Nobel's Learning Autumn 2015

NOBEL’S LEARNING

The teaching and learning journal of The Nobel School, Stevenage.

Issue 2: Autumn 2015 1|Page

Welcome Martyn Henson - Headteacher

In this issue….

I am really delighted that the climate in schools seems to be changing. At a recent headteachers’ conference that I attended the message was quite a different one from two or three years ago; top-down structures are out of fashion and we are being encouraged to cherish staff and develop trust. Essentially we can do that by working more closely with each other; collaboration is our greatest asset. ‘Nobel’s Learning’ is an essential part in this development; it is vital that we build a culture where staff feel they can share in a supportive and thriving learning environment.

It is testament to our lovely school that so many of you contributed to this exciting publication. Well done.

Increasing parental engagement Meet Nicky Nobel What makes good cover?

Introduction to the new Art and Design A level Is book based research still useful in our digital age?

Successful Nobelians Changing 3 things So what’s your favourite language?

Get Kahoot!

Using employer visits to develop knowledge of vocational subjects What can we learn from the Shanghai way of teaching maths?

Ideas from other schools Reflection on Nobel Lead Practitioners 2|Page

Increasing Parental Engagement

by Megan Christie, Lead Practitioner for Science

I think we all agree that parental impact in a child’s education is as important, if not more so, than the impact of teachers. Having parents that encourage their children and support the school makes our lives infinitely easier. If a student knows that their parents check their exercise books, they are less likely to graffiti; a student that knows their parents will be disappointed in them if they receive a B2 no homework detention, often finds this a far greater punishment than the detention itself.

In science we have attempted to encourage parental engagement by inviting parents, along with their children, to attend a “Parents in Science” evening, held for each year group in KS3. The aim of these evenings is to excite and engage parents in science work that their children are currently, or will be, learning about. The evening also serves to show parents how engaged their own child is, and hopefully act as a trigger to put parents into action of supporting their children’s studies.

Our evenings are well attended. We have approximately a 15% turn out for each year group, a percentage that we would like to increase. Although the evening is open to all students, with letters being given out by form tutors, I go into the lower attaining classes and really push the evenings, hand out extra letters and encourage these students to attend.

The evening consists of a few simple experiments that allow the students to show

off their superior science knowledge to their parents and are something to engage our participants whilst we wait for the evening to start. We then move on to the “big experiment” – usually a GCSE level experiment that requires parents and their children to work together to gather suitable results, draw a good quality graph and then from the graph decide on a conclusion, and as a family work to evaluate the experiment carried out. The night is finished off with some “whizz bang” demonstrations that students do not normally get to see in lessons, hopefully meaning that they, and their parents, leave still discussing what they have seen and done.

The obvious problem lies in those very difficult to engage parents, for whom no amount of coaxing of students, or the promise of a custard cream and a glass of squash is enough for them to come in to a school to participate in a science evening.

This is the problem that we need to tackle next – focusing on specific groups of parents. That said, we do have a number of pupil premium students who attend these evenings, so this is not a group we need to target.

The next steps for “Parents in Science” evenings will probably focus on targeting students with poor attendance, getting students and parents who perhaps too readily opt for a day off rather than coming in to learn, in for an evening of science fun.

I am also currently working on a project with Heather Ormiston, the science PP Champion, to invite our PP students, the low attendees in the first instance, and then other families, to attend the Natural History / Science Museum at the weekend. A coach will be provided for free to take the families into London where they can spend the day 3|Page

immersing themselves in all that science has to offer, after which they will return to Stevenage. Again the aim is to excite and enthuse parents, who may then excite and enthuse their own children – and encourage that thirst for learning that all young people inherently have.

Meet Nicky Nobel

by Helen Taylor, History I would like to introduce you to “Nicky Nobel” who my Year 7 Humanities class know very well. He is a young man full of ideas!

involves the students reviewing how their own learning progressed during the lesson and they can tick their name if they met their own objective, or move it if they did so, but using a different idea.

Nicky has also been utilised before an assessment where as a class we have discussed which of his ideas we need to use so that we can complete the assessment. We have then stuck Nicky’s ideas on the board to remind the class what they need to include in their written work.

This has led to a very enthusiastic discussion about which they needed to make their work “the best”.

Nicky’s objectives could be changed to suit a different subject area or for any key stage.

The year 7s seem to have enjoyed choosing their own objectives during lessons and then evaluating their successes at the end of the lesson. I have found it useful as it provides differentiation throughout varied activities. I am able to steer different students towards different ideas, partly to help the lower-attaining students but also to challenge the more able too. It has also been interesting watching the children debate the lesson objective and which of “Nicky’s ideas” they could use to achieve them.

Nicky is situated next to my classroom door and can be used as a starter activity; each student is handed a post-it note as they enter. The learning objectives for the lesson are explained to them and they then decide how they wish to achieve them during the course of the lesson. They then place the post-it note with their name on it onto one of Nicky’s ideas. The plenary then

The templates for Nicky can be found in the Teaching and Learning database on Moodle

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What makes good cover?

By the Nobel Cover Team Meet the team Denise Bick has worked at Nobel for eleven years. Her role includes managing and delegating cover for absent staff. Helen Hunt has worked at Nobel for eight years as a cover supervisor, and also supports Denise when required. Clare Green joined Nobel in January 2015, Stephanie Knell in March 2015 and Harry Gibbs joined as a bank cover supervisor recently.

L-R Stephanie, Harry, Clare, Helen & Denise We fully appreciate that not all absence is planned and unexpected absences happen regularly for a variety of reasons. We understand that, in some cases, this means cover work has to be improvised.

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Please consider the following points that make cover work more ‘user friendly’, promoting a better learning environment for student and cover supervisor.

Seating plans An up to date seating plan facilitates a good learning environment. It enables the cover supervisor to quickly organise the class, avoiding disruptions and confrontation at the start of the lesson.

If this is not possible (change of room, practical lesson moving to a different classroom), please provide a note of who should not sit next to each other. The cover supervisor may not be familiar with the students.

Lesson plans Where possible provide a lesson plan in advance. Instructions may be clear but if you are reading them for the first time in front of a class, there can be a sense of urgency to get students settled and engaged, and mistakes can happen.

Reading a lesson plan in advance gives time to understand the instructions properly and identify any potential issues. Emailing a lesson plan to ‘aacover’ means we have more time to prepare, and in addition, we can quickly project information for the class on to the board.

At the very latest, it would be beneficial if the lesson plan was in the classroom with resources at the start of the lesson. Having to find a lesson plan and resources, once the lesson has started, is very disruptive, and it takes a long time to refocus students and get them on task.

The best lesson plans have specific tasks with expectations of how long each task should take.

Ensure there is enough work for the entire lesson. Please consider that students might not spend as much time on a given task when a cover supervisor is taking the lesson, as opposed to the teacher.

Lesson plans with additional information such as curriculum information/data make it much more difficult to find the relevant information, particularly if this is not received in advance.

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Additional help Include answers. To check that students are understanding and completing the task properly, it is helpful to have either an answer sheet, or a sheet of key words, where appropriate.

Provide paper when necessary. Not every classroom has a supply of paper, and finding paper can sometimes take a disproportionate amount of lesson time, often being taken from the nearest printer.

Where possible, pre warn the class that they will have a cover lesson. Cover work has a tendency to be less interesting than their usual lesson so the students can be disappointed when they have a cover lesson, particularly if they are expecting, and have come equipped for, a practical lesson.

Where possible, let the cover supervisor know if there are any available spaces or teachers to send disruptive students to.

Please remember‌ A cover supervisor is not a teacher. We cover a lesson as best as we can, we might have some knowledge of the subject, but we do not teach the subject. Our aim is to deliver a professional service to support our teaching staff the best we can with the students’ interest as our main priority and to maintain a positive, safe learning environment where we encourage and support students to adhere to school policies.

Location The cover office is situated on the second floor next to the maths office. Please feel free to come into the office with any queries. Be prepared, it might be a bit of a squeeze to get in; it is a tiny office!

If you subscribe to an educational blog (or even write one yourself!) that you’d like to recommend to others, please e-mail your suggestions to naomi.rose@nobel.herts.sch.uk

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Introduction to the New Art and Design A Level

by Sharon Seers DoL Art and Design Yr 12 Flotsam and Jetsam The introduction to the new A Level syllabus for all art and design endorsements has seen Year 12 launch an exciting voyage of discovery into everything aquatic.

No longer constrained by the demands of early assessment the students have relished the time to experiment with new techniques that will hopefully inspire more in depth enquiry and personal outcomes.

In search of such experiences the textile group spent some practical studio time learning about traditional Gyotaku, the art of Japanese fish printing. From the Japanese for gyo "fish" + taku "rubbing"; this is the traditional Japanese method of printing fish, a practice which dates back to the mid-1800s. This form of printing was used by fishermen to record their catches, but has also become an art form of its own.

A range of fresh fish including sea bream, sardines and trout were inked up and laid onto a range of fabric samples leaving beautifully detailed imprints.

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The class were then shown a range of embellished examples to develop and inspire their own personal responses as a PLT. These included contemporary embroidery from the costumes featured in “Game of Thrones”.

Sophie Mardlin in year 13 made excellent use of such techniques and close connections to textile artist Lynda Monk whom she met whilst on a practical course.

Sophie’s self-initiated studies led her to experiment with Tyvek and Angelina fibres, layering three dimensional prints together to make a successful garment.

The department have found such introductions really help students to extend their learning and encourage a more personalised and creative journey through to Year 13 9|Page

Is book based research still useful in our digital age?

by Janine Port, Lead Practitioner for English

“It is not enough to simply teach children to read; we have to give them something worth reading. Something that will stretch their imaginations something that will help them make sense of their own lives and encourage them to reach out toward people whose lives are quite different from their own.”

Katherine Patterson In the age of Xbox, Apple and social media independent reading can easily take a back seat to the distractions of the twenty-first century. Yes, there’s the old saying ‘a picture paints a thousand words’, but language has the power to awaken your imagination to an array of sensations. Oscar Wilde says it most eloquently in The Picture of Dorian Gray: “Words! Mere words! How terrible they were! How clear, and vivid, and cruel! One could not escape from them. And yet what a subtle magic there was in them! They seemed to be able to give a plastic form to formless things, and to have a music of their own as sweet as that of viol or of lute.

Mere words! Was there anything so real as words?”

We find a similar issue when we ask our students to conduct research: Google – Wikipedia - Done.

A few years ago, the dangers of blindly trusting information found through internet research reared its ugly head. A group of secondary school students had been set the task of researching Martin Luther King in preparation for a history essay. It emerged that the site with the third-highest search ranking was martinlutherking(dot)org, which purports to be "A valuable resource for teachers and students alike." Visit the site and you can read about the “real” Martin Luther King - wife-beater, communist, extremist, sexual deviant and all-around Machiavelli. There are leaflets to the same effect; they are easy to download, print and bring into school. Homework?

Done. So who was behind the information posted on this site? Not a reputable source, instead, the former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard Don Black. My point? The internet is a powerful and speedy way to access information but it isn’t always easy to validate your information source. It’s not the font of all knowledge. We need to encourage students to critically read information and to be aware of bias.

With books at least, you can validate your source. Moreover, you can access detailed and specific information not always accessible on the web. That’s why universities have an expectation that students conduct the majority of their research using libraries. Starting in the library helps students to construct a method of collating and fact checking information. This will also help and prepare students to extract useful 10 | P a g e

information from the web should they need to.

So what do we do to support this process? How can we encourage bookbased research and independent reading? Creating ravenous, lifelong readers doesn’t just happen; it takes a school-wide effort and ethos to help attain that goal. We want our students to read more. We want them to enjoy reading. We know that reading improves literacy, builds vocabulary, fluency, and background knowledge. Let’s do our part to promote and encourage independent reading and library-based research across our schools.

1) Point students in the right direction: ‘Independent Learning’ does not merely involve

To build a wide vocabulary and broad background knowledge.

4) Create a culture of reading: Model good practice. During reading time show your students that you value reading too.

5) Partner with parents: Schools can do their part to support and encourage reading; however, parents play a key role as well.

Support parents by informing them of school library hours, reading lists and resources.

Encourage them to support their children to read at home.

Successful Nobelians

by Megan Christie, Lead Practitioner for Science

students being sent off to work alone. Recommend reading books or give students a reading list for research purposes.

Prioritise important reads.

2) Take your class to the library: Show them what’s available and support them to find what they need.

3) Encourage students to read widely: Sometimes students get in a rut and don’t read beyond their favorite genre or author.

Encourage students to read outside of their preferred genres.

"Successful Nobelians" aims to acknowledge those students who are already actively involved in every aspect of life at Nobel, whilst encouraging others to participate in the wealth of extra-curricular activities and extended learning opportunities offered to all students at Nobel.

The twelve steps have been carefully considered to ensure that a breadth of interests and activities are covered, 11 | P a g e

ensuring that all students should, with a little commitment be able to achieve.

work experience and involvement in student life.

Our KS3 and KS4 students will be awarded pins at three stages in their progression through the 12 steps.

Students will be awarded their bronze pin upon completion of 6 of the steps, 9 steps will earn the silver pin and finally, completing all 12 Steps will result in the students being awarded their gold pin.

Roshni Dholakia is our first Gold Nobelian, having completed all twelve steps less than a year after the launch of Successful Nobelians. This is what she has to say:

There will be an expectation that students wishing to apply to be Head Boy and Head Girl at Nobel will have been awarded their gold pin, as this will be a tangible measure of their involvement in whole school life.

Students will be responsible for logging their progression through the "Successful Nobelians" program by gathering and uploading their evidence onto Moodle. Termly reports will be generated so that students’ success, as they move through the three recognition points, can be celebrated.

Students will have their progress through the "Successful Nobelians" program supported by all faculties – the steps are displayed on the Key Stage Boards and in form rooms, as well as available on Moodle and the Successful Nobelians notice board.

There are plans to extend Successful Nobelians to the Sixth form with a platinum award, focussing on steps that are KS5 specific. Initial thoughts regarding the steps include volunteering, mentoring, completion of

“Recently, I completed my gold award for Successful Nobelians. I am extremely pleased with myself and was pleasantly surprised when I was told that I was the first person to complete the gold. I think that all of the steps in the Successful Nobelians direct you to being a better and more confident person as one of the steps was to do a presentation in front of an audience.

This helps overcome the one fear some people have, including me: stage fright.

I’m not afraid of speaking in front of an audience anymore, which makes me a much more confident person than I was before.

Another step was to read and review 90 books. They say reading books improves your writing skills. For people who don’t read a lot, this helps them because they have to read 90 books and then also review them. I think that the Successful Nobelians has helped me a lot and I am very proud of myself to be able to wear the bronze, silver and gold stars on my blazer to represent the bronze, silver and gold awards.”

Roshni Dholakia 9E SWE

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Changing 3 things!

by Dom Shibli, Director of Science Faculty

I like to think that I am reflective and that I am always looking to improve what I do in the classroom but it must be wrong if I sometimes look back on a lesson and think even I was bored.

Teaching is the best part of our job and can be the most creative. So I decided to give 3 aspects of my teaching some attention to see if I could do something different.

My first thought was all my lessons are arranged in folders in My Documents and there is usually a powerpoint.

Always a powerpoint. So I thought that the students might be on the receiving end of 5 powerpoint presentations a day.

How would I feel in the same situation?

So I have decided to reduce the amount of power point I use this year. I have to admit this has mainly been in key stage 3 & 4. I am not sure if I am ready to give up this comfort blanket completely at

key stage 5. This means I am using the whiteboard and I don’t think that my lessons are suffering My second change was to give the students more time to practise what they have been taught. So the plan was to give the students plenty of opportunities to put into practice what I have taught them. This does mean slightly reducing the amount of content taught in a lesson but the students have more time to make sense of it.

Finally in my efforts to get to grips with extended written responses I have done more modelling of long answer questions. I have written (not projected!) a question onto the board and then gathered the class around the front and have answered it myself whilst thinking out aloud. When I get stuck I ask the students and we try and do it together.

As well as developing their writing skills, they can also see me experience difficulties when answering these types of question. My Year 10s helped me write an answer to a question about the advantages and disadvantages of a limestone quarry being situated in Stevenage and I was amazed by their thoughtful contributions. We hit all 6 scoring points and I will look forward to seeing their own answers when I assess them shortly.

I shared this information with my faculty at the start of the year and challenged them to do the same. I will look forward to hearing from them and their thoughts on what they have learnt as the year progresses.

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So what’s your favourite language? How have you been learning it?

was impressed with. It did leave me to look for certain rules online and in some course books that I had, but this was ok.

I didn’t expect one app to have all of the answers.

by Gareth Trew, MFL What I particularly appreciate is Duolingo’s ‘nag’ and repeat function.

I challenge you to try the free App, Duolingo. Let’s see if you improve, I almost guarantee that you will.

But why?

I’ve known about Duolingo for some time and didn’t try it out. My students raved about it enthusiastically but I never really bought into it. Having seen many free apps come and go, fads in their own time, I was suspicious.

However, this app seems to have endured the test of time. I cracked recently and downloaded it. As a result I have been hugely impressed

by Duolingo.

In the process of not only teaching vocabulary, but also grammar, it does so in a logical, ‘learn through making mistakes’ fashion. Initially I felt uncomfortable with this method, but unlike the deeply displeasing way in which Rosetta Stone does this, this actually corrects you and offers you a translation if you click on the dotted line.

I always enjoyed reading the theories of grammar but never really having the chance to use them and make progress through making mistakes. Duolingo teaches you in a systematic way which I

Lots of learners progress with Western European languages at a fast pace due to their similarity with English. This leaves learners with a conundrum that they want to go forward yet forget to look back. This app doesn’t allow this.

First of all it nags you to participate (you can set when and whether to do this which I liked). Secondly, it has a kind of countdown on the modules that you’ve already studied. After a certain time you have to go back and review them, meaning that you are far less likely to forget them. This is a clever and scientifically proven method which plays on your brain’s natural rhythm. Usually it is something like ‘next day, one week, one month, 6 months, 1 year’ in order to remember something permanently (from what I crudely remember).

I also really like other options that are available to you. Not only does it have a host of languages available to English speakers, but if you go to the language of your choice and try to learn English, there are even more. I tried learning English through the medium of Vietnamese which was startlingly interesting. I have also tried the Korean>English and Mandarin>English which are both really fun!

There is a competitive edge as well, where you score points.

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You can add friends and compete against them, a function that we’ll be using in school for my classes to give an extra incentive to homework!

Students Talking

by Lynn Amey, SENDCO

I strongly urge you to give this app a chance. Its drip feed method of doing a little every day and reviewing what you’ve already completed is a master stroke which all apps should have – but don’t.

How it’s still free is beyond me, I would actually pay good money for it!

P.s. I haven’t been sponsored by them, these are all my own opinions.

Give it a go!

One Friday, towards the end of my double lesson with Child Development Year 11, I was praising the group for the high standard of work in their short task coursework (they were asked to create a book for a pre- school child) but warned them that they were in danger of exceeding the time allocated and Tayla Mackley came out with this golden nugget:

“Come on Miss…we’re just kids with aspirations”

Lovely, it made my weekend!

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The teacher’s view.

Instant Inspiration – T&L Tips by Jeremy Bell, ESS and Nicola Kleanthous, MFL

This teaching tip resource comes highly recommended by both Nicola and Jeremy.

Jeremy writes: Kahoots are teacherlead competitive quizzes where students have to compete against the clock, I have found these work well either as a starter to check understanding from the last session or as a plenary to see what has been learned. The main limitation is that you do need an IT room to do these.

The teacher projects the questions onto the screen and students have to find the correct answer and see what shape/colour that is associated with on their answer screen.

The student’s view.

The student screen just shows blocks for each shape/colour combination and as the student selects their answer they are told whether it is correct or not, how many points they have earned and what position they are in within the class for this quiz.

Students playing the quiz get really fired-up with the competitive nature of the quiz and as the correct answers are shown on the board after each question the teacher has a chance to review and correct any misconceptions before moving on. I have also used these with the sixth form classes, where the students create the quiz to show their deeper understanding and the most able students create quite challenging quizzes with answer choices that are within the topic but not exactly correct.

If you register at getkahoot.com then you can see what 'public kahoots' exist. If using a public quiz then you need to check that 16 | P a g e

they are okay and correct before using them! When you find one that you like you just 'start' and it will set you up and show a screen telling students to connect to kahoot.it (note: different URL for players) and enter a code. They then put in a nickname and off they go (make sure the nickname is sensible, firstname is best, so that you can use the tracking data at the end of the quiz).

It only takes a few minutes to create a new quiz, so if you don’t find one that you want then it is simple to build one yourself. The most time-consuming part for me is thinking of enough credible but not quite correct answers to make it challenging enough.

At the end of the quiz you can download the scores, so as well as it being enjoyable for the students during the lesson you also have some feedback data to see who did well and who perhaps needs some ‘fix it’ time on the topic.

questionnaire with multiple choice answers (or you can use someone else's questionnaire and they are available on many, many subject areas!)

It is essentially a multiple choice game/ questionnaire and students compete on either phones or computers. After each question, there is a summary of who answered what and players are ranked according to correctness of the answer and how quickly they answered the question.

There is a cumulative leader board which highlights the names of top five players in the group, and students can check personally how they have done.

As a teacher, it is brilliant, because with careful questioning and pre planned optional answers, you can find out at a glance which questions are causing the most problems and why. Today I learnt that my students understood reflexive verbs in the present tense, but still need a bit more practice in the past!

And Nicola adds: Thanks to the Barnwell NQT training event I have tried something new and innovative with my Year 9 French students which they absolutely loved. I recommend it to you as a tool for motivation and it also provides immediate formative assessment. It takes a little bit of time to set up (but not too much), and all you need to do is to prepare a

The students wanted to play again, and to earn the opportunity to do it, they are going to practice reflexive verbs at home before the next lesson - they seem quite keen! My next step will be asking the students to design the questionnaire and challenging each other!

For more information and to set up a questionnaire simply type GetKahoot.com into your browser, and/ or if you would like to see it in action, let me know and I will share as much as I know!

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Using employer visits to develop knowledge of vocational subjects

by Stuart Trotter, Head of Employer Engagement and Careers Over the last few years there have been changes to the way vocational subjects are assessed within schools but what has not changed is the need to gain knowledge of the local employer market and the benefits of bringing this knowledge to the classroom. There are a range of opportunities developing in Hertfordshire where teachers are given the opportunity to visit local businesses. They are designed to give teachers access to the current thinking within businesses and then relate that to the classroom (information on these visits can be seen below). Coupled with supporting teachers in their delivery of vocational subjects, employer visits also give teachers valuable knowledge of current practices in their subject areas, as well as allowing the teachers the chance to develop their knowledge of apprenticeships. The government has recognised the importance of employer engagement in teaching practices and are encouraging teachers to visit more businesses and to invite businesses into the classroom. This has been mentioned in the latest OFSTED framework “Inspectors will make a judgement on the personal development, behaviour and welfare of children and learners by evaluating the extent to which the provision is successfully promoting and supporting children’s and other learners’ choices about the next stage of their education, employment, self-employment or training, where relevant, from impartial careers advice and guidance” On a recent visit to Warner Bros studios, (Leavesden, Watford) I met with other schools from around Hertfordshire and was given a presentation on the role of the teacher when providing information on apprenticeships. Warner Bros gave us the opportunity to talk to the person who is responsible for recruiting apprentices and the afternoon was wrapped up when the CEO of the Warner Bros site discussed his view on how teachers can help bridge the gap between school and the work place. His main advice would be to provide students the chance to be exposed to uncomfortable situations where they are having to communicate with businesses.

What are the benefits to you taking part?

• Demonstrate first-hand knowledge and understanding of the vocational or technical area in which you specialise

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• Build closer relationships with local employers and explore the contribution they can make to your programmes • Increase your awareness of the apprenticeship and employment opportunities available • Fulfil your personal CPD hours.

Current opportunities

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What can we learn from the Shanghai way of teaching and learning mathematics?

by Irina Tolchenova, Lead Pracitioner for Mathematics

For the past decade China, and especially Shanghai as a region, has held a monopoly on the Pisa (Programme for International Student Assessment) test results in maths.

There are many myths about what accounts for such success which were dispelled when we visited schools in Shanghai and had an opportunity not only to observe many lessons but to fully participate in daily life in the maths department and listen to lectures about maths education in Shanghai in Shanghai Normal University.

There are many obvious factors which contribute to such success. It is difficult to deny that the following short list of some of these factors would make such a difference:

1. Subject knowledge: all maths teachers, regardless of whether they teach infant, primary or secondary children, are maths graduates who know and love their subject.

2. Daily marking and frequent assessment: maths is taught usually at the start of the day with guaranteed time to mark and assess the work. Marked work needs to be returned to students before the end of the day so that they can see if their performance is sufficient. If it isn’t, they need to remain in school for catch-up classes. No student is allowed to fall behind. Reduced contact time means there are more opportunities for teachers to run catch-up sessions.

3. Continuity: daily maths lessons and daily homework suits the strictly logical structure of mathematics, helping to catch any problems early on.

4. Professional collaboration: in Shanghai, teachers work together, planning and observing each others’ lessons, formally teaching about 30 per cent of the week.

By doing this they achieve incredible consistency in teaching between each other: they cannot allow variances to appear between any classes depending on the mastery of individual teachers.

5. Attitude: in China, the children work far harder than their teachers. In England the reverse is true. In Shanghai, teachers have parent contacts for all their classes on their mobile phones. Parents are just a text away. Texted test results may hit the phones before the student even returns home. A request for the child to remain in school for a catch-up session is accepted without question. In England, would be met with a wide variety of responses from acceptance through 20 | P a g e

indifference and, in some cases, hostility. Chinese parents expect daily maths homework and buy extra books for more practice. Not many of our parents would be able to replace the games consoles with daily maths exercises.

The mentioned factors would not be sufficient for such success if there were not much more fundamental differences in the way mathematics is taught there. I would like to briefly describe a few specific features: 1. Conceptual variation: this teaching principle is a very important contributor to the superior outcome of Shanghai teaching as it is also the most misunderstood by western colleagues. Because of a limited understanding of this principle professionals may consider this as simply repetition or rote learning. The central idea of teaching with variation is to highlight the essential features of a concept with inessential features. So students are offered the opportunity to explore the constant features of a concept through various situations. This may appear to be repetition for someone unfamiliar with maths but was highly valued by all of us: the examples being offered by the teacher were developing from easiest to hardest and considered various situations. Shanghai teachers apply both positive and negative variation. This means that they show what the concept is and what it is not straight away.

Common mistakes and misconceptions are studied deeply, not just briefly mentioned.

2. Procedural variation: we saw students come to the board and offer different solutions to the same problem, so teachers would teach multiple ways of solving the same problem.

3. Emphasis on logical reasoning and mathematical thinking: it was common (every 5 minutes) for teachers to stimulate their students to think and make logical deductions by asking questions such as “Why?”, “How?”, “What if?”, “How do you know that?”, “Is 3 a factor of 26? If yes, give me the reasons why, if not why not?” and so on. Maths teachers in Shanghai believe that the mathematics learning process should focus on thinking. When we participated in a lesson observation discussion in Shanghai what struck me was that their head teacher, also a maths teacher, said that the lesson was good because it was logical: all the steps were built logically. Students were given time to think and to explain their solution to the class. This helps them to organise their thoughts and internalise the knowledge that they have learnt.

4. Emphasis on the use of precise and elegant language: we observed that all teachers demand precise use of definitions and maths statements and are not satisfied until it is perfect. Even reasonably correct statements are not accepted but only those that are perfectly mathematically correct will be praised and then repeated by the class.

5. Serious and focused discipline and rapport between teachers and students: in all of the classes that we observed the learning atmosphere was of a superb quality in which every student knows when to open their book, when to put 21 | P a g e

his/her hand up and so on. In such an environment the teachers may seem to be central but to me teaching appeared to be student-centred at every single moment. The majority of class time is allocated for discussion. They do pair and group practical work too during which no one would be wasting their time.

The Shanghai maths teacher plays the role of a conductor of a rather complicated orchestra which the teaching of maths actually is. They embraced a sophisticated version of mathematics and made sure that the required conditions for that are met.

We can learn many lessons from Shanghai maths teaching: we can certainly look deeper and with more care into pedagogy behind the teaching of mathematics and even the first 5 features may be implemented in our own way. Everything is possible. Impossible just takes a little bit longer.

Dr. Jiansheng Bao from Shanghai Normal University has shown us these pictures to represent the differences between Eastern and Western maths teaching. He said that the Chinese maths teacher guides all the students in taking one step at a time and brings everyone up focusing on achieving a clearly defined goal. He compared our system with the picture below where everyone climbs up as best as they can and only the strongest will be at the top while many others fall down. Interesting food for thought?

Eastern

• • • •

Step by step Confidence Goal-driven One way, different speeds

Western

• • • •

Jumping around At risk Activity-driven Multi-ways, different speeds

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Spotted in a North London school by Martyn Henson, Headteacher:

Can you create a treasure hunt like this for skills or knowledge needed in your subject area?

Look out for the Maths one which has just appeared around school!

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Reflection On Nobel

by Sam Harris

Throughout my short spell at Nobel, I feel that the school has given me a licence to develop freely but also provided the guidance and assistance required developing both as a teacher and as an individual. During this short spell, I have had the opportunity to meet some incredibly hard-working, dedicated members of staff not only within the PE department but throughout the school.

Experiences such as residential trips to Wymondley Wood have enabled me to learn in differing situations again with and from different members of staff.

I have been primarily based in the PE faculty and all members of staff have gone above and beyond in order to assist my development whether the questions be based on specific activities, drills or non PE related items.

The range of expertise and skills acquired by members of the PE department is vast and varied, providing students with an outstanding opportunity to develop in all sporting activities. The

range of personalities within the department creates a pleasant, fun, yet professional approach to teaching as all take both their PE and leadership roles very seriously. I have thoroughly enjoyed my time working in this department thus far and hope that this continues over the next half term.

As part of my University degree, Nobel is my 4th placement school yet it is the first department which has offered what is known in PE as the ‘Nurture Group’.

This opportunity provides those students who are less physically or socially able access to differing sporting contexts such as developing communication, teamwork, trust and basic co-ordination skills that can significantly impact on a student’s development, not only within sport but the wider school. I have been lucky enough to teach a Year 8 Nurture group whilst at Nobel and this group’s progression in such a short space of time is one of the most rewarding situations I have had within my limited teaching career. I feel that we sometimes as teachers forget the impact of students defying all the odds and concentrate on those that are already there, but groups such as these provide not only the students but the teachers with a massive learning opportunity and one of which the school and PE department should be proud .

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Lead Practitioners

by David Martin, Assistant Headteacher Career progression to management is not the call of all teachers. It seems strange to think that when you are seen as successful in your role you get promoted to a position that reduces the time you spend in the area in which you were a success: the classroom. Whilst TLR and leadership posts allow you to have a wider impact and support fellow colleagues it can be to the detriment of possibly the main reason we got into teaching. To teach!

This was recognised by the profession with the introduction of Advanced Skills Teacher posts and Excellent Teacher posts. These posts ceased to exist in August 2013. But to keep the momentum, the School Teachers’ Pay and Conditions Document 2013 introduced a new post of ‘Leading Practitioner’ (LP). As well as having the same statutory professional responsibilities as classroom teachers, the LP is required to take on additional duties relevant to their role in modelling and leading improvement of teaching skills.

their workplace. All of which can contribute to school improvement in the field of learning and teaching.

The core focus of the lead practitioner role is to share effective and innovative strategies that impact on classroom learning and to support fellow practitioners in specific subject areas or themes. Lead practitioners have a clear objective to move practice on in the classroom or workplace, stimulating discussion and reflection that will affect current and sustained impact within their school and across a network of schools.

Lead practitioners clearly aspire to improve, nurture and lead colleagues, and develop the next generation. They have the capability to turn whole-school priorities into tangible classroom impact.

At the same time they are creating collaborative communities of learners.

At a time when negativity surrounds the continual change in education, with moving goalposts and shifts in structure and content I, for one, think that the introduction of a role that celebrates the desire of teachers to continue to strive for professional development is a positive step for all.

Meet some of the Lead Practitioner Team: Jason Pellett

A professional role now exists that recognises the impact of exemplary teachers who can lead improvement of teaching skills, as well as take a leadership role in developing, implementing and evaluating policies in 25 | P a g e

I joined Nobel School in September 2014 as a Lead Practitioner for Geography and now have over 9 years teaching experience. Previously I have worked as a Head of Department in both Tower Hamlets, east London and overseas in New Zealand.

My current responsibilities beyond the classroom include:

- Most sports and outdoor pursuits, including football, rugby, cricket and running.

- Travelling and experiencing new places and cultures.

Irina Tolchenova

- International Schools co-ordinator (with LMC).

- New Staff Induction.

- KS3 Geography curriculum and assessment.

My professional interests include: - Developing engaging lesson resources, including the use of interactive whiteboards.

- Monitoring teaching and learning.

- Mentoring trainee teachers and NQTs. - Incorporating concepts of global citizenship and development into my teaching.

- Use of personal experience within teaching and learning resources, e.g. travels.

My personal interests include: - My family, including partner, Nicky, and three children Joshua, Keanu and Indigo.

I joined Nobel School as a Lead Practitioner for Mathematics in April 2014.My key areas of interest are: 1. Maths Mastery Program development. I am a strong believer in every student succeeding in maths and learning how to think and to solve problems. I have developed a learning program in which the number of topics is reduced but studied in depth, oriented to understanding patterns and ideas in maths and solving problems for students of all abilities. I run maths departmental workshops for year 8 and 9 teachers.

2. Participation in the National research project “Shanghai-UK exchange� where Jill Borcherds and I visited schools in Shanghai to see what makes them so 26 | P a g e

successful in teaching maths.

Two Shanghai teachers came to visit our school in November. It gave a unique opportunity for our maths department and for teachers of other subjects and in other schools to see their teaching and lesson planning among our students. We’ll be evaluating our reports and findings to NCTEM (National Centre of Excellence in Teaching of Mathematics) twice: after the Chinese teachers’ visit and after we have implemented some strategies in our classrooms.

3. I like to be experimental in my teaching and believe that we should care about continuing our professional development. That is why I’ll be involved this year in organising an Action Research group of teachers where we’ll be trying to conduct a small scale investigation of our practices, collecting evidence and analysing it so we can make informed decisions concerning our daily teaching practice as well as growing as professionals.

4. Organising a working group with maths departmental colleagues with the aim of improving the effectiveness of our marking and assessment.

5. Maths Academy organisation and coordination: I’d like to mix different age groups of students who love maths and would like to take risks in working on complex maths problems with no limits. I am sure that it will be an

interesting learning and teaching experience.

6. I’ll continue developing the flipped learning model of teaching and learning that helps students to grow into confident, selfdirected and interdependent learners. This year I will have 8 iPads in my classroom which will take the project into a new adventure.

Helen Foy

I have been teaching at Nobel for seven years. Throughout my time at Nobel I have had a community remit to my role and I have had the privilege and pleasure of working in partnership with many of the secondary, primary and special schools in Stevenage. Through this I have the opportunity to share good practice and work with others to improve the quality of physical education teaching and learning for all students throughout the town. As well as my collaborative work with physical education teachers I am also a tutor with the HertsCam network. I am delighted that we have our own Teacher Led 27 | P a g e

Development Work group at Nobel and look forward to working with the new candidates for this academic year.

Amy Pearson

Don’t be shy…

If you’ve got a particular area of interest in relation to teaching and learning then we’d like to include it in our next edition.

We are looking for: • •

• • I am one of the lead practitioners in the school, in charge of KS4 within science and I am also the NQT coordinator for the school. I am really proud of our KS4 results last year and we always work hard to support our students to achieve their best. As NQT coordinator I am in charge of nine NQTs and their professional development within the school. We have an excellent group of NQTs and I look forward to working with them throughout the year.

•

Instant inspiration – short, snappy ideas for the classroom; Longer learning – more in depth articles dealing with specific teaching and learning ideas or problems; CPD Compendium - reviews of CPD attended, either internal or external; Research report - Current research project updates; Book reviews / Blog recommendations.

Please discuss your idea with any of the Lead Practitioner team who will be happy to help you turn it into an article for Nobel’s Learning.

Nobel’s Learning is the teaching and learning journal for Nobel School. It is published midway through each school term.

For further details please contact Naomi Rose naomi.rose@nobel.herts.sch.uk

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