Changing How We Approach Writing - Teaching Like a Writer

It was whilst getting to grips with lockdown and remote teaching that a much anticipated parcel dropped through the letterbox: Jenny Webb's Teach Like a Writer. Like many people, I have been constantly inspired when listening to Jenny's talks at various conferences and I was incredibly excited to read her latest book as teaching writing is something I have felt 'requires improvement' in my teaching. I hope by reading this blog anyone who has not yet bought the book is encouraged to do so as it brilliant but I also want to show how I have already used some of the ideas. It is important to note, the book is not about gimmicks, it is about changing the way we view and teaching writing. I am also looking forward to rethinking how we approach writing units at KS3 but this is a longer project. 

What initially resonated with me was the chapter titled 'Language and Power' which is an excellent polemic and call to arms on the power writing has to give a voice to those who perhaps don't feel like the written word, with all its rules and structures, is for them. We, as English teachers, are often beneficiaries of our education and can navigate these structures successfully so it is sometime easy to forget that this isn't always the case for the pupils we teach, for various reasons. Jenny argues that 'we must accept that the standard form of the English language is just one of the colours of our paint palette.' which I think is both a beautiful and powerful analogy. We must remember we teach writing, not so pupils can pass an exam, but so that our pupils can have a stake in our world. So they can make their voices heard as the written word is how we understand and shape the world we encounter. Jenny continues that we should, as teachers: 

'Strive to change the narrative about what and who a writer is. what a 'hero' or 'protagonist' is and who can have opinions about the great issues of our time.' 

 It was with these words echoing in my mind that I thought about how I could put this into practice. 

Putting this into practice: 

With the cancellation of the GCSE exams, I saw a great opportunity to explore this with my Y11s who we still had to teach for the last few weeks before the end of their course. With no exam as the end point, it freed me up to think about how we could teach 'real world' writing. 

I may not be a regular writer of poetry or fiction (although I do dabble) I often write blogs for my own personal account here or sometimes for my school. I have also written for the TES once, so I thought I would be brave and share some of my 'real world' writing with my Y11s. I also shared with them differences between writing for yourself and the process of writing for someone else (such as having a brief). 

I wanted to give them a writing task that was not just an exam style question, a task which gave them choice but also constraints. Therefore I gave them a list of topics which would give them some freedom to express their voice.

- Your experience in lockdown
- Your feelings towards being unable to sit your GCSE exams
- Lessons you have learnt through lockdown
- How you think the world might change after lockdown

I also gave them a tight 500-600 word limit.

I asked them to think about the piece they wanted to do and 'pitch' their idea to me via email. I then acted like an 'editor', reading their pitch and then emailing back with my suggestions. Often the pitches included too many ideas which would have made it difficult to keep to the word limit. So my job, as editor, was to pull out the best ideas. For example, one pupil wanted to talk about her experience of lockdown and mentioned all the extra things she had been doing as her parents were at work for the NHS. I pulled out this thread and suggested she write a piece about what life is like as the child of a key worker.

Aside from sharing my example and giving feedback on the pitch, I gave no further instructions, plans, guides or modelled responses. Therefore, I was pleasantly surprised at the quality of responses I then received. For many of them, this was the first piece I had marked where I got a real sense of their 'voice'. And, because it was their voice, trickier things like the tone and humour were more expertly crafted. Why? Because it was authentic.

So what has this taught me?

Creating an authentic voice is key to writing. We know this. Yet, do we give pupils enough opportunity to play with their own voice in their writing? A key principle of Jenny's book is that we need to slow down with our teaching of writing. Yes, pupils need to be able to sit down in an exam and spend 45mins writing about something random, but do that successfully they have to know how to use their own voice. That comes with trial, error, feedback, editing and redrafting. We don't need to rush to the end product without developing the underlying knowledge and skills to get us to this point.

If you would like to see the lesson I did with my Y11s, here is a link to the document we worked through together (this was taught during lockdown remotely).

Writing for the Real World Remote Lesson (link)

On developing a more mindful English curriculum at KS3

A lot of my thoughts have drifted towards creating the perfect KS3 curriculum over the last couple of years, and after getting the chance to review ours, it has taken over many a daydream on the way to and from work! I love KS3 for the sheer range of possibilities we have in English if we are brave enough to free ourselves from the tyranny of exam specifications. After a few conversations on Twitter, and to verbalise some of my thought processes, I've decided to write this blog which discusses some of the decisions we have made when reviewing our KS3 curriculum.

The first step when reviewing the curriculum was asking the following questions: 

• What do we want to achieve?
• What works or doesn’t work in our current curriculum?
• What resources do we already have (books and text books)?
• What will a pupil experience over the course of our KS3 curriculum? 

I want our curriculum to allow pupils to experience a broad range of texts which give them a grounding in the literary canon as well as exposing them to a range of viewpoints and perspectives.

As with many KS3 curriculums, our current one had been tweaked and changed in line with specification changes in KS4. Lots of work has already been done to make the journey more coherent but there are still elements which were not clearly thought out or sequenced. There are lots of opportunities for teacher autonomy through a range of text choices but there are sometimes not a clarity or consistency in what pupils should have learned by the end of it.  

As with anything, for changes to be effective it is important to utilise the resources we already have. Therefore, when redesigning our curriculum it was often about resequencing the curriculum rather than starting from scratch.

What did we change?

In our previous Y7 curriculum we started with Shakespeare after a short autobiographical writing unit. It made sense to swap this with the modern novel unit for various reasons. Firstly, there is a huge cognitive load on pupils making the transition from Y6 to Y7. We need to introduce and develop a range of skills, from inference, to language analysis to academic writing. This is a big task in and of itself. Doing this through Shakespeare initially means that pupils have to do this with language which can be daunting and intimidating. Therefore, by starting with a modern novel, which uses language much more accessible and familiar to them, they can concentrate on developing these new skills more effectively.

Text Choice:

We have removed ‘tired’ texts such as Skellig and Private Peaceful as we found that often they had read them in primary school and we were not really exposing them to different perspectives. I am not saying there is no merit in these texts but as we had the budget to invest in new texts so it seemed a good opportunity to reassess our novel choices here.

We decided on a choice of three texts, Salt to the Sea, The Island at the End of Everything and The Bone Sparrow. With these text choices we have tried to ensure that pupils will be exposed to diverse perspectives as well as having some a rich context behind the texts which will provide lots of opportunity for extra reading.

Modern Play to Shakespeare:

By switching the novel and Shakespeare, it meant that there was a more logical progression. Pupils could build on their inference and textual analysis skills and be introduced to key features of drama. Therefore, by the time they move onto the Shakespeare unit they will have a grounding in the skills and knowledge needed.

Non Fiction Reading:

To ensure consistency in teaching, our curriculum has always had separate non fiction reading units. Previously these were through a specific ‘exam skills for KS3’ type textbook. We wanted to get rid of this as it felt too exam or KS4 focussed and teachers within the department did not feel enthusiastic about it. Therefore, we have developed a non fiction writing unit which is thematic, based on the theme of ‘interesting lives’ which fits in nicely with the autobiographical unit they do at the beginning of the year. Again, we have tried to ensure we have included a range of viewpoints and perspectives (such as extracts from Malala Yousafzai, Anne Frank, Joseph Merrick, Roald Dahl and Maya Angelou).

The Y8 curriculum just needed a few tweaks to make it more coherent. The aim of Y8 overall now is about deepening pupils’ canonical understanding. 

Modern Drama/ 19th C Novel: 

The modern drama gives them an experience of two key 19^th century texts to deepen their cultural capital. We use these texts alongside extracts from the originals and use this to produce a piece of creative writing in the style of that text. With the novels, we have kept Animal Farm but swapped out Boy in the Striped Pyjamas for The Time Machine so that pupils will approach those text through the lens of genre (dystopia and science fiction) giving lots of opportunity for pupils to develop their understanding of the genre through their independent reading (each unit will have a reading list that pupils will be encouraged to explore independently). 

Non Fiction: 

Like with the Y7 curriculum, we have changed from an exam focused textbook to a booklet which takes a thematic approach; this time ‘disasters’. This features texts which look at things like the Hillsborough disaster, 19^th century mining disasters, Chernobyl and the Birmingham Church Bombing- all things which will increase their knowledge of key events which will aid their understanding of the context behind other texts. 

Poetry: 

Previously we had a ‘conflict poetry’ unit which focused on WW1 poetry. We are currently working on a new scheme that looks at conflict in a broader sense, with extracts from the Iliad, Paradise Lost as well as modern texts such as Kamikaze and At the Border 1979, again with the aim of giving pupils experience of text across the canon as well as different viewpoints and perspectives. 

The Y9 curriculum aims to prepare pupils for KS4 in a more direct way. The novel choices have been selected as they are texts with the challenge of GCSE study in mind. 

Shakespeare: 

After reflecting on the fact we did not previously teach any Shakespeare in Y9, we decided to introduce a unit that looked at ‘heroes and villains’ from a range of Shakespeare plays. We felt that this would be beneficial for pupils as it would help them understand the context of the plays studied at KS4 by being able to compare and contrast them to a range of plays. We have just completed this unit and both teachers and pupils seemed incredibly engaged with it and the pupils have produced some amazing responses to the texts studied. 

Short Story Anthology: 

As we have just moved to the Edexcel IGCSE specification we felt that looking at a range of short stories through the old AQA short story anthology would be beneficial as the IGCSE Language specification also is heavily based on an anthology of a similar nature. 

Poetry: 

Having studied a range of poems across different time periods in Y7 and Y8, Y9 focuses on unseen poetry, helping pupils develop their skills in approaching poems and developing their own independent interpretations and responses.  

What I’m happy with:

• The sequencing of topics to ensure that skills and knowledge are taught and developed in a coherent way.
• The level of challenge
• The range of perspectives

The next steps:

• The curriculum is a never ending task, and we will reflect and tweak it as we go to ensure we are delivering it in the most effective way.
• One thing I want to reflect on is our writing units. For that reason, I await Jennifer Webb’s new book with baited breath!
• We will also be thinking very carefully about our assessments to ensure we are capturing what pupils are capable of, rather than just using adapted KS4 assessments. 

Effective Planning: Tips for ITT and NQTs

As September looms there has been many posts on Twitter from teachers starting their ITT or NQT years looking for advice. I remember that period five years ago vividly, sitting at home wondering what I ‘should’ be doing to prepare. Many people gave the same advice that I would give now, which is to plan your first couple of lessons because anything you do plan will have to be changed and adapted as you go. I did the Teach First route into teaching, and like many doing other ‘school-based’ routes I was expected, quite early on to plan SOWs. I found this incredibly challenging and time consuming, as every lesson I planned took between an hour and two hours (if not more sometimes). This invariably means late nights at school and weekends spent working when I probably needed space and perspective more than anything else. One of the biggest lessons for an ITT or NQT is how to sequence a unit of learning and move away from planning individual lessons on a day by day basis. I remember looking at medium term plans and not being able to use these to help my own planning. It seems second nature now, but it is something I feel that I wasn’t adequately trained to do and if I was it would have helped my teaching and workload. Therefore, I wanted to write a blog, aimed at ITTs and NQTs that set out the process of developing a unit of work and the thought process I go through.

I’m using the example of the Lord of the Flies SOW I’m creating for my Y9 class.

The Blank Computer Screen:

The hardest thing, in any creative endeavour is the blank page/ screen. The feeling of ‘where do I start?’

At this stage it is important to begin at the end and plan backwards. Firstly, look at the end of unit assessment and work out what pupils will need to be able to succeed.

In Y9, pupils sit a ‘GCSE Literature’ style question, which will be closed book and will look something like.

‘How does Golding present the character of Piggy in Lord of the Flies’

On that basis pupils will need:

-          To know the key events, characters and themes of the book
-          To be able to use quotations and textual references to support their ideas
-          To analyse the use of language
-          To understand how context shapes ideas within the text
-          To be able to structure their ideas into topic paragraphs
-          To construct a line of argument
-          To express their ideas clearly in an analytical style
-          To write with accuracy

Secondly, and most importantly, I like to think about the ’30 year test’. What do I want pupils to take from this book that will stay with them until adulthood? I think it is important when studying a text to think about these in terms of ‘big questions’. By taking time to think about these in advance, this will  help you with your planning and focus throughout the SOW.

In Lord of the Flies the ‘big questions’ might look something like this:

- What makes a successful society?

- Are humans naturally good or evil?

- What prevents us from doing bad things?

- What makes a successful leader?

Skeleton Planning:

The next step I would take is to look at how many weeks/ lessons I have to teach the topic. As I’ll discuss later, you need to be flexible, but it is useful to look at where you want them to be on a week to week basis, so that you are not rushing at the end, or (the biggest sin) that you have time to finish the novel/text!

At this point, look at any requirements that your department has. Are there any ‘mid term assessments’ that need to be completed? If so, add these to your plan. If your school has a restrictive marking policy, work out at what point you will need to complete a piece of marking and add this. Try to be clever about this, it often gets out of sync but it is a good idea to try and ensure that across your classes, your extended marking doesn’t fall on the same week.

Once you have done this you should have a skeleton plan that you can sequence your lessons around it.

Sequence of Lessons:

When you begin planning lessons, it’s really hard to break the habit of ‘fire fighting planning’; planning individual lessons the night before and spending longer planning than it takes to deliver the lesson. In English, try to see learning as happening in a sequence that might span more than one lesson. For example, studying a chapter of Lord of the Flies or doing a practice question might take three lessons to be completed properly.

Now, I understand that in certain schools you might have some ‘non negotiables’ such as ‘four part lesson' structure or such other restrictive planning frameworks. You can work around these, but I would recommend doing what your school wants, as an ITT or NQT you are not in a position to fight the good fight on an issue like this and it is likely to end up causing you more stress in the long run.

You can work around this, have a bank of starters that are linked to literacy, or create a short recap quiz. These are good starters for challenging classes as they are not open ended. You can set a timer and check the work has been completed giving praise or sanctions as necessary. If you have a class you can trust, set a discussion point linked to previous learning and take feedback. Both these styles of starter can easily be added to the beginning of a lesson so that you can then carry on what you had started the previous lesson.

A similar approach can be taken with ‘plenaries’. However, to keep your marking down avoid getting them to write down unnecessary plenaries that can’t be self or peer marked, you will just be tempted to spend time marking it (waste of your precious time), or if you don’t an over zealous member of SLT might pull you up on it in a book scrutiny.

Power Points:

The more experienced I have become, the less I rely on Power Points. Yet, when I was an ITT an NQT I needed the structure of a Power Point to help remind me what I had planned to do next in a lesson. When I’m nervous or stressed, my short term memory is awful, therefore during early lessons, when I was constantly nervous or stressed, a Power Point really helped me. Some teachers hate Power Points, and I can see their argument but ultimately they are just a tool. If they help you, use them.

To help with planning, set up a Power Point with ‘template’ slides. These could include all the information that you need on a lesson by lesson basis. For example, you might want to set up the following slides:

- A slide with space for the title, learning objective, big question to display at the start of the lesson.

- A slide with 1-10 set out (for doing quick re-cap quizzes or literacy starters)

-  A slide with space for a question and success criteria table

I find this speeds up the process of creating a Power Point for a lesson and every little helps at this stage!

Keep things simple:

When I look back at my early lessons one thing jumps out at me: I was planning too many little activities. Now, when I plan a lesson I try to ensure that the bulk of the lesson focuses on doing one thing well. In a Literature lesson this may mean reading a chapter and annotating key parts or designing questions to aid note taking. I use the Cornell note method a lot now- but this takes time to get right with a class. Do it together until the class understand how to do it properly (in my NQT year I gave up on this too early as I thought it wasn’t working- turns out I didn’t model it enough or give it a chance to embed. Good routines take time!)

In a Language lesson we might read the extract, discuss, model how to annotate a section then allow pupils to practise themselves. If there is time, or in the next lesson we might do a practice question where I will model the beginning of the response, pupils then practise and then self assess.

I cannot emphasise the importance of good modelling. If you have access to a visualiser- make it your best friend! However, you are just like a pupil in that you will not be an expert the first time you do something new. Don’t give up. These techniques take time and practice. When you observe experienced teachers they will make it look effortless (and for them NOW it probably is) but for you it will feel like a struggle. Persevere. Once you are confident in these techniques it will reduce your planning time and improve your pupils’ learning.

In a Nutshell: 

1. Start at the end- be clear about what the end goal is 
2. Work out what pupils will need to do to be able to get to the end goal 
3. Think about the '30 year test'- what do you want pupils to remember in 30 year time? 
4. Work out what assessments need to be completed and think about what pieces you want to give feedback on- space these out so you are not marking everything at once 
5. Have a bank of 'starter' ideas that you can adapt lesson by lesson (recap or literacy) 
6. Don't over plan- lots of little activities take hours of preparation and aren't always effective 
7. Plan in sequences rather than by hourly chunks 
8. Create a Power Point template so that you can quickly adapt for that lesson 
9. Things like using the visualiser, modelling on the board and techniques like Cornell note taking will reduce your planning time but will take time for you and your pupils to become comfortable using them. Don't give up- it will save you time in the long run! 
10. Don't plan too far in advance, you will usually have to change and adapt as you get to know your class- it is likely to be a waste of your very precious time! 

Books that helped me:

You will probably be recommended all sorts of books on pedagogy during your ITT year. None of the ones that were on the ‘reading list’ (which I dutifully bought) were useful. The following books, which I bought and read from recommendations on Twitter are the ones I found really useful in helping me improve my planning.

-Making Every English Lesson Count (If you can only buy one I would recommend this)

-Teaching Backwards (This is not English specific but I remember finding it really useful in my ITT year)

I’ve not got round to reading these two yet but both writers are amazing English teachers and have been highly recommended by others on Twitter so I am recommending in advance!

How to Teach English Literature by Jennifer Webb

How to Teach English  by Chris Curtis 

Meaningful Self Assessment in English

This blog is based on the session I delivered at the Team English National Conference 2019. The full set of slides and handout are available at the end of the blog.

This is specifically focused on how we support pupils self assessing extended reading and writing responses. 

Why is self assessment important?

Most teachers would recognise that it is important for pupils to be able to self assess their work; pupils need to be able to evaluate if their responses are successful independently, especially in a world of 100% exams. Self assessment is also important in regards of teacher workload. We cannot give meaningful feedback on every piece of work that a pupils produces. Time spent ‘marking’ everything is time which is then not available for thoughtful planning. Teachers’ time is not an infinite resource. Work-life balance is important and happy teachers are better teachers. Therefore, we need to ensure that pupils can meaningfully self assess their own work. Yet, this does not happen without careful thought and planning on our behalf.

Problems and pitfalls with self assessment

-Pupils don’t have the knowledge and skills to evaluate their own work effectively

-It is seen as less valuable than other forms of marking/ feedback

-It is rushed (usually at the end of the lesson)

-It is not carefully planned/ part of the curriculum/ SOW

Showing pupils the ‘why’

Often pupils don’t ‘buy into’ the concept of self assessment. It may be that pupils see the ‘what’ before the ‘why’. Simon Sinek in his TED Talk argues that in marketing, companies often fail by focusing on ‘what’ they do rather than ‘why’ they do it. He argues that customers buy into values and beliefs rather than the end product. Therefore it is important for companies to ensure that they are clear about the purpose of what they do. Is this true of teaching? With self assessment pupils are aware of the product- picking out targets or writing what they need to do to improve- but don’t necessarily engage with the purpose of this.

As teachers, I would argue that we need to be much better at articulating the purpose of self assessment- the ‘why’.

The self assessment culture in the classroom

Ultimately, the culture of a classroom drives the behaviour and behaviour produces results.

It is important to reflect on the culture of self assessment and consider whether this culture drives ineffectual behaviours and therefore produces ineffectual results.

We need to keep articulating the core purpose of self assessment for pupils:

‘You need to be able to take ownership of your learning so you can spot success independently.’

Self assessment is essentially metacognition

To undertake meaningful self assessment we need to show that it is a process that is intrinsically part of the whole process, not just something done at the end of a response.

Broken down, the process needed might look something like this.

A misconception may be that this kind of metacognition is something which is independent from the teacher, however, pupils are unlikely to have these metacognitive processes innately, rather these thought processes need to be articulated and modelled explicitly until they become behaviours.

How can we plan to support effective self assessment?

Take the following question based on an AQA Paper 1 Q2. It is important to think carefully about what we skills or knowledge pupils will need to demonstrate to craft a successful response.

As experts, we can assess a response and make an accurate judgement as to whether pupils have met these criteria. However, as a novice a pupil would struggle to do this. However, we can reword these concepts in a way that makes it much easier for a pupil to recognise success. It will never replace the value of your feedback, but if they are able to do this it will most likely enable them to produce a much better response than if they didn’t.

Therefore, for this question I might design my success criteria in this way:

With repeated modelling and practice, pupils will be able to use this to improve their answer.

The process I would follow in my lesson might look something like this:

Therefore, the process of self assessment should not be seen as merely a ‘plenary’, but an active part of the whole task.

Self assessing writing

I would argue that pupils find it more difficult to self assess their writing. Yet, being able to proof read and improve their writing is a hugely important skill. For writing I take a slightly different approach.

Here is an example of a self assessment criteria that I use for descriptive writing:

As with a reading response, I would model and annotate any of the features I expect the pupils to demonstrate on the board and pupils would copy this down as a model they can refer back to.

I would also give pupils much more time to self assess a piece of writing, ideally as a starter during the next lesson as having time away from their work helps build the critical distance necessary to assess their own work.

As pupils get more confident with this I allow pupils to create their own ‘success criteria’, or annotate their work with the technique they have used and the effect they were trying to create. This helps pupils see the connection between being a reader and a writer.

Here is an example of a piece of transactional writing completed by one of my Y9 pupils:

‘Top tips’ for effective self assessment

-Start small- get pupils to assess a few things well

-Keep the format the same to reduce cognitive load

-Allow enough time for the task to be done properly

-Model the process

-Allow for repeated practice

-Use metacognitive language- articulate your thought process when assessing work

-Be careful with your language- don’t just reward success, success is also being able to spot errors

But… we need to support an effective self assessment culture in school

-HODs and SLT need to be on board

-School leadership needs to value this as a form of feedback and support teachers

-Book scrutinies/ policy need to recognise this

-Teachers need to share what works well and be trained in what effective self assessment looks like

-Effective self assessment doesn’t happen on its own- it takes hard work but is valuable

An electronic copy of the slides and handout are available here. I am happy for you to share as long as I'm credited for the work: 

TENC2019 Self Assessment Resources

Organising a TeachMeet: Taking Ownership of Subject Specific CPD

It is clear that one of the characteristics of a great teacher is the ability to reflect and improve on their practice. However, the nature of teaching does not make that easy. The slings and arrows of the job, the planning, marking, data entry, extra curricular activities, to name but a few, often mean that opportunities for self reflection and improvement get pushed to the back burner, the last thing on a seemingly never ending to-do list. Yet, when we are able to make time for improvement the benefits are huge, not just to our schools and our pupils but to ourselves. When I reflect on when I’m happiest and most satisfied at work, it is when I feel like I have some autonomy on my practice and am able to take some ownership over my role within school.

One of the best pieces of advice during my ITT year was to join Twitter. Without a doubt Twitter as been the biggest source of inspiration, innovation and support. As an English teacher, having access to a network of amazing practitioners through ‘Team English’ is like being in the biggest most innovative team meeting. There are so many, too many to mention, fantastic teachers who have helped me immensely, particularly when I began teaching A Level Language (having had no experience of studying let alone teaching the subject). Being the only A Level Language teacher in my department was very isolating, yet having access to a wealth of experienced Language teachers on Twitter, who willingly shared resources and gave me advice, meant that I was to cope.

Clearly there are issues with school based CPD. Often, when done badly, it is merely a ‘tick-box’ exercise to show that it has been done. This breeds resentment with teachers who feel that there very precious time is being wasted. While there is a place for ‘whole-school’ CPD, there seems, in my experience, far too much generic CPD which focuses on contexless pedagogical ideas, rather than high quality, subject-specific CPD. Why is this? Perhaps it is the nature of how CPD is organised, often by one lead within a school. There also seems to be a lack of trust in teachers, that it is difficult to ‘monitor’ the effectiveness of CPD if teachers are given autonomy to direct their own CPD. This is frustrating but understandable. Whilst some teachers within a school would jump at the opportunity to lead their own CPD, there would be others no doubt who would not. Yet surely there must be a balance that can be struck?

Similarly, a lot of subject-specific CPD is often delivered through exam board training. While this is often necessary and useful, it is important to recognise that this does little to improve our subject knowledge. Yes it is important to understand the specifications and exams that we teach at GCSE and A Level, but by having such a proportion of our subject based CPD skews our experience, leading if not careful, to a focus on teaching to the exam, rather than reflecting more broadly on how to teach our subject effectively across all Key Stages. The lack of focus and thought which goes into many KS3 curriculum is a symptom of this approach.

What is the solution? In an ideal world all teachers should have access to the wealth of experiences of other teachers in other schools as schools and departments can be very insular. Therefore, the TeachMeet format is an excellent way of delivering teacher-led, subject-specific CPD.

In this blog I hope to share with you some of the lessons I’ve learned from organising my first TeachMeet and encourage more people to take the leap and organise their own.

Organising a TeachMeet:

Venue:

Perhaps the first consideration you need to think about it that of a venue. Some questions to consider:

• Is your venue easy to get to via public transport?
• Is there parking onsite or nearby?
• Will it be open after school hours?
• Are there facilities for making tea/ coffee?
• Is there going to be enough space for the amount of attendees? 

The first port of call would be your school. I didn’t ask my school because I had already had the offer of hosting from Sheffield Hallam and this was an ideal location as it was near to the train station. However, when I told my head teacher about it in passing she was very keen to support by hosting the event. Therefore, it is always worth asking as schools are usually very supportive of this kind of event.

Timings:

If your event is going to be after school you need to consider that most people will be coming straight from work, therefore you need to get the balance between giving people enough time but not starting too late (there is nothing worse than having to wait around if you’ve had a long day). We decided to run the event between 6-8.30 which seemed a good balance. It may be worth planning to start the event around 15 mins after the scheduled time to allow for late comers.

Tickets:

For planning reasons it is important to know how many people who are likely to attend. There are lots of ways of doing this but we used Eventbrite. The pros were:

• Very easy to set up
• The site sends you notifications of when people sign up
• It is free to use if your ticket is free
• You can send out emails to all people who have signed up
• You can set the amount of tickets available
• It sends reminders of the event automatically
• It has features which shows you where the traffic to the page has come from (eg Twitter, website etc)

The cons:

If you do want to charge for the event it will take a percentage of the ticket price so you will need to factor this in.

  

Pricing:

When I set up my event, I felt very strongly that the event should be free as I know the majority of teachers pay for such events out of their own pocket. I was also lucky in that Sheffield Hallam were providing refreshments and I had managed to get freebies for goody bags and raffle prizes. However, on the night over 20 people who had signed up for a ticket failed to attend without cancelling their ticket or notifying me. This meant that we had to radically change the format of the evening without notice. This is understandable, people are tired and circumstances change, however it is very disheartening when you have put a lot of effort into organising something voluntarily.

Therefore, if I was organising another one I would put a nominal charge on the ticket (such as £4) so that there is a bit of a psychological incentive to attend and people would be less likely to sign up unless they were genuine about attending. I would use any money to put towards raffle prizes or a small gift for those that volunteered to speak.

Speakers:

Obviously the strength of such an event comes from those that volunteer to deliver short presentations. To support this I decided to give the event a specific focus. I had picked three areas of practice that I felt would be particularly relevant to English teachers:

• Strategies for Y11 revision
• Reducing the burden of marking and feedback
• Improving KS3 

I felt this was a good approach as it gives people an idea of what they could deliver a presentation on, however if someone has a great idea then there is still scope for that too. It also gives people a flavour of what the event would be about. I was fortunate that I had three volunteers who all delivered fantastic presentations. If you are struggling to get speakers then this may be the time to call in any favours from colleagues and other teachers you know! I found that most people would love to help and sometimes just need the nudge or a little support.

Format of the night:

You need to be flexible about your programme as things do change and you need to see what interest you have from people wanting to deliver presentations. If you have enough people sign up to deliver speeches then you might just want to do a traditional programme where you have a list of speakers deliver their presentations one after the other. If you want to break this up or make it more interactive you could do the following as well:

Breakaway sessions:

Depending on the layout of your venue, you could build time into your programme for breakaway sessions. Here, you get the attendees into smaller groups and give them questions to discuss on a certain topic. Below are some examples for a session on ‘Marking and Feedback’:

• Have you or your school trialled any strategies to reduce the marking/ feedback burden in English?
• How can we support pupils so that they do meaningful self assessment?
• Does Peer Assessment work in the English classroom?
• How do you ensure that pupils respond to feedback in a meaningful way? 

Troubleshooting Panel:

Another way you could open up participation is by hosting a troubleshooting panel. Ideally you would have a three or four different teachers (from different contexts) sit on the panel and then allow the audience to ask questions based on problems they may have encountered in their classroom, department or school. This is a great way of getting different perspectives on a problem, especially due to the insular ‘we’ve always done it this way’ nature of some schools.

Raffle prizes/ Goody bags:

I found that if you ask you often get! It is worth approaching educational companies and published authors on social media to see if they might be able to support your event. The worst that can happen is they say no.

Top Tip:

Be flexible. Whenever you organise something that relies on people goodwill, people will drop out (usually at the last moment) and you need to have contingency plans. Likewise, due to the ticket sales we were expecting a much bigger crowd and had to change the programme on the night to reflect the numbers in the room. Don’t let this faze you. If you are willing to adapt and think on your feet you will have a much more successful event.

Would I do it again?

Don’t get me wrong, organising an event like this does involve a fair bit of work and organising alongside your already busy life but the answer would be a most emphatic yes!

The event, like most events of this nature, has given me a much needed boost of inspiration. I would like to thank Jess Mason, Jennifer Webb, Jennie Flounders and Rachel Black for helping out and delivering some amazing thought-provoking sessions.

If you are considering organising your own #TeamEnglish TeachMeet and want any specific advice or support, please feel free to send me a DM on Twitter @MrsDuffyEnglish

Making the invisible visible: The problem with the one-off observation

‘People generally see what they look for and hear what they listen for’ To Kill a Mockingbird

Lesson observations are highly problematic; for the stress they induce in teachers and for the limited returns they provide in assessing the quality of teaching in schools. As an inexperienced teacher there have been times when I’ve spent hours over planning lesson plans for observations, trying to do something jazzy or spectacular or trying to prejudge what that particular observer will want to see. The resulting lessons may have ‘looked good’ within that hour snapshot or failed miserably because they were not reflective of my teaching. We also all know that teacher that can pull out the ‘outstanding observation lesson’ whilst their day to day practice is lack lustre. What does an observer really learn from such a process? Ultimately they have not learned the true picture of their staff and therefore the process fails to address what should be the real purpose of such an endeavour; to adequately access the strengths and weakness of a department so best practice can be shared and teaching and pupil outcomes can improve.

Furthermore, the problem with the hour lesson observation is that it is merely an arbitrary snapshot within a wide scheme of learning that has happened over the course of weeks, if not months. Whilst I’m sure some schools use this process as a genuine dialogue where the context of learning can be explained by the teacher being observed, my experience is any ‘dialogue’ afterwards does not go much further than the classic ‘so how do you think that went?’ where the answer does nothing to change the grade which has been already decided by the observer. This leads to the inevitable fear, distrust, frustration and anxiety that are all too often tied into the observation process. Thankfully, it seems that more and more schools are ditching grading and making the observation process more informal and reflective but much more needs to be done to get to a place where performance management is less about compliance and auditing and more about growth and improvement.

Learning is often invisible to the naked eye and individual lessons don’t necessarily give a true picture of the groundwork that has gone into what can be observed at that particular moment. This felt very apparent in lesson I taught last week…

I am a very boring teacher. I mean this in the sense that I have deliberately ditched a lot of the faddy ‘engaging’ activities that were the mainstay of my NQT years. This is mainly because I very much believe that if there are two ways to teach something, we should prioritise the one that is the most efficient. Routines are very important to me. I don’t mean in the sense of behaviour (but that is also true) but I try to keep lessons in the same format so that the learning is the focus, not the activity. Therefore, come into my lesson and you are likely to see the following:

•         I begin with a starter that introduces a ‘big question’ or recap previous learning if appropriate
•        I will then introduce the main task/ success criteria
•        Then we will read the text together, pupils will then annotate it independently or in pairs
•        We feedback and check for misconceptions
•      I then model the beginning of the answer on the board (using questions to get input from the pupils) explaining how the answer is meeting the success criteria.
•       They then work in silence for around 20mins
•      We self assess using the success criteria (I model this by doing one under the visualiser)

A huge proportion of my lessons follow this same procedure. If you are an observer who doesn’t like teacher talk or wants to see group work- you are looking at an inadequate lesson. Yet, through my experience and research I believe this works- it’s the most efficient way for pupils to learn and allows time for deeper understanding of texts through the questioning I can lead and direct.

So, this week I thought I would try something different. Instead of modelling the answer on the board, I sat down at the back of the lesson and handed my pen to one of the pupils and said ‘I want you to be the teacher for this bit’. The pupil got up and went to the board and asked just the questions I would have asked, prompting the other pupils, taking different responses and then evaluating which was the best to one to then write on the board as part of the answer. Now, I sometimes had to nudge them in the right direction but they pretty much produced a brilliant model answer, using the exact process I would have. Sitting at the back of the classroom, I was struck how a casual observer to this lesson would see so many ‘outstanding’ things: pupils taking responsibility for their own learning, demonstrating metacognition, working together, evaluating ideas, being kind and supportive to each other’s opinions. Yet, this lesson would not have been possible a month ago, it is only because of all those lessons of that embedded those routines and explicit explanation of the mental process that this lesson was possible. In that lesson, the success of that much maligned ‘didactic’ teaching was invisible.

I use this anecdotal example as I think it neatly shows how one lesson can never fully show the snapshot of teaching or learning that is going on in a classroom. For an observer much of what is and has been happening (particularly if done well) is invisible, therefore it is vitally important for the ongoing improvement of teaching and learning within a school that teachers are empowered to be part of the observation dialogue, to be able to explain, contextualise and reflect during the observation process.

We need to be able to make the invisible visible.

Using Firefly in the Classroom

Technology in education or ‘Edtech’: A marmite issue. As a trainee and NQT I worked in a school where we were all given an iPad and encouraged to use apps in lessons to increase engagement. As much as I enjoyed getting a free iPad the experience left me cold. The drive for Edtech in schools can seem new, vibrant and exciting but it can also feel (dare I say it) like the Emperor’s New Clothes. Why? Like with any tool in education tech needs to do something better than the previous technology. After attending a conference last week on tech in education we considered whether new technology was doing something innovative or was just a ‘techy’ version of what has been done before. Take interactive whiteboards for example. In my practice they are a waste of money; there is nothing that I do with my IWB that I couldn’t do with a projector. Now, I concede that this is subject specific- I know Maths and Science teachers who swear by them. Yet for me as an English teacher, nothing compares to my visualiser. Why write semi illegible script using those horrible IWB pens on texts which I have had to cram onto PPT slides when I can just do this quickly and clearly on the same sheet of paper that my pupils are using. I’ve even heard people ask ‘but if you do that can use save what you have written?’ and my answer is ‘yes! I have a physical copy of it!’.

Back to the iPads… as engaging as these might be for pupils I remained unconvinced that in my English classroom that these iPads were enhancing or improving what could be done without them. Surely the purpose of technology is to make something easier or better. Often the iPads made things much more difficult and complicated; the opposite of what good edtech should do.

Therefore, when starting my new school, I initially inwardly raised an eyebrow when I saw that the use of ‘Firefly’ was being promoted and encouraged. If you haven’t heard of Firefly it is a Virtual Learning Environment which can be accessed by teachers, pupils and parents. Was this another iPad farce? It is safe to say that I am a complete convert. Very quickly it dawned on me how Firefly had the potential to enhance the learning experience and I wanted to share some of the features that I love from the perspective of a not particularly tech-savvy English teacher.

Homework:

Like many English teachers I have a problem with homework. I want homework to enrich and consolidate learning but I am painfully aware that due to the immense marking workload English generates, I don’t want to spend hours marking homework. Therefore, one of the biggest appeals of Firefly to me was the ability to set self-marking homework. I initially trialed this with my Y10 class and found that it worked. Firefly allows you to set multiple choice questions which will automatically mark and give a percentage. This data is then presented in a ‘Markbook’ which allows you to see the class results at a glance. You can also look back at individual responses and see any key misconceptions to inform your planning.

Setting up a homework task takes me roughly 10 minutes. Yet, next year these task will already be created and can be used again which significantly reduces workload. I shared this with my colleagues in my department and they bought into it. Split between everyone, you get a half term’s worth of homework for 10 minutes work. This is what Edtech should do- make life easier!

Below I have taken a screen shot which shows an example from our Y10 A Christmas Carol Homework Task and an example of what the markbook looks like:

Markbook:

Forums:

Another homework possibility is setting up a ‘forum’ where pupils can discuss an idea. In Y9 we have been studying To Kill a Mockingbird. As a homework task I have set various questions on the text as we have gone along. I have given pupils an outline of how they should respond (eg supporting their ideas with details from the text and responding or engaging with other pupil’s comments). This has proved really effective because it has created this sense of engagement and discussion with the text, particularly with quitter students who perhaps would not feel as comfortable contributing their ideas in a whole class discussion.

I have included an example of some of the comments below:

Revision Resources:

Firefly has the obvious benefit in English that you can set up a page with revision resources for your texts which, once created, can be easily updated year on year. The benefit of this is that all classes studying a text have access to the same resources and can access them on their phone or mobile devices.

I have included some examples of the Y8 revision resources I have created for my Merchant of Venice SOW.

The real advantage of this is that you can link to extra reading/ material that you can’t cover in class which can enrich pupils’ experiences of the text and stretch the most able.

Things I want to try:

There are so many possibilities with Firefly and as a novice (I’ve only been using this September) there are lots of things I still want to try including:

•        Using the poll function for student voice/ evaluation on SOWs etc.
•       Using the poll function to assess what topics pupils in a class want to revise most to adapt my revision sessions on the run up to exams.
•        Using forums and the blog function to enhance DEAR time.

Do you use Firefly? What have you found useful? I would love to share some best practice.