Our project aims to integrate effective methods into our plans for our lessons. We choose methods that we feel, from experience, improve children’s learning and are not there just to take up space on a plan. We are flexible and if you have any comments or improvements please feel free to contact us.
Teaching Methods
Timing
A lesson is split into four periods of time – Starter, Main, Groups and Plenary. Suggested timings are given for each period, as a teacher’s awareness of timing is vital in allowing learners to achieve the learning objective in a lesson. They are only suggested, and can, and should be changed depending on your teaching, the levels of your learners and how the lesson progresses (your formative assessment). We aim to provide detailed and thorough planning, so there will be more information and examples in planning than are needed, and teachers need to decide on how much detail, and how many examples are needed, and realistic, in the timing of their lesson.
Starter
Starters are planned for a reason, whether it’s to revise an objective that was covered earlier in the unit or to re-introduce an objective that the learners are familiar with. These objectives are then be used in the forthcoming lesson/s so the starters serve a purpose, and do not swerve the lesson ‘off-track’. They include time for a settling down process as learners enter the classroom.
Starters should be ‘punchy’ and active and get the learners to be working on whiteboards, discussing problems or working together as soon as possible.
Main
Again, planning is detailed and thorough and teachers need to consider timing and their class as they decide on their pace in the main introduction of their teaching. Planning considers breaking up this main introduction so learners ‘active’ listening times are considered. Talk time and animations help to do this, but teachers need to consider their own learners, and include more breaks in listening, or shorten timins accordingly.
Groups
We have organised the lesson into four groups/levels of differentiation, and this would obviously mean that these groups are seated together. Three of these groups should be independent with the teacher then focusing on one group (indicated in Assessment Group box on the plan) to support or challenge them. To enable independence in groups, clear modelling and differentiation is needed.
Instructions for activities should be included in the main introduction of the lesson, with learners then working independently or in a group supported by an adult. Depending on formative assessment the teacher should adjust the length of this period as suitable. At times, there may be a need for the teacher to return to the main introduction to consolidate learning or move to the plenary before extending, changing the structure of the lesson.
Plenary
Plenaries are planned and consolidate or extend learning preparing for future lessons. Again, the timing of this period in a lesson is flexible, depending on your formative assessment.
Support
We have aimed for lessons to be planned with the idea that you are teaching in a large class with wide ranging abilities, and with no support. This might mean that within the plans you feel that some abilities are not challenged within a lesson, but with our wide range of differentiation, there is scope for you to re-organize the lesson.
Marking Group
Marking is organised on a rota basis for each week, where each Assessment Group has a slot of detailed marking. This means that all other children’s work is marked, but one group per lesson is marked in detail with comments to support or challenge, written by the teacher. The group is indicated in the Assessment Group box on the day’s plan. This detailed marking is then addressed in the following lesson’s Feedback Group.
Feedback Group
The Feedback Group references the last lesson’s Marking Group. It links to the lesson’s PowerPoint, where three options are provided to give feedback to the group of learners. These feedback options are proposed questions and prompts to support, extend or consolidate learning. Obviously, feedback changes depending on the ability of the learner, ranging from supported verbal feedback to independent written responses. Teachers will have to change these options to personalise the feedback, depending on their marking and learners.
The three feedback options in the PowerPoint should be allocated to pairs of learners to take into account the time constraints in a lesson. The time when the feedback actual feedback occurs is flexible, depending on the preference of the teacher. This could be at the start of a lesson, where a short whole-class evaluation of yesterday lesson takes place and the questions are allocated to pairs of learners from the ability group. They can then respond orally, or in their books. Another option is to feedback during group activities, as the Feedback Group is also that lesson’s Assessment Group (see below). There is also the option of feeding back during Guided Reading. The teacher should choose an option or combination of options that suits their class. There should be a routine and a responsibility on the learners in the group to read any comment and respond in writing, if needed, and notify the teacher that they have done this.
Assessment Group
During group activities, the teacher works with one group on a rota basis. There is a presumption that the teacher has no support in the class, so activities are aimed to be structured, modelled and independent to allow the teacher to work with an Assessment Group.
In this group, the teachers aim should be clear in supporting the learners to extend their learning in the short or long term. This is mentioned in the Assessment Group box on each plan. Teachers will need to amend this depending on their learners. There may also be the opportunity to assess, and this is also mentioned where suitable. Again, this depends on the teacher’s preferences and how the lesson is progressing.
Modelling
Clear modelling of what learners have to do to gain successmin their learning is a vital part of teaching, and support for this is included in plans and presentations in the unit. This modelling, allows groups to be independent and a teacher to focus on an assessment group.
Shared Writing
Shared writing is a process that should also allow learners to understand the process of writing, and the creative decisions that are made as we write. Examples of writing are provided to support teachers in their shared writing (these examples are colour coded to reflect text, sentence and word features). However, it is still vital that the teacher still writes with the class, explains his or her thinking as they write, and also include the learners in the process, stopping regularly for learners to think of the next sentence or try and improve their writing. In this way a sense of ownership of class writing is built, and learners are prepared for the challenges of independent writing. Shared writing should also involve clear references to class writing plans, the original unit text, previous learning and also StS maps. This models the need for clear and detailed planning, and how vital that a plan is in the writing process. Obviously, shared writing also promotes the generation of ideas that can be shared and included in the learners’ own writing.
Shared Reading
Shared readingis an opportunity to model spelling and comprehension strategies, and like shared writing breeds independence and confidence.
Talk Time
Talk Time is included/suggested in every lesson to break introductions up into chunks, allow learners to take part, give opportunities for different learning styles and allow the teacher to take feedback of his/her teaching. Organization of talk time is suggested i.e. pairs/groups/question and answer, but this is only a suggestion. Extensions are considered to allow for different abilities.
Questioning is another important factor, and should be used to support or extend discussions in talk time or at any suitable point. Fairness in questioning could be focused on ability or random e.g. through the use of lollypop sticks to draw names.
There are many self/peer assessment systems used in the classroom. Our units use the common ‘traffic light’ approach for regular lesson by lesson self-assessment, and the common ‘stars and a wish’ approach for set definite applied self or peer assessment. These approaches can be changed depending on the class/school.
Traffic Lights
Traffic lights are regularly featured at the end of each lesson. There should be a routine where learners self-assess their work by colour to reflect their success, colouring a circle or mini-traffic light. Depending on the learner, and routine, a comment can accompany this. Traffic lights are again featured at the start of a lesson to feature as a reminder to learners to make sure they assessed their learning yesterday.
Stars and a Wish
The ‘stars and a wish’ approach usually involves written comments specifying three/two positive (stars) comments about a learner’s work and one improvement (a wish). These are structured within the unit, with examples and sentence starters provided. Of course, teachers can use self/peer assessment as desired through the unit, depending on their class/teaching.
Learning Objectives (LO)
Learning objectives in units are related to Blooms Taxonomy, in terms of their use of action/performance verbs. They aim to be obtainable and measurable and focus on knowledge/skill acquisition or reinforcement of learning. Also included in each objective is the context of the learning, but this is not taken through to the objectives that are written on the learner’s activities. Learning objectives are subjective and can be personalised depending on the teacher.
Steps to Success (StS)
Steps to Success (success criteria), are suggested in each lesson, but should be derived in consultation with learners, as to what they need to do to gain success with the learning objectives. These steps should have been made obvious through the introduction of the lesson, so that learners can identify them easily. Again, as with the learning objective the steps that have been suggested can be changed dynamically in a lesson if there is an agreement between teacher and learner in the necessary steps to gain success. Steps to success should be referred to in self and peer assessment.
StS Map
A checklist of text features is used in the shared writing process to remind and exemplify fitting the features into writing. We call this checklist a Steps to Success Map (StS Map). It works alongside the revision of previous learning objectives which are then applied to the current writing, with examples added to the class StS map. Teachers can use this as an aid to learners’ memory, or ask learners to write examples on their own plans in preparation for independent writing. This aids learners in considering what is expected in a piece of writing.