TEACHING & LEARNING HANDBOOK

TEACHING & LEARNING HANDBOOK

KAA TEACHING & LEARNING HANDBOOK2

INTRODUCTION

I’m regularly asked: ‘what about the child who is completely “unmotivated”; who just doesn’t want to learn anything?’ My answer is that that child doesn’t exist. There are kids who don’t want to learn particular things, in particular settings, and there are those who don’t find it easy to learn some things in some settings; but the generally lazy child who doesn’t want to learn anything is a myth. What the questioner actually means is: ‘They don’t want to learn what I want them to learn, when I want them to learn it, in the way I want them to learn it.’Guy Claxton

3KAA TEACHING & LEARNING HANDBOOK

INTRODUCTION

KAA Mission StatementINTREPIDUS (adj.)

Definitions: Undaunted, fearless, bold

KAA has at its core the pursuit of the very highest standards in education, both inside the classroom and beyond it. We believe all children can exceed their expectations, no matter what their prior attainment and experiences. At our school no child will be labelled; we will treat them all as intelligent and individual. Through our ethos, our extended curriculum and our entrepreneurial approach we will develop students into confident, rounded individuals, equipped for anything that life throws at them. Our motto – INTREPIDUS – will help us to realise our ambition.

AS KAA STAFF WE AIM TO:

• Create a culture of high aspirations, high motivation and high achievement for all

• Build a strong community based on fairness and personal responsibility

• Welcome, value and respect all who come into the school

• Be reflective and committed to our ongoing development as teachers and leaders, in our continuous strive for excellence

• Promote positive dialogue and partnership with our community

OUR FOUR CORE VALUES ARE:

Excellence Creativity Resilience Citizenship

We know they will guide our work to create an outstanding academy which transforms the lives of our students.


INTRODUCTION

TEACHING & LEARNING PLEDGE TO OUR STUDENTS

FUNDAMENTAL PURPOSE

As our mission statement says, our aim is to help prepare you – our students – for future success. We mean success in the broadest sense: whether that be academic, economic, or in your personal and social lives. When you leave us in seven years you will enter into an exciting but demanding world. To meet the competitive demands of universities and employers you will need to perform at your very best. That much is obvious – but what does excellent performance look like in 2014? Or 2019? As your teachers we keep the words of Seymour Papert below at the front of our minds:

“There is only one twenty first century skill: the ability to act intelligently when you are faced with a situation for which you have not been specifically prepared.” Seymour Papert, Professor Emeritus at MIT

The uncertainty of 21st Century life means that, to thrive, you will need to be ready to enjoy challenging situations, and able to meet them calmly, confidently and creatively. We know that in the UK today there are many young people who can’t do this and who are struggling to cope. We don’t want that to happen to any of you. If you turn up, join in and give 100%, we will do everything in our power to give you that confidence and capability.

The qualities we value are written below; we will do all we can to help you develop these:

• curiosity;

• embracing a challenge;

• resilience;

• resourcefulness;

• concentration;

• imagination;

• questioning;

• clear thinking;

• self-awareness;

• thoughtfulness;

• self-evaluation;

• independence;

• team spirit;

• empathy;


INTRODUCTION

To achieve this, we need order and routine. But, given that, we will always strive to value these qualities over simple, ‘good behaviour’. Also this list is provisional – we will develop it over time and we expect your input.

ENTREPRENEURSHIP

At KAA, we want to develop the business and social entrepreneurs of the future. We’re lucky to have Sir Rod Aldridge, our namesake, a world famous entrepreneur and a founding school Governor, to help us to achieve this. We don’t expect you all to follow this path – only those who want to – but we expect you all to have the opportunity to. Entrepreneurs create wealth and employment, and that is important to us.

There are three elements which make our school entrepreneurial:

• Excellent academic qualifications for all, including ‘technical’ subjects such as maths, science, computer science and product design, and subjects that teach you to be effective communicators such as English, history, geography and languages.

• An entrepreneurial, can-do spirit that is fundamental to all that we do – lessons, enrichment, the house system – everything. This is what Intrepidus is all about!

• Valuable entrepreneurial experiences for all of you during your seven years with us, such as our Industry Days and Kensington Creates Club.

Entrepreneur is originally a French word which means, ‘to start’. We’d like all of you to be people who can start things, and change the world for the better. This quote is important to us – what does it mean to you?

“Some see things as they are and ask, why? Others dream things that never were, and ask, why not?”George Bernard Shaw

PARTNERSHIP

To achieve our goals we need your help and help from your parents. Creating this school is a big commitment for us, and it is quite a demanding one. All of us are prepared to put in the hours it takes to help you achieve the best results. We need to see a similar effort from you. We also need to know what you really want from KAA; how we could make our list of qualities above more precise and relevant to you; and how we could be more effective in helping you to strengthen them. We want your help to keep us on track and to get better. We promise to be as open with you as we can be about what we are trying to do, what we are thinking, and to take your thoughts and ideas seriously.


INTRODUCTION

BEYOND EXAMS: GROWTH FOR ALL

KAA will be a place where everyone wins: that is, where everyone feels they are becoming more confident and capable to deal with real challenges, out of school as much as within. Our entrepreneurial focus is a major part of this aim. It’s true that we hope all of you will progress onto VIth Form and have the choice to attend university, but we also know that some of you will choose a different path. We will help you all find the things you are passionate about and can excel at, and we will genuinely value many different kinds of success. And more than that, we know that everyone can get better at dealing with difficult things, and we will help you all to ‘win’ at that.

‘ABILITY’ AND REPORTS

To do this, our attention needs to be on everyone’s progress and development and not on their limitations. So we will stop thinking, writing and talking about students as if we know how much ‘ability’ or ‘potential’ they have. Young people develop at different rates in different ways, and continually surprise us. We cannot possibly know what you might be capable of. Please remind us if we forget, and use words like ‘bright’, ‘able’ or ‘weak’ by mistake. We will write reports about you that are based on the progress you are making in developing the various, valued qualities; not on your ‘ability’. If your reports do not do this, tell us.

EVALUATING THE SCHOOL

We need your help to be imaginative about all the ways in which we might tell if we are doing better, year by year, in achieving our fundamental purpose. What should we count, measure and publish?

• Activities of the student council?

• Success of Kensington Creates?

• UK and international visitors to our school?

• Entries into national competitions?

• Evidence of teachers taking on new learning challenges out of school as well as within?

• Your involvement in local community projects?

• Number of students who start businesses?

• The proportion of the school budget spent on staff learning?

• Self-report questionnaire measures of self-confidence?

• Attendance at parents’ events?

What do you think will be the most important things to keep track of?


INTRODUCTION

THE SCHOOL ETHOS

Fine words and good intentions – like the ones in this pledge – are no use if they do not filter down into all the everyday details of school life. We have to show that we are remembering our pledge, in detail, in everything we do and say. If we don’t, you won’t believe we are serious. So, to prove to you how serious we are, we will change the way we talk to you about your learning; the way we mark work; the displays we put up on the walls; the resources we make available to you; the amount we trust you to join in making significant decisions about your education (and not just about vending machines and toilets); the way we write reports about you; what we do in assemblies and tutor time; how we involve you in the house system and entrepreneurial activity, and a dozen other aspects of school life as you experience it.

MODELLING

We don’t believe that you will develop confidence and capability as learners unless you are continually surrounded by people who are learning. So we expect everyone in the school to do their best to be role models of openness, curiosity and non-defensiveness. That includes all the teaching and non-teaching staff, all the governors, all the parents and other adults who come into the school, and you yourselves, especially in your dealings with students younger than you. No one at KAA should ever be afraid to say ‘I don’t know’ or ‘I don’t understand.’ Your teachers will make an effort to tell you about what and how they are learning, and their struggles and mistakes.

TEACHING

We believe that teaching is more about helping you get better at finding and figuring things out, and less about telling you ‘stuff ’ and asking you to memorise it. Our job is to let you do more and more of your own learning. As you get more and more confident and capable, so we will need to do less and less telling. From now on, ‘good teaching’ is not about handing over knowledge to you to get you through the exams. It is about helping you take control of your own learning, so you will be able to learn whatever you will need to, throughout your lives. This is what makes us truly entrepreneurial. An entrepreneur is someone who finds solutions to problems and who never stops learning. Teachers will help you look for ways in which the qualities you are developing in school can be useful in business and the outside world – and vice versa.

During your education, you need to build up knowledge of course, but knowledge on its own is not enough. You need to be able to think and act flexibly with the knowledge you have been given; to critique it, connect it and use it to create new knowledge. If you can do this, you will be ready for the challenges of the 21st Century we described above.

SUBJECTS

Different subjects stretch and develop different ‘learning muscles’. A scientist’s questioning is not the same as an artist’s. Evidence in history is not the same as in English. Each of the subjects we teach has grown out of man and woman’s desire to understand the world around them and each subject has certain rules and ways of thinking that you need to understand. We don’t believe in ‘core’ subjects as no one subject is more important than another. You should always know why and how lessons are contributing to the development of your ability to face real-life challenges with confidence.


INTRODUCTION

PARENTS

We need your parents’ help with this. If we are going to be more successful at helping you face the future – whatever your particular future may bring – with confidence, we have to have their support. We want them to get their heads around what we are trying to do, and to ask questions, make suggestions, and debate with us. We know that there are lots of ways of discouraging parents from being involved with school, for example only bothering to contact them when there is a problem. We will try our best not to let that happen. Instead, we want your parents to play a central role in your education. Please do what you can to convince your parents that it is important for them to get involved. Especially if they did not get a lot from school, they need to know that KAA is a very different proposition…


INTRODUCTION

TEACHING & LEARNING IS THE MAIN THING

TEACHERS MATTER

Teachers make the biggest difference in any school, as anyone who has ever worked in education knows. Indeed in many cases, it’s not what school you go to, but what classrooms you go to in that school, that dictates what your future life choices are.

The pie chart below is based on Professor John Hattie’s meta-analysis of over 800 international research studies into what does and does not have an impact on students’ learning and outcomes.

The chart clearly shows that after the students themselves, the biggest impact comes from teachers:

ERADICATING IN-SCHOOL VARIANCE

“An effective school is [essentially] a school full of effective classrooms. It matters much less which school a child attends than which classrooms they are in at that school. In England there is a four-fold difference between the most effective and least effective classrooms.” Dylan Wiliam

Limiting in-school variance, and ensuring consistently high standards of classroom teaching, is what this document – The KAA Teaching & Learning Handbook – aims to achieve. At KAA we want six great lessons every day, consistently across the school. If we can do this – the ‘main thing’ – then excellence in teaching will ripple out into


INTRODUCTION

excellence in all other areas of school life: attainment, progress, behaviour, attendance, our wider culture and ethos and more.

To achieve this level of consistency we need a model; a framework for teachers to follow and refer back to. This is not a prescriptive approach – we do not expect KAA teachers’ lessons to be formulaic or repetitive. Instead the ideas in the model provide a stimulus and support for our planning. We hope the structures here are liberating, not limiting.

This document is deliberately not called a ‘policy’ – instead it is a handbook and training manual to be drawn upon by every teacher in daily practice. It is not something to read during staff induction and then to pick one or two ‘nice’ activities to try out in September. It is intended to be read and re-read, annotated, with key pages photocopied and stuck on your wall. Use it when you are writing a scheme of work, planning a lesson, designing a training session. Don’t leave it on the shelf unused. It is a manual, not a thesis!


INTRODUCTION

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CURRICULUM PLANNING

• The curriculum @ KAA: An introduction 14

• The Five Principles 21

• Stage 1 The Teaching and Learning Cycle 23

• Stage 2 Surface, Deep and Conceptual Understanding 26

• Stage 3 Work Out the Whole Game 29

• Stage 4 Performance of Understanding – Evidence of Thinking 33

• Stage 5 Disciplines and Expertise 37

• Stage 6 Fertile Questions – Planning for ProgressionThe Learner Profile 41

• Stage 7 The Learner Profile 58

• Conclusions on Curriculum Planning and KAA Examples 69

PLANNING FOR LANGUAGE PROGRESSION

• Introduction and Key Terminology 90

• Classroom Talk 93

• Writing 104

• Reading 121

LESSON PLANNING

• Framing Lessons Objectives 134

• The Four Part Lesson 135

– The Connection Phase 136

– The Activation Phase 140

– The Demonstration Phase 146

– The Consolidation Phase 148

• Questioning 157

• Modelling 175

• List of footnotes 178

PART I – CURRICULUM PLANNING


PART I: CURRICULUM PLANNING

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KAA TEACHING & LEARNING HANDBOOK



THE CURRICULUM @ KAA – AN INTRODUCTION A common misconception is that outstanding teaching is just about pedagogy – the strategies and techniques that the teacher uses in each lesson. This idea is seductive but ultimately false. Truly outstanding results only occur if the underlying curriculum delivers the powerful learning experiences which students need to achieve a mature understanding within each subject (and therefore the highest possible grades). So this handbook focuses equally on curriculum planning and lesson planning; it is the curriculum which each department in KAA chooses to follow that will determine our success, as much as delivery of that curriculum.

THE IMPORTANCE OF SUBJECTS

The quote from Seymour Pappert in our Teaching & Learning Pledge captures the world we must prepare our students for. Being able to memorise formulaic answers and rehearse them is near useless in 2014 – a 21st Century education must provide students with much more than this.

There is a danger, however, of going too far the other way and concluding that facts and subject knowledge have no place in a world where you can find any information you need in seconds on the internet. It’s fashionable now to ask, ‘if we have Google why do we need subjects? Pupils just need the skills to find the information.’

This question stems from a mistaken view that teaching academic subjects is merely about providing information, rather than about developing forms of disciplinary thinking. A quote from Christine Counsell sums this up nicely:

“The view that disciplines can neither engage nor serve most pupils often betrays two misapprehensions: first, an assumption that a subject equates to information, as opposed to knowledge; second, a lack of awareness that a school subject such as history has long involved the active and engaging exploration of the structure and form of that knowledge, using concepts and attendant processes.” 1

At KAA we are conscious we have a rare opportunity to create a brand new school which has the highest expectations of students and staff, and can deliver the best possible results. As such, we’ve looked carefully at what research says makes schools most effective. Until recently, many schools have been encouraged to focus more and more on generic ‘thinking-skills’. This approach ignores Counsell’s point above – that academic disciplines serve a distinctive purpose which a skills based curriculum will never be able to address. Disciplines are not sets of ‘skills’ so much as distinctive ways of building knowledge, weighing evidence and finding truth. This is a fundamental part of the way we plan to teach subjects at KAA. As teachers here we are first and foremost specialists in our subjects, and we must use our own disciplines to teach students how to think in particular, powerful ways. KAA teachers know the particular disciplinary context of a

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subject is central to that particular way of thinking, of researching, of judging evidence and of building knowledge about the world. Each academic subject provides its own form of disciplined criticality; disciplined ways of reading, writing and speaking; a disciplined understanding of how different types of knowledge are constructed. So we can’t just focus on ‘critical thinking’ divorced from any subject domain – critical thinking about what? What we had for breakfast? Instead we need to combine a flair for delivery and lesson design (covered in Part III of this handbook) with a deep understanding of the foundational rules and principles of our subject.

The weakness of the ‘skills’ approach is these ‘learning skills’ or ‘thinking skills’ cannot be taught in isolation. You can’t teach someone to solve a problem unless that problem is grounded in some context; unless it is a mathematical or historical or scientific problem. Or rather you can, but because the learning isn’t linked to an underlying concept in one of these subjects, it becomes superficial, and therefore can’t be transferred to new, unseen problems (so isn’t very helpful).

Genericism is tied up with the idea that cross-curricular themes and projects allow learners to see how all subject areas are connected. This is a great intention, but, if we are honest, most cross-curricular projects fall short of this grand ambition. As Howard Gardner points out well, cross-curricular activity is misleadingly labelled at best:

“Children may well benefit from carrying out evocative classroom projects or from pursuing a unit on generative topics like “patterns” or “water” or the “cradle of civilisation.” But these endeavours do not involve disciplines in any legitimate sense of that term. In making a diorama or a dance, in thinking of water or cities in a variety of ways, students are drawing on common sense, common experiences, or common terminology and examples. If no single discipline is being applied, then clearly interdisciplinary thinking cannot be at work.” 2

At KAA we see cross-curricularity differently; it is about connecting subjects at a deeper conceptual level than that of surface content. An example is below: two enquiries incorporating the disciplines of History, Art and Geography. One framed within a thinking-skills curriculum, the other with a focus on teaching for conceptual understanding.

OPTION 1: SKILLS LED

A skills-based approach to this would be to come up with a generic statement or theme that claims to be a cross-curricular project by being connected at a surface level (rather than a conceptual one). In Y7 this might be on the Roman Empire. The skills students are meant to be developing could revolve around ‘problem-solving’, ‘research’ or ‘managing information.’ In the history element you might learn some surface detail and general information about the Romans, in geography you might learn where the Roman Empire was and how big it became, and in Art you might look at Roman art or mosaics – you may even make your own mosaic. These elements might be linked by the claim that they are helping students develop skills such as “speaking and listening skills” – important for students to successfully engage with the information; “research skills” – important for



students to access information from source documents; “reasoning skills” – important for thinking originally and creatively about the significance of new subject content.” 3 It is clear to see that there is nothing here that will develop deep or conceptual understandings, and that information and knowledge are seen as one and the same thing. Students may well be learning to handle information but they are not learning to interrogate it and ask questions the way an expert in a disciplinary field might. Because at no stage are students engaged in disciplinary thinking they cannot be said to be developing expertise in any one discipline, and are simply using their everyday ideas to discuss general statements.

Below is an alternative, and more powerful, version of this projection that leads to both deep and conceptual understandings.

OPTION 2: SUBJECT LED

Let’s stick with Y7 and the Roman Empire. Firstly we need to decide on the disciplinary or conceptual focus – in this instance we could look at the concept of empathy. Empathy here does not mean pretending to be someone else, but instead “the central idea here is that people in the past did not share our way of looking at the world…thus empathy…is the understanding of past institutions, social practices or actions as making sense in light of the way people saw things.” 4

We then need to i) connect the different subjects through the deeper understanding they can give to the concept of empathy and ii) help students to see that the concept takes on different meanings as it crosses disciplinary thresholds. A way of achieving this could be to look at Leptis Magna, an ancient Roman city in Libya, as an expression of imperial thought and power – the way the Romans used art and the built environment as an expression of imperial greatness and higher culture. In art, we would study how the Romans used art to express their wealth and power, their use of depth and perspective to create meaning and as a way of displaying their cultural superiority. In history, we would look at the psychology of the art as an expression of power and an attempt at realising hegemony, interrogating the source material we find to say how people at the time might have seen things and reconstructing these beliefs based on what the evidence does and does not tell us – a key difference from using ‘research skills’ to access ‘information’. In geography we would look at perception – how did different people experience the empire (directly or indirectly) and how did they communicate this experience? This would then culminate in a performance of understanding that would require students to use their deepening knowledge of the concept of empathy to either criticise or create something new.

Hopefully this example illustrates the difference between a skills-based curriculum and one that sees subjects as separate disciplines with their own concepts and principles which students need to master. Though both examples focus on the same ‘content area’, option 1 remains inert and simply provides surface information with little deep learning, while option 2 tries to induct students into an ‘apprenticeship in thinking’ through looking at the same event through different disciplinary lenses.

A final point is that ‘thinking-skills’ are often presented as a useful set of tools to solve problems, without any reference to context of the problem at hand. Apparently, you simply encounter a problem, choose the right ‘skill’, deploy it, and the problem is solved and you move on. The ‘thinking-skills’ approach is flawed, in that it sees the brain as a toolbox, and every problem as falling into a preconceived set of ‘boxes’ that map onto

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the tools provided. The approach has led to a cottage industry of suppliers publishing materials which will have little impact on students’ understanding of proper academic subjects, and on their success in these subjects at GCSE and A-Level (particularly now these exams have been made more academically rigorous). For us at KAA this links strongly with our focus on reading and literacy – in a skills based curriculum students are only encouraged to read de-contextualised snippets of texts and this is unlikely to make them lifelong readers!

DISCIPLINED THINKING

So, at KAA we believe that academic subjects, and their specific ways of thinking, talking, writing and knowing, are not bodies of information to be found on a website; they are constructed and contested forms of knowledge that have come about through our desire to understand the world around us. All KAA teachers need to have a firm grasp of how academic subjects develop thinking and empower our students to achieve the very best results. We must all be able to plan for this kind of progression.

It’s worth stating that, just because we believe in the importance of traditional subjects, it doesn’t mean there is anything especially ‘traditional’ about our teaching. This is because we don’t think of our subject as simply a canon of knowledge (information) to be imparted and committed to memory. Instead we know KAA students need to be active learners, who discuss, question and operate on the knowledge they are given in class; who connect it with other knowledge they have and use it to form new ideas. It’s possible to promote the integrity of subjects as disciplines without arguing that students should be passive vessels, whose heads we fill up with facts and information that they can then recite back to us. A discipline-based approach is questioning, critical and active. It is entrepreneurial. It has to be, because to engage with a discipline is to engage with how knowledge is constructed in the first place.

You may have heard a lot in the press recently about the impressive results of the Singapore education system, or why Chinese maths students consistently outperform their UK and US counterparts. Their success is sometimes explained by the different ways these students’ languages operate, or cultural factors to do with work-ethic and the values families place on education. In fact the answer is simpler – in these education systems there is an emphasis placed on disciplinary thinking and the role of concepts in shaping and developing meaning. For example, in China maths teachers have a very clear grasp of the fundamental concepts that underpin the subject of maths, and their curriculum is built around these concepts. They are then in turn able to teach these conceptual understandings in a way that enables students to apply their learning to a range of unseen problems – proof that they have a deep understanding.

We hope that by encouraging KAA students to wrestle with ‘grown-up’, complex, academic ideas from a young age, and immersing them within a range of different subject disciplines, we will support them towards the excellent academic qualifications they will need to progress to VIth form and university. In case anyone needed convincing why a university education is so important in the 21st Century, these statistics offer a powerful reminder:



“The OECD has found that throughout the economic downturn, education level has been a predictor of job security. Between 2008 and 2010, unemployment in OECD countries rose from 8.8% to 12.5% for people with no upper secondary education, and from 4.9% to 7.8% for people with an upper secondary education. For those with tertiary education, unemployment increased from 3.3% to only 4.7%. Even in a time of economic crisis, OECD countries still need highly skilled employees.” 5

“In 2008, a man with higher education could expect to earn 58% more than his counterpart with no more than an upper secondary education, on average across OECD countries. By 2010, this premium increased to 67%.” 6

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THE CHALLENGE OF 21ST CENTURY EDUCATION 7

19th / 20th Century assumptions 21st Century assumptions 8

Intelligence is perceived as unitary, fixed and innate

Intelligence is understood as multi-faceted, plastic and [to a certain extent] learnable

Learning is the acquisition of subject content. Students are consumers of knowledge

Students as producers, not just consumers of knowledge. Learning focus on application of knowledge

Curriculum focuses on content coverage and behavioural objectives

Curriculum focuses on processes of learning to learn, metacognition and flexible, critical thinking

Information and knowledge focus Information literacy. Leaning to handle information is the focus

Education is limited to the school and for fixed periods

Education is lifelong and unconstrained in time and place

Teaching and learning roles are sharply defined and segregated.

School is a place with clear rigid boundaries. School like a factory

School as a network and part of a broader web

Roles are blurred and overlapping

Schools and teachers are autonomous Schools and teachers are embedded in complex interconnected relationships

Local, National and International focus Local, National and global focus

Schools prepare for lifelong employment in one future occupation

Students identities and destinies are fluid and changing

“A generation ago, teachers could expect that what they taught would last their students a lifetime. Today, because of rapid economic and social change, schools have to prepare students for jobs that have not yet been created, technologies that have not yet been invented and problems that we don’t yet know will arise.” Andreas Schleicher, OECD Education Directorate. The case for 21st century learning.



In this important study, the OECD considered the kind of education schools should provide in the 21st Century. They proposed that students should be introduced to:

• new ways of thinking: including creativity, critical thinking, problem-solving and decision-making;

• new ways of working: including new forms of collaboration and communication;

• using new tools for working: including the capacity to harness the potential of new technologies.

“Success will go to those individuals and countries that are swift to adapt, slow to resist and open to change. The task of educators and policymakers is to help countries rise to this challenge.”Schleicher op cit

It is in reaction to studies like this that generic frameworks of vaguely linked skills and competencies were created. The problem is that, as argued above, teaching ‘critical’ or ‘higher-order thinking skills’ cannot be divorced from teaching academic subjects. Maths, science, history, geography – these are not dry information-gathering exercises that won’t develop the creativity, critical thinking and problem solving the 21st Century economy demands. They are fields of research and debate that have their own language, rules and modes of discourse, which, through studying, enable students to understand the world around them, and then develop that understanding in others.

It may be true that schools have, to some extent, taught subjects in a dry way in the past; viewing them as bodies of information to be consumed and committed to memory. If this was the only way to teach subjects then it may be a good idea to discard geography or English and teach a series of thematic projects instead. There is nothing engaging, motivating or real-world relevant about learning all the capital cities of the world off by heart – but this is not what we mean at KAA by ‘teaching academic subjects’. Instead we propose a disciplinary approach based on conceptual understandings – an approach which lifts academic subjects off the mundane plains of information-gathering and up into the ambitious heights of critical thinking and analysis – with all the complexities of thought that universities and employers want. As such, we think our KAA curriculum is genuinely fit for purpose in the 21st Century.

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FIVE PRINCIPLES OF CURRICULUM PLANNING AT KAA:9

Below are the five principles which underpin all of the planning frameworks in our handbook. They are all interconnected and support / reinforce each other. Each principle is a substantial, overarching idea about teaching and learning in itself. Taken together, they should form a coherent and powerful model. The principles are based on decades of research into how learning happens in schools. We hope that, once you have read the full handbook, they make perfect sense!

Principle 1: Engaging prior understandings.New understandings are constructed on a foundation of existing understandings and experiences. All teaching starts with what the learner can currently do.

Principle 5: Teaching for understanding, not teaching for information.Understanding a topic or theory implies doing something with the information, expressing the information in your own voice and applying it to an unseen problem.

Principle 2: The essential role of factual knowledge and conceptual frameworks in understanding.There are different types of knowledge: Factual (WWI started in 1914) and conceptual (WWI had several underlying causes). Learners need both to develop real understanding.

Principle 4: Learning takes place through dialogue.To learn something we have to think it through, and thinking requires an internal dialogue. So whether or not the conversation is with ourselves or our classmates, any new understanding will be acquired through a dialogue. This means language is key, and talk-based classrooms are the most effective.

Principle 3: The importance of self-monitoring.The burden of learning does not fall on the teacher alone – even the best teaching will be successful only if the learner can make use of the opportunity to learn and sees himself as a learner where effort is worthwhile.



We can’t expect all KAA teachers to walk into our school and be able to write the ‘perfect’ KAA scheme of work straight away. In fact, we don’t even know exactly what a perfect KAA scheme of work looks like at this stage. Maybe we never will, as there are many routes to outstanding outcomes, and we would never want to stifle innovation or creativity by saying there is only ‘one way’ to do it. So this handbook doesn’t present you with a model of exactly ‘how it’s done’ – sorry if this disappoints.

What we can say at this stage is that there are two facts which we know to be true:

• However it’s ‘done’, it will need to be ‘done’ differently to the norm if KAA is going to achieve its aims. Most of our students will join us in Year 7 with average attainment from primary school. Some will arrive below average. We want them to achieve the excellent grades they will need at GCSE and A-Level to progress on to university. So, our curriculum is going to have to deliver rapid and sustained progress which is not found in most schools.

• Although we don’t know exactly what your curriculum plans should look like, we are clear on the ingredients which are important. We have outlined them in the pages that follow. Please consider them all, and read the example plans, before starting to write your own schemes of work.

To help signpost the key ideas and make our thinking easier to follow we have broken the curriculum planning section into different stages, where each stage describes a different way to frame curriculum plans. As you move through the stages you should see the approaches and frameworks becoming more and more complicated and ambitious. Inevitably, the different stages all interrelate, and reference each other forward and back, so it is not a linear progression. Also they are all valid and valuable when it comes to planning – it is about what makes sense to you.

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STAGE 1: KEEPING IT SIMPLE – ‘THE TEACHING AND LEARNING CYCLE’

WHAT IS THE TEACHING AND LEARNING CYCLE?

The Teaching and Learning cycle is a relatively simple way of ensuring medium-term planning has the right impact on our students’ progress and attainment. The cycle forms the over-arching scaffold for every lesson and enquiry (medium-term plan). It works by posing 7 key questions that enshrine the construction of an enquiry. It is the simplest and most effective way of distilling down the medium-term planning process into a manageable model.

The cycle is the first step in planning for progression in disciplinary thinking. We need to start with the cycle first, before we can move into more complex ways of planning using Fertile Questions.

So – the cycle says that central to all medium-term planning when designing enquiries are these questions:

1. What can my students currently do?

2. What do my students need to understand next?

3. What will they do to generate those understandings?

4. How will we all know they have been successful?

5. What will their feedback be at the different stages?

6. What performances will there be – both intermediary and final?

7. What does this enquiry prepare students for next and how does it build on what they have already done – (link to the BIG picture of your 5 or 7 year curriculum plan)?

These questions provide the rigidity of ensuring that the needs of the curriculum are met whilst being loose enough to allow for creativity and freedom in the planning and delivery from both teacher and learner.



WHAT DOES THE TEACHING AND LEARNING CYCLE LOOK LIKE?

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A SIMPLE PLANNING GRID

The grid is designed to help us get to grips with the cycle. It is the first stage in developing a disciplinary approach to expertise and so is deliberately very simple. It may be helpful to think about a unit of work you have recently taught and complete the planning grid below as a way of designing an enquiry around that unit using the cycle.

Enquiry focus: (Content)

Enquiry focus: (Content)

Stage of the cycle Notes & ideas

1. What can my students currently do?

2. What do my students need to understand?

3. What will they do to generate those understandings?

4. How will we all know they have been successful?

5. What will their feedback be at the different stages?

6. What performances will there be – both intermediary and final?

7. What does this enquiry prepare students for next and how does it build on what they have already done– link to the BIG picture?



STAGE 2: BUILDING COMPLEXITY INTO OUR PLANNING: SURFACE, DEEP AND CONCEPTUAL UNDERSTANDINGWe’ve talked a lot so far about teaching ‘concepts’ – it’s worth making it explicit what we mean by this before we go any further. The diagram below explains the different elements of our curriculum plans – curriculum content, curriculum skills and curriculum concepts. Each KAA teacher will cover this more during their staff induction into the academy.

At KAA, our curriculum needs to blend all three columns of the diagram, but the more we can teach concepts explicitly the better. History is about assessing evidence, causality, change, significance – not just facts, dates, and kings and queens. English is about imagery, structure, style and audience – not memorising quotations or using connectives. Concepts – the big, ‘organising’ ideas in each subject that are formed by combining the characteristics of separate facts and knowledge – need to feature heavily in our planning.

Take the middle row – the metaphor example from English. The concept of metaphor is fundamental to the study of English Literature. Writers use metaphor to compare one thing to another in a way that conveys meaning more powerfully than a straightforward description. Martin Luther King famously used metaphors in his ‘I have a dream’ speech. When he promised that ‘every hill and mountain shall be made low’ he wasn’t literally talking about flattening the landscape. For him the ‘mountains’ symbolised the racism, discrimination and inequality black people faced at the time. These obstacles had qualities in common with a mountain: they were large, loomed over you, were difficult to overcome, seemingly permanent and so on. So the concept of metaphor is about

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substitution – the idea that one thing can be usefully substituted for another to achieve a poetic or rhetorical effect.

When teaching a poem an English teacher has a choice. They could drill their class with the three key metaphors from the text, going over and over the same quotes and spoon-feeding students with the analysis they need to remember for their exam. This approach may enable the students to pass. But, if the same teacher instead focused on the underlying concept of metaphor – the idea that metaphor is about substitution – then students would be able to analyse not just these metaphors from the set poem, but other, unseen metaphors in different poems. They would be able to identify and analyse metaphors independently. They will be able to write their own metaphors. This approach will enable students to excel.

So, our curriculum will cover all three areas in the diagram – content, skills and the subject concepts – but it will always link the content and skills to the underlying subject concepts they relate to. Concepts help us to organise the information we are given; they help us to move information from standalone facts to knowledge we can apply.

Tim Oates’ recent review of the national curriculum emphasised the importance of foregrounding concepts in our teaching:

“There is strong empirical and theoretical evidence for a very strong focus on concepts and principles. Transnational comparisons make clear that high-performing systems indeed focus on concepts and principles. ‘Concepts and principles’ include ‘conservation of mass’, ‘elasticity’, ‘metaphor’; within ‘concepts’ we can include understanding of ‘key operations’ such as ‘working with vectors’ in mathematics. But this focus on concepts is justified not only by the fact that high-performing systems include such a focus, it is also strongly endorsed by theory. The crucial nature of ‘organising concepts’ has been highlighted in psychological research since the 1960s (Ausubel DP 1960). The more recent work on organising concepts (or ‘schemata’) has been used to develop highly effective medical training (Newble D & Clarke RM 1986). The research in this area is compelling. ‘Organising concepts’ are needed to facilitate retention in memory, develop economic mental processing, and support analytic reasoning. Concepts and principles are critical. The specific information embedded in contexts can decay into mere ‘noise’ unless individuals have concepts and principles to organise and interpret the content of those contexts. The critical role of concepts is reinforced by work on ‘surface’ and ‘deep learning’ (Black P & Wiliam D1998).

It was not a trivial problem that, prior to the National Curriculum in England, pupils could be involved in studying topics such as ‘The Vikings’ four times in the course of 5-14 education (Graham D & Tytler D op cit; Johnson M et al op cit ). The National Curriculum sought, quite rightly, to prevent this. However, ‘contexts’ have become dominant



in revisions of the National Curriculum, displacing vital knowledge and concepts….Contexts – such as the environment, specific industrial processes, atomic power – can provide motivation to study and show the relevance of conceptual material. Used carefully, they can be the curriculum vehicle for concept-based and knowledge-based National Curriculum content. However, unless managed carefully in learning programmes, contextual material can be systematically misleading and distracting, preventing the effective acquisition of underlying concepts.10

Concepts are not universal – they mean different things in different subjects. We each handle description, explanation, justification, causal relationship and so on in our own ways.

So, as KAA teachers we see the symbiotic relationship between knowledge and concepts and that without the one you cannot have a deep understanding of the other.

• Evidence in maths = formal deductive proof.

• Evidence in science = theories tested against the way the world behaves.

• Evidence in history = evidence can be used successfully only if it is understood in its historical context.

If learners are not aware of the distinctions between these concepts and how experts in the different academic fields make sense of the information they use, then they are doomed to be left bobbing around amongst the surface debris of the world and unable to make sense of it or see deeper patterns and currents at play within it.

Therefore, teaching for genuine understanding requires learners (and teachers) to have a firm grasp of the core conceptual understandings within their subject, to understand how experts use those concepts to make sense of their research and how those concepts take on a different role as they cross between disciplinary thresholds.

Students need to understand how the concepts change from subject to subject and how an ‘expert’ in each discipline would use them.

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STAGE 3: WORK OUT THE ‘WHOLE GAME’

‘Playing the whole game’ is a term used by David Perkins in his book Making Learning Whole. It describes the process of learning within a disciplinary framework. In its simplest form, the ‘whole game’ means understanding what the subject looks like when performed in full and how experts in that field perform with the subject. Having a clear conception of the ‘whole game’ of your subject, and using it as the foundation of all your planning, is an important part of our approach at KAA. If students are to become experts in the subject they need to have the whole game presented to them – or rather ‘junior versions’ of the whole game, which explain the same core concepts and ideas in a form that is comprehensible to them. A fertile question should enshrine an aspect of the whole game (or a ‘junior version’ of it).

Perhaps the easiest way to explain this is to use an example from sport:

1. LEARNING TO ROW (A PERSONAL REFLECTION FROM OLI KNIGHT) 11

Learning to row is probably my most prominent learning experience. I went from novice to elite in 6 months – not through some natural talent but through learning the whole game (and training 6 hours every day).

From the very first day I was rowing a full stroke, not fast, not in a race, but in a boat rowing straight away. I could see how everything fitted together, I knew where the parts of the stroke were, I couldn’t do it and didn’t know what they were called but I had a vague picture of what the whole stroke looked like. I had watched videos of people rowing and knew exactly what I was aiming for.



If I had spent the first 4 weeks sitting on a rowing machine learning small sections of the stroke or spending hours on technique, I would have got bored very quickly, but by doing the whole thing I could spend a bit of time working on a small aspect but I could see how that fitted into the rest of the stroke. At the end of each session I felt I had achieved something as I had been somewhere and felt like I was an oarsman – albeit a very bad one!

To make rapid progress though I had to be able to deconstruct the stroke and work out what parts were hard for me to do. I had to seek out feedback from coaches and peers, ask them to watch me and watch videos of myself. I could then devote time to practicing them, developing strategies and then placing that back into the whole stroke – talking to myself and monitoring myself as I performed the actions. I could then revise my strategies as I could instantly see if they were solving the problem or not because I knew what the picture of a perfect stroke looked like from the beginning. Telling me I was 70% there was not enough feedback, I needed to know the millimetre precision body movements I needed to make to connect better with the water. I also had to learn to copy, watching experts do it and then copying their body position and movements. Listening to them talking about the stroke and then getting them to explain it to me. I had to watch videos of experts and then sit in front of the mirror copying their positions and even their breathing patterns.

But if I was to become an expert it wasn’t enough just to row on the same stretch of water or with the same people, I had to learn to row in different settings, on different types of water, in different types of boat and transfer my learning from setting to setting – how would I adapt my positions to allow for a headwind, a crosswind? To get good quickly I had to learn about the physics of the rowing blade, to understand drag factors and levers, I had to understand biomechanics and psychology – the hidden aspects of a sport. From my first day I was rowing with Olympic and world championship gold medallists. I could watch them, speak to them, row with them and copy their body movements. Every day I would watch videos of people rowing, listen to sound recordings of coaching and race commentary so that I could maximise my learning in a short space of time.

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Finally I had to learn how to learn the rowing stroke by myself. I had to diagnose the hard parts for myself – what was I struggling with, what felt wrong; devise the strategies, find the videos and talk to other athletes and review myself as I went through the motions. Every day I had evidence of improvement through the scores on the rowing machine and every day I could evaluate my own performance and draw up targets for the next session – because I always knew what the end goal was and what expertise would look like.

This example hopefully shows how, as a learner, beginning with an understanding – however tenuous – of how the ‘whole’ of the subject fits together, helps us when we are trying orientate ourselves with this new discipline. Understanding this idea in more detail, and beginning to articulate how ‘the whole game’ of our respective subjects works, is something all KAA teachers will work on during staff induction. If we have a clear, compelling understanding of our own ‘whole game’ then we will be able to communicate it to students gradually over the seven years they are with us.

There is a lot of intellectual leg-work needed here, but this curriculum thinking is vital. At KAA, curriculum design and planning will always be the first responsibility of our curriculum leaders – we will never ‘buy-in’ an externally produced curriculum as this is against all our principles. Curriculum leadership belongs to curriculum leaders – not any external body. The process of thinking through and planning our own curriculum is absolutely vital if the lessons are going to be well delivered – only if we feel personal ownership of the fertile questions that we are teaching will we be able to energise and inspire our students.

Each KAA teacher needs a clear understanding of where each lesson and series of lessons is heading so we can communicate this in crystal-clear fashion to every student. Students need to know how each lesson and the overall enquiry fit together, so they understand where they are on the journey and what they need to do next to keep moving forward. This means ensuring that the central, fertile question is alive, driving the cumulative curiosity, lesson by lesson, as students discover the deepening complexity of the puzzle, and the facets of the discipline it reveals. This foresight and sense of direction cannot be achieved by copying and pasting a curriculum from an external source.

This may sound overwhelming but it doesn’t need to happen overnight. The process of planning a KS3 curriculum from scratch is a gradual one, and there is support every step of the way. The diagram overleaf shows one way to break it down.



During staff induction we will look at each stage of this process and how it can be achieved.

An example of the whole game from the KAA Art Department:

Art “whole game”

• Culture is embedded in making

• Art appreciates the past

• Artists record the world in which we live

• Refining is a process of exploration

• Artists present art that communicates and informs

• Artists critique and reflect in order to respond

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STAGE 4: PERFORMANCES OF UNDERSTANDING – EVIDENCE OF THINKINGA vitally important part of our curriculum plans will be the assessments they build towards – the concrete end-points of each enquiry where students demonstrate what they have learnt. At KAA we call these ‘performances of understanding’.

We’ve seen above that understanding something is being able to think and act flexibly with it. Think of the Martin Luther King metaphor example – students who truly understand the concept of metaphor can think flexibly with it and apply it to future, unseen metaphors. All assessments should require this kind of thinking – they should never just require students to recite information or produce formulaic answers.

The examples below hopefully illustrate how a ‘performance of understanding’ is different to a ‘rehearsal of information.’

TEACHING FOR UNDERSTANDING NOT RECITATION: EXAMPLE 1

What’s the difference between being able to recall something and being able to truly understand it? Take an example from science. The teachers want their assessment to test if students understand Newton’s third law – equal and opposite forces:

Third law: When a first body exerts a force F1 on a second body, the second body simultaneously exerts a force F2 = −F1 on the first body. This means that F1 and F2 are equal in magnitude and opposite in direction.

Common activities which teachers use to measure students’ understanding of this:

• The student recites this law and the other two (making a mind-map / closed test).

• The student solves some equations using the laws.

• The student answers 3 or 4 textbook questions (which are likely to be similar to the questions they have studied during the teaching phase, but perhaps worded differently).

All these activities could be taken as evidence of understanding. The problem is that none of them require the students to reason with the knowledge they have been given. Understanding means performance. A better assessment of students’ understanding might be:



STUDENTS WORK IN GROUPS TO SOLVE THIS PUZZLE:

12 astronauts are in space about to have a snowball fight. They are arranged in a circle with some snowballs in their pockets. A signal sounds and the astronauts begin the snowball fight.

What will happen as they attempt to continue their snowball fight?

The answer (Newton’s third law in action):

• As they start the fight they will begin to move away from one another.

• Throwing the snowball will also place the astronaut into a spin.

• To avoid this, the astronaut will have to throw from their mid-section – so the action occurs on a vector directly outward from their centre of gravity.

This is a game of prediction and explanation. If you understand Newton’s laws, you should be able to reason with them. If you don’t understand them, you will try to use your everyday thinking to work out the answer and get it wrong. It’s the difference between thinking like a scientist and thinking like a lay person. A student who can successfully complete a mind map, or answer a few formulaic equations, doesn’t necessarily understand Newton’s law. Faced with the snowball problem they could argue that the astronauts could hit each other as long as they were ‘close together’ or had ‘good aim’.

At KAA, we know that understanding means performance. People understand something when they can think and act flexibly with what they know about it – not just rehearse information and execute routine skills. If you can’t think with Newton’s laws, you don’t really understand them.

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TEACHING FOR UNDERSTANDING NOT RECITATION: EXAMPLE 212

To help students’ build understanding and think flexibly it is a good idea to provide different examples and ask students to compare them. This encourages students to look beyond surface recall and uncover deep structure. An example from Willingham is here: An English teacher trying to help her students understand the concept of dramatic irony might provide the following examples:

• In Oedipus Rex, the Delphic Oracle predicts that Oedipus will kill his father and marry his mother. Oedipus leaves his home in an effort to protect those he believes to be his parents, but thus sets in motion events that eventually make the prediction come true.

• In Romeo and Juliet, Romeo kills himself because he believes that Juliet is dead. When Juliet awakens, she is so distraught over Romeo’s death that she commits suicide.

• In Othello, the noble Othello implicitly trusts his advisor Iago when he tells him that his wife is unfaithful, whereas it is Iago who plots against him.

The students (with some prompting) might come to see what each example has in common with the others. A character does something expecting one result, but the opposite happens because the character is missing a crucial piece of information: Oedipus is adopted, Juliet is alive, Iago is a deceiver. The audience knows that missing piece of information and therefore recognizes what the outcome will be. The outcome of each play is even more tragic because as the audience watch the events unfold, they know that the unhappy ending could be avoided if the character knew what they know.

Dramatic irony is an abstract idea that is difficult to understand, but comparing diverse examples of it may help students by encouraging them to think about deep structure. Students know that the point of the exercise is not shallow comparisons such as, “Each play has men and women in it”. Willingham promotes this because of his theory of ‘working memory’ and ‘long-term memory’, and his contention that we remember what we think productively about. This method of getting students to think about deep structure helps. Typical assessments won’t. The way most English teachers assess their students’ understanding of dramatic irony is to:

• Read a scene with their class which has an example of dramatic irony within it

• Lead a class discussion about the effects of this particular scene on the audience, and through this discussion elicit what dramatic irony is and how it works

• Ask students to write a paragraph explaining how the technique of dramatic irony is used within the scene they have just read (effectively ‘say back to me what I just said to you’)

At KAA, if we are going to realise this idea of ‘teaching for understanding and not for recitation’ then we need to ensure all our in-house assessments have challenge and rigour and prepare students for future, unseen assessments at GCSE, A-Level and university. When assessments become overly predictable they stop testing students’ real understanding of the subject. Understanding something means, as we have seen, being able to think and act flexibly with it, so we need to design approaches to assessment that allow for this to happen. This is where the idea of an assessment as a performance of understanding comes in.



The table below comes from Performances of Understanding: Constructing something to show what you have learnt (Y. Harpaz) It provides planning tool for getting students to carry out different performances of understanding at different stages of a Fertile Question, and at different points in KS3. Some sections of the table carry more cognitive challenge than others, but it is not meant to be hierarchical. A cycle of assessments will blend the different areas and allow you to escalate the conceptual difficulty over time.

To criticize and create knowledge

To operate on and with knowledge

To present knowledge

To give reasons for knowledge

To analyze knowledge To express knowledge in your own words

To find contradictions or tensions in knowledge

To synthesize knowledge To explain knowledge

To question knowledge To imply knowledge To interpret knowledge

To expose the basic assumptions of knowledge

To bring example, to invent metaphor, to make

comparison, etc.

To construct a model

To formulate counter- knowledge

To generalize To present knowledge in various ways

To generate new knowledge

To predict on the basis of knowledge

To present knowledge from different perspectives

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STAGE 5: DISCIPLINARY THINKINGThe most effective curriculum plans are those that develop students to become expert thinkers within the different subject disciplines they are studying. This is, after all, what they will need to go on to success at university. We have talked a lot about ‘disciplined thinking’ in the introduction of this handbook, but it is worth re-covering some of this ground here. Truly outstanding results will come if you can design enquires that will teach Y7 students to think like ‘experts’ within your discipline.

WHAT IS DISCIPLINARY THINKING?13

• It’s a sad truth is that many students in the UK in 2014 probably see themselves as only absorbing subject information and see their main task as committing to memory what the teacher tells them they need to ‘know’ and to regurgitate it in the exam hall.

• Disciplinary thinking is the exact opposite – a discipline constitutes a way of thinking about the world and an understanding of the distinctive, disciplinary concepts that turn subject information into useable knowledge. This is the idea of application rather than acquisition and what we mean when we say ‘teach for understanding’.

• Whilst a student needs subject information to study science, history, maths etc – divorced of their connections to one another, or to underlying questions, or to a disciplined way of construing this pile of information, facts are simply “inert knowledge.” A fact only becomes ‘useful’ when it can be applied to a problem that has relevance to the way experts solve problems in the real-world.

• So, students and teachers must see information not as an end in itself but as a vital piece of the jigsaw in enabling thinking in a disciplined manner.

• The role of the teacher is to act in part as coach – providing feedback on their students’ ability to pick up the distinctive habits of mind and behaviour of the expert – and part as co-explorer, delighting in the journey one step at a time!

• In disciplinary thinking there is a primacy placed on concepts – the developed and accepted structural ideas that form the underlying principles of a domain or subject. These are the same concepts that are used by experts within that field, though may be presented in a ‘junior version’.

• To help students become ‘experts’ in our subjects we’ll often use the language ‘think like a mathematician’, ‘think like a geographer’ and so on.

“Thus the progressive character of modern sciences and disciplines is also characteristic of knowledge building pedagogy. This does not mean that students are expected to produce an original theory of gravitation to stand alongside Newton’s. Rather, what they produce would likely be consistent with Newton but enriched by insights that made gravitational theory come alive for them and made it something they could apply to new problems of understanding.” 14



So, put simply, thinking in a disciplined manner means adopting the ways of thinking, talking and ‘being’ that experts within that field use to make sense of their subject or area of expertise. This approach is supported by our use of Fertile Questions as a planning tool at KAA. Fertile Questions provide the framework for students to immerse themselves in problems that experts in that field are working on. They are ‘apprenticeships in thinking’ and help students to develop the conceptual understandings that make thinking like a scientist different from thinking like a historian.

An example from the real world – an analogy on teaching for understanding through concepts:

Anyone who has ever watched MasterChef may be familiar with their model of learning. Michele Roux Jr and co. put absolute importance on classical knowledge – flavours, textures, combinations, history behind the recipes etc but then expect the chef to use this knowledge to invent new methods and dishes through synthesizing, combining and inventing. This is an example of disciplinary thinking and thinking flexibly with it. It’s a bit like in medicine where doctors have to know the ‘facts’ but then recognise that each patient presents in a different way and have to be able to think flexibly with their core medical ‘facts’ to make a diagnosis. Thus they use structural concepts to help frame knowledge. At KAA we know this is the role of academic subjects in the 21st century – they equip you with rules and ways of thinking but you need to be flexible with this so you are not only aware of how you are thinking in a given context but also aware of it’s limitations and the need for alternative rules or strategies.

Of course KAA students will need to learn large amounts of facts, formulaes and information in order to be successful in GCSE art, music, maths and so on. But this knowledge becomes ‘inert’ if it is not linked to other pieces of knowledge and to the underlying principles of the discipline. A fact only becomes ‘useful’ when it can be applied to a problem that has relevance to the way experts solve problems in the real-world. We want KAA students to see information not as an end in itself, but – as stated above – a piece of the jigsaw in thinking in a disciplined manner. As teachers we need to be coaching them in how to think like experts through the feedback (this is expert / inexpert because…) and modelling how experts think, speak and write as we co-explore problems with them in class.

As Jerome Bruner puts it here, if we don’t teach like this it will be ‘uneconomical’:

“The curriculum of a subject should be determined by the most fundamental understanding that can be achieved of the underlying principles that give structure to a subject. Teaching specific topics or skills without making clear their context in the broader fundamental structure of a field of knowledge is uneconomical…An understanding of fundamental principles and ideas appears to be the main road to adequate transfer of training. To understand something as a specific instance of a more general case—which is what understanding a more fundamental structure means —is to have learned not only a specific thing but also a model for understanding other things like it that one may encounter.” 15

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DISCIPLINARY THINKING AND ECONOMIC SUCCESS 16

The trends in this diagram are clear: as the demand in the job market for routine cognitive tasks decline and complex communication and expert thinking rises, disciplinary thinking will be more and more important. If KAA education is to be future-proof then we need to maintain a focus on teaching students to think in a disciplined manner rather than to either learn lots of facts and regurgitate them, or ‘learn to learn’ but never be able to fit what they are learning into a structural framework so it actually makes sense and has explanatory power or provides them with the ability to transfer those skills to new or novel situations. Learning how to balance your cheque book but being unable to explain why history never repeats itself, or the place of God in our Universe, is not going to have a transformative effect on your life (or indeed your finances).

“It should be clear now why a ‘fact-based’ approach will make even less sense in the future. One can never attain a disciplined mind simply by mastering facts – one must immerse oneself deeply in the specifics of cases and develop one’s disciplinary muscles from such immersion. Moreover, in the future, desired facts, definitions, lists, and details will literally be at one’s fingertips: Either one will be able to type out a brief command on a handheld computer or one may even be able simply to blurt aloud, ‘What is the capital of Estonia?’ Sheer memorization will be anachronistic; it will be necessary only to show students their way around the current version of Encarta. Increasingly, the art of teaching will inhere in aiding students to acquire the moves and the insights of major disciplinary fields.” 17



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41



STAGE 6: Fertile Questions – planning for progression in understandingWe have looked now at a number of underlying principles which must inform the curriculum planning and design stage so that deep learning and conceptual understanding can occur. It is essential that all subject leaders have considered the ‘whole game’ of their subjects and know what it means to teach for ‘understanding not recitation’.

Now that we have seen what these principles are we can go on to look at the best way of embedding them within KAA and ensuring that all teachers and departments use the same planning framework.

THE FERTILE QUESTION – WHAT IS IT?

“Most people teach Biology by starting with the Molecule! This is exactly the wrong way to go. No one cares about the molecule. I don’t care about the molecule. Unless I have a reason to care – that is, a problem that I am working on that requires understanding molecules to address it.” E.O. Wilson, Professor of Biology, Harvard University.

The quote above captures why Fertile Questions are such a powerful way to drive our planning. We’ve tried to explain here exactly how they work, though real understanding will come from creating them yourselves, and debating them with colleagues.

• A Fertile Question is – essentially – a planning device for knitting together a sequence of lessons, so that all of the learning activities – teacher exposition, narrative, source-work, role-play, plenary – all move toward the resolution of an interesting and meaningful historical/scientific/mathematical/RE problem by means of a substantial motivating activity at the end.

• Instead of presenting new learning as content to be absorbed: “This term we are learning about the Romans”, we frame curriculum content around an overarching enquiry question, for example: “Was the Roman Empire a force for good or evil?’ Straight away students are thinking about evidential understanding, interrogating historical sources, forming an opinion and being able to justify it. They are thinking like historians.



• Planning using Fertile Questions prevents the curriculum from becoming a series of isolated ‘bore holes’ or bits of information taught but not connected. It allows for a thread to be created across all areas of the curriculum – the thread of enquiry learning, and thinking in a disciplined manner – and allows for students to develop a meaningful and useable framework for each subject.

• Fertile Questions allow students to replicate the thoughts and actions of experts within that field – they are authentic. They create opportunities for students to see how knowledge has been created and how it is often contested whilst enabling them to apply knowledge to solving meaningful problems.

• Fertile Questions are naturally engaging – questions demand answers and problems, solutions. They do not focus on ‘learning’ snippets of information but on turning information into knowledge through applying it to a problem and testing how far it resolves that problem or tension.

• Fertile Questions engage students and help them to see the links between concepts and knowledge. The approach goes beyond traditional models and instead promotes the idea that the enquiry is a journey that helps pupils to think scientifically, think geographically, think mathematically.

• In other words, Fertile Questions address the importance of balancing students’ knowledge of facts against their understanding of concepts. In history they are learning about change and cause not just dates and events. They help teachers transform straightforward science experiments into a true understanding of scientific principles in the way that a Scientist at CERN might apply them. In maths, they balance the quest for absolutes with the need for multiple approaches.

• A final point is that Fertile questions are helpful because they put the teacher and the student on the same intellectual plane. ‘OK class, I genuinely don’t know the answer to this question, but over the next six weeks we are going to puzzle it out together; maybe we should look at this, maybe that, but I’m going to need your help and your ideas to do it’. They are an equalising force – this makes it much easier to model the kind of thinking and intellectual habits we want from the students, and much safer for them to ask questions and take risks.

DESIGNING A FERTILE QUESTION.

The key to designing a good Fertile Question is to ensure that it is connected to both the students’ current thinking and the desired kind of thinking – that of expert practitioners. Just as with a good lesson plan, it starts with what the students can currently do and explores what they need to be able to do next – framed as a problem to be solved. Scardamalia is clear why it is much more powerful to use a problem as the focus of a Fertile Question.

“Although problems are often expressed as questions, we have found that pursuing solutions to problems rather than answers to questions best encourages knowledge building. Answers have a certain finality to them, whereas problem solutions are generally continually improvable. Whereas comparing answers to questions puts students into the belief mode, solutions to problems can be carried out in design mode – judging what different solutions do and do not

43



accomplish, what new problems a solution raises and what problems need to be solved in order to progress in solving the main problem. Knowledge Building pedagogy differs from Problem-Based Learning in that the preferred problems are ones of considerable generality.” 19

SUMMARY OF DESIGN PRINCIPLES. 20

A. Start with a BIG, essential question that is debated in the world and is used by practitioners of the discipline. In other words a question that a professional mathematician or historian might ask before venturing into the unknown for answers.

B. It is essential that the question is framed within the concept it is focused on. For example a Fertile Question about evidence will revolve around a ‘How do we know’ type question or a Fertile Question about perspective will revolve around ‘developing multiple perspectives on the problem presented.’

C. Identify a concluding activity that requires a constructed response to the question (a performance of understanding) that will create a tangible product that solves the problem posed by the question.

D. Plan backwards from the end product by deciding what activities will develop the conceptual understandings and abilities essential to address the question and create a meaningful response to it. What needs to happen in each phase to allow for resolution of the problem?

FERTILE QUESTIONS

n Is less really more? (Design and Technology)

n Can religion help the modern world? (RE)

n How many people is too many people? (Geography)

n What makes a house a home? (German/French)

n Is our voice the only one that matters? (Drama)

n Did Britain create the modern world? (History)

n Has slavery changed music forever? (Music)

n Does the fittest person always come first? (PE)



THE 8 STAGES OF THE FERTILE QUESTION: 21

One of the reasons why Fertile Questions provide such leverage is because they emphasise the aspects of learning that make the most difference to student progress. They provide opportunities for a constant feedback cycle to be built in to the process. The focus of this feedback is always against the criteria outlined at the beginning of the enquiry, and focuses on the 3 key factors: Where am I going, how am I doing, where to next?

Once you have created your Fertile Question, you need to follow the 8 stages below:

1. Introduce the new Fertile Question – engage and motivate pupils, discover what they already know and check out their existing preconceptions. Outline and focus on the concept that frames the question and plan to build on their current thinking. Make this known to the pupils and set clear outcomes and challenging goals = acceleration happens when expectations are high. You can activate undergraduate level thinking in Y7 students by creating a Fertile Question that creates a junior version of an expert problem.

2. Allow pupils to decide what research question(s) they might like to formulate that answers the Fertile Question. This does not always have to be co-constructed and can be teacher set. This stage enables meta-cognition by allowing students to work out where they are and what they need to do next. This stage needs to be carefully planned for to allow for a reduction in scaffolding over time. This stage also consists of direct instruction – giving students the fingertip knowledge they need to solve the problem.

3. Start the process of enquiry with a focus on dialogue not monologue – what small questions do we need to answer to formulate a response to the BIG question; can we divide the BIG question up; what happens if we disagree; where might we go for information; what will we do if we get stuck; how will we know if we are on the right track; how much information do we need; how do we turn the information into knowledge; what language is essential to answering the question; how are we going to display our thinking; what are the success criteria; who is the intended audience, what is the purpose of this piece of learning? Use of strategies from the Classroom Talk section of this handbook later to enable meaningful dialogue to occur.

4. Come back as a whole class to discuss findings so far and any problems that have arisen. Use teacher and peer review to critique current thinking and plan where to go next to ensure we solve the problem posed by the question.

5. Create an initial (draft) response to the question in groups or individually – tentative answers and provocative feedback to encourage deeper reflection. Oral rehearsal is effective here. Use this stage to model and deconstruct the language required to replicate ‘expertise.’

6. Peer review and re-drafting of first draft in light of feedback and moving from everyday to more formal, academic language.

7. Group/individual concluding performance of the solution to the problem. Use or real (peer, teacher) or virtual (ICT) audience to give the response meaning and purpose.

8. Class concluding performance and feedback/review – can we settle on one final answer, what does this prepare us to do next?

45



A STRONG ENDING – PERFORMANCES OF UNDERSTANDING

As outlined earlier, at KAA we think ‘knowing’ is when you can think and act flexibly with the knowledge you have acquired, applying it to an unseen problem or case. The key word then is performance; it must require the students to do something – preferably something new. So, the Performance of Understanding must be more than recital or re-wording. It must require students to be able to demonstrate that they can use and apply, not replicate. Think of the Newtonian Laws or Dramatic Irony examples from earlier. It should require them to (amongst other things and not all at the same time):

n Synthesise

n Predict

n Critique

n Construct/Create something new

n Question

n Interpret

It is important that the culminating piece of work is something you can see, hear or read. It is equally crucial that not all Humanities questions finish with an essay and all maths questions finish with some questions to answer! How can we assess understanding and thinking if it is a representation of the work and thinking of the teacher? Instead the role of the teacher throughout the different stages of a Fertile Question is a changing one.

THE 6 PRINCIPLES OF A GOOD FERTILE QUESTION: 22

1. An open question. A question that in principle has no one definitive answer; rather, it has several different and competing possible answers.

2. An undermining question. A question that undermines the learners’ basic assumptions, casts doubt on the self-evident or common-sensical, uncovers basic conflicts lacking a simple solution, and requires the critical consideration of origins.

3. A rich question. A question that necessitates grappling with rich content that is indispensable to understanding humanity and the world around us. Students cannot answer this question without careful and lengthy research; such research tends to break the question into sub-questions.

4. A connected question. A question relevant to the learners, the society in which they live, and the discipline and field they are studying.

5. A charged question. A question with an ethical dimension. Such questions are charged with emotional, social, and political implications that potentially motivate enquiry and learning.

6. A practical question. A question that can be researched in the context of the learners, facilitators, and school facilities and from which research questions may be derived.



WHY FERTILE QUESTIONS?

23

The graph above is a model of the Ebbinghaus Forgetting curve. The graph displays what happens to information we have received over a period of 31 days. As you can see most of the information is lost unless it is revisited and used in multiple contexts. Fertile Questions are a way of overcoming this curve by forcing students to constantly revisit prior learning and use what they have learnt previously to help them answer other smaller lesson questions, which are building toward the resolution of the BIG Fertile Question.

47



This diagram shows the journey you take with a class through the fertile question, and may be helpful to you when you are writing your plans…

Introduce the fertile

question and the scope of the enquiry. Use Fertile Question as a hook – to

engage and intrigue. Make links back to previous

learning and forward to future learning.

Check out pre-conceptions – what students currently

think about the core concepts and what the disciplinary rules are –

and give the BIG picture and purpose of this piece of learning.

Development of research

questions – the small questions that answer

the BIG question – either student or teacher led. Use this stage to further clarify learning intentions. Each small question becomes

a lesson.

Come back as a whole

class to discuss findings and review learning so far –

using talk as performance before moving into

writing at later stage. Have we answered the question? What else do

we need to do?

Use learners as a resource for each other – students decide how they can best display learning = what will be their concluding performance, where will they go for information/

help/feedback?

Start the enquiry process – using talk-based activities to make learning visible. Use talk as process to discuss current understandings. Co-construct success

criteria. Role of teacher to focus on student miscues

and provide constant feedback as students start

to devise answers.

Peer review of talk as

performance and re-drafting in light of feedback.

Does it solve the problem? Why have they said

what they said? Does their evidence

support their judgement? Joint construction of text – oral or written. Use of

provocative feedback to deepen thinking

and challenge.

Group or individual

concluding performance – either using real (teacher or peers) or virtual (ICT)

audience to raise the status of the performance.

Performances judged

against success criteria. Feedback and review. How might this new

knowledge be applied in different situations?



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49



PLANNING A FERTILE QUESTION – A DETAILED EXAMPLE

The grid below is the lesson sequence from a Y10 History Fertile Question: Dysfunctional Socialism: Does the desire to make all men equal have to lead to murder? Each lesson is framed by a small research question that helps students develop the thinking required to resolve problem posed by the Fertile Question. These smaller lesson or research questions were devised by the teacher in advance. Reading HWs are also set weekly so students can independently work through the theory.

Lesson question (sequence of 8 lessons)

Main themes and outcomes

1. Who was Karl Marx and why was he so important to the development of the twentieth century?

Was Marxist political theory a pipe dream or an effective programme?• Use a song by the Manic Street Preachers song–

deconstruct it and ask why they are singing about Marxist theory. What can we learn about Marx’s theories from this?

• Explore Marx the man and his writings using a range of stimulus material.

Students are equipped with the knowledge of Marxism, and its perception, which they will need to grapple with the issues thrown up by the next five lessons.

2. What role has Marx played in the twentieth century?

Having looked at the background theory of Marx, pupils now need a familiar hook on which to hang their new knowledge. The Bolsheviks’ seizure of power is ideal and would also form a great bridge into the Khmer Rouge next lesson.• Who were the Bolsheviks and what did they

believe in?• Who were the Khmer Rouge and what did they

believe in?• Introduction of the comparative nature of the

enquiry. Also use this to look at the Russian versus the Chinese models of Communism. The Khmer Rouge were influenced by the Chinese model.

Students begin to consider questions such as:• Is Marxism flawed? • Beginnings of the similarities between the two

processes. • Why has the work of Marx been interpreted

differently?

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Lesson question (sequence of 8 lessons)

Main themes and outcomes

3. Is socialism installed by force really socialism?

• Card sort on the Khmer Rouge seizure of power and its similarities to the Bolshevik seizure of power. Encourage students to look at the underlying concepts of economics, power, personal ambition, religion etc.

• Make their own cards on the Bolshevik revolution and colour code them to show the similarities to and differences from Pol Pot’s seizure of power.

• Link back to last lesson to answer the lesson question.

• Was the Bolshevik or Khmer Rouge seizure of power Marxism in action or the destruction of his life’s work?

Students reflect on the role of external forces – especially foreign powers – in the path to dictatorship, and on whether Marxism is just a front

4. The devil incarnate? • How similar were the journeys to power of Stalin and PolPot?

• What influenced them?Did these two personalities make it inevitable that mass murder would ensue?

5. The enemy within: how did Stalin and Pol Pot secure their positions?

• Students consider the human cost of the two dictatorships and the similarities between the two regimes.

• Did they both use purges and state murder to secure political and cultural hegemony?

Students then revisit the Marxist theory they both used – how was it applied?Is Marxism a byword for violence and death – or did these leaders use it as an excuse?

6. An inevitable tragedy? Why did both dictatorships lead to mass murder? Can Marxist society ever be just? Does Marx have blood on his hands?

7. Cambodia and the West: how does Hollywood remember the past?

How does Hollywood present controversial and emotionally charged subjects?The role of the West as portrayed through Western film. Orientalism and the creation of opposites and of right and wrong from a Western perspective. Does Hollywood choose to ignore America’s role in the Cambodian genocide?

8. How should we view the writings of Karl Marx?

Why does Marx have the reputation he has and how just is it? Draw on the knowledge you have developed so far in this enquiry.

51



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be

taug

htM

etac

ogni

tive

que

s-ti

ons

we

wan

t pu

pils

to

dev

elop

/gra

pple

w

ith.

For

exam

ple,

if it

is a

‘h

ow d

o w

e kn

ow’

type

que

stio

n th

en t

he

teac

hing

will

nee

d to

fo

cus

on t

he c

once

pt

of e

vide

nce

rele

vant

to

that

sub

ject

dom

ain.

Res

idua

l kno

wle

dge

– in

6 m

onth

s’ t

ime

wha

t th

ings

do

we

wan

t pu

pils

to

rem

embe

r/fe

el a

bout

the

top

ic?

Wha

t kn

owle

dge

do

they

nee

d in

ord

er t

o be

abl

e to

app

ly it

to

new

set

tings

late

r on

in

the

curr

icul

um?

Wha

t ar

e w

e ai

min

g fo

r in

ter

ms

of c

once

ptua

l pr

ogre

ssio

n? F

or

exam

ple,

an

evid

ence

fo

cuse

d en

quir

y m

ight

ha

ve a

tar

get

as t

o be

to

ena

ble

pupi

ls t

o se

e th

at e

xpla

natio

ns o

f w

hy p

eopl

e do

thi

ngs

are

not

alw

ays

the

sam

e as

exp

lana

tions

of

why

thi

ngs

happ

en.

Wha

t lik

ely

prec

once

ptio

ns

mig

ht w

e en

coun

ter

abou

t th

e co

ncep

tual

un

ders

tand

ing

that

will

ne

ed t

o be

add

ress

ed

befo

re w

e ca

n co

ntin

ue

with

our

tar

get

focu

s?

For

exam

ple,

man

y pu

pils

bel

ieve

tha

t w

e ca

n on

ly k

now

wha

t ha

ppen

ed if

we

wer

e th

ere

or if

we

read

the

ey

e-w

itnes

s ac

coun

t of

so

meo

ne e

lse.

Wha

t is

the

cor

e co

ncep

t? W

hat

will

m

aste

ry lo

ok li

ke?

Wha

t qu

estio

ns d

o pu

pils

nee

d to

ask

th

emse

lves

to

mon

itor

thei

r ow

n pr

ogre

ss

thro

ugh

the

Fert

ile

Que

stio

n?

Wha

t m

ade

Cro

mw

ell

tick?

(i.e.

Was

the

re a

co

ntin

uity

of a

spir

atio

n in

Cro

mw

ell’s

vis

ion

for

Engl

and?

)

Con

cept

= c

hang

e an

d co

ntin

uity

.

1.

Cro

mw

ell’s

rei

gn

and

his

rela

tions

hip

with

Par

liam

ent.

2.

The

rel

atio

nshi

p be

twee

n C

rom

wel

l an

d hi

s re

ligio

n.

3.

The

sta

tus

of

relig

ion

in E

ngla

nd

at t

his

time.

To e

nabl

e pu

pils

to

see

that

cha

nge

does

not

al

way

s le

ad t

o pr

ogre

ss.

To e

nabl

e pu

pils

to

see

that

con

tinui

ty fo

r on

e gr

oup

in s

ocie

ty

can

mea

n ch

ange

for

anot

her.

Cha

nge

mea

ns

prog

ress

and

as

we

prog

ress

thr

ough

tim

e th

ings

cha

nge

for

the

bett

er.

Cha

nge

is t

he

inte

ntio

nal o

utco

me

of

hum

an a

ctio

ns.

Cha

nge

and

cont

inui

ty

– th

e ch

ange

lurk

ing

with

in t

he c

ontin

uity

. M

aste

ry =

ana

lysi

ng

the

exte

nt a

nd n

atur

e of

cha

nge

for

diffe

rent

gr

oups

and

the

impe

tus

for

that

cha

nge.

Are

cha

nge

and/

or

cont

inui

ty c

onst

ant?

Is c

hang

e ha

ppen

ing

for

all g

roup

s or

just

a fe

w?

Is t

he c

hang

e/co

ntin

uity

de

term

ined

by

agen

ts

or a

ccid

enta

l?



Breaking down the process – two more (yes two more!) planning grids that might help to get you thinking….

FQ Planning Grid One

Curriculum area/core content:

1. What is the target knowledge you want students to learn?

2. How are you going to assess what they have learnt?

3. What is the key concept the question helps students to understand?

4. How does this question prepare students for future questions?

5. Possible fertile questions that allow the above to happen.

53



FQ Planning Grid Two

Stage of Fertile Question What this looks like in action.

1. Introduce the new Fertile Question – engage and motivate pupils, discover what they already know and check out their existing preconceptions. Make this known to the pupils.

2. Allow pupils to decide what research question(s) they might like to formulate that answers the Fertile Question or outline to the students the journey you have already planned.

3. Start the process of enquiry – what small questions do we need to answer to formulate a response to the BIG question, can we divide the BIG question up, what happens if we disagree, where might we go for information, what will we do if we get stuck, how will we know if we are on the right track, how are we going to display our thinking, what are the success criteria, who is the intended audience?

4. Come back as a whole class to discuss findings so far and any problems that have arisen.

5. Initial response to the question in groups or individually – tentative answers and provocative feedback to encourage deeper reflection. (Oral rehearsal)

6. Peer review and re-drafting in light of feedback.

7. Group/individual concluding performance.

8. Class concluding performance and feedback/review.



RE

Yr7

Lon

g Te

rm P

lan

HT

Fert

ile

Que

stio

nC

once

pts

Des

crip

tion

of

key

lear

ning

act

ivit

ies

and

obje

ctiv

esFo

rmat

ive

A

sses

smen

tsSu

mm

ativ

e A

sses

smen

tsLi

nks

to G

CSE

&

A-L

evel

R

equi

rem

ents

Aut

umn

1Is

faili

ng t

o pr

epar

e,

prep

arin

g to

fa

il?

The

dev

elop

men

t of

the

fund

amen

tal

bask

etba

ll sk

ills

and

tech

niqu

es.

Diff

eren

ces

betw

een

indi

vidu

al

and

team

tac

tics

and

thei

r ef

fect

on

team

per

form

ance

.

The

ben

efits

of

war

m-u

ps a

nd

cool

-dow

ns a

nd

thei

r im

pact

on

perf

orm

ance

leve

ls.

Usi

ng o

bser

vatio

n an

d fe

edba

ck t

o he

lp im

prov

e pe

rfor

man

ce a

nd

unde

rsta

ndin

g of

te

chni

que.

Pupi

ls a

re r

equi

red

to u

nder

take

the

ba

sket

ball

unit

of w

ork.

The

key

obj

ectiv

es

are

to im

prov

e ph

ysic

al p

erfo

rman

ce a

nd

dem

onst

rate

und

erst

andi

ng o

f rul

es a

nd

regu

latio

ns r

elat

ed t

o th

e sp

ort.

Pupi

ls w

ill e

xplo

re a

ran

ge o

f the

fund

amen

tal

skill

s in

clud

ing;

pass

ing,

drib

blin

g, sh

ootin

g, de

fens

ive

posi

tions

, cou

rt m

ovem

ent

and

tact

ics

and

stra

tegy

in g

ame

situ

atio

ns.

Pupi

ls w

ill e

ngag

e in

a v

arie

ty o

f diff

eren

tiate

d sk

ill s

essi

ons,

whi

ch w

ill b

e de

sign

ed t

o ph

ysic

ally

cha

lleng

e an

d ex

tend

the

ir

know

ledg

e of

the

gam

e.

Key

que

stio

ns:

• H

ow im

port

ant

is p

osse

ssio

n in

a

bask

etba

ll ga

me?

• W

hat

is t

he b

est

met

hod

for

mov

ing

arou

nd t

he c

ourt

?•

How

man

y w

ays

can

you

mov

e w

ith t

he

bask

etba

ll?•

Wha

t ba

sket

ball

shot

is b

est

suite

d to

w

hich

gam

e si

tuat

ion?

• H

ow c

an y

ou d

efen

d as

a t

eam

and

an

indi

vidu

al?

• H

ow c

an a

gam

e pl

an in

fluen

ce a

res

ult?

Que

stio

ning

Perf

orm

ance

op

port

uniti

es

both

in

prac

tice

and

com

petit

ive

situ

atio

ns.

Gro

up w

ork

Self

and

peer

as

sess

men

t op

port

uniti

es.

End

of u

nit

mod

erat

ion

sess

ion;

cons

istin

g of

:

Rev

iew

of

skill

mat

eria

l in

indi

vidu

al

drill

s.

Exte

nded

pe

rfor

man

ce

in a

co

mpe

titiv

e en

viro

nmen

t.

Cor

e th

emes

from

G

CSE

con

tent

;

– W

arm

–up

– C

ool-d

own

– Fe

edba

ck

– Fu

ndam

enta

l m

otor

ski

lls

GC

SE P

ract

ical

pe

rfor

man

ce

crite

ria.

Use

of s

ubje

ct

lang

uage

.

Ass

essm

ent

form

at

dupl

icat

ion.

55



RE

Yr7

Lon

g Te

rm P

lan

HT

Fert

ile

Que

stio

nC

once

pts

Des

crip

tion

of

lear

ning

and

obj

ecti

ves

Form

ativ

e

Ass

essm

ents

Sum

mat

ive

Ass

essm

ents

Skill

s ap

plic

able

fo

r G

CSE

/ A

Lev

el.

Aut

umn

1C

an r

elig

ion

help

a m

oder

n w

orld

?

Expr

essi

ng a

n un

ders

tand

ing

of

diffe

rent

wor

ld

issu

es b

oth

past

an

d pr

esen

t an

d in

vest

igat

ing

any

links

bet

wee

n a

lack

of k

now

ledg

e ab

out

relig

ions

/cu

lture

s an

d th

ese

wor

ld is

sues

. O

bser

ving

how

re

ligio

n m

anife

sts

itsel

f with

in

the

wor

ld a

nd

expl

orin

g w

hat

the

resp

onse

sho

uld

be

to t

his.

In

vest

igat

ing

wha

t im

pact

be

tter

rel

igio

us

unde

rsta

ndin

g ha

s/w

ould

hav

e on

the

w

orld

.

Expr

essi

ng a

n un

ders

tand

ing

of t

he

impo

rtan

ce o

f cas

e st

udie

s an

d ke

y w

ords

su

ch a

s se

cula

r an

d sa

cred

rel

atin

g to

rel

igio

n w

ithin

tod

ays

wor

ld.

Expl

orin

g a

rang

e of

art

efac

ts u

sed

thro

ugho

ut d

iffer

ent

relig

ions

and

cas

e st

udie

s w

here

free

dom

of r

elig

ion

has

been

th

reat

ened

. Ev

alua

ting

wha

t co

ntri

bute

s to

mak

ing

relig

ion/

arte

fact

s sa

cred

and

exp

ress

ing

an o

pini

on o

n w

hy w

hen

this

san

ctity

is

thre

aten

ed p

eopl

e re

act

nega

tivel

y.Ev

alua

ting

to w

hat

exte

nt b

ette

r kn

owle

dge

of w

orld

rel

igio

ns a

mon

gst

the

popu

latio

n w

ould

sol

ve w

orld

cri

ses.

K

ey le

sson

que

stio

ns:

• C

ould

it e

ver

be a

rgue

d th

at R

E is

the

m

ost

impo

rtan

t su

bjec

t in

sch

ool?

• Is

Rel

igio

n un

fair

ly b

lam

ed fo

r th

e w

orld

’s pr

oble

ms?

• W

as F

ranc

e co

rrec

t in

ban

ning

the

Niq

ab?

• C

an a

n ob

ject

eve

r be

hol

y?

30 m

in

hom

ewor

k pe

r w

eek.

QW

C

asse

ssed

.

Que

stio

ns in

cl

ass.

Wri

tten

tas

ks

with

in c

lass

us

ing

diffe

rent

na

rrat

ive

stru

ctur

es.

55 m

inut

e ex

tend

ed

wri

ting

piec

e.

(Sca

ffold

as

per

pred

ictiv

e da

ta).

Ass

essm

ent

Q: I

f peo

ple

had

bett

er

know

ledg

e of

rel

igio

ns

wou

ld t

he

wor

ld b

e a

mor

e pe

acef

ul

plac

e?

Skill

s: Pr

ovid

ing

a pe

rson

al

resp

onse

.

Wri

ting

an

exte

nded

es

say.

Cor

e kn

owle

dge.

Use

of K

ey T

erm

s.

Eval

uatio

n.

Qua

lity

of

Expr

essi

on.

Ref

er t

o Su

cces

s C

rite

ria.



MAPPING FERTILE QUESTIONS ACROSS A KEY STAGE

Remember to be guided by the following ideas:

• How do you plan to expose your students to the same concept over a Key Stage and keep spiralling back to the fundamental, organising principles in your subject?

• How will their knowledge of this concept and ability to use it as a tool for explaining ideas grow across the Key Stage?

• How do your Fertile Questions connect across a year and Key Stage?

• What is the overall aim of your curriculum plan – what does it enable students to be able to do by the end?

• How will you assess understanding at the end of each Fertile Question? Have you used the Harpaz table on Page 32 to help plan for progression?

Year 7 Fertile Questions



Autumn 1

Autumn 2

Spring 1

Spring 2

Summer 1

Summer 2

57



Y7

Aut

umn

1A

utum

n 2

Spri

ngSu

mm

er

Wha

t is

mus

ic?

Sing

ing

base

d in

trod

uctio

n to

the

7 di

men

sions

of

mus

ic fo

cusin

g on

pe

rform

ance

in la

rge

and

smal

ler

grou

ps

Is t

he h

uman

bod

y a

mus

ical

inst

rum

ent?

Intr

oduc

tion

to p

iano

, sin

ging

dev

elop

ed, a

nd

expl

orin

g H

arm

ony.

Pupi

ls w

ill co

mpo

se a

nd

arra

nge

in g

roup

s.

Why

is t

he k

eybo

ard

so m

uch

mor

e th

an b

lack

an

d w

hite

?Pi

ano

base

d pr

ojec

t foc

usin

g on

dev

elop

ing

2 ha

nded

pia

no te

chni

que.

Theo

ry, s

ight

rea

ding

and

ha

rmon

y de

velo

ped

and

pupi

ls w

ill be

intr

oduc

ed

to c

ompo

sing

tech

niqu

es u

sing

the

keyb

oard

.

Is t

echn

olog

y ru

inin

g th

e m

usic

indu

stry

?Co

mpo

sitio

n ba

sed

proj

ect f

ocus

ing

on u

sing

sequ

enci

ng m

etho

ds w

ithin

mus

ic te

chno

logy

. Pu

pils

will

look

at t

he e

ffect

s of

tech

nolo

gy o

n th

e w

orki

ng m

usic

ian

and

the

reco

rd in

dust

ry.

Y8

Aut

umn

Spri

ngSu

mm

er

Has

sla

very

cha

nged

mus

ic fo

reve

r?Pu

pils

will

expl

ore

the

hist

ory

of p

opul

ar m

usic

an

alys

ing

the

impa

ct o

f sla

very

on

blue

s an

d ja

zz

and

how

this

has

influ

ence

d th

e m

usic

of t

oday

. Pu

pils

will

be s

ingi

ng, p

erfo

rmin

g an

d ar

rang

ing

thei

r ow

n 12

bar

blu

es in

gro

ups.

Afr

ican

mus

ic; w

hat

is a

com

mun

ity w

ithou

t m

usic

?D

jem

be a

nd s

ingi

ng b

ased

pro

ject

exp

lorin

g Af

rican

mus

ic a

nd C

ultu

re. P

erfo

rman

ce a

nd

com

posit

ion

base

d in

sm

all a

nd la

rge

ense

mbl

es.

Min

imal

ism

; is

less

mor

e?Pu

pils

will

expl

ore

two

influ

entia

l 20t

h Ce

ntur

y m

usic

al s

tyle

s, th

roug

h th

e m

ediu

m o

f pia

no

perfo

rman

ce, c

ompo

sitio

n an

d ar

rang

ing.

Y9

Aut

umn

Spri

ngSu

mm

er

Doe

s ‘da

nce

mus

ic’ a

ctua

lly m

ake

you

danc

e?M

usic

Tech

nolo

gy b

ased

pro

ject

focu

sing

on

com

posit

ion

and

adva

nced

seq

uenc

ing

tech

niqu

es

as w

ell a

s cr

eatin

g sa

mpl

es. P

upils

will

focu

s on

ou

tsta

ndin

g sc

ore

writ

ing.

Is n

ew a

lway

s an

upg

rade

?Pu

pils

will

expl

ore

the

hist

ory

of c

lass

ical

mus

ic

as a

n ar

t for

m, f

ocus

ing

on th

e sim

ilarit

ies

and

diffe

renc

es to

pop

ular

Mus

ic. T

hey

will

furt

her

deve

lop

pian

o sk

ills le

arni

ng P

ache

lbel

’s Ca

non

and

arra

ngin

g th

eir

own

vers

ion.

Is m

usic

the

mos

t po

wer

ful t

ool i

n th

e w

orld

? M

usic

and

Med

ia. P

upils

will

have

the

oppo

rtun

ity

to c

reat

e m

usic

to fi

t a p

urpo

se in

clud

ing

a TV

ad

vert

and

a fi

lm c

lip. P

upils

will

expl

ore

the

pow

er o

f mus

ic in

Med

ia.



STAGE 7: The Learner ProfileSo far we have tried to set out exactly how curriculum planning and curriculum design at KAA should work. But there is another crucial element to this – the ‘learner profile’. Hattie’s diagram in the introduction to this handbook shows there is one contributing factor which has an even bigger effect size than the quality of the teacher, and that is the kind of learner the student perceives themselves to be. If students have a self-belief, self-confidence and desire to grow and develop it is a huge advantage for any school. Our students need an entrepreneurial spirit – they need to live Intrepidus!

In a start-up environment we have an opportunity to foster this mentality in our students. Some may not arrive in Year 7 with these attitudes, but through our strong school culture – based around Intrepidus – we can scaffold and develop it. If we implement the learner profile effectively it will complement the approach to planning outlined so far; so the curriculum and the learner profile gear together to accelerate student progress.

By sharing the profile with our students – either explicitly or implicitly – we can develop in them the entrepreneurial habits they will need for enquiry based learning. We want to encourage these habits in them not just in lessons but through all forms of communication and all aspects of school life: assemblies, tutor times, parents’ evenings, reports, enrichment sessions, entrepreneurialism and so on.

When we are thinking about how to build our ‘learner profile’ these questions may be helpful:

• What does a learner look like in our curriculum,

• What habits of mind or dispositions will they develop,

• How do they make connections between learning experiences,

• What language do we use to talk about learning,

• How does this learning connect to the wider-world and what does it prepare me for,

• How does this learning connect to the way experts in the different fields think about and construct knowledge,

• How do they view problems and challenges,

• How do they respond to mistakes?

The diagrams and the explanation of ‘growth-mindsets’ overleaf try to map out the different types of thinking a KAA learner should develop. They suggest how medium and long term plans can draw out the qualities and attributes we desire in students and hopefully form a planning framework across subjects, year groups and key stages. They offer all members of the school community – teachers, support staff, parents, students and governors – a common language with which to talk about learning, and allows everyone to take responsibility for getting better at learning.

59



If the qualities described in our learner profile are to become meaningful to students we must make them real, living ideas, made concrete through students’ day to day experience. The best people to explain the profile are the students themselves; we will be able to tell if they are absorbing the ideas in the table by the feedback they give us on how they see themselves.

Our Learner Profile is not a tool for labelling students. It is not different types of intelligence or ways of learning. It simply maps out the desired dispositions for a student to possess to be able to operate successfully in a changing and uncertain world, and is used as a planning and evaluating tool. It provides a common framework and language for talking about learning and progression.



The

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24

At

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MASLOW’S HIERARCHY OF NEEDS

Another area to consider is the vitally important (but often overlooked) fact that emotional states affect learning. If our students feel shouted at, ignored, belittled etc they will not be able to learn anything. Maslow’s famous hierarchy of needs expresses this:



GROWTH MINDSETS – CREATING THE CLIMATE FOR EXCELLENCE IN EVERY CLASSROOM

“Students may know how to study, but won’t want to if they believe their efforts are futile. If you target that belief, you can see more benefit than you have any reason to hope for.”

Dweck

Of course a major part of why we have a ‘learner profile’ is so that students will never feel their ‘efforts are futile’. The (now widely referenced) work of Carol Dweck is of such importance to what we are trying to achieve at KAA that her ideas are relied heavily on in this section. Her research has transformed the thinking around ‘excellence’ and life-long success and happiness and her concept of the ‘Growth Mindset’ is what we are aiming for.

Dweck poses these four statements and asks her readers if they agree or disagree with each one:

1. Your ability is something very basic about you that you can’t change very much.

2. You can learn new things, but you can’t really change how ‘clever’ you are.

3. No matter how much ability you have, you can always change it quite a bit.

4. You can always substantially change how ‘clever’ you are.

As KAA teachers, the views we have on intelligence, ability, potential, all shape the way we will interact with our students – both in the classroom and around the school – as well as the conversations we have about them between ourselves. If we take the view that intelligence is static and you are born with a certain amount of it, it is the opposite of what we are trying to achieve, and the opposite of Intrepidus.

In the 21st Century the ‘science of learning’ is transforming the way schools view intelligence and the ways in which it can manifest itself within classrooms. At KAA we have an opportunity to create a climate in our classrooms which maximizes learning by sending positive messages to all students that harness the power of positive psychology and motivation. This is the main thing we need to concern ourselves with when we think about classroom environment – we can have all the lovely glazing and nice new chairs we want but it will be futile if KAA teachers and students have a fixed view of their intelligence and ‘ability’!

MOVING BEYOND ‘ABILITY’ – BRAIN AS A BUCKET OR A MUSCLE?25

The two boxes below are a simple way of presenting the latest research of Dweck and others. The box on the left can perhaps be termed the ‘traditional’ approach to viewing learning and the brain – ability is fixed, some people are more intelligent than others and there is little that can be done to change it.

The box on the right can perhaps be termed the ‘research-based’ approach in that the research is currently suggesting that the brain is more like a muscle and can be ‘grown.’ There evidence now to support the idea that the plasticity of the brain gives endless capacity to learn and that:

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“…this capacity to learn and to advance which our brain gives us is individually acquired. This means a single generation without access to education, libraries, computers, etc. will be back in the Stone Age. We are narrowly detached from our distant evolutionary past. Everyone has to reacquire everything that has been learned through the adaptation of an individual’s brain.”

Prof. C. Blakemore

Our philosophy is based on the premise that the brain is a changing ‘organ’ and needs to be cultivated. This requires a shift in the way we talk to and about students and about learning in general.

A ‘BUCKET’ BRAIN

1. Fixed ability

– Born smart

2. Proving

3. Conservative learning

4. Failure/mistakes bad

5. Effort aversive

6. Ignores information

7. Fragile - depressive

8. Shirk/blame/cheat

9 Comparative/competitive

A ‘MUSCLE’ BRAIN

• Expandable ability

– Get smarter

• Improving

• Adventurous learning

• Failure/mistakes useful

• Effort pleasurable

• Focuses on information

• Resilient - determined

• Try/commit/be open

• Collaborative/generous

Carol Dweck refers to the important difference between self-esteem and self-efficacy:

• Private education buys “empty self-belief” of confidence of superiority over others

• Fixed Mindset self-esteem is about feeling good about yourself, often in relation to the perceived lower achievement of others

• Growth Mindset self-esteem is about having the courage & determination to address weaknesses

• Confidence & self-efficacy comes from mastery of problems through resilience, not from false self-esteem

• Growth Mindset Teacher: “I am not interested in judging how good your work is, I am interested in the quality of your learning and the strategies you use.”

Dweck’s theory of the ‘growth mind-set’ is explained in the diagram below. In a growth mindset people believe that their most basic abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work – brains and talent are just the starting point. This view of the



brain creates a love of learning and a resilience that is the basis of great accomplishment in every area. All entrepreneurs share this belief.

In opposition to this, fixed mindset people believe that their basic qualities are fixed. They spend their time documenting or judging their talents and abilities instead of developing them. They also believe that talent alone creates success, without effort.

So the obvious question is how do we develop growing minds? We must remember every word or action sends a message. It tells children how to think about themselves and how to view the world around them.

Our feedback and interaction with students can be a fixed-mindset message that says: “You have permanent traits and I am judging them”.

Or it can be a growth-mindset message that says: “You are a developing person and I am interested in your development.”

In a nutshell, praising children’s intelligence harms their motivation and harms their performance. If success means they are smart, then failure means they are stupid.

Instead, our focus is on teaching our students to love challenges (Intrepidus), to be intrigued by their mistakes, to enjoy effort and to keep on learning.

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IMPLEMENTING A GROWTH MIND-SET

“There truly is no scientific justification anymore – if there ever was – for labeling children as having different amounts of ‘intelligence, ‘ability’, or even – the new weasely euphemism – potential.”

Claxton, G, Lucas, B. 2010

The more integrated our approach is at KAA, the more embedded this idea of ‘growth-mindset’ will become. The message that challenges should be embraced and that mistakes represent opportunities for new learning needs to be communicated at all levels and by all parties. This philosophy is fundamental to our entrepreneurial ethos. It should



underpin our curriculum; our classroom teaching; our approach to homework; the culture and ethos of KAA as communicated via assemblies, tutor period, PSHE and the visual environment; our behaviour and rewards system; and communication with parents. We need single-minded focus on each student as a developing individual, otherwise all our other strategies, systems and approaches are undermined.

There are five areas discussed below that will help us build a growth mindset.

1. HOW WE UNWITTINGLY GIVE FEEDBACK EVERY SECOND

Every action, gesture and comment in the classroom sends a message from teacher to student and from student to student. A raised eyebrow at a question we don’t think is relevant; moving on and not responding to a student’s response or question – these interactions give feedback and send a message. This messaging in turn influences how a student feels in our classroom and dictates the level of effort and engagement they commit to learning. We must be super-conscious of what messages our actions are sending to students – ‘you have permanent traits’ or ‘you’re a developing individual.’ Do we praise intelligence and talent and use these words as fixed points when talking with students? How do we present new material to students – do we lower standards to ensure success or raise standards but offer no way of meeting them?

Added to our unconscious messaging, too often, our explicit teacher feedback focuses on the student at a personal (or self) level. According to Hattie, this is the least effective of all feedback types. Personal feedback (for example phrases such as “Good boy” or “Great effort”) usually contains little task-related information and is rarely converted into more engagement, commitment to the learning goals, enhanced self-efficacy, or understanding about the task.

So, feedback to students has to focus on the learning objectives shared with students earlier on. Feedback that focuses on learning goals or success criteria is more likely to lead to greater engagement and progress and doesn’t attach personal value judgments to it (this is expanded on in the KAA assessment and marking policy).

2. MAKING THE MOST OF EXPECTATIONS

Dweck outlines 4 key things we can do to ensure that the expectations we create in our classrooms maximize student engagement and progress. These 4 areas are easy to execute and with a bit of thought every classroom at KAA can be designed to fulfill their requirements.

1. Climate – a warm, welcoming social and emotional classroom climate.

2. Feedback – not performance but learning orientated.

3. Input – attempts to teach more material and more difficult material through realistic and carefully planned Fertile Questions. The idea of ‘junior versions’ explained earlier.

4. Output – more opportunities to respond – both student to teacher and student to student.

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TEACHER BEHAVIOURS THAT SIGNAL EXPECTATIONS 26

David Perkins at Harvard University was influenced by the work of Dweck and he builds on her work by outlining some very clear ways in which teachers – often unwittingly – signal to students what our expectations of them are. When you take the time to stop and think about the examples below it is clear how we are all guilty at times of signalling to a student that we don’t have the time – or the belief in them – to listen to their thoughts and responses!

• The student the teacher never asks?

• The student the teacher always asks?

• Do you wait for the student to get the answer or quickly move on?

• How do you pair students up with one another?

• Do you praise for solving easy problems?

• What do you praise – effort or easy success?

Being aware of this and shining the spotlight on our signals, for example through lesson observation, is the only way to stop them. We must not be defensive about this. Creating a classroom that supports progress through high expectations and a belief that all students are growing and developing people is central to realising the vision for KAA. We should never make easy excuses about our students – they can’t do that, so and so is on the SEN register etc. ‘Labelling and limiting’ is a core principle of NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) and there is no doubt that labelling a child as lazy, stupid, slow, nasty, is instantly placing a set of expectations on them that they will inevitably fulfil. At KAA we want to create a school full of classrooms that have the highest beliefs and set of expectations for every learner – imagine the power of that!

3. HOW WE TALK TO STUDENTS ABOUT THEIR LEARNING

The quote below from Hattie gives helpful guidelines on the kind of feedback we should be giving to students:

“A problem occurs when feedback is not directed toward the attainment of a goal. Too often, the feedback given is unrelated to achieving success on critical dimensions of the goal. For example, students are given feedback on presentation, spelling, and quantity in writing when the criteria for success was “creating mood in a story”. Students’ attributions about success or failure can often have more impact than the reality of that success or failure. There can be deleterious effects on feelings of self-efficacy and performance when students are unable to relate the feedback to the cause of their poor performance. Unclear evaluative feedback, which fails to specify the grounds on which students have met with achievement success or otherwise, is likely to exacerbate negative outcomes, engender uncertain self-images, and lead to poor performance.” 27



So the feedback we give to students is only as useful as their response to it, and their response is determined by cultural factors in the school as well as the teaching activities we build around the delivery of the feedback. Establishing the growth-mindset it key:

“Helpless children react as though they have received an indictment of their ability, but mastery orientated children react as though they have been given useful feedback about learning.”

Elliott & Dweck

4. HOW WE ENCOURAGE PARENTS TO TALK TO THEIR CHILDREN ABOUT LEARNING 28

At KAA we have a great opportunity to engage parents in the learning process. We know that potentially there will be mismatches between the messaging our students receives in school and the messaging they receive at home. We need to make parents our allies in embedding a Growth Mindset approach. Parents often base the questions they ask their child around their own experiences of the school system and are often much happier with quick and easy success rather than development over time (this is not blaming parents but ensuring we are conscious of this mismatch). We need to give constructive support to our parents and challenge any parent-child conversations that focus on quick wins or that see failure as negative or demonstrating fixed traits and abilities.

The three examples below are used by Dweck to highlight some simple ways that schools can train parents to respond and engage with their child’s learning in a different way.

1. Show your child that you value learning and improvement, not just quick, perfect performance. When your child does something quickly and perfectly or gets an easy A-Grade in school, you as a parent should not tell your child how great they are. Otherwise, your child will equate being smart with quick and easy success, and they will become afraid of challenges. Parents should, whenever possible, show pleasure over their children’s learning and improvement. Don’t expect them to be good at something straight away but enjoy talking to them about their learning journey.

2. Don’t shield your children from challenges, mistakes, and struggles. Instead, parents should teach their children to love challenges. When sitting at home discussing their homework they can say things like “This is hard. What fun!” or “This is too easy. It’s no fun.” It is vital that KAA parents teach their children to embrace mistakes and to see failure as an inevitable part of the learning process. The conversations our parents have with their children should focus on the strategies they deployed when they were stuck and how they overcame a difficulty. This is equally important when they are reading at home as well as when they are working on their maths homework.

3. Finally, stop praising your children’s intelligence. Research has shown that, far from boosting children’s self-esteem, it makes them more fragile and can undermine their motivation and learning. Praising your child’s intelligence puts them in a fixed mindset, makes them afraid of making mistakes, and makes them lose their confidence when something is hard for them. Instead, parents should praise the process – your child’s effort, strategy, perseverance, or improvement. Then your children will be willing to take on challenges and will know how to stick with things – even the hard ones.

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CONCLUSIONS ON CURRICULUM PLANNINGPlanning using Fertile Questions can at first be labour-intensive, but this is offset by the gains it creates in the classroom. To get the most from Fertile Questions we need to think through the curriculum at KS3 from first principles. Once the approach to the planning becomes embedded we can strip it down – we won’t need endless tables to structure our thinking. But the hard work and head scratching at the beginning are vital!

To sum up, the key points of the planning approach are:

• Plan backwards from degree level and KS5 – what does success look like and how can you prepare for this. How do experts ‘practice’?

• Teach for understanding not recitation – use Fertile Questions to ensure students are operating on the knowledge they have been given, not passively receiving it.

• Work out what the core concepts are that students need to understand in order to make sense and organize what they are being taught. Always foreground concepts in your teaching.

• What are the key dispositions or ways of thinking a student needs to master in order to replicate the way experts in the field think? Reinforce the learner profile and growth mindset at every opportunity.

• Design the curriculum around a series of Fertile Questions that pose meaningful puzzles that mirror the way experts think and authentic problems in the real world, and provide ‘apprenticeships in thinking’.

• Design the curriculum around ideas of target knowledge and conceptual thinking, and consider how can you escalate the complexities in knowledge and concepts over time. How does one Fertile Question prepare students for the next?

• Teach the ‘whole game’ of your subject. How do the conceptual understandings students are building connect with the ‘whole game’ (or a junior version of it)? How does one Fertile Question re-enforce earlier learning and help students apply it to new settings?

• Ensure that the approach is developing academic language and enabling students to move from highly spoken forms of communication to academic writing.

• As the approach to planning becomes second-nature, scale it back so it does not become burdensome but ensure it still maintains the same focus.

Some examples of KAA curriculum plans – long and medium term – are included below for reference.



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of c

omm

unic

atin

g do

pup

ils n

eed

to u

nder

stan

d or

dem

onst

rate

?•

Wha

t do

I ne

ed t

o m

ake

expl

icit

to s

tude

nts

in t

each

ing

this

gen

re o

r ty

pe o

f res

pons

e? W

hat

spec

ific

stru

ctur

es w

ay/ l

angu

age

feat

ures

do

I nee

d to

te

ach?

Wha

t w

ill I

use

to d

o th

is?

GEN

RE

PRIM

ARY

ASS

ESSE

D

GEN

RE:

An

imag

inat

ive

piec

e of

wri

ting

REG

IST

ER (

field

; ten

or/

audi

ence

; mod

e)F

> e

ngag

e an

d en

tert

ain

T >

exa

min

er b

ut w

ith

indi

vidu

al p

aram

eter

s de

term

ined

by

pupi

ls

imag

inat

ive

resp

onse

to

tas

k e.

g. th

e ch

oice

of

nar

rativ

e vo

ice/

peer

rea

ders

hip/

adul

t re

ader

ship

. Con

sist

ency

is

key

here

M >

form

al r

egis

ter

whe

re

use

of in

form

al d

irec

t ad

dres

s, ab

brev

iatio

ns,

slan

g or

ver

nacu

lar

are

cont

rolle

d an

d de

liber

ate

to c

reat

e ef

fect

s w

ritt

en

Engl

ish

EXPL

ICIT

APP

ROA

CH

ES/T

ECH

NIC

AL

SKIL

LS T

HAT

WIL

L N

EED

TO

BE

LEA

RN

T:

• T

he c

onve

ntio

ns o

f pla

nnin

g an

d st

ruct

urin

g id

eas

with

in c

reat

ive

piec

es•

Cho

ice

of n

arra

tive

voic

e &

impa

ct: fi

rst

pers

on, t

hird

per

son,

om

nisc

ient

, alte

rnat

e, s

trea

m

of c

onsc

ious

ness

, pas

t an

d pr

esen

t te

nse

• C

hoic

e of

nar

rativ

e st

ruct

ures

to

sequ

ence

who

le t

exts

: rec

ount

, flas

hbac

k, d

ual n

arra

tive,

cy

clic

al n

arra

tive,

par

agra

phin

g fo

r ef

fect

, ver

bal s

naps

hots

, zoo

m, w

ithho

ldin

g in

form

atio

n•

App

roac

h to

str

uctu

re w

ithin

par

agra

phs

and

at a

sen

tenc

e le

vel:

Para

grap

hing

(an

d ho

w t

o pa

ragr

aph

for

effe

ct);

diffe

rent

kin

ds o

f sen

tenc

e st

ruct

ure

and

how

the

se c

an b

e us

ed fo

r ef

fect

. •

How

to

find

and

incl

ude

a ra

nge

of in

crea

sing

ly s

ophi

stic

ated

and

pre

cise

voc

abul

ary

to b

e ab

le t

o ca

ptur

e ex

peri

ence

s/em

otio

ns a

nd p

ortr

ay t

hem

viv

idly

for

thei

r re

ader

• W

ritin

g fig

urat

ivel

y –

why

mor

e do

esn’

t m

ean

bett

er, i

n us

ing

SOA

PMA

PS d

evic

es•

Mod

elle

d pa

ragr

aphs

and

ent

ire

essa

ys –

exe

mpl

ars

of o

ther

tex

ts a

cros

s a

rang

e of

gen

res

and

eras

sha

red

with

stu

dent

s; co

-con

stru

cted

in c

lass

from

stu

dent

s ow

n w

ords

; gra

phic

or

gani

sers

to

scaf

fold

res

pons

esSt

uden

ts w

ill a

lso

cove

r th

e ba

sic

wri

ting

skill

s, in

clud

ing:

• Se

nten

ce p

unct

uatio

n in

clud

ing

capi

tal l

ette

rs, f

ull s

tops

and

oth

er e

nd o

f sen

tenc

e pu

nctu

atio

n.

• U

sing

com

mas

cor

rect

ly –

and

the

diff

eren

t us

es (

espe

cial

ly p

aren

thet

ical

use

and

the

de

bate

ove

r th

e se

rial

com

ma)

• Se

mi-c

olon

s an

d hy

phen

s an

d w

hy t

hey

are

used

• Sp

ellin

g st

rate

gies

, par

ticul

arly

hom

opho

nes,

basi

c sp

ellin

gs a

nd c

ompl

ex s

pelli

ngs

• A

post

roph

es a

nd d

irec

t sp

eech

rul

es (

revi

sion

from

FQ

1)•

Som

e st

uden

ts w

ill n

eed

smal

l gro

up a

nd in

divi

dual

sup

port

in im

prov

ing

thei

r w

ritin

g sk

ills

with

thi

ngs

like:

• Te

nse

/ sub

ject

ver

b co

ncor

d•

Prep

ositi

ons,

artic

les

and

conn

ectin

g w

ords

• Ir

regu

lar

spel

ling

patt

erns

• H

andw

ritin

g

73



Wee

kFo

cus

Cor

e Le

arni

ngPo

ssib

le a

ctiv

itie

s/re

sour

ces

FLIP

pre

para

tion:

dur

ing

half

term

stu

dent

s to

hav

e re

sear

ched

and

cho

sen

an e

xtra

ct o

f cre

ativ

e w

ritin

g th

at t

hey

love

; wri

te a

n ac

com

pany

ing

expl

anat

ion

abou

t w

hy it

app

eals

to

them

so

muc

h.

1H

ow a

re w

rite

rs li

ke a

rtis

ts?

Wha

t’s t

he d

iffer

ence

bet

wee

n cr

eativ

e an

d no

n-fic

tion

wri

ting?

Wha

t m

akes

an

effe

ctiv

e pi

ece

of

crea

tive

wri

ting?

How

do

I wri

te a

bout

cha

ract

ers?

• St

uden

ts w

ill le

arn

the

diffe

renc

e be

twee

n no

n-fic

tion

wri

ting

(ref

erri

ng t

o pr

ior

know

ledg

e fr

om A

ut 1

e.g

. ne

wsp

aper

art

icle

s an

d pe

rsua

sive

wri

ting)

and

cre

ativ

e w

ritin

g. •

Stud

ents

will

ana

lyse

a r

ange

of t

exts

to

see

wha

t m

akes

the

m s

ucce

ssfu

lly e

ngag

e a

read

er s

o th

at t

hey

can

emul

ate

this

in t

heir

wri

ting

• St

uden

ts w

ill le

arn

how

to

crea

te c

onvi

ncin

g na

rrat

ive

voic

e (r

e-ca

ppin

g na

rrat

ive

voic

e/to

ne o

f aut

hori

ty fr

om

Aut

1 a

nd d

iffer

ent

way

s to

‘hoo

k’ in

a r

eade

r at

the

be

ginn

ing

of a

sto

ry)

• St

uden

ts w

ill le

arn

how

to

wri

te d

escr

iptiv

ely

abou

t ch

arac

ters

bui

ldin

g on

the

ir a

naly

sis

of c

hara

cter

in

Mor

purg

o’s

wor

k in

FQ

1

• C

ompa

ring

and

con

tras

ting

exam

ples

of

non

-fict

ion

text

s in

ter

ms

of G

.A.P.

•

Mak

ing

a ta

ble

or V

enn

diag

ram

of

diffe

renc

es –

not

e th

e un

iting

pur

pose

i.e

. tai

lore

d fo

r au

dien

ce a

nd p

urpo

se

• C

rib

shee

t of

diff

eren

t st

ory

open

ings

(c

hara

cter

/act

ion/

dial

ogue

/set

ting/

dire

ct

addr

ess)

• Sf

W3&

4 : p

gs 4

-7 fo

r st

ory

begi

nnin

gs.

• Sf

W1&

2: p

gs 1

4-15

& S

fW3&

4 pg

s 12

-15

in fo

r na

rrat

ive

view

poin

t &

ton

e of

au

thor

ity•

Exam

inin

g te

xts

whe

re t

he d

escr

iptio

n of

a c

hara

cter

is p

artic

ular

ly e

ffect

ive

• Sf

W1&

2: p

gs 2

4-25

in

for

char

acte

r•

Show

-don

’t-te

ll –

exam

ples

. Act

ivity

w

ith b

lind

fold

s an

d de

scri

ptio

n in

pai

rs.

• U

sing

cha

ract

er p

ostc

ards

to

wri

te

thei

r ow

n ch

arac

ter

desc

ript

ions



Wee

kFo

cus

Cor

e Le

arni

ngPo

ssib

le a

ctiv

itie

s/re

sour

ces

2W

hat

mak

es a

n ef

fect

ive

piec

e of

cr

eativ

e w

ritin

g?H

ow d

o I w

rite

abo

ut c

hara

cter

s?

How

do

I wri

te a

bout

set

tings

?H

ow c

an I

use

lang

uage

to

crea

te a

n ef

fect

ive

desc

ript

ion?

Trip

to

The

Nat

iona

l Gal

lery

thi

s w

eek

stag

gere

d ac

ross

T

hurs

& F

ri fo

r al

l set

s.C

ontin

ue w

ith la

st w

eek’

s w

ork

on c

hara

cter

and

the

n m

ove

onto

set

ting.

• St

uden

ts w

ill le

arn

abou

t an

d us

e a

vari

ety

of la

ngua

ge

tech

niqu

es fo

r de

scri

ptio

n su

ch a

s:•

Sim

iles,

met

apho

rs a

nd p

erso

nific

atio

n an

d ot

her

SOA

PMA

PS•

Voca

bula

ry (

adje

ctiv

es, a

dver

bs, d

escr

iptiv

e ve

rbs

– th

e m

etal

angu

age

here

nee

ds t

o be

exp

licitl

y ta

ught

and

un

ders

tood

to

empo

wer

stu

dent

s to

mak

e in

form

ed

choi

ces)

• Sh

ow D

on’t

Tell

• Fi

ve s

ense

s•

Stud

ents

will

lear

n ho

w t

o w

rite

des

crip

tivel

y ab

out

sett

ing

usin

g a

vari

ety

of s

truc

tura

l app

roac

hes

such

as:

verb

al s

naps

hots

, zoo

m’,

with

hold

ing

info

rmat

ion

• R

ecap

imag

ery

tech

niqu

es s

uch

as

sim

iles,

met

apho

rs a

nd p

erso

nific

atio

n th

roug

h a

rang

e of

exa

mpl

es; p

oor

and

perf

ect

exam

ples

and

dis

cuss

ion

why

• U

se fu

rthe

r ex

ampl

es o

f goo

d de

scri

ptiv

e w

ritin

g, th

is t

ime

of s

ettin

gs.

Ann

otat

e an

d hi

ghlig

ht.

• Te

ach

zoom

and

ver

bal s

naps

hot

tech

niqu

es u

sing

exa

mpl

es s

cene

s. •

SfW

1&2:

pgs

8-9

for

verb

s/vi

vid

desc

ript

ion;

pgs

10-

11 fo

r no

un p

hras

es;

16-1

9 sy

nony

ms/

inte

nsifi

ers;

22-2

3,

pres

ent

part

icip

les

& v

erbs

; 48-

49 s

imile

&

met

apho

r; 52

– 5

3•

SfW

3&4:

16-

18 fo

r bu

ildin

g on

viv

id

desc

ript

ion/

expa

ndin

g no

un p

hras

es•

Use

pos

tcar

ds a

nd p

hoto

grap

hs o

f pl

aces

to

insp

ire

crea

tive

wri

ting

– de

velo

ped

in r

espo

nse

with

Nat

iona

l G

alle

ry t

our

guid

es.

• Se

nsor

y w

ritin

g in

spir

ed b

y st

udyi

ng in

de

tail

– e.

g. th

e le

mon

she

rbet

• D

escr

iptiv

e w

ritin

g ca

rous

el.

75



Wee

kFo

cus

Cor

e Le

arni

ngPo

ssib

le a

ctiv

itie

s/re

sour

ces

3H

ow c

an I

use

lang

uage

to

crea

te a

n ef

fect

ive

desc

ript

ion?

How

are

wri

ters

like

scu

lpto

rs?

How

can

I us

e st

ruct

ure

to h

elp

cons

truc

t an

effe

ctiv

e de

scri

ptio

n?

Stud

ents

will

att

empt

to

crea

te t

heir

ow

n en

gagi

ng w

ritin

g w

ith F

OR

MAT

IVE

ASS

ESSM

ENT

TA

KIN

G P

LAC

E AT

TH

E EN

D O

F T

HIS

WEE

K. T

o th

is e

nd:

• St

uden

ts w

ill c

ontin

ue w

ith t

heir

wor

k on

cha

ract

ers

and

sett

ings

, exp

erim

entin

g w

ith d

iffer

ent

appr

oach

es

• St

uden

ts w

ill le

arn

abou

t an

d ex

peri

men

t w

ith a

ra

nge

of d

iffer

ent

stru

ctur

al a

ppro

ache

s in

clud

ing

para

grap

hing

, sen

tenc

ing

and

synt

ax, r

ecou

nt, fl

ashb

ack,

cy

clic

al

• St

uden

ts w

ill le

arn

how

diff

eren

t pu

nctu

atio

n cr

eate

s di

ffere

nt e

ffect

s (a

nd t

hat,

in c

reat

ive

wri

ting,

as w

ell a

s pr

ovid

ing

clar

ity it

cre

ates

impa

ct r

epla

cing

the

ges

ture

s an

d fa

cial

exp

ress

ions

tha

t w

e w

ould

oth

erw

ise

see)

• St

uden

ts w

ill p

lan

and

wri

te a

des

crip

tion

usin

g th

e pa

intin

g as

a s

timul

us. (

pain

ting

deci

ded

from

a s

elec

tion

seen

in p

erso

n at

The

Nat

iona

l Gal

lery

)

• U

se p

aint

ings

and

pos

tcar

ds t

o pr

actic

e pl

anni

ng a

nd w

ritin

g ab

out

it.•

SfW

1&2:

pgs

20-

21, 2

8-29

; SfW

3&4:

pgs

19

-21

for

shor

t st

ory

plan

ning

; SfW

40-

43: p

gs 4

0 –

41 fo

r sh

ort

stor

y (s

py);

for

othe

r ge

nres

44

- 46

• H

uman

pun

ctua

tion

chai

ns, c

loze

ex

erci

ses

with

pun

ctua

tion

mis

sing

, tr

ansc

ribi

ng s

cena

rios

und

erst

andi

ng

how

pun

ctua

tion

crea

tes

into

natio

n in

di

rect

spe

ech

and

gest

ure

and

emph

asis

in

act

ion

• Sf

W:1

&2:

Pag

es 2

6-27

, 30

- 33

in ‘’

for

sent

enci

ng t

o cr

eate

pac

e &

impa

ct;

8-11

for

pace

& p

arag

raph

ing;

pgs

34 –

37

, 60-

61 fo

r pu

nctu

atio

n to

em

phas

ise

mea

ning

/gui

de•

SfW

3&4:

4-5

for

narr

ativ

e st

ruct

ure

(exp

ositi

on/c

onfli

ct/c

limax

/res

olut

ion)

; pg

s 22

– 3

7 fo

r se

nten

ce v

arie

ty;

open

ers;

min

or c

laus

es•

SfW

3&4:

pun

ctua

tion

of d

ialo

gue

for

effe

ct (

natu

ralis

m)

38-3

9•

Teac

h ap

proa

ch t

o pl

anni

ng u

sing

the

pl

anni

ng t

empl

ate.

• R

e co

ver

any

wri

ting

tech

niqu

es t

hat

have

n’t

been

use

d fo

r a

whi

le.

• Sp

end

one

less

on p

lann

ing

form

ativ

e as

sess

men

t.



Wee

kFo

cus

Cor

e Le

arni

ngPo

ssib

le a

ctiv

itie

s/re

sour

ces

4C

ON

SOLI

DAT

ION

WEE

KH

ow c

an I

enga

ge a

rea

der?

Wha

t st

rate

gies

can

I us

e to

im

prov

e th

e ac

cura

cy o

f my

wri

ting?

Wha

t m

akes

an

effe

ctiv

e pi

ece

of

crea

tive

wri

ting?

• C

over

any

are

as n

ot c

over

ed a

bove

or

that

nee

d co

veri

ng a

s a

resu

lt of

form

ativ

e as

sess

men

t. •

Supp

ort

and

chal

leng

e st

uden

ts a

s re

quir

ed b

y gu

idin

g th

em t

o ex

ampl

es o

f wri

ting

in t

heir

favo

ured

sty

le; b

y en

cour

agin

g th

em t

o re

-wri

te fo

r di

ffere

nt a

udie

nces

an

d pu

rpos

es

• C

ompl

ete

full

revi

ew o

f for

mat

ive

asse

ssm

ent,

incl

udin

g co

mpl

etin

g se

lf re

flect

ion

and

pupi

l que

stio

nnai

re o

n En

glis

h de

part

men

t.•

Use

stu

dent

exa

mpl

es t

o de

mon

stra

te

exem

plar

y or

wea

k pr

actic

e.

• Fo

cus

in p

artic

ular

on

qual

ity v

ersu

s qu

antit

y, pr

ovid

ing

long

nar

rativ

e de

scri

ptio

ns a

nd g

ettin

g pu

pils

to

edit

and

cond

ense

– a

ctiv

e te

achi

ng o

f ‘th

e ec

onom

y of

lang

uage

’ usi

ng p

oem

s, w

ordl

es e

tc•

Lots

of r

edra

ftin

g an

d re

wri

ting

wor

k us

ing

grou

p w

ork

and

lapt

ops

5SU

MM

ATIV

E A

SSES

SMEN

T T

O

TAK

E PL

AC

E O

N T

HU

RSD

AY.

See

sepa

rate

ass

essm

ent

mat

eria

ls.

Teac

hers

mar

k 1

top,

mid

dle,

lo

w m

arke

d fo

r de

pt m

eetin

g m

oder

atio

n on

Fri

day,

read

y to

mar

k se

t &

ret

urn

for

Mon

day)

Stud

ents

giv

en a

cho

ice

of t

hree

pa

intin

gs a

s a

stim

ulus

for

wri

ting.

The

pai

ntin

gs a

re t

aken

from

a

sele

ctio

n of

tea

cher

s’ fa

vour

ites

but

with

titl

es w

ithhe

ld u

ntil

afte

r th

e as

sess

men

t (N

ight

haw

ks b

y Ed

war

d H

oppe

r, C

afé

Terr

ace

at N

ight

by

Vin

cent

Van

Gog

h, T

he H

ay W

ain

by

John

Con

stab

le)

• R

e co

ver

any

wri

ting

tech

niqu

es t

hat

have

n’t

been

use

d fo

r a

whi

le.

• In

itial

pla

nnin

g ca

n ta

ke p

lace

in p

airs

as

a ha

lf/fu

ll le

sson

is

spe

nt p

lann

ing

sum

mat

ive

asse

ssm

ent

(dep

endi

ng o

n se

t) a

nd t

he n

ext

less

on w

ritin

g up

the

pie

ce.

Stud

ents

:

– do

not

hav

e to

set

you

r st

ory

in th

is lo

catio

n or

incl

ude

all t

he p

eopl

e or

obj

ects

you

see

with

in th

e im

age.

–

choo

se a

n el

emen

t of

the

pai

ntin

g w

hich

inte

rest

s th

em a

nd fr

om t

his

crea

te a

det

aile

d ve

rbal

sna

psho

t of

a

char

acte

r, ex

peri

ence

or

mom

ent

in t

ime.

– ar

e be

ing

asse

ssed

for

how

effe

ctiv

ely

they

cra

ft

lang

uage

and

str

uctu

re t

o m

ake

thei

r pi

ece

as v

ivid

and

en

gagi

ng a

s po

ssib

le.

–

shou

ld e

ntitl

e th

eir

wor

k.•

No

note

s pe

rmitt

ed a

nd t

he im

ages

are

not

allo

wed

out

of

the

cla

ssro

om –

it is

the

qua

lity

of w

ritin

g ba

sed

on

prio

r th

inki

ng a

nd p

lann

ing

that

is a

sses

sed,

rat

her

than

re

gurg

itatio

n of

pre

-pre

pare

d pl

ans,

liter

ary

feat

ures

an

d sp

ellin

gs

77



Wee

kFo

cus

Cor

e Le

arni

ngPo

ssib

le a

ctiv

itie

s/re

sour

ces

6R

EVIE

W W

EEK

• C

ompl

ete

full

revi

ew o

f sum

mat

ive

asse

ssm

ent,

incl

udin

g co

mpl

etin

g se

lf-re

flect

ion.

•

Use

stu

dent

exa

mpl

es t

o de

mon

stra

te e

xem

plar

y or

w

eak

prac

tice.

•

Lots

of r

edra

ftin

g an

d re

wri

ting

wor

k.•

Stud

ents

typ

e up

bes

t pi

eces

and

add

to

onlin

e po

rtfo

lio. P

ublis

h an

ant

holo

gy o

f the

bes

t w

ork?

•

Dev

elop

ing

shor

t pi

eces

into

cha

pter

s/pl

ays/

poem

s/dr

amat

ic in

terp

reta

tions

• Fi

ndin

g an

d en

teri

ng c

ompe

titio

ns•

Dev

isin

g an

d cr

eatin

g ac

tiviti

es a

nd p

odca

sts

as a

dvic

e an

d re

visi

on t

ips

for

next

yea

r’s Y

7 w

hen

they

tac

kle

th

is u

nit



GLO

SSA

RY

OF

TER

MS

LEG

S –

List

, Edi

t, G

roup

, Seq

uenc

e, an

app

roac

h to

gat

herin

g an

d pl

anni

ng id

eas

for

an e

xten

ded

piec

e of

writ

ing

– ca

n be

use

d fo

r cr

eativ

e w

ork

or

anal

ytic

al e

ssay

s

Tip

Top

– a

hand

y ac

rony

m to

rem

ind

stud

ents

to s

tart

a n

ew p

arag

raph

whe

n st

artin

g to

writ

e ab

out a

new

TIm

e, Pl

ace,

TOpi

c or

Per

son

SOAP

MAP

S –

an a

cron

ym to

rem

ind

stud

ents

to in

clud

e a

rang

e of

des

crip

tive

devic

es w

ithin

thei

r w

ritin

g. St

ands

for:

Sim

ile, O

nom

atop

oeia

, Allit

erat

ion,

Pers

onifi

catio

n, M

etap

hor, A

dver

bs a

nd A

djec

tives

, Pat

hetic

Fal

lacy

, Sen

se.s

It ca

n us

eful

ly be

writ

ten

at th

e to

p of

an

exam

pap

er w

ith e

ach

lette

r tic

ked

off a

s th

ey in

corp

orat

e th

e de

vice

(tho

ugh

this

com

es w

ith th

e ca

veat

that

mor

e do

es n

ot m

ean

bette

r –

qual

ity m

ust b

e ba

lanc

ed a

gain

st q

uant

ity)

Verb

al s

naps

hots

– a

gre

at w

ay to

des

crib

e ev

ocat

ive d

escr

iptiv

e w

ritin

g an

d in

par

ticul

ar s

ettin

gs. S

tude

nts

imag

ine

they

are

usin

g a

cam

era

look

ing

on a

set

ting.

They

ta

ke fo

ur p

hoto

grap

hs o

f key

par

ts o

f the

land

scap

e. A

para

grap

h is

dedi

cate

d to

des

crib

ing

each

‘sna

psho

t’. S

imila

rly, s

tude

nts

can

appl

y th

is ap

proa

ch to

cha

ract

er

imag

inin

g i)

wha

t the

ir re

ader

see

s w

hen

the

char

acte

r en

ters

– w

alk,

clot

hing

and

app

eara

nce

ii) w

hat c

an th

ey ‘r

ead’

from

the

char

acte

r’s fa

ce a

nd d

escr

iptio

n of

this

iii)w

hat d

oes

the

char

acte

r sa

y iv)

wha

t doe

s th

e ch

arac

ter

do. S

tage

s i –

iv c

an o

ccur

in a

ny o

rder

by

the

prin

cipl

e of

four

dist

inct

sna

psho

ts d

escr

ibed

in d

etai

l app

lies

rega

rdle

ss

Zoo

m –

sim

ilar

to s

naps

hots

in th

at th

e st

uden

ts im

agin

e th

ey a

re u

sing

a ca

mer

a, ho

wev

er th

is is

whe

re s

tude

nts

imag

ine

they

’ve z

oom

ed in

on

a pa

rt o

f the

set

ting/

char

acte

r. Thi

s sm

all p

art i

s de

scrib

ed in

one

par

agra

ph, a

nd th

en th

e ‘c

amer

a’ zo

oms

out a

bit

and

desc

ribe

the

thin

gs a

roun

d it,

then

it z

oom

s ou

t som

e m

ore

and

desc

ribes

thos

e th

ings

. For

exa

mpl

e, if

stud

ents

are

des

crib

ing

a be

ach

they

mig

ht fo

cus

on a

chi

ld w

ith a

buc

ket a

nd s

pade

at fi

rst,

then

on

the

sunb

athi

ng w

omen

ar

ound

it, t

hen

on th

e ic

e-cr

eam

sel

lers

wan

derin

g ar

ound

the

sun

beds

, the

n on

the

sea

lapp

ing

up a

gain

st th

e be

ach.

Show

don

’t te

ll –

a te

chni

que

you

use

to d

evel

op s

tude

nts’

desc

riptiv

e w

ritin

g sk

ills. I

t’s a

bout

them

sho

win

g th

e re

ader

a fe

atur

e of

a la

ndsc

ape

or c

hara

cter

rat

her

than

te

lling

them

– e

.g. T

ellin

g is

‘She

was

cry

ing

quie

tly. S

how

ing

is ‘A

rivu

let s

nake

d do

wn

her

chee

k an

d sh

e bl

inke

d it

away

.’

With

hold

ing

– Al

so k

now

n as

Slo

w R

evea

l whe

n an

alys

ing

this

feat

ure

in th

e w

ork

of a

pub

lishe

d au

thor

(lin

ks to

FQ

1) T

his

is w

here

a w

riter

doe

sn’t

reve

al a

key

bit

of

info

rmat

ion

abou

t a c

hara

cter

, situ

atio

n or

pla

ce a

nd le

aves

the

read

er w

ith q

uest

ions

or

wha

t can

be

a fa

lse im

pres

sion

of a

situ

atio

n. Co

nsid

er th

e fir

st e

ntra

nce

of

Curle

y’s w

ife in

Of M

ice

and

Men

whi

ch fo

cuse

s pr

edom

inan

tly o

n he

r ap

pear

ance

(re

d na

ils, r

ed d

ress

) an

d fli

rtat

ious

beh

avio

ur. W

e m

ight

be

forg

iven

if, lik

e th

e ra

nch

wor

kers

, we

judg

e he

r qu

ite c

ritic

ally

to b

e at

tent

ion-

seek

ing

or, in

thei

r m

ore

pejo

rativ

e w

ords

‘a ta

rt’ o

r ‘a

lool

oo.’ H

owev

er, ju

st b

efor

e he

r tr

agic

dea

th, S

tein

beck

lets

her

re

veal

her

self

in h

er o

wn

wor

ds a

nd w

e le

arn

she

is in

cred

ibly

lone

ly, tr

appe

d on

the

ranc

h w

ith fa

iled

drea

ms.

Our

initi

al r

eact

ion

is th

eref

ore

softe

ned

and

we

can

have

gr

eate

r em

path

y. By

del

ayin

g th

e re

veal

in th

is w

ay, S

tein

beck

cle

verly

give

s us

an

insig

ht in

to th

e at

titud

e to

war

ds w

omen

in 1

930s

pos

t-dep

ress

ion

Amer

ica.

SfW

– A

bbre

viatio

n of

the

Skills

for W

ritin

g se

ries

by D

ebra

Myh

ill &

Exe

ter

Uni

vers

ity –

com

es in

3 te

xt b

ooks

cov

erin

g 6

units

. Uni

ts 1

&2;

3&

4; 5

&6.

Pag

es a

nd

activ

ities

per

tinen

t to

the

lear

ning

are

wov

en th

roug

hout

the

FQs

in K

S3 in

ord

er to

mak

e el

emen

ts o

f gra

mm

ar e

xplic

it an

d pr

ovid

e a

conc

rete

res

ourc

e/re

fere

nce

poin

t fo

r st

uden

ts a

nd te

ache

rs n

eedi

ng fu

rthe

r co

nsol

idat

ion.

79



RE

Med

ium

Ter

m P

lan.

A

UT

1 Fe

rtile

Q: C

an R

elig

ion

help

a m

oder

n w

orld

?O

verv

iew

: T

his

unit

of w

ork

is d

esig

ned

to in

trod

uce

stud

ents

to

the

skill

s ne

eded

for

the

stud

y of

Rel

igio

n. T

he R

E de

tect

ive

also

intr

oduc

es s

tude

nts

to a

n in

depe

nden

t an

d ph

iloso

phic

al li

ne o

f enq

uiry

, con

side

ring

why

in a

mod

ern

day

wor

ld, i

t m

ay b

e co

nsid

ered

mor

e pe

rtin

ent

that

eve

r be

fore

to

unde

rsta

nd a

noth

er v

iew

poin

t. T

his

unit

allo

ws

stud

ents

the

opp

ortu

nity

to

expl

ore

curr

ent

wor

ld is

sues

and

pas

t po

litic

al/r

elig

ious

te

nsio

ns w

hils

t re

conc

iling

the

m w

ith t

heir

ow

n be

liefs

and

ass

essi

ng t

hem

from

a m

oder

n vi

ewpo

int.

Leng

th o

f Enq

uiry

:6

wee

ks. X

1 55

min

ute

less

on p

er w

eek.

Juni

or v

ersi

ons

of K

S4 c

once

pts:

Cor

e kn

owle

dge

of r

elig

ions

and

wor

ld is

sues

.•

Key

ter

ms.

• Ev

alua

tion.

• A

pplic

atio

n of

wor

ld is

sues

.

Less

onFo

cus:

Cor

e Le

arni

ng:

Act

ivit

ies:

Key

Ter

ms:

Hom

ewor

k:

1C

ould

it

ever

be

argu

ed

that

RE

is

the

mos

t im

port

ant

subj

ect

in

scho

ol?

• To

exp

ress

an

unde

rsta

ndin

g of

why

RE

is im

port

ant.

Stud

ents

mus

t lo

ok o

bjec

tivel

y at

RE

as a

sub

ject

and

wha

t lif

e sk

ills

a be

tter

kn

owle

dge

of r

elig

ions

can

tea

ch y

ou.

Stud

ents

will

do

this

by

look

ing

at R

E ob

ject

ivel

y in

com

pari

son

to t

heir

oth

er

subj

ects

. •

To e

xplo

re r

easo

ns b

ehin

d th

is.

Stud

ents

exp

lore

a c

ase

stud

y of

a g

irl

who

was

ban

ned

from

wea

ring

the

Sik

h K

ara

in s

choo

l. With

the

fert

ile q

uest

ion

in m

ind,

stu

dent

s m

ust

asse

ss w

hat

coul

d ha

ve h

elpe

d th

is s

ituat

ion

and

wha

t w

ould

pr

even

t it

from

hap

peni

ng a

gain

.•

To e

valu

ate

whe

ther

in a

wor

ld w

here

R

elig

ion

is d

ecre

asin

g if

RE

is s

till

rele

vant

.

Con

nect

ion:

Do

now

: Why

do

you

need

to

lear

n m

aths

? Why

do

you

need

to

lear

n En

glis

h? –

Try

to

thin

k of

rea

sons

oth

er

than

get

ting

a go

od jo

b! W

hat

do t

hese

tw

o su

bjec

ts t

each

you

to

be a

ble

to d

o?

Cou

ld b

e: if

mat

h’s

teac

hes

you

to b

e ab

le

to g

o sh

oppi

ng w

ith m

oney

, wor

k ou

t w

hat

perc

enta

ge y

ou g

ot o

n a

test

, wor

k ou

t w

heth

er y

ou c

an a

fford

the

new

GTA

wha

t do

es E

nglis

h te

ach

you?

Wha

t do

es R

E te

ach

you?

10

Min

s

Act

ivat

ion:

“R

E is

the

mos

t im

port

ant

subj

ect

in s

choo

l”. D

o yo

u ag

ree

or

disa

gree

with

thi

s st

atem

ent?

Giv

e a

reas

on

for

your

ans

wer

.

• K

ara

• R

acis

m•

Rel

igio

us

Free

dom

• C

ensu

s

Com

e to

nex

t le

sson

with

on

e ne

wsp

aper

ar

ticle

or

stor

y in

you

r bo

ok

of a

cur

rent

is

sue

that

is

som

ehow

lin

ked

to

relig

ion.

Wri

te

a pa

ragr

aph

unde

rnea

th

expl

aini

ng w

hat

link

this

has

to

rel

igio

n an

d ho

w t

he s

tudy

of

rel

igio

n m

ay

help

.



St

uden

ts t

o lo

ok a

t ce

nsus

dat

a. St

uden

ts

to c

ompa

re m

ost

rece

nt c

ensu

s to

the

ce

nsus

bef

ore

that

. Stu

dent

s to

rem

ark

upon

an

incr

easi

ng n

umbe

r of

peo

ple

to

be o

f ‘no

rel

igio

n’. S

tude

nts

to e

valu

ate

how

the

situ

atio

n w

ith t

he K

ara

coul

d ha

ve b

een

diffe

rent

if r

elig

ion

was

in

crea

sing

in t

he c

ount

ry r

athe

r th

an

decr

easi

ng.

Teac

her

to s

how

a s

elec

tion

of im

ages

on

the

boar

d w

hich

dep

ict

the

proc

ess

of a

w

elsh

Sik

h te

enag

er w

inni

ng t

he b

attle

ag

ains

t he

r sc

hool

who

exc

lude

d he

r fo

r w

eari

ng h

er K

ara.

Stu

dent

s to

gue

ss fr

om

the

pict

ures

wha

t ha

s ha

ppen

ed. S

tude

nts

to t

hen

wat

ch a

vid

eo c

lip o

f the

sto

ry a

nd

wri

te d

own

whe

ther

the

ir p

redi

ctio

n w

as

wro

ng o

r ri

ght.

15 M

ins

Do

you

thin

k th

e he

ad t

each

er w

as a

re

ligio

us p

erso

n hi

mse

lf? W

hy/w

hy n

ot?

How

mig

ht t

he h

ead

teac

her

have

rea

cted

di

ffere

ntly

had

he

been

rel

igio

us h

imse

lf?

Dem

onst

ratio

n: S

tude

nts

to w

rite

a le

tter

to

the

hea

dmas

ter

of t

he s

choo

l exp

lain

ing

whe

ther

the

y th

ink

his

deci

sion

was

wro

ng

or r

ight

. Stu

dent

s sh

ould

add

an

alte

rnat

ive

to w

hat

coul

d ha

ve b

een

a be

tter

out

com

e of

the

situ

atio

n. S

tude

nts

mus

t re

fer

to t

he

impo

rtan

ce o

f the

Kar

a in

Sik

hism

. Stu

dent

s m

ust

refe

r to

the

sta

rter

in o

rder

to

incl

ude

in t

heir

lett

er w

heth

er o

r no

t th

ey

thou

ght

that

the

hea

dmas

ter

had

a go

od

enou

gh k

now

ledg

e of

rel

igio

n. S

tude

nts

mus

t be

abl

e to

sho

w a

n un

ders

tand

ing

of

why

kno

wle

dge

of o

ther

peo

ple’

s re

ligio

ns

is im

port

ant.

– Su

cces

s cr

iteri

a to

be

show

n on

the

boa

rd.

Con

solid

atio

n: E

ither

– S

tude

nts

to r

ead

out

or p

eer

asse

ss o

ne a

noth

er’s

wor

k.

Cla

ss t

o ch

eck

they

hav

e at

tem

pted

all

succ

ess

crite

ria.

OR

: Stu

dent

s to

be

show

n ce

nsus

dat

a. R

efer

ring

to

the

decl

ine

of r

elig

ion

does

th

is m

ean

that

inci

dent

s lik

e th

is w

ill

beco

me

mor

e or

less

like

ly? W

hy?

The

refo

re c

an r

elig

ion

help

a m

oder

n w

orld

?

81



Less

onFo

cus:

Cor

e Le

arni

ng:

Act

ivit

ies:

Key

Ter

ms:

Hom

ewor

k:

2Is

rel

igio

n un

fair

ly

blam

ed fo

r th

e w

orld

’s pr

oble

ms?

To e

xpre

ss a

n un

ders

tand

ing

of w

orld

issu

es

whe

re r

elig

ion

has

play

ed a

par

t. St

uden

ts w

ill e

xplo

re a

ran

ge o

f wor

ld

issu

es in

clud

ing

Isra

el/P

ales

tine,

9/1

1, t

he

holo

caus

t an

d th

e ci

vil w

ar in

Nor

ther

n Ir

elan

d.

To e

xplo

re a

ltern

ativ

e in

fluen

ces.

Stud

ents

will

rea

d ab

out

thes

e w

orld

issu

es

and

expl

ore

the

othe

r fa

ctor

s as

ide

of

relig

ion

that

cou

ld h

ave

led

to t

he c

onfli

ct.

To e

valu

ate

how

far

a gr

eate

r un

ders

tand

ing

of r

elig

ion

can

help

wor

ld is

sues

.St

uden

ts w

ill e

valu

ate

both

per

sona

lly a

nd

criti

cally

the

ext

ent

that

rel

igio

n w

as t

o bl

ame

for

the

caus

e of

the

se w

orld

con

flict

s an

d as

sess

to

wha

t ex

tent

a w

orld

wid

e be

tter

kno

wle

dge

of r

elig

ion

coul

d ha

ve

chan

ged

the

outc

ome

of t

he s

ituat

ion.

Con

nect

ion

– D

o no

w: s

tude

nts

to

look

at

a ra

nge

of p

ictu

res

from

var

ious

w

orld

con

flict

s. St

uden

ts t

o as

sess

wha

t is

hap

peni

ng in

eac

h ph

oto

and

wha

t th

e st

ory

is.

“Rel

igio

n is

to

blam

e fo

r al

l of t

hese

pr

oble

ms”

. – W

hy m

ight

som

eone

hav

e th

is

poin

t of

vie

w a

bout

pro

blem

s in

the

wor

ld?

X1

mer

it if

you

can

incl

ude

any

curr

ent

war

s/co

nflic

ts in

you

r an

swer

.

Act

ivat

ion

– St

uden

ts t

o re

ad a

bout

9/1

1,

Isra

el/P

ales

tine,

Nor

ther

n Ir

elan

d. S

tude

nts

to u

nder

line/

high

light

in p

airs

the

diff

eren

t ca

uses

of t

he c

onfli

ct.

Teac

her

to t

ake

feed

back

on

only

one

of

the

issu

es.

Dem

onst

ratio

n: S

tude

nts

to fi

ll in

a g

rid

dem

onst

ratin

g th

eir

unde

rsta

ndin

g of

wha

t ha

ppen

ed in

eac

h co

nflic

t an

d w

hat

the

caus

es w

ere

for

each

. Som

e m

ay b

e po

litic

al

som

e m

ay b

e ov

er r

esou

rces

, som

e m

ay b

e re

ligio

n.

Teac

her

to t

ake

exam

ple

feed

back

as

to t

he

casu

ses

of s

ome

of t

hese

issu

es. S

tude

nts

to t

hen

fill o

ut t

he n

ext

part

of t

he g

rid

on w

heth

er r

elig

ion

was

to

blam

e or

not

. W

ithin

thi

s st

uden

t sh

ould

con

side

r ot

her

caus

es o

f the

wor

ld c

onfli

ct.

Con

solid

atio

n: S

tude

nts

to c

ompl

ete

last

co

lum

n of

the

gri

d on

whe

ther

kno

wle

dge

and

resp

ect

for

relig

ion

coul

d ha

ve h

elpe

d th

e si

tuat

ion.

Pl

enar

y –

stud

ents

to

wri

te a

n ex

it ca

rd o

n ho

w t

his

links

to

the

fert

ile q

uest

ion.

• C

onfli

ct•

Mar

gina

lised

• Te

rror

ism

• C

ivil

war

List

en t

o th

e so

ng h

andl

ebar

s by

the

flob

ots.

A

naly

ze t

he

lyri

cs. W

hat

wor

ld is

sues

ar

e re

ferr

ed

to h

ere?

Wha

t do

es t

he s

ong

assu

me

is t

o bl

ame?



Less

onFo

cus:

Cor

e Le

arni

ng:

Act

ivit

ies:

Key

Ter

ms:

Hom

ewor

k:

3W

as F

ranc

e co

rrec

t in

ba

nnin

g th

e N

iqab

?

To e

xpre

ss a

n un

ders

tand

ing

of ‘s

ymbo

lism

’. St

uden

ts w

ill e

xplo

re a

ran

ge o

f sym

bols

bo

th r

elig

ious

and

sec

ular

. Stu

dent

s w

ill

look

at

the

sign

ifica

nce

thes

e sy

mbo

ls h

old.

St

uden

ts w

ill e

xpla

in w

hat

sym

bols

can

tel

l th

em a

bout

a p

erso

n an

d co

nsid

er w

hy

they

are

an

impo

rtan

t pa

rt o

f an

indi

vidu

al’s

iden

tity.

To e

xplo

re s

ome

sym

bols

rel

atin

g to

re

ligio

n.

Stud

ents

exp

lore

the

sym

bolis

m b

ehin

d th

e N

iqab

incl

udin

g w

hy M

uslim

wom

en c

hoos

e to

wea

r it

and

the

pers

ona

they

wis

h to

pr

esen

t to

oth

er p

eopl

e.

Stud

ents

to

expl

ore

a ca

se s

tudy

whe

reby

Fr

ance

ban

ned

the

Burk

a an

d th

e co

nseq

uenc

es t

his

held

for

Mus

lim p

eopl

e.

To e

valu

ate

whe

ther

peo

ple

shou

ld h

ave

the

righ

t to

free

ly e

xpre

ss r

elig

ious

sym

bols

.St

uden

ts t

o pe

rson

ally

cri

tique

the

dec

isio

ns

of t

he F

renc

h go

vern

men

t re

gard

ing

the

Mus

lim v

eil t

akin

g in

to c

onsi

dera

tion

the

puni

shm

ents

for

diso

beyi

ng t

he r

ules

, fr

eedo

m o

f rel

igio

n, n

atio

nal s

ecur

ity a

nd

the

righ

ts o

f a s

ecul

ar s

ocie

ty c

ompa

red

to

a re

ligio

us o

ne.

Con

nect

ion

– D

o no

w: s

tude

nts

to b

e sh

own

a pi

ctur

e of

a n

urse

, a d

octo

r, a

firem

an a

nd a

pol

icem

an. S

tude

nts

to

expl

ain

wha

t th

e un

iform

s re

pres

ent

abou

t th

e pe

rson

wea

ring

it.

Aft

er d

iscu

ssio

n ie

“if

a po

licem

ans

unifo

rm

is a

sym

bol o

f bei

ng t

rust

wor

thy,

hone

st

and

fair,

wha

t do

es t

he w

ord

sym

bol m

ean”

. St

uden

ts a

re t

o w

rite

the

ir o

wn

defin

ition

of

sym

bolis

m.

Act

ivat

ion:

Tea

cher

to

show

a p

ictu

re o

f a

wom

an w

eari

ng a

Niq

ab. W

hat

is t

his

a sy

mbo

l of?

In t

his

coun

try

are

wom

en a

llow

ed t

o w

ear

this

? Why

? Wha

t w

ould

hap

pen

if th

e go

vern

men

t ba

nned

it? W

hy? T

hink

pai

r sh

are

task

.

Stud

ents

to

wat

ch a

clip

of a

Fre

nch

new

s re

port

tha

t ex

plai

ns w

hy F

ranc

e ha

s ba

nned

th

e w

eari

ng o

f the

Bur

ka a

nd t

he N

iqab

. St

uden

ts t

o gi

ve t

heir

initi

al r

eact

ion

to t

his.

Fran

ce –

Cas

e st

udy

of t

he B

urka

Ban

in

Fra

nce.

htt

p://w

ww

.you

tube

.com

/w

atch

?v=

iQv-

uUD

QQ

hQ&

feat

ure=

relm

fu

– V

ideo

for

Low

er

http

://w

ww

.bbc

.co.

uk/n

ews/

wor

ld-

euro

pe-1

3031

397

- N

ews A

rtic

le +

sho

rt

vide

o fo

r hi

gher

.

Dem

onst

ratio

n: S

tude

nts

to w

rite

a d

iary

en

try

of w

hat

it w

ould

be

like

to b

e a

Mus

lim w

oman

in F

ranc

e

Con

solid

atio

n: s

tude

nts

to r

espo

nd to

the

stat

emen

t ‘R

elig

ious

sym

bols

only

cau

se

trou

ble

and

shou

ld b

e ba

nned

’. Do

you

agre

e?

Giv

e re

ason

s fo

r yo

ur a

nsw

er a

nd r

easo

ns

why

som

eone

mig

ht d

isagr

ee w

ith y

ou.

Link

bac

k to

fert

ile Q

.

• Se

cula

r•

Niq

ab•

Hum

an

Rig

hts

• Sy

mbo

lism

• Bu

rka

• C

itize

nshi

p

Why

do

you

thin

k Fr

ance

ba

nned

the

vei

l? D

o yo

u th

ink

that

thi

s is

rig

ht?

Why

? Ex

plai

n th

e pr

oble

m.

If Fr

ance

w

as m

ore

sym

path

etic

to

rel

igio

n w

ould

thi

s ha

ve

happ

ened

?

83



Less

onFo

cus:

Cor

e Le

arni

ng:

Act

ivit

ies:

Key

Ter

ms:

Hom

ewor

k:

4C

an a

n ob

ject

eve

r be

hol

y?

To e

xpre

ss a

n un

ders

tand

ing

of w

hat

an

‘art

efac

t’ is

.St

uden

ts t

o lo

ok a

t a

rang

e of

sim

ple

and

easi

ly r

ecog

niza

ble

relig

ious

art

efac

ts.

Stud

ents

to

use

prio

r kn

owle

dge

to e

nabl

e th

em t

o de

fine

wha

t co

nstit

utes

as

a re

ligio

us a

rtef

act

incl

udin

g ho

w o

ne s

houl

d be

tre

ated

. To

exp

lore

som

e re

ligio

us a

rtef

acts

in

grou

ps.

Stud

ents

to

get

into

gro

ups

of 3

or

4.

Stud

ents

to

look

in g

roup

s at

a r

elig

ious

ar

tefa

ct a

nd s

ketc

h it

out

on t

heir

in

vest

igat

ion

shee

t. St

uden

ts t

o ha

ve

info

rmat

ion

on t

he t

able

abo

ut w

hat

relig

ion

the

arte

fact

s co

me

from

. Stu

dent

s m

ust

try,

in g

roup

s us

ing

prio

r kn

owle

dge

and

the

core

bel

iefs

of t

he r

elev

ant

relig

ion,

use

s fo

r th

e ob

ject

. To

eva

luat

e w

heth

er a

n ob

ject

can

eve

r be

‘h

oly’

. St

uden

ts t

o lo

ok a

t tr

eatm

ent

of a

rtef

acts

an

d si

tes

incl

udin

g di

sres

pect

of r

elig

ious

si

tes

arou

nd t

he w

orld

. In

grou

ps s

tude

nts

mus

t de

cide

whe

ther

an

obje

ct c

an b

e ho

ly

and

why

. St

uden

ts t

o re

turn

to

the

fert

ile q

uest

ion

in o

rder

to

eval

uate

how

rel

igio

n an

d th

e tr

eatm

ent

of a

rtef

acts

can

mak

e th

e w

orld

m

ore

peac

eful

.

Con

nect

ion:

Pic

ture

of s

omeo

ne d

estr

oyin

g a

relig

ious

art

efac

t. W

hat

is h

appe

ning

her

e?W

hat

reac

tion

mig

ht t

his

rece

ive?

Why

?O

ther

pic

ture

s of

rel

igio

us a

rtef

acts

, wha

t ar

e th

ese

for?

Can

you

rec

ogni

ze a

ny? W

hy

are

they

spe

cial

? St

uden

ts t

o de

fine

the

term

art

efac

t in

th

eir

book

s.

Act

ivat

ion:

Stu

dent

s to

get

into

pre

or

gani

zed

grou

ps a

nd e

ach

look

at

an

arte

fact

. Stu

dent

s to

dis

cuss

in t

heir

gro

ups

wha

t th

e ar

tefa

ct m

ay b

e an

d w

hat

relig

ion

it m

ight

bel

ong

to.

Stud

ents

dra

w a

ske

tch

of t

he a

rtef

act

and

wri

te a

pre

dict

ion

in t

heir

boo

ks.

Dem

onst

ratio

n:

In t

heir

gro

up/p

airs

stu

dent

s to

furt

her

divi

de. O

ne s

tude

nt lo

okin

g at

the

cor

e be

liefs

of t

he r

elig

ion

and

one

stud

ent

look

ing

at w

hat

the

arte

fact

is u

sed

for.

Stud

ents

to

teac

h ea

ch o

ther

wha

t th

ey

have

lear

ned.

Stu

dent

s ar

e th

en t

o fil

l out

th

eir

grid

s an

d di

scus

s ho

w t

he c

ore

belie

fs

of t

he r

elig

ion

are

refle

cted

in t

he a

rtef

act.

Con

solid

atio

n:

Stud

ents

to

look

at

exam

ple

of P

asto

r Ter

ry

Jone

s w

ho w

ante

d to

bur

n th

e Q

uran

and

w

as a

rres

ted.

Why

was

Ter

ry w

rong

? w

hy

was

he

arre

sted

?W

hat

wou

ld h

appe

n if

ever

yone

beh

aved

lik

e th

is?

• A

rtef

act.

• H

oly

• Q

uran

Com

plet

e ar

tefa

ct

inve

stig

atio

n sh

eet

by d

oing

st

ruct

ured

re

sear

ch o

n yo

ur a

rtef

act.



Less

onFo

cus:

Cor

e Le

arni

ng:

Act

ivit

ies:

Key

Ter

ms:

Hom

ewor

k:

5A

sses

smen

t w

eek

55 m

inut

e ex

tend

ed w

ritin

g pi

ece.

(Sc

affo

ld

as p

er p

redi

ctiv

e da

ta).

Ass

essm

ent

Q: I

f peo

ple

had

bett

er

know

ledg

e of

rel

igio

ns w

ould

the

wor

ld b

e a

mor

e pe

acef

ul p

lace

?

Stud

ents

to

have

suc

cess

cri

teri

a in

fron

t of

the

m a

s w

ell a

s ke

y w

ords

, sen

tenc

e st

arte

rs e

tc.

Go

back

th

roug

h yo

ur

book

at

hom

e an

d pi

ck o

ut

one

stor

y yo

u co

uld

have

in

clud

ed in

you

r an

swer

but

di

dn’t.

6R

evie

w

wee

kC

ompl

ete

full

revi

ew o

f sum

mat

ive

asse

ssm

ent,

incl

udin

g co

mpl

etin

g se

lf-re

flect

ion.

U

se s

tude

nt e

xam

ples

to

dem

onst

rate

exe

mpl

ary

or w

eak

prac

tice.

R

edra

ftin

g an

d re

wri

ting

wor

k.

Dev

isin

g an

d cr

eatin

g ac

tiviti

es a

nd p

odca

sts

as a

dvic

e an

d re

visi

on t

ips

for

next

yea

r’s y

r7

whe

n th

ey d

o th

is u

nit.

Upl

oadi

ng m

odel

ans

wer

s an

d fe

edba

ck o

nto

KA

A o

nlin

e.

Stud

ents

to

redr

aft

one

of t

heir

ess

ay

para

grap

hs a

t ho

me.

85



Year

7 S

cien

ce –

An

over

view

of F

ertil

e Q

uest

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87



PART 2 – PLANNING FOR LANGUAGE PROGRESSION


PART 2: PLANNING FOR LANGUAGE PROGRESSION

89





INTRODUCTION & KEY TERMINOLOGY So far we have looked at how to plan a curriculum that encourages students to look at the deep, conceptual frameworks in each subject and not just at the surface content. A major part of this is developing students’ understanding of academic language.

The fact that all learning takes place through dialogue is one of our key principles, and as such KAA students need to be explicitly taught the academic language they need to master academic concepts.

We need to move their understanding of the world around them from the everyday and informal to the academic and formal.

The process of language acquisition should happen in every space in the school – not just in lessons. Our approach must be deliberate and planned; structuring opportunities for every learner to talk, read and write using formal academic language.

Use of language is at the core of great teaching – acquisition of subject knowledge must always be coupled with explicit and embedded understanding of how language is used to develop and express knowledge gained. Outstanding teachers are skilled in their own use of language to explain, debate, model, give instructions, and question to unlock the language skills of pupils. Every subject has its own language and teachers need to be explicit about what students are required to do with language in their subject.

‘Literacy skills’ are of course vitally important – all KAA students will leave us able to communicate clearly with accurate use of grammar and punctuation and with a confidence in their ability to speak and write well in a range of contexts. But we prefer to talk about language rather than literacy, as it reflects the fundamental role language plays in the learning of all subjects.

In this section we look at strategies to build in language progression into our curriculum and lesson plans, so that the teaching of language is a seam which run through each Fertile Question at KAA. There are three main aspects to this:

• Classroom talk • Reading • Writing

ACADEMIC LANGUAGE

What do we mean when we say ‘every subject has its own language’? To help us to answer this, Pauline Gibbons puts forward three ideas:

1. Language and content are inextricably entwined

Understanding terms like ‘probability’ and ‘permutation’ is inseparable from understanding the mathematical concepts they refer to. Just understanding the term photosynthesis cannot be separated from understanding the biological process it refers to.

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2. Each discipline has its own language conventions and patterns of thinking that make it distinct from others

These differences include the reading of different types of texts and the use of different text structures, presentation formats, and ways of organising language.

3. Teachers must make the implicit explicit

‘The fish doesn’t recognise the water in which it swims.’ Subject teachers are often so familiar and confident with the disciplinary language of the work with, they do not consider the language itself and what may not be clear or obvious to students. Teachers must be aware of this ‘water’ – language – and be explicit about what students are required to do with language in their subject. Key words, displays, glossaries of terms etc are vital. To help teachers to do this, they need to be knowledgeable about and explicit in their teaching of the genre and register of the text types of their subject.

GENRE

Students need to understand the purposes of different genres, how they are constructed and the specific language features of each. They need to be taught and understand the language choices required to produce an appropriate text for an appropriate task and the teacher needs to support students in developing those language choices.

REGISTER

“It fascinates me how differently we all speak in different circumstances. We have levels of formality, as in our clothing. There are very formal occasions, often requiring written English: the job application or the letter to the editor – the dark-suit, serious-tie language, with everything pressed and the lint brushed off. There is our less formal out-in-the-world language – a more comfortable suit, but still respectable. There is language for close friends in the evenings, on weekends – blue-jeans-and-sweat-shirt language, when it’s good to get the tie off. There is family language, even more relaxed, full of grammatical short cuts, family slang, echoes of old jokes that have become intimate shorthand – the language of pyjamas and uncombed hair.’’

Robert MacNeil, Wordstruck: A Memoir. Viking, 1989

Register is a useful way of describing how these language choices are made within genres or texts. It is the term used for the elements of a text that relate to:

• the topic, or what the text is about

• the writer/audience relationship

• the nature of the language itself (whether it is spoken or written).

It is a useful concept for describing how language becomes more technical, abstract, formal and written-like.



Register is used to indicate degrees of formality in language and particular structural features of a genre. The different registers or language styles that we use are sometimes called codes.

Language choices + Structural Features = Register

THE REGISTER CONTINUUM

If register refers to the elements of language students need to develop proficiency in as they progress through the years of their schooling, then put together, these elements can be seen as a continuum that moves from the language that expresses ‘everyday’ knowledge in informal, face to face exchanges through to language that demonstrates more complex academic understandings, expressed though technical language and abstract concepts in authoritative texts using highly developed subject specific vocabulary and grammatical features.

As communication moves along the register continuum, language becomes more technical, abstract, formal and written-like

Field

Everyday Specialised Technical

Tenor

Informal Formal

Familiar Unfamiliar

Novice Informed

Mode

Spoken Written

‘here and now’ ‘distant’

Shared context Not shared context

Students need to be explicitly taught the technical, abstract, formal and written-like features of text genres. However, they cannot be expected to do this immediately – the process should include lots of modelling, scaffolding and support. This is what we hope to cover in this section of the handbook.

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CLASSROOM TALK“It is not an exaggeration to suggest that classroom talk determines whether or not children learn, and their ultimate feelings of self-worth as students. Talk is how education happens!” 31

All learning takes place through dialogue – talk – and this is one of the five key principles set out at the very start of this handbook. It’s helpful to think of the difference between between monologic and dialogic talk. Too often classroom discourse is monologic; that is, it is centred around the teacher’s agenda. Even if students respond fully they are converging on the ‘expected’ response. Monologic talk invites little or no response. It is transmission oriented: the teacher asks primarily closed, known-information questions, expects particular answers and evaluates responses often with a ‘good’ or ‘right’. Dialogic talk is much more powerful – it is talk in which both teachers and students make substantial and significant contributions and through which students thinking on a given idea or theme is extended.

At KAA we will ensure all classroom talk complies with these 5 key principles: 32

• Collective: teachers and children address learning tasks together, whether as a group or as a class;

• Reciprocal: teachers and children listen to each other, share ideas and consider alternative viewpoints;

• Cumulative: teachers and children build on their own and each others’ ideas and chain them into coherent lines of thinking and enquiry;

• Supportive: children articulate their ideas freely, without fear of embarrassment over ‘wrong’ answers; and they help each other to reach common understandings;

• Purposeful: teachers plan and steer classroom talk with specific educational goals in view.

THE TALK-BASED CLASSROOM

Because learning takes place through dialogue it is not enough to just have students listen to and absorb language – their output is as important as your input. Research has shown that producing language encourages learners to process the language more deeply than just listening to that language. Therefore learners need to be placed in a context where they are required to focus on the ways they are expressing themselves and not just on listening to others (teacher) express the thinking. They should have the opportunity to focus not just on WHAT they are saying but also on HOW they are saying it. This focus needs to be brought out in discussion and needs to be an explicit outcome that is shared with the pupils before the task begins.

To make sure our classrooms at KAA are ‘talk-rich’ we need to plan ‘high-yield’ talk activities (i.e. activities that get students talking!)



Our six criteria for designing Collaborative Activities:

1. Do participants have to talk to enable them to complete the activity? Group work is not group work if the problem can be solved by an individual without any need to talk and shape the solution with others. Talking whilst doing an activity is not the same as thinking aloud through an activity.

2. Are all participants involved in the activity in some way? By this we mean meaningful involvement – it is hard to see how a scribe or a timekeeper can be useful to developing or enabling complex cognitive moves. All participants should play a part in designing the solution to the problem posed by the activity – either by having information that is required that no other participant has or by helping the group reach a solution collaboratively.

3. Are participants using stretches of language? One word responses are not helpful in developing thinking and language. If the task is to be language rich then its design should require participants to have to talk at length and actively listen to others also talking and using their information and ideas to shape the solution. The task should be scaffolded so that new, academic language is circulated through the discussion. Modelling also helps here too.

4. Are participants having to think? Is the task cognitively challenging as well as linguistically challenging – don’t feel tempted to ‘dumb it down’ to ensure your students can talk. Change the approach but maintain the standards and expectations – not expectations in terms of behaviour but expectations in terms of what students can think and do.

5. What kinds of language are participants having to use? Make sure that the task develops subject-specific and high-cognitive language to enable all students to play the bourgeois game of job interviews and university admissions interviews.

6. Which curriculum areas does the activity involve? The activity has to relate to a specific area of the curriculum and ideally should replicate the way a group of experts in that field might converse, argue and adapt their thinking as they build on one another’s ideas.

Designing Collaborative activities. (Quick wins in the classroom)

Below are examples33 of classroom activities that enable ‘dialogic’ talk to happen. The key design principle to all these activities is that there is an ‘information gap’; that is, the participants do not have access to all of the information and must share their information with others in order to complete the task. THUS THEY REQUIRE STUDENTS TO USE LANGUAGE IN ORDER TO BE SUCCESSFUL. They allow for learning about language in the context of using language.

ACTIVITIES TO USE AT THE BEGINNING OF A UNIT OF WORK:

PROGRESSIVE BRAINSTORM:

This is a way for students to share what they already know.

a) Divide students into groups of 4 or 5 and give each group a large piece of paper in the centre of which is a circle with the statement What we know about…….. Each group has a different colour pen.

95



b) As a group students share what they already know about the topic, writing down words and/or concepts they associate with it around the circle.

c) After a few minutes, each group moves on to the next group’s table, LEAVING THEIR BRAINSTORM PAPER BEHIND but keeping their particular colour pen.

d) On the next group’s paper they add their ideas, using the previous group’s ideas as a springboard for things they hadn’t thought of earlier, or adding things they think are missing.

e) The groups continue moving until all groups have contributed to all the papers and are back at their original starting position.

f) Each group discusses what is now written on their original paper, noting any relevant additions or critiquing anything they disagree with.

g) The papers are put on the wall, and each group briefly reports on any comments they have or anything they have learned from other groups.

WALLPAPERING:

This is another way of brainstorming information or ideas.

a) Give groups of students small sheets of paper on which to write down one thing they know about a topic or one point of view they have about a controversial issue (one point only per paper, in a brief sentence). The papers are anonymous.

b) After a few minutes, one person from each group sticks up the group’s papers on the walls of the classroom.

c) Student’s walk around and read and evaluate one another’s ideas. They need to find at least 3 papers they can comment on (for example, something they didn’t know, hadn’t considered, disagree with).

d) Then they come back and contribute comments as a whole class: I agree with the one that said…..; I didn’t know that…….; I disagree with the one that said……because………; I didn’t understand the one that said………….

SEMANTIC WEB/ CONCEPT MAP:

This is a well known way of collecting, recording and organizing information.

a) A key word relevant to the topic is written in the middle of a large piece of paper.

b) Students contribute information they already know about the topic.

c) This begins with thoughts, information and concepts they already associate with the topic.

d) Next you ask students in pairs to look for information and ideas that connect with one another, to draw a link between these ideas and then to write on the link WHY they are connected.

e) These clusters of ideas can then form the basis of a new map or can be highlighted in different colours. Each colour representing a theme or concept.

f) Feedback and discuss the themes and their links, at all times modelling the use of academic language over everyday language to explain the links and themes.

g) Place the maps up on the wall and get students to add to them and revise them as they progress through the unit of work.



ACTIVITIES TO SHARE IDEAS AND DEEPEN THINKING DURING A UNIT OF WORK:

DICTOGLOSS:

A dictogloss is useful for providing models of academic language. At the same time it gives students opportunities to listen, talk, read, write, make notes, reflect on language use, clarify content, and use academic language for themselves. It is a great way of modelling the academic texts you want students to complete themselves.

In Dictogloss the teacher reads aloud a piece of text on a topic the students are currently studying. The basic purpose is for students to re-create the text in groups after it has been read to them.

a) Read the text aloud at normal speed – the students just listen.

b) Read the text aloud a second time – again the students just listen.

c) Read the text aloud a third time at normal speed – this time the students individually write down as much as they can of the key words and points. Tell them you don’t expect them to get everything and that their notes at this stage will just be fragments of information.

d) Then students in pairs share their ideas and notes. They work together to jointly reproduce the text based on their notes.

e) After 5-10 mins, ask the pairs to form groups of 4. The students again work as a team to improve on what they were able to do as a pair. As a group of 4 they legibly re-write the text onto a large piece of paper. Encourage them to focus on their use of grammar as they reproduce the text.

f) Read out the original text one more time and get students to listen. They then have 5 mins to add to their final piece.

g) Display the texts up on the wall and get them to walk around, reading each group’s text.

h) Invite them to share their thoughts on the different texts – focus on their use of words and phrases and how these differ from the original. It is useful to have the original up on the whiteboard at the same time to aid comparison.

EXPERT AND HOME GROUPS:

a) Divide students into groups of 5-6.

b) Their initial task is to become experts in a particular aspect of a topic they are currently studying. Assign a letter or number to each group and within each group number the students 1-6.

c) After 10-15 mins of becoming ‘experts’; through listening, viewing, reading or other kinds of research, the groups ‘reform’ in their home groups.

d) This means putting all the 1’s together, all the 2’s together and so on.

e) They then share the information they have acquired in Stage 1 as an expert.

f) By the end each Home Group should have a complete picture of the topic or solution to the problem posed at the beginning of the activity.

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g) The groups present their ideas for the combined task and the teacher debriefs on how successful each group was.

h) Students, still in their Home Groups, prepare for a quiz on the key points, led by a member of their group.

i) They have a minimum target of 8/10 to pass the quiz

j) After some prep work, individual sit the quiz, swap papers and mark.

It is helpful to design information sheets to help students collect information and to guide the talking that happens in Stage 2 – Home Groups.

THE LAST WORD:

This activity is an alternate way of organising small-group discussion and feedback. It is based on a text students have read and on a topic they are familiar with. The best texts to use are contentious and/or on which students have different thoughts and ideas. The most important thing is that students have something to say.

Step 1:

a) Using the text, begin by getting each student to underline one sentence that has a particular meaning to them and about which they have something to say.

b) They must be able to say why they have underlined it and why it is an important sentence to them. And if they agree/disagree with what the sentence is saying.

c) Divide students into groups of 4 – they are discussing in small groups and not as a whole class.

d) Get each student in the group to number themselves 1-4.

e) Number 1 then reads his/her sentence out BUT SAYS NOTHING ABOUT IT.

f) Number 2 then comments on number 1’s sentence (NOT his/her own). He/she should aim to talk for 1 minute about that sentence they have just heard (you can reduce / increase this time according to the age / level of attainment of your class).

g) Number 3 then comments on Number 1’s sentence, either building on what Number 2 says or disagreeing with it and saying something different.

h) Number 4 then comments on Number 1’s sentence as above.

i) Lastly, Number 1 comments on their own sentence, incorporating others’ ideas as well as his/her own.

Step 2:

a) Number 2 reads out his/her own sentence but says nothing about it.

b) Number 3 comments on Number 2’s sentence.

c) Number 4 comments on Number 2’s sentence.

d) Number 1 comments on Number 2’s sentence.

e) Finally Number 2 comments on their own sentence.



Step 3 and Step 4 continue as above.

The most important rule is that there is no cross-discussion or interruption during each person’s 1 minute. At the end of the 4 steps it is then desirable to have an unstructured class discussion on the sentences and the text.

At first though you will need to be crystal clear with the rules and have a debrief after the activity.

What did you like, not like? How was this different from usual small-group discussion, who had the most difficult./easiest role in each round, what was difficult about this activity, how might this activity help you in your learning about….?

THINKING SHEETS:

A ‘thinking sheet’ is a structured way of having students make their reasoning explicit while they are engaged with cognitive tasks such as solving a problem, planning how to do something, or working out an explanation.

It requires them to make their reasoning visible by talking through their thinking aloud.

BARRIER CROSSWORD:

This is a very useful activity for revisiting subject-specific key vocabulary and giving students opportunities to explain the ideas behind complex or abstract words. It requires students to work in pairs; partner A and partner B. Barrier crosswords are the reversal of a usual crossword in that the ANSWERS are already filled in and students have to provide the CLUES.

Partner A has all the answers to the across words and Partner B has the answers to all the down words. The partners mustn’t show their words to one another (hence the barrier concept).

a) In turn each partner gives the other partner clues about one of his/her words and the partner tries to guess what the word is.

b) The student who is guessing the word is free to ask additional questions for clarification.

c) When the student guesses it correctly, they fill the word in.

d) When the word has been guessed the partners switch roles.

e) This continues until the crossword is completed.

Remember, the aim of this activity is to help students to focus on the key vocab of a topic they are studying or revisiting. If you make up a crossword like this, choose vocabulary that is related to what students are currently learning about in your particular subject, or vocabulary that you want students to revisit. (There are now a number of Internet sites that will format a crossword puzzle using words you select.) This is a good context for students to focus on the meaning of key words, explaining them in everyday terms without the challenge of producing a formal dictionary-like definition.

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Words can be selected from particular subject areas and topics. For example:

• Why we need governments: democracy, government, civics, citizen, rights, responsibility, participation, election.

• Expressing equations and functions: variable, algebraic, expression, power, exponent, numerator, denominator, unit rate.

• Genres in language arts: haiku, limerick, novel, novella, discussion, autobiography, folktale, narrative.

Partner A

Partner B

Partner B



Thinking sheet – exemplar.

The sum of two numbers is 19 and their product is 48. Find the difference between the two numbers.

• What are the key words in this question?

• Write down another way of saying the same thing.

• What mathematical processes will you need to use: +, -, x, or /?

• Solve the problem as a group

• Write down the steps you followed as you solved the answer.

(Using the thinking sheet involved the students in considerable subject-related talk as they clarified the question, suggested alternate ways of solving the problem, and made decisions. Once the group had solved the problem a reporter from each group feedback to the rest of the class how they had solved the problem. This reporting is done as a dialogue with the teacher, further modeling the language choices as the teacher asked clarification questions and at times re-worded what the student said into more appropriate mathematical language.)

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SENTENCE MATCHING

Where might we use this language? Where might we use this language?

A lot of artists at that time painted pictures of city life.

The melting of the ice caps is a result of global warming

Magnets attract metals that contain iron. Famine cause mass starvation.

There was no food and many people starved and died.

Urban scenes were popular among artists of the era.

The ice caps are starting to el because Magnetic attraction occurs between magnets and ferrous metals.

This language-focused activity helps students recognize some of the differences between everyday and more formal language. Students match “more spoken” and “more written” meanings (see the example in the table above). Choose sentences that are relevant to a particular subject or topic (for illustrative purposes, the table above includes a range of subjects). Ask the students to draw lines to link the sentences that have related meanings. Ensure that this exercise is a teaching activity rather than a testing one. Get students, in pairs, to discuss the differences in the language, and then discuss with the whole class what these differences are and in what contexts each might be used.

You could also get students to do a more formal activity by constructing nominalizations from verb forms (see table below, Turning Processes into Nouns). Provide an example as shown. Remember to choose words that are relevant to what students are currently learning and also, importantly, to discuss the reasons for using a nominalization and the context you might use it in. As we say in Chapter 3, nominalizations are often used in more formal or written language, because we want to talk about abstract concepts and ideas (like magnetic attraction), rather than describe what happened (the magnet attracted something).

Process (what is happening) Noun

attract attraction

erode

expand

contract

replicate

refuse



MOVING CLASSROOM TALK FORWARDS.

Strategies to get students to engage with Key Words during and after the talk activities above.

1. Creating word banks.

After doing a concept-map or progressive brainstorm, the key words are identified and written on strips of card by pupils. These are sorted and displayed alphabetically around the room. New key words can then be added to the displays each time they are identified. Students then need to be reminded to use these words every time they are talking about the subject and subsequently when they move into writing.

2. Word and definition cards.

After a talk activity students can work in pairs. One lists the key words they have been using and the other writes a definition of it on a separate piece of card. The pairs then swap their sets with another group, shuffle the cards and have to match the definition to the key word.

3. Creating interactive glossaries.

Students use Google Drive to create interactive glossaries that list key words relating to a Fertile Question, with definitions and accurate examples of their use.

4. Creating mnemonics.

Mnemonics are sentences created to help us remember how to spell words or a sequence of facts. The first letter of each word in the sentence is significant. Well known examples are Richard of York gave battle in vain’ – the colours of the rainbow. Pupils can create Mnemonics to help them remember how to spell key words and can convert these into a display.

5. Creating calligram posters.

Calligrams are visual representations of a word that reflect its meaning. For example, the word ‘test-tube’ might be written with an exaggerated letter U which takes on the shape of the test-tube, or ‘glacier’ might be written in jagged ‘ice letters’. Again, pupils can create visual aids as a display to be used when writing.

6. Using connectives and formal words to extend language.

Connectives are often the missing link in the talking and writing of students. Laminate sets of the connectives and formal words for the type of talk and writing you are doing and get students to tick off the connective each time they use it. Set a target limit and reward accordingly to make it competitive.

Adding: and, also, as well as, moreover, too

Cause & effect: because, so, therefore, thus, consequently

Sequencing: next, then, first, finally, meanwhile, before, after

Qualifying: however, although, unless, except, if, as long as, apart from, yet

Emphasising: above all, in particular, especially, significantly, indeed, notably

Illustrating: for example, such as, for instance, as revealed by, in the case of

Comparing: equally, in the same way, similarly, likewise, as with, likeContrasting: whereas, instead of, alternatively, otherwise, unlike, on the other hand

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Maths Vocabulary

A

Acute angle An angle less than 90°.

Adjacent Adjacent sides are next to each other and are joined by a common vertex.

Algebra Algebra is the branch of mathematics where symbols or letters are used to represent numbers.

Angle An angle is formed when two straight lines cross or meet each other at a point. The size of an angle is measured by the amount one line has been turned in relation to the other.

Approximate An approximate value is a value that is close to the actual value of a number.

Arc Part of a circumference of a circle.

Area The amount of space a shape takes up. E.g. the area of the lawn is 35 square metres.

Asymmetrical A shape which has no lines of symmetry.

Average A value to best represent a set of data. There are three type of average – the mean, the median and the mode.

Axis An axis is one of the lines used to locate a point in a coordinate system.

...



WRITING The ability to write clearly, consistently and with a high level of accuracy is a vital skill for our students. All students must develop the capacity to control language (through the use of vocabulary, sentence structure, linking ideas together) while getting their point across and making the reader want to read on.

This process begins in Early Years, as children begin to make their first attempts at gripping a pencil, and carries on to university essays and beyond. The written form gives people the opportunity to communicate with others. Unlike a lot of spoken communication, writing also gives the communicator the opportunity to plan and think through both what they are going to communicate and how they are going to do so.

Extensive research into the development of the human brain has proven that writing at length requires the deployment of many areas of the brain. Learning to write is one of the most complex and challenging academic tasks that we have to undertake. It is a huge mental task and often tires the writer out. Writing forces the writer to slow down their thought processes and consider the use of language carefully. As pupils acquire vocabulary and develop proficiency in their use of grammar their oral communication also improves as the vocabulary, syntax and language patterns feed into their speech. This development of academic language and literacy skills has a significant impact on the way people think and speak, as well as the way that they act.

In line with our focus on disciplinary thinking, at KAA our teaching of writing prepares students to write like scientists, musicians, artists, linguists, geographers, etc. In order to achieve this we must ensure that writing is approached as a process, not a pre-packaged product. We model and demonstrate writing – making mistakes, correcting them, explaining your thought processes, making implicit processes explicit. This process must also involve talking. In fact, moving from exploratory talk, to talk as performance to formal writing is a trajectory that is useful in so many lessons.

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The journey through a Fertile Question should be planned to move from talk as process through to written text on the basis that writing is informed by and strengthened through talking. The 3 stages outlined above are a very simple way of helping build language acquisition into your planning. We have already looked at talk and its role in developing meaning. The process above maps that onto developing written expertise.

During the first few lessons of the Fertile Question there should be multiple opportunities for students to talk to each other and to the teacher about their thinking. They should be allowed to use everyday language to explain and justify. Paired and group tasks should be designed that create meaningful reasons to talk about the learning. Also academic language should be circulated through these tasks and students’ vocabulary extended. The genre and its attendant rules need to be foregrounded at this stage so that the resolution of the Fertile Question is created following those rules.

As the lessons progress and as students share and respond to draft answers, talk should be planned as a performance – or reading aloud more academic language. Feedback should be planned that means the learners have to speak to one another about their current thinking and understanding and where they need to go next.

The resolution of the Fertile Question should then focus on using the more formal academic register of that subject discipline. This can either be through written texts that follow the rules of the game for that genre or spoken texts that are formal.

USING THE MODE-CONTINUUM TO SCAFFOLD LANGUAGE PROGRESSION – AN EXAMPLE FROM SCIENCE: 35

The diagram below shows how the mode-continuum could be used to help students move from talking using everyday language through to writing in formal academic language about an experiment they have carried out. As the student progresses through the lessons, the language demands increase.

• Initial class discussion about what might happen.• Talking whilst doing an experiment.

• Reporting back to the class their findngs.• Writing a recount of the experiment which may attempt academic language, but is mostly in everday speech.• Reading and talking about their accounts.

• Class deconstruction of a model report.• Class construction of a report and discussion around this.• Individual reports constructed.

Talk as process (lessons 1-2)

Talk as performance (Lessons 3-4)

Written text (Lessons 5-7)

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What might the journey look like in Maths?

• Asking students to explain someone else’s initial reasoning/answer to problem posed. • Small group structured mathematical conversations about their reasoning. .

• One student from each group goes to another group and describes their solution. • Groups then re-form and re-write their initial draft solutions.

• Class deconstruction of a model formal explanation of the solution and success criteria.• Class construction of a report and discussion around this.• Individual reports or textbook accounts constructed.

Talk as process

Talk as performance

Written text

Or History:

• Initial class discussion about prior knowledge and initial response to the BIG question. – “What made Cromwell tick?” Progressive brainstorm.• Talking whilst researching and developing fingertip knowledge – home and expert groups, Dictogloss.

• Reporting back to the class their findings and initial responses. • Writing a recount of the narrative or creating a storyboard – jigsaw activity to model type of writing required. • Reading and talking about their storyboards or role-play = getting the BIG picture right.

• Class deconstruction of a model essay.• Class construction of the essay and discussion around this.• Individual essays constructed.

Talk as process

Talk as performance

Written text



WHY IS WRITING DIFFICULT? 36

Fertile Questions are helpful because they place the teacher and student on the same intellectual plane, thereby making the teacher’s problem the student’s problem, and allowing the teacher to model the ways of thinking and learning behaviours the students will need to answer the question. The same principle is true of setting up writing tasks in the classroom; the teacher must see the task through the eyes of the learner.

This begins with understanding all the ways in which students find writing difficult. When writing, students have to be able to operate at different levels of language to create texts which adhere to the conventions of formal written academic language. Some of these levels are:

• spelling: accurate spelling of all common words, and all the but the most difficult academic / specialised words.

• vocabulary: students have to be able to use subject-specific language and terminology. This requires them to i) understand the underlying concepts this language is used to express and ii) understand how it expresses it. They also have to use general academic vocabulary – words which are fairly specific to school language but can be used across several subjects.

• grammar & sentencing: students have to be able to formulate sentences grammatically correctly and to use some grammatical structures which tend to characterise formal academic writing, for example passive sentences and subordinate clauses.

• punctuation: they have to be able to use key punctuation features, i.e. capital letters, full stops, question marks, inverted commas, colons etc.

• thinking processes: this is all important. Academic writing makes thinking visible. Students have to be able to show they are engaging in the kinds of thinking processes which the writing requires: e.g.

n they have to give reasons, n they have to give opinions and support them, n they have to describe specific processes.

• text: they have to use all the conventions which formal school writing employs to show organization in a text. i.e.

– headings – sub-headings – numbering – bulleting – paragraphs – devices which show organisation within paragraphs e.g. topic sentences

• formality: students have to develop a formal written style. Common features of formal academic writing are those mentioned above, e.g.: passives, academic vocabulary, subordination, clear signalling of textual organisation. Similarly they have to learn to under-use features of informal writing and speech, e.g. personalization (use of I, we), also informal vocabulary, ‘text message’ speak and so on.

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CYCLE FOR TEXT CONSTRUCTION 37

This cycle tends to take place during the 3rd part of the Mode-Continuum moving into academic writing following the rules of whichever genre is being studied.

Developing control of the

text type

Setting the context

Independent construction

of text

Joint construction

of text

Deconstructing the text and

modelling text construction

Concluding lesson and/or assessment.

Mid-phase of enquiry

Lesson 2 or 3.

Beginning of fertile question.



THE STAGES OF THIS CYCLE: 38

1. Setting the context:

a. Finding out what students already know about the topic.

b. Engaging students with the topic.

c. Establishing the purpose and audience for the text they are going to create.

2. Deconstruction and modelling:

a. Examining the structure and purposes of the text. Identifying key features and rules.

b Looking at the language choices of the author and the types of language experts use.

c. Modeling the text constructions process and choices – structures, purposes and features.

3. Joint construction:

a. Working alongside students to jointly produce a draft text.

b. Drawing on shared understandings about the topic and the text.

c. Pupils providing feedback to one another before working independently = peer review of the drafts using the success criteria to provide provocative feedback to one another. (See assessment section for further detail on this process.)

4. Independent construction:

a. Supporting students to produce their own texts.

b. Providing explicit developmental feedback.

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WRITING GENRES EXPLAINED 39

Students normally write for one or more of the following reasons. Which purposes are used in your subject? How do you prepare students to do this effectively?

Purpose Key features Teaching strategies

Writing a recountRetelling past events write a report, write a diary, write an account of…

• Usual aim is to inform or entertain the reader.

• Normally start by setting the scene – what? where? when? how?

• Followed by series of events in chronological order.

• First sentence is usually a topic sentence:

• This is a report about my visit to ...

• Final paragraph may be more detached and include evaluation:

Overall, / learnt a great deal from this visit ...• Written in the past

tense with the active voice.

• Connectives related to time (after, then, next, meanwhile), to cause (because, since) and to contrast (however, although, nonetheless).

• Focus on helping pupils to develop a more impersonal style. In other words, even if the piece of writing is autobiographical more sophisticated writers are able to write in the first person without using ‘I’ or ‘me’ in every sentence.

• Teach the need to vary sentence lengths and sentence starters.

• Extend vocabulary by not using the first word to come to mind.

This was a good / interesting /lively / fascinating / momentous / thought-provoking / fabulous/ inspiring visit.

Writing analytically An intellectual account of a process or a response to something seen or read.

• Usual aim is to inform or persuade the reader.

• Analysis calls for a more detached and less personal approach.

• Start with a statement of what is intended, setting out what the writer hopes to achieve.

• Evidence is provided to support points made.

• High quality analysis avoids a chronological sequence. Rather than simply retelling something the writer can organise by theme.

• Connectives of comparison (whereas, though, while, unless, on the other hand) used to exemplify.

• Teach the language and conventions of analysis. E.g analytical writing tends to use an impersonal voice and more complex Latinate vocabulary (significant rather than big).

• Demystify analysis by providing lots of models and samples. Co-construction allows pupils to watch how we write and comment on how we are doing it, and the decisions we are making.




Writing discursively Presenting an argument and information, weighing up different points of view before reaching a conclusion.

• Includes a lot of opinion and aims to persuade the reader.

• Start with a statement of the issue under discussion.

• Provide arguments to support both sides of a case, with examples and evidence.

• Come to a conclusion about

• Provide a writing frame to show how to structure the piece of writing. The structure should enable pupils to provide a sense of balance in their writing, moving from one idea to another to build a logical

Writing to evaluateDescribing a process or experiment and arriving at a judgement.

• May be in list form and include strengths and weaknesses, followed by a summary and targets for the future.

• Organisational devices such as subheadings give a more technical, scientific feel.

• Bullet points and boxed information to summarise key points.

• Written in the first person, using a range of tenses appropriately.

• Connectives used to balance strengths and weaknesses (although, however, still, on the other hand) and to indicate use of evidence (as in, I know this because, this shows that).

• Make it very clear that they are not writing a personal response to give their opinion. Most evaluations comprise an objective, detached account of how something was made or developed.

• Focus on developing ways of using both the first person singular and the first person plural. In some writing the plural form can create a greater sense of authority:

We can see from this process that…• The personal response

comes at the end:I learnt a lot from this process…

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Writing to explain Showing our knowledge and helping others to understand.

• Usually describe ideas and processes.

• An essay is a common form of writing to explain.

• Start with a general statement to introduce the topic being explained.

• Usually written in the present tense, in chronological order.

• Use connectives that are sequential (then, next), causal (because, so) and comparative (although, in contrast).

• If the aim is to instruct the reader, use imperative verbs (Take the two sides of the paper and fold them...).

• Teach Pupils to incorporate a mix of short and longer sentences. Starting and ending paragraphs with short sentences, or rhetorical questions can bring real clarity.

• Short paragraphs and use of typographical feature (bullet points, italics, font changes) can help the reader and improve this style of writing.

Writing to inform Giving information about a topic.

• Clear, factual and impersonal.

• May include diagrams, illustrations and tables to break up information, draw the reader in and replace text.

• Non-chronological and in (generally) in the present tense.

• Opens with a general statement, with other information divided into categories.

• May include an index, glossary, notes, references, table of contents.

• Use of the third person and the active alternates with the passive voice:

The thermostat controls the temperature. (active)The temperature is

controlled by the controlled. (passive).

• Connectives emphasise sequence, cause/effect and comparison.

• Questions can be used to interest the reader.

• Focus on teaching some key basics: short versus longer sentences, a variety of formal and informal vocabulary, short paragraphs.

• Give pupils a dense complicated text and ask them to simplify it – presenting it in their own words, in a restricted amount of space.

• Model how you would approach the task and use certain layout features – boxes, subheadings and bullet points – to reinforce a sense of clarity for the reader.




Writing instructions Writing directly to the reader.

• Focus is on the needs of the reader, not the writer or their opinion.

• Use of imperative verbs.• Logical, step-by-step

approach.• Instructions are clear

and brief with specific language.

• Structure includes an aim/goal, a list of what is needed, a method.

• Some instructions can be combined with other forms of writing, e.g. an evaluation of the success of the process.

• Diagrams and photographs can be helpful and draw the reader in.

• Look at lots of different models of instructional writing beforehand. Evaluate these for clarity and identify key features.

• Practise structure first before adding specific content. Get them to give each other instructions on how to tie a tie, make tea, construct a paper aeroplane, etc.

• Focus some of the planning stage on looking at how to use layout features, sentences and words to provide written instructions that are as clear as possible.

Writing to persuadeConvincing the reader that you are right.

• Can start by stating the proposition to be argued.

• Arguments to back this up follow in a logical order.

• Points are backed up by evidence.

• Focus on general issues and then elaborate through specific examples.

• Summary of argument at the end.

• Connectives which logically present the argument (so, therefore, because).

• Emotive language and repetition are used for impact.

• Suggests that the majority agrees with the writer:

Everyone knows...

• Teach pupils that this is trickier than they think! Good persuasive writing is clever, subtly and often funny. It is more than just opinion and saying what they think. Share examples from highly opinionated writers to show the sophistication that they should aim for (print and online media are full of examples of this).

• Immerse pupils in the text type – reading, cataloguing and comparing before they begin to write.

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Writing to reportSummarising a finding or discovery.

• Be clear about the difference between a report and a recount. A report is more dispassionate, more detached, summarising a finding or discovery.

• Start with a general opening before moving on to more specific and technical detail.

• Describe qualities and functions, habits and behaviours.

• Usually non-chronological and written in the present tense.

• Descriptive language that is factual and accurate, not emotive.

• Action verbs (rises, changes).

• Focus on developing an impersonal style, moving pupils away from the first person singular to the (more authoritative) first person plural.

• Good reports are clear and accessible. Look at models of this with pupils to show how they can approach their reports in the same way.

• Practise choosing vocabulary with the pupils, as part of co-construction. Make explicit the way you choose whether a particular word is relevant, formal. Enough, too formal, technical or obscure.

Writing creativelyWriting to entertain and express oneself.

• Aims to entertain the reader.

• Can be focused on a specific theme, or more general.

• Depending on the type of text (poetry, sort story, song), language conventions vary.

• High quality creative writing uses carefully selected vocabulary.

• Imagination and self-expression are key (the classroom culture should support this so that pupils feel secure and confident).

• Ensure that pupils have a thorough understanding of the type of text and the possible conventions they could use. Pupils who struggle to write creatively can be greatly helped by the use of sentence starters, mind maps and the opportunity to adapt another example beforehand.

• Focus planning on providing examples of structure, getting their imagination going and playing with vocabulary.

So we can see that most if not all students at KAA will need forms of support to help them write. There is a wide repertoire of task types which you can use for this – some are included in this handbook but we will build on them year or year. They give support at different levels of language: 40

• word

• sentence

• text



Some useful types of support include:

• word lists: support at the word level

• substitution tables: support at the word and sentence level

• sentence starters: support at the sentence level

• writing frames: support at the sentence and text level

• tables: support varies according to the form of support chosen

• visuals: support varies according to the form of support chosen

These tasks will be useful to all learners, but may be of particular benefit to EAL learners (of which we have many at KAA). These students often need support at the sentence level – they may find it hard to construct a sentence grammatically correctly. Note that a substitution table, for example, doesn’t allow you to make grammatical mistakes – which helps the EAL learner focus wholly on the thinking behind the topic. Word lists don’t help learners who need support with constructing sentences, whereas sentence starters do. You need to think about your own class, their specific writing needs, and gauge the supporting accordingly.

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EXAMPLE 1 – WORD LISTS

GEOGRAPHY: Task – write about the water cycle using this list:

Sun warm

water condense

drops turn into

water vapour fall

groundwater rise

wind soak into

clouds run along

droplets seep through

rain pass through

EXAMPLE 2 – SUBSTITUTION TABLES

SCIENCE: Task – Write about an ecosystem using this substitution table.

A caterpillarA wood mouseA foxFunghiBacteriaEarthwormsInsects

eat(s)feed(s) onbreak(s) downis/are eaten by

caterpillarswood micefoxesfunghibacteriaearthwormsinsects

EXAMPLE 3 – WRITING FRAMES

SCIENCE: Task – Write about the extinction of the dinosaurs.

Gradualist theory

The gradualist hypothesis says... Mammals / numbers / land / diversity / marine / decline

The reason for the extinction was... Climate / fall / change / sea level / cool / dinosaurs / marine / mammals

Asteroid impact theory

The impact hypothesis suggests... Asteroid / Cretaceous

The evidence for this is that... Clay / deposit / Cretaceous / iridium / rare / common / meteorites



PLANNING QUESTIONS FOR GUIDED WRITING

When you come to write your Fertile Questions, the list below may help you to craft the best writing tasks. Some can be shared directly with students, some are to guide your thinking as teacher.

Before your students start writing:

1. What learning are you trying to demonstrate in this writing?

2. Are you clear about the task?

3. Who is going to read this and what difference will that make?

4. How much emphasis is on the writing and how much is on the thinking displayed within the writing?

5. What do you know about the features of this type of writing?

6. What would be the best way to plan this?

7. What might be the best way to start?

8. How might you conclude the piece?

9. In what sequence will you structure the writing process across the Fertile Question?

During the Writing:

1. How much structure do your students need during the process?

2. What opportunities are there for peer review?

3. Are the criteria for the piece of writing clear?

4. Are there exemplars of the desired standard you can deconstruct with students?

5. How many drafts will they be writing?

6. What sentence are you thinking of writing next? Let’s re-read what you’ve written and see if the new sentence will sound right?

7. How do you want your reader to react at this point?

8. Would changing anything improve the effect on the reader?

9. Have you varied your sentences enough? How do your sentences start? Do they vary in length? Are they linked in different ways?

10. Do your paragraphs hang together well?

11. Does your evidence match your explanations?

12. Does your punctuation help to make your meaning clear?

After the Writing

1. How will you know your teaching has been successful?

2. What are you going to do with the piece of writing?

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3. How will you use this new learning to inform and deepen the learning in the next Fertile Question?

4. Does what you have written match the task and fulfil the success criteria?

5. Does the opening lead the reader in?

6. Are your paragraphs in the best order?

7. Are your paragraphs linked effectively?

8. Does each paragraph make sense? Have you used topic sentences? Are sentences linked?

9. Have you used spelling strategies to make a best guess of any spellings you’re unsure of? Have you checked your spellings?

10. Does your use of punctuation help the reader to understand your meaning?

Thinking about your writing as you are writing = what is the conversation between the author and the reader?

Below is a helpful resource for enabling students to get to grips with the idea that the reader (mainly examiner) of their work is engaged in a continuous conversation with them.

TALKING TO YOUR EXAMINER 41

Examiner So what are you trying to tell me?

Writer This is the point I want to make, the idea I want you to see.

Part of the Paragraph 1. Topic sentence

Examiner Ah, I see. Tell me more.

Writer Let me explain….

Part of the Paragraph 2. Explain the focus of the paragraph

Examiner I see. What evidence do you base this on?

Writer Here’s my evidence.

Part of the Paragraph 3. Show your evidence

Examiner I see. How does this connect with the point you are making?

Writer Like this. I think that this evidence supports my point by….

Part of the Paragraph 4. Explain how your evidence supports your main point.

Examiner Fair enough. So where does this leave us?

Writer I’ve shown that the point I have made is a solid one and it makes you think that the next thing we should be thinking about is…

Part of the Paragraph 5. Conclude by making links BACK to the question and FORWARD to the next paragraph

Examiner What is the next thing then?

…and you move on to the main point in the topic sentence of the next paragraph.



DEVELOPING INDEPENDENCE IN YOUR STUDENTS. 42

Scaffolds and writing frames are only helpful if the eventual outcome is that they are removed and the students become independent. GCSE and A-Level exams will offer minimal scaffolding of students’ written responses so the sooner students feel comfortable writing without this crutch the better.

1. Any piece of writing, if it consists of an organised series of thoughts, i.e. more than one sentence, requires planning. Confident writers are experienced in planning their writing; it is the only way to make the eventual outcome structured and organised. Two common planning methods are:

a. Write a series of headings and to make notes under each heading. Headings may be numbered, points and sub-points either numbered, bulleted or indented. This form allows you to show an order in the points you make.

b. Draw a spider diagram. Main nodes are the key points; sub-nodes are points to make under each key point. Plans will be drafted and re-drafted until they look right. Students don’t have to write full sentences within their notes – key words will do.

2. Another characteristic of independent writers is that they are experienced at drafting and re-drafting their work. Students should get in the habit of creating a first draft and then revising it. They need guidance when they revise: what should they check? A set of criteria for success is crucial.

3. Students can also get help in revising by asking another person to read it – a peer or a teacher. Students need practise in revising peers’ work and should use clear criteria for this.

4. They then need to revise and write a final draft.

The checklist below is a useful guide in helping move students toward independent writing.

Planning Drafting Finalising

• Purpose

• Core knowledge and ideas

• Stylistic features

• Intended audience

• Deconstruct a model

• Write 1st draft

• Self-assess against criteria

• Peer review and feedback

• Group re-drafting/ working on the difficult parts

• Individual write a final draft

• Discuss the writing process

• Display/use the writing for

a purpose

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READINGThe third and final part of this language section of the handbook focuses on developing students’ reading skills. Reading, writing and speaking are of course all interrelated, and we have seen how the mode continuum helps students move from explanatory talk, to talk as performance, to written text. But reading of course occurs throughout this process too, and fundamental to students’ ability to succeed in the individual tasks they are set and their wider educational prospects. Indeed, a students’ reading age remains the strongest predictor of their success at GCSE (in all subjects), above KS2 results, CATs scores or any other data.

At KAA all teachers are reading teachers, and all students start each day with a reading lesson. To make this significant timetable commitment effective all KAA teachers are trained in how to teach reading as part of their induction into the academy. Strategies for delivering morning reading are covered more in the KAA Reading Handbook. What follows here are strategies for designing reading activities within your subject lessons (though there is of course a strong overlap).

1) Building Field Knowledge:

Before using a text with students it is vital to ensure they all have a useable knowledge of the topic the text is about, so that they can draw on this ‘field knowledge’ to access the text. This phase is almost identical to the connection phase in a 4-part lesson. The idea is to find out what students already know about the topic and to give them the context and fingertip knowledge they need in order to make sense of the text in its correct context. There are of course hundreds of ways of finding out what students already know and we have listed a few ideas below.

This group of strategies includes:

Brainstorming – Brainstorming is a means of activating and recording information about current knowledge, range of vocabulary and perceptions of a given topic. This information can include vocabulary, questions, known facts, predictions, links and ideas.

Predicting – Predicting involves readers or viewers considering what they expect a text to contain or what might happen next in a text. The stimulus for predicting could be a title, a picture or reading or viewing part of the text.

Creating a map or timeline of the key events the text deals with – This visual aspects includes diagrams, flow charts, illustrations, graphs, timelines, etc.

Introducing key words – To prepare students for reading or viewing it is necessary to familiarise them with any words from the text that might hinder their understanding.

2) Interacting with texts

Students need to have an understanding of the purpose for reading and viewing particular texts before they commence. Teachers can assist students to clarify the purpose of reading by asking the questions:



• Why are you reading this text?

• Are you reading for enjoyment, to retell, to answer questions, to gain information, for research?

Once a purpose for reading is established, students can be directed about which method of reading will best achieve that purpose. These methods for reading include:

• skimming: reading to gain an overall understanding of the content of the text

• scanning: reading to locate specific information

• re-reading: reading to confirm meanings and understandings, and to clarify details.

• note-making: reading and completing a simple data-capture grid.

Again, close attention needs to be paid to when in the Fertile Question this stage is planned for, how the activities will be introduced to students, and how expertise will be developed over time. The aim is that over time students will develop the knowledge to select their own methods for interacting with a text and assessing their own understanding as they go along.

3) Responding to Texts

Once a text has been used in the classroom, it is important that students have the opportunity to respond to the text. This response is crucial as it is about assessing understanding and using that new understanding to solve the problem posed by the Fertile Question.

A. Note-Making

Its purpose could be to assist understanding, to identify key concepts, to plan speaking or writing, to assist recall of information or to express ideas clearly and succinctly.

B. Converting

Students should be given the opportunity to convert the ideas in the text into a different form – a diagram, a mind-map, a flow-chart, a story-map. This gives a clear indication of understanding and enables the information to be applied to a problem in a useable format.

C. Ordering Information

Ordering information involves:

• anticipating the structure of the text by using knowledge of the text type e.g. if it is a recount, information is likely to be ordered chronologically, with key words being time words and phrases and dates.

• identifying key points e.g. events, facts, opinions or steps, pertinent to the reader’s needs

• sequencing these points in order to enhance understanding of text content.

D. Synthesising:

Synthesising means giving students the opportunity to summarise and pull together all of

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the main ideas that the text deals with into a manageable whole. The ability to synthesise information from a number of texts into one document is a valuable skill that should be planned for.

E. To Criticise and Deconstruct

A very difficult skill to develop is the ability to deconstruct in an intellectually honest form the basis of the text. This means enabling students to begin to:

• Give reasons for the knowledge created by the text.

• To find contradictions with other texts they have read.

• To expose the assumptions of the author.

• To formulate counter-arguments to the text.

Again, the aim is that over time students move to becoming more independent in terms of the activities they choose to use to respond to the text and when they choose to deploy them.

READING SUPPORT ACTIVITIES: 43

We’ve mapped out below five different reading supporting activities. Each activity builds and develops different types of skill that competent readers possess.

Sequencing

Good for texts which show a time or cause-effect sequence. Learners put a series of texts in the ‘right’ order. Sequencing is extra useful if the texts are accompanied by a picture sequence. You can either number the texts/pics and get the learners to write the correct number sequence; or you can cut them out, make enough sets for the number of groups in your class, put them in envelopes and give them to the groups to manipulate on the desk.

Read and draw

Good for texts which describe things which can be drawn (e.g. a scientific explanation).

Read and fill in a chart

Good for texts which show reasonably clear organisation of information.

Read and fill in the gaps (Cloze)

Good for paired work as its value lies in the discussion of possibilities – a different set-up to much ‘gap-fill’ work as it is about sense making by using prior knowledge and not just surface understanding.

Read and label a diagram

Good for texts which describe diagrams or pictures (also good for maps etc in geography).



ACTIVITY 1 – PART 1 (SEQUENCING)

Put these texts about meanders from a Year 7 geography book in the correct order.

a) So the outer bank gets eroded, but material is deposited at the inner bank.

c) Over time, as the outer bank wears away, and inner one grows, a meander forms

b) As the process continues, the meander grows more ‘loopy’

d) Water flows faster on the outer curve of the bend, and slower on the inner curve

Below are some questions that help unpick this activity:

• What helps students do this? Knowledge of geography or knowledge of words and phrases?

• Of the words which helped you, which ones showed you the sequence across the 4 texts?

• Of the words which signal a sequence, which show TIME connection? Which show CAUSE-EFFECT connection?

• How do you know that ‘meander’ in d) has to come after ‘meander’ in c)?

Texts are held together by a number of different devices. Readers pick up these devices as they read, to show them the overall meaning of the text as it hangs together as a whole.

One device is ‘connectors’: words and phrases which show the organisation of the text. This text has a time sequence organisation. Connectors which signal this sequence are: so, as, over time. It also shows cause-effect sequence: ‘So’ is also a cause-effect connector.

Another device which holds texts together is topic vocabulary: words group themselves together in topics and sub-topics and are repeated in a way which holds a text together. In this text, sub-topics are:

• bank/bend: bank, curve, meander

• place: inner, outer

• erosion/deposition: erode, deposit, wear away, grow

• speed: faster, slower

A third device is words which refer back and forward. For example, the (definite article) in c) often refers back to a previous word (in this case meander in b)).

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ACTIVITY 1 – PART 2 (SEQUENCING)

• Look at the pictures below. Put them in sequence. Then match them with the texts a b c and d

• If you were going to use both the text and picture sequence with a class in which order would you ask the learners to do these activities?

• sequence the texts only

• match the pictures with the texts

• sequence the pictures



ACTIVITY 2 (SEQUENCING)

• Read these texts about Napoleon’s Russian campaign. Put them in the correct by placing the letters in sequence in the box below.

a) Napoleon was forced to abandon his attack on Moscow in October 1812. His men were exhausted, cold and hungry. The bitter Russian winter was just beginning – soon, heavy snow would fall, and the temperature would remain below freezing point all day long. He was 2,400 kilometres from Paris, and surrounded by enemies. He had stopped trying to make Tsar Alexander give in. Now his task was to try to get his men home.

b) Napoleon’s plans went disastrously wrong. In 1812, he assembled a vast army on the border between Poland and Russia. He hoped to overpower the Russians by sheer weight of numbers. But the Russians refused to fight. Instead, they retreated towards Moscow. Napoleon’s troops were forced to chase them through harsh, hostile territory. Food ran short; Napoleon hoped for a brief campaign, so he had only arranged supplies for three weeks. The two sides fought at Borodino, about 110 kilometres from Moscow.

c) Napoleon decided to invade Russia. He planned to give the Tsar a ‘short, sharp shock’, by attacking Russia with an enormous army, winning a few quick victories, and then marching home. Napoleon hoped he would be able to force the Tsar to abandon his friendship with Britain. Then France would be supreme.

d) In 1810, France controlled almost all Europe. Only Britain. Russia and Portugal remained free. In 1810, Tsar Alexander announced that he was going to ignore Napoleon’s ‘Continental System’ and start trading with Britain again. Napoleon was angry and alarmed. If Britain and Russia became friends, they could defeat France.

e) At home in France, people were horrified. They mourned the dead soldiers and plotted to remove Napoleon from power. News of the disastrous retreat from Moscow echoed all round Europe. The invasion of Russia had been a fatal mistake. Napoleon’s army lost 570,000 men there as well as 200,000 horses and 1,100 cannon. People began to say that the French empire – and its Emperor – were not so great as they appeared.

f) Napoleon was defeated by the problems of moving an army vast distances across Russian territory, and, most of all, by the Russian weather. ‘General Winter’ had succeeded where human army commanders had failed. ‘He’ had conquered Napoleon. Europe’s mightiest army perished from cold, hunger and disease.

g) The French won the battle, but the Russians would not admit defeat. Napoleon led his armies onwards to Moscow. The Russians set fire to the city in an attempt to thwart the French. Tsar Alexander still would not surrender; he knew that, in spite of their seeming success, Napoleon and his men were trapped.

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ACTIVITY 3 (READ AND FILL IN A TABLE) 44

Recycling waste materials Recycling means turning materials from old or broken things into new goods. Paper and card can be made into pulp and used to make recycled paper. Rags can be shredded and made into cheap cloth. Glass, metal and certain plastics can be melted down and used to make new goods.

Why recycling is important

• Recycling means less land is needed for ugly, smelly rubbish tips, and it reduces the risk of pollution from rubbish tips.

• Recycling slows the rate at which the Earth is ripped up for minerals and forests are cut down for wood and paper.

• Recycling saves energy. When you throw away metal or glass you also throw away the energy used to make it. It takes far less energy to melt down scrap metal and use it again than to produce it from metal ore.

Composting

• In the UK, up to 35 per cent of domestic waste could be turned into compost. Waste which decomposes into compost includes organic materials such as weeds, grass mowings, hedge clippings, kitchen waste (apart from meat and fat which attract rats), also twigs, card, and paper if they are shredded first.

• Any heap of organic material will produce compost eventually, but the process can be speeded up by turning the waste over regularly in a compost box. The waste must be kept moist, but never waterlogged. Composting produces a valuable soil conditioner, which reduces the need for peat. It also reduces the quantity of material sent to landfill sites

Turning waste into energy

• Gas from waste: Decomposing organic matter produces gas which is 50 per cent methane. This biogas is produced in useful amounts by large scale commercial composting plants, and also by decomposing organic matter in landfill sites. Biogas can be collected in buried, perforated tubes and used as a fuel for heating, or to generate electricity. A landfill site can continue producing useful amounts of biogas for up to 50 years, and perhaps even for as long as 100 years.

• Solid fuel from waste: Another useful fuel can be obtained by sorting refuse, to separate out combustible material which can be compressed into pellets or briquettes. When burnt, this fuel is able to produce at least half the energy of the same amount of coal.

• Landfill mining – the ultimate form of recycling: Recent work in the USA and other parts of the world has shown that there are good reasons for opening up old landfill sites. Useful materials can be reclaimed, such as saleable compost, metals, and glass, in addition to combustible materials for waste-to-energy projects. Landfill reclamation reduces waste volume by up to one half. So the site can be used for fresh refuse disposal, or the site can be reclaimed for alternative use. Sites leaking dangerous chemicals can be cleaned and made safe.



Process How does it happen? What are the benefits?

Recycling a)

b)

c)

1.

2.

3.

Composting 1.

2.

Turning waste into energy

Gas 1.

2.

Solid fuel 1.

2.

Landfill mining 1.

2.

3.

4.

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ACTIVITY 4 – READ AND DRAW

Steps Text Draw here

Step 1 When a cell is ready to divide, long, thin double threads called chromosomes appear in its nucleus. Chromosomes appear as double threads because they have just made exact copies of themselves, and these copies are still attached to each other

Step 2 Next these double chromosomes become shorter and thicker and move to the middle (equator) of the cell, where they become attached to fine fibres called the spindle.

Step 3 Each chromosome then separates into two parts which move to opposite ends of the cell (C). The two halves are probably pulled apart by the spindle threads.

Step 4 The cell then divides, separating the two groups of chromosomes, which form a nucleus in each daughter cell.

Step 5 The two daughter cells have exactly the same number of chromosomes as the parent cell, and their chromosomes are exact copies of those in the parent cell. In scientific terms they are said to be genetically identical to the parent cell.

The point of this exercise is that for learners to be able to read and draw, they have to look carefully at the text in order to show the contents diagrammatically. To understand how this activity can work best look at the text again and underline some of the key words and phrases which learners would have to look at carefully in order to guide their drawing.



ACTIVITY 5 – CLOZE – READ AND FILL IN THE GAPS:

How can we prevent floods?

When rivers flood, we help the victims with shelter and .food. But that’s a short-term solution. We also try to stop the floods happening again. Here are five ways to do that:

1. Control the water level

• Build a a).............................................. on the river to trap water. You can let the water out slowly. (They can be large or small.)

• Build pumping stations. Then when the water level b) ..................................................., you can pump water out of the river and into storage basins, or even onto empty fields.

2. Make the river channel bigger

You could c) ......................................................... material from the river bed and banks, so that the channel will hold more water.

3. Build flood defences

• Build up the river banks to make embankments, to keep water in.

• Or build flood d) ........................................................ around built-up areas to keep water out. (These could be concrete walls, or metal barriers you put up for floods and take down later.)

4. Improve street drainage

• Make sure street drains can cope with heavy e) ...........................................................

• Make sure they are cleaned often, to remove any f) ......................................................

• If the water from them could be drained into soil, instead of the river, the river would not rise so fast.

5. Control land use around the river

• Stop people building on the flood g) .................................................................

• Plant more h) ..........................................................in the drainage basin.

• Pay farmers to allow fields along the river to get flooded. (So there will be less flooding elsewhere.)

Dredge; dam; defences; rises; rain; blockage; plain; trees

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ACTIVITY 6 – READ AND LABEL A DIAGRAM.

Label this diagram by connecting the labels to the parts of the eye.

From New Cordinated Science: Biology. Oxford University Press page 141

PART 3 – LESSON PLANNING


PART 3: LESSON PLANNING

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We will turn now in this final section to short-term planning. At KAA we have the stated aim of 100% of lessons being ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’, with a focus on outstanding. The strategies in this section will hopefully support this aim…

FRAMING LESSON OBJECTIVESA great lesson plan is planned backwards from appropriate outcomes and has clear objectives at the top. When writing your lesson objectives consider these questions:

• Does it define a learning outcome?

• Will it help you to decide whether the pupils have learned anything at the end of the lesson?

• Is it something that you will be able to see, hear or read? (i.e. you must have a way of checking that you have MET your objectives)

Some useful words and phrases that will give you the precision you need in a learning objective:

By the end of the lesson pupils will be able to:

• Select... • Extract...

• Give examples of... • Relate...

• Choose... • Connect...

• Link... • Explain...

• Illustrate... • Show the relationship between...

• Explain the relationship between... • Comment upon...

• Remember... • Recall...

• Ask questions about... • Choose questions that...

• Prioritise... • Create headings...

• Refine headings... • Justify...

• Justify their thinking concerning... • Explain their thinking concerning...

• Compare... • Contrast...

• Define... • Analyse...

• Join up... • Shape...

• Organise...

• Reconsider...

• Reflect...

• Support...

• Support a view that...

• Evaluate...

• Weigh up...

• Create...

• Construct...

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THE FOUR PART LESSONA fundamental part of our approach to teaching and learning at KAA is that all lessons follow a four part structure: 45

• Connect current learning back to

previous learning = start with what they can currently do.

• Ensure connections up to FERTILE QUESTION.

• Project forwards to the end of the lesson - what will success look like.

• Set goals, challenge, motivate. • Discover and explore current

student misconceptions. • Hook the students into the learning

through a DO NOW activity.

• Can learners reflect on where they currently are and what they need to do next? Can I make ‘in-flight’ adjustments?

• How does the performance demonstrated link back to the previous learning and prepare learners for the next stage? End with a question mark not a full stop.

• Is feedback from the learners being used as a planning tool for the next episode?

• Ensure learners are aware of the conceptual framework and understand the role the new learning will play in exploring this framework.

• Equip learners with the language to explore the topic.

• Ensure the factual knowledge required is framed as a problem to be solved.

• Teach by asking - create puzzles and model ways of solving them. Think with not for students.

• Are there multiple opportunities for students to practice working with and on the knowledge they have been processing?

• Can learners self-monitor? Are there opportunities for them to reflect on their work and improve it?

• Are you using a variety of performance opportunities to allow learners to demonstrate understanding, or is it just more writing?

1. Connection

4. Consolidation

2. Activation

3. Demonstration



PART 1: THE CONNECTION PHASE

Connecting – Remembering – Recalling – Enquiring – Predicting

ACTIVATING PRIOR KNOWLEDGE

Core Idea: We understand new things in the context of things we already know

In the connection phase of the four part lesson, learning must be connected to previous learning and understanding and the prior knowledge of students must be activated.

There are hundreds of techniques and strategies that can be used to activate prior knowledge, some of which are detailed later in this planning section. However, the process should start from the very beginning of the lesson in the form of a ‘Do Now’ activity.

The ‘DO NOW’

The DO NOW activity is simply an activity that the students can complete as soon as they enter the room – either written up on the board or on their desks – that ensures that every minute of the lesson is focused on learning.

‘The best lessons get off to a flying start.’

To make it effective the DO NOW should:

• Initially be able to be completed with minimal help or direction from the teacher.

• Take 3 to 5 minutes to complete.

• Require stretches of thinking and language.

• Connect current learning back to previous learning experiences, and forward to what is being studied in the lesson.

The activity should make students make connections to what they already know, and like any effective task at any point in a lesson, make them think. A Daniel Willingham states, ‘whatever students think about is what they will remember…Memory is the residue of thought.’

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Here are three possible DO NOWs from a KS3 English lesson which has the Lesson Objective: To be able to explain the poetic term Personification.

Option 1:

Monday 5th November Poetic Techniques

DO NOW: Copy down this definition: Personification is a technique that involves giving human characteristics to an inanimate object.

Option 2:

Monday 5th NovemberPoetic Techniques

DO NOW: What is personification?

Option 3:

Monday 5th NovemberFertile Question: How are poets masters of language?

Do Now: What is interesting about this description? Discuss with your partner.‘The desk screamed as it was dragged across the floor’.

All KS3 English students will have some prior knowledge of personification as it is covered in KS2. The first ‘DO NOW’ ignores this prior knowledge and skips straight to the answer, the second simply asks them to recall this, which for a first lesson on a topic they haven’t covered for some time is too difficult a question and, even if some students are able to recall the definition, it will not necessarily develop their understanding of the technique. The third DO NOW is the best as it allows the teacher to elicit the central understanding from the students, forces them to THINK about the technique of personification and then apply their understanding of it by constructing an explanation of its effect.

The third lesson could develop like this:

Students discuss the question in pairs as teacher circulates listening in on conversations and providing extension / support questions to specific pairs.

Teacher (claps to stop discussion): OK, so, what do we find interesting about this? (waits – some hands go up). I heard some great ideas, we should have more hands! Remember there is no right answer. I’ll ask the question again, (slowly, deliberately) what do we find interesting about this? (waits – nearly all hands are up now). Billy?

Billy: The word screamed Miss.

Teacher: In a full sentence please.



Billy: The word, ‘screamed’ is interesting to the reader.

Teacher: Good – who wants to build on this (waits for more hands…scans) Shanyce?

Shanyce: The word screamed is interesting because it makes the table seem angry.

Teacher: Good – someone else? Different word for ‘angry’? (points to vocab display). Ahmed.

Ahmed: ‘Screamed’ creates a hostile atmosphere.

Teacher: Lovely. Now – can a table ‘scream’? (waits) I’ll just say that again – can a table scream? Craig.

Craig: No miss only people can scream not tables.

Teacher: OK – so – we’ve hit the big question here: If a poet makes something that isn’t a person – like a table – seem like a person, what technique is being used. In your pairs, discuss the technique and then write a definition of how it works on your mini white boards.

STRATEGIES FOR THE CONNECTION PHASE

Note: Not every connection has to have all of these!

• Establish outline and focus of the lesson and set in in a clear disciplinary context: How does this lesson relate to previous and future lessons, and build our understanding of the enquiry and the concepts that underpin it?

• Provide a clear stimulus that engages the curiosity of the learner and begins to direct them towards the central understanding (the ‘light bulb’ moment).

• Lead a short activity or discussion that gives students the opportunity to explore what they may know already or wish to know about the topic (think of the history or geography lesson that starts with an interesting image relating to the topic and students are then asked to come up with (academic, subject specific) questions about the picture they would like answered).

• Model learning behaviours and high expectations through your use of language, your interactions with individuals/groups and the attitudes and types of thinking you display.

• Link to BIG picture and whole game of subject.

• Set or negotiate challenging goals – what we will learn, how we will learn it, why it is worth it. Be optimistic – talk about what’s great about Shakespeare and build confidence that they will understand the language, not what’s daunting or difficult.

• Break the plane46: The plane of your classroom is the imaginary line that runs the length of the room, parallel to you about five feet in front of the board, usually in line with the first row of desks. Never be hesitant or slow to break the plane – it makes it clear to students that you own the room, and that it is normal for you to go anywhere you want. If you only break the plane in a lesson when you need to correct a student’s behaviour it is not a good thing. Breaking the plane early that you move based on decisions about teaching and not as a response to behaviour.

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How do we check for prior learning?

• Set up a rich, open question or interesting puzzle / problem that requires recall of what you intent to build on and have students work on the problem in groups.

• Everyone writes down everything they know.

• Ask a question then give students a ‘Thinking-Sheet’ – a structured way of making their reasoning explicit. A thinking-sheet (as detailed in the Classroom Talk section of the handbook) is a large blank sheet with some helpful questions:

– What are the key words in this question?

– Write down some topics / ideas that could be helpful to answering it?

– What key words (academic language) would you use in your answer?

– What steps could you follow to find the answer?

‘Advanced Organisers’: Ways to share the structure of what will be learned

• Can be graphic or verbal

• Give overview of the topic or a short summary of the main sections

• Make links with previous topics

• Stress the relevance and importance of what is to be learned

• The parable approach – tell a narrative to make the abstract concept being studied real and personal. Learners can then use this as a springboard

• Skim reading – skim the whole text and get feedback on the big picture before looking into the detail.

• A top-line graphic organiser that students add to as they go along – referring back to and adding detail as they have it

Setting goals

• Goals by exemplar – give students model answers they can deconstruct and tell them they will be able to do this by the end of the lesson

• Goals by asking rhetorical questions

• Goals by setting problems

• Goals by challenge

• Students set themselves personal goals

The first 5 minutes are vital!!

Recall prior learning, give a structure for new learning in graphic form, set a goal, provide or co-construct success criteria.



PART 2: THE ACTIVATION PHASE

Constructing – Building – Discovering

Once prior knowledge has been activated, and the ‘big picture’ of the learning has been communicated, the main aim of the next phase – the activation phase – is to build new learning and ensure students have the knowledge, understanding and skills they need to continue to solve the problem posed by the fertile question of the unit.

The brain likes problems and it likes beginnings, so this is where we present students with a problem to be solved, and then offer them opportunities to explore it as self-monitoring learners.

The activation phase should help students become familiar with the key information they need to solve a problem, hypothesise, or simply remember something that is essential. It should be conveyed in ways that are multisensory, pose questions and engage curiosity. In the activation phase students become directly engaged with the problem presented .

TEACH BY ASKING

Core idea: Learning is most likely to be effective through experience, enquiry and investigation

‘There is little point in giving students ready-made meaning’

Paul Ginnis

The activation phase should be viewed as the ‘lever’ section of the lesson. Activities, techniques and strategies should allow ‘muscular’ and deep learning to take place and students should make a significant ‘jump’ in their understanding.

‘Teach by asking’ means the teacher asks a question that leads students to what the teacher wants them to learn, as they puzzle out the answer collaboratively, reasoning their way from prior knowledge and any scaffolds provided (thinking scaffolds or language scaffolds, or both). By massively reducing teacher talk, this approach puts you in the role of facilitator and not instructor (see the questioning section and language section for further guidance on this).

Task is setTask is clear

and in writing.Specific roles may be set

for students.

Students work on task

Working in groups or

individually.

Check and correct

Teacher checks attention to task

and work in progress.

Students feedback

Teacher gets feedback from

students on their findings.

ReviewKey points are emphasised.

Notes are taken or kept.

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Typical pit-falls of an activation phase:

• Students are passive recipients of the information: ‘Fill my head up with information sir!’

• Teacher is in lecturing mode

Conventional methods of activation:

• Teacher talk

• Watch a video

• Sit through an ICT presentation

• Read a chapter of a text book

These are all fine if done with feedback and clear goals (and feedback must be interactive). A video without a clear learning ‘hook’ is not OK.

Questions to help guide your activation planning:

• Does it involves stretches of thinking and language?

• Has the information to be learned been turned into a problem to be solved?

• In what ways are the learners encouraged to make choices?

• Do the participants know and understand the success criteria for the activity?

• Does the activity encourage individual, pair or group work?

• How are the learners encouraged and supported in the activity?

• Can all participants achieve in the activity?

Some examples of lesson activities that could work in the activation phase:

1) Jigsaw Groups (also described in Classroom Talk section)

Aim: To independently research a new topic or idea and share knowledge across the class.

• In groups of 4 or 5, students research one aspect of a topic and become experts in it.

• The class then breaks up into new groups, which includes one ‘expert’ from each group.

• Each person shares what they have learnt and other members of the group ask questions.

• The outcome can be a jointly – produced group report.

Example: Students research how the Renaissance changed Europe: sub groups might look at how the Renaissance changed art, literature, science and religious beliefs.



2) Wallpapering (also described in Classroom Talk section)

Aim: Students brainstorm previous knowledge of topic by responding to a controversial statement.

• After being told the ‘controversial’ statement, groups of students discuss and then write down on a large sheet the most though provoking response to the statement they can come up with. They should express it as a simple statement which can then be stuck on the wall (anonymously).

• Groups of students walk around the room and evaluate each other’s ideas. Each group needs to find three statements they want to comment on (for example something they hadn’t considered before, or something which links/contradicts their statement).

• Teacher re-sets the class then selects the ‘highest yield’ comments to facilitate a whole class discussion.

Example: Geography students are asked to discuss the statement ‘The 2012 Olympics were bad for London’ in groups of 4.

3) Searching for Clues

• Aim: Students are given different cards with information on it all relating to the big, open question posed at the start of the lesson. Information is presented in the form of a written paragraph, diagram or picture. Students have to highlight the key information on each card and write each in no more than 10 words.

• Example: In History, students are given an image of a King being whipped and use cards with various evidence to answer the question, ‘Why was the King whipped?’

4) Find someone who...

• Aim: Students are given a card with a topic / sentence / keyword / problem on it. It is in some way related to one or more cards that have been given to another student. They need to move around the room until they find the matching card and discuss what the cards have in common / the problem to be solved. Paired discussions are brought together by the teacher who draws out the key learning points.

• Example: Students are given a card with an equation on it. They must ‘Find Someone Who’ has the same card and then work on the problem on their mini-whiteboard, showing what method they would use to solve it. Teacher leads a follow up whole class discussion, looking at how the different cards might call upon different equation solving methods and therefore facilitating students categorising the equations into different types.

5) Information Relay

• Aim: Students are given questions that they need to find the answers to which all relate to the new information they are learning.

• Only one member from each team is allowed to go and find the answer (which will be written on info sheets and stuck around the classroom/assembly hall/sports hall etc). When that team member comes back with the answer the team writes it down and another student needs to find another answer.

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• Example: Students are learning about the Ancient Greek Olympics and are given 12 questions, the answers of which can be found somewhere in the class at different information points. Answers are revealed and peer marked. The new information found is then used in the demonstration phase or as part of a longer enquiry.

6) Knowledge Quest

• Aim: Students are told they are going on a ‘quest’ to find out information about a particular topic or event.

• The learning space is set up with different ‘points’ along the quest and at each point students need to complete a 4 minute task before moving on. Students could work in pairs or small groups to complete the quest. All the information gathered can them be used in the demonstration phase in various relevant forms.

• Example: In a Drama lesson the theatre is set up with different ‘quest points’. Point 1 = students use books text books provided to answer short questions on the Globe theatre; Point 2 = students put sections of a storyboard in the correct order to show the events of the civil war; Point 3 = students use an info sheet to highlight the top 5 most important facts about the Puritans ; Point 4 = students use a teacher created Google Site to complete the empty boxes of a timeline. Students collate all the information to answer the demonstration question “Why was the Globe Theatre closed down in 1564?”

7) Connecting Cards

• Aim: Key information is cut up onto cards and mixed up. In pairs, students need to put the cards into order with justification. Variations could include images instead of information.

• Example: History timeline, English persuasive speech, Food Technology recipe instructions.

An example of how an activation phase could work in practice:

The Lesson Objective here was ‘To explore the key images from the balcony scene of Romeo and Juliet’. After a quick connection phase focused on reviewing key events so far in the play, students have begun their activation by reading through the scene for the first time. Each pair of students is then given a large sheet of sugar paper with three quotation from the scene already written on it:

1) R: “But soft, what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.”

2) R: “O, that I were a glove upon that hand, That I might touch that cheek!”

3) J: “What’s in a name? that which we call a rose, By any other name would smell as sweet.”

Teacher: “I’ve picked three quotations from this scene and put them on your sheet. Around each quotation you are going to write your own analysis of Shakespeare’s language. Let’s do Quotation 1 together. Romeo says quotation when he sees Juliet in the window. Read it very carefully, and then – with the person next to you – discuss what you notice about the language and images. Think like an English student and come up with as many developed ideas as you can. Two minutes… go.”



Students discuss in pairs as teacher circulates, asking prompt questions to extend their thinking (e.g. Why does he chose that word? What does it tell us about his feelings?) Most identify the comparison with the ‘sun’.

Teacher: “OK – what do we notice about this quotation? Who’s been thinking like an English student? Let’s use lollipop sticks….Abdullah?

Abdullah: The way he says she’s like the sun.

Teacher: Yes – that is interesting. Why does he say Juliet is like the sun? Everyone think about that now…. (pause – pull out another stick)….Renee?

Renee: The sun makes him happy, and Juliet makes him happy.

Teacher: Good – the sun brings happiness – or joy. What else can we say about this quotation? Why does he say she is the sun…….Tareek?

Tareek: The sun makes people warm….maybe she makes him warm and happy.

Teacher: Yes – the sun brings warmth and comfort? What does it bring Tareek?

Tareek: Warmth and comfort

Teacher: Now let’s get deeper into this. Think about science and nature – how does the sun help animals and plants? (Leaves lollipop sticks at this point and throws it open) Who has some ideas on this?

Zaki: It gives them strength – maybe she gives him strength too.

Teacher: Yes – good – he draws strength and energy from Juliet. Now think about the universe – where is the sun in the universe, and how does that LINK to his feelings about Juliet? I’ll say that again – where is the sun in the universe, and how does that link to Romeo’s feelings about Juliet? Talk about that – 30 seconds – go!

Students discuss this new question (which is a sub-set of the original question) in their pairs then feedback.

Teacher: Any ideas? Which pair wants to say something about this?

Nathan: It’s like she is central to his universe, everything moves around her.

Teacher: Good – his life moves – or revolves – around her. Also is there anything brighter than the sun, or bigger?

Nathan: No – she is the brightest star – like the sun is.

Teacher: OK – last question. Juliet isn’t really the sun – that’s crazy! She is a teenage girl. Shakespeare just calls her the sun. What technique is this, and how can you tell? Think back to the work we’ve done before in English. 10 seconds – with your partner – go!

They talk about it in pairs and most identify that it is a metaphor because it compares one thing to another.

Teacher: OK – everyone look at this next slide carefully..

Teacher brings up the next slide on the board – this one has the ‘sun’ quotation with a circle around (just like it appears on their sugar paper) but at the bottom of the slide (surprise surprise) are the following words to support their analysis: Metaphor, energy, warmth, comfort, beauty, bright, glowing, universe, central, natural, joy, happiness, strength.

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Teacher: Everyone looking at me, sat up straight, this is the main instruction now. (Wait). FIRST: Using the ideas we have discussed, and the information of the board, annotate this quote with detailed analysis about the imagery used. THEN: Do the same thing with quotation two and three, this time working with your partner. After 10 minutes I expect every pair to have a piece of sugar paper covered with detailed, intelligent analysis of the images in these quotations. If you finish the three quotations you add a fourth of your own. OK – who can replay those instructions for me…

Teacher takes replay of instructions then students independently complete the task as teacher circulates providing support and extension…

Active not passive! – A summary of the activation phase

• Don’t provide a resource that explains the topic and gives away the answer – instead ask students questions that lead them to what the you want them to learn. Have students puzzle out the answer, reasoning from prior knowledge and common sense.

• The role and focus for this part of the lesson is clear – to activate new learning and provide all students with the information they need to solve the problem posed at the start. This phase also provides opportunities for feedback and re-drafting prior to the demonstration phase.

• Ensure learners are aware of the conceptual framework and understand the role the new learning will play in exploring and expanding on it. Think about the training activity from the staff induction which used the chess board – it showed how concepts form an organising or structural framework that allows students to move beyond information acquisition to knowledge application and creation.

• If the students in your classroom are not aware of the concept they are working with and have no picture in their own minds of how it works they are simply going to place any new information into a box that does not connect with the other boxes. It is vital that in the activation phase attention is designed to the conceptual framework of the fertile question and how the learning they are about to experience helps shape and expand their understanding of this concept.

• Equip learners with the language to explore the topic. In the words of Vygotsky:

“Thought undergoes many changes as it turns into speech. It does not merely find expression in speech; it finds reality and form.”

• Ensure the factual knowledge required is framed as a problem to be solved.



PART 3: THE DEMONSTRATION PHASE

Understanding – Applying – Mastering

Now that students have been equipped with the knowledge, understanding and skills to solve the lesson problem, the aim of the demonstration phase is to provide multiple opportunities for students to practice working on these and create their own solution to the problem.

Students are now given opportunities to generate products that demonstrate their understanding through written or spoken exchanges. With feedback, the learner’s thinking can then be fine-tuned. Highly interactive and rich in opportunities for educative feedback, this phase tends to be student centred, with the teacher very much in facilitation not instruction mode. Feedback can come from teacher or peers: how are we doing, what do we need to do next?

The best demonstration phases have opportunities for self-monitoring built into the activities. Self-monitoring is one of the five key principles of the KAA curriculum outlined at the very start of the handbook. By self-monitoring we simply mean allowing the learners to take control of their own learning, which means giving them opportunities to set their own learning targets and assess their progress toward these targets.

During the demonstration phase students need to be presented with opportunities to practise applying the new learning (or indeed to design their own), and should demonstrate mastery of the new knowledge they have acquired.

It’s also vital to build into this phase language acquisition, so that students are having to use different types of academic language to explain, justify and amend their thinking.

A final thought is that this phase has to require students to do something ‘new’ with the learning. What will they do to demonstrate progress? How will you know they actually understand? Think back to the Newtonian space snowball fight!

Some questions to guide your demonstration planning:

1. What tasks will you set?

• Are there multiple opportunities for students to practice working with and on knowledge they have been processing?

• Is the demonstration differentiated?

• How will you ensure ultimate success?

2. How will students prepare their response?

• How will you build language acquisition into this phase to ensure students are using expert language to explain, justify and amend their thinking?

• Is it supportive? Is it safe? How might a weaker student be encouraged to take risks?

3. What medium will they use?

• Not every demonstration phase needs to be an extended piece of writing. Class debates, presentations, role-play, digital media, graphic or diagrammatic approaches – all can be used.

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4. What audiences will the students present to?

• To whom and at what point will learners demonstrate their understanding of the new information?

• Will the learners have opportunities to reflect on and revise understanding as a result of this stage?

• Are there opportunities for learners to interrogate their solutions through the use of questions and thinking tools?

The diagram below develops these ideas:

What tasks should I set?

– information gathering– analysis: atomistic

(parts) or ‘holistic’.– productive thinking

synthesis, creativity and evaluation.

– strategic and reflective thinking.

A ladder of tasks often ending in open reasoning tasks often works.

1How will students

prepare their response?

– alone– in pairs– with groups of friends– in random groups

Try to avoid ‘passengers’.

2

What medium will they use?

– show practical work– paper or flip chart– presentation– electronic media– combination

4What audiences will students present to?

– neighbour– another group– own group– another peer– whole class– another class

Some audiences motivate more than others.

5

How will students prepare their response?

– practical– verbally– written– graphic organiser– role play

3



PART 4: THE CONSOLIDATION PHASE

Reviewing – Reflecting – Evaluating

‘Learning without reviewing is like trying to fill the bath without putting the plug in’ Mike Hughes 1999

The end of the lesson should help students organise the learning into a meaningful context in their minds. This is work that is done by the students, and should not involve the teacher simply summarising the key points of the lesson.

Learners should now be enabled to reflect on where they currently are and what they need to do next, as well as how the lesson fits in to the big picture of the Fertile Question.

This phase is also an opportunity for formative assessment that allows the teacher to gauge what students have learned and if additional practice is needed or re-teaching is necessary. Essentially, it tells the teacher whether or not the students are ready to move on.

The consolidation phase provides an opportunity to reflect on what has been learned and how the students have learned it; students focus on the content (what do we know and understand that we did not know before?) and the process (how we have learned and how we can apply our learning methods elsewhere). Work should be reviewed against clear criteria and in a way which encourages long term recall and understanding.

In this phase of the four part lesson, the teacher strategically coordinates student sharing of their solutions to the lesson problem– teachers and students ask questions that help to summarise the ideas embedded in the class solutions, supporting students in establishing explicit connections.

In an RE lesson, a teacher wishes to consolidate her students’ understanding of the ethical question of the lesson ‘Are humans superior to other animals?’ using a concrete example. She uses a value line –an activity that requires students to take a position on an issue and support it with evidence. The teacher begins by posing a polarising question:

Teacher: OK everyone, we are nearing the end of the lesson, but we still have that really important question to answer, now that you have completed your research and filled in your graphic organisers. ‘Should fox hunting be allowed?’ First, please take your planner whiteboards and write your own answer to the question. You can answer ‘yes’ or ‘no,’ but you must also be prepared to explain your reasons for your position using appropriate evidence. Take two minutes and do that now.

After two minutes, the teacher explains the next step:

Teacher: You are about to hear two statements of positions that are the opposite of each other.

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Now the teacher walks to one end of the room and makes an extreme statement in answer to the question.

Teacher: All foxes are pests and deserved to be hunted and killed. It is our duty as humans to destroy them to help other animals.

The teacher asks for one student to volunteer and stand at the other end of the room and state the opposite view.

Sara: Other animals should have the same rights as humans. We are all equal. We do not have the right as humans to kill foxes.

Next, the teacher invites the rest of the class to stand somewhere between the teacher and the other student.

Teacher: Now that you have heard these two extreme views, I want you to stand up and take your position between the two of us. If you agree that fox hunting should be allowed, stand close to me on the line. But if you think fox hunting should not be allowed, go and stand close to Sara. However, if you agree mostly but not fully with one position or the other, stand somewhere along a line between the two of us.

After the students position themselves, the teacher asks them to talk to those around them to see if they have the same opinion—if not, they should move in one direction or the other.

Teacher: Now that you have taken your position, you need to check and make sure you are standing with people who hold the same position you do. Take a minute now and take turns telling the people around you where you stand and why you believe it. Remember to use appropriate evidence to support your points using your graphic organiser! If it turns out you do not agree with your neighbours after all, you should move to another place in the line. Talk to the people around you in the new place and make sure you agree on your answers.

While they are talking, the teacher identifies a spokesperson for three or four clusters of students among those standing in the line.

Teacher: Now please come up with a statement that represents the views of the people in each cluster. Those of you who are standing in the same place need to help your spokesperson create a short statement that represents your position. The spokesperson for each cluster of students shares the group’s position.

Group 1 (closest to the teacher): “Foxes are total pests. They kill lambs and chickens so killing them through hunting is the best way of controlling them.’

Teacher: Okay, that’s quite a strong statement. Simon– what can you deduce from this about this group’s thoughts on animals and humans?

Simon: They think humans are superior and have the right to kill other animals.

Teacher: Group 1, is this accurate?

Group 1: Yes– we believe…er…(consults graphic organiser) Lombardi’s argument which is that humans have greater inherent worth. The Judeo-Christian view is that we are created in God’s image, and given dominion over lesser creatures.

Teacher: Like foxes? Interesting! By the way, for the rest of you, maybe you will hear something said here that will make you change your mind. If you do, it’s all right to change your position, to move closer toward someone you agree with or further away from someone you disagree with. Now let’s hear from the next group.



Group 2: “We think maybe foxes are pests and hunting should be allowed, but maybe without dogs. It is the dogs that makes it inhumane.’

Teacher: That’s interesting– is there evidence for this on our graphic organiser? (Checks) A quote from a research report! Well done. Does anyone want to move? (No one does). No? Then I will. I’m persuaded by that position because I think it is fairer to foxes. The teacher moves to stand beside Group 2). Let’s hear from another group.

Group 3: We think killing foxes at all is wrong. We think with developments in science and Technology that there are many other possible ways of controlling foxes as pests.

Teacher: OK– so how does that fit with group 1’s use of Lombardi’s argument?

Group 3: I suppose it still shows that we think humans are superior to animals as they can be seen as pests…

The teacher wishes to end the lesson by having students write down their thoughts, so she assigns an Exit Ticket:

Teacher: Alright you have now heard five positions on the question of whether fox hunting should be allowed, and ultimately, whether humans and animals are equal. Now I want you to go back to your seats and write for five minutes in your notebooks on this question. First give your answer to the question, and secondly give two reasons, each with evidence from your research.

The students return to their desks and write.

At the end of five minutes the teacher tells them they have one minute more to write. Then she stops them, and invites three students to share their Exit Tickets.

The lesson ends here. The teacher can mark the Exit Tickets before the next lesson to ensure that students have formed an informed opinion based on accurate evidence, which was the objective of the lesson.

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THE FOUR PART LESSON: A SUMMARY

The four part lesson is a planning tool which allows for consistency across all departments and disciplines. It emphasises the centrality of understanding – as in teaching for understanding and allowing performance of understanding – in the learning process. The structure is flexible and fluid enough to be used as an open ended planning tool which can stretch over a double lessons a series of lessons, or even full days of learning. It is not a rigid structure – the different sections will take varying amounts of time, and might even be swapped around or repeated – for example some lessons will go: Connect / Activate 1 / Demo 1 / Activate 2 / Demo 2 / Consolidate. The diagram below tries to give some ‘headlines’ on the four part lesson at KAA.

Connection

Activation

Demonstration

Consolidation

• Big picture – create links / relevance.• Set goals• Engage / motivate / intrigue

• Variety of approaches• Active not passive• Muscular learning – concepts / knowledge

• Applying what I’ve learnt• What does mastery look like• Part of an ongoing process of learning

• What did I learn and how did I learn it.• How does it link to the big picture?• What’s next?



EXAMPLES OF THE FOUR PART LESSON – EXAMPLE 1

Teacher: ABC Subject: EN Class: 7N

Period: 2 Room: 101 Number on roll: 24

Fertile Question / Lesson Question: ‘If a picture paints a thousand words, how do words paint a picture?’

Date: 22.10.14

Student data: (Numbers)G&T: 2 SEN:2 EAL: 0

Links to prior learning: Lesson objectives:

This is the 8th lesson of the fertile question. Students have previously been exploring the differences between fiction and non-fiction, and also practising varying sentence structures and using ambitious vocabulary. In the last lesson we looked at how film makers create a sense of fear in scenes from war and horror films.

• To identify different language techniques used to create fear in an extract

• To comment on their effect on the reader

• To create your own writing using these same techniques

Time Lesson Structure

0 - 10 mins Do Now / Connections to prior learning and lesson focus (orientate, engage, intrigue, motivate)Do Now:T - Display images of activities which induce/create fear on the IWB and play scary music as students enter S - Complete ‘Do Now’ activity which is three questions. First as written notes then as discussion.• What do you like to do that is scary? • Why? / Why do we like to be scared? / • Why does an audience enjoy feeling fear?S - Share ideas in pairsT - Use Cold Calling to take feedback from individuals. Use questioning to help students understand why the feeling of fear is desirable for a reader or audience who want to be entertained, and how this is relevant to them in their own context – linking ideas to the clips we have been watching. Possible answers: engagement, anticipation, compelling, mysteries that need to be solved, adrenalin, emotionConnect:T - Share learning objectives – link backwards and forwardsS - Complete matching activity with graphic organiser on language techniques and examples which will consolidate established knowledge and also introduce some more advanced techniques. Ext – students match two new, unseen techniques. T - Take feedback on this activity – questions to stem from the following:• What language techniques do students already understand and use?• Do they understand that effects can mean a wide range of

different reader responses? • Can they identify examples of effects specific language devices

can have?• How independently can they do this?

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10 - 25 mins Main body of the lesson: Activation phase (input and exploring new information)T - Prepare to read the Bram Stoker extract. Use questioning to remind students of the context of the story (they should remember from last lesson when we watched a scene from the film version).T - Tell students that I will read the extract twice. The first time they should read along and listen to the intonation and emphasis of my voice. The second time they should highlight any language features that they think are used to create a sense of fear.T - Explain task and model the use of the how to use of the supporting talk frame which will help them to articulate how language features are used to create fear in the extract.S - Students work together in groups of three to complete discussion task, taking notes frame if they wish to.T - Circulate the room - direct questions such as those below to support, challenge and extendT - Take feedback based on what has been seen around the classroom – be careful to include as many students as possible and to scaffold feedback using similar questions:• Why has the writer used specific features at certain points?• How effective are the features?• What if the writer had not used these features? What would

be added / lost?• Can you think of other texts where writers have used

techniques like these? (Link to homework task) Were they more or less effective?

• What techniques would you like to try in your own writing? Why?

25 - 40 mins Main body of the lesson: Demonstration phase (students apply new knowledge and demonstrate mastery)T - Explain the bridge to the Demo phase - students to write the next section in first person, using the language techniques that we have been exploring. S - Individuals write the next paragraph

40 - 50 mins Review and consolidate: (Students see the progress they have made, see their learning in a new light, place their knowledge into the big picture, look forward to next lesson) S - Pairs read each other’s paragraphs, highlighting effective examples of language techniques that have been used to create fear.S - Volunteer effective examples that they have found, and use talk frames to structure their explanations as to why the features are effective.

HW Consolidating understanding / stretch & extension / preparing for new learning: Set tomorrow



Targeted students

Need or reason for intervention

Current attainment

Nature of intervention. (Based on IEP strategies where appropriate)

Reece SEN (BSD) 5C This is the first day in his new seat and with a different group selected based on previous success. Praise as always and remind him of merits which motivate him.

Taqreeq and Mia

Issues with grammatical constructions

4A Provide sentence starters for writing task and one to one support if needed

EXAMPLES OF THE FOUR PART LESSON – EXAMPLE 2

Teacher: XYZ Subject: EN Class: 7U

Lesson: 5 Room: G07 Number on roll: 20

Fertile Question: Can the meaning of a text change? Lesson Question/Focus of lesson: Selecting quotations from a Shakespeare text and analysing them

Date: Student data: (Numbers)• G&T: 0• SEN: 6• EAL: 7

Links to prior learning: Lesson objectives:

Students have been studying Romeo and Juliet this half term. Their assessment at the end of next week will be an extended essay about Act 3 Scene 2, analysing the way Shakespeare presents the characters and the different reactions an Elizabethan and a modern audience might have to the scene – i.e. they will be answering the Fertile Question, ‘Can the meaning of a text change?’ The essay will test their ability to write PEA (point | evidence | analysis) paragraphs. They have been looking at PEA over the last three weeks, and earlier in Y7.

• To understand what happens in Act 3 Scene 1

• To be able to select key quotations that illustrate different character traits

• To be able to explain the effect these quotations have on the audience

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Time Lesson Structure

11.25 - 11.35 Do Now / Connections to prior learning and lesson focus (orientate, engage, intrigue, motivate)Starter: Connections to prior learning and lesson focus. (Engage, intrigue, motivate)“Let’s recap where we are. The marriage of Romeo and Juliet has taken place but IN SECRET – no one knows! In this scene we are going to read and watch today the Capulet and Montague boys meet up in a ‘public place’. Romeo is now related to Tybalt because he is married to Juliet – so he doesn’t want to fight him. But the other characters don’t know that! Watch how they react to Romeo’s behaviour.”Show slide showing key characters in scene: Mercutio / Benvolio / Tybalt (King of Cats) / Romeo. “Before we watch the scene we are going to read the first 8 lines as a class”Read first 8 lines on IWB – students have a hard copy on their desks – ask questions to elicit the following analysis of the quotations:• Benvolio: Desperate to leave, understands danger is near,

senses that people are ill tempered • Mercuitio: Playing games with him, reminds him he can be

violent, encouraging him to fight

11.35 - 11.55 Main body of the lesson: Activation phase (input and exploring new information)“Now we are going to watch the scene. We are looking at words / actions which give us clues about these four men on the board - Mercutio / Benvolio / Tybalt (King of Cats) / Romeo”Play video up until Mercutio’s death (55:00 – 1.02.12). Students have their copies of the text in front of them. Explain that we are going to be working in groups – some will focus on B, some M, some TModel completing the spider diagram using the example of Mercutio – take “Thou art as hot a Jack in thy mood” quotation (line 11) and annotate with language analysis, modelling how to use the notes from their copy of the play!Give sugar paper – spider diagram key question written in advance on each sheet to prompt discussion / thinking. “All the quotations you need are on the sheet. Don’t be worried if you don’t understand the words! Use the notes on the side and focus on the words you do understand. You are looking for: • Benvolio – Quotations that show he is trying to keep the

peace• Mercuitio – Quotations to show he is reckless and daring• Tybalt – Quoations to his passionate hatred of Montagues



11.55-12.05 Main body of the lesson: Demonstration phase (students apply new knowledge and demonstrate mastery)Students move from exploratory to formal talk by rehearsing a spoken paragraph: “You are now going to pick one quotation to present to the rest of the group. You need to complete a spoken PEA. Use this structure: Shakespeare’s presents the character of ___________ to be ___________

QUOTATION

EITHER: The language here suggests ________ OR: The word _______ suggests _____________Now – pick your best quotation – plan your ‘spoken PEA’ and deliver it to the group. After a representative from each group to stand up and deliver to class.

12.05-12.15 Review and consolidate: (Students see the progress they have made, see their learning in a new light, place their knowledge into the big picture, look forward to next lesson) Students move from formal spoken to formal written work. Key vocab list on the board to support their writing. ““Return to your seats. Put the sugar paper in the middle. Each write one PEA in your yellow books. Use the information on the board to help you.”Finish lesson by linking back to the Fertile Question. “We have shown how Shakespeare presents the characters but now we need to consider how a contemporary and a modern audience might react differently. Let’s just take Romeo not wanting to fight – 30 seconds with the person next to you – differences between what a modern and contemporary audience think?”

HW Consolidating understanding / stretch & extension / preparing for new learning: Sheet outlining main events from Act 1 to 3 and asking students to consider contrasting reactions of modern and contemporary audiences.

Targeted pupils

EAL, SEN. G&T, etc

Level Nature of intervention. (Based on IEP strategies where appropriate)

Shaniqua EAL , new to school

5C Opportunities for discussion work with her group will help her develop her thinking and construct her ideas – visit her in plenary to ensure she understands and can get started.

Mohamed SEN (BESD) 5A Now working with co-teacher on the back row following several incidents of disruption during group work. This is agreed strategy from his PSP. During group task pair him with sensible workers to assist.

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QUESTIONINGQuestioning cannot be teacher led and teacher dominated. The question is the start and end point of students’ thinking

“Never say anything a kid can say! This one goal keeps me focused.

Although I do not think that I have ever met this goal completely in anyone day or even in a given class period, it has forced me to develop and improve my questioning skills. It also sends a message to students that their participation is essential. Every time I am tempted

to tell students something, I try to ask a question instead.”

(Reinhart, 2000, p. 480)

Teaching is more a giving of right questions than a giving of right answers. A teacher’s skilful questioning plays a vital role in helping students to make connections, build understanding and work their way to solutions that make sense to them. It is important to use different types of questions to help learners make meaning out of information, and to convert information to knowledge, moving students from acquisition to application.

Facts: According to research

• 69-95 per cent of the questions involve straight recall

• Students ask two or fewer questions per lesson

• Teacher questions are negatively correlated with student questions

• Average wait time is typically lesson than one second

As the research indicates, the most common form of teacher-student questioning takes the form of the Initiation/Response/Evaluation (IRE) communication pattern, sometimes referred to as ‘Ping-Pong’ questioning. This is a teacher-led, three-part sequence that begins with the teacher asking a student a question with the purpose of finding out whether the student knows an answer. In the IRE pattern, the student answer is evaluated by the teacher, who makes a brief reply such as “Good,” or “No, that’s not right.” Then the interaction ends! An example of this is below:

Teacher: How many sides does a pentagon have? (Initiate) Student: Five (Respond) Teacher: That is correct. (Evaluate)

There are myriad problems with this type of questioning. In this case, the question is merely a verbal test with one possible answer. It does not promote discussion, or allow students to demonstrate their higher order skills. The teacher does not know if the student is parroting something they have heard before, or if they truly understand the knowledge and can apply it in different contexts.



Six tips for effective questioning 48

1. Anticipate student thinking

2. Link to learning goals

3. Pose open questions as much as possible

4. Use Bloom’s taxonomy to enable questioning to lead to deeper understanding

5. Build in wait time

6. Demonstrate high expectations

7. Involve everyone

1. Anticipate student thinking

An important part of planning a lesson is engaging the lesson problem in a variety of ways. Expert teachers script their questions in advance and replay them in their heads before the lesson. This enables teachers to anticipate and plan the possible questions that they may ask to stimulate thinking and to deepen students understanding.

2. Link to learning goals

Learning goals stem from curriculum and assessment expectations and inform teachers about the questions to ask and the problems to pose. By asking questions that connect back to the fertile question and to the curriculum, the teacher helps students to centre on these key principles.

Linking to learning goals

Big idea: Can the same object be described using different measurements?

Learning Objective: To make a connections between length, width, area and multiplication.

Problem: A rectangle has an area of 36cm2. Draw the possible rectangles.

Possible questions linked to learning goals:

1) For your rectangles what are the connections of the length of the sides to the total area?

2) If you know the shape is a rectangle, you know the total area and you know the length of one side, what ways can you think of to calculate the length of the other three sides?

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3. Pose open questions as much as possible

An open question is one that encourages a variety of approaches and responses. Open questions help to build student self- confidence as they allow them to answer at their own stage of development, intrinsically allowing for differentiation.

Closed Questions Closed Questions

How much money did the father make a month?Were the bubbles fast or slow?What happens at the end of the chapter?

How did the Great Depression affect the family?What changes did you notice in the water over the course of the experiment?If the protagonist had not overheard the conversation, how might this have affected the events which followed?

4. Use Bloom’s taxonomy to enable questioning to lead to deeper understanding.

Bloom’s is not an aggregate progression model and so moving through Bloom’s Taxonomy from ‘Knowledge’ recall to ‘Evaluation’ is not the correct way to use it. Teachers should use the taxonomy as a framework to enable them to target different types of question to different students.



Teacher: Last lesson we were exploring the character of Juliet. Laura, who first tells Juliet that Paris is to be her suitor? (Knowledge)

Laura: Lady Capulet

Teacher: ‘That is correct. Now Alinoor, you will know this I am sure- How does Juliet first respond when she is told she will marry Paris? (Comprehension)

Alinoor: She is willing to make an effort, and to meet him and see if she likes him.

Teacher: Well done, Alinoor. Julie, I am going to ask you about Juliet’s relationship with her mother. How does it compare to her relationship with her nurse? (Analysis)

Julie: She has a good relationship with her because she does what her mother asks her to do. She also has a good relationship with her nurse because she confides in her and trusts her.

Teacher: Maria, do you agree or disagree? (The start of evaluation)

Maria: I don’t completely agree with Julie’s opinion on Juliet and her mother.

Teacher: Why? (Further evaluation)

I do not think Juliet’s relationship with her mother is very strong because she does not confide in her.

Teacher: Yes, she does not always tell her mother her true feelings or ask for guidance.

Teacher: (Returning to Laura to push her to comprehension) Can you explain why you think that is Laura?

Laura: The nurse has been the person who has brought Juliet up. Juliet trusts her and does not fear her.

Teacher: OK. Calum, what might have happened if Juliet had confided to her mother instead of her Nurse about Romeo when she met him? (Synthesis)

Calum: I think her mother would have found every way of banning Juliet from seeing Romeo again, which would have meant that they would never have married and ultimately never have died

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Two more planning grids to help map Bloom’s onto classroom questioning…

Knowledge:• Tell • Recite • List • Memorise • Remember • Find• Summerise in your own words

Type of question:• Can you tell me the names of...? • Can you recite...? • Make a facts chart

Comprehension:• Restate • Explain • Give examples of • Summarise • Translate • Edit • Draw

Type of question:• Can you draw a picture of... • Explain in your own words why... • Translate this into... • Edit this down to 100 words.

Application• Demonstrate • Model • Make

Type of question:• Make up a set of instructions. • Construct a word search about... • Change from a written diagram form.

Analysis:• Investigate • Classify • Categorise • Compare and Contrast• Facts and Opinions

Type of question:• Can you compare the two • List the advantages/disadvantages of... • Why do think it happened? • Which statements are true?

Synthesis:• Create • Compose • Invent • Construct• Predict • Argue the case for • Forecast

Type of question:• Can you compose a new...? • What would happen if...? • Imagine if you were...?

Evaluation:• Prioritise • Rank order • Justify • Recommend • Judge

Type of question:• List and put in rank order... justify. • What would have happened if...? • Evaluate the strengths of...



Knowledgethe recall of specific information

Who was Goldilocks?Where did she live? With whom?What did her mother tell her not to do?Whose porridge was too sweet?

Comprehensionan understanding of what was read

This story was about _______. (Topic)The story tells us _______. (Main idea)Why didn’t her mother want her to go to the forest?What did Goldilocks look like?What kind of girl was she?Why did Goldilocks like little Bear’s bed best?

Applicationthe converting of abstract content to concrete situations

How were the bears like real people?Why did Goldilocks go into the little house?Write a sign that should be placed near the edge of the forest.Draw a picture of what the bear’s house looked like.Draw a map showing Goldilock’s house, the path in the forest, the bear’s house, etc. Show through action how Goldilocks sat in the chairs, ate the porridge, etc.What would have happened if Goldilocks had come to your house?

Analysisthe comparison and contrast of the content to personal experiences

How did each bear react to what Goldilocks did?How would you react?Compare Goldilocks to any friend.Do you know any animals (pets) that act human?When did Goldilocks leave her real world for fantasy? How do you know?Which parts could not be true?

Synthesisthe organization of thoughts, ideas, and information from the content

Point out the importance of time sequence words by asking: What happened after Goldilocks ate the Baby Bear’s porridge? What happened before Goldilocks went into the forest? What is the first thing she did when she went into the house? Draw a cartoon or stories about bears. Do they all act like humans?Do you know any stories about little girls or boys who escaped from danger?Make a puppet out of one of the characters. Using the puppet, act out his/her part in the story.Make a diorama of the bear’s house and the forest.Can you think of a different ending?

Evaluationthe judgement and evaluation of characters, actions, outcome, etc., for personal reflection and understanding

What do you think she learned by going into that house?Do you think she will listen to her mothers’ warnings in the future?Why? Do parents have more experience and background than their children?Would you have gone in the bear’s house? Why or why not?What do you think of the story? Was Goldilocks good or bad Why?

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5. Build in wait time

When teachers allow for a wait time of three seconds or more after a question, there is general a greater quantity and quality of student responses. Strategies like turn and talk, think-pair-share and pose-pause-pounce-bounce help to vary the ways you provide students with thinking time to clarify and articulate their thinking.

6. Demonstrate high expectations

High expectations are one of the most reliable drivers of high student achievement. As Doug Lemov states in ‘Teach Like A Champion’

‘One consistency among champion teachers is their vigilance in maintaining the expectation that it’s not okay not to try. Everybody learns

in a high-performing classroom, and expectations are high even for students who don’t yet have high expectations for themselves’

Lemov provides five concrete, actionable questioning techniques to ensure that teachers demonstrate high expectations. Three of these are exemplified below.

A: ‘No Opt Out’

‘A sequence that begins with a student unable to answer a question should end with the student answering that question as often as possible’

This technique involves going back to a student who was at first unwilling or unable to provide a right answer to a question and asking him to repeat the correct answer after another student in the class has provided it.

Teacher: Laurie: Can you name two ways of the ways that height is shown on a map?

Laurie: I don’t remember

Teacher: Well have some time to think and listen and I will come back to you. Millie, can you name two ways that height is shown on a map?

Millie: Contour lines and layer colouring?

Teacher: That is two of the three ways- well done. Laurie- can you now name two ways that height is shown on a map?

Laurie: Layer colouring…and…contour lines

Teacher: That is correct. Better. I will check that you can identify these later in the lesson and if you can do this again next lesson.



B: ‘Stretch It’

‘The sequence of learning does not end with a right answer; reward right answers with follow-up questions that extend knowledge and test for reliability. This technique is especially important for differentiating instruction.’

When students finally give a fully accurate answer, there’s often a temptation, often fully justified, to respond by saying ‘good or ‘yes’ or by repeating the right answer and that’s that. Just as often though the learning can and should continue after a correct answer has been given. The technique of rewarding right answers with more questions is called Stretch It.

Stretch It allows the teacher to check that mastery has been achieved and also to give students who have mastered parts of an idea to push ahead and apply their knowledge and demonstrate their deeper or conceptual understanding.

There are six specific types of Stretch It questions that are put forward by Lemov:

Stretch It (i) Ask how or why

The best test of whether students can get answers right consistently is whether they can explain how they got the answer.

Teacher: How would you describe this piece of writing in terms of objectivity?

Student: The writer seems biased.

Teacher: Why do you think that?

Student: He describes all of the terrible things that would have happened if the weapons had not been used to stop the attackers so that means he is biased.

Teacher: That’s a valid example. How does this mean that he is biased?

Student: He does not give the other side of the story…he only gives one side of the argument…he only paints the picture of what would have happened without the weapons and doesn’t talk about the negative effects the weapons had…he is only giving one side of the argument in a persuasive way…this makes me think he is biased..

Stretch It (ii) Ask for another way to answer

Often there are multiple ways to answer a question. When students solve it one way, it’s a great opportunity to make sure they can use all available methods.

Teacher: OK. I am going to ask a further question. We are going to have five seconds wait time, and then I am going to call on someone to answer. The question is: What are the interior angles of an equilateral triangle? (Waits for five seconds). Joni - what are the interior angles of an equilateral triangle?

Joni: The angles are all the same…

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Teacher: Keep going

Joni: The angles are all the same in an equilateral triangle, so they are all 60 degrees.

Teacher: How do you know that?

Joni: Because I divided 180 by 3.

Teacher: That is the correct answer- but is there another way you could have worked that out?

Joni: Exterior angles are 120 degrees… so I could do subtract 120 from 180 for each angle?

Teacher: That works – and it shows that you really understand what we have been learning! I am impressed.

Stretch It (iii) Ask for a better word (Model the use of academic language in every interaction)

Students often begin framing concepts in the simplest possible language. Offering them new opportunities to use more specific words, as well as new words with which they are gaining familiarity, reinforces the crucial literary goal of developing vocabulary. (See the language section for further examples on how to scaffold academic language).

Teacher: Time for a Think-Pair-Share question. What qualities are we aiming for when we complete our jumps?

(Gives think time, gives pair time)

Teacher: Samina - what did you and Ben think? Give me the answer you think is the most important.

Samina: The jump needs to look good.

Teacher: OK- Can you answer using a better word than good?

Samina: The jump needs to look….

Teacher: Think about our key words up here on the board. (Points to board)

Samina: Oh the aesthetics!

Teacher: In a full sentence? We need to be aware of…

Samina: We need to be aware of the aesthetics of the jump.

Teacher: Now you sound like an expert! Who can tell me what this actually means in practice?

As explored in the language section, the mode continuum illustrates the relationship between spoken and written language - students need lots of opportunities to practice using academic language in different contexts if they are to operate as ‘experts’. As teachers, we must be ‘language aware’ in all of our interactions with students, taking every opportunity to build bridges between their everyday talk and the more expert language of a subject.



Fig. 1 presents an example of a typical teacher-student question/answer interaction that occurs in many a classroom:

TeacherRupert, What is the circumference?Right- remember, it is the perimeter of the circle

StudentAll the way round

FIG 1

Here the teacher misses the opportunity to build the student’s use of academic language, and accepts the novice, every-day definition of circumference. The student will end up simply ‘parroting’ the words without understanding, which will ultimately hinder their progress.

TeacherOK class –eyes on the board. Big question now. What is the circumference? (wait) Rupert?All the way around what? Good – what’s a different (better) way of saying ‘all the way around the circle’ ? Think what we learnt yesterday.Lovely – now the whole thing in a sentence please. Like a mathematician! The circumference is…..

Vikaas– listening please. Define circumference.

Excellent Vikaas.

Student

All the way roundThe circle

The perimeter

The circumference is the perimeter of the circle.

The circumference is the perimeter of the circle.

FIG 2

Stretch It (iv) Ask for evidence

As students mature, they are increasingly asked to build and defend their conclusions and support opinions from multiple possible answers. By asking students to describe evidence that supports their conclusion, you stress the process of building and supporting arguments in the larger world where right answers are not so clear.

Stretch It (v) Ask students to integrate a related skill

Teacher: OK using your mini whiteboards, I want you to write a sentence that describes the image on the board (Gives students time to write their sentences while monitoring their responses to help with student selection). Jessica – please read your sentence aloud.

Jessica: The man looks unhappy.

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Teacher: OK - Can you think of a better word for unhappy? Use the vocabulary list you made yesterday.

Jessica: The man looks anguished and troubled.

Teacher: Two – great! He does indeed- his wide eyes are staring off in to space. Now can you change the structure of that sentence to include a relative pronoun?

Jessica: The man, who has wide staring eyes, looks anguished and troubled.

Stretch It (vi) Ask students to apply the same skill in a different context

Once students have mastered a skill, consider asking them to apply it in a new or more challenging setting:

Teacher: How could we ensure that that type of product would be safe for children? Someone from table one?

Table 1: We would need to follow safety regulations for textiles and children’s toys

Teacher: We certainly would. What product on the list would be subject to a different set of regulations? Someone from table 2?

Table 2: The product with the plug?

Teacher: Yes – what regulations would we have to follow then?

Table 2: Electrical safety regulations?

Teacher: Well done- we haven’t covered those yet but we will.

Stretch It (vii) Format Matters

In the school the medium is the message; to succeed, students must take their knowledge and express it in a variety of clear and effective formats to fit the demands of the situation and society. It’s not just what students say, it is how they communicate it. The complete sentence is the battering ram that knocks down the door to university. (See language section for further examples of scaffolding language).

Magnets experiment: Students work in pairs to experiment by putting a sheet of aluminium foil between a magnet and a nail (note: the magnet attracts the nail the foil).



STUDENTS TEACHER

What were your results, Charbel?

When we put it on one pole…um, faces the other one it doesn’t stick, but when we turned the other one around, it sticks together.

Like that [demonstrating]. They attracted to each other, they stuck to each other. Is that right?

[Nods.] Okay, can you then tell me what you had to do next?

When we had, um, the things, the first one, like if you put it up in the air like that, the magnets, you can feel… feel the, um…that they’re not pushing?

When you turn the magnet around? You felt that…

Pushing and if we use the other side we can’t feel pushing.

Okay, so when they were facing one way, you felt the magnets attract and stick together. When you turned one of the magnets around you felt it repelling, or pushing away. Thank you, Charbel.

FIG 3

Everyday and Informal Subject Specific

“Like this”(demonstrating with magnets)

“Stick to, push away”(everyday language)

“Attract, repel”(subject-specific language)

In figures 2 and 3, the teacher does build a bridge between the student’s everyday talk and the more explicit talk associated with academic literacy. They use question prompts and sentence stems to support and scaffold the student’s thinking, ‘meshing’ the everyday and more subject specific ways of thinking. This helps students to make their own connections and understand the meanings of the new words on their own terms (with support).

Stretch It (viii) Without Apology

Great teachers find a way to make the material students need to know and understand meaningful and engaging. They keep it rigorous by disciplining themselves to avoid labelling what students need to study as “boring,” out of their control, or too remote or hard for their students. They are careful to avoid such “apologies” – that is, excuses for watering down the content and rigor of what they teach.

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Teachers sometimes “apologise” – at times unconsciously - by

• Telling students that something will be boring

• Blaming some outside entity for the fact that they are teaching certain material

• Diluting material under the rationale of making it “accessible” to minds they’ve already assumed will be unreceptive

• Classifying students as unable to learn challenging material

We are all at risk of these apologies. In fact, let’s assume that we’ve all allowed them to change our teaching at least once. But becoming aware of these risks enables you to stay vigilant and find alternatives, such as a dynamic Hook or allowing a bit more time to read a challenging text deeply.

Stretch It Summarised

Stretch it isn’t just about asking lots of questions, or even lots of difficult questions- it is about expecting students to explain their thinking or apply their understanding in new ways.

Lemov uses the following example:

In a classroom, a teacher asks: Who can use the word ‘passion’ in a sentence?

A student replies: ‘I have a passion for basketball’

The teacher then asks ‘Who else can use the word ‘passion’ in a sentence?

Another student puts up their hand: ‘I have a passion for football’. Four or five methodically used the same sentence structure but the object noun with another - ‘I have a passion for dancing’ and so on- making it a banal copying of a basal concept, and ultimately, low expectations.

There are many ways the teacher could have used Stretch It with her students, at an equal or lesser cost of time than the activity she chose:

1. ‘Can you rewrite your sentence to have the same meaning, but start with the word ‘cooking’?

2. What’s the adjective form of ‘passion’? Can you rewrite your sentence using passion in its adjective form?

3. If Bilal had a passion for cooking, what sorts of things would you expect to find in his house?

4. What would be the difference between saying, ‘I was passionate about cooking’ and saying ‘I was fanatical about cooking?

5. What’s the opposite of having a passion for something?



C) Cold Calling

We’ve all been there. We ask a question, and before us in the classroom, a sea of hands (sometimes accompanied with shouts or frantic waves) shoot up into the air. We call on one of these students to answer the question, while the others go unnoticed, their understanding unchecked. Multiply this ‘hands up’ scenario across all of the questions in a lesson, then all of the lessons in a week, and we realise that there is likely to be a significant number of students in the class who remain invisible. And what about those times when you ask a question and no hands go up? The momentum of your lesson is instantly lost as the silence drags out, and students become less and less inclined to participate, often out of sheer embarrassment.

To put it simply, hands up is a questioning technique that is too random to be an effective way of engaging students and checking their understanding. This is where ‘Cold Call,’ comes in - the pedagogical technique that Lemov cites as the strongest in ‘Teach Like a Champion’.

‘In order to make engaged participation the expectation call on students regardless of whether they have raised their hands.’

The basic premise is simple: you ask a question, then call on student to answer it - easy! But the goal for us here as teachers is to normalise it – not all students will be used to this technique. That is why at KAA, hands up is the exception – not the norm. We can do this by ensuring that at some point in every lesson, every child has the opportunity to answer a question.

There are many reasons why Cold Call is a useful technique:

1. It allows you to check understandingly effectively and systematically.

2. It increases speed in both the terms of your pacing (the illusion of speed) and the rate at which you cover material (real speed).

3. It allows you to distribute work more broadly around the room and signal to students that they are likely to be called on and that you value their opinion.

4. It helps you to establish that the room belongs to you- that you are in charge.

Not all Cold Call is equal…

It needs to be predictable and positive: It is an engagement strategy- not a discipline strategy. The purpose is to give students an opportunity to succeed – it is their ‘chance to shine’ and therefore should not be used to ‘catch’ students who are off task or seemingly not engaged.

It should be systematic: Cold Call is a reflection of a teacher’s expectations, not their thoughts about individual students, so we must take time to make it clear that our calls our universal and impersonal through our tone, manner and frequency

It must be planned as much as possible: The question needs to be clear and substantive, providing students with as much a chance at success as possible.

It needs to be scaffolded:

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We talk about the importance of scaffolding elsewhere in this handbook, and this technique is especially effective when we start with simple questions and progress to harder ones,, engaging students on terms that emphasise what they already know, and reinforcing basic knowledge before pushing for greater rigour and challenge.

Teacher: Read the next choice for me, please, Jennifer. (Low difficulty level)

Jennifer: (reading from the worksheet) ‘Have you seen the pumpkin seed?’

Teacher: Does that sentence have a subject, Michael? (A simple yes or no question designed for the student of whom it is asked to get it right)

Michael: Yes

Teacher: What is the subject, Michael? (This is harder for Michael, but comes on the back of the success of his last answer and after he has become engaged in thinking about the sentence structure)

Michael: You

Teacher: Well done. Now I am thinking about the predicate…Eric- do we have a predicate? (Continues with a similar sequence)

Eric: Yes

Teacher: What is the predicate?

Eric: Seen is the predicate

Teacher: ‘Seen’ is the predicate- great. Now, is the sentence a complete thought Sammy?

Sammy: Yes

Teacher: Is that a complete sentence? (This is the bigger question that some teachers may have chosen to ask outright to one student, missing the opportunity to scaffold or include others)

Sammy: Yes

Teacher: Ok, so what shall we do now, have we answered the question completely Ishmael?

Ishmael: I think we need to read the other examples to check – we don’t want to assume without checking.

By breaking the question ‘Is that a complete sentence?’ down into smaller parts and starting with simpler questions, the teacher successfully engages students and from the outset at a level they are likely to succeed.

It is not about asking easy questions!

Cold Call questions do not need to be simple- they should in fact, be rigorous and demanding. This is where your knowledge of your students comes in- you must plan and target your questions to students so that they both provide an opportunity for success, but also challenge them to make progress in their thinking and understanding.



7. Involve everyone

Extended periods of whole class questioning (where a teacher stands at the front selecting individual students to answer questions) tend to slow things down. Plus, if I’m not the student whose turn it is to answer, then I’m feeling pretty safe (at least until the next question). Cold calling / No hands / Lollipop sticks – all variants on the same theme – will help with this, but they are not the whole solution.

Subtle tweaks of the language make all the difference. Consider these two options:

i) – “Simeon, why is the opening sentence of this article so effective?”

ii) – “Everyone read the opening sentence of this article (wait). Why is that such an effective opening? (wait). Simeon, what do you think? (take response). Who else wants to say something about this? (take next response).

Use devices to ensure every child is engaged in answering the question – not just the one you’ve selected: “What is 25% of 80? Everyone write down the answer on your show me board” or “Mohamed thinks it’s 20 – put your hand up if you agree with Mohamed.”

And remember –students can ask questions and provide explanations too – not just the teacher.

173



You

are

only

as

good

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tions

you

ask

. – K

ey: *

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Alternative strategy Example

Invite pupils to elaborate ‘Would you say a little more about that.’‘I am not sure I’m certain I know what you mean by that.’

Speculate about the subject under discussion.

‘I wonder what might happen if ...’

Make a suggestion ‘You could try ...’’

Reflect on the topic ‘Perhaps we now have a way of tackling this next time you ...’‘Let’s bring this all together ...’

Offer extra information ‘It might be useful to know also that ...’‘I think that I have read that ...’

Reinforce useful suggestions

‘I especially liked ... because ...’

Clarify ideas ‘We can tell this is the case by ...’

Correct me if I’m wrong ‘But I thought we had agreed that ...’So now perhaps we all believe ...’

‘Echo comments/summarise

‘So, you think ...’‘Jane seems to be saying ...’

Non-verbal interventions Eye contact, a nod or raised eyebrows to encourage extended responses, to challenge or even to express surprise.

Questioning: A Summary

When planning for and executing questioning, we must remember that in the very best lessons learning is a two way process. Learners are actively involved at all stages; there are no sections where they switch off and become passive. We can achieve this only through skilful questioning, and teaching by asking, not by telling!

Finally, questioning is a skill that must be practiced and which takes time to develop, but the payoff will be significant in terms of progress and student’s conceptual understanding.

175



MODELLINGHow can we ensure that students know what success looks like? Modelling and demonstrating are important teacher strategies which scaffold or support students’ learning to take them from what they already know into successful new learning. Modelling provides students with descriptions, methods, techniques and images that they can return to, use and apply again.

Modelling can take the form of interactive whole-class teaching strategies, which involve the teacher in demonstrating or co-constructing, using resources and asking probing questions with students contributing, and trying things out. Doug Lemov in ‘Practice Perfect’ purports the importance of modelling for coaching teachers to improve their practice, but the definition below is apt for teacher-student modelling also:

‘A model articulates a goal, a performance, to emulate. Modelling a small, discrete skill can help make the expectation for action crystal clear. Modelling a complex skill, or modelling several techniques at once, can show how all the discrete pieces will eventually blend together into proficient performance.’ 49

Effective modelling or demonstration will:

• Clearly and precisely demonstrate the steps involved in promoting a technique or skill, and when solving a problem.

• Make the underlying structures and key elements of what is being taught- ‘the hidden curriculum’ – explicit.

• Involve students as much as possible through questioning and co-construction

• Elicit new learning.

• Provide a supporting structure, which can be extended and used to apply the knowledge, skills and the objective that has been taught to new situations and contexts.



Strategy steps for effective modelling or demonstration:

1. Ensure that your students have the prerequisite skills to perform the skill.

2. Break down the skill into logical and learnable parts (Ask yourself, “what do I do and what do I think as I perform the skill?”).

3. Provide a meaningful context for the skill (e.g. word or story problem suited to the age & interests of your students).

4. Provide visual, auditory, kinaesthetic, or tactile means for illustrating important aspects of the concept/skill (e.g. visually display word problem and equation, orally cue students by varying vocal intonations, point, circle, highlight computation signs or important information in problems).

5. “Think aloud” as you perform each step of the skill (i.e. say aloud what you are thinking as you problem-solve).

6. Link each step of the problem solving process (e.g. restate what you did in the previous step, what you are going to do in the next step, and why the next step is important to the previous step).

7. Periodically check student understanding with questions, remodelling steps when there is confusion.

8. Maintain a lively pace while being conscious of student information processing difficulties (e.g. need additional time to process questions).

Modelling can also take other forms- for example, asking students to work with an exemplar text which exemplifies the features of a text they will need to produce. As explored in this handbook’s language section, modelling and demonstrating are key strategies used when scaffolding language development to make sure that children understand both the process (e.g. writing a historical essay) and the subject matter (analysing the causes of World War 1).

177



ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We are indebted to many individuals, schools and institutions whose ideas we have borrowed and adapted from here. Without their support we would never have been able to produce this handbook. However we should say that all opinions contained here are our own, as are any errors.

A final point is that if we have tried to fully reference and acknowledge any research or literature that has helped us put our handbook together, but if at any point we have failed we apologise fully in advance, and will do our best to correct this as we update the policy year on year. We’d like to especially mention the schools and individuals below who have influenced our planning:

• Oliver Knight, Headteacher of Greenwich Free School and co-author of ‘Creating Outstanding Classrooms’ (Routledge – 2013), on which much of our handbook is based

• Delia Smith OBE and all the teachers at Ark Academy in Brent

• Cathy Wallace, John Clegg and Adam Lefstein at the Institute of Education

• Doug Lemov – in particular ‘Teach like a Champion’

• Geoff Barton, Headteacher King Edward VI

• Professor Guy Claxton

• David Didau

• Pauline Gibbons – in particular ‘Learning in the Challenge Zone’

• Daniel Willingham – in particular ‘Why don’t Students like School?’

• David Perkins – in particular ‘Making Learning Whole’

• St. Angela’s Ursuline school in Newham

• Our lead sponsor the Aldridge Foundation

• Our co-sponsor the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea



LIST OF FOOTNOTES1. Christine Counsell (2011): ‘Disciplinary knowledge for all, the secondary history curriculum and history

teachers’ achievement’, Curriculum Journal, 22:2, 201-2252. Gardner, H. ‘5 minds for the future.’ Harvard Business School. 2006.3. Isham, C. and Cordingley, P. ‘Opening Minds Action Research Teaching, Learning and Assessment on

competence based programmes’. 2012.4. Donovan, S et al, How students learn. National Research Council, 2005.5. Dody, J. ‘Building the knowledge economy.’ OECD Education Today. 02/01/13. For a deeper analysis of this

look at ‘Education at a Glance 2012: OECD Indicators.’ www.oecd.org/edu/eag2012.htm 6. Schleicher, A. http://www.theworkfoundation.com/blog/895/Investing-in-the-future 2012. 7. Stobie, T. ‘The Educational Challenge.’ CERPP 2012 Los Angeles.8. Hargreaves’ synthesis of 21st Century assumptions about education9. Adapted from ‘How Students Learn’, 200510. Oates, T. ‘Could do better’: Using international comparisons to refine the National Curriculum for

England. 201011. Creating Outstanding Classrooms (O.Knight & D.Benson)12. Taken from Willingham, Why students don’t like school13. Ideas adapted from Gardner, H. The Disciplined Mind. Penguin 200014. Bereiter and Scardamalia, quoted in Powerful Learning Environments: Unravelling Basic Components and

Dimensions. Pergamon; 1 edition ( 2003)15. Bruner, 1960, quoted in ‘How students learn’ 2005.16. Wiliam, D. and Leahy, S. (2008).17. Gardner. Op.,Cit.,18. Peter Lee. IOE 200219. Scardamalia, M. (2002). ‘Collective cognitive responsibility for the advancement of knowledge. ‘In B. Smith

(Eds.), Liberal education in a knowledge society.20. Adapted from Smith, M and Wilhelm, J. Going with the flow. Heinemann 2006.21. Lefstein, A. Design heuristics for a community of thinking. 2003.22. Lefstein, Ibid.,23. Image initially from http://www.elearningcouncil.com/content/overcoming-ebbinghaus-curve-how-soon-

we-forget24. Adapted from Wagner, T 2008 and Claxton and Lucas 2010.25. The 2 boxes are taken from Claxton, G. 2010 in presentation to group of teachers. 26. Perkins, D. Making Learning Whole. Jossey-Bass; 1 edition (September 28, 2010.27. Hattie, J. Visible Learning, Routledge 200828. These 3 ideas are taken from Dweck, C. 200629. This quote comes from an excellent research paper on pedagogy, Ways of Knowing: Writing with

Grammar in Mind, D Myhill, p 79, found at http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ847265.pdf accessed on 27/6/14. The concepts outlined in this paper underpin the approach to writing in this FQ and indeed, in English at KAA at large. Highly recommended reading.

30. Ibid, p88.31. Gibbons, P. Scaffolding language, scaffolding learning. Heinemann 200232. Alexander, R. Towards Dialogic Teaching, Cambridge. 200433. Gibbons, P. English Learners, Academic Literacy, and Thinking: Learning in the Challenge Zone. 2009. 34. The State of South Australia. Department of Education and Children’s Services. 200635. Polias, J. et al‘Teaching ESL in the mainstream’, NSW 2006.36. Clegg, J. 2004. ‘Tasks for language Support’. unpublished37. The State of South Australia. Department of Education and Children’s Services. 200638. The State of South Australia. Department of Education and Children’s Services. 200639. Ark Academy Literacy Policy40. Clegg, J. IOE 2010. 41. Williams, K. Essential writing skills 1. Developing writing. The Oxford Centre for Staff Development. 2003. 42. Adapted from Clegg, J. Op.,Cit.,2010. 43. Wallace et al, IOE 2010. 44. From New Coordinated Science: Biology. Oxford University Press, pages 204-545. Adapted from Alastair Smith, Accelerated Learning in the Classroom, 199646. Lemov, TlaC47. AL Learner’s Guide48. AL Learner’s Guide49. Doug Lemov, ‘Practice Perfect’

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