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.