Optimus Education: Outstanding Secondary Learning and Teaching One-Day National Conference 2012

Going out of school for CPD is always a mixed blessing; it’s nice to escape from the intense pressure that is school and, as much as I love my students, sometimes I need to be away from the white noise of teenagers’ learning and emotional needs; but for those of us so close to the capital, it’s also a day of busy public transport, an early rise and a late return. Still, I am lucky to be in a school that allows teachers to go out for training, and even luckier that I was trusted to go in the place of the member of senior leadership who was supposed to be going originally. Thus, on 14th October, I found myself stepping off the HS1 into London’s St Pancras station and heading to Brompton for the OptimusEd Outstanding T&L Conference 2012. Here’s a review of what I saw and heard:

Keynote 1 – Ofsted Update, Gill Jones HMI

Gill Jones’ Ofsted update was a little late for me, since Ofsted came and went last term (and told us we were Outstanding!). Nonetheless, her comments seemed to corroborate my experience of Ofsted and will be useful for anyone dreading their impending visit:

• The quality of teaching is the top factor relating to pupils’ success,
• Inspectors observe pupils’ learning, not teacher’s teaching,
• Teachers not expected to do everything required in one lesson,
• No one teaching methodology is preferred,
• SLT observations should record progress of particular students in groups,
• Literacy should ensure students use relevant subject-specific vocabulary,
• SMSC is observed in the corridors as well as in lessons.

Monsieur M’s suggestion for use in school:

• Modification of lesson observation forms to account for pupil progress,
• Literacy policy embedded in all lessons.

Keynote 2 – Embedding Outstanding Teaching & Learning, Claire Gadsby, T&L Consultant

Claire Gadsby’s talk was a mixture of useful suggestions and anecdotal evidence on strategies to encourage staff to work together to improve teaching and learning throughout the school:

• Outstanding practice should be modelled for busy teachers to enable them to see it working,
• Avoid ‘overload’ through ownership, by involving teachers in developing ideas for outstanding T&L,
• CPD should be as engaging as the lessons we try to plan for pupils,
• Feedback should be shared in a variety of ways:
  • Pecha Kucha,
  • Staff learning wall,
  • WAGOLL (what a good one looks like),
• CPD should include variety (eg: incidental CPD – placing random objects in the staff room),
• Coaches should co-plan and co-teach.

Monsieur M’s suggestion for use in school:

• Varied feedback models embedded in CPD sessions,
• Introduction of a staff learning wall,
• Use of videos of activities during CPD sessions.

Keynote 3 – Independent Learning, Will Ord, Director of Thinking Education

Will Ord’s Keynote on independent learning was as energetic and inspirational as his workshop on questioning:

• Encourage staff to teach a ‘Golden Lesson’ every week where they try out a new idea,
• Embed independent learning skills into lesson objectives (eg: to learn how to solve quadratic equations; to learnt to use questioning to improve our learning),
• Pupils time teachers to see how much of the lesson they spend speaking (sometimes up to 90%!),
• Use of Learning Warriors – weekly celebration of resilience in the classroom.

Monsieur M’s suggestion for use in school:

• Introduction of weekly departmental thinking skills objectives for each year group.

Session 1B – Questioning, Will Ord, Director of Thinking Education

Will Ord’s workshop focused on the use of questioning to encourage higher-order thinking, not only by teachers, but also by training and encouraging pupils to ask the right questions:

• Remember that different questions exercise different thinking skills,
• Use phrasing so that options aren’t limited (what might the answer be not what is the answer),
• Encourage students to use higher order questions in their discussions (a selection was given on the handout),
• Use stimulus-story-concepts-questions model to lead students to ask more searching questions,
• Use lego bricks to encourage students to build discussion based on what their friends have said.

Monsieur M’s suggestion for use in school:

• Introduction of higher order question posters in classrooms,
• Training on the use of stimuli in lessons,
• Investment in sets of lego bricks for departments.

Session 2C – Language for Learning, Sophie Holdforth, Hackney Learning Trust

Sophie Holdforth’s slightly quirky session was actually very inspiring and introduced me to some knew cooperative learning-style stragies that I hadn’t seen before. I really enjoyed this one, even if she did make me wear a (very!) smelly deerstalker hat:

• Writing has acquired a higher status than speaking but this can be just as helpful for learning,
• Ofsted are looking for oral literacy skills as well as reading & writing skills,
• Reciprocal teaching encourages students to discuss by assigning them roles:
  • Questioner (asks questions about the text),
  • Clarifier (looks up unclear vocabulary),
  • Predictor (predicts what may happen next),
  • Summariser (uses own words to sum up),
• Dialogic teaching uses prompts to scaffold dialogue,
• Speak-alouds allow teachers to model thought processes about the text whilst reading.

Dialogic teaching uses prompts to scaffold dialogue, like these ones which I used during an A2 French lesson encouraging students to discuss their ideas on Voltaire’s Candide.

Monsieur M’s suggestion for use in school:

• Introduction of think-alouds in reading groups,
• Use of bookmarks to remind students of RT roles,
• Posters of prompts for dialogic teaching in classrooms.

Session 3B – Differentiation, Paul Anstee, Author: The Differentiation Pocketbook

Differentiation is something I consider to be a personal weakness, so I was looking forward to getting some new, practical ideas to use in the classroom. Unfortunately, Paul Anstee’s workshop was neither engaging nor differentiated (despite him urging us to ensure that our in-school CPD was differentiated for teachers!). The hour-long session effectively defined what the different types of differentiation are and are not, and was a very disappointing end to an otherwise informative and thought-provoking conference.

If you’re interested to know more about any of the strategies mentioned above, feel free to comment or contact me either by email or on Twitter! I’ll be happy to share all of the resources I have!