Week 4

Read Rosenshine's "Principles of Instruction." Rosenshine believes that there are 10 key principles of instruction. List the 10 principles and make notes on each of them.

1. Daily Review - Daily review is an important component of instruction. It helps strengthen the connection between the material learned. It helps automatic recalls and frees working memory for problem solving and creativity.

2. New Materials In Small Groups - Our working memory is small only handling a few bits of information at once. Avoid its overload - present new information in small steps and then only move forward once each small group has been mastered.

3. Ask Questions - Some of the most successful teachers in the world spend a lot of time in each lesson lecturing, demonstrating and asking questions. By doing this they allow the teacher to determine how well the material is learned.

4. Provide Models - Students need cognitive support to help them learn how to solve problems. Creating models, showing worked examples and having teachers think out loud can all help to clarify the specific steps involved.

5. Guide Student Practice - Students need additional time to rephrase, elaborate and summarise new material in order to eventually store it in their long term memory. The most successful teachers build in time for this in their lessons.

6. Check Student Understanding - Often in classrooms a teacher request of "Are there any questions?" is met with a cacophony of silence and it is assumed that this means there are no problems. This is not the case and the best teachers will check on all students.

7. Obtain High Success Rate - A success rate of around 80% has been found to be optimal, showing students are learning whilst they are also being challenged. Better teachers teach in smaller steps followed by practice.

8. Scaffolds For Difficult Tasks - Scaffolds are temporary support to assist pupil learning. They can include things like modelling, teachers articulating their thoughts out loud, cue cards and checklists. They are part of cognitive apprenticeship.

9. Independent Practice - Independent practice produces 'overlearning' which is a necessary process for new material to be recalled automatically. This ensures no overloading of students working memory.

10.  Weekly and Monthly Review - The effort involved in recalling recently learned material embeds it into long-term memory. The more often this happens, then easier it is to connect new material to prior knowledge.

How could a school enhance science learning, e.g. LOtC, Forest School, external visitors?

A school could build on the ideas that pupils bring to lessons. Research suggests that because young people encounter aspects of science all the time through their sensory experiences and social interactions, it is important to be aware of the preconceptions they bring into lessons.

Some of these may not be scientifically accurate, so teachers need to provide evidence that help pupils change their thinking. This should be done over time with more than one example, and the classroom should be a space where pupils can discuss ideas with about being worried about getting things wrong. Use practical work as part of a learning sequence. Practical science is one of the best ways to engage pupils and help improve their understanding of theory, the report says. When carrying out practical work, teachers should explain why they have chosen to do it and what they hope to achieve. The practical activity should fit into a wider sequence of activities, rather than being a stand-alone event.

Forest schools have proven very effective for enhancing Science learning. This involves the children being outdoors for the whole day. They experience outdoor life surrounded by nature everyday. This develops their sense of awareness, they have a broader knowledge of habitats, how whether effects the outdoors and how to survive outside. Statistics show that science results are strong within forest schools.

At your school, investigate: how the school enhances science learning, examples of children's work and examples of "working scientifically." Use the school website as a starting point.

Live session notes : 

Computing Tuesday 1:30

Behaviour management - they are not using laptops. They are listening to the teacher. 

The teacher is using key terminology such as 'input' and 'output'

The teacher is always setting time limits for the mini plenaries to maintain a focused and productive lesson. 

Many key targeted questions are used to motivate and challenge children's learning 

You could argue that using and recapping terminology constantly is a attempt to overlearn and master each concept to allow new things to be learned 

Scaffolding the children by showing them how to do it and the children replicating this 

Strengthening learning independence by not telling them what every single selection and variable does, but letting them explore and learn  

It seems like PRIMM has been used in previous lessons. the children are now up to the final M 

Enlargement which is a type of transformation. It doesn't come up in Primary curriculum but does a secondary level

Science

Children should be able to observe over time, pattern seek, identify, classify and group, research using secondary resources and use comparative data and fair testing.

Top Tips

• Avoid Twinkl

• Don't always provide tables for them to record information into especially year 3 +

• Be creative

• Don't be scared of going off plan - use children's question to lead you off in a different direction

•  Be aware of what children already know - think of alternative scientific enquiries to take them in a different direction.

• Stick with your year groups knowledge and skills, do not be tempted to dip into other year groups to extend - we need to show progress in our books

• Longitudinal studies/topics eg. seasonal change needs to be looked at regularly with identified features that can be observed and compared at each stage.

• Be aware of year group expectations for maths

Behaviour Policies

Low level disruption

• Playing with equipment

• Swinging on chairs

• Turning around

• Shouting out

Non verbal techniques 

• Removing something from the child (whilst still talking)

• Gestures - ie tapping on the table/pointing

• Eye contact/facial expressions

• Pausing for a moment

• Raising voice slightly/changing the tone

• Space - movement around the school

Nicol Mere Behaviour Policy (updated 2020)  - Behaviour File

• Each class has a behaviour file. The file contains records of incidents of behaviour for each individual child.

• The file is passed up to the following year group in September so that a paper trial of behaviour for particular children can be monitored.

• At the end of each term, each child in the behaviour file is reviewed to see if there are any issues that need picking up on.

• Behaviour logged in this is the higher level incidents and not low level disruptions, although these should not be ignored if they become consistent.