Torchlight - Knowledge Edition

The Queen Elizabeth Academy

TORCHLIGHT

Knowledge Edition

Winter 2020 Issue 2

Contents 3 A message from Neil Knowledge at TQEA 4 How can we make knowledge come to life in the classroom?

Emma Hopkins 5 Making it Memorable Jo Woodberry 6-7 Questions worth asking Kerry Wilson 8-9 The Curriculum Debate Tom Sherrington 10 Making it Stick Teacher Walkthrus

11- 12 Taking the curriculum seriously C.Counsell 13 Curriculum Reflections 14 Curriculum is living Rich Armishaw 15 Retrieval Practice in Action Gav Brown

Hello From our Head Welcome to the second edition of the beautifully re-launched Torchlight magazine which is known as the Knowledge edition.

The debate has been had and won. I remember being taught as a trainee teacher that good teaching was all about creating lessons full of lots of fun activities. In other words, keep children busy and you are a great teacher.

I do remember questioning this at times - when do we focus on what is being learned?

Why do my students not remember what we did on Friday? Why am I being told that my starter, totally unconnected to the lesson, is great because the children loved it?

But, "experts" told me clearly that good lessons looked a certain way and I conformed.

It is such a relief that cognitive science has debunked the traditional myths of education. We now know that excellent learning is about expert and highly knowledgeable teachers delivering a curriculum of the very best - the canon - of their subjects. That underpinning this excellence is the social right for young people to know the powerful knowledge and achieve mastery in their subjects for lifelong learning. We also know now that all deep thought, all critical thought and all higher order thinking is arrived at from a schema of knowledge which serves as mental velcro for the child the more you know, the more you will be able to know. The more you know the more your intelligence will grow.

Our mission at TQEA is to enable students to compete nationally and globally with any in their chosen field. To achieve our vision we accept that our students deserve and have a right to be challenged to have access to the powerful knowledge of our subjects and, that if we do not ensure that children can use this powerful knowledge, that they remain ignorant.

Needless to say, colleagues, this is a timely and important reminder of our moral purpose and why knowledge learning should be at the front and centre in all of our classrooms.

How can we make knowledge come to life in the classroom?

Is having a thorough curriculum all there is to it?

The Curriculum has taken centre stage on the education scene in the last year and rightly so. The importance of laying the right foundations for our students is the crucial starting point for setting our students on the right path in our subjects. But is it enough to have a curriculum in place which does everything we want on the tin? It has your different types of knowledge, the threshold concepts, the cross curricular links and has been sequenced perfectly. However, in less we think about how we can take it from a paper document to living and breathing in our classrooms.

Research in education has come on leaps and bounds over the last few years, it has allowed us as a profession to make evidence informed choices about how students best learn. It is no longer pot luck whether or not a learning strategy will work, now we have a wealth of research which we can dip into to ensure we are not doing things on a whim.

So how do we bring to life the curriculum in our classroom? Today I want to simplify this into three simple questions which we apply to every lesson.

1. What is the students prior knowledge of the topic?

2. What do you want students to learn (know)?

3. What have they learnt this lesson?

How we bridge the gap between teaching and learning is through regular assessment to ensure one matches the others and is based on fact rather than assumption. Now this ultimately is down to individual preference, but again the research clearly indicates methods that have the maximum impact in the classroom.

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Low stake quizzing to address what the students do and don’t know about the topic Challenging reading Teachers as the experts imparting their knowledge through modelling and explanation Independent practice task to demonstrate what they know and have learnt Lots of questions!

Thankfully, the profession has reached the point where we recognise that the teacher is the most valuable resource we have. The main part of bringing the curriculum to life is how the teacher as the expert imparts their knowledge to the students. This requires specific teaching, specific knowledge has a specific way of teaching it. At TQEA we have a wealth of knowledge and expertise our students are lucky to have such a range of talent. How are we ensuring we are imparting our knowledge to the best of our ability to all students at TQEA?

Making it Memorable How can we use forms of dual coding to support and aid knowledge retention in the classroom?

Jo Woodberry Head of Humanities As students are bombarded with new information throughout the school day, how can we make our lessons memorable? Regina G. Richards in her article ‘Making it Stick: Memorable Strategies to Enhance Learning’ says, “Our brains are programmed to pay attention to the unusual - something different.

Incorporating novelty such as humour, movement, or music, into strategies helps the information attract our attention.” If we can capture the brain’s attention then our information has a better chance of being ‘filed’ in the memory rather than being ‘dumped’.

Using a combination of words and images, ‘dual coding’, also increases the chances of information being recalled.

In History, we have been trying to find ways to make the vast quantity of content more memorable and support students in strategies to remember key people, events, concepts and dates. A simple but effective way of doing this is through encouraging students to add images and symbols to their notes. The blog ‘learningscientists.org’ suggests that “students learn best when they combine visual materials (like pictures or diagrams) with verbal materials (like words from a textbook).” Some things lend themselves to this more than others! Students find it much easier to remember Hippocrates’ name once they have drawn a hippo on a crate. Simple drawings of soldiers on a hill and a shield wall help to make the events of the Battle of Hastings more memorable. Puzzling over how best to represent Elizabeth’s Poor Laws visually forces the brain to engage with the information in a different way and is likely to be more memorable than merely copying the information down. Timelines are a visual way of presenting a range of dates and can help students to understand the ‘big picture’, especially if themes are colour coded and symbols are added for different types of event.

Students can be initially reluctant to draw, claiming that they ‘can’t’ or they aren’t very good at it. However, once they have witnessed my own poor attempts on the whiteboard they generally accept that I won’t be judging the quality of their artwork! It also encourages reluctant writers to participate and very often different students are able to shine as their creative brains work with the information and translate it on to the page.

The Curriculum Debate What are the main principles behind the knowledge we should be including in our curriculums The debate has been informed by discussions from cognitive science, such as the role of knowledge in underpinning reading and understanding (Willingham, 2010). It has also been informed by a values-led philosophy based on empowerment through teaching ‘powerful knowledge’ (Young and Muller, 2013). Along with plenty of others, my initial reaction was to reject the idea that a curriculum could be ‘knowledge-rich’; I saw it as a kind of hubristic rebranding of regular good practice. As a science teacher, I’ve always felt that my curriculum was packed with knowledge and, without question, I’ve seen numerous cohorts sit lots of GCSE exams, year after year, each requiring significant knowledge. However, I’m increasingly convinced that a knowledge-rich curriculum is actually an important concept that we ought to embrace.

From my experience working with a range of schools in varying circumstances over the last few years, I would say that not only is this approach often different to the default practice, but it also offers a secure route to the higher standards that we’re continually seeking. Even if it’s not new, at the very least it represents a shift in emphasis with multiple benefits.

KNOWLEDGE PR OVI DE S A DRIVING, UNDERPINNING P H I LO S O P H Y The grammar of each subject is given high status. Here, ‘grammar’ relates to the concepts explored by Martin Robinson in Trivium 21c (Robinson, 2013) – the knowledge content and traditions within subject disciplines. In a knowledge-rich curriculum, the specifics of what we want students to learn matter and subject traditions are respected. Skills and understanding are seen as forms of knowledge and it is understood that there are no real generic skills that can be taught outside of specific knowledge domains.

Acquiring powerful knowledge is seen as an end itself; there is a belief that we are all empowered through knowing things and that this cannot be left to chance.

There is also a sense that the creative, ‘rounded and grounded’ citizens we all want to develop – with a host of strong character traits – will emerge through being immersed in a knowledge-rich

THE KNOWLEDGE CONTENT S P E C I F I E D I N D E TA I L

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Units of work are supported by statements that detail the knowledge to be learned – something that can be written down. We do not merely want to ‘do the Romans’; we want children to gain some specified knowledge of the Romans as well as a broad overview. We want children to know specific things about plants and about the Amazon Rainforest, WWII, Romeo and Juliet and climate change. We want children to have more than a general sense of a topic through vaguely remembered knowledge encounters; in addition to a range of memorable, enriching experiences from which important tacit knowledge is gained, we want them to amass a body of specific declarative and procedural knowledge – not ad hoc but planned. This runs through every phase of school; units of work are not defined by headings but by details: e.g. beyond the ‘environmental impact of fossil fuels’, the specific impacts are detailed

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The Curriculum Debate Ben Newmark. Planning a knowledge curriculum.

Christine Counsell. The dignity of the thing.

Clare Sealy. Memory not memories – teaching for long term learning.

Debra Kidd. A rich curriculum.

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K NRosalind O W LWalker.

E D G My E #rEDBrum I S TAtalk: U GThe H Tnature T Oof school B E science knowledge.

Summer Turner. Pub quiz or published? What are the aims of a knowledge-rich curriculum?

REMEMBERED, NOT M E R E LY Tom Sherrington. FACE It. A formula for learning.

ENCOUNTERED

A good knowledge-rich curriculum embraces ideas from cognitive science about memory, forgetting and the power of retrieval practice. Our curriculum is not simply a set of encounters from which children form ad hoc memories; it is designed to be remembered in detail – to be stored in our students’ long-term memories so that they can later build on it, forming ever wider and deeper schemas.

This requires approaches to curriculum planning and delivery that build in spaced retrieval practice, formative low-stakes testing and plenty of repeated practice for automaticity and fluency.

KNOWLEDGE IS SEQUENCED AND MAPPED D E L I B E R AT E LY A N D C O H E R E N T LY Beyond the knowledge specified for each unit, a knowledge-rich curriculum is planned vertically and horizontally, giving thought to the optimum knowledge sequence for building secure schemas – a kinetic model for materials; a timeline for historical events; a sense of the canon in literature; a sense of place; a framework for understanding cultural diversity and human development and evolution.

Attention is also given to known misconceptions, and there is an understanding of the instructional tools needed to move students from novice to expert in various subject domains.

Importantly, these four elements lead to a curriculum far more expansive than a

Making it Stick How do we get knowledge to stick for students?

Below are a list of strategies as to how we can quickly implement retrieval-based strategies into the classroom. This short description is only the start see the references for more information Give it a go!

Knowledge Organisers This provides students with accessible guidance about knowledge that they can study on their own in order to build a secure schema with strong recall of the knowledge elements.

Weekly and Months Review Students ensure stronger long-term recall if they engage in retrieval practice with a set of ideas after some time has passed.

Concrete Examples An important step in forming detailed scheme is student’s capacity to make links from a set of specific concrete examples to some general rules or abstract ideas.

Guided Practice Rosenshine makes it clear that effective teachers devote time to securing a high success rate when students begin to lean new material. This requires providing clear models and scaffolds to support learning.

Independent Practice Independent practice supports the overlearning essential for students to develop the automaticity needed for fluent application and recall in the future

Taking the Curriculum Seriously Curriculum is all about power. Decisions about what knowledge to teach are an exercise of power and therefore a weighty ethical responsibility. What we choose to teach confers or denies power. To say that pupils should learn ‘the best that has been thought and said’ is never adequate. Start the conversation, and questions abound: ‘Whose knowledge?’; ‘Who decides on “best”?’.

Such questions reflect concern about whether schooling reproduces inequalities or interrupts them. Such questions matter. But reducing knowledge to voice will not get us far either. The contentious questions – Which works of literature? Which historical stories?

Which art? – cannot be resolved by some optimal blend of diversity, some nirvana of neutrality, as though distribution across the sources of knowledge or types of knower will settle things. No matter how redemptive of former injustice, no holy grail of content selection will be reached.

Nor does adding in preparation for the 21st century help. How can we decide what is relevant to the ever-shifting ‘now’? Worse, relevance quickly merges with perceptions of relevance and, before we know it, content is chosen for being engaging or deemed ‘relevant’ by the pupil. Then we have completely lost our moorings. At that point, we lose touch with the duty of including the next generation in a shared language of abstract concepts, in common tools for precise thought, in the possibility of objective knowledge underlying them and in the possibility of citizens appraising it. These things serve the rationalised sensibility on which participation in a democratic society depends.

Appeal to knowledge and skills is no corrective either. These terms invoke such diverse assumptions that discussions end up at cross purposes. And to suggest that knowledge is less important than skills is to ignore the way in which our knowledge changes us, including our curiosity and capacity for new knowledge.

As educators, we

need something more

Substantive and disciplinary knowledge Substantive knowledge is the content that teachers teach as established fact – whether common convention, concept or warranted account of reality. You might want pupils to know of crotchets, percentages, the Treaty of Waitangi, Debussy or prokaryotic cells. In calling this ‘substantive’, we are treating the material presented as givens.

Disciplinary knowledge, by contrast, is a curricular term for what pupils learn about how that knowledge was established, its degree of certainty and how it continues to be revised by scholars, artists or professional practice. It is that part of the subject where pupils understand each discipline as a tradition of enquiry with its own distinctive pursuit of truth. For each subject is just that: a product and an account of an ongoing truth quest, whether through empirical testing in science, argumentation in philosophy/history, logic in mathematics or beauty in the arts. It describes that part of the Powerful knowledge curriculum where pupils learn about The categories ‘substantive’ and ‘disciplinary’ the conditions under which valid claims can be are merely one cross-section of useful made, and associated conventions such as what curriculum analysis but they are foundational. constitutes evidence or argument in that Their significance is further illuminated by a subject. body of research within the sociology of knowledge that tackles education’s knowledge question within a progressive agenda for social justice (Rata, 2016) (Young, 2008). Associated with the concept of ‘powerful knowledge’, these theorists challenge the view that academic knowledge necessarily perpetuates disadvantage by remaining the preserve of the powerful forces that created it. Drawing on Durkheim, they argue that knowledge developed by academics in intellectual communities becomes independent of those socio-historical origins through its abstract and generalising tendencies. Because this specialised knowledge is not acquired or produced informally in everyday experience, entitlement to it through curriculum is vital (Young and Muller, 2016).

Not only does this knowledge offer the language of abstract concepts, but these precise concepts also become tools with which to imagine change. They enable humans to theorise possibility and think the un-thought (Wheelahan, 2010). To achieve this, a curriculum must enact processes of ‘epistemic ascent’ (Winch, 2013), by which concepts already understood by students are brought into new relations of abstraction and generality, giving the student yet more power to challenge, rethink and create.

McPhail illustrates this with music (McPhail, 2014). He explains how without epistemic understanding, pupils are restricted to subjective

Curriculum Reflections We know the curriculum is a living aspect of our teaching practice.

Therefore it is important we constantly reflect and tweak where appropriate to ensure our curriculum offers the best for our students at TQEA.

Intent 1. What is the intent of your curriculum?

2. How broad and balanced in your curriculum?

3. What do you hope your students will be at the end of the 5 years of education?

4. How does your subject approach knowledge and ensuring they have the most powerful knowledge?

Implementation 1. How is the knowledge sequenced in your subjects?

2. How do you know your curriculum is being delivered effectively in your subject?

3. How do you use PD as an opportunity to develop subject knowledge?

4. How do you tackle misconceptions?

Threshold concepts

1. What are the threshold concepts of your curriculum?

2. How will these be returned to and reinforced?

3. How will you close the knowledge gaps for students who have not grasped these concepts?

4. Which threshold concepts are transformative and can be used to unlock students understanding of your subject?

5. How can we use threshold concepts to draw student’s attention to the connections and patterns of our subjects?

Assessments 1. Where can we find meaningful opportunities for students to apply knowledge?

2. How can our assessment design identify and address the fragility?

3. How do you assess the key threshold concepts throughout your curriculum?

4. What is the purpose of your assessments?

5. Where is our curriculum do you prioritise thought over task?

Impact 1. How do you know your subject curriculum is successful?

2. How do you measure the impact of your curriculum?

Knowledge 1.

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How will you map your core knowledge?

How will you ensure this is secure for all students?

How will this be returned to over time to ensure it is embedded in long term memory?

Curriculum is living…

What is your favourite TV series?

Whether it is Sopranos (probably mine), or This is Us (my wife’s, to my disdain), it will have a narrative over time that keeps multiple strands spinning at once. What happened two years ago to a particular character will have ramifications for next week’s episode; we need the earlier experiences to form new meaning. That is why curriculum ‘as a narrative’ is such a good metaphor. Christine Counsell coined the phrase some years back. She also highlighted the etymology of the word ‘curriculum’, showing that it comes from the Latin ‘currere’ – meaning a race or a course on which a race is run. The idea of a race stresses the idea of curriculum being a journey, like a marathon. A marathon is miles over time. And a curriculum is content structured over time.

Our curriculum is driven by our intent. This explains what we teach, when to teach it and why we teach it. Our Curriculum Leader Long Term Plans show how we intend the powerful stories of our subjects to unfold. In fact, deciding what to teach – what knowledge is going to enrich our students’ lives – is a powerful decision. And the decision comes with a heavy ethical responsibility. It’s great when our authors of the curriculum narrative (primarily Curriculum Leaders) passionately defend and argue their curriculum choices, and then see it enacted and championed by the class teachers.

Our curriculum is living and it starts off small: it is not ‘top down’ and decided by the exam content, but grows from Year 7 upwards. So much of the work done last year, with our KS3 schemes, meant that curriculum was less about preparing for exams and more about the body of knowledge, broadening minds, enriching communities and advancing the cultural capital of our students. Our curriculum is an academically driven programme model, starting from the bottom, building blocks of knowledge sequentially. Lizzie Poole told me recently about crochet: in order to be able to do a treble stitch, you need to be able to do a double stitch first, and if you can’t do a slip knot then you can’t do a slip stitch. This idea – going back to the narrative – underpins the organisation of our curriculum: building knowledge sequentially and ‘knitting’ in periods to revisit prior knowledge, thereby being able to assimilate and interpret new content - the schemata.

This living curriculum needs assessing and when these opportunities take place it is important we assess content from a few lessons ago, a few weeks ago and whole terms ago. Our Do Nows are important in showing this across the school, as well as other formative assessment opportunities and by ensuring our assessments are not simply end of unit assessments but are done within the teaching of a unit: so the curriculum can be adapted to fill the gaps in knowledge.

Our curriculum has changed this year and we have seen bespoke PSHE lessons, we have stressed the importance of reading more and will develop this area further.

The curriculum covers all our extra-curricular opportunities, the mental, spiritual, cultural, physical and intellectual health of our students. We have also refocused our implementation so that our lessons are less geared around activities and more focused on learning. If the average teacher tried to plan 4 activities per lesson, then that would be 20 different activities per day. As well as teacher workload it does not help the cognitive load of students. ‘Doing’ is also a false proxy for learning – one I was massively guilty of – because students should be learning, rather than doing.

At TQEA we are going to develop a reading curriculum across all departments, and ensure that all colleagues know what every department in the school is teaching when, and why. Like a living thing, our curriculum will develop and continue to grow.

Rich Armishaw – Assistant Principal

Retrieval Practice in Action Gav Brown – Head of Geography

In Geography, the retrieval of information makes up a large part of the specification for GCSE and the curriculum for KS3. Research from Jennifer Gonzalez (Powerful Teaching: Unleash the Science of learning) suggests that retrieval practises must be combined with four key principles. These including low stakes retrieval opportunities (mini quizzes), spaced practise (spreading retrieval over time), interleaving (linking through topics and the wider world) and feedback. In geography we have the opportunity to be able to combine these core principles throughout the various stages of learning.

There are a variety of methods used in geography that support these core principles. The first of which is using popular quizzes for retrieval. These quizzes are distributed either at the end of a lesson or at the beginning of a revision lesson. This allows for both spaced practise and interleaving to be a regular part of lessons. Examples of this are ‘Million Dollar Drop’ and ‘The Chase’. These are two popular and current TV game shows that can be used to provide opportunities for knowledge retrieval in lesson. Students are given the options for the correct response, then once the responses are given, instant feedback is provided in the form of a correct response both verbally and visually. The advantages of this are that pupils are thoroughly engaged and retrieval can be linked to current and previous learning. For this practise to be effective you must ensure that options are challenging, to encourage deeper thinking, they are linked to various The timing of retrieval practises is also important. This depends upon the content that is being taught. If a lesson or stage of lessons contain more than one concept, then retrieval practise needs to be prevalent. For example, if students have reached the halfway stage within a lesson then it is important to check for understand. This also allows for instant verbal as well as written feedback. Low stakes, short, quizzes can be used for this. Subjects that are fact heavy can use strategies such as true or false, guess the image or multiple-choice questions. An additional benefit to this, as well as the instant feedback, is that it can inform the rest of your lesson / lessons so that they can be adapted to suit the needs of the students.

Another core principle of retrieval practise is feedback. Low stake quizzes are a great way of checking learning progress; however, it is crucial that feedback is acted upon. For example, if your low stakes quiz is at the start of the lesson or part of your ‘do now’ task, it is important to score it using summative means. This way you can collect instant feedback and prior to new learning ensure that any developmental needs or misconceptions are discussed. Alternatively, if your low stakes quiz is part of your plenary, as feedback is instant, any future lessons can be adapted to ensure that the needs of the learners are met.

Things to consider when designing your low stakes retrieval practises: • Ensure it is based on prior learning • Make it relevant and contemporary • Include challenge • Score quiz in a summative manner to allow instant feedback • Vary the timing of quizzes to consider memory curve • Add incentives such as achievement points • Consider skill range by adding multiple choice • Act on feedback instantly either within the lesson or the lesson after

Learning in Action Kyle Stewart Head of Busines

Last academic year I discussed, among other things, how collaboration is key to successful learning.

Pupils learning from other pupils is a vital resource we don't always implement fully for a number of reasons. While this may seem difficult in the current climate there are a number of benefits to pupils learning from each other when we think about how we can implement cognitive learning and the workarounds we can use to ensure it is successful when used in the current climate.

Pupils becoming the teacher is a brilliant way of ensuring knowledge retention. Make it Stick: The Science of Successful Learning (2014) outlines a number of ways to implement interleaving and retrieval from both teachers and pupils. It is no new thing to have the pupils discuss their findings to the other pupils by reading from their book or answering targeted questions from the teacher, but we can push this even further by giving small numbers of pupils a chunk of knowledge to pass on or swap with another pupil. Working together to piece together the 'bigger picture' of your curriculum not only enhances the sense of collaboration and comradery in your class, it is a proven way to increase knowledge retention exponentially.

I have previously mentioned this before, but it bears repeating. As a part of a group, pupils learn a range of competencies, such as: Resilience – being able to overcome any difficulties towards project completion and to “bounce” back when there are problems; Communication – being able to speak clearly and concisely to their group members and to ensure that they convey their thinking clearly to a variety of different people and audiences; Critical reflection – being able to look at their own practice and to identify ways of improving; Leadership – having a vision for a project and conveying that vision accurately to others to “get them on board”; Management – the ability to control the direction of a project and to get the most out of others in the group; Adaptability – this ties in quite nicely with resilience and it is about being able to adjust, to change quickly when unforeseen matters arise, as they will do in any real-world work scenario.

So how can this work in the Covid-classroom setup?

In Business studies last year, I started to implement designated knowledge groups based on tables. Each group would be given a few core points or a case study and some questions they would have to answer to charge their initial knowledge. They would then be in charge of presenting that information to the class and creating two or three questions they would like other pupils to answer. This can very easily be implemented in the classroom setting now.

Give each row/column of pupils a worksheet with part of the required knowledge for a particular topic. You could then ask one or two pupils from each row to give their findings to the class, ensuring other pupils are making notes and directing questions to the knowledge holders. For more able pupils you could even give some pupils false facts with the correct facts presented to another group to encourage discussion, debate and the addressing of misconceptions.

Of course this only works with trust in your class and astute behaviour management, however once it does work the pupils benefit no end from learning from one another and you can stand back and marvel at a class working for themselves.