Reading SATs knowledge; Reading SATs power

Published
17 October 2023

"Interpret this year’s reading SATs paper and explore how this might translate into effective guided reading practice."

 

Year 6 teachers and pupils will now have transitioned into the new academic year, and we know it won’t be long before plans steer towards preparing for this year’s SATs. No doubt many will be thinking back to the controversy surrounding the 2023 Reading SATs papers and (despite the Standards and Testing Agency reporting that the content was “set to an appropriate level of difficulty”), we recognise the challenges it provided for many.

In this blog, we hope to provide an easy-to-follow analysis of the reading SATs papers, but more importantly, further insight into teaching practices of reading, to develop classroom pedagogy further.

60 minutes, 3 texts and how many words?

This year, pupils were expected to read and analyse the following texts:Reading Booklet cover

  1. “A Noise in the Night” from Survival Squad: Night Riders.
  2. “Bats Under the Bridge” from a New York Times article.
  3. “A Howl at Dusk” from The Rise of Wolves by Kerr Thompson.
    You can find the full reading booklet for the test here.

The test required pupils to read a total of 2106 words across three texts. This is almost a third more than the 2022 paper, which included only 1,564 words. On average, pupils would only have had around 34 seconds to read and answer each question. This, however, should not tempt us to teach to the test and most certainly not under time constraints. Guided reading in a pressure cooker is only going to create undue stress and anxiety for our pupils. We know we need to create diverse opportunities within quality teaching to allow our pupils to comprehend the meaning of what they read, using a wide range of engaging texts.

Connecting content domains

The updated Reading Framework (2023) has provided some insight into the teaching of reading comprehension strategies. It advises that schools should not be limiting their learning objectives solely to the ‘content domains’ (appendix 10). It discusses the importance of drawing on and using a variety of these strategies, all of the time:

  • activating and using background knowledge
  • generating and asking questions
  • making predictions
  • visualising
  • monitoring comprehension
  • summarising
    We will elaborate on this later using example questions.

First, let’s break the vocabulary barrier

The HFL Education conceptual model shown here and the EEF’s Guidance, discusses the importance of explicit, quality teaching of reading with an awareness of vocabulary knowledge as a barrier. The 2023 paper was jam-packed with vocabulary that required background knowledge and varied lived experiences. It is often the foundation of any reading test and with word meaning questions (2d) on the rise from 10% in 2022 to 18% this year, it’s certainly an aspect to focus on. In paper 1 alone, children encountered words such as rustling, throbbing, grid, emerged, binoculars, rustlers.

So how do we prepare children for this task? 

You’ve guessed it…explicitly teach vocabulary.

Which words should we be teaching and when? 

Tier 2 words: challenging, ambitious words with characteristics of written language. Teach words that will potentially disrupt the overall comprehension of a text. See here for more.  Be sure to familiarise them with unknown words prior to reading to help lessen comprehension difficulties. However, when reading as a class or group, it would be best to do this when the word is encountered in the text. 

Life beyond definitions! 

Research shows that introducing a new word using its dictionary definition can be problematic. Let’s look at the word ‘rustling’ as an example:

"Rustling" circled in red

Dictionary definition: 

  1. the sound that paper or leaves make when they move.
  2. the crime of stealing farm animals 

By depending on these definitions, children would need to first work out which definition links to the context of the text: is it a noise or stealing? They would then need to figure out which one is making the sound. Is it paper or leaves? For most children, this process will have already started to overwhelm them. It is more effective to provide children with the meaning of the word using every day, familiar language and also explore the essence of a word and how it is used. More strategies are shared in ‘Bringing Words to Life: Robust Vocabulary Instruction’ by  Beck, McKeown & Kucan. 

Here are some more word attack strategies you could begin to model within your reading lessons:

See Reading SATs strategies for the final stretch for more word attack strategies!
 

We can see how, since 2016, the SATs questions have also focused heavily on testing retrieval and inference:

 

Table full of text and dates

 

Inference investigation!

It’s worth asking:
Do pupils know what ‘good readers’ do as they read? 
Do they know that when we read, we are visualising, making connections/comparisons and drawing on our own experiences? 
Do they know that words hold meaning, often deep enough for investigation?
Do they know that inference often includes looking for clues and evidence, and that there can often be more than one answer?
Do they know that we often need to depend on background knowledge, extra information or clues?

Let’s take a closer look….

In the first text, ‘A Noise in the Night’, pupils are provided with this information: 

 

Text on yellow background


There will be children who have never experienced camping, and certainly not on a farm. This strengthens the importance of ensuring that the texts we read (and re-read!) transport children to many different places – ones they may not have experienced in real life.

In previous tests, question 1 is usually a simple retrieval question, but here we have a 2-mark, inference question from the get-go.

To infer successfully and receive the full two marks, children will need to:

  • re-read the text 
  • connect with Priya and recognise the symptoms of/examples of nervousness
  • draw on their own experiences of feeling nervous in similar situations
  • only retrieve from the first paragraph
  • retrieve two different pieces of evidence from the text

 

"Look at the first paragraph. How can you tell Priya was feeling nervous?"

 

Tents in darkness with crescent moon in background. Supporting text to the side

 

The more you know; the more you learn

Let’s dive into this non-fiction text:

 

"This is a magazine interview about the bats that live under the Congress Avenue Bridge in the USA."

 

Off the bat (pun intended!), children will hopefully have some background knowledge. Background knowledge supports comprehension, but it can be particularly critical when reading non-fiction texts. In this instance, pupils will hopefully work out that ‘Congress Avenue Bridge’ is a place in the USA. Later, they will also need to grapple with words: capital, city and state.  

Most of the questions in this section assess pupils’ ability to retrieve and record information. Easy, right? Perhaps not with this level of challenge: long, multi-clause sentences, figurative language and complex words and phrases.

 

Table with text


Again, teaching children to break up the text into meaningful chunks and showing them how to read words in context will aid their ability to do so with ease and at a sufficient speed.

Positively prepared… or maybe not?

Many Year 6 teachers will have prepared their students by setting questions using recurring question stems from past papers.  E.g. “How can you tell that…” “What does this tell you about their character?” 

The unfamiliar wording of this question would certainly have caused some frowned brows… 

 

Table with text


Children often hear the word ‘positive’ being used in many different contexts: “be positive/use a positive mindset” or, very possibly in a scientific context, too. The challenging job here is that children need to:

  • understand that bats are usually viewed in a negative light (either from background knowledge or from the text itself)
  • find two different messages that are deemed to be ‘positive’ in this context
  • scan large amounts of text quickly

To answer questions like this successfully, pupils need to have experienced regular, well-planned, rich reading lessons, that allow them time to see and practise:

  • reading and re-reading passages again and again (…and again)
  • reading at length 
  • returning to the text 
  • exploring/discussing vocabulary purposefully and actively 
  • taking part in rich, in-depth discussions with their peers and teachers

We must find time to guide pupils to connect with texts with this level of difficulty. Only then will they feel equipped to tackle them with resilience.

The End is Near…

It’s no surprise that the final question is worth 3-marks. But wait! “What does personality mean again?” A question that no doubt echoed across the classrooms of those children who made it to the end of the paper in time.

In this blog, we discuss strategies to support children to answer 3-mark questions, such as, ‘what’s your impression of…’. For many experienced Year 6 teachers, this very question is emblazoned across working walls and referred to constantly. However, to our surprise, this higher-level question was also phrased differently. Table with text

The National Curriculum states that children should “identify and discuss themes and conventions in and across a wide range of writing”. Although this question is asking for a character study, we can teach children to hunt for themes and conventions to support them to do this. Support children to dissect the text. Are there themes of love, courage, hatred, friendship, magic that they notice?

Read aloud and think aloud!

When we model reading aloud, we should model thinking aloud, too. This allows children to develop active thinking whilst reading. Embedding sentence stems such as “I wonder…”, “I see…” and “I think…” helps children to think deeply about these themes and conventions in relation to character behaviour/personality.

In his book ‘Reading Reconsidered’, Doug Lemov talks about the importance of Interactive Reading. He says we should teach children how to interact with the text by “underlining, marking up key points and summarising ideas in the margin.”  Elaborated thoughts can transform into brief text interactions during timed tests and other reading tasks. 
 

Table with text

 

Eventually, pupils will be able to organise their ideas efficiently and analyse character behaviour with ease. Practise in groups and pairs until pupils develop the confidence to tackle independently and accurately: 

 

Table with text

 

Are all of your pupils fully engaged?

As mentioned in the reading framework, ‘PISA data consistently shows that engagement in reading is strongly correlated with reading performance.’ With that said, here’s a few suggestions that you might want to consider:

  • Start by carving out some precious time within the teaching day for children to explore and engage with texts in depth
  • Find a way for each and every pupil to engage and interact deeply
  • Build a community of readers, who not only read within your classroom, but outside too
  • Take time to closely monitor children’s reading habits so that you can recommend books and share your personal favourites
  • Facilitate opportunities for book talk and most of all, provide plenty of time to actually read

We hope that this blog provides a starting point to get you thinking about the ways in which you might interpret the findings of this year’s reading SATs paper outcomes and how these findings might be translated into effective guided reading practice. 

Most importantly, let us remember that the SATs are a short moment in time. The rich reading experiences we provide children can set them up for life. Let’s give them tools they will take with them wherever they go: a love of reading; a love of books.

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Into the world of wellbeing

Published
16 October 2023

Wellness is not a destination, it's a way of life.

 

Wellbeing in the workplace has been on the agenda for many years but has become more prevalent in recent years, especially since the pandemic.

So, what is wellbeing and how does it affect us in the workplace?

When we have good levels of wellbeing, we feel happy and can generally cope with the ‘everyday’, as well as feeling like we have a good balance in our life. We feel motivated and show resilience and we are able to ‘bounce back’ from small setbacks. 

 

Peddles stacked on beach

 

In the Early Years, practitioners are often doing and thinking about a number of different things at any one time in an ever-increasingly demanding role. It is vital that staff are given the right emotional and practical support so they can effectively support the children and their families in their care.

As well as having a positive impact on staff and children, staff wellbeing can improve job satisfaction and performance, which in turn can lead to a reduction in staff turnover. It can also help to reduce staff absence which will support management of the school or setting budget.

 

Did you know?

 

  • 50% of employees have experienced at least one characteristic of burn out due to greater job demands and expectations, lack of social interaction and lack of boundaries between work and home life. (Deloitte UK Mental Health Report (2022))
  • Almost half of workers (46%) say they’ve worked in recent months despite not feeling physically or mentally well enough to perform their duties. (CIPD good work index (2022))

With these numbers on the increase, we need to be thinking carefully about how we can support mental health in our schools and settings for our Early Years workforce as well as the children and families we serve.

Many efforts are put in to support staff wellbeing from ‘mental health days’ to chocolate in the staffroom, but do these types of gesture really have a positive impact on staff wellbeing? A new term increasingly being used is ‘wellbeing washing’. Wellbeing washing is when an organisation publicly displays support for mental health initiatives but lacks adequate mental wellbeing support (clarowellbeing.com). No leader or manager is intentionally doing the wrong thing, but getting to the root cause of staff stress and worries is key to effective wellbeing support. 

 

Time for change

 

What can leaders and managers do?

Here are some effective ideas to support good mental health and wellbeing:

  • Working with staff to create policies and guidelines
  • Regular and effective supervisions
  • Provide mental health and wellbeing training
  • Provide access to mental health services and support
  • Create a strong organisational culture which promotes open communication, empathy and understanding, and ensure leaders set the example of taking work-life balance seriously
  • Seek feedback from staff, and use it to make positive changes

Key definitions

Presenteeism

Attending work despite illness and so not performing at full ability.

Absenteeism

Days absent from work in relation to mental health issues.

Burnout

Burnout is a syndrome conceptualised as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed. It is characterized by three dimensions: feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion; increased mental distance from one’s job, or feelings of negativism or cynicism related to one's job; and reduced professional efficacy.

Wellbeing washing

Wellbeing washing is when an organisation publicly displays support for mental health initiatives but lacks adequate mental wellbeing support.

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Get outdoors and do some maths

Published
25 November 2021

In our line of work, we come across maths anxiety in all generations but it can start young and so we are always on the lookout for ways in which we can sneak the maths in unseen. When we were writing Essential Foundations for Counting, we found opportunities everywhere from creating patterns to subitising in a picnic and building the very foundations of counting and number (Fuson, 1988; Gelman & Gallistel, 1978).

 

Children playing with counting aids

 

So what about our older children? One of the mathematical skills children often find threatening is that of estimation. How many times have I asked children to estimate a value, only to find they go away, calculate it accurately and then make the estimate something sensible? We chuckle about it of course but it does reveal the old maths fear that “I might get it wrong”. Well this is something we pursue because we believe it is a life skill so where better to rehearse it than in the real world? There’s loads of different ways this can be fun and can challenge our Year 6 pupils too.

How about:

People laying garden decking

Plan the decking in the Wildlife Area to be 4.95m long and 385cm wide. Mark out the decking area using string. Is that the best place to see the butterflies? Where would it go to watch the pond life and what will the measurements be now?  

Each plank is 3.6m long and 150mm wide. How many will you need?

If the children are younger, a bug count is fun. Sorting, classifying and describing the criteria can be rich and will introduce the need for different forms of representation. Count the different species (time for a tally chart). How else could they be sorted? When the children start to sort the bugs into those on land and those on water, suddenly the point of an intersection in a Venn Diagram becomes apparent when the amphibious frog turns up! Refining the classification and representation of the data means this can be smoothly switched up for any age group.

Illustration of mixed insects

Resource covers

 

If you’re lucky enough to have woodland or even just a tree or two nearby, have you thought about the potential for deepening children’s understanding of angles?

It started with this challenge for Year 5 from the Home Maths slides but this got me thinking . . .

 

Resource cover

 

. . . where are the angles in that?

 

Trees

 

Collect sticks as you go and let’s investigate further.  

 

Twig

 

Place a leaf on each of the angles that measure 120˚ or less.

Or perhaps twig puzzles:

  • I have 5 sides and 5 vertices. The sizes of my internal angles are not the same. Who am I?
  • I have 2 right angles. Make me! The options are endless and very creative.

Yes. The more I think about it, the more I reckon it’s just a habit that we see the maths in the outdoors for our youngest children and forget about those opportunities just sitting there for our older ones. This is going to be fun as we all get to explore them a little bit more. If you go down to the woods today, be sure of a maths surprise!


Bibliography:

Fuson, K. C. (1988). Children's counting and concepts of number. New York: Springer-Verlag.

Gelman, R., & Gallistel, C.R. (1978). The child's understanding of number. Cambridge: Harvard University.

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The Concrete, Pictorial Abstract (CPA) approach for teaching and mastering times tables

Published
10 October 2023

"Unlock the power of the CPA approach in teaching and learning times tables. Why this resource? Why now?"

 

In my previous blog, Deepening understanding from Reception into KS1 and KS2 – the CPA approach for Equal Difference, I tracked the strategy of Equal Difference from its starting point in EYFS to its application in upper key stage 2. The focus was on how manipulatives could be used effectively to support in its acquisition. More specifically, I explored the point at which a shift in the type of manipulative used could enable deeper conceptual understanding and thus move the learning on. In this blog, I will provide a further example of this, but in a different context.

Multiplication Tables Check

The National Curriculum stipulates that pupils are fluent in all times tables facts up to 12 x 12 by the end of Year 4. These facts are then tested in the Multiplication Tables Check (MTC) - a national online test that takes place during the summer term. Helping pupils recall their multiplication facts continues to be a focus for many schools for this reason, but more importantly because we know that if pupils can automatically recall their times tables, it frees up working memory to be able to tackle more complex calculations as they move into upper key stage 2 and beyond.

Explicit times tables teaching

Before I provide a worked example in this context, it is important to highlight that times tables need to be explicitly taught in order for them to be learnt. Research conducted by the Institute for Effective Education in 2019 found that there was no optimal balance between procedural and conceptual strategies for achieveing fluency in times tables, but that there must be opportunity for both throughout the curriculum.

In this example, I will focus on the conceptual element of teaching times tables through the use of manipulatives, with the understanding that there is also a place for more procedural strategies such as low-stakes testing and flashcards alongside. In her blog, Putting your school in the driving seat for the Year 4 Multiplication Tables Check, Rachael Brown exemplifies this further.

An approach for teaching times tables conceptually

When starting to count in multiples, pupils will often begin with a linear model such as a beadstring to reinforce the equal groups, usually around the end of Year 1 or Year 2 for the 2x, 5x and 10x table facts.

Pupils can count the beads in ones or move across groups to discover each new fact and write them down to create a list. At this stage, the linear model is important as it links with what they currently understand about counting sequentially and number lines. A bead string is particularly helpful for the fives and tens, due to the red and white colours of the beads that change after each multiple of 10. 
 

Rope with beads and numbers

 

Following this practical approach to discovering the multiples, the bead string can be lined up against a number line to show the connection between the representations. Pupils could discuss what’s the same and what’s different

 

Rope with beads and numbers

 

Only including the multiples within the times table will model that the unit has changed. 1 marked space on the line no longer represents 1 – you have created 1 group.

 

Rope with beads and numbers

 

The number line image can be replicated by a counting stick to provide opportunity for rehearsal through chanting and counting and so building the fluency of counting the multiples in sequential order.

At this stage in the progression, it is important to shift the representation away from a linear model, so that pupils can learn to recall the facts out of order, without needing to count from 0 each time.

A sensible option would be to use unifix cubes.

Ask pupils to group the unifix into equal groups and reinforce the connection between the group of 5 unifix and the 5 on the number line. 

 

Counting blocks

 

Making explicit connections

Once lined up to replicate the number line, the groups of unifix can then be moved one at a time to create an array. This stage is really important for the children to witness because all too often, they experience counting in multiples on the number line and then the array is introduced separately, but the link between the two has not been explicit enough for them to make the connection

 

Counting blocks

 

Making connections across the curriculum

Using the array, pupils are able to make all sorts of connections across the curriculum to explore concepts such as:

Division 

 

Counting blocks

 

Commutativity

 

Counting blocks

 

Distributivity

 

Counting blocks

 

Without the careful shift of resource at this point, some pupils may find it difficult to make connections and so factual recall would not be as strong.

Introducing new times tables and making connections

Each time a new times table is introduced, allowing pupils time to explore and build the times table on a beadstring can enable children to spot patterns and to make connections to times tables they already know.

For example, when building the 8x table, children may notice (or teachers may draw attention to the fact that):

  • All of the multiples are even
  • In each group of 8, there’s ‘double 4’
  • In each group of 8, there’s ‘double 2 and double again’

 

Rope with beads and numbers

 

Physically seeing what’s happening as a times table builds will support with strategy development going forward and children’s ability to use known facts to work out any they cannot yet recall.

The idea of children discovering the facts for themselves before they begin to rehearse must be repeated every time, but not necessarily in the same way. Kate Kellner-Dilks demonstrates further strategies for teaching times tables in her blog, Starting from the beginning: how to learn times tables.

CPA opportunities across the maths curriculum

Teaching through the Concrete, Pictorial, Abstract (CPA) approach has become second nature to primary teachers. To enhance this pedagogy further, it is important that teachers consider when to change the choice of manipulative to move learning on.

Careful consideration should be given to which model is best suited for the job – linear, part/whole, array – there are many options.

The decision about whether the resource will show all ones, or begin to unitise and ‘group’ the ones completely, depends on what the teacher is aiming to get from the lesson, and more importantly, where they want to end up.

Ultimately, the CPA approach is so much more than just offering a resource as a ‘crutch’ to help a child reach an answer.

When used well, it is the difference between a child achieving deep conceptual understanding of mathematics… or not.

Is this a key focus in your school?  

Join us this November at the Hertfordshire Development Centre in Stevenage for Practical ways to assess, scaffold and secure maths learning in your classroom; applying Rosenshine’s Principles of Instruction.

The HFL Education Primary Maths team can work with you in school to develop the teaching and learning of multiplication facts through The Multiplication Package.

Find out more about the HFL Education Curriculum Impact Packages: 

HFL primary curriculum impact packages maths and English 2023-24

Primary English and maths curriculum impact packages 2023-2024

 

To keep up to date: Join our Primary Subject Leaders’ mailing list
To subscribe to our blogs: Get our blogs straight to your inbox


References

Avis, M. (2019). Improving times table fluency. York, England: Institute for Effective Education.

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Can AI help us rewrite the Pygmalion Effect in our schools?

Published
09 October 2023

"At HFL Education we have been thinking about what impact generative AI might have on schools. With the emergence of generative AI, we all now have the opportunity to be Pygmalion, and sculpt creations that in the past might have required more knowledge and proficiency."

 

The Greek myths lie at the heart of some universal truths about humanity. These stories have transcended the passage of time and the Greek legend of Pygmalion is inextricably linked to the education arena. As the Ovid legend goes, Pygmalion, a sculptor, carved a statue of a woman so exquisite and lifelike that he fell hopelessly in love with it. His intense adoration and fervent prayers to the goddess Aphrodite brought the statue to life. Pygmalion married the statue turned woman and, unusually in Greek mythology, they lived happily ever after. This enchanting myth serves as a testament to the imaginative prowess of ancient civilizations but also holds a profound lesson about the power of belief and expectation. 

 

Pixel art

 

At HFL Education we have been thinking about what impact generative AI might have on schools. With the emergence of generative AI, we all now have the opportunity to be Pygmalion, and sculpt creations that in the past might have required more knowledge and proficiency. Platforms such as Dall-E allow us to create pictures and photographs irrespective of our creative expertise (all the art in this post was created by a Generative AI).

 

Surrealist art - AI generated

 

Interestingly, the Pygmalion correlation is often applied negatively in the realm of education. We talk about teachers having lower expectations for some groups of students than for others, rather than the power of teachers’ high expectations. This inverse relationship is sometimes referred to as the Golem effect. The Golem, initially a helpful character from Jewish folklore, becomes increasingly destructive due to the negative perceptions and beliefs of people who surround him. Both phenomena become particularly pronounced when considering the role of teacher expectations in shaping student performance. 

 

Rats - art - AI generated

 

In the 1960s, Rosenthal conducted a study in which he told student researchers that one group of rats had superior intelligence to another. Remarkably, the students’ perceptions of the rats’ abilities led to a self-fulfilling prophecy. The ‘superior’ rats exhibited improved performance, not because of any innate traits but because the students treated them with greater care, attention and positive reinforcement. 

This profound insight into the power of expectations didn’t remain confined to the world of rodents. Subsequent research by Rosenthal et al extended these findings to the realm of human education. In the school experiment, teachers were informed that certain students were intellectually gifted, irrespective of their actual abilities. Mirroring the rat trial, the students who were perceived as gifted, displayed heightened performance levels, affirming the astonishing impact of teacher expectations on academic achievement.

In 2005, a further series of studies delved deeper into the Pygmalion effect within educational settings. These investigations, which synthesized decades of research, confirmed the enduring relevance of the phenomenon. In the UK a study by Strand (2014) explored the relationship between teacher expectations and students from disadvantaged backgrounds. The research illuminated how teachers' perceptions of students' capabilities could either hinder or facilitate their academic growth. When educators maintained positive expectations and offered targeted support, students from disadvantaged backgrounds surpassed expectations.

 

Fauvist art render - AI generated

 

The dawn of generative AI seems to herald an era in which, much like Pygmalion, the opportunity to bring forth our deepest desires seems more possible, but this is accompanied by the knowledge that our greatest fears may also be unleashed. As we navigate our way through the uncharted waters of AI in education, it might be that the Pygmalion effect is a potential benefit for some groups of students who have in the past been disadvantaged by Golem.  This seems most likely in the realm of personalised learning, on platforms such as Seneca which already exist in many of our schools. An AI powered system could analyse each student’s learning style, pace and misconceptions creating tailored exercises and resources to meet the student’s specific challenges. Best of all, this individualised approach is not influenced by subjective human beliefs about a student’s abilities. Or in other words an AI doesn’t roll its eyes when it has to explain a concept for the third time. Understanding more about AI, the potential and the pitfalls, is imperative for all of us working in education so we can make more informed decisions. In our quest for greater equity in education, AI and the power of expectation certainly seems to be an avenue worth exploring. 

We have teamed up with the AI experts at Educate Ventures Research and school leaders to better understand how we can harness AI to unlock the potential in our classrooms. Join us on this transformative journey where we will explore the potential benefits and hazards of AI.

 

This blog post was written with the help of generative AI.


References 

  1. Ovid. "Metamorphoses." Translation by A. D. Melville. Oxford University Press, 2008.
  2. Rosenthal, R., & Jacobson, L. (1968). Pygmalion in the Classroom: Teacher Expectation and Pupils' Intellectual Development. The Urban Review, 3(1), 16-20.
  3. Rosenthal, R., & Rubin, D. B. (1978). Interpersonal expectancy effects: The first 345 studies. The Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 1(3), 377-415.
  4. Hattie, J., & Yates, G. C. (2014). Visible Learning and the Science of How We Learn. Routledge.
  5. Strand, S. (2014). Revisiting ‘Pygmalion’: The relationship between students’ engagement with school and their educational outcomes. Educational Studies, 40(2), 169-185.
  6. Jussim, L., & Harber, K. D. (2005). Teacher expectations and self-fulfilling prophecies: Knowns and unknowns, resolved and unresolved controversies. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 9(2), 131-155.
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All change! Moving on from statutory Key Stage 1 assessment

Published
06 October 2023

"The removal of the word ‘statutory’ releases schools from the legal requirements regarding assessing children’s attainment at the end of KS1."

 

We have often heard the old saying that ‘the only constant in life is change’, so it should come as no surprise that we are starting this academic year with big changes to Key Stage 1 assessment and how we will calculate progress over the primary phases.

The headline is that end of Key Stage 1 assessment is no longer statutory and that the Reception Baseline Assessment will take its place as the basis for cohort level primary progress calculations. (The first results we will see from these calculations will be in 2028 when the first RBA cohort reach the end of Key Stage 2. We currently have no details on how this calculation model will work.)

What this means for Year 2 teachers

The removal of the word ‘statutory’ releases schools from the legal requirements regarding assessing children’s attainment at the end of KS1. Schools will no longer have to:

  • assess pupils using SATs tests
  • form teacher assessment judgements using the teacher assessment frameworks (TAFs)
  • be externally moderated (unannounced Phonics Screening Check monitoring visits will still happen)
  • report an end of KS1 standard to parents (although, schools still must report a phonics result if a child took the PSC in Year 2)
  • report end of KS1 data to the local authority/HFL (there will not be any requests for optional/voluntary reporting of data from us).

So, what now?

Is this going to be a new dawn – a brave new world of assessment – or will we carry on pretty much the same as before just without the Standards and Testing Agency (STA) looming overhead? 

Well, if schools wanted do, it would be perfectly possible to do the latter. STA are going to continue to produce SATs tests in reading, maths and grammar, punctuation, and spelling (GPS). These will be for optional use. Paper copies of these tests will automatically be sent into schools (based on pupil numbers from the school census) unless schools opt not to receive any tests by declining them on the Primary Assessment Gateway. New tests will be created each year to the same specification as previously (this means that some schools will still need to be selected for the trialling of assessment materials) ensuring that the tests may (in STA’s own words), ‘continue to inform classroom practice and help schools understand where pupils need additional support as they transition into KS2’. There will also be the scaled score conversion released at the same time as usual. Guidance for administering the optional tests will also be updated and released this term. The recommendation will be that if schools choose to use the tests, they use them in May to ensure that the scaled score conversions are meaningful. Of course, schools don’t have to follow this recommendation at all.

In a similar vein the existing TAFs will remain available on GOV.UK for optional use to support teacher assessment judgements. They remain a ‘secure fit’ document and would be about looking at a child’s performance in the test (reading and maths) alongside the assessment evidence collected/seen in everyday classroom practice and independent work. 

Schools may choose to continue using the STA materials indefinitely or just for this year as they transition to something else. From an Assessment Team perspective, we are pretty agnostic about how a school chooses to proceed. There are clearly benefits to using the STA resources, not least that they are free and of a reliable standard (tests created professionally to ensure effectiveness and reduce bias etc). In the financial climate that schools find themselves in, it would seem prudent to use what is freely available rather than buying into other, often expensive, products. However, some schools may already subscribe to these sorts of products for other year-groups, and so expanding their use to Year 2 could make sense for internal tracking.

With regards to the TAFs, it may be that schools feel that they give a good summary of key curriculum milestones for the end of KS1 and that they are clearly understood by Y2 and 3 teachers, easing transition and creating a clear starting point for KS2. If this is the case, it really could make sense to stick with them at least until a similarly clear set of criteria can be shared in their place. This could also be useful for where schools would like to be able to moderate together and maintain a shared language, whether with HFL, or as part of more locally arranged clusters.  However, it may be that schools would prefer to develop their own assessment criteria, based on their own curriculum, or purchase commercially developed criteria.  Provided these are clear and appropriately ambitious, they could be just as useful as the TAFs. 

Of course, it would be possible to proceed without any specific assessment materials at all (STA tests or other products) – after all, there is no requirement to assess specifically at the end of KS1 and surely, by following the national curriculum, we would be covering what we ‘need’ to and then with effective formative assessment and responsive teaching, teachers could be keeping track of what is secure and where gaps are. Alongside effective cross-year moderation, transition could be supported perfectly adequately. 

Saying that, we know that most schools would want some form of summative assessment to enable a form of tracking of progress as a child moves from one year-group and key stage to another. This could of course be through good teacher assessment in any form. If a school was thinking of changing to a different method of assessment, we would encourage a consideration of some key points and principles: 

  • assessment should be meaningful – what assessment information is truly useful at the end of a key stage and what would support transition?
  • assessment activities or tasks should be relevant to the curriculum content that has been taught – especially worth bearing in mind if purchasing assessment materials – do they fit your curriculum?
  • assessment should be age-appropriate and sensitive to the needs of the child – relying on summative tests can be trickier with all, but especially young children, where teacher assessment based on a range of evidence gathered over time can create a more holistic picture
  • assessment data should be honest, accurate and reliable – particularly important given that this needs to be a picture of a child’s attainment and also areas of development as they move into Year 3
  • assessment data is more likely to be honest and reliable when it is used purely for informing next steps in learning or identifying key priorities, not for performance management of individuals.

When it comes to reporting to parents, ‘normal’ non-statutory year-group rules would apply. Schools would need to report general information about a child’s progress in each area of the national curriculum, but there would be no obligation to report a particular standard.  This certainly gives a nice opportunity for us to reflect on current reporting styles within our schools. Many schools go far beyond the legal requirements and include ‘standards’ (e.g., ‘EXS’, ‘ARE’, or other level-alternatives) for all year-groups and sometimes all subjects. In terms of what is useful for parents, I often wonder how much sense the labels/standards we share really make if parents aren’t familiar with what they mean, but this may be a thought possibly worth exploring in a future blog.

With the removal of any requirements regarding reporting data to the local authority and any external moderations, schools may feel that it could be tricky to validate or confirm their assessment judgements or compare their assessment outcomes to those of other schools/national picture. For schools where KS1 assessment formed a big part of their data, such as infant or first/lower schools, this may be felt particularly strongly, although based on conversations with all-through primary schools, it seems they too have an appetite for some way to reliably and comparatively assess this end of key stage. 

Given this, we will still be offering schools the option to book Year 2 moderations, where we can continue to use professional discussion to confirm assessment judgements. These could be in the summer term, as they have been previously, or indeed take a more formative form and take place earlier, e.g. in the spring term, to inform next steps in teaching. They could even be transition-focussed with Year 2 and 3 teachers involved in the dialogue. And of course, we will still be offering our Year 2 clusters, just as we will for all other year-groups (details can be found in our brochure).

We also have training available for using the optional materials from the Standards and Testing Agency that can be booked here, but also have plenty of support available for developing responsive teaching if schools wanted to shift away from focussing more on summative assessment. 

At this point it would be remiss of me to not mention that our fabulous Primary Maths and English teams have developed resources to support assessment for KS1 (and beyond). For maths, you may want to explore the Essentials diagnostic assessment resources or the end of KS1 maths assessment toolkit (available within PA+). For English, the KS1&2 Reading Toolkit is very useful indeed, as is the KS1&2 Writing Toolkit (also available within the PA+ subscription). 

If this has got all things assessment and moderation on your mind, it could be a good time for me to flag up the start of our familiar moderation cluster cycle. We are getting going with Year 6 clusters after the October half-term. There will be in-person sessions around the county as well as a couple of remote options.

Hopefully this blog has offered some useful information and thinking points for this shift in how we will be assessing Year 2. As usual, if you want to get in touch to chat or have any queries, please do – hfl.assessment@hfleducation.org

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The power of poetry in the primary classroom

Published
03 October 2023

"We might be tempted to delve straight into an analysis of a poem but try to resist this in favour of allowing children the time to consider their own reactions and emotive responses first."

 

In the recent ‘Poetry in Primary Schools’ 2023 report, published by the CLPE and Macmillan, based on a survey of nearly 500 teachers, “only 38% of those felt confident about planning units of work focussed on poetryMany cited that they felt they didn’t have enough knowledge about poetry or experience of teaching it to do so. There was a significant link to a lack of training and development in this area of literacy” (CLPE/ Macmillan, 2023).  With National Poetry Day just around the corner, this blog aims to provide some support and advice for teachers to ease any anxiety and instead experience the joy of using poetry in the classroom.

Michael Rosen states in his excellent What is Poetry? (2016) that“Poetry belongs to all of us; everyone can read poems, make up poems or share poems with others.”  We might tend to shy away from poetry if we feel it is too demanding or difficult for children to access, but removing any notion that a reaction to a poem is ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ can alleviate that concern.  One of the greatest things about writing poetry is that, depending on the form you are using, there doesn’t have to be any rules.  Of course, there are often a lot of clever things going on in a poem (see ‘poetic devices’ below, for example) but poetry is where we can encounter or write about the things that are important, fun, silly or difficult about life without worrying about the norm of writing conventions. For children, many of whom are very anxious about getting things ‘wrong’ in their reading and writing, this can be entirely freeing and empowering.

There are a few useful routes into enjoying and responding to poetry, some of which we shall highlight below.

Listening to, reading and re-reading poetry

Something to always bear in mind when reading any poem – it needs to be read aloud.  And once that has happened, it needs to be read again (and again, etc).  Sounds, rhythm and phrasing are especially important in poetry, so hearing any poem read aloud is likely to have been the intention of the poet.  Reading poems is a brilliant way to practise fluency – for example, through echo reading, paired or assisted reading and choral reading.  To quote Michael Rosen again, “Every time I’ve ever read a poem – even one of my own – reading it more than once starts to open doors for me.  It’s as if I walk into another room and find a bit more of it each time.  That’s because poems often say things in strange ways.  Reading them several times means that they become less strange” (2016, p. 85-86).

Building to a performance of the poem really helps to motivate children to read it aloud repeatedly.  Seeing poets performing poetry ‘can offer children a unique sense of feeling and engagement with a poem’ (CLPE, 2020, p. 45).  The CLPE’s website and the Children’s Poetry Archive have a wealth of videos and audio recordings that can be used in the classroom. 

We should be offering poetry within the classroom (see section below, ‘Choosing Poetry’) as something that children will choose to pick up and read for themselves.  We should aim to read poetry aloud regularly just to enjoy and hear the language at play, informally chatting about what we might think about it and our responses to it.  We might be tempted to delve straight into an analysis of a poem but try to resist this in favour of allowing children the time to consider their own reactions and emotive responses first.

There will also be occasions when you, as a teacher, will want to go into greater depth with reading poetry in a more structured way.  Here is an example of how you might do this (suitable for end of KS1 upwards), using Doug Lemov et al’s ‘Reading Reconsidered’ development of layered reading.  The old adage ‘the more you look, the more you find’ is entirely relevant to reading poetry.  Between every re-read, it is crucial to ask children to share their thoughts and generate discussion with the class about their understanding of the poem – based on what they know from a literal reading (e.g. What does that word mean?  What is happening here?) but also what they think the poem or the poet could be saying to us, as readers.  We can say to children, “I’m not sure – what do you think?” with genuine uncertainty and curiosity, as we start to probe a poem for potential hidden meanings or themes.  In this way, we can become used to asking the children questions that we, the teachers, do not know the answers to.

Layered reading of poetry – a Y3 example  

The Sound Collector © Roger McGough

 

Blurred text with annotations

 

Here is an example of a child’s annotations of the poem ‘The Sound Collector’ by Roger McGough. You can watch Roger reading his poem online. The three boxes that the child has drawn (and ticked) on the page are used as a reminder that they needed to actively re-read the poem (not just skim or listen to it) and tick the box for each reading.

 

Repeated readingsKey questions/ promptsExplanation of activity

1st reading

(teacher reads aloud)

Discuss what you think is the mood of this poem…In this example, the teacher initially provided the children with a range of emojis to select from.  The class discussed which feeling/ mood the emojis could be representing and spoke about them within a specific context (e.g. “I remember a time when I felt ___ because___.  The poem reminds me of that feeling because ______ “) to help decide what the mood of the poem feels like to them and why.

2nd reading

(teacher/ children read aloud in pairs or groups)

Discuss what you think is the main message of this poem…

Before the children were accustomed to doing layered readings of poetry, the teacher would give the class some suggestions of messages for them to discuss and choose from after their second reading.  After a while, most children did not need this anymore and were confident to discuss and decide on what they thought the message of a poem might be, without prompting.

Many children will take a text very literally – here is an opportunity to delve into wider interpretations and develop inferential skills (but again, being curious about all children’s interpretations and not looking for one ‘correct’ answer).  You can see from the example, that this child took quite a literal explanation of the message of the poem but another child in the class thought that the main message was about ‘getting some bad news and then everything felt really weird, like the sound had gone’.  

3rd reading

(children read individually or in pairs)

Find a word/ phrase/ verse/ section that interests you the most….

or

Find a poetic device that the poet uses…

Upon the third reading, we can start to ask the children to give more of a personal response to the poem with some justification from the text or to start to think about, for example, the structure or poetic devices of the poem.  In this example, the children discussed a poetic device that they could spot and this child underlined the use of rhyme and how that helped with the rhythm and emphasis of the words when he was reading it aloud.

For support with teaching about poetic devices, Joseph Coelho’s MORERAPS poem is an incredibly helpful tool.

4th reading

(children read individually or in pairs)

Can you find any secret strings?

As Michael Rosen explains, this is one word or phrase that links to any other.  This can be any pattern, such as a repeating image or anything that connects to something else.

In this example, the child found secret strings between words that represented water as well as words or lines that repeated themselves.  The imagery of water led to some wonderful discussions amongst the class, led by the teacher, concerning how our hearing is muffled or dulled underwater and whether the poet intended to create this feeling or not.

 

The power of repeated reading here is in the magic that lies in the idea that we adjust our thinking about a text the more we read it.  What often starts as a very literal reading of a poem becomes a deeper discussion, where children are genuinely curious to know and understand how their peers may come to different interpretations of the same text.  This needs to be made explicit for children – we cannot read something in a vacuum; we bring to our reading the wealth of our own knowledge and experience, which are unique to us as individual readers.  

Choosing poetry:

As Charlotte Hacking states, “So how do you become a good teacher of poetry?  You read it, you respond to it, you even have a go at writing it.  But to want to do this, you have to find poetry that speaks to you, that excites you, that inspires you, and then you do the same for your children.” (‘The Power of a Rich Reading Classroom’, 2020, p.43) Children need to identify poetry as being accessible to them, interesting, fun and engaging and about the things that mean something to them.  With that in mind, children in primary school need to encounter a range of diverse poets and poetry – and here are some suggestions of poets and/or texts that we have enjoyed, plus useful resources.

Recommended poets and poetry texts (by no means an exhaustive list!):

 

A selection of contemporary poets….A (small) selection of text recommendations:A selection of classic poets…
Michael Rosen
Valerie Bloom
Joseph Coelho
Benjamin Zephaniah
Kate Wakeling
Matt Goodfellow
Adisa
Eloise Greenfield
James Berry
Coral Rumble
Brian Patten
Grace Nichols
Rachel Rooney
George the Poet
Karl Nova
Debra Bertulis
Brian Moses
Mandy Coe
Allan Ahlberg
James Carter
Roger McGough
Neal Zetter
Joshua Seigal
John Agard
A.F. Harrold
Carol Ann Duffy
 
‘The Final Year’ by Matt Goodfellow; illustrated by Joe Todd Stanton (verse novel, suitable for UKS2)
‘Love that Dog’ by Sharon Creech (verse novel, suitable for KS2)
‘Stars with Flaming Tails’ by Valerie Bloom
‘Rhythm and Poetry’ ‘by Karl Nova
‘Fairy Tales Gone Bad’ series by Joseph Coelho
‘Poems to Perform’ edited by Julia Donaldson
‘A Kid in My Class’ by Rachel Rooney; illustrated by Chris Riddell
Langston Hughes
Christina Rossetti
William Shakespeare
Chaucer
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Ted Hughes
William Blake
Alfred Lord Tennyson
Emily Dickinson
Wilfred Owen
Walter de la Mare
Spike Milligan
Edward Lear
Siegfried Sassoon
Robert Browning
 

 

Recommended websites to explore poetry further:

Poetry for Primary Schools — Just Imagine  (a brilliant range of suggested poetry texts from EYFS – Year 6 from Nikki Gamble)

Poetry | Centre for Literacy in Primary Education (clpe.org.uk)

National Poetry Day - the UK’s biggest mass-participation celebration of poetry

Children's Poetry Archive - Listen to the world's best children's poetry read out loud.

Poetry By Heart

Poetry Prompts | BookTrust


References:

‘Poetry in Primary Schools’ 2023 Report: Poetry in Primary Schools 2023 | Centre for Literacy in Primary Education (clpe.org.uk)

‘What is Poetry?  The Essential Guide to Reading & Writing Poems’ by Michael Rosen (2016: Walker Books)

‘The Power of a Rich Reading Classroom’ by the CLPE (2020: Corwin)

‘Reading Reconsidered:  A Practical Guide to Rigorous Literacy Instruction’ by Doug Lemov, Colleen Driggs & Erica Woolway (2016: Jossey-Bass)
 

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Voices from the classroom: Creswick Primary School – baby chicks hatching experience

Published
27 September 2023

"Ensuring we chose an ethical company for this experience was paramount for meeting our school values."

 

In Spring 2023, Creswick Primary’s nursery welcomed some new arrivals in class through the ‘Eggucation’ hatching experience. 

 

Chicks in incubator

 

The children were excited to arrive at school after the weekend to find seven very different looking eggs in a small incubator in the classroom. The awe and wonder as they tried to imagine what might be inside created an instant buzz in the classroom. We drew on the children’s prior knowledge about animals and life cycles to make predictions. The children made close observations in the coming days using a range of new scientific vocabulary to describe what they could see happening. 

Our hatching experience

We were lucky enough to see 6 of the 7 eggs hatches, each chick a different colour and size! This was a wonderful opportunity to talk about similarities and differences.

As the chicks grew, the children were able to help clean and care for them, putting into practise their knowledge of what an animal needs to survive and opened discussions around where and how they would live as they grew and left us.

Participating in a hatching experience opened up so many opportunities to build upon skills in other areas as well: the children drew detailed pictures of what they observed; explored mark making when writing labels; developed independence skills as they cleaned, fed and watered the chicks; and developed their personal, social and emotional skills as they cared and handled the chicks.

This engaging experience offered many opportunities to develop the children’s understanding of the world and gave them foundational knowledge to support them in both Understanding the World in Reception and Animals, including Humans in Year 1.

Our reluctant writers were writing and drawing, and our quieter children were talking! 

 

Children with chicks in cage

 

A learning opportunity for the whole school

Not only was the hatching experience great for understanding the world in Early Years but children from across the school visited the class and great links were made to science learning in many year groups. The opportunity to explore the different types of chicks we had hatched was a real-life opportunity for our Year 6 classes to explore inheritance; our Year 2 to experience life cycles in action and our Year 1 children to compare the baby chicks to their adult. 

Child holding chick

Child holding chick

Things to consider

When we first discussed the idea of taking part in a hatching experience as a team, some of the staff were reluctant and worried about how ethical the process was. Therefore, we did some research and chose a company that prides themselves on being an ethical school hatching service.

  1. All eggs came from a rare breed as part of a conservation programme.
  2. All eggs and the chicks remained property of the company and were returned to their farm at the end of the process.
  3. We shared this process with our parents, and it became a teaching point for the children, plus we had the pleasure of hatching some very unusual looking chicks and were very excited that one of our eggs was blue!
     

    Eggs in incubator, inside a cage

     

  4. We had to ensure there was a space for the chicks where the children could see them, but we also gave them the space and quiet they needed. We had them for two weeks and the chicks were taken home by a member of staff over the weekend, this was part of our agreement with the company.
  5. All resources (feed and bedding) were provided by the company but there was an expectation that we signed a contract to replace anything that might get damaged. The children were very respectful and listened carefully to rules and boundaries put in place to ensure the experience was successful for all involved.

In summary, it is definitely something we will be doing again! This experience not only enhanced our science curriculum but also allowed our children the opportunity to experience nature and see what they had been learning about in a real-life context.

For information on Health and safety related to hatching chicks, please see CLEAPSS guide P003 Incubating and hatching chicks.


Voices from the Classroom

Our new blog series, Voices from the Classroom, allows primary science teachers to share particularly effective practical experiences they have had with their classes. It’s a great way to showcase what your school is doing and written guidance and examples are available for those of you wishing to participate.

If this is something you would be interested in participating in, please e-mail Charlotte Jackson charlotte.jackson@hfleducation.org

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If we keep testing in Year 6, they’ll just get it... right?

Published
26 September 2023

"Teaching approaches to problem-solving is just as much a part of a strong curriculum as teaching the maths which problem solving calls on. In fact, it should be an integral part of the teaching and learning process."

 

By the time this blog hits your screen, there will be approximately 26 teaching weeks until this year’s KS2 SATs tests. If you are teaching maths daily, that’s around 130 maths lessons to cover all the new year 6 learning and to revisit, retrieve and secure the rest of the KS2 curriculum. When you look at the numbers, time is tight.

Yet this precious time can get consumed by testing regimes in a bid for children to familiarise themselves with the test in the hope that their scores will improve with each new test they do. In the recent Ofsted maths subject report, the summary of the research review relevant to assessment stated:

Most schools used end of key stage tests, or similar papers. The most positive approaches kept things ‘low key’ and avoided repeated summative testing to ‘show progress’

'Coordinating mathematical success: the mathematics subject report’ (Ofsted, July 2023)

As educators, we have likely all experienced the frustration of teaching something, feeling positive about the children ‘getting it’ to then be presented with blank faces when their understanding is tested or they are required to apply this knowledge in a problem solving context.

Teaching approaches to problem-solving is just as much a part of a strong curriculum as teaching the maths which problem solving calls on. In fact, it should be an integral part of the teaching and learning process.

According to Polya’s four-step model (1957), learners progress through four stages when faced with a problem: 

 

Table full of text analysing 4 stages to solve a problem

 

It is important that we model to the children the thought that gets us into a problem by slowing down the problem-solving approach and making the reasoning behind it explicit.

How can we teach the skills of reasoning and problem-solving?

Let’s consider how this may look in the classroom using a question from the 2023 key stage 2 mathematics Paper 3 (reasoning):

 

Maths graphic with text

 

First, pupils should be encouraged to look at the models and information they have been given.

By removing the question, we are encouraging them to identify what they already know and to ask questions of what they have been shown.

Not only will this support them with noticing the maths and making connections, but it will also serve as a useful tool when they progress to stage 4 in Polya’s model and are reflecting on their solution. 
 

Maths graphic with text

 

Next, we can start to refine the thinking of the learners by considering what vocabulary we would like them to be using when discussing the model provided. This signposts them to what they should begin to recognise.

The use of speaking frames supports the expectation of full sentences and analysis. At this point, you may ask pupils to consider what their peers have noticed, question it and build upon it: ‘If that’s true then…’.

By modelling to the children how we would filter the question and relate it to concepts, we begin to provide a tool for them to do this independently. 

 

Maths graphic with text

 

Once the children have had the opportunity to find the maths and consider what they know from the image, we can reveal some more information for them to explore.

This is where they can begin moving into stage two of Polya’s model. They know what they know and what they don’t and now they can consider how to use this to devise a plan.

At this stage, you could ask the children to consider:

  • How could we present this using a bar model?
  • What questions do you have?
  • What calculations could give you more information?
  • What could the final question be?

This scaffolds the problem solving process and enables the pupils to have a far richer discussion around the question than simply solving it under test conditions. At each point in this process, we are reducing the number of possibilities for the solution which again supports the final stage of reflection. 

Finally, we reach the big reveal.

 

Maths graphic with text

 

By the time we have shown them the problem in its entirity, children would have already unpicked what is required of them and feel more confident to tackle the calculation.

You may then simply ask them to solve the problem and could even extend their thinking by asking:

  • How would you change the question to make it more challenging?
  • Could you represent the maths using a concrete resource (e.g., Cuisenaire)?
  • Could you represent the problem using two different models?

What does teaching offer that testing doesn’t?

When used on a regular basis (in place of continual testing), this approach will serve to familiarise the children with KS2 SATs test structure but also develop and enhance all children’s problem-solving skills in a collaborative way. This could be incorporated into fluency sessions, at the beginning of maths lessons or intertwined with lessons where the content is relevant.

Teacher modelling and rich discussion between peers will enable children to make links across the curriculum, support them to notice where connections can be made to what they know and develop their ability to decide what they need to find out and how. We want this to become part of their natural response when applying their knowledge and skills within a problem-solving context.

Upcoming training for Year 6 teachers

For practical, face-to-face training in Reaching the expected standard in year 6 maths, join us at the Hertfordshire Development Centre in Stevenage, Hertfordshire, on the 19th of October 2023. Use the link above to find out more. Booking is now open.

We can teach these problem-solving skills throughout children’s time at school

This strategy for exploring problems is useful not only in Year 6, but as a tool to support the development of these skills across key stage 1 and key stage 2.

By using images from real-life contexts, we can expose children to mathematical thinking and continue to build upon this as their schemata grow. 

Below, you will find an example of how the problem-solving approach could look in Year 1.

 

Maths graphic with text

 

Maths graphic with text

 

Maths graphic with text

 

Maths graphic with text

 

Maths graphic with text

 

The HFL Education primary maths team have developed a set of these real-life reasoning slides. Look out for further information about them in our monthly newsletters.

Subscribe to receive these direct to your inbox: Join our Primary Subject Leaders’ mailing list

Find out more about the HFL Education Curriculum Impact Packages

To subscribe to our blogs: Get our blogs straight to your inbox


References

2023 Key Stage 2 mathematics paper 3: reasoning

Contains material developed by the Standards and Testing Agency for 2023 national curriculum assessments and licensed under Open Government Licence v3.0

Ofsted (2023) Coordinating mathematical success: the mathematics subject report available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/subject-report-series-maths/coordinating-mathematical-success-the-mathematics-subject-report (Accessed: 19 September 2023)

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SENCOs – Start September strategically

Published
20 September 2023

“The SENCO has an important role to play in determining the strategic development of SEN policy and provision in the school” (SEND code of practice (2014) 6.87)"

 

September. Even more so than January, for those of us who work in education, the start of the autumn term is the fresh start, the time for plans and resolutions about how we want to work differently this year. The summer holidays have hopefully given some time and distance to the year that has passed, with a chance to reflect on our own professional WWWs and EBIs (‘what went wells’ and ‘even better ifs’). Now we’ve got past the initial busy first few days of term, it is a good time to reflect on plans for the coming year.

 

Balancing stones

 

When we talk to SENCOs, their (academic) new year resolutions often include the ambition to be more strategic – to find a way to move beyond completing the never-ending paperwork and to increase their focus on leading inclusion across the whole school. We hear, ‘I want to get into classrooms more’ or ‘I want the chance to do more staff training.’ 
SENCOs understand the value of time spent advising, supporting, and training their colleagues and recognise that consistently high-quality teaching is one of the greatest levers to ensure good outcomes for learners with SEND.

Remember, the SENCO’s role comes with strategic responsibilities as well as managing the day to day: 

The SENCO has an important role to play in determining the strategic development of SEN policy and provision in the school.

SEND code of practice (2014) 6.87

The recently published SEND and AP Improvement plan (March 2023) reinforces this expectation, describing the need for the SENCO role to be “whole-school, senior and strategic”

And yet, being strategic doesn’t happen automatically, and it can be hard to carve out time to focus on these high-impact activities. The reality is urgent tasks are visible, often important and every SENCO spends a significant part of every day reacting to demands on their time: a dysregulated child needs immediate support; a phone call interrupts your focus; staffing absence needs to be covered. 

Most of us spend too much time on what is urgent, and not enough time on what is important.

Steven Covey

This is not something to feel guilty about…. it is something to be curious about and to reflect on. The good news is that most strategic tasks often don’t take that long once you have found time for them.  The 80-20 rule is the widely regarded principle that if you focus on the right priorities you can get 80% of the total impact from just investing 20% of your time in the right place. (What is the 80-20 rule, and how to apply it in your life | Tony Robbins).  How might this work for you? For example, a one-hour staff meeting training about the early identification of need may have a positive impact that eventually saves you time minimising the number of ad hoc conversations with teachers throughout the year. Or, taking some time to research and introduce the latest approaches to supporting self-regulation, will hopefully mean that, over time, there are fewer incidents of dysregulated behaviour that urgently need reacting to.

So, if your new year intention is to be more strategic this year, here are five top tips for how you can increase the likelihood of success. 

The key is in not spending time, but in investing it.

Stephen R. Covey

1) Make a strategic plan: 

The first task is to be clear what leadership and strategic activities you want to complete. To maximise the impact, these need to be relevant to the context of your school, so a good starting point is to review your self- evaluation framework (such as the Hertfordshire SEND Benchmark and Planning tool) and your school’s development plan for the current priorities. Be selective, not comprehensive. From your settings’ priorities, decide only three or four strategic activities for the year that will add the most value.

The ‘Big Rocks’ concept might be useful here; the origin is unknown, but this story was made popular by Stephen Covey in his book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Greg McKeown summarises it in his book, “Effortless”:  

A teacher picks up a large empty jar. She pours in some pebbles at the bottom. Then she tries to place some larger rocks on top. The problem is that they don’t fit.

The teacher then gets a new container of the same size. This time she puts the large rocks in first. Then the small pebbles in second. This time they fit. 

Greg McKeown, Effortless

 

Pale coloured round stones

 

In this metaphor, the big rocks represent the strategic monitoring and evaluation activities such as learning walks, training, policy review and development, pupil progress meetings, analysis of trends and patterns. The small pebbles are the operational tasks such as planned meetings and processes, referrals, administration. The sand is the day to day urgent and visible tasks that you need to react to.

Once you have chosen your ‘big rocks’ for the year, set SMART objectives for exactly how and when you are going to complete these and block out time for them in your diary. Research shows that scheduling when and where you will do something makes it much more likely that the task will get done. (How to Focus on What’s Important, Not Just What’s Urgent (hbr.org)). 

2) Find an accountability friend: sharing your plans increases the commitment to them

By publicly announcing an activity, for example that you will ‘launch a parent questionnaire in May 2024’ to your senior leadership team, to your teaching staff, or even to parents in a newsletter, there is less chance that this action will be ‘bumped’ by urgent firefighting tasks. 

Planning a joint activity with your SEN link governor is a great way to keep focus; whilst colleagues might interrupt you if working on your own to ask for help with an urgent issue, they are more likely to find another way if they can see you are in a scheduled meeting. To support you, we have provided templates for eleven strategic monitoring and evaluation activities you can complete alongside your SEN link governor in the Hertfordshire SEND toolkit

3) Do not try and do too much

If this way of working is new to you, then be realistic about what you can achieve within the time you have available. One good quality strategic monitoring or evaluation activity per half term might be an initially achievable aim. If you didn’t manage to fit in any learning walks last year, then it’s highly unlikely that you are going to be able to complete one a fortnight this year. So be kind to yourself and don’t set yourself up to fail.

4) Share the strategic tasks for SEND between SLT and middle leaders:

As Gary Aubin puts it, in ‘The Lone SENDCO’:

If every teacher is a teacher of SEND, then every leader must be a leader of SEND…. Go back to your priorities. If supporting students’ vocabulary or boosting reading is a priority for you as SENDCO, this will be more impactful if middle leaders can champion this in their area also.

Gary Aubin, The Lone SENDCO.

Can subject leaders include subject specific adaptations for learners with SEND in their CPD sessions for staff? Do all leaders review learners with SEND in their monitoring activities? Can whoever reviews attendance in your school provide you with the analysis for learners with SEND? Can your SEN link governor complete a website check for you?

Whenever you can work ‘with’ someone, you will also be adding that very important value– capacity building in others by sharing your experience, knowledge, and skills of SEND.

5) Identify the unimportant and non-urgent tasks that you keep doing

Find ways to either streamline these processes so they take less time, delegate them to someone else or give yourself strict time limits to complete them as quickly as possible. Also be aware of others who take your time; it can sometimes feel that your non-class time is swallowed up by whatever is needed; covering playground duty, putting up a stage, photocopying assessments. So be assertive enough to say the polite, “yes, but…” such as “I can help with lunch duty today, but that means I won’t be able to complete the attendance analysis I had planned.”  Once the requester is aware of the consequence of what they are asking you to do, often they will rethink and find a different option for solving their problem. 

 

"Important vs urgent" words on balancing scales

 

In modern life, it is easy to fall into the trap of being “too busy chasing cows to build a fence.” The sorts of scenarios you most want to avoid are fixing the same problems over and over or giving the same instructions repeatedly. To overcome a pattern of spending all day “chasing cows,” you can outsource, automate, batch small tasks, eliminate tasks, streamline your workflow, or create templates for recurring tasks. Look for situations in which you can make an investment of time once to set up a system that will save you time in the future.

Alice Boyes, How to Focus on What’s Important, Not Just What’s Urgent (hbr.org)

Hold tight to your ambition to be more strategic – to spend more time in classrooms and in improving outcomes for learners. You will need to be adaptable and resilient as challenges on your time throughout the year are inevitable, but your ability to respond, learn from failures, and regroup will steer you through. 

And finally… don’t forget to acknowledge and celebrate the achievements and positive impact that result from your strategic leadership in the SENCO role. Good luck this year.
 

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