Just wonder

I loved visiting Lingfield last week! Don’t let the cake fool you… Cass and Anna are relentless in their commitment to getting things right, from recruitment and school culture to teaching, learning and PD. @WALKTHRUs_5

Totally awesome 🙌

I read everything Neil writes so this looks promising.

44 authors from around the world wrote 18 chapters. Leading academics with close to 5,000 scientific publications between them, alongside practitioners with more than 50,000 hours of classroom experience. Quite a feat, and we're very proud of it.

RT @tombennett71: Hard agree. Historicus Sapiens.

Grumpy thought: Most self-proclaimed 'learning scientists' are actually edfluencers who have never done any science!
Scientist: An expert in 1 or more fields of science who habitually uses scientific methods in carrying out scientific research to advance knowledge in the field.

It’s now pretty clear that AI is going to become wildly powerful, and many orgs are starting to explore how it might improve the lives of kids and families.

(Quite rightly: it would be remiss of us not to)

Imo one of the most important responsibilities for educators right now is to BE IN ON THE ACTION, steering these developments.

For me, Alpha is the best place to be doing that work.

What exactly is Alpha?

Our staff meeting last week focused on when's the best time to use MWB's and step 2 of Show Me Boards from @WALKTHRUs_5 of giving a timescale (see last week's post).

So this week, the steps are on our FYI board in the staffroom for everyone to see - simple print outs with ryone's attention as a reminder. And they're also featured on our Monday Briefing too. This way all staff - including the Governors- know what we are focussing on.

Rather than bombarding everyone with a staff meeting on MWB's, a Monday Briefing update of a different technique, and then something unrelated to read, we 'Do Less Better' and keep our focus on this one thing for the moment.

And as always, our MWB's blog is in the comments below.

@MattTeachCoach TomSherrington @olicav @MaryMyatt @MrGoodwin23

Only 18.6% of assessed influences satisfied core PICO (Population, Intervention, Comparison, Outcome) criteria while 24.6% failed across all four dimensions.

The authors audited 301 influences encompassing 1,375 retrieved meta-analyses. Their findings indicate that only 2 of the 301 influences (<1%) could be fully reproduced across reported effect sizes, study counts, student totals, and effect counts. Even when effect sizes were identifiable, 72.5% of sample size entries contained reporting errors or omissions.

John Hattie’s Visible Learning has substantially influenced curriculum choices, professional development & policy mandates globally. Now a comprehensive methodological audit examines whether the underlying evidence base supports these rankings. The findings raise serious concerns regarding the validity of the synthesis.

I can define this very easily. Exceptional work is so good that the rest of us can learn from it. Before @Ofstednews was turned into a government enforcement agency, such work would be recognised by a short paragraph in the report. Sir David Bell not only removed the term excellent - exceptional would do as well - from the reports, but removed these paragraphs, and act of the most profound ignorance, depriving gifted teachers of the professional recognition which they deserve, and the profession of the benefit of their excellence.

Here is one such paragraph

Excellent planning, organisation and relationships, led to outstanding achievement in writing in a Year 5 class composed almost entirely of pupils with English as an
additional language.

The class included some pupils in the early stages of learning English and others working at a level above
that expected for pupils a year older. The lesson began with a lively question and answer session centred on
a pupil playing the character of Cinderella’s stepmother. This had been carefully planned to consolidate and extend speaking and listening skills, by having pupils prepare a range of questions and consider their effects.

The teacher then used her close analysis of pupils’ progress to divide the class into six groups. Each group
had a writing task specifically designed to provide the right balance of challenge and support for their needs.
The teacher’s guidance on the writing was focused on the effect of choosing one kind of linking word rather
than another on the tone conveyed by a piece of writing, and she made excellent use of an interactive
whiteboard to illustrate points of detail. Her presentation also included very effective use of advanced vocabulary, and subtle introduction of idiomatic expressions in English, which built up pupils’ understanding of everyday expressions that they were unlikely to meet out of school.

With the help of teaching assistants, pupils worked with great interest and concentration on their writing, and then discussed the outcome in a final session involving the whole class, guided by the teacher. The quality of discussion in this final session was very high. All pupils were involved, some with support, and higher-attaining pupils showed exceptionally clear
understanding of the potential impact on writing of the choice of conjunctions with positive or negative
connotations. While some pupils were still working at a basic level in their writing, the overall standard was
above that expected for Year 5, and showed excellent achievement in all aspects of English.

Oracy, anyone?

Hattie's influence creates a citation-driven cycle of legitimacy: everyone cites him to support their claims. Even SoL leaders draw on his work when convenient, eg, Hattie's sequel is the most cited study in this book- link.springer.com/book/10.1007/9…

Aaargh!

Following a brilliant catch-up with the lovely @MattTeachCoach on Tuesday (we totally geeked out on everything school culture and professional development for 4 hours) our staff meeting last night focused on developing teachers’ use of mini-whiteboards (AKA Show Me Boards).
I ighlights from Matt’s visit, his insights and our collective observations from walking the school.
After revisiting this key @WALKTHRUs_5 technique and identifying steps 2 and 5 as our current development priorities, Anna led a practical session where we all rehearsed these granular steps using a grammar starter as our shared context.
The session was packed with phase-specific professional discussion, deliberate practice, personal reflection and in-the-moment updates to teachers’ individual CPD boards on @trello.
A rich hour of professional learning, using The WalkThrus as our shared language to put Rosenshine’s Principles into practice.
Thanks, Matt, for helping us sharpen our thinking and bring greater clarity to our next coaching steps. Cass
@teacherhead @olicav @LisaWorgan

I have been guilty of focusing a lot on element interactivity but transience is as much important to speak about.