Nurture 1314

Everybody is doing it so here we go. In no particularly order here is my nurture 1314 lists:

1. Family - it's been a brilliant year for the Collin household with my daughter Bella settling in very well to her new school and Toby starting reception at the local infant school. Before are doing well even if Toby is a cheeky chappy just like his father! It was great to witness both of them completing their 400m & 25m badges recently. Both keep me busy and very active but I wouldn't change anything.

2. Blogging - what a year. I have blogged several times and starting to really enjoy it.

3. SLT secondment - it's been mad but worth it. I have learnt so much, not just about SLT but about me as a leader.

4. Still (just about) playing football  having for the last two seasons saying I'm going to retire. It was great to play in the same team as my brother towards the end of last season when I visited home. However, I'm currently still playing and enjoying it. Recently I received the oppositions man of the match, the first time I have been nominated for this in 2 years. I felt good, still got it at 37!!!

5. Teachmeets - this year I have attended two Teachmeets and thoroughly enjoyed them both.

6. Twitter - absolutely amazing.

7. DIY - learning every time! The house is still standing!

8. Interview for Assistant head - recently I had an interview for the head of Post 16 at my school. It was my line managers job as she was retiring. It was a great experience but I felt it wasn't for me. I didn't get the job but I learnt so much from the process.

9. Supporting PGCE & NQT staff - I have really enjoying supporting PGCE students and more recently an NQT. Both are outstanding teachers and I'm very pleased how these teachers are progressing in their current careers.

10. Movember - raised £168 with two other members of the PE team.

11. Leading bets league!! - yes I do bet but only for fun. I am currently leading a group of four that put a smal amount of money together and select two games each to bet on. At the end of the season, the individual with the most money doesn't have to pay for an evening out. So far I'm winning, it not big money but it's fun.

12. #TLT13 - thoroughly enjoyed this event at Southampton university organised by David Fawcett and Jenny Ludgate. Looking forward to next years event.

13. Yr 11 - I joined the school at the same time as the current year 11. They are a brilliant year group and seen them grow into bright, mature (well most) idependent individuals. The girls recently won the Bristol Schools Netball competition and the boys won the Rugby competition. Both teams have been losing finalists during the last two years, so I'm very proud of their success this year.
Aims for 2014:
1. To become a member of SLT.
2. To help organised an Cotham teachmeet.
3. To further improve my teaching & leadership.
4. To make time to relax in the evenings and put the ipad down!
5. Read more books! Probably end up reading newspapers instead.
6. To actually learn French and not rely on my delboy French!!
7. Not too raise my voice. Enough said!!!
8. To present at a teachmeet. Which one who knows but my confidence is growing.
9. To score a goal before the end of the season. It's been too long, nearly three seasons since I last scored a goal. I blame my 50p head for that!
10. Collaborate more either in school or with other teachers in or around Bristol
11. Brew my own ale. I blame my neighbour!!
12. Get fitter!! Finding time to train.
13. Lead the school ski trip. Currently in the process of organising the 2014 and just booked the 2015 trip.
14. Continue to inspire and lead the pe department.

SLT secondment

It has been a very busy term for me and I'm now just starting to relax and reflect on it all. This academic year I have been on SLT secondment which has been brilliant but very exhausting. This opportunity came about when all middle leaders were asked on their staff intentions forms if they were interested in working within SLT for a term on a specific whole school project. The focus of each project had been identified by SLT as an area of priority for development. These included:

• FSM - Closing the attainment gap
• EAL - Improving standards of achievement
• Developing independent learning
• Raising Standards with LAPS & MAPS at Post-16

I was asked to inidicate my first and second preference, however if I had other suggestions for a specific area of focus then SLT would be very happy to hear that. These projets at the time didn't really float my boat, I wanted to further develop the work I had had been leading on in PE. As a department, we had been focusing on developing students ability to give effective feedback by using Ron Berger's critique strategy.

SLT agreed with my whole school project and I presented this to them before we broke up for the summer holidays. It was well received and, I think, they especially enjoyed the Alan Partridge breakfast YouTube clip!!

Throughout my secondment I attended every SLT meeting on a Tuesday after school. Occassionaly, there were other meetings that took place before, such as a year group review meeting so I had to attend both which meant I didn't get home till 7pm sometimes. During these SLT meetings I was involved in everything from T&L strategies, staffing issues, behaviour, KS3 & 4 curriculums, Post 16 curriculums, school trip policy, school website issues, VLE, arrangements for parent evenings, year 11 study leave arrangements and much much more.

My secondment came to end at Christmas with me presenting my project to staff and SLT at an whole school staff meeting. I had already done a dummy run presentation two weeks earlier to the Post 16 forum but I felt I needed to show how the project had impacted on students more. Click here for my presentation.

Feedback from staff was very positive, with some telling me how they had used the critiquing strategy in their lessons. Other middle leaders have also expressed to me that the school needs to further explore feedback and marking. This is something I am defiantly interested in leading or being part of a working party.

As well as being on secondment, I have also been striving to further develop my teaching and I was lucky enough to go to Southampton for #TLT13 organised by David Fawcett and Jenny Ludgate. It was a fantastic day and I met lots of fellow teachers who are wanting to improve their teaching and students learning.

Twitter has been a revelation to my teaching and my leadership especially following @sltchat very Sunday evening. There are some really exceptional and inspiring teachers on twitter and it's been fantastic following them, chatting about their work and thoughts. #TLT13 allowed me to meet some of those people and get a better insight into them as a person. People are supportive and will question your views but also they give you confidence to believe in what your doing and support you in your quest to succeed.

It has been a busy start to the academic year and I have thoroughly enjoyed my experience and would suggest to any middle leaders who are thinking about the next steps in their career to give an SLT secondment at their school a go. You'll definitely see your SLT in a different light and you never know you will be there one day.

Feedback update

As part of my secondment to SLT, I am exploring how to improve students ability to give effective feedback to support their learning.

As explained in previous posts http://jamiecollin7.blogspot.co.uk/ this project came about because of the work the PE department had been doing to improve feedback given by students about their own and others performances/work.

For this project, I am working with the dance and humanities departments to explore further strategies to enhance student feedback. Both members of staff were very positive and very keen to be involved with this project.

So why Dance and Humanities? Dance contacted PE towards the end of last term to see what we were doing around feedback and very slightly jealous of our ipads!! I approached the teacher in humanities as I knew that they had done some work on 'feed-forward' (what is feedforward) so I wanted to collaborate with them.

Where are we now? PE are continuing to use Ron Berger's Critiquing strategy of be kind, be specific and be helpful.  http://jamiecollin7.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/feedback-feedforward-adventure.html) Austin's butterfly drawing

This method has proved to be very successful as it has given them a structure and focus in giving better feedback to feed-forward (improve) their peers performances. Below are some of examples from year 8 boys who were critiquing their Parkour group sequence on their Edmodo group page:

'I think we were more organised and prepared for the final sequence as there wasn't long pauses between moves. I think to improve we could have more variety. e.g: different vaults, different directions.'

'I think that in our practice run we weren't sure what to do, especially since the setup wasn't easy to do a lot of movements. After we changed the setup and practised what we were going to do, the performance was on the whole clean and well executed.'

Clip1:nice cartwheel vault Kieran. Next time try and straighten your legs and push them right above you.nice landing though.

Before, the feedback would of been poor with students just saying that it was good, they like it but were unable to properly communicate how students could improve their work. Examples include:

'very good effort Osmond. Just needs to gain more momentum.' 'good effort Kieran. A bit faster next time.' 'well done finn good speed.'

The quality of the feedback still requires work, however it is getting better as students confidence grows and staff give them time in lessons to critique and act upon it.

Giving students TIME to critique their own and others work/performances is crucial otherwise learning is slowed as the lesson flies by. One method used in my GCSE PE lesson is that students write their targets from the previous piece of work, for example a 6 mark extended question, onto the new piece of work they are about to do. By doing this, it gives them a focus of that piece of work especially when they are planning their answer. Once they have completed the work, they are expected to self-assess their work using What Went Well (www) & Even Better If (EBI) method. The next stage is that their work is then peer-assessed and they too have to use the WWW & EBI method in giving feedback. (examples here)

However, students need to be trained in how to give peer feedback and this too takes time and patience. Modelling is essential but it doesn't just have to come from the teacher. Some students are very confident speaking in front of their peers and some don't realise they are giving helpful feedback already but just need to refine it. This is where another method can be used to help improve students giving effective feedback.

This method is critiquing the critique! Basically, getting students to give their thoughts and opinions on the feedback given. This is linked to the feedback criteria (kind, specific and helpful) but it also challenges students to listen carefully to others and help those who need to improve their feedback.

So what are Humanities and Dance doing? Humanities are focusing on how students can use lesson success criteria as a guide for when students are giving peer or self assessment. They are exploring 'verbal feedback stickers' in books and getting students to list feedback given by staff in lessons.

Dance, however, seem to be at bit behind at the moment due to staff absence through illness. They were going to focus on student blogging (Post 16)and the use of students planners (KS3) to write specific targets (strengths and weaknesses and how to improve) for future lessons and get students to work collaboratively using their targets to improve their performances.

Where next? What I want to focus on next is building more time into my lessons so students can give and act on the feedback. One popular method is Jackie Beere's DIRT (Dedicated Improvement & Reflection Time) approach which can be found in her book 'The Prefect OFSTED Lesson.' I know I am guilty of this, like many other teachers, feedback is given through our marking but students don't bother either reading it properly or acting on it. They are more interested in the grade they received.

This takes me to my next focus, marking students work and not using grades as feedback. Instead insisting that students read the feedback and act upon it such as redrafting their work. This can be done either at the start of the lesson, first 10 minutes and for a whole lesson depending on how the group have performed on the written task. Crucially, it comes back to TIME as the major factor preventing students acting on the feedback as teachers need to get through the Scheme of Learning because there is an end of term/unit assessment that needs to be completed by a certain deadline.

My last focus for improving feedback would be to use a stamp system in students books to indicate when verbal feedback has been given. I came across this method in a blog by Alex Quigley @huntingEnglish and thought what a simple but effective idea that students have to note the verbal feedback given by the teacher in a form of spider or bullet points around the stamp. For more information, use the following link http://www.huntingenglish.com/2013/02/09/making-a-marking-policy-a-feedback-policy/

Twitter has ben a revelation to my learning and teaching over the last year and a half. I have read a large number of blogs and discussed numerous topics with other teachers through Twitter. There are some amazing pieces of work going on out there, particularly around feedback. One person I do recommend you follow and read their work is David Fawcett @davidfawcett27 and his blog page http://reflectionsofmyteaching.blogspot.co.uk/ where are lots of post across a number of different topics.

As you can see, it has been a very intense year so far but I have learnt so much and I'm looking forward to continuing my work on feedback with the aim of taking it whole school after Christmas. Hopefully, SLT will agree as my secondment comes to end in a few weeks time. Lets hope the PE (feedback) adventure continues into 2014 and beyond.

 

PE Adventure - 2012-13 Review

As the 2012-13 academic year comes to a close, I thought it would be a good opportunity for me to reflect upon what has been a roller-coaster of a year.

The year started with the introduction of Ipads into PE (The Ipad Adventure Starts Here) which was very exciting and daunting for some in the department. Slowly and surely, staff became to embrace the Ipads and begin to use them effectively to support their teaching and have an impact on students learning. To help me with this and my develop my interest in Teaching & Learning, I signed up to Twitter and haven't looked back. What an excellent way to enhance my teaching and also my leadership as a middle leader/aspiring leader.

The main impact on students learning was developing their ability to give effective feedback to improve their own and others performances. By just using the Ipad camera and Coaches Eye, students were able to analyse in greater detail performances and identify strengths and areas to improve.

Nothing new I here you say, as many departments have access to flip cameras, but to our students who are growing up as digital leaders, this gave them the extra inspiration and motivation to progress their learning in PE. To enhance our use of the Ipads in PE, staff began to use Edmodo (Ipad adventure up-date) and post clips for students to comment on.

As we continued to use the Ipads, it was evident that students ability to give effective feedback was poor and didn't help others to improve (Feedback to Feed-forward Adventure). It was very erratic and useless as students just gave simply comments like 'that's good; well done, I liked what you did etc'.

After reading a number of blogs including @davidfawcett27 and @Taitcoles, I began to use Ron Berger's model of Public Critique 'BE KIND, BE SPECIFIC, BE HELPFUL.' This had a massive impact on my teaching and students ability to feedback effectively. During the course of the year, I have used this model with all my KS3 teaching groups and my year 10 GCSE PE group. The year 10 have shown improvements, some more than others but its had a positive impact especially with the 6 mark extended questions.

The key ingredient to making this work is TIME. By building feedback time into my lessons, students have been able to comment on performances without being rushed be me. The pace hasn't changed, but the structure and quality of questioning has been modified. Impact, deeper learning and better quality comments to others work. Critiquing the feedback has also proved effective as students are now giving feedback on the feedback!

Staff feedback has been very positive about using the Ipads in PE. Results from a end of year department review show that:

75% thought the Ipads were 'somewhat effective' in supporting their teaching.
50% thought the Ipads were 'very effective' and 'somewhat effective' in enhancing students learning.
100% said they would like to continue using Ipads for T&L.

Below are some comments about what staff particularly liked about using the Ipads

Staff 1: Use of video analysis; Video lessons to post to Edmodo; Allows pupils to see cogs levels using Google Drive and keep up to date with their progress; Registers whilst off site save time.

Staff 2: I enjoyed the ease of Ipads - very mobile, easy for pupils to use and pass round (camera and video).

Staff 3: Immediate, visual feedback for students; Engagement of students and non participants; Interesting and engaging apps; I would like to use more, just need time to research and try different things out.

Staff 4: instant feedback on performance.

From September, I will be working with two other members of staff from Dance and Humanities as part of my secondment to SLT. The focus of the project is to explore and develop students ability to feedback in order for them to make progress in their learning. I used the Prezi below to present my project to SLT and the feedback was positive (and they the Alan Partridge clip as well)!

<iframe src="http://prezi.com/embed/6tcdljm4lv1c/?bgcolor=ffffff&amp;lock_to_path=0&amp;autoplay=0&amp;autohide_ctrls=0&amp;features=undefined&amp;disabled_features=undefined" width="550" height="400" frameBorder="0"></iframe>

Over the last two years I have been eight SSAT Aspiring Leaders Courses led by Stephen Tierney @LeadingLearner which has been brilliant, especially as Stephen is a great leader. He has inspired me to develop not just my leadership skills, but also develop a greater understanding of how T&L impacts on everyone. Simple, but effective methods that are not rocket science, however make you think outside the box and be creative. Leadership at any level is very powerful, especially in teaching because it can either have a desire effect or an detrimental one.  My confidence has differently increased from doing this course. Not just from Stephen's simple approach to leadership, also from other speakers such as Professor David Hargreaves and meeting others middle leaders who have a desire and/or passion to become an aspiring leader and talking to them about their thoughts on how 'we' can make a difference in teaching and embracing change for the better.

I am fortunate to work with some excellent PE teachers in my department and I know they are excellent, not just from my observations, but also how they work. They all have a passion for teaching, they are creative and work extremely hard to develop their teaching in-order for the students to become better learners. This year, Andrew Baynton @theandyb10, KS3 Coordinator for PE (I blame him for getting me into Twitter) wanted to modify the KS3 curriculum and had seen/read about something called the Cogs of Learning from Create Development. At the time, one other school was using this approach at Culverhay School, led by Simon Scarborough @Leading_in_PE.

As a PE teacher first and leader second, I wanted to know more as Andy kept raving about the 'Cogs of Learning' so he arranged for Simon to come and visit us. What an insight. Simon spent the day with the department, observing a couple of lessons and then led a year 8 parkour lesson modelling how the Cogs of Learning can be used in PE. This was a great and valuable experience for us all.

Simon also wanted to know what we valued and what skills, attributes and characteristics we wanted students to achieve after life-long participation in PE and Sport. He gave us a pack of cards, about 32 in total, all linked to the Cogs of Learning (unknown to me) and asked us to choose 10 cards and place them into a pyramid with the most important at the top. Below is a picture of my Cogs pyramid (November 2012).

The next time the department did this task was when Ronnie Heath @creatorronnie joined us for the day, and again, what a fantastic day it was. Ronnie also asked us to choose 10 cards and below is my second pyramid (May 2013).

In total, there are 6 Cogs of Learning. These are: Physical (blue), Social (red), Personal (green), Health & Fitness (light blue), Cognitive (yellow) and Creative (purple).

What does this mean about my ethos and values and what I want students to develop during their time participating in PE and Sport? Predominately my pyramid is made from the Personal Cog and Cognitive Cog. Basically, I wanted students to be confident, independent, resilient, responsible, self motivated and committed students (personal) as well as being good decision makers, analysers and evaluators. I think this approach is a very good way of finding out what you and others value and are working towards in shaping students experience in any subject.

Below are some comments from staff about their thoughts about the Cogs of Learning after trialling them this year:

'Very much looking forward to teaching them from the beginning of their cogs journey. Planning on combining the cogs with the FUNS and a multi skills approach with the year 7’s; Planning on promoting a more independent approach to P.E. with the year 7s; use the current year 7's experience of the cogs to develop their ability to work independently, give feedback and challenge themselves'.

'Really looking forward to using the cogs of learning. I feel it will help to focus learning and help with transfer of learning across activities. It will be particularly beneficial with poor behaviour pupils and low ability; I also think it will help with consistency within the department for assessment'.

As you can see, this year has been a very busy one for me and the department. I have really enjoyed it and have learnt so much about myself as a leader and a teacher. The department is challenging itself and raising its game to continue to be an excellent faculty.  Now its time for a break to recharge the batteries before starting the 2013-14 PE Adventure!

iPad adventure update

Its been a while since I last blogged so with a bit of free time, I thought it was a great opportunity to share and up-date you how mine and the departments iPad adventure is progressing.

Our iPad adventure started in September 2012 and it is very obvious that the department has embraced the iPads as a teaching aid. At a department meeting just before Christmas we discussed what we had been doing with our iPads, what apps we had explored and our thoughts on how iPads are impacting on our teaching and students learning.

Below is a list of different apps that we have used in our teaching:

Analysing performance

ipad camera;  Coach's eye; CoachMVideo; Ubersense;

All these apps have been used in similar ways, to support and develop students ability to peer and self assessment their own and others performances. Even using the ipad camera enables students to watch video clips and view photos providing information for them to comment on, share and discuss with others (feedback to feedforward - be kind, be specific, be helpful) so they can improve performance. The other three apps have the ability to annotate drawing and audio over the top of clips and photos.

Demonstrating learning

• ipad Notes; Edmodo; Evernote; youtube; googledocs, iMovie

Video clips and photos can be up-loaded to these apps (expect ipad notes) enable staff to store evidence of student progress throughout a scheme of learning or over a longer period of time. I am currently using Edmodo with my year 10 GCSE PE group and my year 8 core PE group and its proving a valuable resource, especially with the GCSE group. I am particularly liking the ability to post comments, set quizzes, polls and assignments and give instant feedback when work has been submitted. It also allows me to attach photos and clips for students to watch either to prepare for their next lesson or to review their performances.

Research

• safari; youtube

With only one ipad it can prove tricky using these apps (and you have to be very clear with students about expectations when using these apps), however two of my colleagues Andy Baynton @theandyb10 and Julia Sowden @juliasowden20 used both their ipads as additional coaches in a yr11 GCSE PE basketball lesson. They split the group into four groups, they took a group each while the other two groups had an ipad each.

Storage & sharing

• Dropbox; Evernote; Edmodo; Youtube;

Used to store evidence of student progress, enabling students and staff to view clips to assess their own and other progress. It also allows staff build up a bank of evidence to use for department moderation and show good practice.

The next stages of the ipad adventure will see the introduction of Apple TV's in the sportshall to further enhance student analyse of performance. As staff, we will continue exploring all these apps mentioned and probably many more as teaching aids in PE lessons.

Let the iPad adventure continue!