Week 6

Week 6 Tasks:

• In your school, investigate one foundation subject History:

• Look at the school’s long-term plans from Reception to Year 6 to identify progression

  • At Nicol Mere they have a curriculum map which has the content that needs to be taught in each year group e.g. Year 1 need to be taught about the changes within living memory which reveal aspects of change in national life; HOMES FROM THE PAST and when it should be taught such as Autumn, Spring & Summer

• What resources are currently used to support teaching in this subject?

  • Classroom displays

  • Old models/artefacts

Look at any existing sequences of plans that are available

• How is technology used in this subject?

  • Making posters for the children to have in their books

  • Designing the classroom displays

• Consider how you could develop your subject knowledge in this area in the future.

  • Workshops

  • Guest speakers/Historians

  • Subject Leads

  • CPD training

• Then, collectively plan a sequence of Foundation lessons, one of which will be delivered by a class teacher. Use the Edge Hill Primary Principles of Planning to support you - History Follow Up Lesson

Questions:

1. What are the 5 principles for planning that OfSTED identify that should help teachers to manage workload if they are followed? Make notes on each of them.

• Marking: 

  • In Wigan 15 schools looked at reducing workload by carrying out the recommendations of the indepth review. 

  • Highlighting learning objectives

  • Using marking codes

• Planning:

  • It is needed/valuable

  • Planning can be in any form - written/typed etc.

  • Underpins effective teaching

  • Creating detailed written plans can become a ‘box-ticking’ exercise and create unnecessary workload

  • Schools should spend time planning collaboratively and engage with a professional body of knowledge and quality assured resources

  • Greater flexibility to accommodate different subject and phase demands

• Appraisal:

  • Set targets at the start of year

  • Slots throughout year to observe and ensure your meeting targets

• Data:

  • Throughout the year you assess children and produce data to pass onto SLT

  • Not the teacher's job to manipulate data and work at a percentage this is up to SLT.

• NQT Support:

  • 
    

2. What are the recommendations for teachers to help manage planning workload? 

• SLT should ensure there is ongoing work to develop a shared understanding of effective teaching to inform planning, underpinned by effective continuous professional development. 

• SLT should not automatically require the same planning format across the school. 

• SLT should review demands made on teachers in relation to planning to ensure that minimum requirements to be effective are made. Where more intensive plans are needed for pedagogical reasons, a review date is set.

• Senior and middle leaders should ensure, as a default expectation that a fully resourced, collaboratively produced, scheme of work is in place for all teachers for the start of each term. 

• Senior and middle leaders should make clear who will be planning new schemes of work and associated resources, what time they will have available to do so, and how this will be made available to all staff in a timely fashion.

• SLT should ensure that the highest quality resources are available, valuing professionally produced resources as much as those created in-house. 

• SLT should consider aggregating PPA into units of time which allow for substantial planning. 

• SLT should work with the middle and subject leaders to identify alternative ways to evidence ‘effective teaching and planning’, emphasising teacher development. 

• Subject and phase leaders should lead discussions on quality assurance with SLT/governors to help them understand where a subject - or phase- specific approach may be most appropriate - and why the volume of paper plans may be an inadequate proxy.

• Teachers should engage in collaborative planning to develop their skills and knowledge, to share their expertise, and to benefit from the expertise of their peers.

• Teachers should consider the use of externally produced and quality assured resources, such as textbooks or teacher guides. 

Summary of the Article - 

1. Teachers spend an undue amount of time planning and resourcing lessons, and there are clear measures that should be taken by Government, Ofsted, schools, and teachers to lessen this burden.

2. Planning is critical and underpins effective teaching, playing an important role in shaping students’ understanding and progression. It is the area of work where teachers can bring their passion for a subject and their desire to make a difference together.

3. There is a key distinction between the daily lesson plan and lesson planning. Too often, ‘planning’ refers to the production of daily written lesson plans which function as proxy evidence for an accountability ‘paper trail’ rather than the process of effective planning for pupil progress and attainment.

4. Creating detailed plans can become a ‘box-ticking’ exercise and create unnecessary workload for teachers, taking time away from the real business of planning, whilst offering ‘false comfort’ of purpose. These burdensome and unhelpful practices have arisen due to the real and perceived demands made by Government and Ofsted, and how school leaders and teachers have reacted to them.

5. School leaders should evaluate how they view planning in their school. All leaders have a key role in ensuring the availability of fully-resourced collaboratively developed schemes of work. Once these are in place, and individual teachers understand the ‘what’ and ‘why’ of the curriculum, they can be freed to teach in a way that best suits their professional judgement and experience. Access to good quality schemes of work should reduce workload rather than create it.

6. This can only happen if the Government and its agencies commit to sufficient lead-in times for changes for which the sector will have to undertake significant planning to implement. This includes releasing relevant materials in good time.

7. High quality resources, including textbooks, can support teaching, reduce workload by teachers not having to ‘reinvent the wheel’, and ensure high expectations of the content of lessons and conceptual knowledge.

8.  We recognised that there are cultural issues at play which should be challenged.

We heard that much time is spent searching for ‘silver bullet’ resources, and this can be

seen as a proxy for the development of effective sequences of lessons. This time could

be more effectively spent in collaborative planning, and engaging with a professional body of knowledge and quality-assured resources that can be shaped to specific classroom contexts. This time needs to be valued by school leaders.

Forest and eco schools:

Schemas and self actualisation

Piaget ' a pattern of repeatable behaviour into which experiences are assimilated and that are gradually coordinated. Co-ordinations lead to higher level and more powerful schemas'

Typical session:

• Getting changes

• listening game

• stop and think

• teach ,skill ,activity or launch a new area

• play

• food

• play

• reflection