I thought it might be quite nice to write a teaching and learning blog in August when we all have a few extra moments of peace and quiet to actually sit and read rather than being in the hustle and bustle of everyday teaching life. When I sit and reflect on our pedagogy at Crookhorn, we are in a far better place than we have ever been before where classrooms are well structured, where learning is focussed, and environments are calm and well managed and where our students thrive.

The key thing for us moving into 24-25 is that we are not introducing anything new in terms of our pedagogy. Now is the time to consolidate on the structure and techniques we have been working on over the last few years and making them consistent across all our classrooms. As teachers we don’t want too many initiatives and compliance tasks that we must follow. At Crookhorn, we don’t believe in making you all do the same thing as many academy chains do, as we don’t believe this is conductive to getting the best out of you as individuals. However, there are some good evidence-based strategies that we would like to embed into your teaching that we believe help the students with their learning. I am going to highlight two of these below that we want you to consider when planning your upcoming components of learning which you have been trained on before but worth reminding you on.

DO NOW (Retrieval)

Do Now, an absolute ‘Teach like a Champion’ favourite, mixed with the idea of retrieval, which we all know is a must when it comes to moving knowledge from the short-term to the long-term memory. Below is something I stole of Twitter (I will never call it X!) which is a simple starter that we could all use to help us settle a class and build the retention of knowledge at the same time.

Hopefully you will remember the blog we did highlighting the fantastic work in science, with their ‘Blast from the past’ which asks students to remember something from last lesson, last week, last month. You could look to do something where you mix these two templates, as I do like the idea of these tasks above but not just from the last lesson. This also fits in nicely with our DBLP activities, such as flash cards and mindmaps.

Think Pair Share

As you all know by now, I am not a big fan of the ‘hands up’ policy of questioning. The days of the teacher standing at the front lecturing the students and then checking they have understood by asking them to raise their hands to answer a question, picking on 1 or 2 and then moving on are well and truly dead. It thankfully is very rare we see that in classrooms now with far more teachers using mini whiteboards and techniques such as T/P/S to check for understanding from the whole class, rather than a few. I like this diagram above as it makes it really clear on the steps we should take when we do ask a hinge question that is vital in us understanding where the class are up to and where I am going to take the learning next. It might be worth getting this printed off, laminated and put on desks for students to use if you feel this is appropriate. The key part for me that is often neglected is the very first bit, which is the thinking part. Giving them time and somewhere to jot down their thoughts is absolutely crucial, and the mini whiteboard comes in handy here as you can walk round and look at individual thoughts, so you know who knows what!

Two keys techniques for our classrooms that we all are familiar with. Nothing new, but something we want to get right across our College. If you have any questions please do ask me or speak to your coach/mentor in your next session.

Enjoy the rest of your break and looking forward to seeing you all in September.