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CUREE Enews February 2013

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Philippa's February Blog

Happy, if belated, New year! I am tickled pink by what is certainly the most positive news story of 2013 so far - perhaps for the rest of the year! We should all encourage our pupils out into the playgrounds, parks and fields to build snowmen to manage the pace of the thaw! Here’s a picture of a six foot six one we found during the first snowfall in the local park. Respect!


I am hoping you are all urging snowman building as I write. I know several of the teachers and leaders from the Cambridge SUPER network who I was working and learning with recently had ideas on those lines. It all helped banish any January blues brought on by the snow and cold, the flu and norovirus.

Another thing that has lifted spirits in CUREE is two recent opportunities to work with over 90 aspiring senior leaders for intense sessions on leading and modelling excellence in coaching as a school improvement lever. We were particularly struck by the depth of their thinking and the ambition of their goals (see below for a more detailed snapshot of the aspirations of this group of people, who we are confident will be helping to lead the profession as a whole very soon).

My sense is that with the lengthening days the sap is beginning to rise in several senses. We are enjoying lots of conversations about long-term CPD and use of research partnerships with different groups of schools. Colleagues seem to be using 2013 to look beyond the urgent, and focus on the important.

Philippa Cordingley - Chief Executive

 

SKEIN FE

How are colleges going to rise to the challenge of making the quality of teaching and learning good or outstanding?  Are you developing your staff in effective and cost efficient ways? How can your performance management/appraisal systems connect more directly with CPD processes to raise standards and deliver value for money?

CUREE, in collaboration with 157 Group and supported by LSIS, is piloting a system for evaluating and fine-tuning these processes in FE colleges. Based in international research and already proven in schools, the SKEIN FE service is being co-developed with Derby College, piloted in York and Cornwall Colleges and tested in collaboration with many other 157 Group members.  We have had a number of colleges interested in using the service and we are very happy to talk you through the options. The fully FE’d service will be available by Easter.

 To read more, click here>>

 

Curriculum

Announcements about the new National Curriculum and the spaces that will be left for building a school curriculum hover tantalisingly around the corner. We can expect a mix of specification about both content and assessment, and new freedoms and challenges.

Perhaps the most exciting freedom and challenge is the creation of a new, locally-determined School Curriculum. There have been lots of delays in ministerial announcements, and there may be more. But you can be laying a foundation for your response by collecting pupils’ views about how they experience the curriculum now through our pupil curriculum survey .This will tell you a lot about what to hang on to, and what isn’t motivating. Designed as part of a three year evaluation of the National Curriculum, lots of schools found this survey so useful that they kept it going after the QCDA was disbanded. So, we can help you explore the results in the context of schools’ responses nationally, and in the context of our extensive qualitative evidence about how outstanding and innovative schools tackle a range specific issues - such as designing a curriculum to narrow gaps, promote well being or participation and engagement, manage curriculum change and challenge every single pupil.

  

CUREE up the Amazon

Our popular Effective Mentoring and Coaching materials have been available for purchase from our own site for a year or so, but this is not the most convenient arrangement for personal or overseas customers or anyone who would like to pay by credit card.

For those customers, we have now made the EMAC Suite available via Amazon Marketplace. We thought carefully about this given the publicity around Amazon’s tax minimisation practices but we’d like to point out that we do pay our taxes here! So let your friends here and around the world know of this additional way of getting their hands on CUREE’s high quality CPD resources.

 

An Aspiring Leaders’ eye view of current challenges and priorities

Current development priorities at school - here are some of the priority issues identified by a number of the 65 delegates from 76 schools across the country:

 

And here is their vision for how coaching will contribute to school improvement:

 

 

CUREE Website Spring Clean

 

We get a lot of praise for the wealth of evidence based resources on our website. But some people have said that it’s too complicated and confusing. So we’ve started on a bit of a refresh to try and make it simpler. We’ve reduced the length of the main menu system and made the home page much simpler and visually less cluttered. Our objective is to give our visitors access to just as much rich content as before but in a cleaner, more straightforward way.

Right now, however, we are in the transition phase between the two, so some of the old pages are still there but ‘orphaned’; (i.e. not linked to the menu system). Also some of the new links are not fully working yet.

Everything should still show up if you search for it, either via the categorised views here or from the main advanced search page. If you still can’t find it email Suzie or me and we’ll hunt it down for you.

 

 

Supporting vulnerable children at primary/secondary transfer with research-based interventions

Children who do not achieve Level 4 English by the end of Key Stage 2 are at risk of failing at secondary school. CUREE are delighted to be collaborating with Achievement for All (AfA3As) on this innovative project, supported by the Education Endowment Fund. The project combines Response to Intervention (RTI) and the Achievement for All programme, which are both proven to work.  During the project, we are working with 80 primary schools helping them analyse the literacy needs of their vulnerable year six pupils and use evidence-based interventions to raise the pupils’ achievement. To kick start the project, we carried out a survey to find out about the schools’ needs. Here are their 3 top 3s…

The top 3 learning needs which affected year 6 literacy were found to be:

  • Moderate learning difficulties;
  • Behavioural, emotional and social difficulties; and
  • EAL.

 

The 3 aspects of literacy which were found to be the greatest barriers to children achieving Level 4 were:

  • Inferential comprehension;
  • Structuring and organising ideas for writing; and
  • Grammar.

 

The 3 most popular English interventions were:

  • Talking Partners;
  • Paired Reading and Writing; and
  • Peer mentoring and tutoring.

 

We are using these and other, more detailed data to design interactive workshops, tools and resources to help schools select and use research-informed interventions, and collect evidence of pupils’ progress to refine teaching. The tools will come in our teacher-friendly interactive Route Map format to make it easy for staff to find the tool they need.

If your school is interested in using an evidence-based approach to raise literacy achievement, please contact Rebecca Raybould at Rebecca.raybould@curee.co.uk . Whilst all places for this project have been filled, CUREE are able to offer a range of resources, including workshops and Route Maps to support your school in raising achievement for vulnerable year six learners.

 

Breaking News>>

The DfE have allocated £54M to secondary schools to help them respond to Year 7 pupils who have fallen behind in literacy and maths. The research based interventions outlined above are designed to work with both Year 6 and Year 7 pupils. We will be running workshops later this year to demonstrate how you can use this proven approach and the supporting resources to gain rapid progress with your Year 7 pupils. Alternatively, speak to Rebecca Raybould for more information on how we can help you now. See the DfE press release here.

 

 

Using Evidence to improve Staff and Student learning

This very popular, interactive workshop is aimed at helping schools and colleges improve their outcomes, and developing practice and teacher enquiry through the use of accessible research and evidence. 

It is for middle and senior leaders in schools and colleges, as well as school and college teachers who are interested in evidence-based approaches and teacher enquiry.

The workshop will:

  • equip you with an understanding of the 4 elements needed to ensure teachers’ use of evidence makes a difference to student learning;
  • explore practical evidence-based tools and resources which can be used to improve staff and student learning, and sustain and focus enquiry;
  • include a contribution from Philippa Cordingley, the CEO of CUREE;
  • offer examples of how schools and colleges have used hyper-linked Route Maps as a way of developing evidence-based practice; and
  • include plenty of opportunities to share and discuss practice with colleagues.

The workshop will be held on Wednesday 13th March 2 – 5.30pm, at Birmingham Metropolitan College (close to Birmingham New Street train station). Cost per delegate: £50 plus VAT.  

For more information, please visit our website http://www.curee.org.uk/content/using-evidence-improve-staff-and-student-learning

To book a place, you can contact Sian Bravington at sian.bravington@curee.co.uk

 

 

Coaching and Mentoring in Vocational Education

 

“The coach needs to bring something to the party which

 that group doesn’t already have in order to add value.

 It isn’t about a classic consultancy approach – give me

 your watch and I’ll tell you the time. It needs to be more

 than that. Both need to bring a watch, but the coach also

 needs to bring a torch so you can see it at night.”

This is just one of the ‘gems’ from our chapter which drew on interviews with 17 practitioners and CUREE’s own extensive understanding of coaching to explore its role in vocational education and training. There is also an excellent introduction and summary of the key issues written by Kathleen Collett.

Other chapters in this, the first in the ‘Insight’ series from the Centre for Skills Development, were written by leading academics in the vocational education field.

You can access or download the full document from our website here. You can find out more about this publication and others in the same series from the CSD (part of City & Guilds) from their website.

CUREE offers a wide range of coaching and mentoring services in both schools and FE sectors including workshops, research and development, online and printed resources and personal executive coaching. Look here for more information or email or phone lisa.bradbury@curee.co.uk for a no-obligations chat.

 

Leading Learning Summer term 2013

New Workshops!

As well as our core programme, we are offering some new workshops in the summer term - responding to requests from schools and colleges as well as to emerging research findings and new policy requirements. There is an emphasis on helping leaders of learning across the sectors use a range of evidence to ensure improvement strategies are effective. These workshops don’t just provide new information, they help leaders help their colleagues focus on what really works by connecting staff learning to improved student outcomes.

Accessing the evidence: Improving Applied Learning

This workshop explores the evidence behind effective teaching and learning strategies for vocational learning. It is designed for directors of teaching and learning in the learning and skills sector who wish to ensure their improvement plans for quality teaching and learning utilise high leverage, evidence-based strategies to ensure impact.

Accessing the evidence: Using Research Lesson Study effectively

 Many teachers know and understand that a structured and supported focus upon their lessons is a most powerful way to deepen the impact of their teaching interventions and improve student learning. This workshop looks at the practicalities of planning and supporting research lesson study offering some key tools and resources to ensure a sustained and engaging opportunity for effective professional learning. 

Accessing the evidence : Using support staff to make a difference

It came as a shock to many schools to find that the Sutton Trust's Pupil Premium Toolkit identified that increased investment in teaching assistants did not lead to a significant improvement in pupil outcomes. This workshop explores the evidence as to why this might be the case, what does work and provides CPD leaders and SENCOs with practical tools and activities to support the work of teaching assistants so that it does make a difference. 

Why not make the most of the changes to the timetable in the summer term by booking one of these workshops for in-house delivery - customised to meet the needs of your staff and students? Find out more here http://www.curee.co.uk/node/2891 or get in touch by emailing lisa.bradbury@curee.co.uk or phoning 02476 524 036 

 

 

Opening Minds: Lessons from the classroom

In a recent E-News CUREE announced the publication of the Opening Minds (OM) action research report. The project was important for building action research capacity in OM Training Schools, but also for its findings on how a focus on pupils developing competence and skills could complement and reinforce content learning. Here are some of the headlines:

Skills development in lessons

The OM competence framework provided a helpful guide for lesson planning, for example, ensuring opportunities to develop research and collaborative skills were woven into content learning. This in turn helped to secure more engaging lessons with a variety of activities.

AfL and assessment frameworks

Engaging learners in target setting and reviewing progress was a key element in OM lessons. Learners (and teachers) were better positioned to do this by using assessment ladders developed from the OM framework.

What the learners wanted

Two main messages emerged from pupil focus groups – they wanted their teachers to:

  • reinforce learning, reiterating and reinforcing new content in a range of learning activities; and
  • make the learning of all students visible, for example, by more use of the Interactive White Board.

 

Professional development

Planning for and implementing skills development in the classroom while ensuring progress in knowledge acquisition was not an easy process. It required teachers to develop skills themselves over time. This was helped by the use of assessment frameworks to create a common language and understanding.

 

 

St Thomas More Challenge Project

We are excited to be working in partnership with St Thomas More School Blaydon on the further development of appropriate and inspiring levels of challenge for every student and teacher, using our in depth SKEIN analysis of the professional learning environment in the school as a springboard. Having experienced the depth of commitment and up-for-it-ness of the school’s talented group of teachers through interviews and focus group activities, we are convinced that CUREE colleagues and in school champions are on the cusp of breaking new boundaries in this established outstanding school. This won’t be a question of introducing radically new or additional things. But it will mean working together to identify, piece by piece:

  • how to do fewer things in more depth,
  • those things that are ok but offer too little leverage to be worth sustaining,
  • how to transfer control of the learning appropriately to all learners; and
  • capitalising on ever present routines that work well (for example one focus group triad came up with two great ideas to enable professional learning from work scrutiny).

It is really exciting to be able to build another long term, research informed strategy based on both in-depth evidence about the learners’ (both staff and students) starting points and the international evidence, and to design impact evaluation in from the outset!

 

 

 

 

 

Phase: 
Primary
Secondary
Further Education
Document section: 
Classroom Practice
Continuing Professional Development
Curriculum
General
Leadership
Document type: 
Newsletter