NPQLT FTF Event 2 - Leaders Case Study recording

Summary

In a discussion featuring Christine, Tessa, and Fleur, key aspects of effective teaching practices in their respective school contexts are explored. The conversation delves into the importance of adaptive teaching, high-quality classroom discussions, and feedback, emphasizing strategies for engaging students and fostering independent learning. They share methods for ensuring all pupils experience success, such as tailored lesson adaptations and real-time feedback. Additionally, the leaders discuss their approaches to implementing and sustaining educational improvements, reflecting on their leadership behaviors and ongoing development to enhance teaching quality and student outcomes.

Takeaways

• 👩‍🏫 The discussion highlights the importance of understanding that pupils learn at different rates and ensuring all pupils experience success.
• 📚 Adaptive teaching strategies and assessment are pivotal to good teaching practice, including stimulating pupil thinking, high-quality classroom discussions, and feedback.
• 🤔 Christine emphasizes the importance of challenging all pupils at the correct level and using metacognition strategies to foster independent learning and resilience.
• 🎓 Tessa focuses on accessibility to the curriculum, noting the importance of understanding that students progress in different ways and at different times to achieve their best.
• 🌍 Fleur aims to develop globally minded, articulate students who reflect on their own learning and stresses the need for high-quality teaching and feedback.
• 📖 Teachers use a variety of strategies to adapt lessons while maintaining high expectations, such as quick win activities, retrieval practices, and scaffolds to support student understanding.
• 💬 High-quality classroom discussions are facilitated through methods like cold calling, explicit vocabulary instruction, and encouraging rich, meaningful discussions.
• 🔍 Feedback is given through methods like live feedback, self-assessment tasks, and structured, scaffolded tasks to ensure students understand and can act on feedback.
• 🛠 Leaders emphasize the importance of implementation, monitoring, and sustaining new strategies, with a focus on teacher workload and effective use of time.
• 🧑‍🎓 Developing others and leading by example are key leadership behaviors, with a focus on setting high expectations, self-reflection, and honesty in feedback and evaluation.

Q & A

What are the main topics discussed in the video?

The main topics discussed include classroom practice, adaptive teaching, assessment, pupils learning at different rates, ensuring all pupils experience success, adapting lessons, stimulating pupil thinking, high-quality classroom discussions, and high-quality feedback.

Why are these topics important in the school context according to Christine?

Christine mentions that understanding how to challenge all pupils at the correct level and developing independent learners are pivotal to good teaching practice. They focus on metacognition strategies and live feedback to support pupil progress and resilience.

What is Tessa's approach to ensuring accessibility to the curriculum?

Tessa explains that their comprehensive secondary school has a massive range of abilities and specific needs among students. They focus on ensuring students make progress in different ways and at different times to help them achieve their best.

How does Fleur emphasize the development of globally minded and articulate students?

Fleur's aim is to teach students not only languages but also to become globally minded and reflective on their learning. They focus on high-quality teaching and feedback to support every student in the classroom.

How do Tessa and Fleur adapt lessons to ensure all pupils experience success?

Tessa uses strategies like 'register wars' and 'take it further tasks' to engage students and provide immediate positive impact. Fleur starts lessons with retrieval activities and provides scaffolds like key vocabulary for challenging tasks to support student learning.

What methods are used to stimulate pupil thinking and enhance classroom discussions according to Christine?

Christine mentions using 'walk through books' by Tom Sherrington and Oliver Caviglio Lee, cold calling, 'say it again better', and show me boards to enhance discussions. They also use explicit vocabulary teaching and U-cards for checking understanding.

What leadership behaviors does Christine focus on in her role?

Christine focuses on implementation, defining problems, creating action plans, and ensuring sustainability of new strategies. She emphasizes monitoring and bringing everyone on board with initiatives to maintain high standards.

What is Fleur's approach to balancing feedback and teacher workload?

Fleur uses focused assessed work on yellow paper for key tasks, allowing for quick feedback and self-assessment by students. They also use the AVOCADO acronym to give structured feedback and support student planning and evaluation.

How does Tessa utilize her role as a professional learning mentor?

Tessa emphasizes integrity by modeling desired strategies in her own classroom and encourages others to implement them. She supports strategic teaching and learning groups, promotes continuous improvement, and provides opportunities for others to develop leadership skills.

What are some specific strategies mentioned for providing high-quality feedback?

Strategies include live feedback, assessment sheets, U-cards, focused assessed work on specific tasks, and using structured tools like the AVOCADO acronym. These approaches aim to give timely, specific, and actionable feedback to students.

Outlines

00:00

📚 Discussion on Leadership in Teaching

Christine, Tessa, and Fleur discuss their roles in leading teaching within their contexts, focusing on classroom practice, adaptive teaching, and assessment. They emphasize the importance of addressing different learning rates, ensuring success for all pupils, and stimulating thinking through high-quality discussions and feedback. Each participant shares why these topics are vital in their school settings, beginning with Christine, followed by Tessa, and then Fleur.

05:00

🎓 Christine's Approach to Adaptive Teaching

Christine, a primary school leader, highlights the importance of challenging all pupils at the correct level to ensure good progress. She discusses the school's focus on metacognition strategies to foster independent and resilient learners. Christine also mentions the effectiveness of live feedback in moving children forward and the daily implementation of these practices in her school.

10:01

🏫 Tessa on Curriculum Accessibility

Tessa, from a comprehensive secondary school, stresses the importance of making the curriculum accessible to a wide range of abilities. She highlights the necessity of understanding students' specific needs and ensuring that all students make progress in different ways and times to achieve their best outcomes.

15:02

🌍 Fleur on Global Mindedness

Fleur, the Director of Learning for Languages in a comprehensive secondary school, focuses on teaching students to be globally minded and articulate. She emphasizes the need for high-quality teaching and feedback both in and out of the classroom to support every student and foster self-reflection on their learning.

20:02

🎯 Adapting Lessons for Success

Christine, Tessa, and Fleur discuss how their teaching teams adapt lessons while maintaining high expectations to ensure all pupils have the opportunity to experience success. Tessa shares strategies like 'quick win' activities at the lesson's start and 'register wars' for engagement, while Fleur talks about the importance of retrieval practice and scaffolding in language lessons to build on previous learning.

25:05

💬 Stimulating Classroom Discussions

Christine and Tessa share strategies for enhancing classroom discussions. Christine introduces 'walkthrough books' and 'you cards' for structured, quality discussions, while Tessa discusses the importance of making students understand how they learn and using flipped learning to shift from 'what' to 'why' questions during discussions.

30:07

🔍 Checking Understanding with You Cards

Christine explains the use of 'you cards' to check for understanding through short, focused activities and subsequent discussions. She also mentions explicit vocabulary teaching to address gaps from lockdowns and enhance students' vocabulary through rich texts.

📝 Feedback Policies and Practices

Christine and Fleur outline their approaches to providing high-quality feedback. Christine describes the transition from written marking to live feedback to address gaps in learning more effectively. Fleur highlights the use of focused assessed work on yellow paper and the 'AVOCADO' acronym to structure feedback in language learning.

🏆 Leadership Behaviors for Effective Teaching

Christine, Fleur, and Tessa discuss the leadership behaviors that support teaching in their schools. Christine emphasizes the importance of implementation and monitoring, Fleur focuses on setting clear expectations and developing others, and Tessa highlights integrity and the impact of modeling best practices. They also share personal reflections on areas they are currently working to improve in their leadership roles.

🔄 Continuous Improvement and Self-Evaluation

Christine, Fleur, and Tessa highlight the importance of continuous improvement and self-evaluation in their leadership practices. They stress the need for regular monitoring, honest feedback, and the development of leadership within their teams. Each leader shares strategies for maintaining high standards and supporting both staff and students in achieving their best.

Keywords

💡Adaptive Teaching

Adaptive teaching refers to modifying instructional methods to meet the diverse needs of students. It involves adjusting lessons to ensure that all students, regardless of their learning pace or style, can experience success. In the script, Christine emphasizes the importance of challenging all pupils at the correct level, which she refers to as 'desirable difficulty.'

💡High Quality Feedback

High quality feedback is feedback that is clear, specific, and timely, helping students understand their progress and how to improve. This concept is crucial for student development, as it encourages further effort and provides guidance. Fleur discusses using focused assessed work and 'react' feedback to help students improve their language skills.

💡Metacognition

Metacognition is the awareness and understanding of one's own thought processes. It involves self-regulation and reflection on learning. Christine mentions implementing metacognition strategies to help students become independent and resilient learners, reflecting on their strengths and weaknesses.

💡Classroom Discussion

Classroom discussion refers to structured conversations among students and teachers aimed at deepening understanding of a topic. It supports pupils in articulating key ideas and extending their vocabulary. Tessa and Fleur highlight the use of activities like 'register wars' and vocabulary retrieval to stimulate thinking and enhance discussions.

💡Assessment

Assessment is the process of evaluating students' learning through various methods. It can be formative, to guide ongoing learning, or summative, to evaluate overall achievement. Christine and Fleur talk about using 'yellow paper' tasks and assessment sheets to monitor progress and provide targeted feedback.

💡Implementation

Implementation in this context refers to the process of putting educational strategies into practice within the school setting. It involves planning, executing, and sustaining new initiatives. Christine emphasizes the importance of defining problems, creating action plans, and sustaining efforts for effective implementation.

💡Teacher Workload

Teacher workload encompasses the range of tasks and responsibilities that teachers manage, including lesson planning, teaching, and marking. Reducing excessive workload is crucial to maintain teacher well-being and effectiveness. Christine discusses shifting from extensive written marking to live feedback to better manage workload.

💡Professional Development

Professional development refers to activities and programs designed to enhance teachers' skills and knowledge. It is essential for improving teaching quality and student outcomes. Tessa describes running workshops and using teaching and learning communities (TLC) to support continuous professional growth.

💡Scaffolding

Scaffolding is an educational technique that involves providing temporary support to students to help them achieve a task. Once they gain independence, the support is gradually removed. Fleur discusses using scaffolding strategies such as providing key vocabulary and transcripts to support students in challenging tasks.

💡Student Engagement

Student engagement refers to the level of interest and participation students show in their learning. Engaged students are more likely to succeed academically. Tessa talks about strategies like 'quick wins' and 'register wars' to engage students from the start of lessons and maintain their interest throughout.

Highlights

Christine emphasizes the importance of understanding how to challenge all pupils at the correct level, which they call 'desirable difficulty,' to ensure good progress.

Christine's school has focused on metacognition strategies to help children become independent and resilient learners, especially after lockdowns.

Christine highlights the effectiveness of live feedback for moving children forward in their learning.

Tessa stresses the importance of accessibility to the curriculum for all students, considering their diverse abilities and specific needs.

Tessa's school uses 'register wars,' where students answer the register with a fact or detail related to recent lessons, promoting engagement and recall.

Fleur's language department emphasizes starting lessons with retrieval exercises to build on prior knowledge and ensure students' confidence.

Fleur discusses the use of scaffolds, such as key vocabulary and transcripts, to support students in challenging tasks.

High-quality classroom discussions are promoted through tools like 'walkthrough books' and explicit vocabulary teaching.

Christine's school uses 'U cards' for short, sharp activities to check students' understanding and enhance discussions.

Tessa focuses on developing effective learners through characteristics like flexibility, decision-making, and risk-taking.

Fleur mentions the use of 'focused assessed work on yellow paper' to prioritize key tasks and provide instant feedback.

Fleur's school uses the 'avocado' acronym to give structured feedback on language learning, helping students identify strengths and areas for improvement.

Christine highlights the importance of live feedback and reducing the time spent on written marking to enhance teaching efficiency.

All leaders emphasize the need for continuous improvement, regular monitoring, and integrity in implementing and sustaining educational strategies.

Tessa values showing practical examples of strategies in her classroom to maintain credibility and effectiveness in professional development.

Transcripts

hello and welcome to christine tessa and

fleur to discuss their leadership of

teaching in their contexts in relation

to aspects of classroom practice

adaptive teaching and assessment

the binding areas of practice being

discussed today are the fact that pupils

learn at different rates

all pupils should experience success

how to adapt lessons

uh stimulating people thinking

high quality classroom discussions and

high quality feedback and how all that

how all of those practices fit together

so the participants watching have access

to brief profiles about each of you to

give them some context but could you

each briefly now summarize why the

topics i've just mentioned

are important to each of you in your

school context please if we start with

christine and then we'll go to tessa and

finally fleur thank you

hi laura and so

i'm in a primary school and

we feel these are all big concepts and a

pivotal to good teaching practice within

our schools so an understanding of how

to challenge all pupils at the correct

level which we call undesirable

difficulty is an essential skill to

master so that all children are making

good progress and we've recently done a

lot of work on metacognition strategies

so that our children are becoming we're

really trying to get them to be

independent learners and and more

resilient

especially after all the lockdowns and

we want them to reflect on how they are

as learners um so our children becoming

kind of more aware of their strengths

and weaknesses and building up

strategies to use when confronted with a

task excuse me

um our staff have been trained in giving

live feedback to pupils as we've found

that is the most effective way of moving

um children forward so yeah all of these

all of these things that you've

mentioned and we're using day to day in

our schools

fantastic thank you over to you tessa

thank you um i'm in a comprehensive

secondary school in saint albans and um

we find that accessibility to the

curriculum is the most important element

for our students so we have a massive

range of ability within our

cohort and we also find that the

students perhaps have very specific

needs in specific areas

so we find all the elements of ensuring

that students make progress and that we

understand that they progress in

different ways and at different times

is important to help them achieve the

best they can

fantastic thank you and fleur finally

um i am also in a comprehensive

secondary school in santorbenz and i'm

the director of learning for languages

so we really as one of our aims is not

just teaching students about languages

the actual languages themselves but we

really want them to become kind of

globally minded articulate young people

who are able to kind of reflect on their

own learning and their own self and so

in order to do that and in order to

achieve those things we need to make

sure that we've got really high quality

teaching in the classrooms that supports

every single student in that room

because ultimately the students are at

the heart of everything we do and but we

also need to have that kind of high

quality feedback and that high quality

guidance from the teachers beyond the

classroom as well

fantastic thank you so much thank you to

all of you so to begin then

we know that pupils are likely to learn

at different rates

um and all require different levels and

types of support from teachers to

succeed

so how do your teaching team provide

examples of how to adapt lessons whilst

maintaining high expectations for all so

that all peoples have the opportunity to

experience success if we go first to

tessa and then to fleur please

thank you

um we have a series of ideas to support

the quick win at the start of the lesson

our vulnerable groups protocol

encourages

colleagues to help students achieve that

success in the first five minutes

giving them a positive start to the

lesson so that then that means that they

hopefully will engage with the whole

lesson having had that instant immediate

impact on them saying you know you've

succeeded and one of our favorite things

that we do is something called register

wars where basically

a student is given uh the task to answer

the register not with their name but

with a fact or a detail some sort of

recall activity um from what we have

been doing over the past few weeks or

whatever and if i give an example from

history um i might ask about a

particular event that we've been

studying so have a fact or a detail or

perhaps a more general question over a

topic and so our gcse students could be

giving a technological advance from

their medicine through time so by doing

that every answer has to be different

and the students listen

and they think about it they say no

that's already been no you can't do that

one and so it brings that excitement

that competitive element which is

amazing so that's one element we do and

we also then try and have rather than um

something where students feel that they

have to then carry on doing extra work

if they've succeeded we give a take it

further task from the beginning

so what we're asking students to do is

complete a task but if you'd like to

take it further

already told to them at the beginning of

the task so that then if they're taking

it further what they're able to do is

then say brilliant i thought this extra

bit all the way through our task so two

little ideas just to help that and

obviously that's through you know

careful planning careful sequencing that

we've thought those ideas through

fantastic thank you tess for kicking us

off

obviously my examples are going to be

very kind of language based but i've

tried to select some things that i think

would apply to a plethora of subjects so

similarly ish to tess's um kind of

example we do start most of our lessons

with some sort of retrieval because

languages is such a cumulative subject

it's really necessary to ensure that the

students are confident and happy and

feel kind of success with the previous

learning to then be able to build on it

or use it in that lesson so we always

make sure that at the beginning of the

lesson we come back to some vocabulary

perhaps from a private previous lesson

that then will be needed in this lesson

or we make sure that those students are

reminded of something from a previous

grammatical point for example that then

is needed in this lesson so then in

theory all students have been reminded

and have retrieved that knowledge to

allow them to build on it further rather

than assuming that they know that

previous um information that is vital to

the to the lesson and so that's one of

the things we do the other thing we

ensure we do we do have the students in

sets and

to support kind of progress and learning

which we find it does work for our

subject even though i do know it it's

not uh it's not the way for all subjects

but we we really still all teach to

stretch so therefore we kind of make

sure that the the lesson activities are

challenging and are um kind of

stretching all students but what we put

in place is those scaffolds so for

example if there's a reading activity

which we think the students might find

challenging we'll identify key

vocabulary and that we will give to the

students to support their understanding

of that text or if we're doing a

listening that some students might find

challenging and because listening is one

of the skills we find students do do

find challenging will provide the

transcript so then students listen first

but then they're able to read along

whilst listening so those the activity

itself is challenging for all but those

support strategies and those scaffolded

tasks are are underneath to support

those that maybe need them um for that

access so that's just two two little

ideas from me thank you some fantastic

strategies there for adapting lessons

um and and with a real emphasis on um

enabling all students to experience

success brilliant thank you

so

we know then from the research that high

quality classroom discussion can support

pupils to articulate key ideas

consolidate understanding and extend

their vocabulary

so what are the ways that you lead

colleagues in stimulating people

thinking and checking for understanding

by improving the quality of class

discussions

if we can go first to castine and then

to tesla queens yeah sure so um we are

using something in school called um walk

through books i don't know if any

anybody else has has come across them so

they're written by tom sherrington and

oliver kevin caviglio lee try and get

that name out and so

they're using the latest research on how

to get good quality um classroom

discussions

and asking questions so they take one of

a big kind of meaty subject

and then break it down into small

actionable steps so our teachers are

using those kind of step-by-step

walkthroughs to enhance classroom

discussions within within their class so

it seems like cold calling and say it

again better show me boards and things

like that that are helping our children

to really um enrich their discussions

and enhance their vocabulary

another thing that we've brought in last

year was something called you cards so

they're what have you understood so

they're really short sharp activities

that really drill down and check for

children's understanding and they also

have um with them we have a rich

discussion on how that activity went um

just three or four um short sharp

questions

to summarize all the learning in the

class

and then we're doing i think as a lot of

schools are doing we're doing a lot of

vocabulary instruction trying to kind of

fill those gaps that might have

accumulated uh during lockdowns um and

but we we're not leaving this to kind of

chance that hoping that children will

assimilate new vocabulary just through

their reading so we're doing that

through explicit vocabulary teaching and

so

again using kind of the world research

strategies it's

reading really rich text to our children

and then explicit vocabulary teaching on

those kind of those tier two words that

they wouldn't normally assimilate in

everyday conversation

fantastic constant thank you so much

tessa

thank you um in my role as professional

learning mentor i'm not just thinking

about my own classroom i'm thinking much

beyond the um classrooms um in my school

and into our trust so i've got a sort of

a role that allows me to to take this um

beyond um just me and leading that way i

think what's important is we want our

students to understand

not just what they're learning but how

they learn

so we've had um

in our conferences our teaching and

learning conferences over the last few

years we've had particular focus

and we've looked at

characteristics of learners and really

getting the curriculum areas to identify

what makes a good learner in your

subject area so they're displayed in

classrooms and we try and talk about

things like flexibility or decision

making or risk taking so that students

realize that they're you know using

skills that will go across

the curriculum but particularly perhaps

might be used in

in certain areas and they then become

those effective learners um we we try

and use things like flip learning which

obviously at a level is a particularly

useful thing but we found during

lockdown that actually asking the

students to

do the research beforehand and become

familiar with the content meant that

they weren't asking the questions of

what but we're asking the questions of

why when we were having the discussions

online and things like that and that's

actually something that was almost been

a good thing from lockdown that we've

been able to say this actually works

really well and people have been trying

to use that in much um the same way in

the in the lower school and for gcse so

that's really valuable as well

and

we've also

thought about how our colleagues can

develop resources so a lot of the time

we'll have um

a bit of an inset where somebody's

saying oh this is a great idea and you

go and think yeah that's a great idea

and you don't have time to embed it so

we've put together some well i've put

together um some some workshops this

year where

people are coming together and having a

little bit of theory

but then they're actually given the time

in that inset to um

put together a resource or think that's

an opportunity that i could use tomorrow

with my class and because of that

they're adapting their ideas and the

classroom discussions as a result of

having that opportunity to think how can

i draw ideas out what do i mean if i say

work as a group

i don't mean all sit there and do your

own work but happen to sit next to each

other so the first one was saying when i

say work as a group what do i mean going

back to basics stripping back ideas and

that even for people who've taught for a

number of years they said to me that was

that was so thought-provoking because i

don't think i've ever told my students

how to work in a group i just said work

in a group

so things like that just thinking about

the the tools behind how we're making it

happen has been really valuable

fantastic thank you i'm hearing loads

about

um giving students and children the

opportunity and the time

for rich classroom discussions with the

right focus fantastic thank you that

would have given participants a great

insight

so the evidence tells us then that high

quality feedback

can be written or verbal

is likely to be accurate and clear

encourage further effort and provide

specific guidance

on how to improve

so how then as leaders in your context

do you support colleagues to provide

this high quality feedback if we go

firstly to christine and then to

fleurkins

yeah thank you and we've worked really

hard on our feedback policy and we've

come

from primary school there was um kind of

historically it was very much um a

purple pen for challenge uh pink

tickle pink green for growth and then

the children had to respond back and

then we had to respond back and um and

we went we looked to research to think

actually

what impact is this having and balancing

that with teacher workload of course all

the time and so we've gone more with the

research from the education endowment

foundation which says that

which says that marking and and feedback

should be timely move children forwards

address gaps in learning

so we again as i said we spent a lot of

time on our feedback policy and we've

really gone more to um live feedback and

we've trained our learning support

assistants and we've done a lot of

training with our teachers on how to

make that really effective and

move children on i think especially in

the primary sector

um

very rarely would a child really go back

to that written marking that happened

yesterday with them with children as

soon as three o'clock is finished it's

kind of

i'm out of here

today is done so so to get them but um

you know obviously we are

teaching the meta cognition skills that

to reflect on their learning but in in

reality we felt that too much time was

being of our teachers was being taken up

with um written marking and they could

more

usefully use their time planning

excellent lessons

and so that that's where we've got to

however we do for writing we use

assessment sheets so we're continually

assessing children and they can see

where they're at um with with with that

that kind of framework and and the other

thing we do as i mentioned before we

have you cards and yr cards so again

short sharp activities the children can

see exactly where they are and and

that's we've just tried to simplify

everything

fantastic custom thank you so much over

to you fleur

and to kind of building on a little bit

of what kirsten said i've identified two

areas and that we've done quite a lot of

work on

in the last year or year and a half and

one was kind of that that marking and

balancing feedback and all our classes

and teacher workload and so we we

actually don't take in books we do

focused assessed work on yellow paper

now we chose yellow obviously it could

be any color um but they are they are

tasks that we have identified as

priorities

to enable us as teachers to know where

our students are at or opportunities to

give that high quality feedback

so

in terms of the yellow it can be kind of

a bit like an exit ticket so whether

it's you want that quick snapshot of

whether a class has understood a point

or where they are at with something um

and they obviously happen little and

often that it might be a very short

activity a comprehension a vocab test a

grammar activity that type of thing and

the feedback is instant because students

can self-mark they then rate themselves

that's where that metacognition comes in

you know is this a skill i perhaps need

to focus on is it an area and i need to

develop or is this an area of strength

for me so that's the instant feedback

but embedded throughout the curriculum

are opportunities for those lengthier

pieces where that feedback is given

now we give the feedback it is written

usually and because it tends to be a

piece of writing or it's an oral

recording which we would then mark and

give feedback on but the key aspect for

me is the fact that that feedback always

includes a task for the students to do

or a key question to help them progress

on to the next level and we call that

react and it's the concept of reading

the feedback and acting so sometimes

that will be to to redraft something on

a very basic level but often it's asking

those key questions and to get students

to again linking to metacognition that

self kind of drive forwards so

and that's one kind of aspect of our

marking is the fact that we've

identified those key

tasks throughout the curriculum and that

react feedback the other is we've we've

got an acronym um avocado which we use

which um identifies key aspects of of

language learning in our case obviously

and so adjectives verbs opinions

connectives etcetera etcetera down the

avocado and what we found is it's a

really useful tool for teachers to give

feedback on because we can we can say

which aspects of the avocado grid

they've done well and are a strength but

then maybe which ones are are to work on

so again linking to metacognition

sometimes we will just highlight it and

the student has to think right okay

connectives is an area to improve on

which connectives did i use and what can

i now do to do that better and what we

found is actually initially this was

just teacher used but obviously it's a

really useful student planning tool for

when they're planning something it's an

evaluation tool for themselves and

obviously a peer evaluation tool as well

so from one little acronym we've kind of

developed a whole range of feedback

strategies

fantastic thank you

in education we love acronyms so avocado

is a particularly spectacular one um and

really really great strategies um from

both of you about um how to really

utilize and embed high quality feedback

um as an approach within um excellent

teaching thank you

so it's going to be vital then for

anyone including the participants um

watching

to understand how each of you do all

that you've just described as leaders

and what those key behaviors are that

you've developed um as you've become the

leaders that you are today

um as well as what else you each feel

that you're working on currently in

terms of your leadership given that we

know

learning is lifelong

so could i ask you each then please to

highlight the leadership behaviors

that you have utilized to lead teaching

in your schools

as well as a leadership behavior that

you're currently developing

and possibly with some brief examples of

those in practice please if we go

firstly to christine and then to fleur

followed by tessa thank you yes

certainly so um i'll focus on

implementation to start with so as part

of a leader

you um you really have to sometimes

implement change and so i'll focus on

that aspect of leading teaching so to do

that i've always referred again back to

the education endowment foundation

research for implementing a new strategy

so that is kind of defining the problem

um and then coming up with a

well-researched

strategy coming up with an action plan

and then working hard to implement it

within a school

and and i would say that the the

part of all of that that is sometimes

the tricky bit is sustainability so once

you've found that a strategy that works

and you've assessed it yes it's got good

impact

it's it's having that energy

to sustain the new

the new the new strategy in place

and as we know education and schools are

very busy places and new strategies can

often go by the wayside if as a leader

you are not continually giving the

energy and bringing it to the forefront

of every of all your staff's minds so i

would say that's something that i've

really worked on and continue to work on

and and

one thing that i have found

and to be true in my role as a leader is

that whatever you truly believe in and

whatever you know

has

a good impact on pupil outcomes you have

to monitor

so i stringently monitor anything that i

firmly believe in so to give you an

example of that a few years ago

we felt that the presentation and the

book contents across year groups there

wasn't

so much consistency so we formulated a

a really kind of robust

book expectation strategy that we would

want to see

again as

a leader i made sure that i bought

everybody on board with that so rather

than kind of dictating oh this is what i

expect to see in books we had rich

conversations about that and kind of

what what would be what would we want to

see how do we want to what's manageable

as well talking about teacher workload

um so it's it was bringing everyone

together bringing everybody on board and

so that we all had that buy-in really

um and then we do half-timely rag rating

of monitoring of books so all the things

that as a staff we said yes this is what

we believe in and this is what we we all

sign up for we do regulate that every

every half term and that is just giving

teachers really objective feedback to

say this is where we are this is where

we're at um and i have to say that has

been really really successful so

that has their our books across the

across the year i've got us all the year

groups there is that consistency of of

um kind of high high levels of

presentation but it has been a long

journey and it's taken a lot of energy

and a few tears along the way um but we

we we did get there so yeah that's

that's kind of my

my my my kind of top tip

thank you kirsten so i'm hearing a lot

then in there about commitment

impact and influence um a real sense of

integrity to your values your shared

value values at school as well as your

individual ones

and this notion of developing delivering

sorry continuous um

development

through that implementation strategy

thank you so much over to you flair

and so my focus on leadership behaviors

very much ties into what kirsten just

said they

a few of those leadership behaviors

christine just spoke about were the ones

i really focused on as well that

delivery of continuous improvement is

absolutely integral it's a cycle that we

go through over and over again and

because we can't rest on our laurels and

you can't trust that just it's all

because you've said it once it's all

happening so i for me it's also about

really setting setting up those clear

and high expectations

and following them through it's very

easy to say yep we're going to do this

and this and this and this and then

actually three weeks later no one's

thinking about it etc so i think it's

about really

again a bit like kirsten said it's that

commitment to your your vision and and

sharing that vision with your team in

such a way that they understand that

that it that is kind of the way forward

but again not in a dictatorial way um

but very much in a in a this is what i

expect and it's what i would like to see

when when i'm coming around doing

learning walks doing work scrutinies and

in order to allow for that delivery of

continuous improvement you you do have

to have that regular kind of monitoring

and evaluation but i think also that

regular evaluation of yourself and to

see where you have maybe done things

well or or maybe could have done

something differently

and that comes around to that point on

integrity and it's that honesty with

both your team or your school if it's a

whole school level and and yourself and

for example do you reflect on i launched

a massive initiative via email perhaps

that wasn't the best way to launch that

initiative or give that information and

but it's also about that honest feedback

to staff and not shying away

and from from perhaps challenging under

performance where it's where it exists

and

because the students are the most

important thing about everything we do

and ultimately if what that teacher is

doing or saying or whatever is not the

most supportive of our students we have

to follow that through and so for me

those two link really closely together

and i think you always really have to

kind of lead by example

and no we don't all get it right all the

time

but we we try to do it as much as

possible and the one i'm kind of

developing the most i'm relatively new

in in position

in this school it's a role i've done

several times before

but i'm in a very large faculty with

lots of kind of part-time members of

staff

and for me it's that developing others

developing leadership in the team so it

doesn't all fall to you to to

support that vision and those high

expectations and so yeah there we go

fantastic thank you so much loads there

that echoes what christine was saying

but i also heard a lot about

self-awareness and that the learning

focus you know when you reference the

students are on they're the priority

um

that's that's huge there and um

developing others will always be

behavior many of us are

consistently uh working uh getting

better at so i really appreciate that

honesty thank you fleur over to utasa

thank you um well the other two have

obviously picked out some key things and

i i want to echo those as a as a

professional learning mentor i'm perhaps

in a slightly um different position to

them in in the way that i'm perhaps

working with um itt trainees the ects

recently qualified teachers so i got a

sort of an another hat if you like that

i'm wearing and one of the things for me

with the integrity is to say to people

this is what i'd like you to do but i

want you to come and see me doing it in

my classroom so that when they come and

watch me doing it i'm saying to them i

want you to implement this strategy i

want you to have this idea in your

classroom

and they know that i'm not just asking

for it to happen i'm actually delivering

it on a daily basis in my lessons so for

me that that's fundamental if we make

decisions um we have a strategic

teaching and learning group that perhaps

comes up with ideas and and that's

something i you know i i have a

particular role in driving ideas forward

but if we're just saying oh that needs

to happen and we're the people perhaps

who live in the um ivory tower and we

don't do it in our own classroom then

nobody will want to take it forward with

us so integrity absolutely crucial um

for me that that impact and the

influence as well that that strategic

teaching and learning group allows us to

have a huge range of perspectives we

have representatives on there um perhaps

thinking about the diversity element

thinking about um obviously our

vulnerable groups and our um stretch and

challenge for our what we call our

talented gifted

students because it works nicely to have

stags and tags um working there um so

it works for us so that is crucial to us

um in terms of the delivering continuous

improvement

absolutely vital to me um i want the

people to be looking at

their classroom and thinking

what is it i'm doing and why am i doing

it

and with so many new initiatives coming

through it's amazing and if people have

trainees in their classrooms in their

departments that's actually a really

valuable thing because sometimes they

bring the new ideas to them so a lot of

people might think oh i don't want to

have a trainee because you know it's a

bit tricky but actually they are amazing

and something like rose and shine's

principles of instruction the

fundamental building blocks for all

student teachers

that is something that you almost need

to again just say to everybody have you

heard of rose and shine do you

understand what that is because that's

great so something like that is is a

real

powerful thing and the developing others

i feel actually i'm going to contradict

you laura where you say yeah we're

always trying to develop it that's one

thing i feel i've actually in some ways

nailed because i give opportunities to

people if i see them delivering

or other senior colleagues see them

delivering things in a learning walk or

something we say to them right friday

morning we have what we call a teaching

and learning community or tlc briefing

please come along

tell us about that show us how that

works in your classroom and that

individual perhaps then speaks to the

staff body for the first time

they then think oh okay well i survived

that so i'm able then to perhaps go on

to think about well could i lead other

training sessions within the school

could i go on to actually deliver or

facilitate other training people have

become sles they've taken on you know

particular expertise because they've had

that one little moment of thinking it's

okay i survived and so for me that

that's amazing um so the thing that i'm

working on now partly because

with the mat um and the whole sort of

trust team growing is that it where

where the sort of idea of the

self-awareness needing to be aware of

all the people that might contribute not

just within my school but across the

three schools we particularly work with

so for me that sense of being able to

have that learning focus yes

but know who it is within the uh trust

that can work and we've actually created

a a shared document where people are

sort of saying who's the expert in

welcoming people in starters who's the

expert in questioning so we're trying to

get that to be able to use that so that

that's an area of my focus for this year

fantastic thank you so much i really got

a sense then tessa that

um

the learning focus is at the center and

i loved what you said about the

reciprocity element of developing others

that it works both ways that it keeps us

all up to date to be working with ects

um and and other um initial uh teacher

training colleagues etc so fantastic

thank you so much uh to all of you

and for your honesty about what you're

currently working on in terms of your

own leadership behaviours too thank you

so it's been fantastic to hear from you

all christine fleur and tessa about how

you need teaching in your schools in the

context of aspects of classroom practice

adaptive teaching and assessment thank

you all so much