Empowering CPD

Finding time for staff to share and learn from CPD is always a challenge. Every year I have more requests from staff for Staff Development Meeting time to deliver CPD for colleagues than I have meeting slots for.

To create more time, and more choice and flexibility of time for staff to learn, we have utilised our staff Microsoft Team as a shared collaborative space. Within the specific CPD Channel we share a wide range of ideas, training and resources (through documents, links, Forms and Sways…).

We also have weekly Monday Mini CPD Posts within the Microsoft Team. This empowers all staff, with whatever subject or aspect of school they lead on, to share a bite sized chunk of CPD. It can usually be read within 5-10 minutes at a time of the reader’s choosing.

🔗 Monday Mini CPD examples 2023-2024 (Autumn 2023 term)

🔗 Monday Mini CPD examples 2022-2023

We also use the Staff OneNote Collaboration Space within the staff Microsoft Team to plan, create, share all the sessions from

• Staff Development Meetings
• Support Staff Development Meetings
• All externally led training

This empowers every member of staff to be able to access any of this shared CPD on any device at any time.

Through this shared use of digital technology all of our staff are producers, collaborators and learners as we aim to grow as an Inspirational Learning Community.

Helping our children grow

Following a fascinating Team Teach training day in September, our Assistant Head and I led a Staff Development Meeting (SDM) on Behaviour.

We revisited our school Values and the Behaviour Assembly that had been shared with the whole school at the start of the year.

We shared some key ideas and messages from Paul Dix’s book

“When the adults change everything changes”

We shared a fascinating video from Cambridge County Council called “Why I am rude”

Then we shared some key ideas and messages from Steve Peter’s book:

“The Silent Guides”

However we finished out SDM by asking the staff to individually complete an activity – and then have time to read colleague’s ideas and discuss them.

The activity used the metaphor of a tree:

• First the staff had to consider what they wanted the children at our school to experience (the blossoming foliage of the tree).

• Second they had to record all the actions staff take , individually and collectively to support this happening (the secure trunk of the tree).

• Third and finally, they had to summarise the 3 main aspects which were the roots that they always try to anchor their choices, decision and actions from (clearly the roots of the tree).

We would highly recommend schools undertaking this activity with their staff teams, as it opens up lots of thinking and conversations, moves away from the simple duality of rewards and sanctions, and the systems to ensure these happen.

You can see the ideas from our staff below:

I’ve never known a half term that…

Before I begin, every year I hear colleagues including myself make comments like: “that was such a busy half-term” “this September’s Year R seem less prepared for school than ever before”. I am aware of ‘rose tinted glasses’ that reflect back to more ideal times (that almost certainly never existed in the way they are remembered).

But, taking that into account, I have never known a half-term that:

• Had so many children struggling with anxiety and their wellbeing
• Had so many family members openly struggling with their mental health
• Had such an increase of learning needs from the children
• Had so many children struggling so regularly to stay in and engage with lessons
• Had so few staff available to cover all these needs
• Had such stretch and feelings of being overwhelmed across the whole staff team when just a couple of staff were absent
• Had so many other school leaders and staff that I have spoken to talk about the relentless pressures and feelings of hopelessness
• Had so little funding, and confidence in future funding, that realistically the only way to attempt to meet the increasing needs is to go into deficit
• Had so many weeks when I worked 70+ hours, felt so exhausted I could not think rationally, and finished the week with more to do than I started the week with
• Had so many occasions when I have seriously considered handing my notice in

I have felt for a number of years that the system has been too stretched, that external expectations have increased with less and less capacity to manage it. I expected, like many aspects of the public sector – for the education sector to break.
I think it is now broken.

Despite many years of meetings, campaigning, and resorting to strike action (which nobody wants) the education sector has continued for many years to be underfunded and undervalued.

Issues with recruitment, retention, workload, high stakes accountability and underfunding have not and are not being adequately addressed.

The narrative in the media that a few school days lost to strike action (which is regrettable) is harming children’s learning and wellbeing, seems like a convenient smokescreen to the far more significant and disruptive long term issues of underfunding and undervaluing.

Yet despite all of this, I have survived this half-term and will return after the week’s ‘holiday’ (or catch-up as it is in reality): and this due almost entirely to the dedicated, professional, caring and inspiring team of colleagues I am blessed to work with.

Like staff in the NHS, social care, children’s services…it is only because these amazing professionals go above and beyond that the broken systems seem to external people to be working.

I do wonder (and sadly dread) what the next half-term and year will bring…

Book Summaries

Below are a series of Sways that share some key points / quotes from a range of books that I have read and learnt from.

High Challenge Low Threat

Mary Myatt

“Informed through thousands of conversations over a 20-year career in education, Mary shows the lessons that school management teams can learn from leaders in a wide range of other sectors and points to the conditions which these leaders create to allow colleagues to engage with difficult issues enthusiastically and wholeheartedly.”

High Challenge Low Threat summary Sway

Visible Learning for Teachers

John Hattie

Visible Learning means an enhanced role for teachers as they become evaluators of their own teaching. According to John Hattie Visible Learning and Teaching occurs when teachers see learning through the eyes of students and help them become their own teachers.

Visible Learning for Teachers summary Sway

Visible Learning: The Sequel

John Hattie

When the original “Visible Learning” was published in 2008 it instantly became a publishing sensation.

Now John Hattie returns to this ground-breaking work. The research underlying this book is now informed by more than 2,100 meta-analyses (more than double the original), drawn from more than 130,000 studies, and has involved more than 400 million students from around the world.

“Visible Learning: The Sequel” reiterates the author’s desire to move beyond claiming what works to what works best.

Visible Learning: The Sequel summary Sway

Curious not Furious

Alison Rendle and Kit Messenger

In Curious not Furious, Alison Rendle and Kit Messenger explain how you can support young people to develop their skills to cope with these challenges now and in the future. Based on the latest research into neuroscience, psychology, attachment and trauma, this booked is packed with examples, stories, models and tools that will help you respond effectively and with kindness, no matter what happens.

Curious not Furious summary Sway

Curious not Furious summary Sway 2

The Thinking School

Dr Kulvarn Atwal

“In this book, headteacher and professional learning expert Dr Kulvarn Atwal presents a model that maximises both formal and informal opportunities for staff development. Through peer learning, modelling, coaching and mentoring, engagement in research and other professional growth activities, the thinking school creates a dynamic collaborative culture that permeates the entire learning community.”

The Thinking School summary Sway

Leadership Matters

Andy Buck

Leadership Matters improves the educational outcomes for children by empowering leaders: how leadership at all levels can create great schools. Andy Buck takes an in-depth and diagnostic approach, encouraging leaders at all levels to think about their personal qualities; their specific situation; their own leadership actions; and their own overall leadership approach.

Leadership Matters summary Sway

Back on Track

Mary Myatt

Back on Track poses the idea of doing fewer things really well. Mary Myatt applies Greg McKeown’s theory of essentialism, showing teachers and leaders how to create the time and space to do deep, satisfying work on the curriculum. She explores the professional attitudes and orgainsational culture that support doing fewer things in greater depth.

Back on Track summary Sway

When the adults change, everything changes

Paul Dix

Paul Dix upends the debate on behaviour management in schools and offers effective tips and strategies that serve to end the search for change in children and turn the focus back on the adults. He outlines how each school can build authentic practice on a stable platform, resulting in shifts in daily rules and routines, in how we deal with the angriest learners, in restorative practice and in how we appreciate positive behaviour.

When the adults change, everything changes summary Sway

The Silent Guides

Professor Steve Peters

The “Silent Guides” explores some neuroscience and psychological aspects of the developing mind, unconscious thinking, behaviours, habit formation and related topics in an easy to understand way.

The Silent Guides summary Sway

The ResearchED Guide to Leadership

Edited by Stuart Lock (Series Editor Tom Bennett)

ResearchED is an educator-led organisation with the goal of bridging the gap between research and practice. Claiming that the leadership industry has failed to have the impact on schools that is required, this book takes a fresh view that domain-specific knowledge and expertise is vital to running school well and argues that we tend to underestimate the knowledge required to do this complex job efficiently.

ResearchED Guide to Leadership Sway

Education Forward

David Price

Too often, we think of school as a fixed-rail path we all have to follow: teachers teach, students learn, exams are taken, futures set. But parents, teachers and corporations around the world are now voicing their dissatisfaction with education systems that are no longer fit for purpose. Too many young people are not being adequately prepared for the unprecedented challenges they will face in a world that is changing as rapidly as ours is. We should be preparing them for the test of life, not a life of tests.

Education Forward summary Sway

My Secret #EdTech Diary

Al Kingsley

“My Secret EdTech Diary reflects on the history of EdTech, lessons learned pre- and post- Covid, best practice suggestions, how to select the right solutions and the questions you need to consider before pursuing your digital ambitions.”

My Secret #EdTech Diary summary Sway

Five Formative Assessment Strategies in Action

Kate Jones

Building on the successful work of Dylan Wiliam and Siobhan Leahy, Kate Jones addresses misconceptions of formative assessment and shares practical advice, focusing in the five evidence-informed strategies that teachers can us to support learner’s progress.

This summary Sway shares information on the fifth and final strategy.

Chapter 5: Activating students as owners of their own learning summary Sway

The Microsoft Teams Playbook

Jeni Long and Sallee Clark

In the Microsoft Teams Playbook, EdTech experts and coauthors Jeni Long and Sallee Clark provide a coach’s manual for creating empowered classrooms. Using Microsoft Teams as a multifaceted hub and integrating other powerful EdTech tools, the authors guide teachers to foster learning opportunities that are accessible and equitable for all.

The Microsoft Teams Playbook summary Sway

The Future of Teaching

The College of Teaching

It has become increasingly clear that it is the individual teacher who has the greatest capacity to make a difference to learners. Therefore, at the Chartered College of Teaching we believe a clear focus on teacher development, growth and celebration of professional expertise is central to the future of education.

If we are truly to build on the last 150 years of state education, we need to ensure that our profession is at the heart of the debate about not only where improvements can be made, but also how we retain the very best of what schools and teachers have achieved.

Ultimately, the future of teaching must be about hope. The future of teaching is about greater collective recognition of inequity, because through truly understanding where and how the gaps form, we can do our utmost to bridge them.

The Future of Teaching summary Sway

More than Caring and Sharing

John Cox

Church schools are different not because they are exclusive but because they are distinctive. But just what constitutes this distinctiveness? It is more than a matter of ‘caring and sharing’. This timely book seeks to help all concerned with education in church schools to explore this question.

More than Caring and Sharing summary Sway

Teaching for Learning 2023

The staff team (both teachers and support staff) at Cornerstone CE Primary have undertaken a year long Evidence Informed Education project during the 2022-2023 academic year.

This has involved a series of professional discussions exploring a range of education research. This has included thinking and research from the Educational Endowment Foundation; Dylan Wiliam; John Hattie; Rosenshine; Evidence Based Education; and Jade Pearce.

We were reviewing our current Teaching for Learning Foundations (T4LF) (which are the key elements identified to be embedded into our regular classroom practice and evident in impact on learning / pupil outcomes in all areas of the curriculum to ensure consistent good quality of teaching and learning) as a crucial section of our Teaching for Learning policy.

Utilising the research we have critically evaluated our T4LF asking:

• Are the Foundations still fit for purpose, and do they reflect our actual current practice?
• Do we need to adapt or remove any of the Foundations?
• Do we need to include any new new Foundations?
  

We have now reached a conclusion of the project with an updated collaboratively agreed and created set of Teaching for Learning Foundations.

You can view the definitions of these Foundations, and quotes from research which staff have selected to justify their importance and inclusion in the Sway below.

Teaching for Learning Foundations Sway

These Foundations are the basis of our shared pedagogy at Cornerstone: and fit within the Principles and Aims of our Teaching for Learning policy.

Principles (Values)

We aim to help our children develop a genuine Love for learning and personal growth. Staff show Love through their passion and professional commitment for all aspects of teaching and the children’s learning and progress.

We show Forgiveness in the way we learn from mistakes and Hope through the high expectations we have for every child and the way we strive for the best for all children.

Aims

• All learners (and groups) attain at least End of Year Expectations
• All learners (and groups) make sustained progress and develop depth of understanding
• All learners are empowered partners in their learning to grow as people who are: positive, resilient, independent, team players and successful communicators

Inspirational Teaching and Learning

• Irresistible, challenging and promotes choice
• Empowers all to be the best they can be
• Collaborative, encourages curiosity and self-discovery, and transforms lives

Links to research we have used to inform our policy:

🔗 A model for Great Teaching

🔗 Cognitive Science Rosenshine principles

🔗 EEF Teaching and Learning Toolkit

🔗 EEF Metacognition and self-regulated learning

🔗 EEF Making the best use of LSAs

🔗 Effective Teaching and Learning (Common Closure Day)

🔗 Evidence Informed Education (A collection)

🔗 Five Formative Assessment strategies

🔗 How Learning Happens

🔗 How pupils learn – Retrieval Practice

🔗 Learning and Memory

🔗 Learning Scientists

🔗 NJ NPQH project

🔗 Oliver Caviglioli website

🔗 SOLO presentation

🔗 Visible Learning for teachers

 🔗 Visible Learning – The Sequel

🔗 What every teacher needs to know

Digital EdTech Insight Day

Friday 3 March 2023

❓ What are the largest issues facing teachers, leaders and schools?

From numerous conversations in different networks three themes keep reoccurring:

1️⃣ That there is never enough time.

2️⃣ That there are too many internal and external barriers.

3️⃣ That are too many challenges and problems.

📅 Over the past 3 years the team at Cornerstone CE Primary have developed and embedded their use of digital technology to address these three issues. Through this process the school has benefitted from:

✔ Enhanced teaching and learning

✔ Enabled effective communication and collaboration

✔ Empowered leadership and management across the school

🤝 We have collaborated closely with Microsoft Education, benefitted from a range of professional development experiences, and now make far more effective use a range of tools / apps that are available free for schools within the Microsoft 365 suite.

ℹ To find out more and sign up – please click on this link:

Digital EdTech Insight Day

Primary Edu events 22-23

Monday 10 October 2022

Click on this link to book a place at this event.

Reading Progress is a free tool that helps learners practice their reading fluency.

Learners read a passage out loud while recording video and audio, then turn in their recordings to you.

Create Reading Progress assignments in Microsoft Teams and track learner progress over time in the Insights tab.

Learn about:
▶ Research behind the design

▶ Setting and reviewing Assignments

▶ Reading Coach

▶ Insights

Monday 6 February 2023

Click on this link to book a place at this event.

A game-based learning platform that promotes creativity, collaboration, and problem-solving in an immersive digital environment.

From basic building to coding, Minecraft: Education Edition grows with learners, and can be used across the curriculum.

Learn about:

▶ Why Minecraft?

▶ Subject related challenges

▶ How to play

▶ Coding

Monday 19 June 2023

Click on this link to book a place at this event.

21st Century Learning Design (21CLD) provides educators with clear and practical ways to develop 21st skills using digital technologies with their learners.

It builds on the research methodology providing a collaborative, practice-based process to help educators transform how they design enriching learning activities for their learners. 

Learn about:
▶ Knowledge construction

▶ Collaboration

▶ Real world problem solving

▶ Communication

▶ Self-regulation

▶ ICT for learning

Minecraft Education

Introduction

I have enjoyed spending time over the past few months exploring and learning more about Minecraft: Education Edition.

Minecraft offers an active and interactive immersive experience for learners to play, craft and learn. The platform encourages learners to build skills like collaboration, communication, critical thinking, and systems thinking: and gives them greater choice and control over their learning.

Part of my learning journey has been supported by undertaking the Minecraft: Education Edition: Teacher Academy on Microsoft Learn.

New York – New York

However another important and incredibly helpful part of my learning journey has been the support and advice from our Year 5-6 Digital Learners and my Year 8 daughter.

As well as teaching me a range of new tips and techniques, they have also generously supported me in our group build of a New York Starter Build – which our Year 5-6s will use as part of their New York Learning Quest in the future.

If you would like to use this New York Minecraft World please feel free to make a copy and share it with your learners / colleagues.

Hour of Code

As part of our work as a group our Year 5-6s Digital Leaders will be jointly leading Hour of Code afternoons with our Year 3-6s in the coming half-term.

The Hour of Code 2020 not only supports learners with coding (using Block of Python programming) but also encourages them to consider themes of diversity and inclusion.

Curriculum

I have also spent time exploring the wide range of pre-prepared Worlds and plans within the Subject Kits and created a selection which teachers in our school can choose from to use with their classes to enhance our broad and creative curriculum offer.

Leadership Scenarios

With a new structure / personnel of a wider Leadership Team since September 2021 we have spent time discussing, exploring and developing our shared understanding of leadership and management both generally and within our school context.

1. At the start of the Spring term 2022, we explored and analysed a range of hypothetical Leadership Scenarios.

For each Leadership Scenario we considered:

• Perceptions
• Challenges
• Solutions

Feedback from leaders is that they found the conversations beneficial: as they were grounded in practical real life examples; opened up in depth and rich dialogue about numerous possible interpretations and solutions; helped us to gain a better collective understanding of ourselves as a Leadership Team.

lt-leadership-scenariosDownload

pl-leadership-scenariosDownload

2. Previously to this, during the Autumn term 2021: we’ve looked at and discussed evidence based summaries / posters about leadership.

See examples below which come from a range of sources.

The discussions have included:

• Reflecting and self-evaluating our own collective and individual leadership styles, strategies and strengths. Referencing and celebrating examples of other colleagues within the team.
• Considering how we can, and why we must, role model by living out a school Values and Vision on a daily basis.
• Developing evolving processes and systems: both for us as a team, and for the whole school community.
• Discussing how we can utilise coaching style approaches to help support and challenge our teams and the staff as a whole to improve the impact for our children.
• Analysing the standards and progress of our learners, and how we can deploy staff and interventions in targeted and strategic ways.

3. Finally, we have also introduced regular Learning Conversations and continued Coaching conversations.

The Learning Conversations have enabled all colleagues within Phase Teams to celebrate successes together, but also to share challenges faced and to collectively consider alternative solutions and agree next steps to trial.

The Coaching Conversations have provided leaders ring fenced time to openly share issues and challenges, which they choose to focus on, within a trusting and confidential conversation. They are then supported to consider future options / strategies, and choose which actions they will undertake.

Feedback from staff for both these approaches has been in the main positive: with staff appreciating the time given for the conversations, and that their ideas / opinions and being valued.

Primary Maths Grammar quizzes

Using Microsoft Forms you can create quick, self-marking quizzes that can be easily shared with learners in your class.

You can learn more about Forms here:

Create authentic assessments with Microsoft Forms

Below are a series of quizzes for English and Maths, that I have created which you can duplicate: to either share as they are, or as a template to quickly alter with your own variation of the given questions.

If you do alter questions to create your own version, I would appreciate it if you were willing to share them with me, to create a wider range of resources for us all to benefit from.

Year 6 Maths

• Year 6 Fractions
• Year 6 Decimals
• Year 6 Percentages
• Year 6 Fractions Decimals and Percentages
• Year 6 Multiplying Decimals by Whole Numbers
• Year 6 Percentage of Amounts
• Year 6 Multiplying Fractions
• Year 6 Dividing Fractions
• Year 6 Algebra One Step Equations
• Year 6 10, 100 and 1000
• Year 6 Inverse Operations
• Year 6 Roots and Powers
• Year 6 Reasoning: Number 1
• Year 6 Reasoning: Number 2
• Year 6 Reasoning: Number 3
• Year 6 Reasoning: Fractions Decimals Percentages Ratio 1
• Year 6 Reasoning: Fractions Decimals Percentages Ratio 2
• Year 6 Reasoning: Fractions Decimals Percentages Ratio 3
• Year 6 Arithmetic 1
• Year 6 Arithmetic 2
• Year 6 Arithmetic 3
• Year 6 Arithmetic 4

Year 5 Maths

• Year 5 Fractions
• Year 5 Decimals
• Year 5 Percentages
• Year 5 Fractions Decimals and Percentages
• Year 5 Roots and Powers
• Year 5 Addition
• Year 5 Subtraction
• Year 5 Multiplication
• Year 5 Division

Years 5-6 Grammar

• Grammar terms / word classes 1
• Grammar terms / word classes 2
• Functions of sentences
• Words, phrases and clauses
• Verbs forms, tense and consistency
• Punctuation
• Vocabulary / language strategies
• Standard English

Year 4 Maths

• Year 4 Addition
• Year 4 Subtraction
• Year 4 Multiplication
• Year 4 Division
• Year 4 Inverse Operations
• Year 4 Fractions

Year 3 Maths

• Year 3 Addition
• Year 3 Addition 2
• Year 3 Subtraction
• Year 3 Subtraction 2
• Year 3 Multiplication
• Year 3 Multiplication 2
• Year 3 Division
• Year 3 Division 2

Year 2 Maths

• Year 2 Addition
• Year 2 Addition 2
• Year 2 Subtraction
• Year 2 Subtraction 2
• Year 2 Fractions
• Year 2 Fractions 2
• Year 2 Inverse Operations
• Year 2 Inverse Operations 2