The Changing Face of Assessment

Assessment is changing, this much we know. How? Is a very good question. We know that it is unlikely to follow a number and letter format and we know that it will reflect the new curriculum. 

We have decided to embrace the new language of assessment and from September we have been using; Working Towards, Expected and Working Above to assess children in each year group. We have also borrowed the measure from EYFS of a Good Level of Development to reflect the proportion of children achieving expected or more in Reading, Writing and Maths.

Autumn Term

Autumn assessment was very much a learning curve. Reading was assessed using Benchmarking using the school reading scheme, guided reading notes and reading tests. Writing was assessed using our writing assessment documents and moderation. Maths was assessed using old SATs papers and other test materials. All of which were then triangulated with teacher assessment based on daily work.

This worked well and we had assessment that was in line with previous assessment which had a wide evidence base. However, teachers still didn't feel secure in their judgments.

Spring Term

As we are moving towards our spring assessment periods, it is time to move things forward. As a staff we are working with the national curriculum objectives on a 'best fit' basis similar to EYFS. The challenge now is to move from old assessment materials which is no longer fit for purpose.

By using curriculum objectives, assessment should get back to its main role, to inform teaching and learning. 

Moving from 'old' assessment to 'new' materials will take time and adjustment, spring may not reflect progress as well as it did in the past. Until further guidelines are produced, I still feel that going through this process over the year will enable a mindset change before we get the finer details. Watch this space.

Staff Wellbeing

Staff Wellbeing has been getting a lot of Twitter attention of late through #teacher5aday via the great work of @martynreah and collaborators. At a recent leadership meeting an afternoon INSET session was mooted with the theme of Wellbeing.

Today, we had our first planning meeting. 

It was great to have input from a group of six, four TAs, two teachers and the bursar. I was really pleased to have staff coverage from both key stages with a wide variety of interests. Later, I spoke to all the kitchen spans cleaning staff to check that they could be available to attend too. Wellbeing is about the whole school not just teachers.

First of all, I shared the wellbeing rhetoric of #connect #excerise #learn #volunteer #notice

We decided to start our session with some challenges of kindness. Using the idea of #wellbeingbags we are planning to organise a 'secret Santa' style wellbeing bags where different year group teams put together a wellbeing bag for another year group. We then added a mystery compliment  challenge where staff thank other staff anonymously to be put on a notice board around the school.

We planned that the session should include 3 half an hour 'taster' sessions that focus on #connect #exercise and #learn. This idea is that staff will choose three sessions to join for the afternoon with the aim of mixing up staff so that they are interacting with people they wouldn't normally do. 

The activities, so far, include: 

T-ball, gardening, relaxation, watercolours, cooking, badminton, book club, African drumming and maintenance projects around the school. The cooking element will provide staff with a cream tea which we will share outside together at the end of the session.

The sessions are designed to give people ideas and create a good team spirit. At the end of the session, staff will have the opportunity to make their own personal pledge for their own #teacher5aday.

Hopefully, this session will kickstart staff wellbeing and lead to regular activities and events being setup.

#teacher5aday

 

The Fear of Leading

As part of an aspiring head programme, I have been keeping a journal of my learning. This post is part of a series based on my observations.
I have been teaching for a relatively short time (6 years) but I have found that volunteering for things and being keen to learn more can quickly give you more whole school responsibility and set you apart. Many teachers are happy in their work, teaching their class and leading a subject.
Already, there is a conflict; leading.
How many subjects at your school are being led? Often in schools, everyone is aware of the key issues or which subjects are in need of a revamp but what happens?

Key issues are often uncomfortable and could take a long time to revolutionise a whole school approach. As a result, issues are managed and monitored but with no real improvement, just a list of things to improve. Why is leading so hard?
A quick look on Twitter will show you that education is awash with leaders. Teachers all over the Twitter-sphere are constantly changing their ideas, practice and more importantly sharing these with others.
Teachers are famously modest and find it difficult to take criticism or praise so leading is taking a risk. One of the things we ask children to do regularly.
I think leading is difficult for several reasons:
- Time, leading needs time to reflect, plan and improve, especially when you have to manage at the same time.
- Believing in your own ideas. You need to convince yourself before convincing others. Pilots and action research projects are important but need to be credible.
- Standing Out. Change can cause lots of extra work and other staff may be happy following the old system, especially if their workload is unaffected. Convincing people then becomes even harder.
- Other Initiatives. Some things are just easier, instantly get agreed and then are introduced. These may be improvements but could mask the real development issues a school faces.
Across education there are many leaders but should they be managers? Does the subject simply tick over or are you being challenged to reflect upon practices and raise standards?

BETT 2015 Notes from Friday 23rd January

BETT2015
ASTRO PI
Project to send code into space. Apply by 3rd April.
Assessment without Levels
Michael Tidd questions about assessment.
Is the output able to be shared with children?
Using Raspberry Pi
Pi Academy-free training
Hackpool
Geek Girl Diaries -YouTube @missphilbin
Minecraft Pi-free books from Raspberry Pi Foundation
Sonic Pi-coding software that uses text to play- a good next step after scratch.
Google STEM ambassadors
Code club volunteers to come into school and run code clubs, usually professionals in ict.
Using Blippar
AR app with building tool coming soon. Blip Build. Better than Aurasma because you can move away from an image.
Enhancing physical objects by creating a virtual environment to enhance learning. Building a large education resources bank. A 2D image can create a 3D image that you can explore, analyse data, interact with an object and create questions about a subject.
Sir Ken Robinson
TED talks- Great for inspiration and personal CPD
Questioned the nature of school culture, the idea that education should be standardised. Revolutions start from the ground up. If we all change what we so then the system will change. Culture is the total of people's behaviour so by changing behaviour cultures will change.
Out of Our Minds - Ken Robinson - Book
Education should be:
Economic, creative, cultural and personal.
Encouraging all children in their talents could lead them down many paths in future life. Learning is not linear. Personal creativity and general creativity.
Played nuts in a tube video. Technology is about being creative with what we have. Tools and technology are synonymous and allow us to do things we couldn't before, we can use these tools in new ways to do new things - this is creativity. Viewing things differently.
Mind art video
We need to make our tools come to life to enhance learning.
Landfillarmonic video about a Paraguayan slum's orchestra. About Capitalising, recycling and self learning. You shouldn't throw away rubbish and you shouldn't throw away people.
Schools are like organisms, they must adapt or die.
Teach Meet:
Sir Ken Robinson: Spoke about the relationship between teachers and children being at the heart of education. Teaching requires constant adjustment depending on time, weather etc.
Joe Dale: Appsmashing-using multiple apps to achieve a final outcome. Lots of scope for Mable. Needs the ability to publish to a real audience to be successful-publish online. Use camera roll on ipad as a hub to transfer data. Books: IPad ideas book-Greg Kulowiec, App Smash Challenge Cards, Pinterest Board-SAMR Model and Appsmashing Board.
Alan O'Donohue: Twinery.org excellent resource for creating non linear stories. Could create: A choose your own adventure story, a story plan, innovating sentences, planning different scenarios for a project.
@daviderogers Give students the chance to prove facts. Question their assumptions and develop their curiosity.
Coding Activities: Code Kingdoms and Erase All Kittens (EAK) use Java script. Upper KS2
#Teacher wellbeing- bags to help teacher well being. Happy teachers equals better teaching and learning. Possibly make bags to give to other year groups.
Scientific Thinking: Get children used to failing and use failure as a starting point for learning. Ask children to predict and argue about ideas and thinking. Don't give answers easily- develop curiosity,suspense and learning excitement.
Ian Stuart- Islay School, Scotland: . Children are in mixed age classes depending on where they feel comfortable. Teaching of vocational subjects alongside traditional teaching. School doesn't use interactive whiteboards but projectors and tablets. Teachers learn with children using wealth of online experts. Lots of international collaboration. #dropthepilot
Andy Lewis @iteachRE called for more teacher led discussions about pastoral care. Lots of pedagogical ideas are shared but pastoral ideas are not but are equally important in learning.
@ianaddison talked about using the app Skitch for annotating work. Particularly science and maths.
Erasmus Plus: Great example of continental collaboration between at least 6 schools. Lots of sharing, learning and energy. Apply online before March.
Get to know a Governor: Invite governors in to see teaching in action, develop relationships.
@ASTsupportAali lots of great ideas available at Cheney toolkit.
- sticky plasters to cover persistent mistakes.
- invite parents in or send work home for them to mark.
-start a lesson with a current trending #. Good for starting discussion and getting thoughts on relevant news.
- Roll A... Series- lots of resources for children to choose. Eg. Next word
- viewers and listeners- a great way to share ideas. Half of class watch and then tell listeners who write.
- Help Desk-A place for children to get learning help. Could be manned by children too.
- Share and Replace board for staff to share ideas and replace with a new one.
- Half desk, half whiteboard- paint desks with whiteboard paint so they can write on tables.
- Eureka Jar- a jar where children can write what made them understand something. Great for self reflection.
- culture box- a prepared box that contains things about the culture of school and area to be shared globally by post or skype.
Live Action Programming: Use drama to reinforce computational thinking in a fun way. Use costumes etc. to mimic typical coding commands.
Blogging- use a weekly hashtag to encourage themed writing or discussion. Use blogs to share problems and encourage learning at home.
@techczecj using e-readers to encourage low readers and dyslexic children. Texts can be read to child. For books visit: Wattpad, feedbooks, load2learn, wikibooks

The Cycling Teacher

I've been cycling to school in Essex and North Somerset for the last four years. My commute is about an 18 mile round trip covering some busy A roads, a junction of the M5 and some winding country lanes. Whilst other professions have a wealth of commuters, teaching doesn't seem to have the same army of Lycra clad cyclists. For those thinking about cycling to work, read on:

1. Health: Regular exercise, whilst you may not be able to cycle every day, raising your heart beat a few times a week will have a great impact on your body. I also find that it keeps my immune system in good shape and all the school bugs away.

2. Relax: I find the days that I cycle, I'm far more relaxed at home. I've had a chance to think about my day and plan what needs to happen the next. This is my reflection time. #connect

3. Summer: The sun is shining, it isn't dark until 9pm. A long, winding country lane is a perfect antidote to end of year assessments, sports day and writing reports. #notice

4. Efficiency: On a bike you are somewhat limited with what you can take home. This allows you to decide which tasks are the most important and which ones aren't necessary. I rarely take books home to mark and this has developed my use of AfL practices and giving the children greater chance to respond to feedback.

5. Role Model: Most children in my Y5 class cycle or scooter, I like to think that I demonstrate the 'Healthy School' ethos that is part of my school. It's also good for reinforcing road safety, discussing regular exercise and the odd impromptu maths problem. 

Things to consider: 

1. A bike: To cycle a bike is essential, a decent bike will be reliable and safe. The last bike I bought was through the cycle to work scheme http://www.cyclescheme.co.uk which should be available through your LEA or own school. I suggest visiting a local independent shop to get some good advice and a quality bike, it will cost more but it'll be worth it.

2. Clothing: Embrace the Lycra, it keeps you warm but let's the heat out. Get a high visibility jacket or top (white is also good) and helmet to keep yourself safe. Padded trousers are also a must if you're cycling a long way or regularly.

3. Equipment: You should carry a spare and a bike pump (I've only had one puncture going to school-touch wood). Think about what you may be carrying, you may want to use a backpack or invest in pannier bags and a rack. Back sweat can be uncomfortable. Lights are a legal must when cycling during winter, invest in some powerful lights two you are well seen and you can look out for potholes (there may be many) and drain covers.

4. Shower: Your school may have a shower in some form or another, the disabled toilet is usually a good place to start. Check that you can use it, in many cases it may do the school a favour when legionella disease is monitored.

5. Storage: Locate a safe place to leave your bike and get a lock. You'll also need a place to store your cycling gear. I'm lucky enough to have a cabinet for toiletries and a place to keep 'school' shoes to save them being carried each day.

6. Check the Weather: Again and again. Rain can be annoying but I find it refreshing. Sunshine may need sun cream. Look out for weather warnings, ice can be very dangerous depending on your route.

Fog and a lack of visibility usually make me stake the bus but wind is the real stinger.

7. Route Planning: Finding a good route is a great geeky pastime. http://www.sustrans.org.uk @sustrans has lots of great information and maps to find good traffic free routes to work. 

8. Be Realistic: You won't be able to cyle everyday, at first you'll feel tired but that will get easier. The demands of teaching mean you'll have to go to on some CPD miles away, you'll need to take your laptop home or bring in a massive box to be a space ship so you'll need another mode of transport. One day a week, you could bring in your clothes for the week to limit the amount of luggage that you carry.

I hope this has inspired some, I can't recommend it enough. I'd love to hear about your attempts and any issues you've come up against. 

Falling the bike, try a walk instead #teacher5aday 

Using GarageBand to make a primary radio station

Last term, I ran an after school club which created a radio station. This post is an evaluation of methods used and ideas.

Equipment

Ideally, a proper radio set up with desk and transmitting capabilities would be great but we had just bought IPads so using those seemed a good thing to do. We used GarageBand to record and edit our shows. This limited the effects and quality we could achieve but it did mean that it was simple enough for children to edit and put together themselves.

Shows:

Each show had a theme which the children chose the week before. In pairs, they chose a topic within that theme and prepared a script to read or found the relevant information. I insisted that we kept a few  regular features so that our audience could become familiar with our station -creating a brand - in commercial radio speak, I think!

Features we used were:

Jingles

Guess the teacher quiz (using the voice changer onGarageBand)  the children loved this

An interview

School singing - recorded in assembly

Reviews - Films, Games etc

Top Tens

News

Reading a story

 Preparation:

To begin with, children came to club with some information which we then turned into a more detailed script that read well and then we practised reading the script aloud with expression. The children worked in pairs so that they could critique each other and provide moral support- reading aloud can be embarrassing! It also meant that the speaker could concentrate on that and the other child could control the iPad.

Technical Issues:

GarageBand defaults to an 8 bar limit when you use voice recorder. Therefore, the first job was to teach each child how to set the bar size to automatic by clicking the + sign at the end of the time line. The next issue was the metronome chiming throughout our recordings so the children had to switch off the metronome (this is much easier on the latest updated version)

Recording:

Over the term we used two methods of recording,  the first with one iPad and the second using several IPads and Airdrop.

The first method used older iPads which didn't have Airdrop installed. This meant we used a room or area to record each section of the show while the rest of the children practised or researched for next week's show. Each section of the show was recorded as a separate track on GarageBand, it was really important that each group clearly labelled their track to make editing easier.

Putting the show together required opening each track and copying the bar of recorded sound and pasting it into a 'master' track which was the final show. Tracks that had multiple sounds within them, such as talking and a bedding music track could be merged into one track and exported. 

You can merge tracks by tapping once in the side control panel and then tapping merge. You then select the tracks you wish to merge.

The second method still involved one iPad being used to edit and put the show together but each group could use their own iPad to record and then used Airdrop to share tracks.

The Shows

We shared each show online using Soundcloud and then used the embed code from there to put this onto our school website. Initially, our first show had well over a hundred listens ( about a quarter of the school!) this slowly dropped as time went on.

Good Points

The story was a big success, using it as a bed time story aimed at KS1. The children In my club weren't the most able across upper Key Stage 2 so it provided them with great speaking and listening opportunities, writing and the all important audience and purpose for their work.

Things to Change:

Timing of the club- I think running the club over a lunchtime would have allowed more interviews and comments from other children making the show more interactive. This would also compel more children to listen to the shows. 

Giving more structure and ideas- It was very difficult to balance what the children wanted to talk about with what a larger audience might want to hear. For example, Plants Vs Zombies and Minecraft do need some form of introduction before twlking to the general public. It was hard to get this message across before they launched into a big explanation of the different types of mods on Minecraft.

Appropriateness- Being the oldest children in the school, some of the news items they contributed needed some editing for whole school listening and even to be endorsed by the school. Whilst these were important lessons for the children to learn. I feel more guidance and time would allow them to select better stories that more children could relate to.

Using Pupil Voice - I would like to change the nature of the radio station to reflect the voices of all pupils and to act as a service 'for us, by us' rather than something that reflected the interests of a select few.

Below is the link to our shows, we would love any feedback and also any other examples of primary school radio.

http://www.ashcombeprimary.co.uk/radio-ashcombe.html

Best Bit: When talking about Top Ten football teams; " At number one, Brian Munich!" Priceless

2015 Targets-Self statutory

#nurture1415 has inspired me to think about my aims for the New Year. As someone who sees the summer holidays as the year marker, I already have some targets 'I made earlier' so it's good to think about those and realise not much has changed.

1. Publishing

More blogging from myself and more importantly my class. I also need to find regular 'guest' commenters to empower my writers.

2. Video 

I need to get my You Tube channel up and running with some quality content. To work on using video and You Tube more frequently in class and give the children the chance to publish their excellent video work online.

3. Lead

To gain more experience leading and managing across my year group and in whole school projects. My current data project is requiring a new data package that I'm building and a complete rethink as we move away from levels. This growth will be under the excellent guidance of @fullonlearning who continues to challenge my thinking.

4. 3As

My efforts to gain promotion have come close in 2014. The work of Alan McLean and his 3As of leadership will be a driving force in my development in 2015 http://www.journeytoexcellence.org.uk/index.asp

Affiliation, agency and autonomy will be my mantra as I try to guide teachers towards the new assessment practices. The 3A approach will also develop the growth of TMWSM which I co-founded with @wookie666 and has had two successful events so far.

5. Run

Mainly as a result of a barren Christmas in terms of tailoring and the well travelled shirts getting a bit snug. I need to make time to run three times a week at least and get back to a half marathon or two. 

Hopefully, by writing this I may be more inclined to actually follow them through, it's also easier to work out percentages.

A big thank you to @ictevangelist for inspiring the hashtag. Happy New Year!