in class B it's 100%, and in class C it's 0%. On face value Class A is 30% behind target, B is 20% ahead and C is 80% behind, but that's completely misleading...
Class A has two students in this category, one is making expected progress, the other isn't. As such it's impossible to meet the 80% target in this class - the only options are 0%, 50% or 100%. If the whole school target at 80% accepts that some students may not reach expected progress then by definition you have to accept that 50% might be on target for this specific class. You might argue that 80% is closer to 100% so that should be the target for this class, but that means that this teacher as to achieve 100% where the whole school is only aiming at 80%! The school has room for error but this class doesn't! To suggest that this teacher is underperforming because they haven't hit 100% is unfair. Here the percentage has completely confused the issue, when what's really important is whether these 2 individuals are learning as well as they can?
Class B and C might each have only one student in this category. But it doesn't mean that the teacher of class B is better than that of class C. In class B the student's category happens to have no significant impact on their learning in that subject, they progress alongside the rest of the class with no issues, with no specific extra input from the teacher. In class C the student is also a young carer and misses extended periods from school; when present they work well but there are gaps in their knowledge due to absences that even the best teacher will struggle to fill. To suggest that either teacher is more successful than the other on the basis of this data is completely misleading as the detailed status of individual students is far more significant.
What this is intended to illustrate is that taking a target for a large population of students and applying it to much smaller subsets can cause real issues. Maybe the 80% works at a whole school level, but surely it makes much more sense at a class level to talk about the individual students rather than reducing them to a misleading percentage?
Percentage amplifies small populations into large ones
Simply because percent means "per hundred" we start to picture large numbers. When we state that 67% of books reviewed have been marked in the last two weeks it conjures up images of 67 books out of 100. However that statistic could have been arrived at having only reviewed 3 books, 2 of which had been marked recently. The percentage give no indication of the true sample size, and therefore 67% could hide the fact that the next step better could be 100%!
If the following month the same measure is quoted as having jumped to 75% it looks like a big improvement, but it could simply be 9 out of 12 this time, compared to 8 out of 12 the previous month. Arithmetically the percentages are correct (given rounding), but the apparent step change from 67% to 75% is actually far less impressive when described as 8/12 vs 9/12. As a percentage it suggests a big move in the population; as a fraction it means only one more meeting the measure.
You can get a similar issue if a school is grading lessons/teaching and reports 72% good or better in one round of reviews, and then sees 84% in the next. (Many schools are still doing this type of grading and summary, I'm not going to debate the rights and wrongs here - there are other places for that). However the 72% is the result of 18 good or better out of 25 seen, the 84% is the result of 21 out of 25. So the 12% point jump is due to just 3 teachers flipping from one grade to the next.
Basically when your population is below 100 an individual piece of data is worth more than 1% and it's vital not to forget this. Quoting a small population as a percentage amplifies any apparent changes, and this effect increases as the population size shrinks. The smaller your population the bigger the amplification. So with a small population a positive change looks more positive as a percentage, and a negative change looks more negative as a percentage.
Being able to calculate a percentage doesn't mean you should
I guess to some extent I'm talking about an aspect of numeracy that gets overlooked. The view could be that if you know the arithmetic method for calculating a percentage then so long as you do that calculation correctly then the numbers are right. Logic follows that if the numbers are right then any decisions based on them must be right too. But this doesn't work.
The numbers might be correct but the decision may be flawed. Comparing this to a literacy example might help. I can write a sentence that is correct grammatically, but that does not mean the sentence must be true. The words can be spelled correctly, in the correct order and punctuation might be flawless. However the meaning of the sentence could be completely incorrect. (I appreciate that there might be some irony in that I may have made unwitting errors in this sentence about grammar - corrections welcome!)
For percentage calculations then the numbers may well be correct arithmetically but we always need to check the nature of the data that was used to generate these numbers and be aware of the limitations to the data. Taking decisions while ignoring these limitations significantly harms the quality of the decision.
Other sources of confusion
None of the above deals with variability or reliability in the measures used as part of your sample, but that's important too. If your survey of books could have given a slightly different result if you'd chosen different books, different students or different teachers then there is an inherent lack of repeatability to the data. If you're reporting a change between two tests then anything within test to test variation simply can't be assumed to be a real difference. Apparent movements of 50% or more could be statistically insignificant if the process used to collect the data is unreliable. Again the numbers may be arithmetically sound, but the statistical conclusion may not be.
Draw conclusions with caution
So what I'm really trying to say is that the next time someone starts talking about percentages try to look past the data and make sure that it makes sense to summarise it as a percentage. Make sure you understand what discrete limitations the population size has imposed, and try to get a feel for how sensitive the percentage figures are to small changes in the results.
By all means use percentages, but use them consciously with knowledge of their limitations.
As always - all thoughts/comments welcome...
Saturday, 3 May 2014
Policies not straightjackets
I'm starting to lose track of the number of times I've heard or seen people say that they can't do or try something because it's out of line with their school or department policy. It really worries me when I hear that - it means they feel unable to innovate or experiment with something that could be an improvement.
Most often for me it's linked with RAG123, but I've seen it at other times in school, and all over the place on twitter too. It normally goes something like this:
More specific examples I've actually seen/heard over the years include:
A: "For that lesson why not try using a big open ended question as your learning objective that all students work towards answering?"
B: "I can't because we're required to have 'must, should, could' learning objectives for all lessons"
A: "Could you re-arrange the tables in you room to help establish control with that difficult group? Perhaps break up the desks to break up the talking groups?"
B: "No because our department policy says we have to have the tables in groups to encourage group work."
A: "Why not try RAG123 marking?"
B: "I can't because our marking policy requires written formative comments only."
What are policies for anyway?
Policies should be there to provide a framework of good basic practice that all in a given organisation can use as a bare minimum to baseline their practice. However there is a difference between a framework to guide and a set of rules to be applied rigidly.
For example a policy that says that learning objectives must include suitable differentiation for the class being taught is substantially different to saying that all lessons are required to have Must, Should, Could learning objectives. One is the essence of what we really want, the other is a single, rigid example of how this might be achieved. One allows the teacher to use their professional judgement to set objectives in a way that is appropriate for their relationship with that class and the material being taught; the other applies a blanket approach that assumes that every lesson by every teacher with every class is best set up in an identical fashion.
For me policies should set out a standard that is the bare minimum to ensure that the students get a good deal in that aspect. For example if a teacher is unsure of how often to mark their books the policy should clarify the minimum requirement, it should also detail what minimum information is needed in order for it to count as good marking.
However policies should never stifle innovation. Should never prevent the trial of something that could be even better. They also shouldn't dictate set structures that can't be deviated from under any circumstances - it should always be allowed to do it better than laid down in the policy!
Teachers as professionals should always have the option to deviate from the policy if it will produce better outcomes for their students in that particular situation (and if this becomes a consistent improvement then perhaps the policy should change to incorporate the deviation so that everyone benefits). However as professionals they should be both able and willing to justify a decision like this if questioned. Similarly if they have deviated from policy to try something that turns out to have not been so good then as professionals they should acknowledge this and return to the policy.
Consistency not uniformity
The bottom line is that policies should ensure a consistency in quality of experience, which mustn't be confused with a uniformity of experience. Quality in education is about high standards, high expectations and about professionals making informed decisions about how to get the best from the students in front of them. Quality is not about every teacher doing exactly the same thing in exactly the same way, if it was we could record model lessons and just play them to students, or just learn scripts to follow.
Uniformity and rigidity isn't the answer to the multi-faceted challenge that teaching presents; we can't always assume that one size fits all. Therefore policies should never be straightjackets. Policies should be guidelines and bare minimums, with innovation and improvement specifically allowed and encouraged.
Comments always welcome - I'd be interested to know your thoughts. :-)
Most often for me it's linked with RAG123, but I've seen it at other times in school, and all over the place on twitter too. It normally goes something like this:
- Person A: "Why not try this (insert suggested alternative pedagogical approach here)?"
- Person B: "That sounds great and I'd love to, but our policy for (same general area of pedagogy) means I can't try it."
More specific examples I've actually seen/heard over the years include:
A: "For that lesson why not try using a big open ended question as your learning objective that all students work towards answering?"
B: "I can't because we're required to have 'must, should, could' learning objectives for all lessons"
A: "Could you re-arrange the tables in you room to help establish control with that difficult group? Perhaps break up the desks to break up the talking groups?"
B: "No because our department policy says we have to have the tables in groups to encourage group work."
A: "Why not try RAG123 marking?"
B: "I can't because our marking policy requires written formative comments only."
What are policies for anyway?
Policies should be there to provide a framework of good basic practice that all in a given organisation can use as a bare minimum to baseline their practice. However there is a difference between a framework to guide and a set of rules to be applied rigidly.
For example a policy that says that learning objectives must include suitable differentiation for the class being taught is substantially different to saying that all lessons are required to have Must, Should, Could learning objectives. One is the essence of what we really want, the other is a single, rigid example of how this might be achieved. One allows the teacher to use their professional judgement to set objectives in a way that is appropriate for their relationship with that class and the material being taught; the other applies a blanket approach that assumes that every lesson by every teacher with every class is best set up in an identical fashion.
For me policies should set out a standard that is the bare minimum to ensure that the students get a good deal in that aspect. For example if a teacher is unsure of how often to mark their books the policy should clarify the minimum requirement, it should also detail what minimum information is needed in order for it to count as good marking.
However policies should never stifle innovation. Should never prevent the trial of something that could be even better. They also shouldn't dictate set structures that can't be deviated from under any circumstances - it should always be allowed to do it better than laid down in the policy!
Teachers as professionals should always have the option to deviate from the policy if it will produce better outcomes for their students in that particular situation (and if this becomes a consistent improvement then perhaps the policy should change to incorporate the deviation so that everyone benefits). However as professionals they should be both able and willing to justify a decision like this if questioned. Similarly if they have deviated from policy to try something that turns out to have not been so good then as professionals they should acknowledge this and return to the policy.
Consistency not uniformity
The bottom line is that policies should ensure a consistency in quality of experience, which mustn't be confused with a uniformity of experience. Quality in education is about high standards, high expectations and about professionals making informed decisions about how to get the best from the students in front of them. Quality is not about every teacher doing exactly the same thing in exactly the same way, if it was we could record model lessons and just play them to students, or just learn scripts to follow.
Uniformity and rigidity isn't the answer to the multi-faceted challenge that teaching presents; we can't always assume that one size fits all. Therefore policies should never be straightjackets. Policies should be guidelines and bare minimums, with innovation and improvement specifically allowed and encouraged.
Comments always welcome - I'd be interested to know your thoughts. :-)
Sunday, 9 February 2014
The first rule of RAG123 club
Sharing best practice requires interaction, but teaching can be a fairly solitary profession - planning lessons alone, marking/feedback done alone, lesson delivery often done where you're the only adult in the room, reflection on lessons done alone.... But why?
I teach in several different rooms across a week (due to a combination of class sizes and the desire to inconvenience myself first before the rest of my team), and as a result my class's books are spread across different rooms. Previously I collected them and took them to the maths office to mark (using RAG123 - see this post), and then returned them to the correct room afterwards. The penny dropped that this was a bit silly so I have started to just sit in whichever room the books are in to mark them, which often means I'm marking in another teacher's room, and something remarkable happens.... we talk and share thoughts about the classes while getting on with our work!..... and this gave me an idea!
Wouldn't it be fascinating to identify a time each week where a number of us got together and just marked our books in the same room? I'm going to propose it next week - just to give it a try. (of course I realise that this does require people to move their books to the designated room, but this is about achieving something more than simply marking the books)
Importantly I'm not going to compel anyone to join in (acknowledge that some might find it excruciating to be in the same room as others for this kind of thing), but I'll identify a room and a time and invite others to "bring your books to RAG123 club"....
The rules of RAG123 club:
I teach in several different rooms across a week (due to a combination of class sizes and the desire to inconvenience myself first before the rest of my team), and as a result my class's books are spread across different rooms. Previously I collected them and took them to the maths office to mark (using RAG123 - see this post), and then returned them to the correct room afterwards. The penny dropped that this was a bit silly so I have started to just sit in whichever room the books are in to mark them, which often means I'm marking in another teacher's room, and something remarkable happens.... we talk and share thoughts about the classes while getting on with our work!..... and this gave me an idea!
Wouldn't it be fascinating to identify a time each week where a number of us got together and just marked our books in the same room? I'm going to propose it next week - just to give it a try. (of course I realise that this does require people to move their books to the designated room, but this is about achieving something more than simply marking the books)
Importantly I'm not going to compel anyone to join in (acknowledge that some might find it excruciating to be in the same room as others for this kind of thing), but I'll identify a room and a time and invite others to "bring your books to RAG123 club"....
The rules of RAG123 club:
- Tell everyone about RAG123 club!
- You don't have to come to RAG123 club, but it would be great if you did
- You don't have to talk/share at RAG123 club, but it would be great if you did
- You can share anything at RAG123 club - interesting work done by a student, interesting comments, frustrating responses to a task, particular successes, particular failures
- Feel free to magpie any ideas you pick up via RAG123 club, and let the other person know that you've done it/how it goes
Of course some of you might already do something like this - if so I'd be keen on your thoughts.
Saturday, 25 January 2014
RAG123 as formative planning
I'm at risk of becoming a bit evangelical about RAG123 marking, but despite repeated pleas for balance to my enthusiasm on this I've still never EVER found anyone who has tried it that doesn't find it both beneficial to them and students and NOT a drain on their workload. Also so far nobody who has tried it has told me they are stopping! (or maybe they've both stopped RAG123 and stopped talking to me too!)
If you don't know what I'm talking about with RAG123 then see my earlier posts here, here and here. And also this post from Mr Benney (@Benneypenyrheol), who is almost as enthusiastic about RAG123 as I am!
Without a doubt for me, moving from what I would have classed as "good" marking every 2-3 weeks with formative comments to daily RAG123 has improved my practice, AND reduced my overall marking & planning workload.
Fomative marking becomes formative planning
A really important aspect is that having seen the books after one lesson I can react in the next one. I change/tweak plans, I target questions, I provide extra support, I revisit topics, I go and have a chat with specific students.
The students know I am responding to what they did in the last lesson - they link my reponses in the next lesson to their actions in the last, and this also shapes their actions in the next.
I'm finding that I don't need to give a worked example and model it as part of marking - this can be done as a natural part of discussions in my next lesson, writing it while marking serves no extra benefit.
I also don't necessarily need to write specific questions in response in their books - so long as I react in the lesson content and they know what they should be doing next (but that doesn't always need to be written down while marking). Yes this brings with it some issues in terms of evidence of feedback when doing a book trawl, but come and talk to my classes - I challenge anyone to find a student that doesn't know what they need to do to improve.
So they know what to do to improve, how does RAG123 do that?
Is it possible that all students really need to DO to improve is "put enough effort in and try your best to achieve the learning objectives in each lesson" and perhaps "let your teacher know when you haven't understood something"?
If I write in a student's book "you need to improve your algebra skills" exactly how does it help them really? If they struggle with algebra then just telling them that they need to improve it is basically just stating the obvious and misses a vital element of how to improve.
If I correct some work and give a model answer without other explanations/support, etc then that could just be showing them how to solve that problem, not addressing the misconception that caused the original error.
However if I am shaping lesson tasks to help them with their algebra skills then really what they need to do to improve is to put in as much effort they can to the tasks that I am guiding them through. They know that so long as they are putting in plenty of effort and trying to do the tasks I am planning they will make progress, because the plans are based around what they have shown me they can do and therefore what they need next.
Therefore I believe the single most important bit of feedback in RAG123 is the effort grade (RAG for us, but others do it differently). That's the bit the student has direct control over. If they are trying hard then it's up to me to design tasks that maximise learning. However if they're not trying hard then the key step for improvement may well be just try harder first.
I do give them other pointers too, they do get written comments, but often they are very short, and backed up with verbal discussion.
Errors don't accumulate
The most significant thing for me with RAG123 is I can see clearly if a class, a group of students or an individual is working at the level I expect for them. If not I can do something about it. However with RAG123 I do something about it next lesson, not in 2 weeks when the misconception has compounded to make bigger errors, or when the student has completely forgotten the thought process that took them there. Really importantly it's before we move off a topic, so I can re-teach or revisit aspects before leaving them.
For example I could draw the following graph for understanding over time with "traditional" marking - by this I mean big detailed feedback done once every 2-3 weeks.
Before you say it, yes I know learning is non-linear, but lets think of this as a rhetorical picture!
The important part is that with traditional marking, corrections must be big if the student drifts from the intended understanding. I may be exaggerating a bit and it may well be that the traditional marking does close any gaps perfectly between intended and acquired understanding, but equally it may not fully close the gap, simply because it's not timely enough. It's also harder to then check again that the gap has closed - does that happen in the next 2-3 week cycle? That may be too late.
By contrast a RAG123 graph might look like this
Obviously I'm idealising - I like RAG123! But doesn't it make sense that lots of little corrections stand much better chance of getting back or staying on target than fewer bigger ones?
Will it work for any subject?
I honestly don't see why not. Most people I talk to about this respond initially with "well it might work for maths but we mark things differently." Actually I know people using it in science, RE, English, MFL - how much more different can you get?
If you think it might work then why not try it? If you think it won't work why not try it anyway - within a week you'll know your students better than ever!
Actually you don't even have to do it daily - every 2 lessons or every 3 lessons with self assessment every lesson would still be beneficial.
I should stop sounding quite so much like a salesman on this - and my next post will be on something other than RAG123 - I promise!!
However, seriously, if you don't like RAG123 please let me know - I'm keen to understand its limitations and put some balance to my sales pitch on this!
If you don't know what I'm talking about with RAG123 then see my earlier posts here, here and here. And also this post from Mr Benney (@Benneypenyrheol), who is almost as enthusiastic about RAG123 as I am!
Without a doubt for me, moving from what I would have classed as "good" marking every 2-3 weeks with formative comments to daily RAG123 has improved my practice, AND reduced my overall marking & planning workload.
Fomative marking becomes formative planning
A really important aspect is that having seen the books after one lesson I can react in the next one. I change/tweak plans, I target questions, I provide extra support, I revisit topics, I go and have a chat with specific students.
The students know I am responding to what they did in the last lesson - they link my reponses in the next lesson to their actions in the last, and this also shapes their actions in the next.
I'm finding that I don't need to give a worked example and model it as part of marking - this can be done as a natural part of discussions in my next lesson, writing it while marking serves no extra benefit.
I also don't necessarily need to write specific questions in response in their books - so long as I react in the lesson content and they know what they should be doing next (but that doesn't always need to be written down while marking). Yes this brings with it some issues in terms of evidence of feedback when doing a book trawl, but come and talk to my classes - I challenge anyone to find a student that doesn't know what they need to do to improve.
So they know what to do to improve, how does RAG123 do that?
Is it possible that all students really need to DO to improve is "put enough effort in and try your best to achieve the learning objectives in each lesson" and perhaps "let your teacher know when you haven't understood something"?
If I write in a student's book "you need to improve your algebra skills" exactly how does it help them really? If they struggle with algebra then just telling them that they need to improve it is basically just stating the obvious and misses a vital element of how to improve.
If I correct some work and give a model answer without other explanations/support, etc then that could just be showing them how to solve that problem, not addressing the misconception that caused the original error.
However if I am shaping lesson tasks to help them with their algebra skills then really what they need to do to improve is to put in as much effort they can to the tasks that I am guiding them through. They know that so long as they are putting in plenty of effort and trying to do the tasks I am planning they will make progress, because the plans are based around what they have shown me they can do and therefore what they need next.
Therefore I believe the single most important bit of feedback in RAG123 is the effort grade (RAG for us, but others do it differently). That's the bit the student has direct control over. If they are trying hard then it's up to me to design tasks that maximise learning. However if they're not trying hard then the key step for improvement may well be just try harder first.
I do give them other pointers too, they do get written comments, but often they are very short, and backed up with verbal discussion.
Errors don't accumulate
The most significant thing for me with RAG123 is I can see clearly if a class, a group of students or an individual is working at the level I expect for them. If not I can do something about it. However with RAG123 I do something about it next lesson, not in 2 weeks when the misconception has compounded to make bigger errors, or when the student has completely forgotten the thought process that took them there. Really importantly it's before we move off a topic, so I can re-teach or revisit aspects before leaving them.
For example I could draw the following graph for understanding over time with "traditional" marking - by this I mean big detailed feedback done once every 2-3 weeks.
Before you say it, yes I know learning is non-linear, but lets think of this as a rhetorical picture!
The important part is that with traditional marking, corrections must be big if the student drifts from the intended understanding. I may be exaggerating a bit and it may well be that the traditional marking does close any gaps perfectly between intended and acquired understanding, but equally it may not fully close the gap, simply because it's not timely enough. It's also harder to then check again that the gap has closed - does that happen in the next 2-3 week cycle? That may be too late.
By contrast a RAG123 graph might look like this
Obviously I'm idealising - I like RAG123! But doesn't it make sense that lots of little corrections stand much better chance of getting back or staying on target than fewer bigger ones?
Will it work for any subject?
I honestly don't see why not. Most people I talk to about this respond initially with "well it might work for maths but we mark things differently." Actually I know people using it in science, RE, English, MFL - how much more different can you get?
If you think it might work then why not try it? If you think it won't work why not try it anyway - within a week you'll know your students better than ever!
Actually you don't even have to do it daily - every 2 lessons or every 3 lessons with self assessment every lesson would still be beneficial.
I should stop sounding quite so much like a salesman on this - and my next post will be on something other than RAG123 - I promise!!
However, seriously, if you don't like RAG123 please let me know - I'm keen to understand its limitations and put some balance to my sales pitch on this!
Sunday, 17 November 2013
Make it visible - colour coding progress
As John Hattie says "Know thy impact" If you don't know what I'm talking about see this video or get a look at one of his really interesting "Visible learning" series of books....
Progress walls
We've previously done this for year 11 but this year we're making the progress of all our classes visible... every classroom now has a progress wall, and on it is a really clear summary of the progress that each class taught in that room.
With a tweak to our departmental spreadsheets we have made it easy to print out these colour charts for all of our classes. The colours represent the most recent assessment grade or level vs target. We use colours to avoid the issue of students worrying about others either seeing their target or their assessment levels. It gives an easy way for staff and students to see both their latest status and their progress during the year. They look like this...
In fact even when you look at a large part of the year group the colours allow a good judgement of progress, and easy selection of those that appear to be stationary.
The students like it
The next example here is a completed version from last year, the format is a little different as this one was done by hand rather than automated for the current ones. (note this is in advance of the final grades; 95% of this class met or exceed target in the end)
You can see that progress isn't always linear and isn't always secure. That's fine so long as a discussion is had and the students know what to do to improve - this kind of thing has to be integrated with good feedback and support.
Publishing a new sheet with a class always generates a good discussion in the room - the students always want to see what colour they are and then want to talk about next steps. It's also a great thing to refer to when reminding students on the need to revise or do homework!
Visibility helps for staff too - it helps to focus the mind if one student is clearly not making the same progress as others.
If you don't do something like this already then I urge you to give it a go - I suspect the more visible you can make progress the more progress you can make.
As always, all comments welcome...
Progress walls
We've previously done this for year 11 but this year we're making the progress of all our classes visible... every classroom now has a progress wall, and on it is a really clear summary of the progress that each class taught in that room.
With a tweak to our departmental spreadsheets we have made it easy to print out these colour charts for all of our classes. The colours represent the most recent assessment grade or level vs target. We use colours to avoid the issue of students worrying about others either seeing their target or their assessment levels. It gives an easy way for staff and students to see both their latest status and their progress during the year. They look like this...
This KS3 example illustrates that some students in this class are well above target, some on target and others well below target. It provokes powerful discussions about what students will do next to improve. I've even had a student who has a well above target blue colour code in their first assessment ask if another colour can be added so they can go beyond blue! (Purple is in the pipeline!)
Progress over time
It becomes even more powerful when more data is present - You can see from the yr 11 one here that in general the class has made good progress between the two tests shown.
In fact even when you look at a large part of the year group the colours allow a good judgement of progress, and easy selection of those that appear to be stationary.
The students like it
The next example here is a completed version from last year, the format is a little different as this one was done by hand rather than automated for the current ones. (note this is in advance of the final grades; 95% of this class met or exceed target in the end)
You can see that progress isn't always linear and isn't always secure. That's fine so long as a discussion is had and the students know what to do to improve - this kind of thing has to be integrated with good feedback and support.
Publishing a new sheet with a class always generates a good discussion in the room - the students always want to see what colour they are and then want to talk about next steps. It's also a great thing to refer to when reminding students on the need to revise or do homework!
Visibility helps for staff too - it helps to focus the mind if one student is clearly not making the same progress as others.
If you don't do something like this already then I urge you to give it a go - I suspect the more visible you can make progress the more progress you can make.
As always, all comments 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.
Monday, 22 July 2013
10 thoughts for a head of department
I've just finished my second year as head of department. I think they've been successful - we have scored school record GCSE results in both years, have raised the profile of the department immeasurably and have recently demonstrated the strength of our team with our first ever departmental CPD open day. I had taken on the HoD role with just one year of teaching experience completed in another school before I started (so I've just finished my 3rd year of teaching). While I knew about managing teams from my earlier experiences and trainign in my engineering career, it struck me as odd that there is no real training or standard framework given to all school HoDs when they start. The following list includes some thoughts that might be useful to new HoDs (not trying to blow my own trumpet or looking to teach anyone to suck eggs - you're welcome to ignore or disagree with any aspect of this if you see fit! I just thought these might be useful...). I'm listing these in no particular order...
1) Get to know your team's strengths & weaknesses at an individual level
Particularly important if you are coming into a HoD post at a new school, but it's also worth considering if you're being promoted at the same school - knowing someone while working alongside someone can be very different to knowing them as a line manager.
Vitally don't take anyone else's word for it. When I started in my current position I was given an overview of the department and the SLT view of all of the teachers - I'd say this was accurate for only about 50% of the team, and could have been grossly misleading if I had taken it purely at face value.
Talk to your team about their lessons and their teaching, talk to the students, gather as much information as you can.
If there are people in your team that are more experienced than you then use that to your advantage - ask for their opinion (but remember you can choose to ignore it - you're HoD after all). If there are weaknesses in the team then think about what you can do to mitigate for them and eliminate them over time through CPD.
2) Lead from the front
Effectively "practice what you preach" - never ask your department to do anything that you aren't willing to do yourself. Whether that is to take that difficult bottom set, to implement a marking schedule, or to try a new idea. You can't be judgemental on someone else's practice with any credibility unless you are demonstrating that you are doing the right thing yourself.
I'm sure there will be conflicting views on this but as far as I'm concerned You don't have to be the best teacher in the department to be an effective HoD, but you certainly mustn't be the worst! As a HoD you will teach fewer lessons than the rest of your department - if you're the best then you're actually depriving the students of the best teaching! Just as the best footballers don't necessarily make great managers, the best teachers don't necessarily make great HoDs. Due to your management commitments your teaching will probably suffer a little - just make sure you consistently hold on to good lessons otherwise you'll lose credibility quickly.
3) Get a grip on the departmental finances
Whether your budget is a few hundred pounds or a few thousand - spending it wisely can make a real difference to the department. Plan for expected purchases & bills at the start of the year so you know how much you have available for departmental development (ask your finance function to help you look back at prior year's expenditure to help you make forecasts).
Demonstrating good control will also help you justify requests for additional funding for particular initiatives. A clearly costed proposal against a backdrop of well managed finances is much more credible than scrappy data and lack of control.
I was once told that I should always ask for a bit more than I really want when asking for a budget so that when they give me a bit less than I ask for I'll have the right amount. I personally find that asking for the right amount supported by enough detail to fully justify it means that I've never yet had a budget request reduced.
4) Follow your instincts
So long as you are trying to do the best you can for the students in your care, and for your department then you can't go too far wrong. Try things out, suggest things, invent things. Ask for feedback from your team, from the students, from parents, from SLT. Never be afraid to admit you were wrong and never feel that you must have all of the answers instantly - sometimes you need to think, discuss or try something out before the right path becomes clear.
5) Embrace your conflicting roles in communication.
You're the voice of leadership to the department, and you're the voice of the department to leadership. These may require a different approach and there is nothing wrong with that - it's not being two faced, it's a vital part of doing your job.
You should filter and interpret SLT messages to your department (but not dilute or rubbish them). This should help your team to prioritise and work in line with SLT direction in the way that makes the most sense given the constraints of your department. You know your department better than anyone else (see item 1) - therefore you are best placed to work out how a particular message should be delivered for best effect. (If you do re-prioritise for your team then it's probably a good idea to let your SLT know the order you have placed priorities in - just in case they don't agree). This is a vital part of setting the tone and helping your team to be effective.
Similarly you should filter and interpret your team's attitudes and responses when communicating with SLT. If you know that your team will react badly or have reacted badly to a particular initiative then the most important thing to share is usually the reasoning behind this reaction, not necessarily the reaction itself.
Developing a bit of selective inertia in communication can be useful too. Early objections can quickly mellow to acceptance and knee jerk reactions can be revised - passing on messages or reactions too quickly can unsettle a team or harm management perceptions.
6) Take responsibility for successes and failures
With team leadership and the TLR payment it brings you take on a level of responsibility for the collective performance of the team. If the team does well then you should make sure you celebrate it both within and outside of your team. A successful HoD is only successful because of the team that they work with - lose sight of this and you'll run out of successes quickly.
Failures or poor performance from the team are also your responsibility. Acknowledge them, and learn from them. Always think about whether there was something else you could have done to avoid it - could you have detected it earlier? changed the staffing? changed the exam? asked for help? Don't point fingers at individuals if things go wrong - it's not about blame, it's about putting things in place so the team doesn't find itself in that situation again.
7) Delegate and tasks let them get on with it
If you delegate a task the worst thing you can do is check up on every step - you may as well do it yourself. So long as you know the person you delegate to has the right skills (see point 1) then let them do it - they'll learn far more by doing it themselves than by you shepherding them the whole way. Remember you can delegate upwards as well as downwards, and saying no to people delegating to you can be really important.
8) Establish a clear and regular form of communication
I use a weekly newsletter that I e-mail to the team at the start of each week. Others might use a verbal briefing. The key point is that the department need to know where they can find the key info for a particular week. I include anything relevant to that week and also advance notification of upcoming dates like reporting deadlines or parents evenings. This sheet may take me an hour each week, but it saves loads of separate e-mails and conversations that can easily add up to more than an hour. This same document also includes all departmental meeting agendas and minutes, again simplifying communication as it's all in one place.
9) Know your departmental data inside out
As a bottom line as HoD you should never be surprised by a set of results or a class's performance. Knowing how each group is fairing is a vital part of actively managing the performance of your department rather than being a passive recipient of it. For me as a self confessed Excel geek I find the data crunching side of this no problem, but if you don't have the skills to do this yourself then get some help from someone that can do it, for example your school's data manager.
Never sail hopefully - find a way to measure progress and make it visible to your team.
10) Never be afraid to ask for help
There will be situations you have never come across before, there will be conflicting interests or priorities. Identifying when you need help is a real skill and the sign of a strong leader. Help could be in the form of advice, a particular skill, time, direction, prioritisation, delegation, or simply someone to vent steam at.
I hope that at least some of this is useful, but if not I've still found it useful to write. If you have any thoughts or comments then please let me know... :-)
1) Get to know your team's strengths & weaknesses at an individual level
Particularly important if you are coming into a HoD post at a new school, but it's also worth considering if you're being promoted at the same school - knowing someone while working alongside someone can be very different to knowing them as a line manager.
Vitally don't take anyone else's word for it. When I started in my current position I was given an overview of the department and the SLT view of all of the teachers - I'd say this was accurate for only about 50% of the team, and could have been grossly misleading if I had taken it purely at face value.
Talk to your team about their lessons and their teaching, talk to the students, gather as much information as you can.
If there are people in your team that are more experienced than you then use that to your advantage - ask for their opinion (but remember you can choose to ignore it - you're HoD after all). If there are weaknesses in the team then think about what you can do to mitigate for them and eliminate them over time through CPD.
2) Lead from the front
Effectively "practice what you preach" - never ask your department to do anything that you aren't willing to do yourself. Whether that is to take that difficult bottom set, to implement a marking schedule, or to try a new idea. You can't be judgemental on someone else's practice with any credibility unless you are demonstrating that you are doing the right thing yourself.
I'm sure there will be conflicting views on this but as far as I'm concerned You don't have to be the best teacher in the department to be an effective HoD, but you certainly mustn't be the worst! As a HoD you will teach fewer lessons than the rest of your department - if you're the best then you're actually depriving the students of the best teaching! Just as the best footballers don't necessarily make great managers, the best teachers don't necessarily make great HoDs. Due to your management commitments your teaching will probably suffer a little - just make sure you consistently hold on to good lessons otherwise you'll lose credibility quickly.
3) Get a grip on the departmental finances
Whether your budget is a few hundred pounds or a few thousand - spending it wisely can make a real difference to the department. Plan for expected purchases & bills at the start of the year so you know how much you have available for departmental development (ask your finance function to help you look back at prior year's expenditure to help you make forecasts).
Demonstrating good control will also help you justify requests for additional funding for particular initiatives. A clearly costed proposal against a backdrop of well managed finances is much more credible than scrappy data and lack of control.
I was once told that I should always ask for a bit more than I really want when asking for a budget so that when they give me a bit less than I ask for I'll have the right amount. I personally find that asking for the right amount supported by enough detail to fully justify it means that I've never yet had a budget request reduced.
4) Follow your instincts
So long as you are trying to do the best you can for the students in your care, and for your department then you can't go too far wrong. Try things out, suggest things, invent things. Ask for feedback from your team, from the students, from parents, from SLT. Never be afraid to admit you were wrong and never feel that you must have all of the answers instantly - sometimes you need to think, discuss or try something out before the right path becomes clear.
5) Embrace your conflicting roles in communication.
You're the voice of leadership to the department, and you're the voice of the department to leadership. These may require a different approach and there is nothing wrong with that - it's not being two faced, it's a vital part of doing your job.
You should filter and interpret SLT messages to your department (but not dilute or rubbish them). This should help your team to prioritise and work in line with SLT direction in the way that makes the most sense given the constraints of your department. You know your department better than anyone else (see item 1) - therefore you are best placed to work out how a particular message should be delivered for best effect. (If you do re-prioritise for your team then it's probably a good idea to let your SLT know the order you have placed priorities in - just in case they don't agree). This is a vital part of setting the tone and helping your team to be effective.
Similarly you should filter and interpret your team's attitudes and responses when communicating with SLT. If you know that your team will react badly or have reacted badly to a particular initiative then the most important thing to share is usually the reasoning behind this reaction, not necessarily the reaction itself.
Developing a bit of selective inertia in communication can be useful too. Early objections can quickly mellow to acceptance and knee jerk reactions can be revised - passing on messages or reactions too quickly can unsettle a team or harm management perceptions.
6) Take responsibility for successes and failures
With team leadership and the TLR payment it brings you take on a level of responsibility for the collective performance of the team. If the team does well then you should make sure you celebrate it both within and outside of your team. A successful HoD is only successful because of the team that they work with - lose sight of this and you'll run out of successes quickly.
Failures or poor performance from the team are also your responsibility. Acknowledge them, and learn from them. Always think about whether there was something else you could have done to avoid it - could you have detected it earlier? changed the staffing? changed the exam? asked for help? Don't point fingers at individuals if things go wrong - it's not about blame, it's about putting things in place so the team doesn't find itself in that situation again.
7) Delegate and tasks let them get on with it
If you delegate a task the worst thing you can do is check up on every step - you may as well do it yourself. So long as you know the person you delegate to has the right skills (see point 1) then let them do it - they'll learn far more by doing it themselves than by you shepherding them the whole way. Remember you can delegate upwards as well as downwards, and saying no to people delegating to you can be really important.
8) Establish a clear and regular form of communication
I use a weekly newsletter that I e-mail to the team at the start of each week. Others might use a verbal briefing. The key point is that the department need to know where they can find the key info for a particular week. I include anything relevant to that week and also advance notification of upcoming dates like reporting deadlines or parents evenings. This sheet may take me an hour each week, but it saves loads of separate e-mails and conversations that can easily add up to more than an hour. This same document also includes all departmental meeting agendas and minutes, again simplifying communication as it's all in one place.
9) Know your departmental data inside out
As a bottom line as HoD you should never be surprised by a set of results or a class's performance. Knowing how each group is fairing is a vital part of actively managing the performance of your department rather than being a passive recipient of it. For me as a self confessed Excel geek I find the data crunching side of this no problem, but if you don't have the skills to do this yourself then get some help from someone that can do it, for example your school's data manager.
Never sail hopefully - find a way to measure progress and make it visible to your team.
10) Never be afraid to ask for help
There will be situations you have never come across before, there will be conflicting interests or priorities. Identifying when you need help is a real skill and the sign of a strong leader. Help could be in the form of advice, a particular skill, time, direction, prioritisation, delegation, or simply someone to vent steam at.
I hope that at least some of this is useful, but if not I've still found it useful to write. If you have any thoughts or comments then please let me know... :-)
Sunday, 7 July 2013
Possibly the first ever departmental CPD open day
Friday 5th July saw our first ever departmental CPD open day. This is certainly the first time it has ever been done in our school, and based on reactions via twitter, etc. when we were planning it might actually be the first one in the country (perhaps even the world?).
Background
As with all schools we have a programme of learning walks and observations that are part of the performance management cycle. These are done with various aspects as the focus, e.g. questioning, AFL, etc. These are generally arranged by someone in leadership and to be honest the general feel from the staff is that it something that is being done "to" them rather than "with" them.
A little while ago I was discussing this disconnect between "done to" and "done with" with Rob Williams, my department's teaching & learning leader (@robewilliams79). We thought there were two aspects that contributed to this. One is the general perception of scrutiny and the other is about having a sense of control.
Perception of scrutiny
As trainee teachers we all have loads of scrutiny; every lesson is observed, and we get feedback throughout the process. This reduces a little in NQT years when we still have a number of observations and monitoring of our practice. Once the NQT year is over though - we're left to it, with observations for performance management actively limited by union agreements. Effectively the classroom door closes at the end of the NQT year and we become free to develop bad habits, free from scrutiny except specific times when it is applied to us.
It's just like learning to drive - once you've got your licence and have been driving for a few years without supervision most people would not like to go back and take their test again, and that's what the performance management visits begin to feel like for many.
The result is that over time scrutiny of practice becomes something exclusively linked with performance management and not about CPD. The baggage of gradings and the associated fear of falling short of the mark means that these observations or drop ins become a big deal for many. This in turn means that an otherwise confident, competent teacher can find the whole thing excruciating, meaning that they actively avoid any form of scrutiny other than those absolutely insisted on.
Out of control
If you're told "I'm coming to see you teach in Period 3 and I'm going to be looking at your deployment of AFL techniques" you have no real control other than the detail of the lesson plan. If you happen to be a good (effective) teacher but find some aspects of AFL difficult to demonstrate in lessons, or if the lesson you need to teach based on the SoW doesn't led itself to lots of visible AFL the whole experience becomes traumatic. You end up shaping the lesson to suit the observation rather than delivering the lesson that the students need. You also don't get to show off all of the other really good things you do on a day to day basis because you have been given a "focus".
Retaking control
Firstly we decided that we needed to encourage people to be more open with their teaching. We'd previously seen @TeacherToolkit's "Open classroom" information and decided that we needed to push this with the team... Then a throwaway comment was made by one of us (can't remember which one) "why not have a department open day". We both thought it a good idea but left it there to mull over for a while. It just happened that while checking twitter later that day I spotted a tweet from @TeacherToolkit on the very subject and there is the resulting feed:
How the day went
It was unbelievably positive. Feedback slips were really constructive both in their praise and in the opportunities for improvement. It was just really nice to see members of staff from outside of the maths department wandering in and out of maths lessons - universally with big smiles on their faces.
The maths staff were really pleased to have had the opportunity to show what we know we do well (normal, well planned, effective lessons), and to receive feedback from others in the school in a non threatening manner.
Based on the feedback slips we also seem to have given others a range of ideas that they can apply in their subjects.
Without a doubt it's a success - We now think we might look to do a couple of these per year. The main reason being that if we get used to having people in our lessons more often then "official" learning walks and observations are less of a big deal.
Key points if you're thinking of doing this.
I can't emphasise enough the importance of the voluntary nature of this. As a department we agreed we wanted it and offered it to the school. I would hate to think that someone from an SLT sees this idea and directs departments in their school to run something like this. Bringing compulsion into it would be destructive rather than constructive. Therefore I really hope that you suggest and encourage but don't direct.
During the day Rob was asked by one of our visitors "if our department did something like this would we have to do this menu thing too?" The answer is simple - not if you don't want to. Days like this can give a lot, but it shouldn't be a burden in preparation - we had most of the info around us in any case so it was mostly a cut and paste job.
For the whole day we required no special prep from anyone - no insistence on formal lesson plans (5 minute or otherwise), no enforced structure, no compulsion to offer even one class for drop ins. Even no compulsion to come and visit for those outside of the department - it's all completely optional.
The result of this optional nature is it all becomes very collegiate and supportive, and completely disarms the threatening nature of drop ins.
Overall
I really struggle to express how proud I am of the department for being bold enough to do this. I've never heard of anywhere else doing something like this during a normal teaching day, however I'm pretty sure we won't be the last (we'll do it again even if nobody else does!). The general perception of the maths department has risen immeasurably as a result of simply offering this day, and if it sparks further sharing of practice within our school or in others then it's even more worth it.
I also need to make a point of thanking Rob for his part in this and the work for the Menu and feedback slips which put the icing on the cake.
We now have a list of constructive things to work on in the coming 12 months based on a broad spectrum of feedback from peers. This is worth more than a limited sample by only a small number of observers which is what we would get from a normal learning walk or observation cycle.
If you run something similar then we'd love to hear from you about what you did and how you felt it went. If you've got any suggestions on how we might make the next one even better then I'd like to hear them too! All thoughts welcome...
As with all schools we have a programme of learning walks and observations that are part of the performance management cycle. These are done with various aspects as the focus, e.g. questioning, AFL, etc. These are generally arranged by someone in leadership and to be honest the general feel from the staff is that it something that is being done "to" them rather than "with" them.
A little while ago I was discussing this disconnect between "done to" and "done with" with Rob Williams, my department's teaching & learning leader (@robewilliams79). We thought there were two aspects that contributed to this. One is the general perception of scrutiny and the other is about having a sense of control.
Perception of scrutiny
As trainee teachers we all have loads of scrutiny; every lesson is observed, and we get feedback throughout the process. This reduces a little in NQT years when we still have a number of observations and monitoring of our practice. Once the NQT year is over though - we're left to it, with observations for performance management actively limited by union agreements. Effectively the classroom door closes at the end of the NQT year and we become free to develop bad habits, free from scrutiny except specific times when it is applied to us.
It's just like learning to drive - once you've got your licence and have been driving for a few years without supervision most people would not like to go back and take their test again, and that's what the performance management visits begin to feel like for many.
The result is that over time scrutiny of practice becomes something exclusively linked with performance management and not about CPD. The baggage of gradings and the associated fear of falling short of the mark means that these observations or drop ins become a big deal for many. This in turn means that an otherwise confident, competent teacher can find the whole thing excruciating, meaning that they actively avoid any form of scrutiny other than those absolutely insisted on.
Out of control
If you're told "I'm coming to see you teach in Period 3 and I'm going to be looking at your deployment of AFL techniques" you have no real control other than the detail of the lesson plan. If you happen to be a good (effective) teacher but find some aspects of AFL difficult to demonstrate in lessons, or if the lesson you need to teach based on the SoW doesn't led itself to lots of visible AFL the whole experience becomes traumatic. You end up shaping the lesson to suit the observation rather than delivering the lesson that the students need. You also don't get to show off all of the other really good things you do on a day to day basis because you have been given a "focus".
Retaking control
Firstly we decided that we needed to encourage people to be more open with their teaching. We'd previously seen @TeacherToolkit's "Open classroom" information and decided that we needed to push this with the team... Then a throwaway comment was made by one of us (can't remember which one) "why not have a department open day". We both thought it a good idea but left it there to mull over for a while. It just happened that while checking twitter later that day I spotted a tweet from @TeacherToolkit on the very subject and there is the resulting feed:
And so the idea went from a throwaway comment to planning a full day....
Open department - mad? brave?
Interestingly the first response from almost everyone Rob and I mentioned this to was "are you mad?" or "you're very brave". Most agreed it was a good idea, but there were all sorts of concerns, for example Annabelle was really supportive of the idea but wasn't sure that others would be...
The strange thing is that we really shouldn't be afraid of this kind of thing. If we're that unsure in our practice that we don't want to invite people in then how good are we in the first place? Teaching requires a level of confidence to carry it off - we generally have around 20-30 observers in every lesson in the form of students. Why should having another adult in the room make things less comfortable?
Anyway - we pressed on...
What we did and how we did it...
Priority from the start was that it had to be optional - we didn't want this to be something imposed on anyone - that would have been completely the reverse of the intention.
We spoke to the department to gauge reaction, emphasising that we would choose which lessons people could come and see, and that the focus of it all is showing what we know we are good at. I'm really proud to say that the department were up for it with no persuasion.
Then we chose a date - we waited until the exam season was over and we also changed timetables early so wanted things to settle in there too, hence the delay between the 24th May and the chosen 5th July.
Each teacher was asked to identify which lessons in the day they would be happy to have people dropping into, and I'm pleased to say that most offered most lessons. We decided to place a limit of 3 drop ins per lesson to minimise disruption to students. We posted a sign up sheet in the staffroom and publicised it through staff newsletters and briefings. Here is the finished sign up sheet...
As you can see - we offered a total of 20 lessons across the day. In addition we also offered the chance to spend a bit of time talking to staff about department admin processes that we use in maths. We had 23 members of staff sign up, but actually had closer to 30 drop in somewhere during the day.
We had visitors representing Science, MFL, English, Psychology, History, Geography, and even had our Library manager and Business Manager pay us a visit too. Those dropping in included NQTs, mainscale teachers, heads of department, heads of college and SLT, and they visited lessons taught by a range including NQTs and experienced staff.
Take away menu & feedback sheets
We also loved @MrsPTaylor's idea of a Take Away menu, so Rob put one together, largely from the things that I've already blogged about (but that haven't necessarily been well shared across the school). We handed them out to everyone that dropped in.
We wanted to use the day to share practice across the school, but also to get ideas about where our next focus should be. Vitally though we didn't want any form of judgement being made in terms of Ofsted criteria, etc - it's about professional development NOT grading. Therefore the feedback sheets given simply asked for two stars and a wish.
An example of the tri-fold menu and a selection of the first feedback slips are shown below...
It was unbelievably positive. Feedback slips were really constructive both in their praise and in the opportunities for improvement. It was just really nice to see members of staff from outside of the maths department wandering in and out of maths lessons - universally with big smiles on their faces.
The maths staff were really pleased to have had the opportunity to show what we know we do well (normal, well planned, effective lessons), and to receive feedback from others in the school in a non threatening manner.
Based on the feedback slips we also seem to have given others a range of ideas that they can apply in their subjects.
Without a doubt it's a success - We now think we might look to do a couple of these per year. The main reason being that if we get used to having people in our lessons more often then "official" learning walks and observations are less of a big deal.
Key points if you're thinking of doing this.
I can't emphasise enough the importance of the voluntary nature of this. As a department we agreed we wanted it and offered it to the school. I would hate to think that someone from an SLT sees this idea and directs departments in their school to run something like this. Bringing compulsion into it would be destructive rather than constructive. Therefore I really hope that you suggest and encourage but don't direct.
During the day Rob was asked by one of our visitors "if our department did something like this would we have to do this menu thing too?" The answer is simple - not if you don't want to. Days like this can give a lot, but it shouldn't be a burden in preparation - we had most of the info around us in any case so it was mostly a cut and paste job.
For the whole day we required no special prep from anyone - no insistence on formal lesson plans (5 minute or otherwise), no enforced structure, no compulsion to offer even one class for drop ins. Even no compulsion to come and visit for those outside of the department - it's all completely optional.
The result of this optional nature is it all becomes very collegiate and supportive, and completely disarms the threatening nature of drop ins.
Overall
I really struggle to express how proud I am of the department for being bold enough to do this. I've never heard of anywhere else doing something like this during a normal teaching day, however I'm pretty sure we won't be the last (we'll do it again even if nobody else does!). The general perception of the maths department has risen immeasurably as a result of simply offering this day, and if it sparks further sharing of practice within our school or in others then it's even more worth it.
I also need to make a point of thanking Rob for his part in this and the work for the Menu and feedback slips which put the icing on the cake.
We now have a list of constructive things to work on in the coming 12 months based on a broad spectrum of feedback from peers. This is worth more than a limited sample by only a small number of observers which is what we would get from a normal learning walk or observation cycle.
If you run something similar then we'd love to hear from you about what you did and how you felt it went. If you've got any suggestions on how we might make the next one even better then I'd like to hear them too! All thoughts welcome...
Saturday, 22 June 2013
Marking & feedback - a journey over 18 months
February 2012 saw a internal school departmental review for the maths department. In that review the following observations were made:
A fairly poor situation really. I'd been HoD for 5 months at that point and had come to the same conclusion before the SLT review wrote these findings.
Time for a change
Since then, we've developed the standardised feedback and marking process I've already written about in this post. We have also developed and embedded the formative feedback from summative assessments discussed in this post. We've also done things like buy "Verbal Feedback" stamps to record when we've had a formative conversation with a student.
This wasn't plain sailing - in October 2012 a review of exercise books still showed massive variability in practice. However we've continued to push, developing the systems together and always looking for a better way to do it.
Departmental reviews through 2013 have shown a steady improvement in consistency.
The payoff
The school held a work scrutiny event 2 weeks ago where students from years 7, 8, 9 and 10 were selected to review their work with the SLT and a retired HMI acting as a consultant to the school.
In every year group maths came out as the most regularly, consistently and constructively marked. Pupil voice about the maths marking was unbelievably positive, there wasn't a single negative point directed towards maths.
Not showing off
I'm not looking to boast about this - this blog isn't about self promotion.
I'm quite simply over the moon that the hard work the department has put in to improving feedback and marking has had such a marked impact. It demonstrates that improvements may take some time to embed in a teaching environment, but by working out a system that helps everyone to be at least "good" it is possible to make a really marked improvement.
I want to say thank you to my department - they have come such a long way and put in loads of work to achieve this result. I also want to thank the students who have responded so positively.
For me this is the kind of thing that makes being a HoD so rewarding. I'd love to hear if you have had a similar journey...
- Marking, though regular, too often failed to give constructive feedback identifying next steps to improve.
- Use of formative and summative assessment to inform pupils of next steps for learning is inconsistent.
A fairly poor situation really. I'd been HoD for 5 months at that point and had come to the same conclusion before the SLT review wrote these findings.
Time for a change
Since then, we've developed the standardised feedback and marking process I've already written about in this post. We have also developed and embedded the formative feedback from summative assessments discussed in this post. We've also done things like buy "Verbal Feedback" stamps to record when we've had a formative conversation with a student.
This wasn't plain sailing - in October 2012 a review of exercise books still showed massive variability in practice. However we've continued to push, developing the systems together and always looking for a better way to do it.
Departmental reviews through 2013 have shown a steady improvement in consistency.
The payoff
The school held a work scrutiny event 2 weeks ago where students from years 7, 8, 9 and 10 were selected to review their work with the SLT and a retired HMI acting as a consultant to the school.
In every year group maths came out as the most regularly, consistently and constructively marked. Pupil voice about the maths marking was unbelievably positive, there wasn't a single negative point directed towards maths.
Not showing off
I'm not looking to boast about this - this blog isn't about self promotion.
I'm quite simply over the moon that the hard work the department has put in to improving feedback and marking has had such a marked impact. It demonstrates that improvements may take some time to embed in a teaching environment, but by working out a system that helps everyone to be at least "good" it is possible to make a really marked improvement.
I want to say thank you to my department - they have come such a long way and put in loads of work to achieve this result. I also want to thank the students who have responded so positively.
For me this is the kind of thing that makes being a HoD so rewarding. I'd love to hear if you have had a similar journey...
Saturday, 15 June 2013
Using seating plans to capture student data
UPDATE September 2013
The day after I created and shared this sheet in my department (June 2013) a copy was seen by one of our SLT - I was asked to share it at the following morning's whole school briefing. Since then it's been used by a large number of teachers across the school. It has also been downloaded from the TES website almost 350 times, and I know it is in use in several other schools.
I've just been asked by our headteacher (new since September) to share it again across all staff at our school on Monday.
The version now available via the link below has been updated following feedback from use both in my department and beyond - it includes the ability to display more data on the plan and seat more students. The formatting should be a bit more robust to layout changes too.
Original post...
Very functional post this - simply a tool for making seating plans more effective and easier to make.
Background
For all sorts of reasons it's really useful to have student data visible on teacher copies of seating plans. It helps when allocating seats to start with so that you take things like SEN status into account, but we've also found it useful to include target and current working at levels/grades as well.
Having the student's status vs target visible can be very telling if you develop a pocket of underachievement in a certain area of the class, which may not be so obvious on a normal class list. It can also be useful if you are looking to sit a strong pupil with a weaker one as you can instantly see where they're distributed across the room. Form an observation point of view it can be effective in indicating how differentiation has been used, and can also give a quick view of progress.
The problem with this though is that it can take ages to get the data into the plan, and then to keep it up to date can also be a real pain, both when moving students around the room or between classes, and also to update latest assessment grades into it.
As it's time consuming and is only really visible to the class teacher on a day to day basis it will often get pushed towards the bottom of the pile when things like marking, planning, teaching and life outside of school start squeezing your waking hours. We needed a solution that helps everyone in the department to create high quality seating plans and to keep them up to date....
A data linked seating plan tool
Following a bit of discussion and Excel fiddling in the department we've come up with something that takes the pain out of it all!
Basically you cut and paste your class list and key bits of data into one tab of the spreadsheet like this (this is fictional data made up by me for blogging purposes only; any similarities to real people entirely accidental!):
You only have to fill in the green bits - the sheet works out the comparison to target based on the data entered and key stage of the group. (useful when updating the CWA grades - only got to update one column). For KS4 it counts grades above/below target (note grade S means A*), for KS3 its NC sublevels above or below - could easily be tweaked for alternative grading structures.
This data will then be placed into correct place in the seating plan tab depending on where you put each individual pupil's number. It also has functionality to check that you've seated everyone somewhere in the room and also highlights if you've put someone in twice
The seating plan itself can be displayed at different levels...
Full data - for the teacher to use, and useful for printing for observed lessons - summarises progress and key "groups" info in one A4 sheet.
You can move the student within the plan by typing their number into the shaded green box next to each seat, their data moves with them automatically
If you want to display or print the plan to show to students you can choose to show them with or without the comparison to target, like this (with targets visible):
Or this (targets hidden):
Clearly this is specifically set up to the layout of one class in our school, however by dragging the boxes and the formulae they contain around the sheet it can be reconfigured to represent any classroom configuration. Row hiding to display data or not may take a little thinking about for less conventional layouts but it's all possible with a bit of fiddling.
Updating the CWA grades just requires overtyping or pasting the latest figures into the pupil list, the rest will automatically update
The outcome
I created 2 seating plans for new groups completely from scratch inside 10 minutes today, including cutting and pasting the data in and tweaking positions of students to get the right balance on each table. In the past this has taken me at least half an hour per group. I also know that I can adjust and update the plan really quickly in the future
I'm asking my whole department to use this sheet (or a tweaked version that fits their room layout) - it's just so worthwhile to have this kind of data really clear to you when planning. As they're all basically the same format it also becomes really easy for us to have a central saved record of plans in case of cover/absences.
Do you want it?
If you want a copy of the excel sheet you can get it here.
My department and I think this is really useful - I'd be interested to know your thoughts...
The day after I created and shared this sheet in my department (June 2013) a copy was seen by one of our SLT - I was asked to share it at the following morning's whole school briefing. Since then it's been used by a large number of teachers across the school. It has also been downloaded from the TES website almost 350 times, and I know it is in use in several other schools.
I've just been asked by our headteacher (new since September) to share it again across all staff at our school on Monday.
The version now available via the link below has been updated following feedback from use both in my department and beyond - it includes the ability to display more data on the plan and seat more students. The formatting should be a bit more robust to layout changes too.
Original post...
Very functional post this - simply a tool for making seating plans more effective and easier to make.
Background
For all sorts of reasons it's really useful to have student data visible on teacher copies of seating plans. It helps when allocating seats to start with so that you take things like SEN status into account, but we've also found it useful to include target and current working at levels/grades as well.
Having the student's status vs target visible can be very telling if you develop a pocket of underachievement in a certain area of the class, which may not be so obvious on a normal class list. It can also be useful if you are looking to sit a strong pupil with a weaker one as you can instantly see where they're distributed across the room. Form an observation point of view it can be effective in indicating how differentiation has been used, and can also give a quick view of progress.
The problem with this though is that it can take ages to get the data into the plan, and then to keep it up to date can also be a real pain, both when moving students around the room or between classes, and also to update latest assessment grades into it.
As it's time consuming and is only really visible to the class teacher on a day to day basis it will often get pushed towards the bottom of the pile when things like marking, planning, teaching and life outside of school start squeezing your waking hours. We needed a solution that helps everyone in the department to create high quality seating plans and to keep them up to date....
A data linked seating plan tool
Following a bit of discussion and Excel fiddling in the department we've come up with something that takes the pain out of it all!
Basically you cut and paste your class list and key bits of data into one tab of the spreadsheet like this (this is fictional data made up by me for blogging purposes only; any similarities to real people entirely accidental!):
This data will then be placed into correct place in the seating plan tab depending on where you put each individual pupil's number. It also has functionality to check that you've seated everyone somewhere in the room and also highlights if you've put someone in twice
The seating plan itself can be displayed at different levels...
Full data - for the teacher to use, and useful for printing for observed lessons - summarises progress and key "groups" info in one A4 sheet.
If you want to display or print the plan to show to students you can choose to show them with or without the comparison to target, like this (with targets visible):
Or this (targets hidden):
Clearly this is specifically set up to the layout of one class in our school, however by dragging the boxes and the formulae they contain around the sheet it can be reconfigured to represent any classroom configuration. Row hiding to display data or not may take a little thinking about for less conventional layouts but it's all possible with a bit of fiddling.
Updating the CWA grades just requires overtyping or pasting the latest figures into the pupil list, the rest will automatically update
The outcome
I created 2 seating plans for new groups completely from scratch inside 10 minutes today, including cutting and pasting the data in and tweaking positions of students to get the right balance on each table. In the past this has taken me at least half an hour per group. I also know that I can adjust and update the plan really quickly in the future
I'm asking my whole department to use this sheet (or a tweaked version that fits their room layout) - it's just so worthwhile to have this kind of data really clear to you when planning. As they're all basically the same format it also becomes really easy for us to have a central saved record of plans in case of cover/absences.
Do you want it?
If you want a copy of the excel sheet you can get it here.
My department and I think this is really useful - I'd be interested to know your thoughts...
Sunday, 9 June 2013
What's the point in writing this blog? (and being on twitter?)
My first ever blog post was in April 2013, about 2 weeks after my first foray onto Twitter for professional/CPD purposes. When I started (mainly encouraged by the irrepresible enthusiasm of Nik for the benefits of maths education blogging - by the way have a look at his blog!) I wasn't at all sure if it was for me.
Not really my cup of tea
I'm not someone who has ever kept a diary or other form of journal. In my life as an engineer before teaching I worked towards Chartered Engineer professional accreditation and as part of that I needed to record my activities in a log as part of providing evidence of my professional development. While I was successful in achieving chartered engineer status I found the whole recording process incredibly dull, and stopped as soon as I was able to.
Similarly part of my initial teacher training required me to write a blog about the progress of one of my groups, and again I found this really difficult to muster any enthusiasm for, and again I stopped as soon as I was no longer required to complete it.
Therefore starting a blog of my own when nobody was forcing me to would seem like a really daft thing for me to do, given my history of disliking it!
As far as twitter was concerned, I was massively skeptical. How on earth could a social network be of benefit professionally?
Just another thing to do
In addition to never having liked anything like blogging in the past I am also a busy Head of Department, a husband, and a father to two young girls. I already work more hours than I probably should (and substantially more than I ever did when I was an engineer), and spend more time than is probably healthy thinking about work. So why would I voluntarily start writing this blog and give myself another thing to do?
For that matter why would I also create and update a new account on twitter? Surely I'd be better off not doing all of this and just getting on with my job, and spending more time with my family?
So why do it?
Since I've started this whole twitter & blogging activity I have rapidly become converted to the benefits. I'll try to explain why here:
1) Organising ideas
In my day to day work with my department we have come up with a massive array of ideas as part of improving what we do. Now that I am writing them down properly (so that other people can understand them) I am forced to think in much more detail about what we have done and why we have done it. As a result it makes me much more reflective and analytical of my practice as a departmental leader and a teacher. After all, if I am going to say or recommend something potentially to the entire world via my blog I had better be fairly sure I know what my personal view on it is, and also what evidence I have to support what I'm saying.
2) Sharing ideas across schools and across countries
I worked in the car industry before being a teacher, an industry that has processes and procedures for everything. Given that experience of a global organisation working on fairly diverse products under a highly standardised management structure it is a constant source of amazement to me that every school I've been to in the UK is run with a different leadership model and management structure. In fact it goes further and every department or faculty in every school I've been in is run in a different way. For example every school has their own performance management model and process; They have their own behaviour policies, rewards systems, and timetabling processes; They have their own way of collecting and sharing data on students at a school level, and within a school there are usually wholly different ways of doing that same job across each department.
I find this very strange - we all have the same basic job to do. We're all helping students to be the best that they can be. All UK schools are measured by the same metrics (alright there are differences with the exam system in Scotland, but you know what I mean). All UK teachers have the same standards to meet.
Why should a school in London be run in a fundamentally different way, using completely different documents, formats and procedures to a school in Cardiff, Birmingham, Manchester, Belfast, Dundee?
If you're going to tell me it's to protect the personal preference and individuality of the teachers, leaders and students involved then I have to disagree. For example having a good method for recording and analysing pupil data isn't about expressing your individuality it's simply about good management.
Having the right tools to do the best job we can shouldn't depend on the individual skills of the particular member of staff that happens to do the job. For example if someone is really good at using Excel you could have a department with an amazing spreadsheet that can identify pupil underperformance and put plans in place to respond really quickly. However in the department next door or the school down the road the relevant member of staff might not have the same skills. Does that mean that the students in that subject or the school down the road should miss out on the early detection and intervention actions? Of course it shouldn't... but that's exactly what happens because the department next door or school down the road often don't know that anything different is even possible!! It's not that the other department or other school aren't working hard enough, or even that they don't have the right person in the job, it's the lack of a standard best practice model of school and department management. This standard model should come with the appropriate toolkit of best practice documents to eliminate the need for local experts to create something that has the same basic requirements in every department across the country.
As a new head of department in 2011 I either inherited and adapted or invented from scratch all of the systems and processes that are now running in my department. I did this based on what I thought would work best, and on what I decided I needed to manage the department effectively. There was no central source of best practice documents from within or from outside my school. As a result I'm sure I reinvented the wheel in some cases. I know that there are others out there who have already solved some of the problems that I find. Similarly I might have found solutions to problems that others are currently struggling with. The more open we can make this, the more we can share document formats, and share our procedures the better we can make the provision for our students.
Since starting this blog I have discovered contacts with other educators and heads of department that are wrestling with similar issues to me. I've shared formats for timetabling, analysing tests, book reviews, questioning, and shared ideas on a range of other topics. This is why blogs, twitter and initiatives like teaching dropboxes from @mrlockyer to share our documents and ideas is so good. I have also been the grateful recipient of a huge range of ideas for my classroom and for my department.
3) Discovering ideas
Just a few of the things I've stumbled upon via twitter and other blogs are:
Blogs and sites with interesting ideas and resources for maths:
http://donsteward.blogspot.co.uk/ by Don Steward
http://mathssandpit.co.uk/blog/ by @ms_kmp
http://www.estimation180.com/ by @mr_stadel
http://101qs.com by @ddmeyer
http://reasonandwonder.wordpress.com/ by @mjfenton
http://justmaths.co.uk/ by @justmaths
http://www.greatmathsteachingideas.com/ by @maths_master
Interesting Teaching & Learning resources for all subjects:
The 5 min lesson plan & related resources http://teachertoolkit.me/the-5-minute-lesson-plan/inset-for-5minplan/ by @TeacherToolkit
The level up series http://www.malit.org.uk/category/teaching-strategies/ by @OTeaching
An absloute wealth of T&L info on http://www.bulmershetoolkit.blogspot.co.uk/ by @ASTsupportAAli
Some interesting ideas on success through marginal gains on http://marginallearninggains.com/ by @fullonlearning
Management level info:
Loads going on under the #sltchat banner on twitter - you can find almost anything on there, or someone who can offer an interesting perspective.
There is also other great stuff from @headguruteacher on http://headguruteacher.com/
There are loads more out there that I've found and been inspired by and I apologise if I've missed you off the list (though I do always try to re-tweet when I find something I like) - you'll probably be on the next list...
4) Generating enthusiasm
Basically writing this blog and being on twitter is making me better at my job. I have found hundreds of like minded people out there, dong all sorts of interesting things to improve learning. I find myself thinking "I need to think about that some more so I can write about it properly" at various points during the week. I also no longer find it difficult to find the right resource for a topic (in fact it's now becoming a question of which of the excellent resources should I use rather than looking for one that is suitable).
In conjunction with my teaching & learning leader for my department I try to include a weekly teaching & learning tip for my department. Since being on twitter we are never short of ideas on this.
Overall
Now I find myself two months into this process and this is my 10th post. My blog has now been viewed by people on every continent (something I'm quite astounded by - the web really is world wide isn't it!!). The number of people viewing it has risen steadily, as has the number of people following me on twitter. What's more I've had some really nice comments and feedback in various formats.
While these views and followers are nice I've realised that I'm not actually writing this for anyone else. It doesn't matter if nobody reads it; the reflection it helps me to do is worthwhile on its own. If what I write and share helps anyone else be better at their job, and therefore brings some more success for some students then that's even better! Being part of this wider twitter/blogosphere is a really interesting way to keep my approach to the department and my own teaching fresh and packed with new ideas.
As always I'd be really keen to hear what you think. Please leave a comment or drop me a line on twitter.
@ListerKev
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