School level models of CPD – a changing landscape

The way schools approach professional developed has changed dramatically over the last few years. The rise of teachmeets and similar models has seen a shift away from the content driven courses run by consultants and advisors of the past. Many now prefer the engagement and active involvement of peer led training as opposed to the passive learning model that is the diet of many traditional courses. The kind of course that generally takes staff away from their day to day practice to tell them how they can do their job better. The problem for many with such delivery is that it can lack credibility, practitioners like to hear from those who are walking the talk, who understand the day to day pressures and recognise the difficulties that can be encountered. Practitioner led training is popular as it not only gives its audience a ‘warts and all’ account of tried and tested approaches, but it also gives those presenting it an opportunity to develop professionally themselves.

A number of practitioner led approaches at cluster and network level can be replicated to good effect in individual schools.   Below are a few approaches that work well both with groups of schools and within single organisations:

Staffroom teachmeet – this sharing good practice model is a great way to get staff up and talking about what they are doing in class that is proving successful.   It promotes conversation around teaching and learning and a quick five minutes in front of peers doesn’t necessarily worry people in the way a longer slot in front of a larger audience might.

Learning walks – many staff rarely get into their peers classrooms and giving a couple of staff meetings over to learning walks means they will be able to spend time learning from each other, getting ideas, discussing how the learning environment can support learners and informally planning future developments.   We spend an awful lot of time moving around school to meetings, classes, assemblies etc… so it is nice to actually slow down and make the walk around school purposeful in itself.   A meeting on the move!

Moving the meetings -asking staff to host a staff meeting in their classroom is a good way of encouraging them to talk about learning and the learning environment in more detail.   It is also a way of sharing the leading role and developing leadership skills in others. Having staff meetings in different classrooms can effortlessly put teaching and learning high on the agenda.   It is amazing how much dialogue around practice can grow out of a simple question about a classroom display.

Staff Surgery – I have posted about this approach on this blog before but simply put, we make use of this model to support staff in developing their use of technology.   Each term we have a staff meeting where everyone brings along a device (or we use the IT suite) and we share what is working well, what people are doing with their blogs, what they are struggling with or have heard about. It is a real collegiate environment and has become a recognised opportunity in school to develop collective and individual use of technology to support learning.   Recently phase meetings have also introduced an ‘app of the week’ where staff will share an app they have been using in class on their iPads.

With a range of external directives and initiatives competing for space and time on an already crowded staff meeting agenda, taking a step away to develop such sharing is hugely valued and seen by many as the best way to approach school level cpd.

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Bridging the gap

Lucy’s out of school business!

The countdown to the animators next upload!

I visited a partner school a while ago and as I walked through the Foundation Stage I looked over at a group of children on the class computers. The teacher laughed as he explained to me that when the children had started school in September they went immediately to the computers, picked up the mouse and pointed it at the screen! Their pre school experiences with gaming platforms clearly dictating their understanding of how to approach this new experience. I recently recounted this story to a friend who explained that his three year old had stood in front of their television, put his hand in the air and attempted to ‘pinch’ to control its content as he was already comfortably doing with his iPad!

These two incidents illustrate the stark difference in experiences with technology for our youngsters and older generations. They also highlight the need for us as educators to understand the out of school experiences of children in order to bridge the formal and informal learning gap. For many pupils their out of school experiences with technology and their inquisitive, exploratory approach to each new device only serve to widen the learning gap. Celebrating their skills and developing understanding in school provides us with an opportunity to build on their out of school interests, benefiting their learning and sense of achievement.

In the last few weeks I have been sharing some of the children’s out of school hobbies with their peers in assemblies. Lucy from Y5 has her own business out of school which she advertises on her website http://www.yummycupcakes.webeden.co.uk/
Adam, Josh, William and Regan make their own animations and upload these onto their website http://theanimators1.weebly.com/animation-page.html Such enterprise and innovation are celebrated, supported and where possible, these out school interests encouraged within the school setting. We plan on ordering staff cakes from Lucy!

Our older children now bring their own devices into school to use as learning tools where appropriate. The technology they so often hold in their hand while out of school has such potential in the classroom that it makes sense to embrace it and explore its learning potential.  The challenge is for us as educators to find ways to blur the children’s formal and informal learning, to bridge the gap between in school and out of school experiences in order to support their development, and where appropriate using the tools they are becoming increasingly accustomed to.

Uncommon Inset

I have blogged before about our Kaizen network of schools, a small group of primaries who share common beliefs about education and learning.   We began to work together about six years ago to improve the learning experiences of our pupils, we weren’t funded by any external agency and followed no external agenda but grew ourselves from the ground up, following our own instincts about what our schools needed.   Within our network we agreed from the outset that as Headteachers we were privileged to be able meet and work together on areas of common interest. We support each other and challenge each other benefitting from such collaboration. We share common Inset days which provide all staff with the chance to meet up with peers in partner schools and work together on mutual areas of interest. The sharing of costs and resources has enabled us to move all our schools forward through a collegiate and supportive model of sustainable and relevant professional development. Recent shared Inset with the likes of Tim Rylands, Zoe Ross, Lane Clarke and others has been extremely well received by staff who are then able to build on what they’ve seen through school visits and joint working within the network.

This year we are once again taking advantage of ‘uncommon’ Inset days. This is when we put a working day aside for all our staff to get into partner schools to spend time in someone else’s class, working together, observing, taking in new ideas and approaches, and sharing good practice. Each school chooses a day when all the others are in full operational mode (not straight after a half term) and organises staff to visit one of the network, in small groups, to be let loose to spend the day being part of a different environment. These visits are followed up back at school with discussions and actions, further targeted visits and future projects. We have find these uncommon Insets to be invaluable. It is reported by McKinsey, that to improve teachers need to see best practice in an authentic setting, our approach gives staff the opportunity to do just that.

Interchange

On Monday we are taking a group of pupils to visit one of our partner schools, Robin Hood in Birmingham. The visit will go beyond pupils meeting their peers, being given a tour of the school and discussing teaching and learning. On this visit the children will be donning the uniform of Robin Hood and spending the day as a pupil. This small scale piece of ethnographic research is intended to give our teaching and learning group a real understanding of how different schools operate. Following the visit, the children will present their findings on how our schools are similar, how we differ in our approaches and what we can learn from each other. A reciprocal visit is planned for later in the year and ongoing online collaboration via class blogs will aid communication.

Over the years, our teaching and learning groups have enjoyed looking at a range of approaches to classroom practice, the use of effective questioning and the work of educators such Guy Claxton, Chris Quigley and Dylan Wiliam. They have visited partner schools, made videos, led assemblies, given presentations, collaborated on projects and even organised a teaching and learning conference. The groups have furthered their own understanding of teaching and learning and regularly share their findings to support developments in pedagogy across our schools.

Through our networked approach to teaching and learning we have facilitated opportunities for staff to visit partner schools and experience the day to day practice in a colleague’s class. This is always hugely appreciated and staff benefit from such an open and collaborative relationship. This will be the first time we have undertaken such a venture with pupils, the outcomes are eagerly awaited.

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The Staff Surgery

Reblogged from Smichael920's Blog:

Last week we held our first ICT staff meeting of the year.   This was a chance to have a good look at the class blogs.   We asked staff to come with something they needed help with or something they wanted to share that had gone well for them.  The intention of these meetings is for them to operate as a workshop, they provide the time and support to enable all staff to develop their skills and understanding in specific areas.  

Read more… 213 more words

What makes the Ideal Teacher?

Successive governments and policy makers have presented schools with what is to be taught. Teachers have been directed to what are assumed to be the best pedagogical approaches via initiatives such as the national curriculum and national strategies, they have been given the content to be delivered and the ways to deliver it. Does such an approach make an ideal teacher? Delivering such a top down model would certainly meet the requirements of policy makers, but would it meet the expectations of a range of stakeholders? If we were to ask parents, pupils and peers (fellow teachers) what would they say are the necessary qualities of an ideal teacher?
As a Headteacher, I believe the most important aspect of my role is to put the best teachers possible in front of the children, but what qualities and attributes make a person ideal? Dylan Wiliam was clear about the importance of the right teacher when he stated ‘it is not about the school your child attends, but which class in that school.’ Countless initiatives and strategies have been introduced over the years but they can only succeed if there is a teacher of the right calibre delivering them at the chalk face. One could argue whether indeed the best teachers need such a top down model? Are they not the best because they believe in taking risks? Because they are flexible and creative? Because they respond to the learners’ needs and are not afraid to deviate from the plan? Can such an approach sit comfortably alongside a prescribed national agenda?
A recent publication from Ofsted suggests ‘Teachers should also be encouraged to be creative and adventurous in their teaching, and to vary approaches depending on the nature of the learning planned for the lesson .’ (Moving English Forward ,Ofsted March 2012) This is heartening news as it encourages practitioners to exercise their professional judgement, make informed choices and respond to need. These qualities would most certainly be present in the ideal teacher, but are there other prerequisites? Would parents argue that establishing positive relationships was the most important factor? Would pupils see classroom management as the precursor to any effective teaching? Are there common traits that different stakeholders would recognise in the ideal teacher, the habits of an effective classroom practitioner that are evident regardless of content, curriculum or strategy? I’d be grateful if you could share your own thoughts on what you believe to be the key qualities of the ideal teacher.

Technology, where are we now? One school’s story

Technology is moving us forward at an increasing rate of knots.   No sooner is one piece of new kit embedded in school before another one comes along that is slicker, faster, more fitting for your needs.   It is nigh on impossible to keep up with such a fast pace and a clear remit for the use of technology is needed if we are to avoid jumping in with every new innovation that comes along.   At Hawes Side we use technology in numerous ways but  it’s core purpose is to stimulate, enhance and support learning.   It is not as a bolt on but permeates the very fabric of school, part of its DNA. We have recently taken stock of where we are now with technology, what is embedded and working well, what requires attention, and what is no longer applicable.  Some of the approaches covered here I have blogged about before but hopefully this provides a station stop on the technology train!

Children at  Hawes Side use a range of technologies and approaches in school, mirroring their informal learning out of school.  Technology is part of each learners’ toolkit and as the children would reach for a pen, pencil or ruler, they will also confidently reach for a laptop, an iPod or iPad. Technology helps us blur the distinction between home and school, between formal and informal learning.   It provides parents with a window on their child’s education and a gateway to shared learning experiences that can have a profound impact on children’s attitudes towards education.  It means the world to most children, to have their parents and families not only show an interest in their learning, but to actively be a part of it.

All the technology we use supports basic skills in some way or another.   Parents are able to participate in their children’s learning journey every step of the way, and at every stage of their development.  Reading, writing, speaking and listening are all developed through the innovate use of filming and green screen technology.  From scripting, drafting, planning, writing and reading auto cues to presenting, reviewing and modifying performance, the technology supports and enhances the children’s learning.   It isn’t seen as a gimmick but as a powerful tool to engage learners in these vital areas. One of the many benefits of using technology in this way is that the results of such experiences can be shared across the school community via a number of large screens around the school and beyond the physical building through the school blogs.

Hawes Side school blogs are extensively used by all class and pupil groups as a powerful vehicle for learning in its many forms, and for sharing learning.  The virtual environment forms a flexible e-portfolio providing children, and the wider school community with an online record of learning- easily accessed and shared. QR codes enable us to link online learning with traditional, non digital approaches.   Using a QR reader to open web links not only excites and enthuses the children, it also allows them to quickly find the learning and links to learning that they require.

Staff are well versed in the use of new technologies to support learning and further their own professional development.   They continue to develop new, exciting and innovative approaches to their classroom practice that stimulate and motivate the children.   We run staff surgeries each term to share ideas, approaches, web tools and apps that are working well in classes.   We also use the surgeries to support each other with concerns and problems- to provide a coaching and collegiate environment that helps us move forward together as a community of learners. Piloting new ideas and approaches serves us well and gives us a chance to really assess the value of new initiatives before they become whole school.   It is easier to monitor the success or failure of a new initiative in one or two classes than it is across twenty one at one time!  Staff can visit each others’ classes to observe how a particular pilot is being played out. The use of the iPad as a teaching tool, with the whiteboard being used to mirror out via an apple tv is currently generating lots of interest across school, with those classes that don’t have this yet clambering to be part of phase two.

Technology allows us to link immediately and meaningfully with our partner schools around the world.  The children can collaborate with their peers in classrooms from Birmingham to Beijing, from Bolton to Berlin! Staff also fully embrace such partnership working, keeping in touch with colleagues in Australia and our European partner schools.   Blogging is a fantastic way for our school community to support our worldwide connections, bringing real global learning into our classrooms.

The use of technology has also seen a rise parental involvement and engagement.  Families have the opportunity to become fully versed in new learning approaches with the school providing workshops and special events to support this. Recent experiments  in live blogging have shown a healthy appetite for furthering IT skills that serve a real purpose. Parents and relatives have appreciated being able to stay in touch with the children whilst they are away on residential visits, learning along with them and sharing insights into what happens on such trips.    Innovative approaches to homework involve parents and families like never before, links via the website and blogs keep the whole community informed and recent micro tutorials using the ‘show me’ app on the ipad enable to the children to record their learning to share with their peers and the world.   Learning is discussed and shared- it is high profile in the home as well as the school giving children a powerful positive message that says learning doesn’t stop at 3.30pm, nor is it confined to a school building- learning is everywhere, learning is collaborative and learning is fun!

Learning for the community of Hawes Side extends beyond the school gates.   It is not restricted by time or place.   Learning for the children of Hawes Side is not an insular experience, it has a real, worldwide audience who are easily reached,  encouraging and supportive and hugely interested in sharing and participating in collaborative approaches to learning.  Technology is changing the way we think, teach and learn.   It is providing the children with opportunities like never before. It is up to us to engage with, manage and ultimately embrace these opportunities.

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Why blog?

The educational landscape is constantly shifting.   We live in a time of continuous change where the boundaries between home and school are blurred and where the gap between formal and informal learning is closing.   Learning doesn’t finish at the end of the school day, nor does its reach extend only as far as the school gate.   Learning happens anywhere, at anytime and this has never been more apparent than now.

 The traditional models of education and professional development have been ripe for a change for some time but with the advent of web 2.0 technology, such ambition can become a reality.   The opportunity to work on what you want, when you want, where you want and with whom you want is now a possibility.   Online educational forums provide round the clock access, freeing us from the constraints of time and space.   Blogging enables me to share my thoughts on a huge raft of educational issues; it allows me to engage with other educators from around the globe, wherever I am and whenever I want. It provides me with a space for educational thinking and dialogue and a fitting vehicle for keeping a log of my ideas, reflections, musings and deliberations.     

 So much of the school day is given over to operational work, to maintenance rather than development and this can be a constant source of frustration. It is great to be able to sit down and collect my thoughts, to think about the bigger picture and wider educational issues.   Blogging is also a way of relieving the stress one can feel as a headteacher, it provides me with the opportunity to consider in my own time a myriad of matters and to share my thoughts and ideas with peers beyond my immediate group. It helps me keep abreast of international thinking and enables me to see things from a number of different perspectives.

I began my first blog a few years ago; using wordpress I set up smichael920 and later added edthoughts for shorter posts.   These two platforms give me the opportunity to collect my thoughts and share ideas.   Sometimes it’s just good to know that you are not alone in your thinking and what you are doing is supported and greeted with encouragement, backing and a genuine desire to see you do well.   Other educators will feedback and leave comments saying that they have thought about or tried something similar.   People will share their experiences, the difficulties they’ve faced and the challenges they’ve overcome.  We can learn from each other’s journey and the open, online collegiality is hugely beneficial with quick responses from around the world helping to shape new ideas and thinking.  

Last year we had an overhaul of our school blogs and I thought this would be a good time to introduce a Headteacher’s blog to our school community.   It serves a different audience to smichael920 and has enabled me to expand on thoughts, idea and news from our weekly bulletin to parents and carers.   I have found this is a useful way of logging those important events in school and opening up dialogue with the wider community on issues and events that concern them.   I would like to say I set time aside to update this but the reality is it happens where and when I can. That’s the beauty of blogging though; I don’t need to be sat at my desk in order to post an entry!

Blogging, along with the use of twitter and other social media has enabled me to develop a personal learning network that supports and challenges my thinking and links me to likeminded professionals the world over. It would be great to hear how other teachers, principles, headteachers and educators are making use of this fantastic vehicle  

(This post is taken from an article I wrote for Ldr magazine last year)

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Powerful Parental Engagement

‘It takes a community to raise a child.   We are the community, these are our children.’

Nigerian proverb

Research supports what those in education already know – parents‘ influence on learning outcomes can be greater than school influence.   A few years ago I attended a workshop on social capital which confirmed the need to build strong and lasting relationships with parents and families in order to give our children the best possible start in life.  Following this workshop we worked hard to develop our social capital and were ultimately recognised for our efforts with the Parental Engagement Quality Standard from the Schools Network.  We make good use of technology in our work with families but have also developed some very successful ‘non tech’ approaches to ensure we reach out to all our community.

Building an online presence via the school website and blogs has no doubt been of great benefit,  giving families a window on children’s learning and the opportunity to engage like never before.  The website has recently been changed to make it more visually appealing and less text heavy.   We had originally seen the site as a place to put policies and information for parents but most of these were being read less than their paper versions!  In short the website was not engaging parents and families, it may have served as a form of online prospectus for new parents but its use was limited and in need of an overhaul.   We made use of film and our green screen studio to create a virtual tour of the school, the children were heavily involved in filming with uniform being modelled and described rather than simply written about.  The children also described different aspects of the school, writing scripts to run on an auto-cue in the studio.   Links to learning are made and again the children play a great role in promoting the use of platforms such as ‘I am Learning’ which support and complement in class activity.

The blogs have undergone significant change  over the last few years changing from an online social environment run by the children to a class based resource jointly managed by staff and pupils.   Many pupil groups and projects also have blogs to ensure parents have a very clear idea about school residential visits, charity work, assemblies, school and Eco council and much more.   Not only do they know about such group and their work, they can actively get involved, contributing and sharing ideas.   The new approach to blogging has seen their development as a shared learning resource which is having a positive impact on the children’s education.   For many of our children this is significant, having their parents ask about  and share in their learning is incentive enough to see school as important.   For many, their own school days were less than successful and it is easy to transmit their negativity to the children.   Blogging has the potential to enable the children’s work to reach and audience of millions – but it is just that, potential.   It doesn’t happen overnight.   Most importantly for us it has proved to be a method of engaging parents in their children’s learning in a way that counters their own school experiences.

In addition to making good use of technology to support engagement, we have developed a number of other initiatives that have extended our social capital.   One of  the most important decision we made was to fund the position of a Family Support Worker.  We had discussed this idea for some time before we actually had the money to make it a reality.   Julie is not a teacher – a very important factor.   She relates to the parents, the hard to reach families who prior to her appointment would never have engaged with school.  We had always felt we were not doing enough for those children who would arrive without breakfast, with no socks on or the soles of their shoes missing.   We would feed them, find some clothing for them, but we were really just putting a plaster on the problem, not getting to the route of it.   Julie is able to follow up these problems without having to rush off to class after, she makes home visits, signposts additional services, helps fill in forms etc…   She has set up toddlers groups, parenting classes, basic skills workshops and much more.   Most importantly, she has got the parents who need them to turn up!

I have blogged previously about ERIC time and Learning Logs so I won’t say much more here, just reiterate how successful these initiatives have been and continue to be for us.   ERIC (Everyone Reading in Class) time was a way of getting more parents into school.   Many of them were already on the playground by 3.10pm so it was simply about opening the doors 20 minutes before the end of the school day.   The Learning Logs have broken down the barriers many parents felt when faced with rules and regulations around homework, it was about giving them an opportunity to work with their children in creative and expressive ways.   There are no restrictions other than the work cannot extend beyond a double A3 page.   We have found the parents and children love the chance to use fold out panels, envelopes, models, games and other approaches to explore the learning objectives.  In class, staff will make a big fuss of the Learning Logs, they devote time to sharing them and allow the children to talk abut them in detail recognising how important this shared learning is.

We have looked closely at how the curriculum can better support parental engagement and when planning topics staff now ask, ‘how can we involve parents and families in this learning?’   Sometimes it will be inviting them in to a workshop, a series of presentations, an assembly or event at the end of a project.   Other times parents will be involved in the introduction where an initial stimulus is developed.   Their interest at this stage can be so important to the children sustaining theirs throughout the unit of work.   Learning doesn’t just happen when teaching takes place, the more we can do to engage our parents and families the better the chances for our children.

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Beyond the school gates – how technology helps

This year has seen a rise in the use of techology to support learning beyond school. Some of the approaches we have been using for a while at Hawes Side really helped to bridge the home-school gap and the installation of a green screen further supported us in extending learning opportunities. Here are some of this year’s biggest successes in the use of technology to take learning beyond the school gates.

Blogging – this has continued to rise and be utilised to support and share learning. The introduction of staff surgeries and a coaching appoach to its development has obviously helped get everyone on board and it was no mean feat to get all 21 classes up and running! The live blogging this year, from York and Robin Wood, were really powerful and got the parents engaged like never before. They were able to follow their children’s exploits on the two residentials and comment back. The pupils and staff blogged about everything, from the coach journey and what they had for breakfast to the Minster, the Jorvik Centre and much more. Seeing what they were up to and being able to comment back on things as they were happening was a revelation for many. It is now very much a part of how we intend to take blogging forward.

Green Screen – we were fortunate enough this year, to work closely with CMS, a Blackpool media company who fitted us a green screen sudio. We have been meeting with the company regularly to develop the system and now have a great little set up that the children have confidently made excellent use of. There are many examples of how this has helped extend the childen’s learning but my favourite story from the green screen was Emily’s advert. One of our Y6 classes were filming adverts they’d written to support work on persuasive writing. I watched some of them on the class blog and was impressed with Emily’s as she is such a quiet girl and her advert belied this fact! I tweeted out the advert and received a message back from Mr Tobin aka @narthernlad to ask if he could use the advert as a stimulus for his Y3 writing lesson! Emily was delighted when Ian sent pictures back from his class showing them watching her advert and producing their own work based on it! The green screen, and the use of twitter to share learning is certainly something we wil be expanding on in 2012.

 

Web 2.0 – like children in a toy shop we have continued to play with lot of web 2.0 tools and made use of some more than others. Among the favourites in school are wordle and tagxedo, wallwisher, voki, voicethread, photopeach, animoto and prezi. Wallwisher has been used well to link with partner schools around Europe and Australia, to gauge parents views on things and collect their thoughts and ideas. We have used it to ask questions of our partner schools and community and it is a simple and effective way of collating feedback. Dropping our school development plan into wordle was also reassuring as the words learning and children came out the largest!

QR Codes – the children have really enjoyed using QR codes. They stick them on displays to lead viewers to further information, they stick them in their books to link to online content and each class door displays a QR code that leads to ther class blog. Next year we intend to create trails with facts and puzzles around school to make a tour of the site an interactive experience!

School Website – our website is always being developed and this year we have changed a lot of content and its look. Thanks to the green screen we have added video introductions and tours with testimonials from staff and children. We have moved away from a text heavy site that no one really wants to wade through and replaced it with a more fun, interactive and engaging experience. We have woked with a company called Virtualsixty to build what we hope is a more appealing and exciting introduction to the school and more. The use of programmes such as I am Learning ensure that the children and their families are able to extend learning by logging on via the website.

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