JUNE 2004: ISSUE NO. 4
    
 
    
    
 

NETWORK LEARNING - REPORTS FROM DE LA SALLE SCHOOL

  
 

I visited Woodlands to look at various lessons across the age range. Of particular interest were strategies for raising achievement at GCSE level including ideas already implemented by Woodlands for a GCSE revision day at the Holiday Inn. These sessions, which focused on improving oral and listening skills, were of great help to the students. The department at Woodlands kindly provided past papers for the practice sessions.

We hope to work more closely in the future with Sarah Sullivan and Woodlands Modern Languages department in raising standards for our more gifted linguists.

Andy Hodgkinson (SPS) led a Revision Workshop for Year 11 at De La Salle School. Andy is fast becoming an expert on this topic. Contact him at andyhodgkinson@sweynepark.com

  

 

<GLEN MORGAN - MODERN LANGUAGES DEPARTMENT 26th MAY 2004>
  

Maths Department

The department worked with other schools in the network on the numeracy INSET delivered at the Holiday Inn on 25th March.

Corina Seal (Sweyne Park School) and Scott McGuiness (Woodlands School) have worked with the maths department on a twighlight moderation of coursework. At this session some useful resources and ideas were shared that should help us improve our delivery of the coursework tasks for next years’ GCSE students.

We are looking forward to working with the schools more closely next year to develop new resources and share good practice.

Thanks to Sweyne Park School and Woodlands School for their help.

<MIKE KAY - De La Salle 27th May 2004>

Science Department brief feedback on networking with Sweyne Park School - 10th February 2004

  • Visit from the Sweyne Park Science Team: Ed Hawkins, Sandra Parker and Sarah Pawsey to plan future development met with Ade Haastrup, Alex Sampson and Behrooz Darouei.

Department Audit questionnaire and pack was given to each member of staff with the shared ideas as follows:

1. Learning objectives
2. Revision ideas for KS4
3. Worksheets to support learning
4. Websites

  • Frank Gilgan and Ade Haastrup plan to visit Sweyne Park School.
  • 25th March 2004: Ed Hawkins came and moderated some Year 11 coursework feedback was positive.
  • It was agreed that in the summer term he would deliver a departmental workshop on coursework to the team to help enhance delivery in lessons.

There are plans for lesson observations and team teaching in the future for both schools.

On the whole, it has been a slow but very productive process and I do believe that we have a lot to share with each other.

 

  
<ADE HAASTRUP / SUBJECT LEADER - DE LA SALLE SCHOOL>
  

Learning Support Department, De La Salle School

The Learning Support Department at De La Salle are liaising with Woodlands to enhance the provision for pupils with SEN. Two members of SMT at Woodlands, Bernadette Fisher and Maggie Holmes, conducted a review of Learning Support at De La Salle. As a result of their recommendations, I have been to Woodlands to talk to Sue Brownfield (SENCO) to share good practice between the schools. In addition two LSAs, Stacey Cheshire and Lisa Hendy, from De La Salle have been to Woodlands to look at the practice of LSAs there. They will report back to our departmental meeting to share their experiences and ideas. We hope to reciprocate this process so that LSAs from Woodlands can come to De La Salle and also to extend the process to include Sweyne Park.

<TERRY WISE - SENCO>
   
 

A REPORT FOR OUR PARTNER SCHOOLS

  
 
An Apposite Epigraph…

"Now I return to this young fellow. And the communication I have got to make is that he has great expectations."

Joe and I gasped, and looked at one another.

"I am instructed to communicate to him,’ said Mr Jaggers, throwing his finger at me sideways, ‘that he will come into a handsome property. Further, … that he be immediately removed from his present sphere of life… and be brought up… in a word, as a young fellow of great expectations."

Charles Dickens Great Expectations (1860-1861)

Jaggers tells Pip he is to be wealthy beyond his comprehension and that very act of telling changes his views and life forever…

If you tell people – convincingly enough – that they can do things, they very often surprise themselves and very often do them…

What we tried to do...

We tried to improve teachers’ expectations of what they and pupils could do in lessons to improve standards of learning and teaching. It was felt the best way to do this was to attempt to widen teachers’ repertoire in the classroom and hopefully see a corresponding rise in the level of what pupils expected they could achieve. The school’s SMT felt the school needed to – once again – revitalise learning and teaching.

The philosophy of the project owed much to David Hopkins’ views and my own as well as a view that some of the materials, which have been produced over the last couple of years by the DFES, are excellent. Throughout we gave progress reports to Kate Myers who is researching the subject of raising expectations with Professor John Macbeath at Cambridge University.

As David Hopkins wrote, for this to happen Subject Leaders needed to recognise and embrace the facts that:

  • There are a number of well-developed models of teaching and curriculum that generate substantially higher levels of student learning than does normative practice – often these are subject specific.
  • The most effective curricular and teaching patterns induce students to construct knowledge- to inquire into subject areas intensively. The result is to increase student capacity to learn and work smarter.
  • Models of teaching are really models of learning. As students acquire information, ideas, skills, values, ways of thinking, and means of expressing themselves, they are also learning how to learn. “ (Hopkins)

How we tried to do it …

I launched the project at a residential training weekend with De La Salle’s Subject Leaders last July. On the Friday evening I gave a presentation to subject leaders entitled Middle Leaders, High Expectations and why we need to become a Learning to Learn School.

This was followed on the Saturday by a training day delivered by me on the following:

  • ‘Leading the Learning School’ which had the following aims and agenda
  • The context for transforming learning.
  • Learning and the brain – a 21st century approach.
  • Putting theory into practice.
  • Leading the ‘learning school.’
  • Practical tips to try tomorrow.
  • What’s in it for you and your colleagues and pupils?

A workshop programme delivered by an advisory teacher, the head teacher and my self throughout the school year then followed this.

There is no doubt that the focus on learning and teaching from the inception of the High Expectations project last year in Danbury and the workshops is transforming what is happening in classrooms.
Clearly we are being successful in raising the expectations of teachers about what can be achieved in lessons. This was revealed in a survey, which showed how teachers had widened their repertoire of teaching styles/techniques.

A very significant number of teachers have changed the ways they teach to take more account of different learning styles. Our Subject leaders will all receive accreditation from Essex to acknowledge their efforts and, excitingly, our work will feature in a number of educational reports and publications later this year.

The Project is a success! So where do we go next?

Obviously the project is not finished… and that’s only right and natural the approaches will hopefully develop and grow as confidence develops.

More importantly for the school the project will evolve into an Assessment For Learning Project where we will try to further close what Mike Hughes calls the learning gap – or what I jokingly call “nailing custard to the wall…”

<FRANK GILGAN - DEPUTY HEAD, DE LA SALLE SCHOOL, 01268 288710 - May 2004>

  
 
NETWORKING - LEARNING FROM EACH OTHER  

Collaboration rather than competition is the motivation for hundreds of schools in this pioneering programme that will transform learning experiences for children, teachers and school leaders. Across the Country, Networked Learning Communities (NLCs) are changing the way we think about learning at every level of the education system.

Networked Learning Communities are capitalising upon and celebrating the diversity which exists within the system. By working in interdependent and mutually supportive ways, groups of schools have formed learning networks and are using diversity within and across schools as a positive force for knowledge sharing and innovation.

 

 

 

 

 
  

In Networked Learning Communities, teachers and other educational professionals are experimenting with new and innovative approaches in the classroom, working in creative partnerships within and across schools to develop and share good practice. Inspired and challenged by fellow professionals, they are learning together in new and interesting ways.

As this professional energy and creativity is unleashed, schools are evolving into dynamic learning communities, where the latent potential within pupils, teachers and leaders is unlocked in this way. Networked Learning Communities are taking hold of the education agenda, focusing on values of partnership and collaboration to create coherence within the ever changing educational landscape.

Networking—learning from each other

Networks are about schools working smarter together, rather than harder alone, to enhance learning at every level of the education system. Strong networks make it easier to create and share knowledge about what works in the classroom, to learn from each other’s experiences, to find solutions to common problems. By working together in this way, networked schools are making professional practice visible and transferable.

Each NLC contains at least 6 schools and some have many more. Non-school partners include Local Education Authorities, Universities and Community groups.

Schools tend to be linked geographically, but they are not necessarily in the same LEA or working with the same age group. Common experience, shared values and a desire to work in mutually supportive ways are the unifying factors.

NLCs work within the programme for 4 years. Each network has up to £50,000 a year in matched funding for three years. NLCs use this resource to build capacity for collaborative enquiry. Networsk Leadership and joint learning activities in the fourth year and beyond. Networks will be self-supporting.

Networked Learning Communities are built around a shared purpose: to encourage, support and enjoy continuous co-operative learning at all levels of the education system. Improving pupil learning is the starting point, but Networks are all committed to working within six levels of learning.