Tuesday, 24th November

Today we have a special session with David Smith and Simon James. As we were in 9 different schools, now we have the opportunity to present our experience to the rest of the group.

North Mundham Primary school – Eva and Celia

In this school, teachers found that tables are arranged in a very interesting way. Behaviour management uses green and red cubes to reward or punish the students. If there is bad behaviour, the class loses part of their free time, represented by the green cubes. In Spain schools use textbooks, so there are some limitations and constraints to the implementation of these new teaching techniques. However, some of the writing activities that are done could be put into practice in Spain. They use a VCOP code (vocabulary, connectives, openers, punctuation). Every student knows their level and their goals, so they have a clear idea about what they have to do in order to reach their objectives. Students also assess their own progress following a key – this is the 'traffic lights' assessment. The school also has meetings with the parents, at least twice a year, to show them what children learnt.

Davison High School for Girls – Paco, Susana and Mercedes

Davison school is a Church of England school, with a clearly defined ethos based on learning, engagement, thinking and success (LETS). The Spanish teachers had the opportunity to observe some interesting examples of good practices in this school.

• Structure of the lesson – All sessions have the same structure, and teachers in the same department have a very consistent approach to teaching, giving their lessons in the same way. All sessions begin with a starter, and learning objectives and success criteria are written on the board every day. The lesson usually includes other activities, as well as a plenary at the end.
• Activities are generally dynamic and participative, including think-pair-share activities, rally-robin (giving all students in a group of 4 people the opportunity to contribute in the process) and learning by doing. Teachers don't lecture their students, but they try to make students create their own knowledge working individually, in pairs or in groups.
• Students are encouraged to reflect about their learning process, reflecting individually, in pairs or in groups. Debates and discussions are very frequent.
• Assessment is done asking the students to reflect about what went well and what could be done even better if… There is self-assessment, peer-assessment and feedback given by the teacher, emphasizing the effort and giving a lot of praise to the pupils.
• Teachers use a rubber stamp to mark the notebooks. They also use KPI (key performance indicators)
• Differentiation is done working in Kagan groups of four. Each member in the group is assigned a colour according to his/her skills. Teachers also produce various resources and materials, according to the different levels of the students. Students are encouraged to work on the problems and activities they feel confident enough to face. Low ability groups have a low ratio (about 15 students) And each SEN student is helped by an assistant.
• Literacy is enhanced using DEAR time (drop everything and read). Once per week students go to the library and they have time to read.
• Students also have a red book (which is different to the ordinary notebook), used to write down difficult key words.

David Smith explains that a very interesting experiment was done to check how Chinese teaching style (mostly based on lecturing students) would work in an English school. Details about this experience can be found in the following link

http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/33766156/what-it-was-like-being-taught-by-chinese-teachers-in-the-uk

St Mary's Primary School – Javi and LuisMi

There are a lot of Polish students in this school – 34% of the pupils don't have English as their mother tongue. They also have a lot of students in each class (up to 34), but there are also teaching assistants who work with them.

Classroom routines were very effective as they were very well structured. Every day there is an assembly at the beginning of the day, and then students have numeracy classes, a break, guide reading, literacy, lunch time, and more classes in the afternoon.

In every lesson there is some time for individual work, some time to work in pairs and some time for team work. They foster autonomous learning, which is great, but there are some students who lose their time and are not learning at all.

Students can collect house points if they work properly. These points are used to assess students' behaviour using a 'traffic light' system. There is also group assessment, self-assessment and individual assessment. Students show if they found the activity easy, difficult or impossible with emoji images.

It is curious that children don't like PE lessons. Apparently teachers are not very interested in this subject, and they don't spend too much time preparing PE sessions.

Depending on the students' attainment level, they are placed in groups that vary from one class to another. Behaviour is managed praising students and being positive rather than giving warnings or grounding students.

Advanced students who are fast learners can move on to take a challenging task, which is always ready for them if they want to do it.

As for the curriculum, in this school most of the time is devoted to Mathematics and English. Other subjects, such as Science, are not considered equally important, which is quite surprising.

Bishop Tuffnel school – Cristina and Ana

Students are intrinsically and extrinsically motivated in this Church of England School. They use the traffic light system, but there are few students who will admit that they are in the “red” area needing extra help from the teacher. Students place themselves in the colour they think that corresponds to them. There are several awards that are given to the “star of the week” or the “advanced reader”. They also use stickers, trophies…

The pupils are given targets at the beginning of the lesson, they follow the plan and review their progress, and at the end they reflect on what they learnt and how successful their plan was.

There is a code of symbols that everyone knows and which is used for assessment by all the teachers and pupils. For those students that are outstanding and did their work very well, the EBI section can include a new difficult challenge for them (next steps, the extra mile)

St Philip Howard catholic high school – Gerardo and Isabel

This is a faith school, so regular attendance to religious services is one of the important selection criteria for the students who subscribe it. Even though the buildings are very old, the school has invested in making everything visually attractive. The distribution of spaces encourages learning and makes students feel comfortable and engaged. There are bright decorations and displays everywhere, as the school hired someone who is especially devoted to do this task. All teachers share a common philosophy of education, so they have the same perspective and teaching styles are quite consistent.

Downview Primary School – Luis and Nina

This is an academy, an outstanding school according to the ofsted reports. Everybody shames the mission of the school, based on collaboration, communication, creativity, resilience and risk taking.

Teachers have one day off, which is used to plan their lessons. The whole school follows the same lesson model, so there is a strong consistency. Learning objectives are always shared with the students at the beginning of the class.

Class management involves many routines, which helps to create a good atmosphere. Consistency in the use of rewards and sanctions is also remarkable. The teacher is a conductor rather than an instructor. Instead of subject notebooks, students use 'learning journals', based on the idea that the learning process is a journey. The progress of students is assessed using evidence, such as pictures of their productions to compare their initial work with their final outcomes at the end of the school year. Differentiation is very important, and teacher focus their attention on slow learners and SEN students, as they want them to catch up with the rest of the class.

Bourne Community College – Olga, Paz and Aurora

This school is focussed on progress. The school set targets for every student, based on their key stage 2 tests. Teachers share their learning objectives with the students at the beginning of the lesson, and they use a starter activity in every session. Warm-up activities can include spectacular experiments, or mysterious questions which can be quite engaging. Teachers use different ways to give information. For example, the teacher can distribute different handouts with certain problems and solutions, so that students must try to match them. This is a great way to deal with information instead of using a boring and dull textbook. A practical approach to education can be found everywhere. Peer assessment and self-assessment is used to check the progress of the students. Critical thinking is also a strong point in this school.

Bersted Green Primary School – Teresa and Esther

This school has gone through a very difficult period, but now it has a new headteacher. At this school teachers use wonderful warm-up activities, such as “Do as I say, not as I do”, “Good morning children”. They are used to start the class every morning. Teachers use many different techniques and activities, which can be done individually, in pairs, in small groups or in plenary sessions. For example, a controversial topic can be proposed to the students to launch a debate, in which students are invited to choose and defend one side or the other. Creativity is fostered with activities such as writing poems. Silence techniques are regularly used by the teachers, including the use of a special word that children associate with silence, the clap and rhythm, the call and response or the use of significant gestures. Among the feedback techniques, both the traffic lights and the thumbometer are widely used. Rewards are given using techniques such as a Class Dojo, a Vip pass or house points.