tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22548856667904982172024-03-06T00:11:50.459+00:00Thoughts on managing variabilityKev Listerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02417437251161335205noreply@blogger.comBlogger66125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2254885666790498217.post-68441154722480341632021-01-11T19:00:00.002+00:002021-01-11T19:00:04.100+00:00Department for Education - Requires improvement or Inadequate?<p><span style="font-family: arial;">Alongside lots of sectors the English exam system has been thrown into turmoil by the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. For the first time ever exams were cancelled in the summer of 2020, and now they have been cancelled again for 2021. All of the changes made as part of these cancellations have been done under the direction and leadership of the Department for Education, with Gavin Williamson, the Secretary of State for Education having overall responsibility.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">With the cancellation of the 2021 summer exam series for A-levels and GCSEs, schools and colleges responsible for exams are once again in a state of confusion and another cohort of students are currently uncertain about how their qualifications will be awarded. The exams system has now been in turmoil and uncertainty for 10 months and that is set to continue at least until the GCSE and A-level results are released in August 2021. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Of course there have been impacts in many sectors, and the perhaps over used but appropriate labelling of 2020 and 2021 as “unprecedented times” may excuse some aspects of this uncertainty. However, when the changes to exams for 2020 and 2021 are looked at as a whole there is a pattern that emerges of missed opportunities and warnings that have been ignored, let’s start in March 2020…</span></p><p><b><span style="font-family: arial;">Closure of schools in March 2020</span></b></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">When Gavin Williamson announced on the 18th March that schools would close to the majority of pupils from 20th March it instantly raised the question about what would happen for those students with exams scheduled at the end of the academic year. (<a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/schools-colleges-and-early-years-settings-to-close" target="_blank">announcement</a>)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><i>What the DfE could have done is</i></b> place exams “under review” at least for a few weeks while the impact of school closures were evaluated and consultations could be progressed on possible routes for providing grades. Keeping exams under review would have given students in exam years a clear reason to stay engaged with schools and complete their courses. Through review and consultation with schools and colleges, alongside Ofqual and Exam boards, it may have been possible to establish some form of structured, standardised moderated assessments that could be conducted later in the academic year.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><i>What the DfE actually did</i></b> was immediately state on 18th March that all exams are cancelled for summer 2020. With schools closed and no exams it became clear that large numbers of Year 11 and 13 students were disengaging from their school and college courses altogether.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">In April 2020 Ofqual issued guidance making it clear that any work done by students after 20th March must be treated with extreme caution (<a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/887018/Summer_2020_Awarding_GCSEs_A_levels_-_Info_for_Heads_of_Centre_22MAY2020.pdf">see here</a>). This instantly made any further work set or done by examined students pointless, and therefore most schools and colleges stopped setting any at all for exam years.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><i>The impact these decisions</i></b> <b><i>had</i></b> is that many Year 11 and 13 students disengaged from school or college altogether, and as a result many of them will not actually have completed the courses that they now have GCSE or A-Level qualifications in.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Keeping exams under review in the early days of school closures would certainly have increased pressures on schools who would have had to include provision for exam years as part of their hurried moves to remote learning. However ruling out exams altogether at such an early stage certainly harmed the integrity of the qualifications that those students now have.</span></p><p><b><span style="font-family: arial;">Method of awarding grades in 2020</span></b></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><i><b>What the DfE could have done</b> </i>is use Centre Assessed Grades (CAGs) alongside statistical models, and in fact this is actually what they said they were going to do (see below). This should have ensured that there was a process to compare CAGs with the grades expected from statistical models. As part of this build in allowable variances to recognise that professional judgements of the 2020 cohort may not conform perfectly to historical statistics. Where CAGs were clearly out of line with statistical models seek supporting justifications from schools and colleges (in fact the Ofqual guidance issued in April 2020 [<a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/887018/Summer_2020_Awarding_GCSEs_A_levels_-_Info_for_Heads_of_Centre_22MAY2020.pdf" target="_blank">here</a>] stated that centres should retain records of supporting evidence “… in case exam boards have queries about the data”). If justifications are accepted then the CAGs could stand, where justifications were insufficient the statistical model may have overruled, or perhaps where there were large changes there could be an element of splitting the difference.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">This would of course require discussion of contentious grades between exam boards and exam centres before results days, however there was plenty of time to plan in the processes for this. Alternatively if the results could not have been discussed in advance a fuller appeals process could have been established that would allow schools and students to submit convincing evidence where an individual was badly served by the statistical model.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Included in all of this could have been the general principle that the statistical model would not raise grades awarded by centres. While it is logical, natural even, for teachers to err on the side of optimism when awarding grades, if a professional has stated that a student should receive a B grade at A-level it is likely because they feel the student genuinely isn’t of sufficient ability to secure an A grade.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><i>What the DfE actually did</i></b> was design an algorithm that only applied statistics to the rank orders provided by centres and allowed no substantive scope for appeal.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">While it was stated in the Ofqual documentation that CAGs would be considered the algorithm only considered the rank order of students with the CAGs completely ignored, even when there were multiple grade differences between the CAG and the statistical expectation.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Despite stating that schools should keep suitable evidence to support grading decisions, there were no processes in place to use this evidence as part of any appeal, and no proactive action taken to query discrepancies between CAGs and the algorithm. Where the algorithm assigned a grade that was different to the grade given by teachers the algorithm was taken as correct without question.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">The algorithm artificially raised some grades when it calculated that the school was entitled to more high grades, even if the teachers knew for a fact that the students do not deserve those grades. The algorithm also lowered other grades from CAGs when the statistics didn’t fit the individuals and completely ignored the grades that teachers had assigned, with no scope for hard evidence to be submitted to challenge this.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">The process even forced schools to rank students differently even if their performance was academically identical on all school measures. When the algorithm was applied students on the same CAG but different rank were treated very differently, meaning students on the same CAG were awarded different grades, sometimes 2 or 3 grades different.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Early warning of concerns of an algorithmic approach emerged with the issue of results in Scotland, and the devolved Scottish government rapidly U turned and reverted to awarding CAGs. This was ignored and dismissed by the DfE for England and A-Level results were issued via algorithm on 16th August regardless.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">The appeals process established was only based on challenging factual errors in the application of the algorithm, or when there were large scale statistical differences that the algorithm failed to account for. There was no scope to appeal small scale local departures from statistics or clearly unfair outcomes at an individual level. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">On 17th August, just 24 hours after results issued the decision in England was overturned, reverting to CAGs and also applying any grade uplifts from the algorithm. This meant that not only was there an element of grade inflation from CAGs, but this was actually increased via the algorithmically uplifted grades.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">On 27th August 2020 Boris Johnson placed the blame for the resulting fiasco on a “mutant algorithm”(<a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-53923279" target="_blank">here</a>). As an A-Level Further Mathematics teacher who teaches a unit on “Algorithms” I can assure you that algorithms do not mutate. The key point of an algorithm is that they do specifically and precisely what they are designed to do and nothing else. The fact that the outcome did not deliver the desired results is entirely the responsibility of those that designed, tested and quality controlled the algorithm.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">The fundamental flaw was that the algorithm and all the related quality assurance processes were only focused at a headline statistical level. Nationally the algorithm worked as it produced broadly the right pass rates, the same can even be said at a whole school level. However because the algorithm paid absolutely no notice to the CAGs as judged by professionals, and ignored the impact at an individual student level it completely failed to build in year to year or student to student variation.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><i>The impacts these decisions had</i></b> are massive grade inflation across GCSE and A-Levels for 2020, combined with, public uproar and loss of faith in the exam system. Delays to the decision meant that A-Level students with grades that changed missed out on university places in 2020 because courses had already been filled by other students.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Start of the school year in September 2020</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><i>What the DfE could have done is</i></b> state that the intention was to run exams in the summer of 2021 but ensure that there was a parallel system in place to guide schools in building a strong evidence base to support potential CAG use in case of disruption.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Possible examples of a parallel system could be clear national standards for the timing and nature of mock exams, perhaps even specify common exam papers to use nationally so that there is a central reference point across schools. Alongside or alternatively exam boards for each subject could have established some core common assessments for each subject that can be done in schools at key points during the year to get a common base of comparison.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Schools could have been given clear and early direction on “Special Consideration” and how this applies to disruption due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic (Special consideration is the process through which schools make requests to exam boards to account for pupil illness on the day of an exam or other significant disruption to their exam or preparation). This guidance for example may have laid out how many days of isolation or remote learning would qualify for special consideration. Perhaps give clarity on whether it matters when in the year isolation or remote learning occurs, or whether specialist teacher absence should or could be accounted for. If the student themselves is made unwell due to Covid-19 at any point in the year should a consideration to be made? If a student is impacted by Covid-19 related bereavements of family or close friends, or of teachers should there be special consideration given? Or should account be made for student household impacts such as illness, loss of income, or furlough of parents?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">The above guidance could have been put in place at any point during the autumn term, or at least plans established to put this guidance in place with a clear process of consultation and defined point where a decision would be made. Particularly as Covid-19 cases rose nationally from September through December and the fact that attendance at schools was being substantially impacted there should have been some response along these lines.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><i>What the DfE actually did was</i></b> repeatedly state intention to run exams.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">On 12th October Gavin Williamson announced a delay to the exam season to allow students more time to prepare (<a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/students-to-be-given-more-time-to-prepare-for-2021-exams" target="_blank">here</a>). As part of this he committed that the exams would be “underpinned by contingencies for all possible scenarios”, with a promise to consult further with stakeholders and publish more detail later in the autumn term.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">On 3rd December Gavin Williamson announced some further measures to support exams in 2021 (<a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/extra-measures-to-support-students-ahead-of-next-summers-exams" target="_blank">here</a>). These extra measures included a suggestion of students being told some exam topics in advance and more help in terms of reference materials in exams, however there was no actual detail given at this point so schools and students could not respond in any way other than preparing for exams as normal. He also announced that grading would be more generous than normal, which simply means that the grade inflation impact of 2020 would be carried across into 2021. While he announced an expert group to monitor the variation in learning across the country he gave no actual detail that schools could work with and plan on. There was no confirmation of any form of contingency planning.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">When Scotland cancelled their National 5 exams in October (<a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-54423265" target="_blank">here</a>) and later cancelled their Higher exams in December (<a href="https://www.tes.com/news/scotlands-2021-exams-cancelled-education-secretary" target="_blank">here</a>), and other home nations announced moves away from exams the DfE resisted all calls to consider alternatives and put contingencies in place for England. This position continued to be publicly reinforced, including the adherence to taking exams right up to the end of December (<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/video/2020/dec/28/a-level-exams-absolutely-go-ahead-2021-michael-gove-video" target="_blank">here</a>). On 30th December Gavin Williamson emphasised that Exam years would be at the “head of the queue” for rapid covid testing as part of schools reopening in January (<a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/education-secretary-sets-out-school-contingency-plans-for-england" target="_blank">here</a>). This position remained the case right up to the point when schools were closed as part of the January 2021 lockdown (<a href="https://www.gov.uk/guidance/national-lockdown-stay-at-home" target="_blank">here</a>).</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">The January 4th lockdown announcement (<a href="https://www.gov.uk/guidance/national-lockdown-stay-at-home" target="_blank">here</a>) stated that “it is not possible for exams in the summer to go ahead as planned.” This also stated that the DfE would “be working with Ofqual to consult rapidly to put in place alternative arrangements that will allow students to progress fairly.”</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">On 6th January Gavin Williamson changed direction further by announcing that all exams “will not go ahead this summer” (<a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/education-secretary-statement-to-parliament-on-national-lockdown" target="_blank">here</a>). This is despite schools being expected to reopen and welcome exam years back well before the end of the academic year. Stating in January that all summer exams are cancelled closes the door to formal standardised testing across any subject, instantly reducing the potential for reliable comparisons across exam centres. This statement included the claim that “The department and Ofqual had already worked up a range of contingency options.” However the statement gave proper details on none of these options, despite apparently working on all possible contingencies since 12th October. The only fragment of detail given was to confirm that he wishes “to use a form of teacher-assessed grades, with training and support provided to ensure these are awarded fairly and consistently.” So on the face of it the plan for this year is to do the same as last year, overseen by the exact same people and regulators as last year. The only difference apparently is that this year they intend to train teachers better to make sure that they don’t make the mistakes that the algorithm designers made last year. In 2020 they made a similar statement that teachers and schools would be given guidance on how to award CAGs fairly… We know how that went.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Even with lockdown in place the government also allowed January vocational exams to go ahead. When questioned on this they advised schools that they can run the exams “where they judge it right to do so” (<a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-55548027" target="_blank">here</a>) but gave no guidance at all on how to judge if it was right or not. There are no definitions of what would constitute “safe” or “unsafe” conditions for running an exam in a lockdown and the DfE have resisted all calls to lay them down.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Throughout this no guidance at all has been given on how “special consideration” may relate to Covid, and no timeline given for when guidance might be shared. In fact there has been no indication that any account would be taken for the November series of exams, the January vocational exams that do run, or any other assessments that have or still will happen this year.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><i>The impacts of these actions are</i></b> that despite making statements that contingency plans were being made the exams have been cancelled again at short notice with no detail at all on what those contingencies will be. At every stage the DfE, Ofqual and Exam boards have been completely unprepared for disruption to the year, meaning schools are without guidance from these vital organisations. While it has been obvious since the first school had to isolate the first child in September that there would be some form of disruption to the 2021 exams, the lack of available detail or action to safeguard comparable assessments during the year shows a complete lack of foresight.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Schools, colleges, and students in exam years have once again been left with no guidance on what is to become of their qualifications. There are now genuine fears that we will have a repeat of the grades debacle that happened last time as the exact same people are at the helm and absolutely nothing has been changed in the meantime to provide more robust preparations for CAGs. Schools again are left unclear on the guidance to give to parents and students.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Overall then….</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">At every decision point through the pandemic there was a route that would have given a more strategic response, clearer guidance and better outcomes for students and the wider education sector. These more strategic responses do not require hindsight, they simply require foresight and understanding of the education and exams sector. If staff at the DfE and at Ofqual do not have this foresight then they need to acknowledge this and consult those that do as a matter of routine, ideally educating themselves to the point that they can provide this too.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Despite there being opportunities to find a better path at every stage the DfE has chosen to take actions that actively reduce guidance, limit the opportunities for robust assessments and harm outcomes for students. Every decision has been taken too late, and right up to point of the U turn the DfE and wider government have continued to actively brief and reinforce the previous line, even sometimes up to the point at which a different decision is announced. This is so consistently the case it could almost be viewed as a systematic attack on the education and examinations system, with last minute changes enacted specifically to destabilise the entire sector.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">To make one or two mistakes or errors of judgement during the unprecedented times of Covid I could understand. To make mistakes and errors of judgement at EVERY stage however requires active incompetence. To ignore the likelihood of disruption to the 2020-21 academic year and make no contingency plans at all is a sign of complete negligence and lack of leadership. From the point of cancellation of exams in 2020 there should have been plans made to make sure we had better information to work with for 2021 and clear parallel processes in place.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Let us remember here, this is Gavin Williamson’s job, alongside all of those that work for him in the Department for Education and Ofqual (Ofqual annual budget of the order of £17.5million). Williamson is paid a ministerial salary of £67,500 per year (in addition to his basic MP’s salary of £74,962) to do this role. Given the lack of action and negligence evident in the above I need to ask what has he, DfE and Ofqual have actually been doing to improve the exam and qualification system since March 2020 (or for since he assumed office in July 2019 for that matter)?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">They say “to err is human”… To repeatedly and systematically ignore advice and fail to make adequate contingency plans is at best incompetent, certainly negligent and at worst deliberately undermining. As a country we simply cannot continue treating students in exam years, their parents, and their schools like this. The Department for Education has been complicit in the undermining of qualifications for two years in a row now, in Ofsted parlance they wouldn’t just “require improvement”, they would be “inadequate”. A school this badly run would have been placed in special measures and the leadership team replaced.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Despite this catalogue of failings (and that doesn’t even scratch the surface of the turmoil in the Primary, Early Years and University sectors that he is also responsible for) Gavin Williamson then has the temerity to suggest that parents should complain to Ofsted if their remote learning isn’t up to scratch just two days after the government made the U turn to close schools (<a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/01/06/report-schools-ofsted-children-not-given-enough-work-lockdown/" target="_blank">here</a>). </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">This isn’t party political – it’s about leadership, or more specifically the lack of leadership of the DfE, and that is true regardless of the political affiliations of those involved.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">On reflection of all of the above I make you this offer – pay me £67,500, it doesn’t even need to be in addition to my teaching salary… in fact just pay me a basic teacher’s salary and I guarantee that I will make substantially more impact on improving education in the first 3 months than Gavin Williamson has done in the last 17 months that he has been in post…</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">We cannot continue with an inadequate DfE...</span></p><div><br /></div>Kev Listerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02417437251161335205noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2254885666790498217.post-62096497622961780342019-03-09T11:57:00.001+00:002019-03-09T11:57:27.689+00:00Data isn't always a demon<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I've seen and heard quite a lot recently about data being a bad thing and driving high workloads. Indeed Ofsted nod towards this in their most recent framework, emphasising that they plan to ignore internal data about current students as part of their inspections (more <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/770924/Proposed_education_inspection_framework_draft_for_consultation_140119.pdf.pdf" target="_blank">here</a>).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">There are also loads of blogs and other comments about data being bad, a waste of time and a massive source of workload, an example is <a href="https://www.tes.com/news/5-reasons-why-data-waste-everyones-time" target="_blank">here</a>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">It's now my 5th year as the SLT member responsible for data at my school. As such if I believe all of the hype I could be viewed as the source of all evil in my school, but that misses the point substantially. As with most things we need to seek balance.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><strong>Misuse and mismanagement is the demon</strong></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;">Data as a thing is not the issue. The issue is when data is over collected, over interpreted and its importance is over inflated so that it takes a disproportionate amount of time and resources to create and monitor.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Weighing the pig more often does not make it grow more quickly. Equally never weighing the pig leaves the farmer uncertain of whether the pig is growing at the appropriate rate. The farmer needs some data about the pig to work out if it is being fed enough, if it is healthy, and when it is ready to go to market.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><strong>A world without data would be a journey without reference points</strong></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;">If we take the "data is bad" knee jerk reaction to its logical conclusion we would never assess anything, never measure anything, never have an opportunity to step back to see if our actions are working.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Sailing hopefully without reference to instruments or other guidance is a great way to get lost. As sailors have discovered since we first took to the seas, taking appropriate measurements is a great way to stay on course. The important bit is that the measures are appropriate, taken at suitable time intervals, and the appropriate corrective action is taken in response.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><strong>Well you would say that wouldn't you</strong></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;">Of course, I'm a maths teacher, with a past career in Engineering, and have responsibility for data in the school - I'm bound to say it's important as it's part of my job.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">However it's not just my perspective...having the right data around you is part of managing anything effectively - that applies to all aspects of managing, every single business, in every single sector. Managers need to have data to determine if their organisation is working effectively, where there may be strengths, weaknesses, and also where there might be opportunities or risks.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><strong>We need to fight misuse of data, not just all data</strong></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;">By railing against data without focus we run the risk of branding it all as bad, and that's simply not true. Lots of data linked to schools is extremely useful both at a leadership/management and at a classroom teacher level, but if we continue to brand it all as bad we undermine or ignore the good uses.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Misuse or mismanagement of data occurs for various reasons:</span><br />
<ol>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial;">It's collected too often - Things take time to develop in schools, collection more frequently than 6 weeks is highly unlikely to result in meaningful changes, and even then 6 weeks may be too often depending on what is being measured - appropriate frequency is vital. A good manager will try to make the frequency appropriate to the measure and its intended use.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial;">It's collected but not used - absolutely no point in collecting data that is going to be ignored or if nothing happens as a result of it being collected. It's a waste of time for all involved.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial;">Its accuracy is over estimated. Any data generated internally by schools is subject to errors, particularly assessment data for students. There will be subjective elements to assessments that vary across teachers, there will be judgements applied to turn raw marks into grade boundaries that may shape grades inappropriately. Just because it's data doesn't mean it produced an accurate summary of a cohort. Just because a particular approach to data appeared accurate and appropriate when applied one year does not mean it will always be accurate for future years.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial;">Its biased, intentionally or accidentally it is very easy to bias a set of data. For example when asked to forecast a GCSE grade teachers will often bias their predictions based on the message that they want the student to hear - some will over estimate to motivate and encourage the students, some will under estimate to spur on the students to do better - both are potentially incorrect, and either one can have an impact on the student that is the exact opposite of what was intended. When rolled up at a department or school level these predictions can be wildly inaccurate.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial;">Summaries such as percentages are used inappropriately (see <a href="http://kevs-variability-thoughts.blogspot.com/2014/06/powerful-percentages.html" target="_blank">this post</a> about percentages and their misuse)</span></li>
</ol>
<span style="font-family: Arial;">There are other reasons data can be misused, but probably the biggest over and above those listed above is to use data as the end of a conversation. In a professional environment data should be part of the professional journey, used to inform alongside other sources of information and judgement. If we resort to only using a piece of data to sum up an individual's professional worth, or a student's educational achievements then we have missed the point entirely - it's an evidence base to use as part of a much wider dialogue.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">With any data we need to ask 2 questions:</span><br />
<ol>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial;">Do we believe what it's telling us?</span></li>
<ol>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial;">If so, why do we believe it - what other information supports it?</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial;">If not, why don't we believe it - what other information conflicts with it?</span></li>
</ol>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">What do we need to do next? - we have this data, "so what?</span></span></li>
</ol>
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><strong>So what am I saying?</strong></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;">I suppose the bottom line here is not all data is bad, but misuse or mismanagement of it is very bad.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Effective use of assessment and the data that this generates is a central part of being an effective teacher at a class level and we mustn't try to hide away from this behind a "data is bad, just let me get on and teach" defence. Doing that would cut off a vital source of information for the class teacher. If class teachers don't understand their class's data then we need to train them in how to use it and work with it in a useful way - that's a CPD need not an issue with the data.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Similarly effective use of data is a key part of leading and managing a school at all levels, but the operative word is "effective". I'll acknowledge that too often in education data is used ineffectively and inappropriately - that is what we need to fight against. But we mustn't throw away the vital information that data can give us alongside this fight. Data isn't a stick to bash people over the head with, it's a tool to be used skilfully to help manage an organisation alongside all the other tools that we need.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">We need more people using data as a force for good...</span>Kev Listerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02417437251161335205noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2254885666790498217.post-63029385180871201452019-01-21T21:14:00.003+00:002019-01-21T21:14:47.858+00:00Learning lessons from a pro cyclist<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A return post after ages away from blogging... In the time since I last posted I’ve been working on a book about teaching and finding a good work/life balance, it’s now finished and on the way to publication (Possible to order a copy here: <a href="http://bit.ly/TeachLYII">bit.ly/TeachLYII</a>). So now I’m back, one way or another and plan to do a bit more blogging again now the book is done, though perhaps not quite as prolific as I might have been - for more on that see the book....</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The first thing I want to reflect on in my return to the blog is something that occurred to me recently while in Girona, Spain. I was on a cycling trip at the start of half term and happened to get the chance to chat to a professional cyclist for a while and amongst various thing I was just blown away by his focus and the attention to detail that the teams go into in chasing after victory. While chatting a fellow amateur asked Tom (the pro) what advice he could give about training to help us amateurs get the best from it and get faster. Tom’s key advice was “make sure every ride has a purpose.”</span><br />
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<b><i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Every ride has a purpose</span></i></b><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b></b><i></i>In cycling you can get reasonably fit and fast by just riding your bike a lot, however this will eventually reach a plateau where improvements do not come without some more specific thought. If rides are unstructured they can easily become “junk miles” they may well count as miles under the wheels and hours in the saddle but do not actually improve your fitness as they don’t challenge your limits enough. Tom’s advice is to know what each ride is for. It could be a hard workout to stress a certain type of muscle or body system, or it could be a deliberately easy ride to allow recovery from another effort, it could even be just a gentle spin with family or friends. The important thing is to know what you are aiming to do with each ride so that you get the intensity and type of exercise right and therefore get the changes you want in your body.</span><br />
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<b><i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Every "thing" has a purpose</span></i></b><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b></b><i></i>It occurred to me that there are some parallels to Tom's advice that could easily be applied to teaching. It is easy to plough on through a term counting down lessons to exams or ticking off weeks before a holiday, as part of that it is all too easy to lose track of what each lesson, day, week, or term is “for”. Lessons normally have objectives so it is clear what the aim is, but perhaps it is worth reflecting why that should be the aim.</span><br />
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<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Is it the right aim for your students or is it just the aim that happens at that point in the scheme of work?</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">How does it fit with progress to date?</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">How does that link to the bigger aims of the current unit of work or for the year?</span></li>
</ul>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">From a whole school perspective what is week 18 “for”? What needs to be accomplished in that week to make sure things are on track? How does the activity in week 10 differ from week 20, or 30? Is that a deliberate difference that targets a particular outcome, or is it a difference that is purely accidental that depends on the energy levels and recent inspirations off the staff involved?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Beyond all of this it’s worth a thought about what a particular year in school is "for"?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">some years have a clearer, more obvious purpose...</span><br />
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Reception, where the purpose is to settle the students into school. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Year 6 is where SATs are completed and the transition to secondary school starts. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Year 7 is about settling in to secondary school. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Year 11 is about successfully completing exams and choosing the post 16 routes.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">and so on...</span></li>
</ul>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">However what are the other years “for”? Are Years 1-5 essentially waiting to be Year 6? Are Years 8-10 just biding time until Year 11? With reports like Ofsted's "<a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/key-stage-3-the-wasted-years" target="_blank">Key Stage 3: the wasted years?</a>" it is clear that there is the potential for this time to be the educational equivalent of Tom's junk miles.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In these intermediate years what are the consequences of having a good or bad Year at a student, teacher, department or school level? How do we measure or assess successes in these years? Should we measure purely academic progress or is it more about engagement and inspiration? With the direction that Ofsted are taking for 2019 in terms of the primacy of curriculum breadth and opportunity it is probably time for us to consider whether we are doing some of these things deliberately or not. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Digging deeper there are the other things we do in school, sometimes just because its what we do, not necessarily to fulfil a firm purpose. Some examples:</span><br />
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<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What is an assembly “for”?</span></li>
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<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">More specifically what is <i>this</i> assembly for?</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">How do we know it has the <i>impact</i> we want it to have?</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Is there a better way to get the same or even more impact?</span></li>
</ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What is a particular meeting “for”?</span></li>
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<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Is a morning briefing "just another briefing" or does it have a purpose beyond the mundane?</span></li>
</ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Does the parents' evening have a purpose beyond just something we always do?</span></li>
</ul>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I could go on and on with this list... For each of these and all of the other things we do I think we should ask ourselves whether it is done with purpose or just done. Do we really need to do it? Is there a way to get more from the events so that the routine becomes something that delivers real added value for very little extra effort?</span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A reflective start</span></i></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I suppose this is quite a reflective return to blogging - I'm not necessarily offering any great ideas or innovations here either. It's more about questioning what we do and why we do it. Pro cyclists advise against junk miles, we need to guard against junk days, weeks and years.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Keen to hear your thoughts - it's been a while!</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><b></b><i></i><b></b><i></i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br />Kev Listerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02417437251161335205noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2254885666790498217.post-50035304291896028212015-10-13T20:20:00.003+01:002015-10-13T20:20:59.025+01:00School's own data in the Ofsted inspection data dashboard<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Hopefully if you are involved in secondary school data you will already be aware of the publication of the Ofsted "Inspection dashboards" which are available via the <a href="https://www.raiseonline.org/" target="_blank">RAISEonline website</a>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">However there is an issue with the data that will be shown in these dashboards as for many schools in 2014 there is a difference between best and first entry, meaning that the dashboards may distort the picture. For some schools this may also be the case for 2015.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Furthermore the dashboards published so far do not allow comparison of the latest data - potentially imminent in its release, however it's useful to know what to expect.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">To try to overcome some of these issues while still presenting the data in a format very similar to the official dashboard I have thrown together a spreadsheet that emulates the Ofsted layout as much as I can (given Excel's limitations).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The file can be downloaded here: <a href="http://bit.ly/Inspdashboard">http://bit.ly/Inspdashboard</a></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">.</span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFDOCY0VVOFpbkU-zwOqDyNlkMnRu12PZEXMDpGqdcytyXMK9_r-ONZveOZHv_RldL0rd8JeF0fe8p7sYoXzzkhjBIWl3o50kYSIYjbbFNf6W7s6AzmX9dM-pmWiwqcBSzWJTdEGBwEWM/s1600/Capture.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="296" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFDOCY0VVOFpbkU-zwOqDyNlkMnRu12PZEXMDpGqdcytyXMK9_r-ONZveOZHv_RldL0rd8JeF0fe8p7sYoXzzkhjBIWl3o50kYSIYjbbFNf6W7s6AzmX9dM-pmWiwqcBSzWJTdEGBwEWM/s640/Capture.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The file as shared contains dummy data (mostly derived from the anonymised version of the dashboard that is available in the RAISEonline library), which you can overtype with data from your school. Obviously you'll need to do the actual calculations for the numbers yourselves, or with whatever package your school uses to process/estimate the stats for your figures. The sheet simply presents the data in a way that is similar to Ofsted's official version. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Note this was made so that I could present data within my school so I'm afraid that some of the sheets are a bit fiddly to use - afraid I've not had chance to make it slick, but it does work if you take the time to enter your data! Most of the sheets are fairly obvious where the data entry goes - I'm sure you'll figure it out with a bit of trial & error.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My perferred way to print the file is to get Excel to print the entire workbook. It does come out with a blank page on P6 when doing it this way - not been able to fix that so either ignore it or don't print that one.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Hope this is useful!</span>Kev Listerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02417437251161335205noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2254885666790498217.post-54246120389891635472015-04-11T19:38:00.003+01:002015-04-11T19:38:58.574+01:00The Pareto principle and the great divide<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I just scared myself looking at my last post...it was at the end of January! So far this academic year has seen just 5 posts to my blog - in previous years I averaged 1 post per week during term time. In fact I've just passed the 2 year anniversary of starting this blog and I've now written less since September 2014 than I have at any time since I started it. I think it's about time I explained why...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>SLT role</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Good grief it's busy as SLT! I wrote a post <a href="http://kevs-variability-thoughts.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/first-month-as-slt.html" target="_blank">(here</a>) back in October about my first month as SLT and the multitude of unexpected pressures that suck away at your time. In all honesty I've had to stop posting to my blog so regularly because I've simply been that busy that I couldn't justify any more time sat in front of a computer writing a blog post each week. I've wanted to post, in fact I've even started a decent number of them and then saved them in draft because I wasn't able to finish them to a point where I'd be happy to share them publicly. In fact half of this post was written months ago, but seems to fit with what I wanted to say today.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This isn't intended to be a whinge about workload or that kind of thing so don't worry about digging out the violins, however I do have some observations about the tensions caused by the SLT role.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Is there a great divide?</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As I got closer to and then started my new role as assistant head and I became increasingly aware of the perceived divide between SLT and middle leaders/mainscale teachers. I know it's not just at my school, I've seen it at every school I've been in but it becomes really clear as you get up close to it and then jump across into SLT, I think it's particularly visible to me as I stayed at the same school.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It started with the jibes from my fellow Friday afternoon staff footballers who were counting down the number of games I was likely to be at before I become "too important" to play with them. I'm pleased to say this has stopped as I've carried on playing!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It continues with discussions about timetables where as an assistant head I teach less than half the number of lessons I did as a head of department, leading to jokey conversations about me having plenty of time to think up jobs & initiatives to keep the middle leaders and mainscale teachers busy.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The thing is the structure of a week for a member of SLT is so massively different to that of a middle leader they look like completely different jobs. Compare SLT to a classroom teacher and it's even more different - I actually teach only slightly more lessons than a main scale teacher gets for PPA.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'm not necessarily saying its wrong, but it changes your perspective of the job massively. A marking policy that is completely manageable on an SLT timetable can become tough to manage as a middle leader, and completely impossible as a main scale teacher. Teaching a difficult group when you have loads of time to prepare/recover, plus a level of seniority to trade with, is very different to having a similar group amidst full days of teaching.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Of course much of the time not teaching as SLT is spent doing management & leadership functions, so the "loads of time" is a fallacy, but the perception is there from those outside of SLT even if it's not the reality.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I like to think I'm fairly approachable and try to make sure that I spend time talking to colleagues at all levels of the organisation, and have great working relationships across the school. A great part of that, and the fact that I wasn't always SLT at this school, means that I think some are more open and honest with me than they might be with the other members of the leadership team. I know for a fact that that some will say things to me that they wouldn't dream of saying to others in our SLT. This gives an interesting insight at times...</span><br />
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<b><i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">No time for perfection</span></i></b><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I think the biggest actual disconnect I've discovered as part of all of this is the perception from many staff in general that all actions from SLT are deliberate, and that SLT have complete control over everything that happens in the school. Now I'm not suggesting that we go around blundering into things and have no control over what goes on, but we are a team of humans and with that comes limitations. Similarly we work in a setting that has a massive number of stakeholders with a vast array of needs and agendas, and are subject to legistative, judgemental, procedural and time constraints that limit or shape things in all manner of ways.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sometimes the size of a team means that not everyone can be consulted properly in advance. Sometimes the speed a decision needs to be made means that only the most central consequences can be considered (see comments about Pareto below). Sometimes an element of planning falls between areas of responsibility meaning it gets missed. Sometimes a task is simply not done quite as perfectly as it might have been because a human has done it or they ran out of time. All of these are issues to be guarded against, and even planned to be mitigated, but none would be done deliberately. However I know from that the consequences of what I know to be a small human error at SLT level can be seen as a direct decision to undermine or cause issues for other staff.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I've seen a situation where a given member of SLT has been working as hard as they could on something, but due to the realities of life in schools it ended being delivered to a wider audience slightly before it was completely finished. The reception from others in the school was frosty "it's a half baked Idea", "they've not considered the impact on...", "why couldn't they have told us that weeks ago?" and so on. The expectation from the school as a body is that the SLT have all the answers and have the time to plan everything out fully. The reality is that there is so much going on that there is too often no time to complete any task fully, sometimes it just has to be good enough to get the job done.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Pareto principle for leadership</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If you've not heard of the Pareto principle it stems from the observations by Italian Economist Vilfredo Pareto that 20% of Italians own 80% of the land. This has been extended to business in various ways with assertions that 80% of profit comes from 20% of your clients, or 80% of sales come from 20% of the sales team. It is also used in health and safety where 80% of injuries come from the 20% most common incidents and so on.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In my experience it can be fairly safely applied that about 80% of the behaviour incidents in a school come from just 20% of the students (you know which ones!). Similarly about 80% of the high grades come from 20% of the students. 80% of absences come from about 20% of staff, I could go on...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Furthermore another aspect of Pareto in terms of leadership is that if you consider 20% of the stakeholders in a given decision then you'll probably expose 80% of the potential issues. Due to time pressures and general day to day management constraints it is common for leaders to have to revert to this 80/20 rule in all sorts of situations in order to see the wood from the trees. Many leaders do this unknowingly, or some knowingly but rarely is it applied in a cold, deliberate way, however the Pareto Principle can be used to prioritise all sorts of things in all sorts of ways. Yes it's a rule of thumb but it actually fits reasonably well in many situations, and does force a level of perspective that can help get the job done.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Of course I'm not saying it is a good thing to be forced to prioritise like this, and certainly if you're one of the 80% of the stakeholders that is not consulted who then raises one of the 20% issues then I completely understand that you'd feel aggrieved, but that's not really what this is about. What I'm trying to say is that SLT sometimes set themselves up a little as infallible, and are often expected to perform that way by wider staff. However often what they are doing is their best given the situation they are in and the conflicting demands they have on their time. Often this means prioritising and that then leads to some people feeling overlooked.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For SLT the key thing is to acknowledge that we're doing this and to communicate more clearly with those involved. Be willing to acknowledge that at the bottom of all decisions is a human that has done their best, but may not have done it perfectly. For those outside of SLT looking in, perhaps consider if it was physically possible to do it better, or if the compromise you need to make is actually the right one for overall progress (are you one of the 80% or the 20%).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Yes SLT are paid more in order to make decisions, yes SLT have more time in the week in order to make decisions, but that doesn't change the laws of physics, and it certainly doesn't make anyone perfect or infallable. Time is finite for all of us. We all have constriants to manage, and differing perspectives.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I think the biggest thing I've learnt as a member of SLT is that I can't always take the time to be a perfectionist, but I can do the best I can given the time and resources I have available.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">No, I'm wrong... the BIGGEST thing I've learnt is that once I've had to commit to something that I know might not be perfect I need to avoid beating myself up over it and constantly revisiting it. I've spent too long doing that at various points during the year and it's done me no favours. You don't needs to be perfect in order to get it right for the vast majority of the time; the important thing is to make sure that even if something isn't quite right it is still one of the least bad options!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is just me rambling again - sharing the thoughts bouncing round my head - comments always welcome!</span></div>
Kev Listerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02417437251161335205noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2254885666790498217.post-36048590178840405882015-01-31T11:40:00.003+00:002015-01-31T11:40:38.629+00:00RAG123 as defined by the students<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Our head of maths has done a piece of work recently on RAG123 that I think I just have to share...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Firstly if you've never heard of RAG123 then look <a href="http://kevs-variability-thoughts.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/rag-to-clean-up-marking.html" target="_blank">here</a> for my original post on it, and then see <a href="http://kevs-variability-thoughts.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/RAG123" target="_blank">here</a> for all the others I've done...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Pupil voice</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So far with RAG123 I've seen teacher definitions of what R,A,G mean, and what 1, 2, 3 mean, and we've occasionally had a go at doing a student oriented set of descriptors. However it surprises me to admit it but we've never previously asked the students to define it themselves!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">With my stepping up to SLT this year I have had the pleasure of welcoming and line managing a new HoD to run the maths department. Simon Preston arrived at our school, inherited RAG123 from me and then he embraced it and used it for a while. Then he had a brainwave that is so obvious I don't know why nobody had thought of it before... </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">He asked the students to define their understanding of all the RAG123 ratings...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Simon did this by issuing a sheet like the one below and asked the students to fill in the boxes with a description of what types of work or attitudes warranted each rating. Notably he didn't just ask them to define R, A, G and then 1, 2, 3, but he got them to define all 9 combinations of letters and numbers.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWy3JeI66ArVrLThMJnE-9Yz0Ti3aJSo1h0W7DN5ie4_UBGdAd3ClBO6NNYY60cuXsNgJj4Egau1RF6thRZbuhzEtnYFF7gjxoKaDeBDaYqyy7qFMjRZyTCQJinEmfoeczHQZSJWyg2Mk/s1600/Capture.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWy3JeI66ArVrLThMJnE-9Yz0Ti3aJSo1h0W7DN5ie4_UBGdAd3ClBO6NNYY60cuXsNgJj4Egau1RF6thRZbuhzEtnYFF7gjxoKaDeBDaYqyy7qFMjRZyTCQJinEmfoeczHQZSJWyg2Mk/s1600/Capture.JPG" height="438" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>What did the students say?</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I have been fascinated by the responses that the students gave. Having collated their inputs and drawn together the common themes Simon has compiled the following grid, which for me now seems to be the definitive RAG123 rating grid.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwhREdq6-xZXOBKCaNn03ppkqUNTGVmO8LLICXhyOyPvVM6pXyT-xj-ks4ARtkh69kFsI914-raZTdNe7TJFcyskSNyKRC4H80U-_HtN0bnhlEWqhE67fZmu8OvKmTcvHZ72N2BEn9Kfs/s1600/Capture.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwhREdq6-xZXOBKCaNn03ppkqUNTGVmO8LLICXhyOyPvVM6pXyT-xj-ks4ARtkh69kFsI914-raZTdNe7TJFcyskSNyKRC4H80U-_HtN0bnhlEWqhE67fZmu8OvKmTcvHZ72N2BEn9Kfs/s1600/Capture.JPG" height="440" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I think the nuance that the students have highlighted between R2 and R3 in the root cause for the low effort is really interesting. Also like the A1 "just enough". Overall I am really pleased by the clear linkage between effort and understanding. It all comes back to the basic position where students on 3 for understanding need clear input from the teacher to move them, and those on R for effort also need a decision from the student to improve.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Involving parents</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Also this week we held a parent information evening for our yr 11 students where we were briefing them on revision techniques and ideas to improve home-school partnerships. This RAG123 grid was shared with parents and students in this session. We suggested that parents could work with students to RAG123 their revision processes at home in order to help figure out whether a session was effective or not. This was really well received and we have had several positive comments from parents about this giving them the tools to help review progress with revision, particularly in subjects that they have no expertise in.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Have you done something similar?</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The idea of asking the students is so obvious I'm amazed I or someone else haven't already done it - does anyone else have a similar student perspective on RAG123? If you have I'd be really keen to see it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Once again - if you've not tried RAG123 you don't know what you're missing in terms of building linkage between marking and planning, building dialogue with students and the promoting growth mindset type linkages between effort and progress. Give it a try and let me know how it goes!</span>Kev Listerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02417437251161335205noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2254885666790498217.post-69701981327425296532015-01-03T14:56:00.002+00:002015-01-03T14:56:45.699+00:00SOLO mats - a 1 page lesson<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It's been ages since I did a blog post about a teaching resource, so here we go...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I was looking to build in SOLO (For more posts on SOLO see <a href="http://kevs-variability-thoughts.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/SOLO" target="_blank">here</a>), some independence and also some structure to a lesson that also included an amount of differentiation. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I try wherever possible to aim my lessons at the most able in the group, with scaffolding back for lower ability so that the more able aren't always subject to differentiation by just being given more work to do.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I mucked about with various ideas and finally landed on this one page lesson structure to try. The basic idea is that it incorporates a starter, core learning points and extension all in one place. It is possible for the strongest students to progress through the whole sheet with relatively little teacher input with prompts for them to reflect on what they've noticed. Students are given an A3 print of the sheet to work on, but can choose to make other notes or even do all of the work in their books if they want to (and some asked for squared paper for plotting the graph in the extending knowledge section).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Clearly this is a VERY maths based example - but I see no reason why this basic approach couldn't be used for any subject/topic that is looking to build on and combine prior knowledge in new ways.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">(I should note that this was done for a very high ability group of year 11 students, it assumes quite a lot of knowledge and is certainly not a "start from scratch" position for this topic)</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnn7Qqc9S2MFqKaAcLPTuW0_dpJpkwZu82s1Azb8wxAPfsN5j2dfcWpsqoU3gUESD5X7AYvVfNB2hXjK6vEnOEzQU00gPwlpRY1W5TgNKfvPurTOuXER5BfCq8QJDONFdy4fmBpr0ft7Y/s1600/Capture.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnn7Qqc9S2MFqKaAcLPTuW0_dpJpkwZu82s1Azb8wxAPfsN5j2dfcWpsqoU3gUESD5X7AYvVfNB2hXjK6vEnOEzQU00gPwlpRY1W5TgNKfvPurTOuXER5BfCq8QJDONFdy4fmBpr0ft7Y/s1600/Capture.JPG" height="478" width="640" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Powerpoint version available <a href="https://www.dropbox.com/s/mz9qiuvusipwxe1/Circle%20SOLO%20RAG%20mat.pptx?dl=0" target="_blank">here.</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The assumption is that the students start broadly in the top left, progressing down the left hand side, and then the right hand side, finishing off with a RAG123 assessment and comment in the bottom right (for more posts on RAG123 see <a href="http://kevs-variability-thoughts.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/RAG123" target="_blank">here</a>). Some got stuck straight in with it and progressed from one box to another fairly independently, others needed more support in lesson (possibly delivered by me or sometimes I would direct them to another student to discuss it), and some needed prompting to move on to the next box or to make links beyond what was immediately in front of them.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">At the end of the lesson I collected in the sheets to review and complete the RAG123 comments. In the next lesson I issued the next sheet as follows:</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3cjMtezInoKPOSwTEqEKoLN4cYZbmpSRhe4dVpiCPf-rrIN8qlzjTF9lbJEZycSmn9e-kO-xRMwv98AmudJrnwZIIE4vtWKgPjZPk8bg1ZOGCLiB3Q_GOpd4opUrplFuGKA9y-9Sk_lo/s1600/Capture1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3cjMtezInoKPOSwTEqEKoLN4cYZbmpSRhe4dVpiCPf-rrIN8qlzjTF9lbJEZycSmn9e-kO-xRMwv98AmudJrnwZIIE4vtWKgPjZPk8bg1ZOGCLiB3Q_GOpd4opUrplFuGKA9y-9Sk_lo/s1600/Capture1.JPG" height="474" width="640" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Powerpoint version <a href="https://www.dropbox.com/s/ojlivp1jg0po3u3/Circle%20SOLO%20RAG%20mat%20%232.pptx?dl=0" target="_blank">here.</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This second sheet builds on the info I knew they had picked up in the first lesson and then structures some extension.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Reflections on using it</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I was really taken with this approach and the majority of the students seemed to find them useful. The more inquisitive students came up with interesting ideas to navigate through it and made links readily, often pooling ideas to find solutions.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The lessons were very much of the form "here's your sheet, off you go" - I did very little discussion at a whole class level, in fact for the second lesson the sheets were already out on the desks and the students just came in and got started as they knew what to do. During the lessons my interactions with students were focused on removing barriers to them making links and progressing with the sheets. Sometimes I would add a line to a diagram to help them spot the right angled triangle, sometimes re-phrase or express what they told me verbally into algebraic form, sometimes it would be asking a question to open the door to the next box on the sheet. For those making most progress independently I would occasionally draw them back to earlier boxes to explore reasoning for answers or particular approaches to make sure they had seen the more general patterns among their specific answers.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The lack of formal instruction in a particular method or rule did expose some weaknesses for students who are otherwise strong performers; for some it was simply their discomfort with working with algebraic variables, for others it's a reluctance or lack of practice linking up different mathematical topics.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The most </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">negative responses tended to come from those students who are d</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">iligent</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> in making notes when a method is explained explicitly but tend to then apply this as a procedure to follow rather than understanding the underlying concept. In particular I had a group of girls who will probably get A* grades at GCSE (indeed they have already done so in Mocks), who got stuck at every stage because it was presented in a way that didn't signpost a method to apply, and sometimes there was no single clear answer to give. As a result they were fairly difficult to motivate through the lessons, however I still think it was a worthwhile experience for them.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For maximum benefit across the class I did use a final plenary to draw together all of the central key points with a few more formal notes, and then we spent a lesson applying this knowledge to exam type questions to check security of the concepts in different ways.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Other difficulties come with storing the sheets afterwards - A3 is not a convenient size to tuck into a small exercise book, but that's not a reason to not use them - I'll certainly use this approach again.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The group I was working with are generally well motivated and would get on with much of this independently, and also had a large amount of prior knowledge to work with. To use this approach with a weaker group, or with a group prone to behaviour challenges would need some thought as the lack of structure opens the door to classroom management issues if too many get stuck. I do think it could be used with weaker or more challenging groups, but it would need some more thought.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I think this basic approach could be used with almost any topic, it just needs a bit of thought. You also need to know the class well in order to know what knowledge you can assume. there is also no reason why this approach couldn't be used beyond maths.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So there it is - plan and deliver your lesson on a single page...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">All thoughts welcome as always.</span>Kev Listerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02417437251161335205noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2254885666790498217.post-39014112545133307082014-11-21T19:55:00.001+00:002014-11-29T20:47:55.684+00:00Deliberating on deliberate practice<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There is quite a lot written by others more qualified than I about students doing deliberate practise in order to learn or perfect a skill, however I've been thinking recently about deliberate practice, which is different...</span><br>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Whatever you do, do it deliberately</i></b></span><div>I<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">t can become all too easy to drift along and do things because it's always been done that way, you think it's what's expected, or even because that's what the policy says. The problem comes when we forget <b>why</b> we're doing something, and just do it without thinking, without questioning.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br></span></div><div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Any one size fits all approach or policy risks losing sight of 'why' when deployed at an individual teacher, class or lesson level. Bloom's might be exactly the right approach to setting objectives for a particular lesson, but probably not ALL lessons. Interactive, active learning might be right at times, traditional chalk and talk might be right at others. I could go on with these...</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br></span></div><div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What I'm getting at is that as professional teachers we should actively seek out as wide a range of methods and techniques for teaching as we can for all aspects of practice. We then need to use our professional judgement to select from this range, and to choose the right thing to do based on the needs of the class in front of us, and on a knowledge of our own skills and limitations. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">To do something because someone else has told us to do it (yes even if SLT have told us, or if it's what we believe the dreaded Ofsted will expect) is to abdicate our professional responsibilities.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br></span></div><div><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Don't get me wrong, schools do need to have policies to act as guidelines (not straight jackets) and to set out minimum expectations. Similarly teachers of all levels should be able to offer suggestions to others at all levels. However we need to use these suggestions and guidelines as a starting point for a professional decision, not the end point; it can sometimes be right to ignore advice.</font></div><div><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">As a professional I would hope that a teacher both feels able in themselves, and feels empowered by their leadership, to take a deliberate decision about how to approach a lesson or other aspect of teaching. Actively choosing methods for differentiation, style of delivery, types of activities, etc. is vital. Choose because you believe as a professional that it's the right thing to do based on your knowledge of the class. When you take that decision then be willing to defend it if questioned, and be willing to acknowledge if your decision wasn't quite right. Reflecting and improving is part of taking responsibility as a professional too.</font></div><div><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Basically teaching practice should be a conscious, deliberate act. Decisions need to be taken actively rather than received passively, and improvements actively sought.</font></div><div><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">If you're a school leader then ask yourself if you are empowering your teams to take professional decisions or giving them rules to follow? If someone deviates from policy do you start by asking them why they took that decision or by insisting they return to the policy? Have you questioned whether the policy is any good in the first place, is it possible that their way was better at that time and in that context?</font></div><div><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">This can even extend to demeanour around school, or in personal lives. Do you give off a frosty persona? Is that deliberate? Do you actively choose to be positive in your outlook? Is that deliberate?</font></div><div><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">I believe at times we all need to stop and consider if our practice is deliberate? At home, at school, as a leader, as a teacher, as a whole school, a department, at class or lesson level... are decisions taken for the right reasons?</font></div><div><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Is your practice deliberate?</font></div><div><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">All thoughts welcome as always...</font></div>Kev Listerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02417437251161335205noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2254885666790498217.post-34655219640350064992014-11-15T15:32:00.003+00:002014-11-15T15:32:27.942+00:00A ragging birthday!<b><i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Time flies!</span></i></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Almost exactly a year ago I wrote my first blog post about RAG123 (find it <a href="http://kevs-variability-thoughts.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/rag-to-clean-up-marking.html" target="_blank">here</a>) which followed a single week trial of an idea that seemed illogical... Mark more often, but write less, improve feedback and reduce workload. Remarkably it worked - students responded positively, I felt more in control of my marking workload and my lessons were more effective. I still haven't taken a single pupil book home to mark since I started RAG123 over a year ago, but ALL of my books are marked up to date.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I've since written loads of posts on RAG123 (all found <a href="http://kevs-variability-thoughts.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/RAG123" target="_blank">here</a>), and tweeted prolifically on it over the past year. I know I am guilty of being a bit evangelical about it, but I do feel justified in my enthusiasm. The evidence suggests that using this approach to marking and feedback (and planning) really does have a beneficial impact both on the students and the teachers involved. I get fantastic feedback like this on a regular basis:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>No going back!</i></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As I know I can be a bit biased on this throughout the year using and developing RAG123 I have regularly asked for negative feedback or stories of people that have tried RAG123 but stopped. From the responses I have received there are only a couple of people that have stopped once tried. In these cases it was never because they didn't think RAG123 was beneficial, it was due to some external factor such as illness or a change in role. In all cases where someone said they'd stopped they followed up with a comment that they would start again as soon as their circumstances allowed. I remain open and receptive to constructive criticism of rag123 and want to retain balance on it. To be honest though negatives only really come from people who have never tried it, or haven't really understood the idea. To date the overwhelming evidence is that once you try it you will see such benefits that you won't want to go back. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Going national and international</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As well as individual teachers using RAG123, there are whole departments adopting it, and I know of a couple of schools that have adopted RAG123 as a central part of their marking policies (one has even reported it to me as a contributing factor in their schools journey out of special measures). I'm constantly being contacted by people who are sharing it within their departments, their schools or via teachmeets across the country. In fact it's also gone international, and not just in English speaking countries. I know it's been translated into Welsh (#COG123), and also is in the process of translation into Swedish...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>So... a year later what have I learnt?</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I've written, thought and learnt a lot about RAG123 over the past year. While the core idea remains exactly as described in the original post, there are a number of subtleties that I have seen and picked up over the last year. I've probably tweeted most of them at some point or other, but it's also about time I shared them all in one place. Along the way there are a couple of confessions I should make too...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Top 10 tips to get the most out of RAG123:</i></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1. There are no strict rules for RAG123! Each teacher should take the core principle and make it work for them, their students, their school, their workload.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It makes no real difference if you use the colours or numbers for understanding or effort. It also doesn't matter if you need more than 3 levels for each aspect to fit with some other system (I know of at least one RAG1234 system being used, and there is also a RAGB123 out there). Actually you could call it anything, ABC123 would work just as well</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">However I do personally think colours are emotive and therefore can add to impact, which is why my preference remains RAG for effort as that's the bit I want the students to identify with the most (though for a cautionary note on colours see point 5).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2. While the process I put forward for RAG123 involves marking every day, there is no actual necessity to mark every day or every lesson. However without a doubt the more often you can manage it the more effective it will be.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Personally I try to RAG123 between every lesson but don't manage it all the time (still true even now I'm on an apparently empty SLT timetable). What you gain from doing it after every lesson is the opportunity for RAG123 to feed into planning for the next lesson, thereby improving differentiation and the impact of the next phase of teaching (for more on RAG123 as formative planning see <a href="http://kevs-variability-thoughts.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/rag123-as-formative-planning.html" target="_blank">here</a>). I now find it much harder to plan if I've not had chance to RAG123 my books.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3. It's the 2 dimensional nature of RAG123 that brings its strength. Separating effort (student controlled) from understanding (teacher influenced) is really important.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If a student is not trying then even the best teacher will struggle to help them learn. Conversely if the student is working as hard as they can but not learning then it is the teacher that needs to do something different. This is why it's simply not the same as a plain traffic light assessment of understanding (more on that in <a href="http://kevs-variability-thoughts.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/rag123-is-not-same-as-traffic-lights.html" target="_blank">this post</a>). </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Highlighting the impact of their effort is important to students and makes direct links with other powerful things like growth mindset.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I often get asked how to measure effort, or how I decide exactly what constitutes a "green" "amber" or "red" effort? My answer is always the same - the rating should be scaled to the message you want that individual student to receive. If you think they're cruising then it's amber, if they're going flat out then it's green. It doesn't matter that one student has done half a page vs another doing four pages... If you know from the lesson that the half page struggled and persisted the whole lesson then it's green, if the four pages are all well within the ability of the student then it's amber. The brightest, best behaved students can certainly get reds if they are cruising (and they really don't like it so improve almost instantly!).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">4. RAG123 doesn't and can't completely replace more detailed feedback, and I've never said that it should. Students need this, you still need to write extra at times. To help this it's good practice to aim to write an extra comment in 10-15% of books each time you mark. This hardly takes any extra time and after a week or so you can easily cover the whole class. Alternatively perhaps that feedback is verbal - which is fine too, though fails a little fouler of the dreaded "evidence for inspection". For me if you and the students are able to talk to an inspector about the feedback given (verbal or otherwise) and how it helps them to improve then that's perfectly valid feedback, but I do acknowledge that it takes a bit of confidence to fly without the safety net of written evidence. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">5. There is likely to be a colourblind student in every class group.... This was a big penny that dropped part way through the year, and I give thanks to @colourblindorg for the pointers on this. Clearly this causes tension for a system that has colours at its heart. However there is NO barrier to using RAG123 with colourblind students so long as symbols (e.g. "R", "A" or "G") are used and not simply coloured blobs/dots or even different coloured ink. Colourblindness is a big limitation for the various "purple pen of progress" or "green for good, pink to think" concepts that abound across teaching policies and #chat discussions. Using different coloured pens becomes irrelevant if colourblind students (and teachers) can't reliably tell the difference.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Colourblindness can render unlabelled R,A,G unintelligible to an average of 1 student in every classroom</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The key message here is that all RAG123 posters, stickers, guidance must always have a way for colourblind people to distinguish between the colour designations - simply labelling R, A, G does this perfectly. Colours are still powerful and useful for the non-colourblind majority so I'm still in favour of using colours, but it's important we make them accessible to those that can't distinguish between them.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjaYVy0qkmO4ABSPEHRL4rEUU8s_-WD4lmLpmM-GBKi4taVU5-9AnW8akvtuUAcPRwYDjkSdk3erj2NJnIPwNHBbDCzc0V0CTG93E4nzPKTIYPw7rt5kj3A-eJmAqXWOZkf0cgGZ_oq2g/s1600/Capture8.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjaYVy0qkmO4ABSPEHRL4rEUU8s_-WD4lmLpmM-GBKi4taVU5-9AnW8akvtuUAcPRwYDjkSdk3erj2NJnIPwNHBbDCzc0V0CTG93E4nzPKTIYPw7rt5kj3A-eJmAqXWOZkf0cgGZ_oq2g/s1600/Capture8.JPG" height="326" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Just labelling R,A,G as shown above retains full accessibility for colourblind students.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">6. RAG123 is absolutely a leap of faith, and sceptics take a lot of convincing!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Perhaps my biggest confession here is that despite sharing RAG123 nationally (& internationally) and even having it adopted by whole schools in other parts of the country I have not yet got it embedded across my school, or even widely used outside of the maths department.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The reasons for this are many... Perhaps I have been being a little more shy about pushing RAG123 within my school with people who may not be actively looking for new ideas (compared to people at teachmeets, on Twitter or reading blogs who are clearly looking for and open to new ideas). There's also the fact that until September I was 'only' a head of maths and my influence only reached so far within school. Even now I'm on SLT there is someone else on the team that has the clear remit of improving marking and feedback and I don't want to step on their toes. I've spoken to them about it and actually they like the idea, but can't quite build it into a whole school position yet due to other priorities. While I do find this a little frustrating I want to emphasise that this is not a criticism of my colleague(s) across my school. They are all working immensely hard and have a real desire to do the best for the children in our care, they simply choose to do this in a different way to me and I have yet to fully do he hard sell on RAG123.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This also in no way suggests that I don't have faith in RAG123. Personally I feel my teaching would suffer massively if I had to stop, and think most people's teaching would benefit from adopting it, but I also recognise that change is difficult and it's not easy to try something like this. I know I'm not the only one that faces this challenge, Damian Benney who is the author of probably the second most read blog about RAG123 is a Deputy Head at his school but has struggled to get colleagues to try it, as detailed <a href="https://mrbenney.wordpress.com/2014/10/27/marking-and-manageability-and-why-arent-more-people-trying-rag123/" target="_blank">here</a>. We're both completely sold on RAG123, and have had success sharing it across the country but changing minds more locally can be really hard.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">7. Students need support with RAG123 to make the self reflection aspect meaningful. I've written before about how difficult reflection is so won't go into it again for this post (find more <a href="http://kevs-variability-thoughts.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/getting-reflections-started.html" target="_blank">here</a> and <a href="http://kevs-variability-thoughts.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/reflecting-on-reflections.html" target="_blank">here</a>), however I will emphasise that the provision of sentence starters or other scaffolding to prompt more meaningful comments really does help. It's also vital that students are given the time in lesson to review and respond to comments - if you don't demonstrate it's important they won't treat it as important.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">8. Relating to the last sentence in the paragraph above... Marking & reviewing books as regularly as using RAG123 allows becomes a really powerful way to demonstrate to the students that you care what they do every lesson. This is a big point and shouldn't be underestimated. There are groups of students who don't like RAG123, when you ask them it's usually because they have nowhere to hide in terms of effort. The vast majority of students REALLY like RAG123, when you ask them it's because they know for certain that the teacher is taking an interest in what they do each day.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">9. Even bad RAG123 is still quite good. I'll be absolutely honest, compared to the examples I've seen on Twitter my own practice of RAG123 is nowhere near the level that some people have adopted. In all honesty I don't know where some of the teachers that do this find the time to do anything other than school work, maybe they don't? The detail some go into with RAG123 marking is almost to the level you'd expect from a more traditional marking methodology. For me this is awesome but a little overwhelming and I wouldn't want others to think that if they can't sustain that level they are doing it badly.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What I do know is that my books are basically marked and I know the students in front of me extremely well as a result of talking to them in lessons and using RAG123 with them regularly. I also know that the lessons I plan are tuned to the progress that the students make each lesson, and therefore the marking that I do isn't pointless (see more on my thoughts about pointless marking <a href="http://kevs-variability-thoughts.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/pointless-marking.html" target="_blank">here</a>). I'll gladly argue my case that the progress students make is evidence that my marking and feedback is effective, even if it only results in a better planned next lesson rather than reams of written evidence in books. This will be a contentious point for many, and some may disagree completely, but that's true of so many aspects of teaching.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">10. RAG123 as with all good teaching simply comes down to promoting good levels of effort from the students and good planning from the teacher. Initial users of RAG123 will often ask if a student can get a R1 (low effort, excellent understanding), or a G3 (high effort, low understanding). The answer in both cases is of course they can. For me the effort ratings should provoke the students to question what they are doing (can they try harder, can they maintain their current effort across a sequence of lessons) and the understanding should provoke the teacher to question their support/extension/differentiation for the student or planning for the class as a whole.</span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">RAG123 and the future</span></i></b><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So a year in and what's next. For me it's simply keeping using RAG123, I would be a worse teacher without it; I know other users feel the same. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sceptics will often ask for evidence that it works before trying it. I understand this but am also frustrated by it. I've tried to put together some evidence (see <a href="http://kevs-variability-thoughts.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/effect-size-and-rag123.html" target="_blank">here</a>) but it gets confounded by other factors, and as a result the relatively small sample size and other influences makes this limited sample ripe for taking shots at in terms of robustness of data. To accumulate enough hard data to support it (with a robust control group for comparison) would take a spectacularly long time and frankly I think it's simpler than that...</span><br />
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<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">RAG123 costs nothing - there are no subscription fees!</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">RAG123 can be started and stopped overnight, all it takes is a decision to do it.</span></li>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As such I'll reiterate the challenge that I issue whenever I present this at a Teachmeet... Try RAG123 with a class for 2 weeks. If you don't see a benefit then stop... If you do stop then</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> that's absolutely fair enough, but please get in touch to tell me why as I'm keen to understand if it has limitations! Similarly if you find it useful then please spread the word by challenging others!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Comments are always welcome, happy Ragging!</span></div>
Kev Listerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02417437251161335205noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2254885666790498217.post-33268810492770405452014-10-04T13:04:00.001+01:002014-10-04T13:35:34.137+01:00First month as SLT<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A few reflections on my first full month as part of SLT since I started my Assistant Headteacher role at the start of September...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If I had to give a single word summary it would be "busy", and p</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">erhaps most telling as part of this is that I originally titled this as "First week as SLT", but never even got close to finishing it; writing the title and pressing save was as far as I got! Anyway, these are some of the thoughts that crossed my mind during the past few weeks...</span><br />
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<b><i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Am I still a teacher?</span></i></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The first thing that hit me is that I'm now not teaching very much. It's almost a third of a main scale teacher's timetable, less than half of what I was teaching last year as a head of department. There are whole days when I don't have a lesson at all, I also no longer have a tutor group.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As a result as I started term I struggled a bit with the fact that I'm spending so little time in front of classes - the job balance is massively different and now teaching is the minority of my week. It almost causes me to wonder if I'm still a teacher. At the core I know I am, and the other things I'm now doing can have a wider impact on more students than I did before, even as a head of department. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'm loving the new pastoral side of my role, getting an overview of the college team I now lead, dealing with our students and seeing the progress they're making it brilliant.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Of course this light timetable is one of the things that can be quite divisive in schools, where the majority of the teaching staff see SLT apparently swanning about on a light timetable where it becomes the exception to be teaching.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In many jobs there is the visible bit that outside observers see, and the hidden bit that is only really visible to the person doing the job. All teachers have the visible bit when we're stood in front of a class teaching a lesson, but the invisible bit is planning and marking - hence the popular misconceptions about teacher working hours and holidays amongst the general public. The further the emphasis of a role moves towards leadership the more activities move away from visible "work" and more towards strategic activities that may be completed invisibly.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Perhaps naively I entered the world of SLT with the view that I was already really busy as a head of department, and that one of the things that caused me to be busy was the fact I still had a substantial timetable. I expected that my SLT workload could not possibly be bigger than my HoD workload; my mind argued that while I'll have more management work to do I'd also have more time to do it because I'd have more non-contact time. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't ever expecting SLT to be an easy time, I was not expecting to put my feet up in my office during non-contact times. I always will work hard, but I was fully expecting to be able to manage the workload within a similar pattern to that established as a head of department.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What I've discovered during these first few weeks is that the number of varied ways for the invisible or less visible side of the SLT role to burn up non contact time is incredible. As such right now my workload has massively increased as I often get much fewer of the management activities done in the time I have available.</span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Burning time</span></i></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I might well start a day with just one lesson to teach, but it's not time to kick back and drink coffee all day; there are a multitude of things that will burn off that time and make you feel a bit frantic...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>E-mails -</i> I thought I received quite a few as a head of maths, it's doubled since being on SLT. Many of them don't need a response as I get copied on on all sorts, but I still need to read most to be able to decide on that. I have always found myself to be quite efficient with e-mails in terms of response times and keeping track if it all - but the recent increase in volume does threaten this a bit.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Meetings -</i> wow there are lots of them as SLT! What with direct line management meetings, SLT meetings, meetings with parents, governors, other groups relating to your area of responsibility it's easy to fill up a large proportion of a week. Of course some are not that efficient, maybe some aren't needed at all, but as yet I've not figured out which ones...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Being the expert - </i>heads of departments, classroom teachers, admin staff, all appear to expect SLT to have the answer to almost any question relating to the school, and can be visibly disappointed if you don't. In some ways I'm fortunate that I was promoted to AHT at the same school, meaning I do already know about the majority of the systems. However there are still a few changes or aspects new to me or new to the school this year that aren't part of my direct responsibility or past experience that have me scratching my head a bit. For those SLT who are entirely new to a school it must be doubly difficult.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Naughty students -</i> I did a reasonable amount of this as a head of department but when things escalate further and reaches SLT you have to support the wider school staff as and when they need it. When this happens it's always going to interrupt time you'd planned to spend marking, planning, sorting e-mails, making plans for the core area of your responsibility, etc. There is no point arriving to a classroom to lend a hand if the student has already gone to the next lesson - you have to respond when you're needed, regardless of the impact to your workload.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Even when the initial incidents are over there is often time to be spent following up. This might be investigating an incident, finding a challenging student, talking with them, making plans for them with the pastoral teams, contacting parents.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In my second week I was required to write a report for our governors about the exam results from the summer. While on lunch duty on one of the days I had planned to get this report completed I had to deal with a fight between two students and then lost the entire afternoon in investigating it and finding the right response for the students involved. the right thing to do was deal with the students, but it blew my plans for the week to bits.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Maintaining teaching quality</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In amongst all of this I'm still teaching, and with distractions and interruptions to time intended to be spent planning, marking, etc it can actually be a genuine challenge to keep on top of it and maintain the overall quality of teaching.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I have never bought into the idea that all SLT have to be outstanding teachers. They just need to be 100% reliably good teachers, and be able to bring out the best teaching in others (whether that is branded as good, outstanding or whatever). They need to follow all school classroom policies and model the behaviours expected in others.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As a result of this while I'm confident in my teaching I felt some pressure when planning and delivering my observed lesson this week. It's too easy to become lazy with planning if you only have one or two lessons in a day - other things float up the priority list and you arrive at a lesson only partially planned. This is compounded a little when your'e teaching in a multitude of different rooms and don't have a fixed/known set of resources to draw upon as SLT rarely get their own base classroom.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>This all sounds fairly downbeat...</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As I'm writing this it seems like I'm highlighting all the challenges of the job and you might thing I am regretting the move... That's not the case in the slightest. I'm really enjoying the job, it's just such a big step from where I was last year to where I am now. I've gone from feeling completely in control as a head of department to just about maintaining control as an assistant head, which brings with it a level of stress that isn't entirely comfortable at the moment. I like to feel that I know what I'm doing and how to do it - currently that balance isn't quite right but it's getting there. I've hit the ground running but the ground was already moving quickly! As time goes on I'm adjusting how I approach each week to ensure that I maintain control and can get further and further on top of things. An indication of this is that I've found time to write this post this week!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I've no idea if this post will be interesting to anyone other than me - frankly that's not the point of it. I'll try to update on my progress as AHT as we continue through the year, mainly to remind myself that I'm making progress! If you have any thoughts or comments I'd be keen to hear them.</span></div>
Kev Listerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02417437251161335205noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2254885666790498217.post-79815694315550104212014-08-31T21:10:00.001+01:002014-08-31T21:10:26.636+01:00Pointless marking?<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This post is written in response to a "Thunk" from @TeacherToolkit - see <a href="http://teachertoolkit.me/teachertoolkit-thinking/?utm_content=buffer8d791&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer" target="_blank">here</a>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>What's the point in marking?</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Perhaps a reason that it seems nobody's answered this 'Thunk' before is that it's a bit obvious; we all know one of the basic tasks in a teacher's workload is to mark stuff. When non-teachers go on about long holidays, only working from 9 till 3 and all the standard misconceptions, teachers will universally include marking in the list of things that take up time around the taught lessons. However, if we put the preconception that marking is just a part of a teacher's being to one side, what is the actual <i>point</i> of it? Who gains from all this time spent? Do we do it because we want to, have to or need to? Also, is it done for the students or for the teacher?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>What if we all stopped Marking?</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'm a fan of thought experiments, so let's consider a system where there is no marking at all - what would we lose? Let's take it slightly further for a second - no assessment at all by the teacher.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For the sake of argument, with no marking or assessment the teacher's role would look something like this:</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlBAjFXeY9zafrHnf_x-4LQQnIoVZjJkzENoBcA7bA3zJED1WM2NVFbtIJLVw1n8yTGc3Yf7Zt8Em67lptDElns_02UwxQ4dAHm5um53-kK3hdRlVqRCCTXe35n9WvpokSyzzpazpD3do/s1600/Picture1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlBAjFXeY9zafrHnf_x-4LQQnIoVZjJkzENoBcA7bA3zJED1WM2NVFbtIJLVw1n8yTGc3Yf7Zt8Em67lptDElns_02UwxQ4dAHm5um53-kK3hdRlVqRCCTXe35n9WvpokSyzzpazpD3do/s1600/Picture1.jpg" height="138" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">At the end of each lesson the teacher would have to decide what to teach in the next lesson based on an assumption of what's been understood. Here you would need to consider the fact that an intended lesson goes through a series of filters between inception, planning, and delivery, and then again from delivery to reception and recall:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Filters
from intent to recall…</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1 The original intention becomes filtered to
the actual plan by what’s possible given constraints of timetable,
school, students, staff, resources, etc.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2 The planned lesson becomes filtered to the
lesson actually delivered by real life on the day, something not quite going to
plan, students not following the expected route, behaviour issues,
interruptions, teacher's state of mind, detail of choices on the day, etc.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3 The lesson delivered is filtered to the
lesson actually received by prior knowledge, attention levels,
language/numeracy skills, cognitive load, method of delivery, etc.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">4 The lesson as received is filtered to the
lesson recalled by the influence of other factors such as other
lessons/happenings after the event, levels of interest, and so on.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You will also see that I've separated the later 3 stages between Teacher's view and Student's view. This is important - the teacher with deep subject knowledge, knowledge of the original intention and plan, and sight of a bigger picture for the subject is likely to perceive the lesson in a different way to the students. In fact the 'Student's perspective' row should really be multiplied by the number of individual students in the class as the experience of one may well be very different to others. (Also note for reference that if the lesson is observed then there would need to be a whole extra row to cover the observer's point of view, but that's another discussion altogether...) Basically what I'm saying here is everyone in the lesson will have their own unique perspective on the learning that took place in it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>How accurate are your assumptions?</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As a teacher delivering lessons with no assessment and no marking you would have to rely entirely on your assumptions of what the students receive and recall from each lesson. An inaccuracy in one lesson would likely be compounded in the next until the intended learning path is left behind entirely over a period of time. I'd suggest only the most arrogant of teachers would attempt to argue that they could keep a whole class on track and keep lessons effective without any form of marking or assessment, and frankly they'd be wrong if they tried.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Open loop control</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Basically without assessment and without marking, we are using what would be called an open loop control system in engineering terms. A basic toaster is an example of a device that uses open loop control. You put the bread in and it heats on full power for a period of time, and then pops up. The resulting toast may be barely warm bread, perfect toast, or a charred mess. The toaster itself has no mechanism to determine the state of the toast, there is no feedback to tell the toaster to switch off before the toast begins to burn. To improve the system we need to close the loop in the control system; we need to observe the toast and take action if it's burning. Closed loop control is really what we want, as this uses feedback to adjust the input, which takes us to the Deming cycle...</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Deming cycle = Plan, Do, Check, Act (PDCA)</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Dr W. Edwards Deming pioneered the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PDCA" target="_blank">PDCA</a> cycle in the post WW2 Japanese motor industry. His work on continuous improvement and quality management has become prolific across engineering sectors, and he is generally regarded as the father of modern quality management.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">PDCA is simply a closed loop cycle, where you Plan something, Do it, Check if it did what you wanted it to, and then Act in response to your checking to develop things further. The ideal is this then leads into another PDCA cycle to deliver another improvement, with feedback being sought on an ongoing basis to adjust the inputs.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As I trained in engineering and became Chartered Engineer in my career before switching to teaching I have always seen a series of lessons as a series of PDCA cycles. I plan a lesson, I deliver it, I find some way to check how effective it was, and I deliver another one. In my best lessons I manage to incorporate a number of PDCA cycles within the lesson, adjusting the content/activities in response to the progress being made.</span><br />
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<b style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Marking helps us to create a closed loop system.</i></b><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The model with no marking or assessment is open loop. It would rely so heavily on making assumptions about what had or hadn't been learnt that it would become ineffective very quickly for the majority of classes.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">By reviewing what students have actually done in a lesson we can determine how effective our teaching has been. We can make adjustments to future lessons, or we can provide guidance and feedback direct to the student to correct misunderstandings. (note there can be a vast difference between what has actually been done and what we think has been done both at an individual and a class level)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As a result of this need to close the loop an absolutely vital role for marking is to provide feedback to the teacher on the impact of their lessons. (As John Hattie says - "know thy impact").</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Is it regular enough?</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Note that <u><b>if</b></u> marking is the only form of feedback a teacher gets then it needs to be done regularly enough to have an impact on their teaching. Between marking cycles the teacher is running an open loop system, with all the issues that this brings with it. As such we either need to mark regularly enough to keep the PDCA cycle as short as possible, minimising the time left with an open loop, or we need to build in some other form of assessment.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Other assessment</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Gaining feedback within a lesson or within a marking cycle is where AFL in its truest sense comes in. Through assessment that takes place during lessons the PDCA cycle time is reduced right down - the teacher gets feedback outside of the marking cycle, meaning changes can be made either within lesson or for the next lesson. I'm not going to discuss AFL in detail here as this post is about marking, but this is why AFL is so important, particularly if you have a long cycle time on your marking. (note for the purposes of this discussion I'm drawing a distinction here between AFL techniques deployed in lesson with students present, against marking where a teacher is reviewing work when the students are elsewhere - I appreciate there can be and should be an overlap between AFL and marking, I'm just ignoring it right now)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>RAG123 shortens the closed loop</i></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You may have seen my other posts on RAG123, if not see <a href="http://kevs-variability-thoughts.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/spreading-rag123.html" target="_blank">here</a> for a quick guide, or <a href="http://kevs-variability-thoughts.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/RAG123" target="_blank">here</a> for all of my RAG123 related posts. I'm sure those of you that have seen my other posts will probably have been waiting for me to mention it!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For me the key thing that RAG123 does is to shorten the marking cycle time, and that's one of the reasons that it is so effective. By reviewing work after every lesson (ideally) you augment any AFL done in lesson, and can plan to make sure your next lesson is well aligned to the learning that took place in the previous one. More on RAG123 as formative planning is in <a href="http://kevs-variability-thoughts.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/rag123-as-formative-planning.html" target="_blank">this post</a>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Marking for the student</i></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'm guessing by now that some of you will be getting frustrated because I've hardly mentioned the other purpose of marking - giving feedback to the student... After all teaching is all about learning for students!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">From a student's perspective I think marking can be about many things depending on their relationship with school, that subject or that teacher. Sometimes it's about checking they've done it correctly. Sometimes it's about finding out what they did incorrectly. Sometimes they engage deeply, sometimes they dismiss it entirely (or appear to).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If we go back to closed loop vs open loop control for a moment then a lack of marking leaves the students functioning in an open loop system as well as the teacher. In engineering terms their control system needs feedback, otherwise they could go off in a direction that is nowhere near correct. Just like a tennis player benefits from the input of an expert coach to help them to develop their game, a student benefits from the input from an expert to help them develop their learning.</span><br />
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<b><i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Hit and miss</span></i></b></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In truth though I think marking as a direct form of feedback to a student is far more hit and miss than teachers using it for feedback on their own practice. Depending on the quality of the marking and the level of engagement from the student this could range from really informative to utterly pointless. Sometimes the best students are given poor feedback, or least engaged students fantastic feedback, arguably both are pointless. Also what seems like fantastic and detailed feedback from a teacher (or observer's) perspective could easily be ignored or misunderstood by a student. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This potential for ineffective marking/feedback is why it is so important to try and establish dialogue in marking; again we're looking for a feedback loop, this time on the marking itself. However I'm keen to highlight that in my view dialogue doesn't always have to be written down. Discussion of feedback verbally can be much more effective than a written exchange in an exercise book, just like a face to face conversation can be more effective and result in fewer misunderstandings than an e-mail exchange.</span></div>
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<b style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>In summary</i></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">To get back to the original question... The point of marking is to give the teacher feedback on their lessons, and to give students feedback on their learning. Both are vitally important.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The be</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">st marking has impact on the students so it changes what they do next. Good marking highlights to students that what they do is valued, highlights aspects where they have succeeded, and areas/methods to help them improve. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">However the very best marking should also have impact on the teacher and what they do next. It's not a one way street, and we have a responsibility as professionals to adjust our practice to help our students maximise their learning. For example perhaps Kylie needs to develop her skills at adding fractions, or perhaps Mr Lister needs to try a different way of describing fractions to Kylie so she understands it more fully.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In short, i</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">f you are marking in a way that doesn't change what you or they do next then you're wasting your time...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is just what I think, of course you're welcome to agree or disagree!</span><br />
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Kev Listerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02417437251161335205noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2254885666790498217.post-49051839052951460402014-07-12T16:47:00.001+01:002014-07-12T16:48:49.277+01:00Managing with colours - SLTeachmeet presentation<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">These are the slides I presented at #SLTeachmeet earlier today. Click <a href="https://www.dropbox.com/s/xch491xnv42y3z7/Management%20with%20colours.pptx" target="_blank">here</a></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtBQZHP-7v5yD8olWk9J9KlaVr8d6-zl4_-X6IXDBELiA87GT2Rbj06NOHDMHB3CVkDsitBWrI1h66K6gZQonFDupplr8QvXG1lJZs3YyAA0rh0qs6SQ8VKkNCLYXy0SCq-YFaF4kxSqc/s1600/Capture.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtBQZHP-7v5yD8olWk9J9KlaVr8d6-zl4_-X6IXDBELiA87GT2Rbj06NOHDMHB3CVkDsitBWrI1h66K6gZQonFDupplr8QvXG1lJZs3YyAA0rh0qs6SQ8VKkNCLYXy0SCq-YFaF4kxSqc/s1600/Capture.JPG" height="218" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The info shared in the presentation picks up on aspects covered in these posts:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://kevs-variability-thoughts.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/using-measures-to-improve-performance.html" target="_blank">Using measures to improve performance</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://kevs-variability-thoughts.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/using-seating-plans-to-capture-student.html" target="_blank">Using seating plans with student data</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://kevs-variability-thoughts.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/spreading-rag123.html" target="_blank">RAG123 basics</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As always feedback is always welcome...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>Kev Listerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02417437251161335205noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2254885666790498217.post-28040992512724191502014-07-12T16:33:00.001+01:002014-07-12T16:34:12.674+01:00Teachmeet Stratford, build it and they'll come<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I went to my first ever teachmeet last year at #TMSolihull, then #LeadmeetCov, followed by #TMCov. I thought they were brilliant, but I was aware that I was one of only 2 people at my school that had even heard of teachmeets, let alone been to one. We were missing out on this fantastic free CPD... So with willing offers of help and general encouragement from my fellow teachmeet attendee Rob Williams (@robewilliams79) we decided to organise one...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>#TMStratford was born!</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Having quickly cleared it with our head (he basically greeted my suggestion with a bemused expression and "sounds intriguing, are they really mainly organised via twitter? hmm..., ok Kev we'll give it a try") I booked the venue and dubbed it #TMStratford for the first time on twitter....</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Then came the self doubt...</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Hang on... it dawned on me:</span><br />
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<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We'll need to invite a load of people, many of whom I have never actually met in person... </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We're hosting it at a school in which only a few people have even heard of a teachmeet, and only one person has ever presented at one.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We've never arranged this kind of event before - where/how do we get sponsors, etc?</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">All the people I've seen arranging this kind of thing are SLT, but I'm a HoD - can I get this off the ground and do I have time to do it?</span></li>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Fundamentally: Will anyone come? Will anyone from our school come? If people come will anyone other than the two of us be willing to present? Will we end up costing the school a load of money for a real flop?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In the face of growing self doubt and uncertainty we decided to press on regardless... "how could it possibly fail!"</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>We built it and they came!</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Just a few months later I found myself stood with a microphone in front of about 75 people, kicking off the first ever Teachemeet to be held at our school. We had prizes, flash looking IT provision, nice food laid on, even a cuddly toy to lob at those that overran their presentation length... A couple of hours after that it was all over and Rob and I were being congratulated by the head, other SLT, and attendees both from inside our school and others that had traveled further to be there. I could also flip through the #TMStratford Twitter feed and see loads of positive comments....</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">People had turned up!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What's more 25 staff from our school had turned up!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We had 16 presentations, including several from staff at our school taking the leap to present at their very first teachmeet!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">All of the presentations given are available here: <a href="http://bit.ly/TMstratford2014">http://bit.ly/TMstratford2014</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">(About 35 mins of the event was recorded on video too, until the battery ran out! This will be published once I finish tidying it up...)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For a first ever event I was over the moon with it, and still am!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Key things...</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I think a few things helped the event to be successful.... </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Firstly incessant publicity. I think I tweeted links to the signup page at least 100 times in the months before the event. I targeted people that I knew had been to other local teachmeets, I sought retweets from big hitter tweachers to increase visibility beyond my reach. We also sent information to other local schools and raised it over and over again in staff briefings.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For speakers whenever someone signed up I asked and encouraged them to present - remarkably lots agreed! I am massively grateful to all of those who took the time firstly to prepare something to say, but then to actually deliver it on the night - the quality of their input really made the event the success it was.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For sponsors I did contact one or two, but I was surprised how many others just got in contact once we got the publicity out there. Perhaps I was just lucky but it became really quite easy to put together prizes and freebies once this kind of thing was offered. Again I am grateful to all of the sponsors that contributed - you can see who they were on the pbworks page here: http://bit.ly/TMStratford</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Finally it was the others in the school who came together behind the scenes to make it what it was. The marketing team who developed graphics and flyers, sineage on the night, etc; the IT team who dealt admirably with all the tech aspects, including a last minute projector replacement literally finished just 15 minutes before the event started; the catering team who put together some nice food to keep us going while networking in the interval. A heartfelt thanks to these teams who really helped make the event run smoothly.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Definitely doing it again</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It was only afterwards that I realised how much had been pulled together to make the event work, and to some extent how stressful it had been. Regardless of the stress it was absolutely worth it, and I'm already thinking about when in the calendar to place the next one, as part of a "progamme of teachmeets" that the school is now looking to run both internally and externally.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If you've never been to a teachmeet - find one near you and get along, it's some of the best CPD you'll get, and it's free!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If your school has never hosted one then why not be the person that arranges the first one? If not you, who? If not this year, when?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">(Sorry if this post was a bit self-congratulatory, it's more intended to be an illustration that you don't have to wait for someone else to organise something - just go and do it yourself, you'll be amazed at what's possible!)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Feedback welcome as always...</span>Kev Listerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02417437251161335205noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2254885666790498217.post-385869444240922832014-06-14T14:16:00.003+01:002014-06-14T14:17:08.487+01:00Powerful percentages<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Numbers are powerful, statistics are powerful, but they must be used correctly and responsibly. L</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">eaders 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.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This links quite closely to <a href="http://www.learningspy.co.uk/myths/availability-bias-problem-data/" target="_blank">this post</a> 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.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">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...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Percentages can end up being discrete measures dressed up as continuous</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">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.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">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.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">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.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">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.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Percentages as discrete data makes setting targets difficult for small groups</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">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.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">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%. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On face value Class A is 30% behind target, B is 20% ahead and C is 80% behind, but that's completely misleading...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">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?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">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.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">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?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Percentage amplifies small populations into large ones</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">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%!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">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.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You can get a similar issue i</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">f 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.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">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 <i><b>amplifies</b></i> 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.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Being able to calculate a percentage doesn't mean you should</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">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.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The numbers might be correct but the decision may be flawed. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">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!)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">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.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Other sources of confusion</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">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.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Draw conclusions with caution</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">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.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">By all means use percentages, but use them consciously with knowledge of their limitations.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As always - all thoughts/comments welcome...</span>Kev Listerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02417437251161335205noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2254885666790498217.post-6705560533234535512014-06-07T17:05:00.001+01:002014-06-07T17:05:50.326+01:00RAG123 is not the same as traffic lights<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I've written regularly about RAG123 since November 2013 and since starting it as an initial trial in November I still view it as the single most important thing I've discovered as a teacher. It's now absolutely central to my teaching practice, but I do fear that at times people misunderstand what RAG123 is all about. They see the colours and they decide it is just another version of traffic lighting or thumbs up/across/down AFL. I'm sure it gets dismissed as "lazy marking", but the reality is that it is much, much more than marking.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As an example of this uncertainty of RAG123 at a surface level without really understanding the depth I was recently directed to the Ofsted document "Mathematics made to measure" found <a href="http://t.co/F3Aqu6z5tM" target="_blank">here</a>. I'd read this document some time ago and it is certainly a worthwhile read for anyone in a maths department, particularly leading/managing the subject, but it may well provide useful thoughts to those with other specialisms. There is a section (paragraphs 88-99) that are presented under the subheading "</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Marking: the importance of getting it right" - it was suggested to me that RAG123 fell foul of the good practice recommended in these paragraphs, even explicitly criticised as traffic lighting and as such isn't a good approach to follow.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Having read the document again I actually see RAG123 as fully in line with the recommendations of good practice in the Ofsted document and I'd like to try and explain why....</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The paragraphs below (incl paragraph numbers) are cut & pasted directly from the Ofsted document (italics), my responses are shown in bold:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>88. Inconsistency in the quality, frequency and usefulness of teachers’ marking is a </i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>perennial concern. The best marking noted during the survey gave pupils </i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>insight into their errors, distinguishing between slips and misunderstanding, and </i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>pupils took notice of and learnt from the feedback. Where work was all correct, </i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>a further question or challenge was occasionally presented and, in the best </i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>examples, this developed into a dialogue between teacher and pupil. </i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>RAG123 gives a consistent quality, and frequency to marking. Errors and misunderstandings seen in a RAG123 review can be addressed either in marking or through adjustments to the planning for the next lesson. The speed of turnaround between work done, marking done/feedback given, pupil response, follow up review by teacher means that real dialogue can happen in marking.</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>89. More commonly, comments written in pupils’ books by teachers related either </i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>to the quantity of work completed or its presentation. Too little marking </i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>indicated the way forward or provided useful pointers for improvement. The </i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>weakest practice was generally in secondary schools where cursory ticks on </i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>most pages showed that the work had been seen by the teacher. This was </i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>occasionally in line with a department’s marking policy, but it implied that work </i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>was correct when that was not always the case. In some instances, pupils’ </i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>classwork was never marked or checked by the teacher. As a result, pupils can </i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>develop very bad habits of presentation and be unclear about which work is </i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>correct.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>With RAG123 ALL work is seen by the teacher - there is no space for bad habits to develop or persist. While it can be that the effort grading could be linked to quantity or presentation it should also be shaped by the effort that the teacher observed in the lesson. Written comments/corrections may not be present in all books but corrections can be applied in the next lesson without the need for the teacher to write loads down. This can be achieved in various ways, from 1:1 discussion to changing the whole lesson plan.</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>90. A similar concern emerged around the frequent use of online software which </i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>requires pupils to input answers only. Although teachers were able to keep </i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>track of classwork and homework completed and had information about </i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>stronger and weaker areas of pupils’ work, no attention was given to how well </i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>the work was set out, or whether correct methods and notation were used.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Irrelevant to RAG123</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>91. Teachers may have 30 or more sets of homework to mark, so looking at the </i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>detail and writing helpful comments or pointers for the way forward is time </i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>consuming. However, the most valuable marking enables pupils to overcome </i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>errors or difficulties, and deepen their understanding.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Combining RAG123 with targeted follow up/DIRT does exactly this in an efficient way.</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><br /></b></span>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Paragraphs 92 & 93 simply refer to examples given in the report and aren't relevant here.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>94. Some marking did not distinguish between types of errors and, occasionally, </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>correct work was marked as wrong.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Always a risk in all marking, RAG123 is not immune, but neither is any other marking. However given that RAG123 only focuses on a single lesson's work the quantity is smaller so there is a greater change that variations in student's work will be seen and addressed.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>95. At other times, teachers gave insufficient attention to correcting pupils’ </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>mathematical presentation, for instance, when 6 ÷ 54 was written incorrectly </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>instead of 54 ÷ 6, or the incorrect use of the equals sign in the solution of an </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>equation.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Again a risk in all marking and RAG123 is not immune, but it does give the opportunity for frequent and repeated corrections/highlighting of these errors so that they don't become habits.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>96. Most marking by pupils of their own work was done when the teacher read out </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>the answers to exercises or took answers from other members of the class. </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Sometimes, pupils were expected to check their answers against those in the </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>back of the text book. In each of these circumstances, attention was rarely paid </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>to the source of any errors, for example when a pupil made a sign error while </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>expanding brackets and another omitted to write down the ‘0’ place holder in a </i></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>long multiplication calculation. When classwork was not marked by the teacher </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>or pupil, mistakes were unnoticed.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>With RAG123 ALL work is seen by the teacher - they can look at incorrect work and determine what the error was, either addressing it directly with the student or if it is widespread taking action at whole class level.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>97. The involvement of pupils in self-assessment was a strong feature of the most </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>effective assessment practice. For instance, in one school, Year 4 pupils </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>completed their self-assessments using ‘I can …’ statements and selected their </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>own curricular targets such as ‘add and subtract two-digit numbers mentally’ </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>and ‘solve 1 and 2 step problems’. Subsequent work provided opportunities for </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>pupils to work on these aspects. </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>The best use of RAG123 asks students to self assess with a reason for their rating. Teachers can review/respond and shape these self assessments in a very dynamic way due to the speed of turnaround. It also gives a direct chance to follow up by linking to DIRT</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>98. An unhelpful reliance on self-assessment of learning by pupils was prevalent in </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>some of the schools. In plenary sessions at the end of lessons, teachers </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>typically revisited the learning objectives, and asked pupils to assess their own </i></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>understanding, often through ‘thumbs’, ‘smiley faces’ or traffic lights. However, </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>such assessment was often superficial and may be unreliable.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Assessment of EFFORT as well as understanding in RAG123 is very different to these single dimension assessments. I agree that sometimes the understanding bit is unreliable. However with RAG123 the teacher reviews <u>and changes</u> the pupil's RAG123 rating based on the work done/seen in class. As such it becomes more accurate once reviewed. Also the reliability is often improved by by asking students to explain why they deserve that rating. The effort bit is vital though... If a student is trying as hard as they can (G) then it is the teacher's responsibility to ensure that they gain understanding. If a student is only partially trying (A) then the teacher's impact will be limited. If a student is not trying at all (R) then even the most awesome teacher will not be able to improve their understanding. By highlighting and taking action on the effort side it emphasises the student's key input to the learning process. While traffic lights may very well be ineffective as a single shot self assessment of understanding, when used as a metaphor for likely progress given RAG <u>effort</u> levels then Green certainly is Go, and Red certainly is stop.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>99. Rather than asking pupils at the end of the lesson to indicate how well they had </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>met learning objectives, some effective teachers set a problem which would </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>confirm pupils’ learning if solved correctly or pick up any remaining lack of </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>understanding. One teacher, having discussed briefly what had been learnt with </i></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>the class, gave each pupil a couple of questions on pre-prepared cards. She </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>took the cards in as the pupils left the room and used their answers to inform </i></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>the next day’s lesson planning. Very occasionally, a teacher used the plenary </i></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>imaginatively to set a challenging problem with the intention that pupils should </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>think about it ready for the start of new learning in the next lesson. </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>This is an aspect of good practice that can be applied completely alongside RAG123, in fact the "use to inform the next day's lesson planning" is something that is baked in with daily RAG123 - by knowing exactly the written output from one lesson you are MUCH more likely to take account of it in the next one.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So there you have it - I see RAG123 as entirely in line with all the aspects of best practice identified here. Don't let the traffic light wording confuse you - RAG123 as deployed properly isn't anything like a single dimension traffic light self assessment - it just might share the colours. If you don't like the colours and can't get past that bit then define it as ABC123 instead - it'll still be just as effective and it'll still be the best thing you've done in teaching!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">All comments welcome as ever!</span></div>
Kev Listerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02417437251161335205noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2254885666790498217.post-36169651302737356112014-06-07T15:47:00.001+01:002014-06-07T15:49:48.567+01:00Reflecting on reflections<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Reflecting is hard, really hard! It requires an honesty with yourself, an ability to take a step back from what you've done (that you have a personal attachment to) and to think deeply about how successful you've been. Ideally it should also involve some diagnosis on why you have/haven't been successful, and what you might do differently the next time you face a similar situation.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Good reflection is really high order thinking</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If you consider where the skills required or the type of thinking for reflection lie in Bloom's taxonomy then it's the top end, high order thinking. You have to analyse and evaluate your performance, and then create ideas on how to improve.</span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUH9WvsgIEkNLUJ5ejDjO_mD0H7MZ6VSyfSSr784BTygf509aMAkNa88hI8NgvsMp9olQmp0ryXetV8WUZhKZU1LR-lILw_jgmZdDkZrUmXw1jPmSiQjtzUWPsFnCyrmAoOdmuVakcsHs/s1600/653px-BloomsCognitiveDomain.svg.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUH9WvsgIEkNLUJ5ejDjO_mD0H7MZ6VSyfSSr784BTygf509aMAkNa88hI8NgvsMp9olQmp0ryXetV8WUZhKZU1LR-lILw_jgmZdDkZrUmXw1jPmSiQjtzUWPsFnCyrmAoOdmuVakcsHs/s1600/653px-BloomsCognitiveDomain.svg.png" height="325" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Picture from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloom's_taxonomy">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloom's_taxonomy</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Some people don't particularly like Blooms and might want to lob rocks at anything that refers to it. If you'd prefer to use an alternative taxonomy like SOLO (see <a href="http://kevs-variability-thoughts.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/SOLO" target="_blank">here</a>) then we're still talking the higher end Relational and Extended Abstract type of thinking. Anyone involved in reflection needs to make links between various areas of understanding, and ideally extend this into a what if situation for the future. Basically use whatever taxonomy of thinking you like and reflection/metacognition is right at the top in terms of difficulty.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The reason I am talking about this is that one of the things I keep seeing on twitter and also in observation feedback, work scrutiny evaluations and so on or are comments about poor quality self assessment & reflections from students.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sometimes this is a teacher getting frustrated when students asked to reflect just end up writing comments like "I understood it," "I didn't get it" or "I did ok." Other times it is someone reviewing books that might suggest that the student's reflections don't indicate that they know what they need to do to improve.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It often crops up, and one of the ways I most often hear about it is when someone is first trying out RAG123 marking (Not heard of RAG123? - see <a href="http://kevs-variability-thoughts.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/spreading-rag123.html" target="_blank">here</a>, <a href="http://kevs-variability-thoughts.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/rag123-as-formative-planning.html" target="_blank">here</a> and then any of <a href="http://kevs-variability-thoughts.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/RAG123" target="_blank">these</a>). This structure for marking gives so many opportunities for self assessment and dialogue that the teacher sees lots of relatively poor reflective comments in one go and finds it frustrating.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Now having thought about the type of thinking required for good reflection is it a real surprise that a lot of students struggle? To ask a group to reflect is pushing them to a really high level of thought. Asking the question is completely valid, it's good to pose high order questions, but we really shouldn't be surprised if we get low order answers even from very able students, and particularly from weaker students. Some may not yet have the cognitive capacity to make a high quality response, for others it might be a straight vocabulary/literacy issue - students can't talk about something coherently unless they have the appropriate words at their disposal.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Is it just students?</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The truth is that many adults struggle to reflect well. Some people struggle to see how good things actually were because they get hung up on the bad things. Others struggle to see the bad bits because they are distracted by the good bits. Even then many will struggle to do the diagnosis side and look for ways to improve. It's difficult to recognise flaws in yourself, and often even harder to come up with an alternative method that will improve things. If we all found it easy then the role of coaches and mentors would be redundant.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As part of thinking about how well our students are reflecting perhaps we should all take a little time to think about how good we are at reflecting on our own practice? How honest are we with ourselves? How objective are we? How constructive are we in terms of making and applying changes as a result of our reflections?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Don't stop just because it's difficult</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Vitally just because students struggle to reflect in a coherent or high order way doesn't mean we should stop asking them to reflect. But we shouldn't be foolish enough to expect a spectacularly insightful self assessment from students the first time they try it. As with any cognitive process we should give them support to help them to structure their reflections. This support is the same kind of scaffolding that may be needed for any other learning:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Model it:</b> Show them some examples of good reflection. Perhaps even demonstrate it in front of the class by reflecting on the lesson you've just taught?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Give a foothold:</b> Sentences are easier to finish than to start - perhaps give them a sentence starter, or a choice of sentence starters - the improvement in quality is massive (See <a href="http://kevs-variability-thoughts.blogspot.com/2013/11/getting-reflections-started.html" target="_blank">this</a> post for some ideas on this)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Give feedback on the reflections: </b>As part of responding to the reflections in marking dialogue give guidance on how they could improve their reflections and not just their work.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Give time for them to improve: </b>A given group of students that have never self assessed before shouldn't be expected to do it perfectly, but we should expect them to get better at it given time and guidance.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As ever I'd be keen to know your thoughts, your experiences and if you've got any other suggestions....</span><br />
<br />Kev Listerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02417437251161335205noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2254885666790498217.post-62096067059839743022014-05-10T15:36:00.002+01:002014-05-10T15:36:40.624+01:00SOLO to open up closed questions<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I've been dabbling with SOLO for a while now, it's been part of bits of my practice (see <a href="http://kevs-variability-thoughts.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/minding-gap-using-solo-to-help.html" target="_blank">here</a>, <a href="http://kevs-variability-thoughts.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/tentative-solo-steps.html" target="_blank">here</a> and <a href="http://kevs-variability-thoughts.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/using-solo-in-maths-classroom.html" target="_blank">here</a>) but I've yet to really embed it in all lessons as fully as I would have liked. I have used it as a problem solving tool, or to help structure revision, but not really deployed SOLO on a more day to day basis, and I want to change that.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I recently completed an interview for an Assistant Head position and as part of that was asked to teach a PSE lesson. This took me well out of my Maths comfort zone, so I had to give the planning deeper consideration than a maths lesson might have. After some thought I decided to introduce SOLO as part of the lesson, and it worked really well...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>SOLO as a structure for discussion</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I was teaching this PSE lesson to a group of year 7 students that I had never taught before and I knew that they had never seen SOLO before. As such a bit of my lesson needed to become an intro to SOLO. Fortunately the symbols are so intuitive that once I'd suggested that a single dot (Prestructural in SOLO terminology) meant you basically knew nothing about a topic, and a single bar (Unistructural) meant you knew something about it, the students were able to develop their own really good working definitions for Multistructural, Relational and Extended Abstract:</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVT0KjJr-0JGKALwd_2ShiGOrVu_aFDjswa27EPgoB4zFll2yJt08lqzkpEIorxhvw2DmHC93jWl3NZolVDYyOuDJME4dye0repemDWrKcxxjwRszOspmxs3pFw8PXcL44gZnlQOeMwKU/s1600/Capture1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVT0KjJr-0JGKALwd_2ShiGOrVu_aFDjswa27EPgoB4zFll2yJt08lqzkpEIorxhvw2DmHC93jWl3NZolVDYyOuDJME4dye0repemDWrKcxxjwRszOspmxs3pFw8PXcL44gZnlQOeMwKU/s1600/Capture1.JPG" height="482" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Once they had defined this hierarchy I could refer back to it at any point in the lesson and they knew what I was talking about. As such when I asked a question and the student responded with an answer I could categorise their response using the SOLO icons, such as "one bar," "three bar," "linked bar." If the student gave a "one bar" response I then asked them, or asked another student what was needed to make it a "three bar" response, and so on.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I was really pleased with how natural the discussion became, escalating up to really high level answers in a structured way. Similarly the students could use the same method with each other to improve their written answers through peer and self assessment. It even gives an easy way to open up a closed question question... For example:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">T: "Name a famous leader"</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">P: "Nelson Mandela"</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">T: "What type of answer is that?"</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">P: "It's just a fact so it's got to be One bar"</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">T: "How could the answer be improved?"</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">P: "Give more facts about him, like that he led South Africa, or say why he was famous"</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">T: "Can you improve that further?"</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">P: "Maybe make links to other countries or compare him to other leaders"</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">T: "Fantastic, work on that with your partner..."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Rightly or wrongly I have a feeling that the opportunity for this type of discussion is much more common in a subject like PSE, and the SOLO linkage is much clearer as a result, however </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">it got me thinking about how this approach could be used in the same way for Maths...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>SOLO vs closed questions</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A constant battle for maths teachers is the old "there is only one right answer in maths." Now of course that may be true in terms of a numerical value, but that ignores the process followed to achieve that answer, and often there are many mathematically correct processes that lead to the same final answer. In more open ended activities there may also be multiple numerical answers that are "right."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In maths we constantly battle to get students to write down more than their final answer and to show their full method. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Following my experience of using SOLO for PSE I started thinking about how to use it to break down the closed answers we encounter in maths. As such I've put this together as a starting point...</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiahAEI9w6JOH2eIpi8wxuoGGddl-h8yfBvJ9dpeUyJhdSRsELgjO24EilPBc8PbJA8T3ssOjfDTHrOX7MjFIOP5GoeTyWAjQL8no4HiijTv0BLJ-V3t4OA2d5JnqXMMYLMMXyJ3B9CFO4/s1600/Capture2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiahAEI9w6JOH2eIpi8wxuoGGddl-h8yfBvJ9dpeUyJhdSRsELgjO24EilPBc8PbJA8T3ssOjfDTHrOX7MjFIOP5GoeTyWAjQL8no4HiijTv0BLJ-V3t4OA2d5JnqXMMYLMMXyJ3B9CFO4/s1600/Capture2.JPG" height="454" width="640" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The pupil response could be something that is seen written down in their working, or something that they say verbally during discussion. The possible teacher response gives a suggestion of how to encourage a higher quality of response to this and future answers. This could be part of a RAG123 type marking (see <a href="http://kevs-variability-thoughts.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/spreading-rag123.html" target="_blank">here</a> for more info on RAG123), verbal feedback, or any other feedback process.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">An alternative is to use it for peer/self assessment, again to encourage progress from closed, factual answers, to fuller, clearer answers:</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitZIocpkNYLgMHC9CKLvkGZd4HNfNA4nz2c1D8lyRSX8b10wIDIzzzW29Vf2KoMitj65BCzogj8_oxfPSFMy7IkHnMPHMQiDfySkv9w3xhOvopEOHdzN6fmGgge9xm5Utf8rmdDi6Ltvg/s1600/Capture3.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitZIocpkNYLgMHC9CKLvkGZd4HNfNA4nz2c1D8lyRSX8b10wIDIzzzW29Vf2KoMitj65BCzogj8_oxfPSFMy7IkHnMPHMQiDfySkv9w3xhOvopEOHdzN6fmGgge9xm5Utf8rmdDi6Ltvg/s1600/Capture3.JPG" height="370" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> I realise I may be diluting or slightly misappropriating the SOLO symbols a little, e.g. is the top description above truly Extended Abstract or is it actually only Relational? In truth I don't think that distinction matters in this application - it's about enabling students to improve rather than assigning strict categories.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Proof in the pudding</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The assessment ladder is part of a lesson plan for Tuesday, and I am going to try and use the pupil response grid throughout the week to help open up questions and encourage students to think more deeply about the answers - watch this space for updates.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As always - all thoughts & comments welcome.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>Kev Listerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02417437251161335205noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2254885666790498217.post-81590325658516293742014-05-03T14:56:00.002+01:002014-05-03T14:56:46.457+01:00Policies not straightjackets<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">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.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Most often for me it's linked with <a href="http://kevs-variability-thoughts.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/rag123-as-formative-planning.html" target="_blank">RAG123</a>, but I've seen it at other times in school, and all over the place on twitter too. It normally goes something like this:</span><br />
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<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Person A: "Why not try this (insert suggested alternative pedagogical approach here)?"</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">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."</span></li>
</ul>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Frustratingly this is usually where the discussion ends - the opportunity for person B to try something new that might improve their practice and improve outcomes for their students is squashed.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">More specific examples I've actually seen/heard over the years include:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A: "For that lesson why not try using a big open ended question as your learning objective that all students work towards answering?"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">B: "I can't because we're required to have 'must, should, could' learning objectives for all lessons"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">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?"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">B: "No because our department policy says we have to have the tables in groups to encourage group work."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A: "Why not try RAG123 marking?"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">B: "I can't because our marking policy requires written formative comments only."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>What are policies for anyway?</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">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.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">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.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">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.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">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!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">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.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Consistency not uniformity</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">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.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">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.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Comments always welcome - I'd be interested to know your thoughts. :-)</span><br />
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<br />Kev Listerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02417437251161335205noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2254885666790498217.post-25768363135666104702014-04-26T16:17:00.003+01:002014-04-26T16:17:56.337+01:00RAG123 user survey - the results!<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I posted the RAG123 survey a few weeks ago and have now collected enough responses for it to be meaningful.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Don't know what RAG123 is? see <a href="http://kevs-variability-thoughts.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/spreading-rag123.html" target="_blank">here</a> and <a href="http://kevs-variability-thoughts.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/how-do-you-do-rag123-so-quickly.html" target="_blank">here</a>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In total 40 people responded, which I know is fewer than the number that are actually using RAG123, but it represents those that saw the tweets about the survey and found the time to complete it - for which I am grateful as I know time is precious. 40 isn't a massive number, but it's enough to draw some conclusions on...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A quick health warning - these are the results of 40 responses - any statements made refer to the views of this sample only and shouldn't be extrapolated to wider populations. Also this was a USER survey - I've not got data from non-users, that wasn't part of the exercise. I'll also be clear that one of the responses is me - I'm a RAG123 user after all.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Profile of users</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I was worried at one point that lots of people I communicate with about RAG123 appear to be departmental leadership of SLT. It made me wonder whether it is truly sustainable for a mainscale classroom teacher, however 50% of respondents are classroom teachers...</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwXFCvBjt2zfXDopvShJl0JSLBdtUex0jhqOgzl-DsE1jIwTrInbwyfHWB6oRyNzIujguey8bNDv1Ub7XK76P7hTkMiz9li2lS2qIvJqT4XQaQrUmtQ9WM_bE0RfdEs76XRgxDjP2oSjM/s1600/Capture1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwXFCvBjt2zfXDopvShJl0JSLBdtUex0jhqOgzl-DsE1jIwTrInbwyfHWB6oRyNzIujguey8bNDv1Ub7XK76P7hTkMiz9li2lS2qIvJqT4XQaQrUmtQ9WM_bE0RfdEs76XRgxDjP2oSjM/s1600/Capture1.JPG" height="414" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Profile of RAG123 users by job function</b></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">85% of respondents first heard about RAG123 via twitter, 5% heard from others in their school, and the final 5% are Rob Williams and I, who did the first trial at our school in November.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Subject coverage</i></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The majority of respondents teach maths (60% if you include those who also teach another subject), and the next big group is science (25% if you include all who mention science). Humanities had 5% and the remaining few are individual teachers of other subjects.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmm8yzy08mzgCgRRlVQlYmFGEztzhPWrvEk9l7ukRQy7ghfvfxzxFwA1C6exsVX2WD9fLL2rftiIOv4D7Rm0EL3mutfeQx_qwOQ4q9QzZtoBqBX-Whz7XF4uqetJm4yhERJHSjU9uBdsg/s1600/Capture2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmm8yzy08mzgCgRRlVQlYmFGEztzhPWrvEk9l7ukRQy7ghfvfxzxFwA1C6exsVX2WD9fLL2rftiIOv4D7Rm0EL3mutfeQx_qwOQ4q9QzZtoBqBX-Whz7XF4uqetJm4yhERJHSjU9uBdsg/s1600/Capture2.JPG" height="480" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Respondent's subjects</b></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I wouldn't want anyone to draw a conclusion on this that RAG123 only really works for Maths and Science. Notably the two blogs/twitter feeds that have been pushing this idea are mine (Maths based) and Damian Benney's (<a href="http://mrbenney.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">here</a> - Science based), as such it's hardly surprising that there is a bias here. What I am pleased by though is the fact that other subjects are represented, including the notable "Whole School." I do know from twitter exchanges that RAG123 has been used in MFL, Music, and a some other subjects too - it just happens that they didn't complete the survey.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Part of doing this survey was to collect some info on who was using RAG123 so we could share tips and best practice more directly. Users that included their twitter ID have been sorted by subject and can be found in <a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1IaYtaQ-XCuqO83pw63kSYSU8HdrkLYVICZB166nksCA/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">these lists</a>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Impact on pupils</i></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">That's what we do it for after all!!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">An overwhelming 82.5% report an improvement in either effort or attainment, or improvements in both. 10% are new RAG123 users and felt it was too soon to detect any changes, and the remaining 7.5% report no change on the part of the pupils.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi49TQAkJyUjyxu8Jv3pdXlh5L3k4PDmnLr31IeNjLhYQWB7zRU6O4Uq4bvF-BVRC9iCbknnhVfWApGOwnwjVfDXLN5VIXc4MnBOxIR8nuX6S0ovIKZ8qXa4cLM8lq5E24pZElU2scu2Do/s1600/Capture4.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi49TQAkJyUjyxu8Jv3pdXlh5L3k4PDmnLr31IeNjLhYQWB7zRU6O4Uq4bvF-BVRC9iCbknnhVfWApGOwnwjVfDXLN5VIXc4MnBOxIR8nuX6S0ovIKZ8qXa4cLM8lq5E24pZElU2scu2Do/s1600/Capture4.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Reported impact on pupils following RAG123 introduction</b></span></td></tr>
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<b style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Impact on workload</i></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One of the things I found when I started RAG123 was it improved my workload, I was interested to see what others thought...</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhymN5naQlV6f2BJQeaoxA-r-VW925LjwWVriescIpdcAyxfUf08EXq_tBOw7yB2qOPsCOY9Pa3Q9ioj48ZOMl0FK451Ug7hHZT23aJCnogcTepThyphenhyphenSXnrfyz40IQILZAZKU8EKKg6GN9w/s1600/Capture3.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhymN5naQlV6f2BJQeaoxA-r-VW925LjwWVriescIpdcAyxfUf08EXq_tBOw7yB2qOPsCOY9Pa3Q9ioj48ZOMl0FK451Ug7hHZT23aJCnogcTepThyphenhyphenSXnrfyz40IQILZAZKU8EKKg6GN9w/s1600/Capture3.JPG" height="393" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Impact RAG123 has had on perceived workload</b></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">55% state their workload has decreased, 32.5% say there has been no change, and 12.5% state an increase.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Notably of those reporting increased workload all but one recognise improved pupil effort and attainment (the remaining one response is a "too soon to tell"). In the write in comments all of those with an increased workload are still very positive about RAG123. For example:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>"Although I am not perfect at RAG123 and still have to do STAR, it has made marking so much quicker and actually I like doing it."</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>"My dept and I were sceptical and only did it cos u kept tweeting no negative feedback yet!!!! But we are sold!!"</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In terms of where it has had biggest impact, 68% mention marking, 53% mention Dialogue and 60% mention planning (as these don't add to 100% you'll realise that many mention more than one of these!)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Best things about RAG123</i></b></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This was a free text bit of the survey and the responses ranged from a few words to much more detailed. I could try to pick and choose best bits, but in all honesty it's best just to see the full text cut & pasted in here:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Picking up on misconceptions at source and the value pupils place on such regular marking. Also the way that informs your planning. Impossible to say just one.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Dialogue and relationships with students</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Although my work load has increased as I am now taking books in every lesson for checking RAG123, it is a positive increase. I am able to judge how well my lesson has gone straight away. I can use the RAG123 to set targets more effectively and cater better for the individual. As a result DIRT happens every lesson now which I hope will pay off with regard to progress over time and stickability. My students are responding positively to me monitoring their progress so closely and a better dialogue has been established. If I find a smarter way of recording targets in exercise books so there is clear signposting of what is going on for observers, my workload should decrease in the future.</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Informs future planning</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>The simplicity of it and the ease of use.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>There are many best things, and the only downside is setting aside the time every lesson to make sure students do their part in it.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Marking is very quick. Pupils marking their own work a real game changer.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>I know where everyone is after every lesson and can therefore plan for this in the next lesson. No one slips through the net; misconceptions identified readily (with more certainty than other AFL techniques) - there's nowhere to hide! No chance for bad habits to develop.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Communication with students</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>You can fully track progress of the whole class. I can identity misconceptions earlier and check students motivation.</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Improved dialogue with students</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Simple self assessment</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>It helps me identify what is not making a piece of work G1 and able to then identify where to improve.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Enables frequent marking and formative feedback.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Ability to plan effectively the next lesson and show progress.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>quick whole class overview of progress and understanding</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>The students know that I am looking at the books very regularly and can write me messages that I will read.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>I also get them to hand in their books in RAG123 piles so I can start with/spend more time on the students who need more help.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Students are getting used to assessing their own understanding, which I think will help with their revision.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>I feel like I know my students better and what they have understood</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Makes sure the kids complete their work - being able to keep on top of exactly what they are doing</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>No more marking guilt and amazing dialogue with students.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>The ease, and the fact you know where the kids are after each lesson</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>quick feedback</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><br /></b></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Much more informed about planning. Kids love it and whilst I'm not sure any improved attainment is down to this I am convinced improved effort is. Combining it with pupils marking their own/each others work with green pens. We mark in red.</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>RAG123 is quick and extremely effective. I have mini dialogues with students in their books and can see patterns in behaviours as well and spot misconceptions quickly.</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>The best thing and what has helped me the most is being able to manage my marking load better. We have weekly book checks, one week yr7 and yr8 and the next week, yr 9 and 10. Before I was always in a mad panic about these. Now I know that although I may not be doing great at following the latest marking policy, my books are marked and feedback is there. (Especially those which I have still kept on top off!!) I know I'm not RAGging properly as I'm trying to squeeze too much feedback in, but it's much better than the paragraphs I wrote before! </i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>planning for next lesson, allows me to monitor how the students are doing on a regular basis. They self-regulate their effort often.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>student focus on their own progress and effort</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Checking work after each lesson and before the next one!</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>The opportunity to have dialogue with pupils. They enjoy doing it too..</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Pupils are excited to read and respond to my feedback each day. The impact it's having is worth the extra effort!</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>It's instant and instantly useful. Supports using LO/SC in all lessons.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>I know how everyone is doing and what they need to do to improve or correct misunderstandings.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Quick, easy for both learner and teacher. gives you indication on how class doing, useful for ensuring tailor made lessons.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Regular monitoring, review link to lesson objectives, planning response better informed.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Simplicity, focus on student involvement and it's evidence based system.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><br /></i></span>
<i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span></i><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>The easiness of marking. It helps me to keep on top of it. I now feel a lot more knowledgable about all of my classes.</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><br /></i></span>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>The worst things about RAG123</i></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For balance I also need to include all of the negatives - this is an unedited cut and paste of "the worst things" - I'll try to address some of the comments in another post:</span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It can be a pinch if you have parents' evening/meetings after school. Can be overcome though!!</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>That more people aren't using it!</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Nothing! What I want to do is print the RAG123 criteria on a sticker and have it at the front of exercise books. That way I can then have the success criteria on the board linked to 123 which is something I have not yet been doing. I also need to get students to improve their justifications which will come once I have linked the RAG123 criteria to the success criteria.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Colleagues' reactions when you say you mark after every lesson.</i></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Have to remember to mark after every lesson for it to be effective</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Nothing</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>The students who don't mark work or RAG it. </i></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Those who just go for A2 every time to save actually thinking. Part of the reason that we are going to try red/orange/yellow/green so you are above or below half way.</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Having so many books around at school, because I am not tidy and when I lose 1 book (no doubt student put in wrong pile) I have to look for it as I know that they handed it in. (Student then says oh yeah I forgot I have it because I didn't hand it in - grrrrr)</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Not sure yet</i></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It doesn't encourage students to make subject specific comments</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Needs to be done very regularly.</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sometimes hard to summarise effectively into RAG123 categories</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">effort grades, personally I don't use them. Grading effort is unreliable.</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Not found one yet.</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">not too sure yet</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We also have to give SWANS feedback at least every three weeks, so I have to do that as well as RAG123.</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It is sometimes difficult to get the books marked before the next lesson but it's worth it</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Some students really don't like it"</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Marking the books everyday</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Making sure you do it before you go home...</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Not sure yet</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Still struggle to find time to mark after every lesson - but I put that down to pastoral responsibilities - those pesky kids and parents stop me doing most things when I plan to!!!</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If I set homework then I miss a lesson or two with some classes. Maybe I could think about giving separately homework books, but my experience with these has not been good.</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The pressure I feel when I've had a bad week and fallen behind. Have five lessons out of six most days, and sometimes struggle to RAG everyday before the next lesson. This is because I've not got it right yet, but I get very stressed and then fall even more behind!!</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Need to make more of a glance and RAG123 thing. Have started timing myself now!!!</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Doesn't work if you can't keep up checking every lesson - I've fallen victim to this.</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">students overestimating their understanding</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Probably feeling the pressure to check after every lesson, especially when there are after school commitments like parents evenings etc</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I have found that it doesn't lend itself to every lesson. </span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I sometimes struggle to find the time for the students to do it properly so it ends up being rushed.</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Daily expectation! We have probably gone a step too far with it! Setting individual questions, activities even card sorts etc. Viewed as an investment in next lesson rather than a quick response to previous. We are worried about sustainability though.</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sometimes harder to use in English where you're not always working on something as discrete as maths.</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Can't think of any. It's easily the best thing I've done in my teaching career.</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">No real.negatives. some year 11 boys just sat A1 as it relates to breaking bad!</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It doesn't record the volume of quality verbal feedback given in maths - but then neither do other written systems, the major issue with ofsted's version of marking and feedback monitoring.</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Apathy of some to look at the benefits. Mainly, "you got this from twitter!" What do Ofsted think, well now I know.</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I sometimes struggle to mark books every day. Especially on one week where I teach 4 days without a free period or lunchtime or after school.</span></i></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So there you have it...</span></i></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There is a bit more analysis to do, and I still need to sort out the top tips bit - there are some gems in there. However I wanted to get this post published this weekend...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Notably for me all of the worst bits are things people struggle with, not reasons to stop. Yes it can be difficult to do every day, yes it takes time for students to respond to it - we need to train them in how to use it and learn how to use it ourselves.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Still sceptical of RAG123? Give it a try!!!</span></div>
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Kev Listerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02417437251161335205noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2254885666790498217.post-18749477305742371092014-04-13T21:26:00.000+01:002014-04-14T08:28:07.449+01:00How do you do RAG123 so quickly?<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Whenever people start off with RAG123 they take too long marking. It's not their fault - they're used to taking longer and struggle to do it more quickly. When I say a full set takes 15 minutes I am often greeted with incredulity. I thought I'd prove it... (video run time 3 mins - all the rest is explained...)</span><br>
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<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dyQgNUJxJ9d858mDA8C1ziRy4_8IvAXlTbBpHhYOOYdEWBEOZrheZq1-avQZpNQ_ExNRCZhRNxNhD2WWxJORQ' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">(In case of trouble streaming the video you can download a copy here </span><a href="http://bit.ly/RAG123video" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">http://bit.ly/RAG123video</a>)</div></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><div><a href="https://www.dropbox.com/s/6uf60bh5f829xnd/RAG123%20explained.mp4" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;"><br></a>While the set of 26 books marked in the video took me 15 minutes 30 seconds you can see that I write an extra comment/response in almost all of them - for me this is the longest that a RAG123 set ever takes. Sometimes a full set can take less than 10 minutes if I'm not writing extra comments. As part of recording this video I actually filmed myself marking 3 full sets of books - that's 86 books and they were all reviewed in 38 minutes.</div></span>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Not just about whizzing through books</i></b></span><br>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I really want to emphasise though that RAG123 is actually a whole teaching approach, not just about blasting through a set of books in 10-15mins. The real strength comes from responding to what you see to shape how you approach your next lesson. It informs planning, it makes differentiation better, it helps you to get to know your students better.</span><br>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Some people may say that "proper AFL in lesson is better than picking things up from reviewing books." To some extent I agree, but this gives an extra method of AFL, and one in which students have nowhere to hide.</span><br>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Before RAG123 I thought I was quite good at AFL in lesson. I thought I had a good handle on what each student could and couldn't do, and what each student had actually done in lesson. When I started using RAG123 every lesson I found that I was wrong. I had a partial understanding at best, and RAG123 helps me to complete this picture. The insight it gives me helps me to meet the needs of my classes much more effectively than I ever have before. I now dislike planning a lesson until I've reviewed the output of the last one - otherwise it's too much of a guessing game.</span><br>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Importantly RAG123 shouldn't replace any AFL, or other in class strategy. It also shouldn't be the only form of feedback the students receive.</span><br>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As always - comments are welcome, please let me know your thoughts...</span>Kev Listerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02417437251161335205noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2254885666790498217.post-52306688613231050512014-04-05T17:00:00.002+01:002014-04-05T17:00:42.976+01:00RAG123 user survey<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I was asked the other day if there was a list of people using RAG123, in order to share best practice and develop it further. There currently isn't such a list... but here's our chance to create one!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If you use RAG123 please could you take 5 mins to complete this form. I'll look to share the results in due course - intention is that we can connect people using RAG123 in the same subject, same phase, etc. And just plain old share good practice...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The form is found here: <a href="http://bit.ly/RAG123survey">http://bit.ly/RAG123survey</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">thanks in advance for taking the time - please share this survey with anyone you know that uses RAG123 - the more input the better...</span><br />
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<br />Kev Listerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02417437251161335205noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2254885666790498217.post-80864374244932470242014-04-05T16:42:00.002+01:002014-04-05T16:42:53.922+01:00Blogging birthday post!<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My first ever post was published a year ago!! I remember being nervous about putting my thoughts out there for the world to see...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1 year later and this will be my 45th published post. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">More astounding to me though is that people have actually read any of them! This little blog has now clocked up almost 25,000 visits! I'm flattered that anyone takes time to read this collection of ideas that rattle round my head, so if you're reading this - THANK YOU - I know you don't have to, and this has never been about self promotion.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I was asked recently how many words I'd written as part of this blog - I worked it out the other day and was shocked to find that even excluding this post it's well over 46,000 words! (Note to self - must work on brevity!) </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When I discovered this massive word count I wondered which words I'd used, so I used Wordle to summarise it - I was quite pleased with the result...</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ-z0hGIqpu7Q45fjNV8LSUjT_pxO8fyuQE0tLt3mqhw7FcL8SzTHOjYWL_zX7YDxh6dYU73EV_Ae6zX8NLQVnEcswpGY9Ho3D1kLg0QpmOsCi6wkNn9x7iw2xE8aYo99zxpb26DFbjWw/s1600/Capture.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ-z0hGIqpu7Q45fjNV8LSUjT_pxO8fyuQE0tLt3mqhw7FcL8SzTHOjYWL_zX7YDxh6dYU73EV_Ae6zX8NLQVnEcswpGY9Ho3D1kLg0QpmOsCi6wkNn9x7iw2xE8aYo99zxpb26DFbjWw/s1600/Capture.JPG" height="299" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Alongside this I've found myself with almost 800 followers on twitter - which also amazes me!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>So what is it all about?</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">During the year I've blogged about various topics, from leadership to homework, to SOLO, to marking - you can find links to these topics on the right of the blog page. More recently I've been a bit preoccupied with RAG123 marking, which has dominated posts since November, but frankly it's such a powerful bit of practice I think it as deserved the priority I've given to it. (by the way - if you've not heard of RAG123 then have a look at my posts - I promise you won't regret it!)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As an indirect result of twitter and blogging, and the reflective, innovative practice that it encourages my department and I have:</span><br />
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<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Developed feedback and marking processes</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Innovated RAG123</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Created departmental CPD open days</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Written on just about every surface in the classroom with magic whiteboard, chalkpens, etc.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Analysed summative tests to make them formative using various tools.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Created graffiti walls for revision</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Made question grenades</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Developed the use of QR codes, bitly links and videos for flipped learning in our department</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Created maths plasters</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Developed seating plan formats to show student data easily</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Introduced SOLO to our school</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Used formats to share learning objectives with KS5</span></li>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And there are loads more things - I'm amazed how long that list is already.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Has it been worth it?</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Without a doubt yes! </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Of course it takes time to write posts - sometimes more than others, but it's actually never felt like a drag. I've also surprised myself in that I've never once struggled to find a topic to write about - stuff just happens and I think "that'll make a good blog post." I wrote a post (<a href="http://kevs-variability-thoughts.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/whats-point-in-writing-this-blog-and.html" target="_blank">here</a>) in June considering why I had bothered getting involved in blogging and twitter and whether it was worth it. Having read back over that post I don't think I can improve on it, I've honestly never looked back since starting.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It has been a bit of a journey this year; discovering twitter and blogging as a CPD tool has been a massive eye opener. It's transformed my practice in many ways, and helped me to lead my department with new ideas. Comments and feedback from the blog and from tweets have helped me to improve my classroom practice, and writing about it has helped me to be more reflective about it too. Furthermore being on twitter has helped me to be more connected to the wider world of education than ever before. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'll continue blogging and using twitter because it makes me better at my job.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>A new phase begins...</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This week has been fairly momentous for me. In addition to the anniversary of blogging I was successful in an interview on Monday, and will now be joining my current school's SLT as an Assistant Headteacher from September.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I can honestly say that the combination of blogging and twitter helped me to be a much more credible candidate for a role on the school's SLT than I would have been without these connections. It really came home to me when I sat down to prepare for the interview and realised that I was already fully up to speed with latest thinking about lesson observations, assessment structures, learning theories, inspection frameworks, etc. In fact in some aspects I was more in touch than the majority of the existing SLT - all through keeping up to date with my twitter feed and reading other people's blogs!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I was also able to ask for advice and tips on my application for this SLT post from contacts in my personal learning network who I didn't know at all last year! There were a couple in particular who helped by proof reading my application form and offered encouragement and suggestions. I'll not name you in case you get inundated by requests from others, but you know who you are and thank you!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I fully intend to keep blogging as I make the transition from middle to senior leadership, and hope that it continues to shape my practice, and contribute to the future of my school and its students.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So after all that I think this post is really a thank you to anyone who has ever taken the time to read, comment, tweet or follow as part of my journey in the last year. I've certainly enjoyed it and think I'm a better teacher and leader as a result... I hope you've found some of it useful!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Here's to another year - I wonder what will develop in the next 12 months...!</span>Kev Listerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02417437251161335205noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2254885666790498217.post-32894518626219833882014-03-29T13:43:00.001+00:002014-03-29T13:44:07.547+00:00A RAG123 epiphany<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Our PGCE student had a real lightbulb moment with RAG123 this week... It emphasised to me that it is way more than a quick way to get books marked...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">(as a respect for anonymity I will refer to the PGCE student as "PG" for the rest of this post).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>First lesson blues</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It was PG's first lesson teaching a particular group, having only observed with them up to now. The group has a few characters in it who will always test out a new face in front of them. I wasn't observing the lesson myself but afterwards PG came to see me, clearly quite disappointed in what had happened.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In PG's view the group had not bought into the topic that had been taught. It was intended to be a lesson that picked up from earlier knowledge and then moved them into more advanced ideas. However PG felt that the students had just decided that their earlier knowledge was enough and they had rejected the more advanced method, and really not engaged with the lesson at all. This view was based on the verbal responses of a number of students during the lesson which shaped the general feel of the group (this "feel" was also backed up by the teacher who was observing PG teach).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I talked with PG about why they felt this way and what they could do to make sure that the next lesson was more successful. Now obviously part of this is a planning/experience thing for PG - at times like this it is important that the students can appreciate the need for the more advanced technique, so the earlier plan probably needed to include a way to demonstrate a flaw with the existing knowledge, creating a conflict that can be resolved with the new methods. We discussed that this might be where to start the next lesson. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">However I also encouraged PG to go and have a look at the books to get a wider view than just those more vocal students. (This group have been using RAG123 regularly since November so I was hopeful they would have given some comments/reflections) </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">20 minutes later PG came back to see me...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Perception from the few, reality from the many</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Having reviewed the whole class's books and RAG123 self assessments PG's view of the class, and of the lesson was vastly changed. It was clear from looking at the work <u>actually done</u> by the class that the majority of the students had engaged with the lesson much more successfully than either PG or the observer had thought.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I emphasise - the observer was an experienced teacher who had been present for the full lesson, and they had also formed the perception thought that the majority of the class had failed to engage with the learning. However the work done by the students proved completely the reverse - the majority HAD engaged; the perception was dominated by the vocal few who had been more resistant.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Vitally with this information PG is now able to plan activities for the next lesson that align with where the class actually ended the last one. This starting point is MUCH more advanced than would have been the case if the lesson plan is based solely on the perceptions they ended the lesson with. It also allows a more effective demonstration of the gap between the students who were resistant than those who actually engaged but were less vocal.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Fundamentally PG has moved from feeling really disappointed about the progress of the whole class to being much more focussed on taking action to secure better engagement and progress for the relatively few individuals who shaped the overall perception. It's gone from a whole class issue to an issue involving only a few students.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>More than marking, RAG123 is TEACHING</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I've seen occasional sceptical comments about RAG123 (from those not using it), suggesting that teachers should use more than just looking in books to judge pupil's understanding or detect misconceptions. I completely agree with this perspective - I've never suggested that RAG123 should be used to the exclusion of other assessment methodologies. Abandoning any one method to the exclusion of others is rarely a good strategy for anything.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What this tale really highlights though is that the perception left at the end of a lesson for both the teacher and the observer was VASTLY different to the reality as shown by the student's work. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Clearly there are questions about use of AFL strategies during the lesson - perhaps the right plenary or assessment method would have shown this up; then again it might not. However there is no doubt that without RAG123 the next lesson for this class would have been MUCH less effective.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is a demonstration that RAG123 isn't just marking. The strongest bit is that it gives a way to connect with the class that is based on fact (e.g. what have they actually DONE) rather than perception (e.g. how did the you think the lesson went?). Shaping planning in this way means differentiation is more effective, less time is lost in either catching up or waiting for the perceived progress of the class to reach the desired level.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I know that PG is now completely sold on RAG123 as a way to make sure planning is effective....</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">All comments welcome as always</span><br />
<br />Kev Listerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02417437251161335205noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2254885666790498217.post-9412586959294753572014-03-22T13:47:00.000+00:002014-03-22T13:47:34.771+00:00Why does RAG123 work?<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I've been pondering for some time why RAG123 has such impact. I know I like it because I get a better understanding of my students, and can plan more accurately as a result. But to have such a big impact on progress (e.g. to have an effect size of 0.6 or better), there must be a number of reasons that it works. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Having thought for a while I think it hits many fronts...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>The cognitive science view</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In his book "<a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Why-Dont-Students-Like-School/dp/047059196X" target="_blank">Why don't students like school?</a>" Daniel Willingham (@DTWillingham) says:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"You want to encourage your students to think of their intelligence as under their control, and especially that they can develop their intelligence through hard work. Therefore you should praise </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">process</i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> rather than ability." (page 183)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">(I should point out that Willingham was referring to "slow learners" in that passage, but there is no logical reason that this would only apply to those below average - it's just that they are less likely to be praised for ability so have more need of an alternative.)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The effort gradings in RAG123 do exactly this - We acknowledge effort, even if the learning itself isn't successful. If the student is applying a good level of effort then it is the responsibility of the professional teacher to ensure that the learning experiences the student encounters are effective. Conversely without effort from the student even an otherwise perfect series of lessons will result in ineffective learning.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As such using RAG123 to raise the visibility/prominence of effort in the student's mind will encourage them to improve. They have full control over effort, they may not have full control over learning.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Similarly as a teacher, if you become clearly aware of a student that is trying hard but not making much progress you will be prompted to make a change, it forces you to be more reflective.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>The visible learning view</i></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I mentioned effect sizes above and this is most closely linked to the work of John Hattie, e.g. <a href="http://visible-learning.org/hattie-ranking-influences-effect-sizes-learning-achievement/" target="_blank">here</a>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If you look at the top end of Hattie's ordered list of effect sizes a further possible explanation of the power of RAG123 starts to emerge...</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmW7GwzdksDo6uMh0F4Ti6KvC37eFKSpo3eqtbqrJWm7JVwXtnP_wk8I8NQYNZbXoJTbbyCWP-Pxcwc1rIugcPIqeiTIXEeRhl6iLBDRY8R0KMLM_bE6w02N5KmkotMgetlYuWuRDZz6o/s1600/Capture2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmW7GwzdksDo6uMh0F4Ti6KvC37eFKSpo3eqtbqrJWm7JVwXtnP_wk8I8NQYNZbXoJTbbyCWP-Pxcwc1rIugcPIqeiTIXEeRhl6iLBDRY8R0KMLM_bE6w02N5KmkotMgetlYuWuRDZz6o/s1600/Capture2.JPG" height="514" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Source: </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">http://visible-learning.org/hattie-ranking-influences-effect-sizes-learning-achievement/ (highlighting added by me)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The highlighted line items, for me, have some kind of link to what RAG123 does. <b><i>Self reporting grades</i></b> is relevant because the students are self rating their understanding of each topic/lesson. <b><i>Formative evaluation </i></b>is done as the RAG123 rating shapes what both the student and teacher do in the next lesson, that also links to <i style="font-weight: bold;">Feedback. </i>RAG123 also impacts on <i style="font-weight: bold;">Teacher-student relationships</i> as it gives a much closer and immediate dialogue on the work done, the level of understanding shown, or the barriers to learning that have been found. <i style="font-weight: bold;">Meta-cognitive strategies</i> are about students having an appreciation of how they are learning, and therefore about what makes them successful learners. With the lesson by lesson feedback enabling students to link actions from a particular lesson directly to the learning outcome RAG123 encourages this link. Finally the feedback that the teacher gets from RAG123 means that there is a clearer link between what students have done and the <b><i>teaching strategies</i></b> they have used. As such it increases the chance of selecting more effective teaching strategies in the future.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Of course I have simplified this a fair bit - just taking the headings from the Hattie rankings and making links to RAG123, which may be a little tenuous at times, but I think the basic logic is sound though.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>The teacher reflection view (i.e. it forces you to be a better teacher)</i></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Using RAG123 forces a teacher to be more reflective. If a student is persistently putting in poor effort it becomes more obvious if you record that every day - it will prompt some kind of action. Similarly if a student simply isn't progressing despite effort then it's the teacher's job to fix it. If a lesson was really successful you have immediate feedback on it and can use that to roll into the next lesson, and the converse is true.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Just recently I have been trying to rate my own teaching with RAG123. (RAG for quality of planning - note this is distinct from quantity! 123 for success of the lesson) - not sure I've got the criteria nailed yet, and I do struggle to both be 100% reliable in the assessment of planning quality. Also it's hard to separate lesson success. However the reflection itself is powerful. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I've not given myself any R1 ratings, but I have occasionally given G3, which then prompts me to consider if G3 is actually possible as surely a high quality plan must be successful? Otherwise it's not a high quality plan, or is it something else? I've also rated myself a few A1s, and again I start to wonder if the planning was really that average if the lesson was a success, but then how much better might it have been with better planning? Overall doing this has spurred me on to do more G level planning rather than A, simply because it prompts me to be more conscious of it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Still no negatives</i></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Finally I just want to observe that I've still NEVER found anyone who has tried RAG123 that doesn't like it and doesn't want to continue. But I do find loads of people who haven't tried it that are unsure that they could make it work. If you've never tried it then what's stopping you?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">All feedback & comments welcome.</span></div>
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Kev Listerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02417437251161335205noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2254885666790498217.post-37576283088797926602014-03-15T15:47:00.000+00:002014-03-15T15:54:48.685+00:00What can education learn from Quality Management?<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Bit of a big post this - it's been evolving in my drafts file for a while now...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I learnt a lot about management and quality during 10 years working in the automotive industry. Due to the complexity of the products this is an industry that has been at the forefront of quality management since the 1950s. Cars are the most complicated consumer product in the world. They are built in vast numbers, require tens of thousands of components to work together when operated by relatively untrained drivers in a massive array of conditions. What's more failures have the potential to be both catastrophic and fatal. Also they are almost all built to a very tight budget, meaning that waste needs to be eliminated from all parts of the business to allow a car company to turn a profit.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The reliability of modern cars is truly gobsmacking, and it is due to the fact that the automotive industry are global leaders in the field of quality management. Versions of the approaches pioneered in the automotive sector are now deployed across manufacturing, and are even being used as models for business management in many non-manufacturing settings. However even the most forward thinking of these alternative applications are usually about 5-10 years behind the latest in the automotive world.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'm sure having got this far you're now thinking "Kev's lost it, he's gibbering about cars, I thought he was a teacher and this was a blog about education?" Well you might be right! But I really do think there is much to learn about the idea of quality in education.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Don't panic, I'm not about to insist that schools are like production lines, propose time & motion studies or some hideous Fordian uniformity to classrooms; I guess I need to explain where this is coming from in terms of how quality management evolved... (but if you want to cut to the chase then scroll down to the "lessons for education" heading)</span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">An evolution of practice</span></i></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><u>All</u> quality assurance or management systems currently in place in any industry today have a lineage that traces back to the automotive sector in post war Japan. Before this point it was all about "quality control" - essentially inspection at the end of the production line to check that things were correct. This was ok, but it was only partially effective at catching all potential problems. You physically can't check for everything. As a result some things slipped through the net and caused issues in the field.</span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">From control to assurance</span></i></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">To improve on the partially effective "control" system the emphasis shifted to "quality assurance". The premise was that rather than inspecting at the end of the line where tests were limited and rectifying errors was expensive and took a long time, why not do that inspection earlier in the process? Perhaps even before the parts are fitted? Or even delivered? The automotive firms pushed chunks of their inspection processes back up the production line all the way into their supplier's factory. The idea being that if all the parts arrived certified as "good" then the resulting car must be "assured" to be good. They still inspected a smaller number at the end of the line, but quality had improved as faulty parts were often detected before they were fitted.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">However there was still a level of variability inherent in the design. Humans build it for a start, and we make mistakes! Even certified parts have to be supplied to geometric tolerances that cause variations, and other physical, chemical or even biological variations can creep in when you make large numbers of components or large numbers of vehicles. (Biological - really? Well for example loads of car components are made from rubber, which is a natural product. It literally grows on trees! As such, until relatively recently when it has become better understood and controlled, rubber components on cars were subject to variability depending on the season in which the natural rubber was harvested! As another example the quality of some car paint finishes can be affected by the type and quantity of deodorant used by the operators working in the paintshop!)</span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Error proofing</span></i></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The next development in quality was to start to manage it from the outset. To do things with the design that prevented errors, or make the performance of the completed vehicle tolerant to variability of its components. Japanese terms like "Poka-yoke" are now commonplace in car design - it means "mistake proofing" and helps to remove human errors on the production line. For example, if an operator has to connect 3 different electrical plugs in the same area of the car each plug should be designed such that it only connects to it's correct socket, leaving no room for human error.</span><br />
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<b><i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Assurance becomes management</span></i></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">By taking the focus away from inspection/control, wherever it is in the process, and looking in more detail to the systems and processes quality becomes managed rather than assured. This means designing OUT variability, designing IN error proofing, planning for quality from the very start of the process rather than applying it as an inspection at some point.</span><br />
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<b><i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Continual improvement requires empowerment.</span></i></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">However perhaps the most powerful thing to come out of the Japanese automotive industry was the concept of continuous improvement, and with it the empowerment of everyone in the business to make suggestions to improve the product. This is often referred to by the Japanese term "Kaizen" (literal translation "improvement" or "act of making bad points better"). Toyota used this word to brand improvement activities in its factories and visiting western engineers and managers adopted the word.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">At the heart of Kaizen is a philosophy that improvement must be lead from the top, but not directed from the top. Every worker in the factory has their part to play in the quality of the end product, and as such every worker has the right to make suggestions about how to improve it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Vitally this includes the idea that the person that fits the brakes all day becomes an expert in fitting brakes. As such this person is very well placed to make suggestions about how to minimise errors when fitting brakes. This applies across the whole vehicle and as a result the shop floor assembly workers have a big voice in improving designs and optimising the processes.</span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><u>LESSONS FOR EDUCATION</u></span></i></b><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Firstly, we're currently broadly applying the "quality control" type of management. We inspect at the end of the process, both by assessing student's progress through final high stakes exams, and by the use of increasingly high stakes observations/assessments for teachers (I say increasingly high stakes due to imminent explicit linkage to pay structures in the UK), and high stakes inspections for schools.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The best schools will use more of a quality assurance model. "Good" practice will be embedded in school and departmental policies to reduce variability in practice between staff. However too often these are policed and enforced through inspection (e.g. observations, work scrutiny, learning walks). To take this on to the next level the structures need to be put in place to make good practice, and therefore success of the students, inevitable.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Developing systems in which good performance becomes inevitable can only come if the people doing the processes are inspecting it themselves. It becomes less about doing it well because you are being watched, and much more about not needing to be watched because you are watching yourself.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ok that last paragraph sounds like a load of idealism, but if we pick up the Kaizen model in education and truly empower teachers to improve their practice they will feel a much greater ownership of it. By encouraging this ownership we make it much more likely that they will do it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For example, who is best placed to formulate a marking policy that is workable for a teacher with a full mainscale timetable? It certainly isn't best done as a decision by someone that only teaches a partial timetable. Setting out a basic framework that includes the key characteristics of good marking and then asking teams of all staff to develop a way that this can be done in a manageable way would create a policy much more likely to be adhered to.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Just this week I was told about someone who wants to try #RAG123 marking (not heard of RAG123? It's awesome - see <a href="http://kevs-variability-thoughts.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/spreading-rag123.html" target="_blank">here</a>!). They aren't allowed because it doesn't conform to their school's policy. Under their school's policy this person recently spent over 2 hours marking just 7 books, and they are saying that the quality of their planning is suffering due to the volume of marking they have to do! Nobody on a full timetable could possibly sustain that type of marking alongside teaching, planning and having a life. This is a clear example of a solution being imposed on people without thought to actual delivery.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Similarly it is really important that there is a route and process for all staff to highlight where the school is not working efficiently. For example are there flaws in the school sanctions and rewards system meaning that a group of teachers are struggling to use them effectively? Feedback loops are important in industry, and should be in education too. Vitally though if feedback is sought and given there MUST then be action with support from the top to address the concerns and improve the situation.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Where is the value added?</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It is recognised in the automotive industry that the only people actually adding value are those building the cars. They take the components and combine them into something that can be sold at a profit. Everyone else and every other process in the organisation is an overhead that chips away at profits. They may be absolutely needed as part of the long term business, but they still cost money. As such these other processes need to be as efficient as possible, and mustn't interfere with the effectiveness of the production line.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In schools it would be too simplistic to suggest that the only people that add value are the teachers, as it's the total experience at school that's important, and not always just the lessons or exam results. However systems in the school absolutely mustn't make the jobs of those that interact with students harder to do well.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Consider how easy it is to get accurate data about a specific student... Attainment, targets, behaviour, attendance, SEN, FSM, IEP, etc, etc, Is it all in one place or in lots of different places? Is it easy to download a class list of information in a usable format? I know I've worked in schools where each bit of data is stored in a different place, and in different formats.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I've heard regularly that schools do well by prioritising on Learning and Teaching. The question "If it's not improving Learning and Teaching then why are we doing it?" pops up as part of this kind of thing. However how often is that really applied across ALL systems in a school? It may well be applied to guiding CPD, or some directed time activities and meeting agendas, but is the attendance system actually optimised to stop it interfering with learning and teaching? Is the behaviour system an add on administrative activity or an integral part of learning and teaching?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Loads of education practice, particularly on the administrative side, is based on finding a system that basically works, and then iterating as needs change. Sometimes this creates a real monster of a system with add on bits and extra files all over the place. For example all schools I've been in have slightly different ways of managing student data, sometimes this is based on the specific skills or preferences of the staff involved in creating them, or just on how it's been done for years. Sometimes these systems are brilliant, other times they are ineffective. New staff come in and have to learn the foibles of a particular system, and then all the various "work around" methods to get key bits of data in the right format.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It is incredibly rare to find a system that has been completely designed from the ground up to do its job in a way that is completely aligned with the needs of all of the users in the organisation. Process mapping and optimisation of processes are effectively alien terms in education, but they really shouldn't be.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>In summary - we need to start actively managing quality</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Basically what I'm trying to illustrate is that any push for improving "quality" within a school needs to aim far more at the quality management end, which is the cutting edge of quality practice; as opposed to the quality control end which is a blunt and inefficient instrument.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We need less direct inspection to enforce systems from the outside, and more design of systems to make good performance inevitable. We mustn't invent extra processes to fix problems; instead we should develop systems that simplify the job rather than making it more complicated.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Like choosing to walk across the grass or around the path, people only deviate from policy because there is a shortcut. We need to seek out and use the expertise of the people that will actually work with the policies the most to help redesign them to eliminate the shortcuts! If we make it hard to do the right thing then we can't be surprised if someone does it wrong. The purpose of good leadership and management must be to design and environment where we make it as easy as possible for our staff and students to do it right. That way success becomes inevitable.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As always I'd welcome any feedback and comments... :-)</span><br />
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Kev Listerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02417437251161335205noreply@blogger.com5