The Marshmallow Test...

Could you take the

Marshmallow test?

Success in the 'Marshmallow Test' is a significant predictor in how well children will do in school and later life. Often referred to as delayed gratification, it is a key behaviour for learning. Why? Put simply, if you can learn to be patient and wait for something, you’ll often get something better at the end.  For example, if you spend all your pocket money every week, what can you buy?  On the other hand, if you save for a week or even a year, what will you be able to afford?  Children need to learn to work at things before they succeed – they might not be brilliant at first but if they persevere and have patience they are more likely to achieve something better.

'The Golden Years of Learning'

We were attending a presentation by Alistair Smith (www.alistairsmithlearning.com) recently during which he shared some key ideas which will impact on our thinking about learning in schools. This idea of building on the skills that children already know is integral to our thinking. We are fortunate in primary schools to work with children in their 'Golden Years of Learning' - in fact 3-5 year olds demonstrate a rapid growth in certain key skills that indicate good learners. 

• good working memory

• inhibitory control and delay of gratification

• cognitive flexibility

“If I had to reduce all of educational

psychology to just one principle, the most

important single factor influencing learning

is what the learner already knows...”

David Ausubel, 1968

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? 

Junior Tax Facts

A simple introduction to tax for 8 to 11 year olds, which explains that taxes provide the money needed to pay for the things that are essential to them, their families, communities and society as a whole.

HMRC is the UK’s tax, payments and customs authority. They collect the money that pays for the UK’s public services and help families and individuals with targeted financial support.

A comprehensive teacher's pack, with ready-to-use lesson plans and exercises, is available to view or download, free of charge on the Times Educational Supplement (TES) website: https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/junior-tax-facts-teachers-pack-11410987

Improving Writing...

Part of our November INSET was some training on how to develop writing to a greater depth standard. As part of the day, our Literacy Leader shared several videos she had taken - including one of our teaching assistants engaging successfully with a small group of pupils to improve their writing above.

The key principles we are working on:

Coach culture: Using adults to discuss ideas and model what is expected.

Unpick features needed to write in that context: What skills will they need to use? What skills are already in their toolkit ready to apply? How am I moving children’s learning on?

Children write, prompted to use resources around them (word mats, sentence openers, etc.) and think about language used for effect.

Reflection: Focussed questions for pupils verbally or through reflection bubbles.

Achieving Greater Depth!

The focus of our November INSET day was around ensuring our curriculum allows children opportunities to work at a greater depth across our curriculum. We took ourselves back to school for part of the day for a reminder about some fundamentals of teaching and learning. Bloom's and 'Solo' taxonomies are an excellent rationale for the way we need to ensure children are given opportunities to think and apply their learning.

One key question was around the definition and concept of 'cleverness'?

• Is it being able to generate revolutionary new thinking?
• Is it seeing links and connections between different concepts and ideas?
• Or is it the quality and quantity of what you know?

Our curriculum therefore needs to allow children to learn skills, apply them in interesting contexts and use them to make links which extend their thinking.

Writing Right Across the Curriculum...

Our INSET day, this July, was formed around the expectations for getting our writing right across the curriculum. We have long established expectations both before and since the advent of the new curriculum but had some big questions to pose ourselves. We are also aiming to build our own bank of exemplifications to sit alongside those published nationally.

Connectives or Conjunctions...

We liked this image shared by a colleague in Southampton. We thought we might share is as it reveals some of the new expectations on pupils (..and staff!) to get to grips with grammatical terms in the new curriculum. Here's a really good example of one such change above - the use of connectives being replaced by conjunctions.

Presenting the new curriculum...

We discovered a great tool for online presentations - you're welcome to view this presentation to the Governing Body on the new curriculum. I can't claim credit for the design but have adapted the content to suit our school's vision.

The Role of the Pupil...

A key thought around our new curriculum is the role of the pupil. We led an assembly for our pupils on making learning look effortless recently which emphasised the need for 'grit' - the stuff that makes you stick at things when the going gets tough and stops you giving up - the grit that makes you flow to do the things you aspire to do. For more details head here! Consequently, the new curriculum is tough on learners - it's a tough love curriculum or TLC! An interesting idea recently espoused at a Southampton conference which we are pinching... our pupils need to be:

• Taking greater responsibility
• Developing the language to communicate learning - being articulate
• Identifying and discussing their own next steps
• Working collaboratively
• Questioning
• Growing their mindset!

Notes on progress in the new curriculum...

Our INSET day this week was based around our understanding of progress and how we make it secure in the new curriculum. We began by attempting to clarify and explore the learning journey of pupils from beginning to securing understanding.

We then began to think about how we know children are making progress and how much of this depends on their learning behaviours but also what we provide as teachers.

Our final task was to ensure that our curriculum provision matched the needs of the pupils and ensured opportunities for them to progress through a clear teaching and learning sequence are planned carefully.

Thinking Scientifically...

Last weeks staff meeting was all about working scientifically. We spent the time reviewing what we were doing already and exploring a few new ideas. One of the ideas that was shared was getting children to discuss their ideas through Concept Cartoons - follow the links below:

ühttp://www.millgatehouse.co.uk/wp-content/web-examples/ccsre/cc65.html

ühttp://www.millgatehouse.co.uk/wp-content/web-examples/ccsre/cc52.html

Another good idea fFor an engaging Science plenary, choose a scientific concept (e.g. gravity, sound waves, predators) and ask the class: should it be banned? Split them into ‘for’ and ‘against’ and have each child prepare at least three reasons supporting their argument. Then let the debate begin! Children will be encouraged to think more deeply about how scientific concepts underpin our everyday lives.

A high-quality science education provides the foundations for understanding the world through the specific disciplines of biology, chemistry and physics. Science has changed our lives and is vital to the world’s future prosperity, and all pupils should be taught essential aspects of the knowledge, methods, processes and uses of science. Through building up a body of key foundational knowledge and concepts, pupils should be encouraged to recognise the power of rational explanation and develop a sense of excitement and curiosity about natural phenomena. They should be encouraged to understand how science can be used to explain what is occurring, predict how things will behave, and analyse causes. (National Curriculum 2014)

Making Good Lessons Great!

A conversation with an Ofsted inspector about strategies for making learning even better...

• —“Simply judge teaching on whether children are engaged, focused, learning, and making progress ... and in the best lessons (are) being inspired”.
• —Too many teachers were attempting to break lessons into bite-sized chunks instead of allowing pupils time to complete extended tasks.
• —The secret lies in a teacher’s planning, self-reflection, perceptiveness and resilience.
• —Think about what is going to fully engage your pupils. What is the curiosity that you provoke, the responsibilities you delegate or the surprise that you reveal. 
• —There are thousands of outstanding teachers who are branded "good" because the level of risk they, for good reason, refuse to take big risks in observed lessons. 
• —Work scrutiny is a huge source of evidence.

Good to Great!

We've been spending time as a staff reviewing our progress using the theme 'Good to Great!' This has been a useful way of exploring what we do well and what we need to do to get even better.

Themed learning experiences...

Part of our INSET day last half term was reviewing the opportunities we provide for pupils and staff to work in a more collaborative way across the phases. Working with colleagues and peers we hope to create many more cross curricular opportunities and more compelling learning experiences that will provide a stimulus for pupils and opportunities for inspiration.

When Children Want to Learn... They Will!

Our staff training day last week was spent pondering 'life beyond levels' and what this meant for our pupils' progress and attainment. Many questions still remain in our minds about how the DfE will define a National standard but we are confident that we have the skills to show how well our children are doing. One of the key lessons learnt from our work on steps and bands so far is that securing an accurate judgement of where the children are is fundamentally important in determining what this attainment and progress will look like. We have realised that there are limits on equating what a pupil has covered in the curriculum with what they have mastered and that these can mean two different things. In other words, covering a lot of stuff quickly doesn't make a good learner. As teachers, we need to get our pupils to show what they can do by providing them with much deeper and broader opportunities through our curriculum.

‘Children need teachers who understand they are individuals, each with his or her own unique brilliance within. Education is about bringing out that person…not achieving statistical success according to a strict narrow criteria.’

Michael Morpurgo

A Step Forward for Assessment...

As a school, we have been subscribing to the Target Tracker system for tracking our pupil progress. In a recent circulation, the company have released a set of documents - freely available - called 'Steps'. Developed in partnership with EES Education Consultants, Steps has been designed to address the removal of levels in the 2014 and support teachers in making judgements about pupil progress and achievement in the new National Curriculum and, of course,  for use with the Target Tracker Assessment software. Steps breaks the new curriculum into easy-to-understand statements providing a manageable set of tools to enable teachers to carry out formative pupil assessment effectively. Forgive the pun but we think this is a useful step forward...

The Planning Process

Our development of the new curriculum continues this term with some key areas for us to focus on. Over the last term, we have realised that our new curriculum may be at risk of becoming too content driven rather than skills based. We need to ensure that exciting learning opportunities are matched to the skills and expectations, and that these also feature in our medium term plans. To that end, we have tried to visualise the planning process, starting with English, to ensure that these expectations are met and that these in turn impact on the day to day learning. We are also reviewing our use of learning intentions and success criteria and making these much more focussed - separating the skill from the context.

History is just around the corner...

The Historical Association is organising it's annual Local and Community History Month in May. Visit their website to take a look at what's happening nearby. The website also has it's own primary section and links to some great resources and articles. There is also a subscription option to join the HA which might be worth investigating more...

Adopting Our Values

Here is a good example of one of our staff adopting a practical approach to how our learning values can be used and applied by pupils in lessons - in this case, PE & Games.