It's going to be a little while until I post anything more... I'm working on updates & additions to several early posts, plus plans and new ideas for the new academic year.
However most importantly it's the summer holidays... and as a result I think it is vital that time is taken away from teaching and even thinking about teaching - partly to spend much missed time with my family and partly to recharge, relax and come up with some fresh ideas.
Keep an eye out for updates restarting in September - in the mean time please revisit, comment, make suggestions on any of my earlier posts - or better still - take a break - you deserve it too!
Sunday, 28 July 2013
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, 29 June 2013
Some of the things we've been doing
As observed in earlier posts - we've been busy in the department over the last couple of years seeking improvements in all sorts of ways. In all of the posts so far I've mentioned several fairly structural ways we've been making changes and improvements, but haven't really done much regarding some of the classroom approaches we've been using.
So here are 5 suggestions of things we've done, with examples & pictures of how we've used them.
Some of these are ideas proudly magpied from various places (twitter being a big one!), others we came up ourselves with but of course they could easily have been in existence elsewhere. I'm not crediting sources here not because I am claiming them for myself - it's just because we've lost track of where these ideas have come from. If you feel strongly about ownership of any of these ideas then please feel free to claim anything via the comments at the bottom.
1) Graffiti revision wall
Get some lining paper, or some other big sheet of paper to put up somewhere in your room to use for this.
While revising if a student finds something that they think would be useful to them, or someone else in the class in the future or they can go and write it on the board. If they are uncomfortable writing it up directly they can ask me to do it (though they have to say exactly what to write) or put in on a smaller piece of paper that is then glued on. Also of a student feels they can explain an idea in a better way they can replace work on the board by sticking a replacement over the top.
After a week or so mine looked like this:
One of our SLT saw it on the wall and made a quip about me "not being at college when they covered display work." I pointed out that it's meant to be dynamic, organic and USEFUL, not pretty! He accepted the point!
I ran it with two fairly low ability groups and they liked the fact that they could control what went up on the board, and that they could refer back to it when they needed. it was really nice to see it develop over a series of weeks.
2) Question boards
Similar vein to the graffiti wall but not quite so imposing. We have had different versions running in the department.
One looks like this:
When a student in the class asks a question and then finds out an answer they write their question and their name on the post-it. If another student in the class asks the same question they are directed to the board to find out who in the class knows the answer so they can go and ask them. Here are some examples:
This helps to remove the perception that the "teacher is the holder of all facts", and encourages sharing of info between students.
Another alternative is this:
3) Student comments on display work
Again making displays interactive. Work is done for display and then put on the wall. The students are then encouraged to comment on the work with post-its that are added to the display. Where appropriate the teacher can clarify or add to comments made by adding an extra, different coloured post-it.
The whole effect looks like this (student comments in yellow and orange, teacher comments are the green arrows):
The students provide some interesting feedback to each other:
4) Use more of the classroom as a whiteboard
I've seen several people suggesting using windows as whiteboards - we've used them with students writing on them like this:
Teachers have also used them to pose questions (different questions on different windows - for differentiated tasks) - like this:
If you've not got windows that are suitable/accessible then you can get a product called "instant whiteboard". It comes on a roll and sticks to almost any surface like clingfilm. Students can use it to discuss and share ideas:
Or teachers can use it to set work for a specific group of students:
So here are 5 suggestions of things we've done, with examples & pictures of how we've used them.
Some of these are ideas proudly magpied from various places (twitter being a big one!), others we came up ourselves with but of course they could easily have been in existence elsewhere. I'm not crediting sources here not because I am claiming them for myself - it's just because we've lost track of where these ideas have come from. If you feel strongly about ownership of any of these ideas then please feel free to claim anything via the comments at the bottom.
1) Graffiti revision wall
Get some lining paper, or some other big sheet of paper to put up somewhere in your room to use for this.
While revising if a student finds something that they think would be useful to them, or someone else in the class in the future or they can go and write it on the board. If they are uncomfortable writing it up directly they can ask me to do it (though they have to say exactly what to write) or put in on a smaller piece of paper that is then glued on. Also of a student feels they can explain an idea in a better way they can replace work on the board by sticking a replacement over the top.
After a week or so mine looked like this:
One of our SLT saw it on the wall and made a quip about me "not being at college when they covered display work." I pointed out that it's meant to be dynamic, organic and USEFUL, not pretty! He accepted the point!
I ran it with two fairly low ability groups and they liked the fact that they could control what went up on the board, and that they could refer back to it when they needed. it was really nice to see it develop over a series of weeks.
2) Question boards
Similar vein to the graffiti wall but not quite so imposing. We have had different versions running in the department.
One looks like this:
When a student in the class asks a question and then finds out an answer they write their question and their name on the post-it. If another student in the class asks the same question they are directed to the board to find out who in the class knows the answer so they can go and ask them. Here are some examples:
This helps to remove the perception that the "teacher is the holder of all facts", and encourages sharing of info between students.
Another alternative is this:
Students use a small piece of paper either to write a short guide on a key topic (with an example), like this:
Alternatively they can write a question that's puzzling them and others in the class can go up and answer them, like this:
3) Student comments on display work
Again making displays interactive. Work is done for display and then put on the wall. The students are then encouraged to comment on the work with post-its that are added to the display. Where appropriate the teacher can clarify or add to comments made by adding an extra, different coloured post-it.
The whole effect looks like this (student comments in yellow and orange, teacher comments are the green arrows):
4) Use more of the classroom as a whiteboard
I've seen several people suggesting using windows as whiteboards - we've used them with students writing on them like this:
Teachers have also used them to pose questions (different questions on different windows - for differentiated tasks) - like this:
If you've not got windows that are suitable/accessible then you can get a product called "instant whiteboard". It comes on a roll and sticks to almost any surface like clingfilm. Students can use it to discuss and share ideas:
Or teachers can use it to set work for a specific group of students:
5) Key word bank
Only actually used in one of our classrooms but I'm looking to spread it further. Think primary schools use this type of thing a lot.
Fairly self explanatory - it looks like this...
6) Measuring progress against revision topics
This is another one that is supposed to be dynamic and USEFUL rather than pretty!
Linked heavily to the "passport to grade" resources by Mr Slack found here, but could be used with any topic list. Key topics displayed on the wall. When a student demonstrates proficiency in a topic they get a stamp in their passport and can go and sign the wall next to the topic. They then become an expert on that topic so if others in the class need help they can look at the wall and go and ask the relevant student.
After a few lessons it looked like this:
The students liked signing up and seeing their names up on the board. Next time I do this I was thinking of having key assessment/example questions for each topic attached next to the topic name. Might also include a QR code linking to online revision resources.
Hope this was useful
Hopefully you've seen something you might use, or perhaps it gave you an idea for something else? Either way - all thoughts & comments gratefully received.
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...
Monday, 17 June 2013
Lesson logs - Sharing objectives and prompting reflection for KS5
For me KS5 lessons always feel like they need a slightly different approach to sharing learning objectives compare to those lower down the school. Maybe it's just my perception but the students seem to want a different approach to signify that they are more mature. Taking the same approach as used for KS3 and 4 always felt a bit patronising. Similarly getting them to reflect on their learning in a meaningful way was always a bit of a challenge.
Anyway I was struggling on with this for a while and then I remembered a sheet that had been shown by a chap called Jonathan Briggs from the school I taught at in my NQT year. I dusted off a copy of his sheet, and tweaked/adjusted it until I was happy with it.
Learning log document
The result is a "Learning log" and it looks like this...
How I use it
At the start of each section of work (usually 2-3weeks worth) I fill in the top "What we're working towards" section with a brief description of the main topic, the goals and the assessment that will be used.
At the start of each week I then fill in the "Objectives" and "Outcomes" section of the "What I am doing this week" bit. This breaks down the bigger picture into a one week set of learning objectives. The students get a printed copy handed to them at the start of the week.
At the end of some lessons and at the week I ask the students to do a final rating of their progress, complete the reflection section at the bottom and also fill in the "What I still need to do" bit. To be completely honest I don't police this bit heavily - it is mainly for them to use to structure their work outside of lessons, but the fact I ask them to do it means they're at least thinking about it.
The "Progress" bit can be completed by the student - I've rarely insisted on detailed completion of this as on a week by week basis this doesn't really change drastically, however I don't really feel comfortable just deleting it yet - not sure why. Guess If I wanted to get flash with it I could set up a mailmerge of student targets and latest assessment data to personalise the sheets, but I've never got that far.
As well as tracking objectives and reflection the students are encouraged to use these sheets as page dividers for their work. I also use them with students that are absent for lessons as they can see the learning objectives that they need to review & study to catch up for the missed lessons.
Impact
I tried it with my Year 13 group last year and they said they found them useful. They even asked where they were when I didn't hand them over at the start of the lesson one Monday due to a problem with the school printers.
I also found them useful as part of my planning as it caused me to have a much more detailed think about how each chunk of work breaks down into learning objectives on a week by week basis.
I have no real way to measure whether they were effective in terms of grades or understanding, but the fact that the students said they liked them and I found them useful for planning is enough to make me carry on. I also take the view that even if they have no tangible benefit they are very unlikely to actually do harm to progress!
I am now asking my department to run with this across all KS5 lessons for the coming academic year
Get a copy
If you would like a copy of this sheet then you can get one here.
Feedback welcome
Is this useful? Do you do something similar? Have you got an alternative that's better? All thoughts appreciated.
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...
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