Above their pay grade

‘Success is no accident. It is hard work, perseverance, learning and studying.’

- Pele

We have a tendency to make things too easy for too many of our pupils. Why is this? It is partly because we don’t want to overwhelm them, and we often think that we think they can’t cope. And yet pupils are saying that they relish the challenge of demanding work: work which makes them think and which means that they know more and can do more.

When a group of high prior attaining Yr 9 pupils who were generally underperforming, were asked whether there was a subject where they consistently did their best work, the response was geography. When questioned about the reasons for this, they replied that their teacher regularly gave them material to read from publications like the National Geographic. She told them that their homework was to read this material and also reassured them that it would not matter if they didn’t understand everything. This was because at the start of the next lesson the class would talk about what they did understand and what they didn’t. They relished the intellectual rigour and challenge of this demanding material.

Similarly, in a primary school when pupils were asked what they thought about ability tables in their classroom, their responses related to the level of challenging work they were given: the ‘more able’ enjoyed being the bright ones and having special challenges set by the teacher; the middle group were annoyed that they didn’t get the same work and challenges the top group had, but they had realised that there were only six seats on the top table. Meanwhile the bottom table were affected the most: they felt dumb, useless, they like the sound of some of the challenges the top group had, but they knew they would never get the chance[1]. What is happening here, is that interesting, demanding work is being rationed. These assumptions are based on flawed notions of what children are capable of.

In another example, in history, Richard Kennett, a senior leader in a school in Bristol, when teaching about the Norman Conquest provides pupils in Yr 7 with extracts from Marc Morris’ book. Their homework task is to read the extracts and answer the questions. However, they are not to worry if they can’t answer them all, because this is difficult work. What happens as a result of being given this demanding work? All the pupils, some with a reading age below ten, were able to access the work and offer answers. When asked why the class were being given demanding texts, Richard’s response was that in class they were reading and discussing extracts from Simon Schama’s account of the Norman Conquest. His intention was to show the class that while there might be historical events, historians disagree about the significance and impact of those events. What happened here, was that taking pupils into the disciplinary discourse normally reserved for A Level students it becomes apparent that they are able to access it.

Similarly, in primary, Ashley Booth, in reading Maya Angelou’s ‘The Caged Bird Sings’ a low prior attaining child is able to make sophisticated connections between the captive bird and conditions for some communities during the time of segregation in the United States.

What is sitting behind these examples is scaffolding and support. Not scaffolding by dumbing down through offering pupils easier work, but in providing them with the means to reach into the material. This scaffolding is done primarily through talk.

One of the barriers to offering pupils demanding texts is a concern that they are not able to decode the words, or that not all pupils are at the same level. This might be the case, but we need to separate phonics training from taxing, demanding material. Listening to and discussing substantial texts in the classroom means that all pupils have access to the more demanding material. We also know that comprehension involves making hypotheses about what words mean, and this applies to listening as much as to reading. ‘Listening ability is key to reading ability and does not have to be slowed down by decoding’.[2]To be clear, this is not to make the case that decoding is not important: it is in fact fundamental to reading. The case that is being made, is that pupils should have access to material which is higher than their decoding ability. This is because the learning of concepts and new words efficiently is best served by reading aloud to children together with classroom discussion.

‘Children are intensely interested in grown-up knowledge. They feel empowered. And they are.’[3]  who goes on to argue that children should hear and discuss highly interesting and demanding subject matters. They are eager to do so.  The most efficient and secure way to learn new words is incidental word learning via topic familiarity.

In ‘Respectable: Crossing the Class Divide,’[4] Lynsey Hanley describes her childhood growing up in Chelmsley Wood hear Birmingham. She attended school in the 1980’s and in the book she describes the impact of a teacher who taught her as a ten year old: ‘He took us seriously, not in the sense that he treated us like miniature adults, but that we had a right to be heard, as much as any adult or middle class child had a right to be heard. At the beginning of the year, he instituted two weekly institutions, the quiz and the debate…a chance to learn new things and to have our ideas contested. I never saw stronger evidence that you are made ignorant through what is withheld from you.’

What then, are the things that we are withholding from our pupils? How often do we say to ourselves that this is too hard? How high are we prepared to pitch our material? After all, many of them are saying that this is exactly what they are crying out for.

[1] Willingham, D (2010) Why Don't Students Like School? Jossey-Bass

[2] ibid

[3] Pinker, S (1995) The Language Instinct How the Mind Creates Language: The New Science of Language and Mind Penguin

[4] AL-Kalby, M (2013) The Apple Tree: The Prophet Says Series Prolance

Death by differentiation

‘Differentiation is one of the darkest arts in teaching’

- David Didau

There’s been a ton of time wasted on differentiation. We need to keep under constant review the impact of the things we do. And the impact of differentiation is limited and often detrimental to learning. These are the reasons why differentiation doesn't usually work:

First, differentiation anticipates in advance what children are capable of - by giving them prepared worksheets according to their ability we are limiting what they might be capable of because the work usually puts a cap on what they can do.

Second, the materials prepared for differentiation are usually closed exercises. So, all that children have to do is complete these. Completion of a prepared materials does not allow them to interrogate the material, struggle with it and make sense of it on their own terms. This applies to all those with materials differentiated in advance.

Third, it cuts down on the possibility of addressing misconceptions. Because the materials have been prepared in advance so that the children can complete them, they usually have less cognitive challenge in them. Cognitive challenge is at the heart of learning - if a child does not have the chance to struggle with demanding material, they are not really gaining new knowledge and developing skills.

Fourth, the completion of the worksheet is often regarded as the work. Children finish something and are praised for it, without checking for sure that they have properly understood something. It is too easy to complete work which has been prepared in advance by guessing, prompting or copying from someone else. This places very little demand on them but has the superficial attraction of making them appear busy. Busy is not the point, learning is.

Finally, they create a lot of extra work for teachers. Extra work is fine if it results in better outcomes, but is a waste of time when it doesn’t.

Above all, differentiation goes against the heart of the principles of the  curriculum which is that all children should be following the same course of work, are entitled to do difficult things and are supported on the way. What then, is the difference between support and differentiation? Well, support consists of the live conversations and additional unpacking of the material during the lesson. Differentiating materials in advance predetermines what children are able to do.

This places different demands on the teacher. Instead of staying up half the night to prepare different coloured resources for the different groups of children, they get a decent night’s sleep. They have time for family and friends rather than slaving over resources. Instead, they use the text or the problem or the big idea and use that as their starting point for the lesson. All children are entitled to the richness and difficulty of authentic material. They talk about it and then ask children to engage with the material, whether it is inferring some important aspects which might not be immediately apparent, and ask them to show what they know and can do with the material. The expectation is that all children will work on this. And the support comes through live conversations with those who haven't grasped it or who are struggling. It expects children to do more with less. And it expects children to think and to do something with it on their own terms. This is light years away from completing a prepared sheet.

A very good example of this was in a maths lesson. What was interesting about this was that the pupils were told ‘This is a beautiful problem’ - note the way that the teacher describes their work as beautiful. He is signposting that this is intriguing, elegant and worthwhile. In talking through with the pupils how to work out a complicated angle between two polygons, he carefully goes through with them how to work out the angles, pausing to take the answers from them. All are listening, concentrating and contributing. It becomes clear that one pupil is not clear how to combine two angles to arrive at the answer. He quickly opens another page on the board and goes through a simpler example, asking her to tell him what the steps are. Then he returns to the main problem and she is able to see what to do. Now what was interesting about this is that the whole group benefited from this additional exercise in working out the angles. It was an efficient way both of addressing one pupil’s misconception and reinforcing at the same time the procedure for the rest of the group. What was interesting that there was a sigh of pleasure from the class when the pupil realised what to do. There is no way that this could have been achieved through a pre-prepared worksheet. Her misconception would have gone unnoticed until the work was taken in. What was happening here was that the feedback was live, the individual and the group benefited.

There are similar examples where the teacher has realised that pupils did not understand the meaning of ‘infer’. Although this had been discussed and checked, it was apparent as she went around the class as they were inferring what the writer intended that they were not going deep enough but only gathering surface information. Again, the class was stopped so that they could go through the difference between surface information which is important but which only takes us so far, and the deeper meaning implied by the writer. This gave a chance for contributions from those who were more secure in this, providing an opportunity for them to consolidate their work on inference and also supported those who were not clear about how to read a text more deeply. Again, there was no way that this could have been anticipated in advance and any pre-prepared worksheets would have masked the fact that some pupils would struggle with this.

True differentiation is a paradox. It is about having incredibly high expectations for every child. It’s about regarding these as an entitlement. It is about offering demanding, concept rich, complex work. And the differentiation bit comes in through ‘unpacking’. This means through high quality talk, questioning, checking for understanding, modelling, explaining. The most effective form of differentiation is through Dylan Wiliam’s responsive teaching – preparing for the top and supporting pupils to get there, rather than deciding in advance which pupils will perform which tasks.

We must resist the temptation to dumb down.

Help to close the Word Gap

New research from Oxford University Press and The Centre for Education and Youth examines vocabulary at the time of transition and provides recommendations and advice to help close the word gap.

The findings from Bridging the word gap at transition: The Oxford Language Report 2020 do not make for comfortable reading:   

• Nine out of ten teachers think transition between primary and secondary school highlights vocabulary deficiencies.

• Secondary school teachers are twice as likely as primary school teachers to say that pupils are not confident in using general academic vocabulary, including words such as ‘summarise’, ‘compare’ and ‘analyse’.

• Four out of five teachers believe that difficulties with vocabulary leads to a lowering of pupils’ self-esteem, and an increased risk of poor behaviour and dropping out of education.

• The purpose and value attributed to language changes. At primary level, vocabulary is perceived by teachers as being most important for social communication and emotional expression/wellbeing. As pupils move into secondary school, teachers increasingly link the importance of good vocabulary to academic achievement and preparing for the world of work.

• Eight out of ten primary school teachers describe vocabulary as a high, strategic priority in their school; this drops to five out of ten teachers at secondary level.

• Two thirds of teachers say that a lack of time hampers efforts to improve pupils’ vocabulary. More than half of teachers also flagged a lack of additional staff support, such as teaching assistants (TAs).

• Secondary schools are more likely than primary schools to have defined whole school vocabulary programmes, but only one in 20 secondary schools said their programme was ‘very effective’.

• Only one in four teachers has access to training or continual professional development (CPD) from external experts and language specialists. This is despite more than half of those teachers who did have access to external CPD rating this as ‘very helpful’ for supporting their pupils’ vocabulary development.

The solutions are not packaged in a silver bullet: they involve work at many levels.

Oxford University Press has resources and strategies to help address some of the issues identified in the report. These include links to ‘Closing the Vocabulary Gap’, ‘Bringing Words to Life’, Reading and Oral Vocabulary Development in Early Adolescence. I suggest two further links: Transition: Fostering better collaboration between primary and secondary schools and Clare Sealy’s film about promoting reading across the secondary curriculum.

There is more on the ‘Bridging the Word Gap at Transition’ from Loic Menzies Chief Executive of CFEY and Jane Harley Policy and Partnership Director, Oxford University Press.

Workload: the big picture

Nobody has deliberately set out to increase workload. But increased it has. So what can senior leaders do to address the drivers for this and how can they find ways of cutting through anything which is not absolutely necessary? This chapter explores further the three main strands identified in the Government’s Workload Challenge, set out in the previous chapter: planning and resources, data management and marking.

Planning

First, to planning. It is essential for leaders to have conversations with colleagues about the difference between ‘lesson planning’ and ‘lesson plans’. Planning is critical and is fundamental in providing the structure and architecture for pupils’ learning. Results are better when the following apply: teachers are given time to plan together on a scheme. These should identify the ‘what’ and the ‘why’ of the content to be taught. Best practice in planning starts with an overarching question; ideas for opening up the content and the things to be taught over the medium term. These constitute the big picture and framework for what is to be taught. They are the roadmap. This is a useful metaphor for thinking about the curriculum to be taught. A roadmap shows the destination, but provides a number of routes to get there. This allows for teachers’ autonomy in the delivery of the scheme as it unfolds, lesson by lesson. When good quality schemes of work are in place, they should reduce teacher workload.

The Department for Education’s workload review group on planning and resources identified planning a sequence of lessons as more important than writing individual lesson plans. So what leaders could do to support this aspect of the workload challenge is to stop asking for detailed daily lesson plans, if that is current practice. The only situation where daily lesson plans might be an expectation is when senior leaders are supporting a colleague via coaching. Here, precise planning might be needed to improve practice, in which case the plans should be prepared jointly with the senior leader as coach, as part of the larger scheme of work.

The most compelling reason for moving away from compulsory daily lesson plans are that not only are they not necessary, they can get in the way of the bigger ‘flow’ of the sequence of learning. As leaders, this might appear risky. So, let’s be clear about why it might not be risky to do away with daily lesson plans. First of all, what do lesson plans tell senior leaders that they don’t already know? If they have an overview and indeed have had some input into some of the longer-term plans, they do not need a detailed lesson plan to tell them this. If they are honest, how many leaders read the individual lesson plans from every teacher? In a school with 10 teachers and five lessons a day that would be about 250 plans to check; with 100 teachers, 2 500 to check. Each week. Are any senior leaders doing this, seriously? And if they are, wouldn’t the time be better spent going in to the actual lessons to see how things are going? Not as lesson observations, or learning walks, but simply by walking about. And offering support if needed and affirmation for work well done. How much more powerful than reading all those plans, which often bear little relation to what is happening in the classroom.

Second, senior leaders might deem it too risky to do away with lesson plans because they believe that they might be needed for an inspection. Ofsted has made it clear that they do not expect to see lesson plans, only evidence of planning. This has been made clear in its guidance document, Ofsted inspection: myths. Apart from anything else, time is so tight on an inspection that there wouldn’t be time to read files of lesson plans. The only thing which inspections comment on is impact – the impact of the delivery of curriculum plans on children’s learning. It would be technically possible to have perfect plans, which do not translate into meaningful practice for children in the classroom. And the danger of this is that it is possible to be seduced into thinking that the piece of paper is the work, when in fact it is the action in the classroom, which is the work.

Third, senior leaders might believe it is risky to stop insisting on lesson plans as they will have less control and view of quality assurance. But this is like a restaurant checking that all the orders have been placed so that dishes can be prepared. It suggests that the paperwork is more important than the meals that eventually end up in the restaurant. Any decent restaurant will check on the final product. And tweak it to make it better. Rather than thinking that the process stops at the ordering. So, for those leaders reluctant to let go of the safety net of lesson plans, they might want to trial it for half a term. Then check what difference it makes not having them. Those schools which have done this have found that the quality of teaching and learning in the classroom goes up, not down. It is a case of fewer things, done in greater depth.

Given the above, one of the recommendations in the ‘Report of the Independent Teacher Workload Review’ is that ‘senior leaders should consider the cost benefit of creating larger blocks of time for this practice to make the planning activity as productive as possible and reduce the amount of time spent by individual teachers on individual planning. One school which has moved to this model is the Durrington School, and deputy head Shaun Allison has written about how colleagues have subject planning and development sessions. As John Hattie says ‘planning can be done in many ways, but the most powerful is when teachers work together to develop plans, develop common understandings of what is worth teaching, collaborate on understanding their beliefs of challenge and progress, and work together to evaluate the impact of their planning on student outcome’.

Data management

Now, to the workload related to collecting data in schools. This is the advice from the Report of the Workload Review Group on data management: ‘leaders and teachers should challenge themselves on what data will be useful and for what purpose and then collect the minimum amount of data required to help them evaluate how they are doing.’ The move away from levels should help with this. The advice from the NAHT and the DfE’s Commission on Assessment Without Levels report is that key performance indicators are the most efficient way forward. In other words, schools should identify the key ideas and concepts which are taught, and whether pupils have understood and have grasped these. The vital word here is ‘key’: not every aspect of what is being taught, but the big concepts and ideas only. It is not possible to evidence everything, so schools should not be seduced into thinking that this is possible. The right sort of evidence tells a big story about what pupils are able to do. Emma Knights, in her chapter on governance, points out that these principles should also be welcomed and supported by governing boards.

Leaders should keep in mind that the most robust evidence of progress and attainment is what pupils produce and say about what they have learnt. This is why their work, including written work as well as how they articulate their learning, provide the best insights into how well they are doing. Some schools are using tools like SOLO taxonomy to capture whether children’s learning is surface, deep or conceptual. Leaders need to hold in the forefront of their thinking that the data or information is a symbol for what pupils know, understand and can do. Any data collection is meaningless if this relationship is not made, checked and moderated. For example, an inspection team will ask school leaders how well pupils currently in the school are achieving. They will look at any system which the school is using to capture this. Then they will ask to see children’s work and to talk to children about their learning, to gauge whether the information or data collected is in line with what the children are saying and producing. The key question is: is the work done by children broadly at age related expectations? And if it is not, how are leaders and teachers using this information to close the gaps in learning?

One of the problems sometimes seen in schools is that investments are made in commercial tracking systems, which are very similar to old levels. They create a false impression of what pupils can actually do and in some cases they drive how the curriculum is delivered. This is completely the wrong way round. School leaders and teachers need to agree what is to be taught and then work out the simplest way of capturing this. Otherwise, commercial packages drive the learning, rather than the other way round. Some schools, like the Wroxham School keep their tracking to the minimum. Instead, they have regular, high quality conversations with pupils and parents about what they are doing well and where they still need to develop. Pupils, in discussion with their teachers, identify key pieces of work which show what they are capable of. These are used to share with parents and anyone else who needs to know.

It helps everyone if there is a timetable for data or information collection, together with a rationale for its frequency. In this way, all those involved in its input and analysis are clear about what is expected of them and why.

Marking

And finally, to marking. The report of the workload review group on marking acknowledges that ‘marking is a vital element of teaching, but when it is ineffective it can be demoralising and a waste of time for teachers and pupils alike.’ So the critical thing for leaders is to make sure that it is effective. What are the key principles which senior leaders need to consider here? First, that quality always trumps quantity. There is no link between the quantity of marking and pupils’ progress. At its worst, teachers write extensive comments on children’s work and children do nothing with the feedback provided. This is a complete and utter waste of time. Wise leaders are describing how marking fits into the bigger agenda of feedback. Feedback is information and advice, whether verbal or written, which improves a child’s learning. Leaders discuss with colleagues the purpose of high quality verbal feedback. And together they explore how powerful this can be. Then, they agree what high quality, purposeful written feedback looks like. This is linked closely to curriculum planning. In depth feedback might only be needed at the end of a significant piece of work, because most of the feedback will have been verbal and given in a number of lessons, leading up to a final piece of work. And they talk through why anyone would feel the need to have a verbal feedback stamp. Why would anyone use these? A waste of time and ink. And above all, they consider the main audience for the feedback. It is for the child, not the adult.

As a result, there should be no more cries of ‘should I be marking every piece of work?’ Why on earth would you, when most of it is redundant. So leaders’ role in this is to have some big conversations around a few simple themes: What would happen if we didn’t mark at all? If we are going to mark, who is the main beneficiary? How much of this should be done during the lesson? What would it look like if we limited marking to just a few pieces of work?

Tom Sherrington has written a very careful analysis of what high quality marking and feedback looks like. The grid at the bottom of his blog post shows how teachers might do less, more effectively. While it is written with secondary colleagues in mind, it is a useful talking point for colleagues working in all phases. Joe Kirby has analysed marking which is maximum impact, minimum effort. As identified above, much of this takes place during the classroom, because that is where the learning takes place. Feedback should be as close as possible to the action. And Dylan William has thought and written more than anyone else on what meaningful, effective feedback looks like. Any of these would be very good starters for a discussion about marking less and doing it really, really well.

To summarise, in all these elements affecting the workload challenge, there is a simple line running through and it is this: fewer things, done in greater depth, produce better results. The job for senior leaders is to set aside the time, in professional development time and elsewhere, to begin the conversation.

Questions

Are there things that you do, or are required to do, (in marking, data management or lesson planning in particular) that seem pointless? Have you asked why they are done?

Can you point to a meaningful purpose, based on pupil learning, for the work that you do?

Takeaway

Emphasise quality, not quantity – in marking, planning and data management.