Ramblings from the Chalk Face

STAR In September 2019, we embarked on a new strategy/routine for all teachers to follow when they wanted to gain the attention of all students in the classroom. We launched the TLAC strategy, technique 47 - (STAR) across the school and when STAR is asked for by teachers we expect students to: S - sit up straight T - track the TV, board, teacher A - be answer ready R - respect through silence  This is with the obvious caveat that some students, through individual learning needs, may not be able to follow the 'S' if they have a disability, or the 'T' if they have learning need that means eye contact is difficult.  Knowing the students you teach is critical here.   However, for the vast majority of students, this is a simple acronym to follow, and it sets high expectations around being ready for learning.  The rationale: With 60 staff at the school, it meant 60 slightly different methods of gaining whole-class attention, with some being very effective, and others less so.

I am privileged in my current role, as teaching and learning lead, to visit many lessons, across all subjects each week. We have an open-door, non-judgemental culture that has allowed the focus to be on the development of teaching, rather than the historical lesson observation culture. That process led to some teachers wheeling out the 'Ofsted' lesson when needed, rather than focusing on the diet that students get from classrooms on a daily basis. Luckily, we, as a school, are a long way down the journey of moving away from this historical culture, moving away from judging whether learning has taken place, and moving towards our vision of 'using research-informed practice to support students to learn most effectively over time'. This change of culture has moved us away from seeing students doing, to seeing students learning over time. A tweet I posted on Friday evening on the learning conditions that I see in classrooms where students are working hard saw many replies

I recently posted on Twitter @GeogMarsh  that I was incredibly proud of my two year 10 classes. They had just sat a cumulative assessment on the content taught in year 9 (we do a three year KS4) and had no prior warning that the assessment was taking place. They sat two thirds of a GCSE paper from the Edexcel B SAMS. The two topics were 'Hazardous Earth' and 'Development Dynamics'. Since the start of the this year, we have been using knowledge organisers (KOs) as a home learning strategy across the school. In year 10, they have been revisiting the 'Development Dynamics' topic through weekly KO home learning since September.  All but one student, across two classes that total 58 students, scored higher on the 'Development Dynamics' topic than the 'Hazardous Earth' topic. In most cases the difference was more than 5 marks, over a 30 mark topic. This could be a complete coincidence, and I could have taught 'Development Dynamics' better, h

Changing students' attitude towards learning and building an ethos/culture within a school around this is challenging, especially when trying to change the habitual happenings for a large majority of students, and in most cases, teachers.  The first seven weeks of this academic year has seen a huge focus on embedding strong routines and setting the highest of expectations. We are working to create consistency for students, through creating consistency with certain routines. There have been some really 'quick wins' that have undoubtedly had a positive impact, and have moved us forward with our focus. They all relate to embedded routines or high expectations.  Do it now tasks are now ready for students on entry to the classroom, with the vast majority of these focusing on recapping prior knowledge, or knowledge retrieval overtime. These have created a calm and extremely purposeful start to lessons, and allowed staff to greet students at the door, building positive relat

Over the last few years it has been thoroughly refreshing, absorbing and enthusing to see teachers engaging with research. I have very much been an enthusiastic lurker, reading widely, and learning more and more about the profession. It has been a journey that has improved my teaching, improved student outcomes, and has ensured that I am continually learning. Yesterday, this learning journey took me to Durrington Research School, where I attended my first ResearchEd event alongside a  FHES colleague Emma Hockey . The line up was like the Glastonbury of educational minds and inspiration.  After an engaging keynote presentation by Professor Daniel Muijs, Director of Research at Ofsted, which focused on how to make sense of research evidence, it was off to listen to four presentations across the day, each 50 minutes in length. However, the difficult choice was selecting which session to go to, with six sessions on in each of the time slots. Decisions, decisions!  I decided to go for: