Pens pens pens

An exciting departmental purchase: class sets of RAG pens! 

Eventually sourced in sets of single colours which did not cost the earth from www.stationary market.co.uk

Things we have used them for so far:

Self assessment

Group work - assessing sentences/responses 

The above, they put a dot /circle in the appropriate colour and have to be able to justify their choice with reference to the success criteria for the task

Teacher assessment - see bost below on marking

Vocab lists - green for the ones they know, amber if they guessed/weren't sure/had to check, red for ones the had to ask about /look up/got wrong. They can then focus their learning on the reds and ambers. 

I am sure there are lots more uses... But we are loving them so far! 

Trying out new approaches to marking

Ah poor neglected little blog... I made a conscious decision last half term to stay away from twitter and the blog, as there was so much to take on board as a new subject leader and I wanted to find my feet a bit first rather than be distracted by the amazingness of the ideas on twitter - my brain couldn't handle the overload!

So anyway, a few blog posts coming up, and this one is about marking.

We have made a few decisions regarding marking in the department this year. Firstly, we will rarely give levels/grades on work. There has been lots of research to suggest that students only focus on the grade and not comments, and this approach has always worked for me, so we are trying it as a department. We give feedback in the form of www (what went well) and ebi (even better if) and this works well too. However the (for us, new and exciting bit) is that we are using RAG to give an indication of whether or not the work is 'good enough'. I know effort marking is really subjective and a bit of a guess on the teacher's part, but this seems to us the best way forward. For all 'chunky' tasks the students create or are given success criteria. We them 'mark' their work by commenting www/ebi against these success criteria, and giving things to correct as per school policy. They then get a red dot if the work is not of an acceptable standard, I.e. They have not fulfilled the criteria, orange if it was acceptable, most criteria at least partially fulfilled, and green if they have completed the task well. Our school also uses white as a measure of exceptional performance, so we give this too for real 'above and beyond' work. 

This is helping us and the kids to understand how well they are doing in between termly work which is levelled or graded. Firstly it avoids the situation whereby they get level 4a one week and 3c the next due to the nature of the task, or the fact that it is a new topic. It has also been really easy to decide what to give them in our interim 'snapshot' reports to parents as we can see what they have been mostly given. Kids can get an idea of what they need to do to improve via the www/ebi and also get an idea of whether we think they have done enough or not via the RAG dots. Some bright but lazy kids have been given a bit of a kick up the derrière by this system!! It makes recording how they are doing much easier too as recording comments is a bit impractical but it is easy to put a dot on a mark sheet:

And this really helps in conversations with parents too.

I am really happy with how this is working for us at the moment. I am planning on doing some students voice next week to gauge their opinion too, but we have seen a big impact anecdotally with kids being mortified about red dots and making huge strides in their next piece, and also weaker students who feel good that their effort has been recognised and celebrated. 

It has also been fab for self and peer assessment too. 

My next plan is to come up with some 'can do' statements that could run alongside/instead of levels at KS3, so that students could have an even clearer idea of where they are at and where they need to go. I'm hopeful this might be the way forward for our primary transfer information too...

'What sort of leader do you want to be?'

I have a new job! It all happened rather quickly, and possibly a bit sooner than I might have liked, as I wasn't planning on going back to work 'f/t with bells on' until the boys had both started school. But the opportunity for a HoD post in a school that I know and like, with a great MFL team, which is a 20 minute walk away and which the boys will go to eventually was too good to pass up. 

My new title is 'Assistant director of personalised learning (MFL)' which is a bit of a mouthful, basically subject leader with a few extra school and cluster-wide responsibilities. I am very excited and quite a lot nervous!

Anyway, back to the title of this post... When I was preparing for the interview, almost everyone I asked in real life and on twitter suggested that I prepare to answer the question 'what sort of leader do you want to be?'. And I think it was pretty much the only thing in an incredibly full-on day that I didn't get asked. However, reflecting on this question has been both exciting and sobering, so I thought I would commit my thoughts to 'paper', as I want to be able to look back on what I decided to say. This might be a bit long, but for me, it is important.

I want to be the sort of leader who challenges and inspires my team to take risks, push boundaries and question and reflect on what we are doing. I want us to be moving forward, not sitting within our comfort zone. I want to continue to be on the lookout for new ideas that we can try as a department, and I want my team to do the same. I want us to look at what we are doing well, and think how we can take this a step further. I want us to consider areas where we aren't doing so well, and look at what we might do to fix that. I want us to experiment, and fail, and learn and move forward in the same way that we encourage the kids to do. 

I want to be the sort of leader who walks the walk. I want to try things out in my own teaching (I am acutely aware that my own teaching has the potential to suffer now I have so much else to focus on, but I need to remember that the children in front of me have the right to the best of me). I want my own teaching to be outstanding. I want to lead by example in the things I want my team to do, so I will invite my colleagues in to observe me whenever they like, with the fab classes and the rubbish ones, because I feel we have so much to learn from each other, and so many great ideas to share. I will to continue to share resources and ideas left, right and centre. I will initiate both lunchtime chats and formal discussions about what we are doing in our classrooms. 

I want to be the sort of leader who acts as a buffer and protects my team from some of the stress coming from within school and externally. I want them to know that I will do whatever I can to support them in what I (and others) are asking them to do. I will argue our cause when necessary, and stand up for them. I want to be a cheerleader when things are going well, give credit for successes and shout them from the rooftops. I want to listen to my team and for them to feel confident that I genuinely will listen. When things are hard, I want to be a shoulder to cry on, maybe suggest ways forward, definitely be there with cake (never underestimate the power of cake) and do what I can in the little, practical ways to make the day go faster and the week less stressful. This will take a lot of time and energy I am sure. 

I want to be the sort of leader who gives my team the space to develop as professionals. I want to filter and prioritise the many demands placed on us as teachers within this particular school, and new initiatives and ideas within MFL and education generally, so that we are not trying to do everything all at once. I want to encourage people to take on new challenges and responsibility, be it teaching a new class or taking on a role within the department. I NEED TO DELEGATE. (This is in caps because it will be hard for me. I am queen of the last-minute usually, but delegation takes advance planning. Also I am a perfectionist, and I will need to learn not to intervene when something has been done perfectly well, but just not how I would have done it! I know how demoralising it is when something you have worked hard on gets changed when it didn't really need to be.) I want to support people in this, but also give people the room to try and fail. It will be hard learning when to stand back and when to step in and support. I think having children will probably be helpful in this respect though, as isn't this a continual tightrope we a walking as parents?!

This is a lot of 'wants' and I am acutely conscious of the pitfalls of trying to do everything all at once. I am sure I will get things wrong, but I want my mistakes to have come from good intentions at least! I have a wonderful team and I am sure they will tell me when I am being an idiot! I am very excited, but also a bit nervous, as I am good friends with my team, and stepping into a different role, where I will potentially have to have difficult conversations or make unpopular demands, will be weird. But I have been lucky in my career to have had some excellent role models, leaders who have managed all the personalities within their teams with care and expertise, leaders who have inspired me and leaders who have supported me. I just hope I can learn to be as good. Bring on September! 

Voice dictating reports

Here was my quandary today: the sun was shining, my laptop was poorly, all I had was my iPad, and I had 60+ year 8 reports to write. 

The solution? Voice dictating them!

Seriously, this was a complete revelation. After a bit of googling I downloaded the Dragon Dictation app (free) and off I went. 

The only real issue I had was that it kept putting 1/10 instead of 'one tense', but that was no biggie really. 

It also took less time than typing, especially on the iPad which would have driven me mad after a while, and I still got to enjoy the sunshine on my day off. And as an added bonus, i didnt get quite as bored, in fact i managed to 'write' about 10 on the trot without resorting to a FB / twitter break... Genius!

Primary liaison meeting plan...

So... I am a wee bit nervous. On Wednesday I am gate-crashing a meeting of our feeder primary head teachers to gauge their response to some collaboration with regards to MFL teaching.
I've not done anything like this before so it will be good for me! However I am a squillion times better at writing than speaking, I get so tongue tied when I am nervous! Not a great trait for a teacher... so i am going to get my thoughts down here, and then hopefully some kind people might give me some feedback.
This has come about as my language leaders are running a taster day after half term, and I realised pretty quickly that we have zero idea of what language experience they have had at KS1 or 2.
I am actually quite surprised at myself that it has taken me this long to realise that is is a huge issue. I suppose only teaching KS5 and the odd bit of y8 for the past couple of years I have been a bit out of the loop. Attending a talk at Ililc about primary langs reinforced this point. Anyway, I have decided to seize the moment and do something about it.
I really want to get 2 main things out of the meeting on Wednesday.
Firstly I want to get an idea of the current status quo to enable me and the LLs to plan and deliver a successful taster day. We intend to teach some food and opinion vocab, taste some French food, the create some display materials using the new language. This all depends of course on where they are at already.
However, my long term aim (dream?!) is to set up a group for the teachers involved in leading and/or delivering MFL in primary schools. We could meet on a termly basis, do a bit of show and tell, share ideas and resources we have found, talk about what support we can provide etc. I am only too aware that this is not a scenario where I am the all-knowing fount of knowledge and my primary colleagues will be lapping it up. Far from it! In fact, I would love to get in to some KS2 lessons (great twitter suggestion, thanks) to see what happens there. I think it could be a really mutually beneficial thing, especially seeing how independently primary pupils tend to work.
Eventually I would like to work towards a very flexible/loose common curriculum that would work whether French or Spanish was taught at primary, so that we would know where to start with our y7. I appreciate that that is quite far away maybe, but just knowing what they currently do would be a huge bonus frankly. English or maths wouldn't dream of starting to teach without knowledge of KS2 and info from primaries, neither should we!
So in terms of the meeting, I thought I would devise a questionnaire (paper and online) to gauge where things are at now. This can be filled I later by the relevant person. I also plan to suggest the support group, with a first meeting after half term so get to know each other etc, with a view to starting properly in September. I would suggest that my long term aims are to support each other with language teaching, and to work towards a long term goal of smoother transition to KS3 via initially better knowledge of primary MFL experience, and eventually, some degree of common curriculum. I would like the names and contact details of those responsible for MFL so that I can make a start on the above. Does that sound reasonable?
If anyone has any feedback or suggestions to make I would be eternally grateful. THANK YOU SO MUCH to all the lovely twitter folk who took the time to make suggestions the other day.
I will of course be reporting back!

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.......

It's the holidays. That is all.

Slide shark

I have been trying out a new app today. Since getting the iPad I have been grappling with the concept of whether I can use it as a sole teaching tool - reason mostly being I walk to work and my school laptop is really heavy and chunky and gives me backache!

My two issues are SIMS, which I have no idea how to solve, and, I suppose workflow is the word. Most of my lessons to date have been planned using PowerPoint and although I am getting pretty good at importing to Prezi now, there isn't always time, and there are some times when the animations on ppt are really useful, eg highlighting verb endings, word order etc. which when you use it direct from dropbox, you can't see.

So after a google search I came across Slide Shark. You can import ppts from email or Dropbox etc, and then download them to your device to present offline. There is 100 mb of storage but you can earn or buy more. However if you were storing stuff elsewhere, you could just download the day's lessons and then delete afterwards, which is what I plan to do if I end up liking it as much as I think I will...

Good things about slide shark so far:

1) it's free!

2) it's very easy!

3) it keeps the animations and web links/hyperlinks from ppts

4) you can also download the app onto your iPhone, link it to your iPad via a PIN number, and use it as a remote. So for those of us who can't present wirelessly at school, it means you can have the iPad plugged into the projector at the front, and roam about the room while presenting. Whoopeeeeee! I cannot express how exciting and liberating this prospect is. I will be able to stand next to my more, ahem, challenging little darlings and still present.

I tried it out tonight at my adult ed class, and it worked brilliantly. So tomorrow will be the real test at school. I will report back!