Issue No. 4

LEARNING NEWSLETTER OF

THE RAVENSBOURNE SCHOOL

Welcome to our 4th edition of the TRS Learning Newsletter. It’s been a very busy term and the Learning Team

would like to thank all staff for their commitment and support with the following: Learning From Lessons, The

Big Switch, The Challenge Teach Meet, The Learning Insets, The Learning Working Party, The Gifted and Talent-

ed Working Party and the QA Audits to name but a few. This newsletter aims to share good practice of all the

excellent examples of great learning at The Ravensbourne School. Thank you to everyone who has written an

article for this issue. If you’d like to find out more information about any of the ideas and strategies covered in

this issue, please feel free to speak to the author of each article. The Learning Team wishes all staff at TRS a

very Merry Christmas. Scott Burns, Lead Practitioner For Learning

This half term, teams of teachers

across the school have been visiting a

variety of lessons out of their depart-

ment area. In total there have been

16 LFL training days, 47 staff who

have worked in teams to visit lessons

and 64 lessons visited. Learning from

Lessons

is a voluntary professional develop-

ment programme for teachers where

they are able to visit lessons

to help gain ideas that they can use

in their own lessons. Ultimately

through this whole school process of

sharing best practice it will help our

students with their learning even

more. Four lessons are visited on

each day and a professional conver-

sation is had between the class teach-

er and the visitors to that lesson,

about the learning that was seen. The

dialogue is mostly centred around the 4 areas of FACE (Feedback, Autonomy, Challenge and Engagement), as

well as other important areas of learning. Here is some best practice that has been seen for each area.

Thank you to all staff that have supported this programme. It will continue to run in the New Year and we look

forward to sharing further best practice with you then.

Louise Davies Assistant Head Learning

LEARNING FROM LESSONS

THE BIG SWITCH CAMPAIGN

Thank you to all students and teachers that took part in The Big

Switch Campaign on the 23rd September. The aim of the day was

for students to try different learning activities that would not nor-

mally take place in their lessons, to help stretch and challenge

students further. The Learning Team and Learning Development

Team visited many lessons throughout the day and saw a lot of

fantastic learning. Below is a poster to show you what our stu-

dents thought of the day…which as you can see was overwhelm-

ingly positive! Watch out for the next Big Switch in the New Year!

Louise Davies, Assistant Head Learning

The Big Switch was an amazing experience for me because it meant that we could take control of the class-

room. I think it’s a great idea because it lets children like me express themselves, whilst learning by teaching

the class. The Big Switch also means that we still learn but we also have lots of fun too. I really enjoyed teach-

ing the class about the Transport Revolution in my History lesson and it was very interesting to see the differ-

ent teaching strategies of other students in the class. We really look forward to another Big Switch in the New

year!

Theo Kelsey 8SA

‘It allowed us to see our strengths and

development areas more clearly.’

‘We worked as a team to help each other

complete the tasks’.

‘I think the main strength was that we all

had to research into the topic first and

then teach it, therefore we were going

over it thoroughly.’

‘Although it was helpful, it slowed down

the class pace’

‘It was difficult to remember all the

information in the right order’.

‘Creating our own lesson was more

interactive.’

- Year 10s had an A-level workshop in Drama.

- The teacher wouldn’t help students in a year 10 Business lesson.

- Students created their own learning objectives and home learning in Maths.

- Sociology students taught each other and their peers.

- Year 13 Psychology students were not allowed to write anything down until the last 20 mins of

the lesson – all discussion based.

Why did you choose to work here? What made you choose where you live? When are you at your happiest? Who inspires you? Where do you view yourself as most successful?

What have these questions made you do? Think? Consider? Evaluate? All of these higher-level thinking skills are essential in developing interested, independent and challenged students.

Questioning is essential in driving thinking forward and challenging or subverting established thought, thus ad-vancing understanding and creativity.

Consider these questions regarding your own classroom practice:

How often do you use open questions? Who? What? Why? etc.

How often do you use closed questions?

Do you answer questions yourself or do you open it to the group?

Tips and pointers for your classes:

Always use open questions to extend responses. If a student gives you an answer can you extend them with Why? How? In what way?

Give students the time to think. The average classroom waiting time after a question is 3 seconds. Extend that.

Listen! We often hear students instead of listening properly. If you listen to student responses and change or re-direct the lesson given those responses, the lesson may not go quite where you planned but that is part of the fun and part of the learning process.

Finally, I’ll leave you with a question. What is the most important part of a class discussion…?

Mark Naylor Assistant Head 6th Form Learning

Effective questioning

HIGHER ORDER QUESTIONING GRID

Literacy—A shared responsibility

‘Reading and writing float on a sea of talk’

Barnes. D., J. and Rosen. H (eds), Language, and the Learner and the School (1969)

To be literate is:

To gain a voice and to participate meaningfully and assertively in decisions that affect one’s life.

To gain self-confidence to become self-assertive.

Literacy enables people to read their own world and write their own history. Literacy provides access to written knowledge – and knowledge is power. In a nutshell, literacy empowers.

(Improving Literacy in Secondary Schools – a shared Responsibility)

Now that Progress Tests and Pre Public Examinations have been completed it is the perfect opportunity for all

Departments to experiment with speaking and listening activities. Many of you attended Mr Naylor’s INSET ses-

sion on Questioning; this could also be used as an opportunity to trial some of the many strategies you learned!

Conducting Socratic discussions will enable you to use your questioning more effectively, if you choose to get

involved in the discussion too!

What is a Socratic discussion? The Socratic Discussion is patterned after the way Socrates conducted learning activities in Ancient Greece. Stu-dents shared their thoughts and opinions regarding the written and spoken word. They were further required to read, analyse and evaluate assigned materials. How do I do this in my classroom? In the lesson before a Socratic Circle is scheduled, hand out a short passage of text Students read the extract prior to the lesson At the beginning of the lesson, students are randomly divided into two concentric circles: an inner circle

and an outer circle Students in the inner circle read the passage aloud and then engage in a dis-

cussion of the text for approximately ten minutes; the outer circle observes the human behaviour and performance of the inner circle

Following this discussion of the text, the outer circle then assesses the inner circle’s performance and offers ten minutes of feedback for the inner circle

Students in the inner and outer circle exchange roles and positions within the classroom.

The new inner circle holds a discussion and then receives feedback from the new outer circle

To make the discussion more interesting and competitive, students cannot use discourse markers! The circle of students that use the least amount of discourse markers could receive a prize!

Finally, I would like to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Thank you for warmly wel-coming me into your community, here at The Ravensbourne School. These last few weeks have been thoroughly enjoyable! Stephanie McManamon Director of School Improvement English

Literacy—A shared responsibility

TEACH MEET IDEA: THE EEEEEEEESE OF CLOSE READING

What’s the difference between PEE(D/L), PQC, PEA, EPEE, STAR, PETAL, SQI, DELPE and PETER? Answer: very little. All are acronyms for structuring analytical paragraphs but essentially they cover all the same skills. And it’s that key word – skills – that I believe we should be focusing on. Using all 10 acronyms, mixing in Blooms Taxonomy, my knowledge of national curriculum levels and GCSE spec-ifications, as well as my experiences of trying to teach confused and aimless literature students about how to write up their close reading of texts, I created my Eeeeeeees* of Close Reading (and no, that’s not a typo) with sentence starters: A key quote is ‘…’ EVIDENCE , key word or phrase from the text This makes the reader think/feel… EFFECT on reader, their reactions The word types/techniques are… EXPLAIN use of language in detail In my opinion, the writer does this because… EVALUATE reasons/effectiveness This links to when… because… EXPAND with another quote or your wider reading Consequently, it relates to the theme… because… EXPLORE using an important theme Additionally, it suggests/implies/connotes/highlights… EXAMINE using in-depth analysis Furthermore, we can infer/deduce/predict/conclude… EXPOUND with critical/personal interpretations *(there is another E before all that which is more of a cautionary tale - ECHOing the text (retelling the story) is never enough! If you think it may be of use, you can find a detailed PowerPoint (detailing a critical analysis of Humpty Dump-ty!), posters and print outs in the Learning folder of the staff drive (though please feel free to contact me with questions and comments). Luigi Coppola English Department

The student Learning Development Team (LDT) are increasingly having an influence on learning at TRS. Two members of the group presented at the Challenge Teach Meet in October. More recently, they have been working on challenge in lessons and literacy across the across the curriculum. They are looking forward to launching their new Challenge initiative in assembly next term. They will be also working with Head’s of Department to discuss literacy mats. Scott Burns Lead Practitioner For Learning

THE LEARNING DEVELOPMENT TEAM

LEARNING From LESSONS

Year 10 were observed as part of the ‘Learning From Lessons’ programme in one of their Art lessons. Students

were developing visual work exploring the sights, smells, sounds, observations, and textures of different

months of the year, in order to come up with designs for a calendar image. Students had previously begun to

use a variety of different materials, mark-making techniques and observational drawing skills to explore col-

ours, shapes and textures associated with different months. In the lesson students had to rotate from one ta-

ble to another to try and visually express different aspects of each month, such as ‘sounds’ or ‘tastes’ with a ten

minute time limit at each table. Written word, as well as personal identification of the most appropriate mark-

making techniques to best communicate how each calendar month should look, could be included to create an

abstract piece of work. Students could also add visual images or key words to describe their own personal

thoughts, feelings and memories associated with the month they were exploring. Feedback to the group was

provided by POST-IT notes; any missing aspects of their visual exploratory work (such as ‘observations,’ ‘sounds’

or ‘thoughts’) had been highlighted. Later on in the lesson students could add to others’ POST-IT notes and pro-

vide commentary on what was working well and what areas of the work could be improved.

Areas of success:

Sharing and discussing ideas with the Head of Art in the planning of the lesson. Working as a department to

share best practice and consider effective ways of developing student engagement and challenge. Encouraging

different learning styles: visual, kinaesthetic and auditory. Students could personalise their learning through

their own selection of materials. Building on the use of unusual materials in the lesson such as soil or twigs, in

combination with drawing materials, oil pastels, spray paint and paint. Students using dedicated improvement

time to further develop their own visual language in discussion with peers and teacher.

Next steps:

To discuss with the group other ways of developing independent and challenging work.

Lindsey Hibbert Progress and Achievement Manager

THE CINDERELLA ASPECT OF AFL

Success Criteria has sometimes been referred to as the neglected relation who has the potential to turn learning into something magical! Learning is accelerated when the students are clear about the success criteria and are able to judge the quality of their work and know how to improve it. Take a few minutes each lesson to explore the success criteria. Success Criteria should be linked to the learning intention, it is specific to an activity, it is discussed and agreed with pupils prior to undertaking the activity. Think about providing a scaffold and a focus for pupils while engaged in the activity. Success criteria can then be used as the basis for feedback and peer-/self-assessment. Scott Burns Lead Practitioner in Learning

USING SOCIAL MEDIA TO ENCOURAGE STUDENTS TO READ

Blogged Reviews

We post student book reviews on the Library blog and also ask for the link to be tweeted @RavensbourneSch and to the relevant authors who have Twitter accounts.

http://ravensbournelibraries.blogspot.co.uk/p/book-reviews.html

Students whose book reviews are blogged receive a reward point and we let them know they have received a point and their review has posted by sending a note (including a link to the blog) via their Form Tutor and also inform their English teacher.

Twitter Book Reviews

Create a Twitter book review

Create a Twitter book review for our Twitter site http://twitter.com/RavensbourneSch

Your review, including the author and the title and your name, can only be 140 characters long. The grid below will help. Don’t forget that spaces count as characters. You must make sure you include the author, title and your name and the rest is up to you.

If students write Twitter reviews and they are handed in to the Library we will arrange for them to be tweeted @RavensbourneSch and also to the relevant authors who have Twitter accounts.

Students whose book reviews are tweeted receive a reward point and we let them know they have received a point and their review has been tweeted by sending a note (including a link to the twitter account) via their Form Tutor and also inform their English teacher. Eileen Roberts, Librarian

ZIMBARDO’S THEORY

According to Bloom’s taxonomy, evaluation is a higher order thinking skill. We as teachers all recognise that this

is a much harder skill to teach than simple knowledge or comprehension! In terms of psychology (and this could

be adapted to other subjects) we use that analogy that the ‘theory’ is the roof, held up by ‘research’ (which are

the columns). This task helps with evaluating in a step-by-step way.

When it comes to evaluating a study, I ask my students to draw a simple roof and column building. Then, we

create holes in the columns. These act as the flaws (i.e. the negative evaluations of the study).

Then, we fill these holes with ‘polyfilla’ – the positive

evaluations/counterarguments. This helps the students

to create a balanced argument.

Finally, this also helps the students to see that a strong

theory (roof) needs to be supported by strong research

(columns). If not, they need to approach the theory

with caution!

Julia Barber, Psychology Department Head of Year 7

QUALITY Assurance of Written FEEDBACK

The QA team have been very impressed with the standard of written feedback being provided to students

across all departments. As you are aware, there has been a major focus on literacy across the curriculum and

this will continue to be one of the school’s priorities. Please ensure you continue to allow appropriate time for

Dedicated Improvement Time (DIT). Feel free to allocate more than 20 minutes of DIT in your lesson so as to

ensure the students have responded thoroughly to your comments. Thank you to the English Department for

recently displaying good practice examples of written feedback outside Mr Murphy’s office in the Small Hall.

We will be looking forward to other departments sharing their examples of written feedback in the New Year.

Please do not hesitate to speak to a member of the team if you would like any support with written feedback.

The QA Team

GEOGRAPHY TRIP TO SWITZERLAND

As most students slept, 43 students and 4 Geography teachers awoke on

Monday morning to make the short trip across Europe to Geneva, Switzer-

land. Following a luxury train journey and a bite to eat, we dived straight

into Swiss culture touring the city by boat on the pristine Lake Geneva!

Dinner went down a treat! A cheese fondue followed by a frankfurter,

enough to send some to sleep, as we ventured on to Lausanne.

Tuesday saw the highlight of the trip, a tiring coach journey into France

and to beautiful Chamonix, followed by a procession of cable cars to take

us up into The Alps and to the stunning Mont Blanc. As we ascended, the

view did too, we stared over the most beautiful part of Europe, all remain-

ing speechless.

When you’d thought you’d seen it all Switzerland threw more natural won-

ders at us, Saas Fee. There was a change in scenery and language as we

ventured into the German part of the country and explored

the world’s largest ice cave and highest revolving restaurant.

As we bid goodbye to the views at the highest part of the

Swiss Alps, we stumbled upon a tobogganing course and

couldn’t resist a go. I’m sure the screams of Miss Davies and

Miss Moriarty will live long in the memories of those watch-

ing on! The day concluded with a tour explaining the effects

of tourists on the region (ironic?).

Thursday already? Where had the time gone? A legendary

day before departure saw the visit of La Maison du Gruyère

cheese factory and the climax of the trip, Maison Cailler

chocolate factory featuring a chocolate buffet and many

free samples! A stop at a salt mine was our last stop before venturing back to Geneva to pick up our delayed

flight back to Gatwick (thanks EasyJet!).

On behalf of all the students attending I would like to put our thanks on record to Miss Davies, Miss Moriarty,

Miss Sawyers and our wonderful trip organiser Mr Lucas!

Joseph Collier 11HD