Trust Me!

LGfL and Childnet have partnered to develop 'Trust Me', the new critical-thinking resource that encourages young people to ask themselves who, what, when and why they can trust online. This looks a really useful resource and the link to it is available here: https://www.lgfl.net/online-safety/trust-me

SATs Guidance for Parents 2017

The Standards and Testing Agency have shared two videos for parents about the forthcoming end of Key Stage assessments or SATS: KS1 is the top and KS2 below!

Books about safeguarding-related issues....?

This is a really useful link from this weeks safeguarding briefing and makes some great suggestions for children's books on a range of subjects that are safeguarding related.

Books Focusing on Identity, Belonging, Conflict, Migrant and Refugee Experiences

Books about Kindness, compassion and empathy

Books about bullying for 8-12s

Books about depression

Books about grief and loss

Eating Disorders Awareness Booklist

Children's books on dementia

Teacher Assessment & Moderation: Addressing Misconceptions

This video focuses on the teacher assessment of key stage 2 writing and was published by the DfE a few days ago. Clarification on some of the more technical aspects of judging the standards!

Formal or Informal Tone...?

Some recent training for our Year 6 staff revolved the expectation that pupils should switch between levels of formality in their writing to achieve a greater depth standard at the end of KS2. Not something that the majority of us find easy to spot - this guide might be a good starting point?

More Blogs to Follow....

A couple of new and interesting blogs have been added to our links on the right... both talking up a lot of sensible approaches to teaching and learning.

Outstanding Learning....

We're really impressed with this example of some outstanding learning in Year 4. One of our pupils is clearly developing her reasoning skills and increasing in confidence as a result. This is good to capture and share as we adopt some new approaches to our teaching Maths. We might have to work a little bit on the English too....?!

Science & Engineering Day

Flyer for the upcoming event next weekend... register at: https://sotsefteacherzone.eventbrite.co.uk/

What makes effective teaching and Learning in Maths?

What do children need to know to add 196 and 10? And what happens if any of those gaps in understanding are present? Our INSET in February was based on the question above and we had several themes to consider.

• The principles and practices of teaching maths for ‘mastery’ or working at greater depth – thinking flexibly and creatively about number.
• A shared understanding of what this means and how we can spot it in mathematics lessons to help children move forward.
• How rich tasks can support and secure pupils’ understanding and our own assessment of their understanding.

One of the key considerations for teachers is building upon what already children know to further their mathematical understanding and how to 'plug' those gaps to ensure children make good progress. We believe it is through careful planning and coherent sequencing of Maths learning that children will best understand the concepts and master the procedures they need to progress. Providing rich tasks will allow them to problem solve and reason about their thinking and lead to 'mastery' and them 'knowing without hesitation'. 

Here's a good example. Have a go at this problem...

A 3 x 3 x 3 cube is painted red on the outside. If it is broken up into 1 x 1 x 1 cubes how many of these smaller cubes have 3 sides painted?

2 sides painted?

1 side painted?

No sides painted? 

Every Child Can Master Maths

Much is being made in the world of Maths teaching about the Shanghai method. The Chinese city which seems to top the league tables when its students take the 'Pisa' tests at 15 years old. The method is really an amalgamation of many ideas based on a deep understanding of mathematical concepts and how children learn them. One of the key principles for us is that everyone can be a maths 'master' given the opportunity to build on what they know in small steps. We've recently invested in tools and resources to support our thinking including the Maths: No problem books which we hope will impact on our teaching and learning. We'd recommend parents taking a look  - several staff are using them with their own children at home! We are really not on any sort of commission but if you would like more information head here.

The Learning Spy

David Didau was invited to speak at Southampton University recently as author of several books on education and the Learning Spy blog.
Much of what we do in classrooms is intuitive, steered by what 'feels right', but all too often intuition proves a poor, sometimes treacherous guide. In “What if everything you knew about education was wrong?” David set out the case for questioning many of our most deeply held assumptions about teaching and learning.
While we don't normally 'plug' books, 'What if everything we knew about education was wrong?' is well worth a read and we have added a link to the 'Learning Spy' on the right.

Real Maths Stories....

Always on the look out for some inspiration, we were impressed with the approach to Maths held by colleagues at St Stephen's Junior in Bristol. The school has adopted a 'Maths Story' approach based on Singapore/Shanghai methods:
"Teaching of mathematics at St Stephen’s has links with Shanghai/Singapore maths. We have embedded the CPA (concrete, pictoral, abstract) approach to lessons. All concepts are introduced with concrete resources for children to feel and manipulate. As their conceptual understanding develops, they move towards the pictoral and abstract stages. These are recorded in their books as ‘the real story’ and ‘the maths story’. Children are not pushed to move through these stages until they have shown understanding gained by the teacher through skilful assessment." St Stephen's Junior
We've been actively considering our own approaches to teaching and learning Maths in line with some of the positive things we're hearing form the far East! For more details head to their website here.