Pedagogical newsletter issue 6 december 12

Hill West Primary School Issue 6, December 2012

Pedagogical Newsletter – December 2012 Wishing you a Merry Christmas

In this issue: Merry Christmas Message

I would like to take this opportunity to wish all of our families a very merry Christmas and a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year in 2013.

Memory Skills ATLP Teaching Approaches BLP Classroom Design Pupil Attainment and Achievement

Reminders: Your chance to tell us what you think - did you return the parent questionnaire?

Children return to school on Tuesday 8th January

Memory Skills There is more to rote learning than repetition and chanting suggested a teacher and memory champion in a recent article of the Times Educational Supplement.

The proposed changes to the National Curriculum in England call on pupils from the age of 5 to be able to recite poetry by heart. By Year 2 pupils will be expected to have built up a repertoire of poems learnt by heart and

recite some of these with intonation. Although this may, at first seem a little archaic, if we cast our minds back to the Year 2 Nativity we can see that children are already able to remember and recite a great deal of text and deliver it with intonation and humour. If we think about the success of our new times tables initiative we can see that rote learning is not necessarily a thing of the past but one important component of successful learning.

ATLP The ATLP (Arthur Terry Learning Partnership) is now well established and the four primary schools and two secondary schools have been meeting regularly to consider the ways in which we can make our schools even better for the families we serve. Although we are converting to Academy Status and will be joining the Arthur Terry Academy Alliance we will retain our own identity and continue to have our

own Local Governing Body. The staff at Hill West are excited about this new development and realise the generative role they will play. The Learning Partnership provides a trusting network not only to support us in the work that we are doing but also to challenge our thinking and vision for the future. I meet once weekly with Chris Stone Executive Head Teacher of the ATLP and find these meetings truly inspirational.

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Glossary of Terms Pedagogy – the craft of teaching ATLP – Arthur Terry Learning Partnership Generative – providing and receiving support for / from others BLP – Building Learning Power EYFS – Early Years Foundation Stage Resilience Being ready, willing and able to lock into learning Reflectiveness Being ready and willing to become more strategic about learning Resourcefulness - Being willing and ready to learn in different ways Reciprocity social relationships.

Learning with others but also choosing sometimes to learn individually

Teaching Approaches The Sutton Trust has created a toolkit which summarises the research evidence on improving learning and attainment to support schools in making informed choices about how to support pupils.

We are currently exploring four of the seven approaches which they found to have the highest impact on pupil achievement. The complete toolkit can be downloaded from http://www.education.gov.uk/schools/pupilsupport/premium/a002004 92/ppstrategies Effective Feedback – this is the process through which pupils understand how well they are doing. It can be written, usually through teacher marking, as well as oral feedback. However, for feedback to effectively raise achievement research has shown that it should be related specifically to learning.

Metacognitive and Self-regulation Strategies – these are classroom approaches which encourage pupils to be award of their own learning, often referred to as learning to learn and linked closely with our work on BLP Peer Tutoring / Peer Assisted Learning – is a range of approaches in which learners work in pairs or small groups to provide each other with explicit teaching support.

Homework – The work that pupils complete out of school. There is some evidence that homework can be an effective intervention in improving attainment by up to five months, although the research suggests that it is much more valuable during the secondary phase of education.

B LP In the developing field of learning to learn, research suggests that there are several broad dispositions that we need to develop in order to become successful life-long learners.

We have adapted these at Hill West and are using them in our learning every day. They can be developed in everyone regardless of current ability or age. There are no limits to extending our learning power.

Professor Guy Claxton suggests that there are four key learning dispositions and it is these four that underpin the Building Learning Power initiative:  Resilience  Reflectiveness  Resourcefulness  Reciprocity

We introduce these dispositions to the children as groups of learning muscles. Just as we can build our physical muscles by the right kind of exercise, we can also exercise our learning muscles to develop strength and stamina. The four dispositions are introduced around 17 capacities.

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Building Learning Power continued…

The 17 Capacities Absorption – being engrossed.

Managing Distractions

– reducing interruptions. Noticing – sensing what's out there. Perseverance – not giving up.

Questioning – asking questions of yourself and others. Making Links – making connections. Imagining – using the mind’s eye.

Reasoning –logical and rational skills Capitalising – use of a full range of resources. Planning – working out learning in advance. Revising – being flexible, changing your plans.

Distilling – drawing out the lessons from experience.

Meta learning – knowing yourself as a learner.

Interdependence – learning on your own or with others Collaboration – the skills of learning with others.

Empathy and Listening –

contributing to others’ experiences Imitation –picking up

habits and values from other people.

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Classroom Design In recent months we have been giving a great deal of thought to our current classroom layout and design, questioning if they are fit for purpose. As we develop our curriculum for a 21st century world we are increasingly frustrated by the inflexibility of fixed cupboards, pupil desks and chairs. This year we hope to consult with you, our pupils and the staff to begin to re-design our classrooms into effective learning spaces. For example we are considering whether every classroom needs a sink, whether children’s chairs and tables should be on wheels, whether we should have black out blinds to make our interactive whiteboards more visible.

We all learn more, retain more information and are able to think more constructively when the environment and those around us are adding to the experience in a positive way.

We would welcome your thoughts on a range of issues including  Classroom layout  Heating  Lighting  Displays  Accessibiltiy  Flexibility Obviously whatever we plan to do in the future will be governed by our school budget; but imagining the ideal is a good starting point.

Hill West Mascot

Have you come up with an idea for a Hill West Mascot to represent us with our Sweden and Italian partners?

Attainment and Achievement of our Pupils Having analysed our pupil data this year, based on the results of children at the end of EYFS, KS1 and KS2 last summer we are able to tell you that the achievement of pupils is outstanding with children at the end of the three key stages attaining significantly higher than children nationally. Our percentage of Level 5 children is significantly above national average meaning our highest performing students do best through significant challenge. We also had a small group of children achieve Level 6 in Mathematics last summer.

We have worked hard to close the gap between our highest performing pupils and our lowest performing pupils and our children eligible to free school meals did much better than similar children nationally. We are now working hard to close the gap for other groups of children including our children with SEN and children from one or two specific ethnic groups. We are also monitoring the performance of boys and girls as girls seem to be outperforming boys overall.

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