Underperforming BME students? Minimise ‘stereotype threat’.

 

An evolution of ‘Outstanding’ – removing the mysticism

Wading knee-deep into the debate over lesson grading vs. non-grading I’ve come to feel that part of the reason this contentious exchange even exists is because for too long how we judge teaching and learning has been shrouded in mysticism and complexity. Personally, I am someone who needs a grade somewhere along the way; I need to contextualise the feedback i’m receiving because I can be in danger of over-interpreting the feedback i’m given either too positively or too negatively.

Part of the problem for me has been that for years I had been distracted by the pressure of teaching buzz words and structures taking over my pedagogy, rather than being used selectively, e.g. the 5-part lesson, multiple activities, card sorts, think-pair-share, mini-plenaries etc.

The journey I have undergone over the last year, and the ever-exhilarating discourse held with colleagues, is in realising the need to massively simplify the way we observe lessons; to distill the key things that contribute to progress over time – recognising that teaching behaviours in a 20-25 min observation might contribute towards looking for evidence of progress over time, rather than a lesson grade hinging heavily on progress during the observation period. There needs to be a triangulation of evidence to show this e.g. evidence in books of redrafting so that significant improvement is made, evidence of lesson planning that indicates the progress that will be made (projections of progress if the class continue along this path), talking to students, talking to the teacher about what came before and what comes next (and being able to clearly see the end in mind) in the sequence of lessons.

The benefits to both teachers and students are enormous:

• ‘Outstanding’ teaching becomes something very achievable rather than an idealistic notion of absolute perfection. If there is solid evidence from a variety of sources that students are making excellent progress over time then, if not every minute of a 20-min observation is near-perfect, does it really matter?
• More recognition for staff who consistently work hard to improve their students’ outcomes e.g. by asking them to redraft and then committing to remarking the redrafts
• Conversely, recognition that pulling an all-singing, all-dancing one off observation lesson out of the bag does not necessarily mean that students are making sufficient progress over time, and if the rest of the triangulated evidence is lacking, that this can mean teaching requires improvement
• This all should lead to easier recognition of the typicality of teaching for staff and accepting the view that a 25min observation is just a snapshot so therefore we owe it to the teacher to look for other ways that progress can be seen from before, and the potential after, this snapshot of time.

As we embark down this path there are some pitfalls that will need consideration:

• We’ve been so long distracted by lesson ‘tricks’ that staff need time and patience to adapt to a new mindset
• There will need to be a lot of moderating of all people involved in observations to ensure continuing dialogue about the different ways we can evidence progress over time e.g. How does a practical subject like Drama or PE evidence this when there are no exercise books to look in for evidence of redrafting/redoing?
• There is a danger that the ‘progress over time’ emphasis could be used as an excuse for a poor quality lesson

Here’s an idea: what if we were to stop giving lesson grades to individual lessons and, rather, one observer were to undertake a series of learning walks of the same teacher over a specified period of time, then engage in a dialogue with the teacher about the different pieces of evidence of progress over time, only arriving at an overall judgement of their teaching once all this has been triangulated, rather than based on an individual lesson grade? This could be done three times a year with each teacher. Surely we owe it to our hardworking teachers to allow them the maximum opportunity to show that they are typically good at their job rather than just a series of snapshots?

Closing the gaps and creating GRIT – smarter feedback and a culture of redrafting

Formative marking is the buzz term of the decade but what does it actually look like in good practice? It’s taken me a long process of refinement to finally reach a point where I feel sure that my marking is truly formative and enables students to make the most progress in their learning. In the highly discursive subjects of English and Sociology, this truly matters.

I’ve come a long way from comments such as ‘You need to write in more detail’ and ‘Improve your spellings’ to where my marking is today. My marking of any extended piece of writing or essay centres on three rules:

Hardwiring learning and effort = success

At Bristol Brunel Academy we try to lead by challenging preconceived notions that people are born talented or lucky.  In Daniel Coyle’s The Talent Code: Greatness isn’t born it’s Grown he argues that talent is grown through purposeful practice…deep practice.  Below I give a specific example of how this can be seen in students’ learning.

The catastrophism of student progress

Great blog by Dr Dan Nicholls: Does student progress happen catastrophically in light bulb moments or uniformly over time? How can we learn from this?

High performing leadership #2 – Insanely simple

One of the most valuable lessons I have learnt over the past year as a senior leader is in the power of using the right language. There have been numerous examples in the Academy recently where the simple switch from using complex but rather mediocre words to express an idea to using simple but well-thought through words and phrases has spiked momentum in many aspects of the school.

At Bristol Brunel, we call this switch ‘a nudge’.

“Nudges are ways of influencing choice without limiting the choice set or making alternatives appreciably more costly in terms of time,
trouble, social sanctions, and so forth. They are called for because
of flaws in individual decision-making, and they work by making use of those flaws.” (Hausman & Welch 2010, 126)

which we have taken to understand as

“A nudge is very simple idea, approach that has surprising leverage for improvement. It is low in energy and feels to staff very intuitive. It offers a different way or view without replacing or removing old ways. They are often located in the what and is a really good way to prompt improvement and change, without persuasion, resource or time.” (Dr Dan Nicholls, Principal of Bristol Brunel Academy)

Examples of nudges that highlight the power of language:

High performing leadership #1

Free resource included at the end of this post.

The past year and a half has been an amazing leadership journey, both for me personally and for the Academy. Here I try to capture some of the key revelations and insights that have allowed me to develop my own leadership skills and the leadership skills of staff that I either line manage or mentor.

1. The first ‘teaching moment’ was the burning realisation of the need to explicitly support staff to develop their leadership skills, and in recognising that leading is different from managing – from running strategic meetings (as opposed to meetings constantly mired in the operational), to knowing how to grow the bright spots in a team and create vertical influence (a la Switch by Chip and Dan Heath, and Turn the Ship Around by David Marquet). The USA has long encouraged the pedagogy of leadership in every relevant institution, from companies to politics to education; Britain has been somewhat slower in this realisation; industry taking the first step, but the pedagogy of educational leadership trailing a long way behind. Why, however, do we assume that a person can go from being part of a team to running a high performing team overnight?

Leading Through Others – The Power of 1.8

Fantastic post by Jon Jones, VP at Bristol Brunel Academy, about the power of vertical influence.

Begin With the End in Mind

 

Begin with the end in mind.

Recently I rediscovered a strategy that has revolutionised my teaching; a fundamental shift in mindset resulting in enormously simplifying my planning, consistently producing lessons graded as ‘Outstanding’ and receiving overwhelmingly positive feedback from student voice in my classes. It’s not new. It’s not difficult. It is simple.

The strategy (taken from Stephen Covey’s ’7 Habits of highly effective people’): beginning with the end in mind.

Quick win – Differentiated Smart Objectives

Why?To raise achievement in my Year 12 and Year 13 classes, I knew that this year I needed to have an embedded exam focus in all my lessons and not just at the end of topics. At the same time, I also felt that the trend for differentiated learning objectives that are leveled or graded in every lesson was becoming meaningless for my students who knew full well that the learning that we were going to cover in a singular lesson would not mean that they were going to achieve a ‘C’ or ‘B’ grade by the end of that lesson. My objectives needed to become SMART: measurable and achievable steps to success with a focus on practicing exam skills and demonstrating exam knowledge in every lesson.

Possible solution. SMART objectives: differentiated objectives that are set within an achievable context of progress towards full marks in a specific exam question by the end of the lesson.

Differentiated SMART objective with achievable outcomes.