Stretching our brightest: from able to remarkable

Who or what am I?• I hook children in and don’t let them go• I encourage peer sharing and learning – it’s built in to me• I’m so absolutely, gut-wrenchingly compelling that

children rush to YouTube to share learning ideas about me with others.

• I break just about every rule about learning that you adults can think of

• I’m successful like JK Rowling is successfulWho or what am I?

Minecraft

https://minecraft.net/

What is it about this game which immerses children?‘no rules to follow’‘no one can tell you what you can or cannot do’

I’m not here…

• To tell you what to do

I am here…

• To share some ideas • 5 hit singles: Questioning • 5 album tracks: Feedback• 5 strategies to use outside our classrooms• 5 White albums: ideas I’ve

used

• Love Me Do

Shock Horror!

• There is no such thing as Gifted and Talented provision

• There is no discrete, bombproof set of activities or procedures which will ensure that your bright students are stretched and challenged to Ofsted or ISI criteria

• There is a great deal of commercial pressure to make you think otherwise…and feel guilty…and to keep you looking for that Ticket to Ride

If not G and T provision, then what?

• Approaches which enable all your students to Shout to the Top

• Excellent practice for your students in your school facing the pressures only you understand as the professional expert

• Pressures overcome by your energy, determination, professionalism and talent

Beatles Theme

From covers band to Tomorrow Never Knows in 33 months…which is as good an example of ‘gifted and talented’ as you’ll find.

Learn to the Top/Shout to the Top

If we get the basic philosophy or framework right, then it doesn’t matter which learning and teaching techniques or methods we use (we will know these better than anyone).

What ‘stretch and challenge’ activities work for your able students?

Learning Rollercoaster I

Learning Rollercoaster II

• WW1 motif• What did American

soldiers do in March 1918?

People in the past were not stupid…

Learning Rollercoaster III

• Perhaps we want to ‘put the band in suits’ too often • Children want to succeed and our G&T students do as well• Their performances will dip and peak, just as ours did/do

• After a period of climbing or working hard we tend to fall back – and maybe this is a beneficial cycle ie spacing out our learning, with frequent retesting on the climbs (a new skirmish or battle using slightly different methods…

How do we ‘learn to the top’?

• Slow down and teach more of less• Proper lesson time for DIRT (Dedicated

Improvement and Reflection Time)• Big, open Qs: How do we know this? Why?

Why is this significant? Why is this important? (not the same)

• Move on but then come back; a culture of revisiting

My lovely Year 9s

My lovely Yr 9s

• Co-Construction process: ‘You are professional lesson

observers’

• PGCE-style learning rollercoaster! Eventually: skills acquisition embedded into content eg railways/HS2/improved questioning

Learning Rollercoaster I

Scholars’ Programme

• c10% of a year group• Includes Sport, Creative Arts Scholars• Initially identified via entrance exam,

supplemented by additions from progress reports• OPEN: some leave, new ones join• 7-11 are all-rounders; Sixth Formers are Scholars in

one subject

Questions?

A Total Philosophy• See Tom Sherrington’s blog

and pink handout• http://headguruteacher.co

m/about/

• Ron Berger, An Ethic of Excellence

• Is this appropriate for your school?

5 hit singles

Questioning: at the heart of what we do.1. ABC Qs2. Hinge Qs3. Predictive bingo!4. Co-Construction. Are we brave enough?5. Teacher-led Big Qs: significance, importance How do we record this questioning?

1964 Civil Rights Act

‘I have a dream’

Images of Vietnam

War

Reference to LBJ

‘No man can given anyone his freedom’

Brown v Board of

Education

References to Europe

in civil rights

context

FREE SQUARE

CIVIL RIGHTS BINGO!

5 album tracks: Feedback: 1:10 ratio?

1. Feedback video diaries (Dale Banham)2. ‘Dot around’ = slow down and go back3. Recording oral feedback: stickers and stampers! In lesson time: essential!4. Skill sheets/mats in racks or to fit on desks5. Codes and feedback matsYour thoughts?

5 strategies to use outside the classroom

1. Marking is differentiation (David Didau)2. Communicating home: success in using skills?3. Exemplars in Dept time: do our meetings stretch and challenge us?!4. Revision T shirts: take school home with you5. Pupil voice with clout: HJS iTribe http://www.henleaze-jun.bristol.sch.uk/page?id=134

• Your thoughts?

Outside events: bolt-on G&T?

• Julie Arliss G&T events• AgustaWestland ‘Flight Day’• University lectures• Olympiads

• Not in themselves the answer, but can help; often memorable.

5 White Albums I’ve tried over the past year or two to help stretch and challenge

1. Model United Nations2. Cornell note-taking3. Ron Berger, An Ethic of Excellence: redraft! ‘3 trays’ approach. Rigour.4. Co-Construction5. Replace Lesson Objectives with Big Qs - and answer them

• Your thoughts?

5 staffroom comments

• ‘I know who our G and T children are, thanks’• ‘I think they can pretty much be left to get on

with it – they’re so nice and so well behaved’• ‘Some pupils are just smarter than others’• ‘It’s always the same boys who answer. They’ve

got a talent for making themselves heard’• ‘I spent ages marking that Yr 9 work and they

just glanced at the mark…grrr!’

Minecraft II

• Do we allow the sandbox, open-world philosophy to flourish or do we impose mini-versions of our worlds?

• Andrew Wiles and Fermat’s Last Theorem:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FnXgprKgSE

Extension: Comparison

In your groups, discuss reasonably quietly, the similarities and differences between the situation during the proposal of the Liverpool-Manchester railway link and the HS2 railway link today.

Use the fact sheets provided and your text book.

2 challenges for me

• To remember the teachers who inspired me• ‘Smart is not something you are. It’s

something you get.’

A ‘Double A side’ of recommended reading: I Martin Robinson, Trivium

p225: ‘we teach in order to let go’A C21st Trivium based on classical/medieval principles:• Grammar: building blocks of knowledge

and ideas• Logic: questioning, analysing, enquiring,

thinking• Rhetoric: performing, explaining, arguing

II Michael Marland, The Craft of the Classroom (1975!), p1

‘The more you look at schooling in practice, the more you study research and observation, and the more you consider the real problems of helping the young learn, the more you are forced to the simple conclusion that individual teachers are the most important factor. It is not the school organization, the syllabus, or the teaching method…’

Summary: The Fool on the Hill

My advice to myself:Less is more. Slow learning worksCo-Construction worksBig Qs workCare over feedback worksRelentlessly high expectations and Berger-

esque redrafting and critique worksLearning is a rollercoaster

From able to remarkable, Love Me Do to Day in the Life

I must give them the means: the sandbox (Minecraft), the swings, roundabouts and the rollercoaster

Some of this playing/learning will be uphill and tough. Good.

My knowledge of my students is key: local rec not Alton Towers

All my students have the potential to be G&T/Scholars, and remarkable but some activities/approaches allow this more than others

Pedagogy, ideas, practical tips, theory

Martin Robinson @SurrealAnarchy TriviumMichael Marland, The Craft of the Classroom – 1975, but still spot-on!Doug Lemov, Teach Like a ChampionRoss Morrison McGill @TeacherToolkitAlex Quigley: @HuntingEnglishTom Sherrington: @headguruteacherDavid Didau: @LearningSpy