12 Highlights of the old year and 13 aims for the new one

Although I feel like making a list of things I'd rather leave behind in 2012 (a rotten year in many ways), I'm going to join in and do the healthier approach and stick to the good...

1. RSC Courtyard Theatre

My version of 'As You Like It' was chosen to be part of the RSC Open Stages regional Showcase. As it was several months after the original run, not all the original cast were available, so I also got to do 'All the world's a stage' at the Courtyard Theatre in Stratford too, filling in for Jaques. With a little stretch of the imagination I can now say I've acted and directed for the RSC!

2. Pride and Prejudice

The first event inspired me to audition for the Crescent Theatre in Birmingham, and I was cast as Charlotte Lucas in 'Pride and Prejudice'. The whole cast was just lovely and it is great to have a hobby completely separate to teaching with energetic and creative people. It also means we have been to the theatre a couple of times a month this year. No longer can I moan about going to the theatre more often!



3. Holidays at half-term

Normally half-term is saved for what I term 'Human MOT' - dentist, hairdresser, eye test, etc. This year we went to Lanzarote in October and lay in the sun. I think it was the only thing that got me through to Christmas. Definitely going for a dose of sun same time next year.

4. I lost my Grandad this year

The low point of the year. However, the stories of his teaching days at the funeral were very special to me. He was a firm believer in being a personality in the classroom and, as far as I am concerned, he was stand-up comedy's biggest loss. Deadpan Lancastrian wit in bucket loads. My favourite anecdote had to be about the briefcase he carried every day with him to school. Outwardly the image of the consummate professional, but actually it contained nothing except 3 perfectly packed pipes, wrapped up and ready for smoking - one at break, one at lunch and one after school.

5. Having a form again

After a couple of years without one, I actually asked for a form again this year. I really missed it and was sick of people saying, 'It's all right for you, you don't have a form' and the like. Working with a form is a privilege. Without one I didn't feel part of the school - you miss out on messages, you get tagged on to challenge days as a spare part and, most importantly, you miss working with kids on a very different level.

My form are already very special to me. They are not an easy bunch as they are Y11 and underachieving G&T students. In one term we've had an overdose, dangerous sexual activity, cyber bullying (and the more upfront, in your face kind), harassment of staff, a stunt involving an aerosol and a Bunsen burner and I could go on... But they have also made me very proud. We have gone from being the self-proclaimed 'reject form' to getting fully involved in baking cakes for CIN, collecting food for the homeless and creating a life sized advent fireplace with acts of kindness to be done on each day. I have also had the privilege of one students showing me photos of his Grandad the day before his funeral. One of the most important conversations I've had this year.

6. Cats

We did the bad thing last year and got cats for Christmas. So much more humour and lots of extra cuddles now.



7. Ofsted

So glad they came at last. I hate the ever-increasing pressure when you know they are due. The general feeling in the staffroom was, 'Bring it on!' But, as an AST, you are under enormous pressure to get an 'Outstanding' judgement. There has been much talk of how the Ofsted criteria has changed. I just did what I know works. In fact, I did a version of a lesson I did last time they came which was judged 'outstanding' and it got the same this time around too.

8. Working outside of the Department

One aspect of my job that has really developed this year is working outside of English. I redesigned the observation lesson plan last year (so that progress is at the core of it) and that meant doing joint planning and CPD with departments and colleagues across the school. Since September, several colleagues I have worked with have moved to Good and that is a a great feeling. Although most of the credit should go to @charlhere for 97% of lessons observed by Ofsted as 'Good' or 'Outstanding', I like to think I contributed in part too.

9. Olympics

No list of 2012 would be complete without a mention of the Olympics. I loved it. A fortnight of drama, tension and screaming at the telly like a nutter!


10. Twitter

So many people doing this have already mentioned Twitter. I like to be original, but can't here. Starting a blog and getting positive feedback, trialling SOLO and Marginal Gains, moral support when Ofsted descended, ending up on the Tweachers map - all little highlights in their own way. It has been said so many times but it really is the best CPD I have ever had. There are so many inspirational people on here who deserve thanks, that I'm not going to list them but you can always look at who I'm following!

11. Good food, good books and good friends.

And finally (well done for sticking with it)...

12. My boyfriend
Who is the highlight of my year.

(Thankfully much shorter) aims for the coming year:

1. Lose the stone

About 4 years ago I lost 2 1/2 stone. Over the last year, I've put about a stone back on (I blame points 11 and 12 above).

2. Spend more time with friends/family

Not waiting until holidays to get around to doing this!

3. Blog

I was doing this once a week, need to get back to at least once a fortnight.

4. Work more with other teachers

This makes me happy. Never stop learning. Via Twitter, or in my school it keeps the job interesting. Would like to meet some of the people I follow in person this year.

5. Survive GCSE fiasco

I'm currently teaching 4 GCSE groups who all do their GCSE English this year. They are not all doing the same GCSE though. Two are doing iGCSE with cwk, one is doing iGCSE with exam and AQA English and the last is doing AQA English Language and Literature!


6. Holidays

I love travel and having a trip to look forward to me keeps me sane.


7. Stop imagining, start doing (and finishing)


8. Remodel my lounge

I'm an English teacher. I have books. My boyfriend is doing an English degree. He has books. We don't have space. The idea is to turn the unused room at the front of the house into a library. Then we'll need a conservatory, billiard room, lead piping and a candlestick (see point 7).

9. Art projects

I need to rediscover my artistic side. The spare room is filled with (unfinished) arts and crafts.

10. Get on top of marking

There must be a way. Before the holiday I was faced with the equivalent of 200 essays that needed marking. I have a tendency to wait until I have a complete set and then mark it in one long sitting. This might be a habit that needs breaking.

11. Avoid doing graded observations

One of the things I think is really important in the AST role is that observations are developmental, rather than judgemental. My favourite compliment this year was from a colleague who requested an observation. She said, 'With you it's not like you're being judged. It's more like advice from a friend'. I've worked hard to establish that feeling and I'm worried that the minute I am made to grade lessons, colleagues will be reluctant to invite me in to their classrooms.

12. Do an MA

I've found one that combines my love of teaching and Shakespeare. Just not sure I can find the time!


13. Make more 'Feel good Friday' phone-calls

Every Friday, pick a student who has particularly impressed you that week and phone home. The responses are priceless (especially from those parents who usually only get bad news from school). It is a brilliant way to start the weekend and I don't do it nearly often enough.

Marginal Marking Gains

This is a follow up to a previous blog on Marginal Gains, so if you haven't read that one, you can find it here.
After looking at the marking criteria for the King Lear essay, and adding a few other things I find useful like SOLO and 'golden quotations', we created this:




The natural successor to this lesson was inspired by my love of felt-tips. Banking on all of Y13 actually doing their homework for the first time in over a year, it was a bit of a gamble, but one that miraculously paid off. However, my shock at every one of them completing their assignment was short lived. Predictably, despite their initial enthusiasm and contributions to the idea of marginal gains in the first place, when I asked if anyone had actually used the wheel to plan/check/improve their essay, the answer was a resounding...




So, the task was to peer assess using the wheels. Sometimes peer assessment can lack focus, here it really did not. Not only did they enjoy this (few students can resist the lure of multicoloured ink) but the responses were really perceptive. The idea is dead simple: using the colours of the wheel for your feedback, highlight strengths and write marginal gains targets on a partner's work.




After swapping essays a couple of times, students then had to act on the feedback in green pen. This is a whole-school policy designed to show students responding to feedback and showing progress. It too is a really simple tweak and works very well at every level, creating a clear learning dialogue between students and teacher (or student and student in this case).




Of course, one of the advantages of well directed peer assessment is that as a teacher you don't have to mark it yourself, and yet the students are still making progress. In this case, it was very clear to students where their strengths lay and where improvements were needed.

So much marking is very time consuming and then not acted upon. Frequently you find yourself writing the same thing on essay after essay (year after year). Well, another slight adjustment you can make to ensure students are acting on your feedback is not marking the actual essays themselves. If you jot down the comments, questions and targets on a separate piece of paper then you don't have to repeat anything. When you have finished marking, you give the essays back along with the feedback and the students have to work out which bits of feedback belong to each essay.

Gains all round. Teacher does less work, students do more. Students engage with the feedback and also get far more feedback than you would write on one essay because they are reading everyone's feedback, not just their own.

Batman and Robin CPD

Last year, I was given responsibility for CPD in English. Now we are lucky, every Wednesday afternoon, the students go home early and we have CPD from 2pm. This means there is an opportunity to use lots of different approaches to staff development. By far my favourite from last year was what we called 'Batman and Robin'.

My biggest problem with CPD is that, usually, you spend your time being lectured to and staring at a PowerPoint you are quite capable of going away and reading yourself. The irony smacks you over the head. Someone comes to speak to you about engaging students and they use a PowerPoint. Someone talks to you about group work and you are sat in rows. Someone talks to you about the value of talk in the classroom... they talk AT you.

The second problem I have is the 'one size fits all' approach. Having the enthusiastic NQT Maths teacher sat with the 30 year seen-it-all-before from the History department doesn't really seem to make the best sense to me most of the time.
We know that students learn best when they understand the point in an activity, they have some control over what they are doing and they can become masters of their own progress. Teachers are no different. This is where 'Batman and Robin' comes in.




The idea is that everyone in the department becomes a 'Batman'. Their strengths in a particular area are highlighted and then someone else, who would like to develop that area, volunteers to be the 'Robin'. They work together for about a four week period investigating, peer observing, researching, etc. At the end, they have a CPD slot of about 30 mins to teach the rest of the department. The areas chosen were things like: starts of lessons, using IT, showing progress, using AfL, teacher talk, differentiation and questioning.

This works extremely well. People feel good about being recognised for their talents. Here, everyone is. This in turn means you are more likely to volunteer to be a Robin to learn from someone else. Because you can choose the area, it tends to be one you think is important to for you to develop and, therefore, something you are motivated towards doing. In this case, nearly everyone volunteered to be a Robin in an area that directly related to targets from their PM observations. Finally, because there is the responsibility of feeding back to the rest of the department, the need to produce something of quality is also a driving force.

My favourite thing about it was that, rather than being talked at, nearly all the feedback sessions were based around modelling techniques and strategies you could take away and use the next day in the classroom. Because you get a chance to see them in action, you are much more likely to go away and use them. My measure of really good CPD.

Motivating underachieving boys

Tackling underachieving boys head on for the last 14 weeks of their time in Year 11 was not a prospect that filled me with joy, in fact I actually had nightmares about it. However, not one to back down from a challenge, I decided to have a serious think about how I was going to approach this group. Clearly, things were not working for them as it was, and more of the same was going to have no effect whatsoever.

The group was carefully selected. It had to be students who we thought had the chance to pass based on coursework and what we knew of their ability, but were underachieving by a grade or more from their mock exam or had failed early entry in November. I ended up with 16 boys: mostly disaffected, three on the verge of permanent exclusion and, all bar Ashley, a foot bigger than me.

The first thing I did was to let them know they were the most important group in the school, that they were my priority and that their achievement made a difference (they took some convincing). Self-esteem was rock bottom, so I then organised the group into 4 teams. Points would be awarded at the end of every lesson for things like homework, attending revision sessions, impressive answers to questions, and most crucially, work of a C grade standard and above. The winning team received a prize each week and the best student got a positive Friday phone call home and their name in a big star at the front of the room.

I was a bit nervous about this approach at first, but after Week 1, when Dwayne won, a group huddled around the board.

‘We don’t like that miss.’
‘What?’
‘Dwayne's name in a big star.’
‘What you going to do about it then?’

The answer was obvious and over whole 14 week period, 10 of the 16 won student of the week without (very much) fixing.

The other crucial thing was to introduce a zero tolerance approach. I work in a pretty average comprehensive, so behaviour can be challenging, but students are rarely aggressive towards staff. We have a 'Discipline for Learning' system which works on a series of warnings and consequences. I sold it along the lines of: ‘I’m not wasting time giving out warnings; if you are using up my energy to tell you off, instead of letting me teach then you’ll be out of the door.’ A few lessons in, Joe decided to push the boundaries, attention seeking and answering back -out he went immediately. The look of shock on his face was a picture, but the effect on the others was astonishing. They knew I was serious, and throughout the whole 14 weeks, I only gave 3 warnings total. This was one of the most astonishing things about the lessons, before the group was put together, I would have expected only 3 warnings per lesson to have been an achievement!

Perhaps part of this might have been down to a shift in attitude I had to make too. Approximately half the group were from a black African, or black Afro-Caribbean background. Before I started teaching the group, I did some research on teaching strategies specifically aimed at boys, and black boys in particular. Lots of the advice I found was basically what I consider to be good teaching anyway: a range of activities, competition (with themselves as much as each other), some visual and kinaesthetic approaches, clear time limits, clear success criteria and clear sanctions and rewards.

However, one thing I read really stuck with me from Dr Jawanza Kunjufu. Apparently, one of the reasons for black students frequently getting into trouble for low-level disruption comes from the way families communicate at home. It is not infrequent for families from Afro-Caribbean families in particular to speak at the same time in conversation. This means they develop the skill to process and understand many voices at the same time.




This really struck home. I have a teacher-habit of asking students to repeat what has just been said if I think someone isn't listening. Just the other day, Dwayne had managed to repeat it back word for word, despite having another conversation at the same time. My middle-class, white expectations were that if you are listening, you can't talk at the same time. In my world it was good manners too. The classroom can't function if everyone shouts out and talks at once, so not seeing that kind of behaviour as deliberate disruption, bad manners, or defiance is quite difficult. But the minute I was able to understand my values are not necessarily shared, I was able to react to and handle this behaviour much more successfully.

The impact of my change of mindset, competition and rewards they really valued improved behaviour no end, but my concern was still that I had to get as many of these boys to pass as possible. I went back to the exam and basically took the questions apart. Lessons involved short bursts of activity following a very similar format:

• Focus on one question type.
• What does it mean?
• How do you answer it?
• Write a model answer together.
• Identify the key words to use in an answer linked to a C/B grade.
• Same question type, different text, timed answer in silence.

They responded brilliantly to this focused routine and the marks began to climb. Every week, after we had done a section of the exam, I showed them how their improvement was affecting their overall grade and where they still needed to focus using a traffic light system on a spreadsheet.

The other aspect of lessons which they really enjoyed was taking over control of the display. I gave them the entire back wall of the room to turn onto a learning display.
They had to co-operate as a class and in their groups. Nothing could go on the wall until the value of it had been explained and the group agreed it was worthy of display. They decided that the focus had to be the language, vocabulary and structure of answers and then set about finding their own examples. One group even decided to write their own D and C grade answers from scratch and then annotate them showing the differences.

Far from being the group I had nightmares about, they became the group I really looked forward to teaching.

The proof of the pudding, however, is in the eating. What you really want to know is whether it had any impact on results. Well, it would be lovely to have a fairytale ending where they all got C grades, and I had a film made about me, but there is only so much you can do in 14 weeks. I am really proud of the fact that my bunch of underachievers all improved significantly from their November exams, all got a D grade or above, 7 got their C grade (another 2 missing it by less than 5 marks), 7 achieved their UQ and 1 exceeded it by a level.

Perhaps the closest I've come to an 'O Captain! My Captain!' moment was when several came back to see me to say thank you :)

Marginal Gains

INSANITY DEFINED: Doing the Same Old Things & Expecting Different Results

Totally inspired by @fullonlearning on Monday night, I decided to ditch introducing King Lear to Y13 on Tuesday and do a lesson on bicycles instead. Well... not literally.

If you haven't read her posts about 'marginal gains', you should probably stop reading this and read those first. They are much better.

I wasn't entirely sure what I was going to do, but turned up armed with outlines of wheels and two online articles to hopefully inspire the students to think about how to apply the idea of marginal gains and improve their grades. The first was one of many on the success of the British cycling team at the Olympics:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/olympics/19174302 the second on marginal gains in everyday life: http://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/london-life/sleeker-richer-faster-happier-how-marginal-gains-can-change-your-life-8045909.html . I gave them to the students to read and then asked them to apply this idea to themselves. It was an ideal time for the group to be thinking about this approach. They had got respectable results at AS, but on the whole are not producing the work I know they are capable of due to an inability to do homework and meet deadlines!

Working with the idea that 'if you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got', I gave them an example of how I had used marginal gains myself. Thoroughly jealous of a friend of mine who always has an impeccably tidy house, I asked her how she found the time to keep everything so neat. She told me her secret: advert breaks. Whenever the advert breaks come on the telly, do a job. Put something away, clean the shower, bleach the loo -it all adds up. She was right. Our house soon turned into a veritable palace... for about 3 weeks until we reverted to our old, advert-watching ways again...

Anyway, the students each came up with ways to improve their approach to their studies. They were far better than anything I could have prepared to tell them, as each was tailored to their own personality, interests and needs.

Danni's suggestion: Write your essay on Day 1. Day 2 look at structure. Day 3 look at spelling. Day 4 punctuation. Day 5 vocabulary, etc. She felt it would be easier to make marginal gains breaking down the focus for redrafting.

Jordan's suggestion: Cut X-box habit of 1 hour 30 mins a day (I suspect it is much more) by 10 mins to release 70 mins extra a week to spend reading.

Brandon's suggestion: Walk to the station instead of getting the bus. He felt this would help him get some exercise to improve sleep and concentration, and also enable him to listen to King Lear on his headphones at the same time.

Lisa's suggestion: Download a newspaper app to her phone to expand her general knowledge.

I added arriving at lessons on time...

They were also really interested in other things the articles mentioned: eating sensibly, sleeping properly, and having the right equipment. They admitted these things weren't easy to do, but understood that the point of a marginal gain was that it didn't have to be something huge. A small decrease in the negative things that they did, which created barriers to achievement, could be mirrored by small increases in the positive things. Like drinking less alcohol and more water! They even pulled out from the article the idea of washing your hands properly so you get ill less often. As Libby said, "Every day you miss off school, is 6 hours of learning".

Perhaps the most interesting thing they started thinking about was what we termed 'dead time'. Where could you find 10, 20, or 30 mins where you could do something productive and not miss out on other things. They had all sorts of ideas from reading in the bath to recording lessons and listening back to them on the bus. Most couldn't really account for the period after they got home and before tea, and so left determined to use it more productively.

Once they had some suggestions, we collected the ideas in pairs on the wheels. One for general study skills:

And one for English specific gains:

This second one was less successful than I'd hoped, so we went back to the exam we are preparing for (bearing in mind we haven't started the play yet!). I got out copies of the question and mark scheme and together we produced a wheel that showed all the different areas marginal gains could be made as they prepare for the exam:

So, that's as far as we've got. I'm thinking about adding something which shows progression up each spoke so students can track their progress when they get essay feedback, maybe A-E grade skills. That way we have a starting point for looking at each aspect and how to improve.

GCSE English - what went wrong?

I have worked harder this year with my English GCSE groups than ever before, so it hurts that the results are not what I'd hoped for. As a department we did numerous interventions, changed groups, put on extra classes, pulled students from other subjects and generally made ourselves unpopular!

It didn't work.

Now, it could be that we got it wrong, the quality of teaching is to blame, but if that is the case, it seems a bit odd. Our department staffing hasn't changed; it has 2 ASTs, the kids are roughly the same ability as previous cohorts. That doesn't explain the sudden downturn to my satisfaction.

So what IS new?

Well, the course changed. That means several interesting factors beyond our control come into play:

http://www.ofqual.gov.uk/files/2012-05-09-maintaining-standards-in-summer-2012.pdf?Itemid=144

The above link explains how, when changing from one type of GCSE to another, in the first year, they set out to achieve 'comparable outcomes'. This suggests that there is a quota for this year's exams based on last year's results.

No problem, you would think. We should have got the same results as last year then. Seems fair.

Not at all.

And for the main reason: January entry.

You will have noticed the huge differences in the C grade boundary between January and June. On Unit 1 it is 10 marks different, and on Unit 2 and 3, 3 marks each (16 marks in total). So, basically, it was a LOT easier to get a C in January.

And, looking at the papers we got back from January, I was amazed that some of our students had been awarded a C after producing work well below the standard I would expect from previous years. Some of those students re-sat in June, got higher marks on the paper, but lower grades overall. How do you explain that one to angry parents and upset kids? Did AQA Pass too many students in January? Were the boundaries far too low? If they did, and they had a quota to work to, then it would explain why it was so much harder to pass in the summer.

Of course, what makes this whole thing ridiculous is that students who are more able than others have lower grades because they were entered in June and not January! It makes a mockery of the whole thing. A system supposed to be fair is exactly the opposite.

This is speculation of course, but if the schools who have dropped 10% or so waited until the end to enter their kids it would make sense. We did some and some. There are students with D grades who got better marks than some who got Cs. How can that be allowed to happen?


Schools are hardly going to request a re-mark to move their students down, exam boards are not going to remove Cs from January in order for students to receive the grades they actually deserve for the standard of work, so I guess we are stuck with what we've got.

Of course, the other significant problem teachers have faced with the new course is not knowing where the boundaries were for CA. AQA support meetings told us more than once that a C would be 'somewhere in Band 3'. Most people thought that meant a folder of 8s and 9s would be good enough. In January it was. Not even close in June! To scrape a C in Unit 2 you needed 9, 9, 10. That is not really 'somewhere in Band 3', is it?

When the results were published in January, we felt a bit more secure. Now we knew where the goal posts were. Or so we thought. I wanted to play it safe and aimed a little higher before thinking my students were ok to stop sitting new CAs. Unfortunately, I was way too conservative in my predictions of how far the boundaries would change. We now have the awful situation of having students who thought they were on a C based on January grades ending up with Ds. Fortunately, I'm not stupid enough to make any promises about final grades, but it still stings when you know the individual students behind the headline statistics.

So, why did the boundaries change so much?

Everyone else was working just as hard as we were -interventions, extra classes, changing groups! Teachers moved the boundaries higher by 'playing it safe'. If there is a quota of C+ grades, rather than a quality standard, then ironically, we should all agree to work less and the results would stay the same. However, if you 'know' 25 is the minimum for a C in Unit 2, then you aren't going to stop pushing kids until they have 26, or 27. Just to be sure... you know. If everyone does that, the boundary has to move.

This could explain the Speaking and Listening increase in particular- how easy is it to shift those CA marks up one or two? Our Speaking and Listening marks are below other schools. If you met our kids, you'd know how ridiculous that is. We clearly did not over-reward our students!

So, does any of this stop me thinking there was something else I could have done? Does it stop me feeling gutted for those kids we thought were safe who missed their C by 1 or 2 marks?

No, of course it doesn't. I'm a teacher.

It also won't stop me from pushing those boundaries higher next year by doing everything I can to help my new Y11s. God help them!

SOLO and Teenage Voice

So the proof of the pudding...
Commissions:
A national project – C21st UK - wishes to collect from young people writing which reflects life in the UK in the C21st. Your writing should focus on aspects of young people’s lives which you feel are important. You can choose the form of the writing e.g. journalism or narrative.












Not satisfied with the pressure of having to prove my new lesson plan works, I decided to have my PM observation on a Friday afternoon and also have my first observation using SOLO taxonomy... oh yeah... and it was videoed.
So, here is the plan (names of students have been changed):




The resources were:

Extracts from the books above (it is actually possible to find bits that are not too graphic!)
SPLIT the text worksheets (Structure, Patterns, Language, Imagery, Themes)
A student response
Venn diagram comparison thinking tool (each circle represents a text)
A1 sugar paper and felt-tip pens
SOLO display and post-it notes

Students showed their progression at the start, middle and end of the lesson by moving their post-it. I questioned target students (identified on the plan) about their choices and also students who felt they did not want to move. By the end of the lesson, it looked like this:




At the start no one had put themselves beyond multi-structural. An student absent from the previous lesson was able to show progression from pre-structural to extended abstract thinking!
And here is the feedback: