Practice makes permanent: our first lesson back our first lesson back

Can I be bothered?

Let’s focus on this for a moment

A full day of teaching, lunch duty in the rain, you have to deal with an incident during the one break you have to use the loo, a looming pile of unmarked assessments that has followed you over half term break and now you have to do this thing that will improve checking for understanding in your lessons? Given everything else you have to do, sometimes (or often), you can’t be bothered

I totally get it The thing is though, no matter how long we do the job, the challenges we face in the classroom won’t improve unless we confront them We know that expertise doesn’t necessarily lie in years of experience: we become ‘novices’ in new contexts For example, think about when you had to teach in a new classroom, teach an unfamiliar topic, take on a new class, come back from a school holiday and teach sleep deprived ,suddenly amnesic teenagers we know the struggles too well!

In Kennedy’s (2015) fascinating paper, Parsing the practice of teaching, we learn that whatever our experience or context, every single one of us will face the following ‘persistent challenges’ in teaching:

• Portraying the curriculum

• Enlisting student participation

• Exposing student thinking

• Containing student behaviour

• Accommodating personal needs

Often, one challenge will feed into more challenges! For example, if you don’t contain student behaviour, you will struggle to portray the curriculum, enlist student participation and expose student thinking

Kennedy argues that we should frame our thinking around these persistent challenges before providing particular teaching strategies as part of our professional development

If we have any hope in tackling these persistent challenges, we need to be bothered!

That’s why, this year, we’re taking ‘rehearsal’ and ‘containing student behaviour’ to a new level as part of our professional development:

The first lesson back

After we rehearse a teaching practice with each other in CPD, the first time we try it out for real, is with our classes What if we had the space to practise these techniques with our students too? What if our students were in on our efforts to perfect particular routines that serve to enhance their learning? This is what we aim to do in our first lesson back.

Excerpt from our first lesson back instructions:

• Your objective: to master the play with your class–focus on this rather than the content of the teaching If this means repeating more than once or twice, do this

• You will see the walkthrough of the play you need to master with your class

• You will be provided with the ‘content’ and questions you will use to execute the play

• The content provided focuses on deliberately teaching our school values. For example, this term’s focus is on having an ‘attitude of gratitude’.

• Share your objective of perfecting the routine with the class so that it is a shared endeavour.

• Repetition to achieve the highest standard is key.

Here’s an excerpt from Feely and Karlin’s ‘The Teaching and Learning Playbook, which I think provides a pretty good ‘why’ behind our first lessons back:

Repetition is powerful because it enables students to immediately compare their latest attempt to their first attempt, and builds a culture in which things can always be done better.

After a break of any kind, we are ALL out of sync a little bit – students and teachers alike. We ALL need a bit of a reset to ensure we don’t forget the small things that make a big difference.

Some potential trade offs:

• We lose one lesson of curriculum time – but the learning time gained as a result of better routines and engagement means this may well be worth it.

• It might feel repetitive and pointless – only if we sell it like that! Remember, we set the tone. No class will do every play absolutely perfectly all of the time – such is the challenge of our jobs!

• Let your students in on the nuances of a routine you want to perfect with them: year 10, that took us exactly 12 seconds to settle down – I’m impressed. But shall we see if we can do it in 10 seconds? I reckon we can… this next round make sure you do the following…’ Your high expectations are key here.

Some benefits:

• An additional ‘safe space’ to perfect crucial teaching routines to enhance learning

• Context specific rehearsal (EEF 2021) – with our students

• It allows us to ‘contain student behaviour’ (Kennedy, 2015)

• There is no pressure to ‘cover the curriculum’

• No planning involved for you –simply intellectually prepare on the provided booklet

• There are limited T&L ‘plays’ so that we have the time to repeat and perfect

• The ‘content’ focuses on deliberately teaching our school values (eg. gratitude)

• The superordinate goal shared by both the teacher and students mean it is more likely to be understood and achieved.

Final thoughts

As with anything we try new, I am keen for your feedback Initial feedback from the start of the year has been overwhelmingly positive This time around, we are fine tuning some of the niggles from the first time Let your T&L lead know how it goes What can we do even better in time for the next ‘first lesson back’?

Remember, if we do this well, every student in your school will be practising instructional and behavioural routines which, because of your high expectations, will mean learning will be immeasurably enhanced, right from day one.

I can’t wait to see it in action