28 June 2020
This Week:
- NQTs – RHU on Tuesday; JMJ on Thursday (if rota allows).
- More teaching this week as core lessons resume for Year 10 students.
- Live Lessons – again, thanks to those who are moving forward with live and recorded lessons. So far we have had three members of staff trying out this process, allowing 80 students to access live teaching. I know that a number of others are using recorded lessons (allowing at least another 150 to access). If the policy needs to be tweaked, please let RLO know asap.
- National College Membership – We are all now members of the National College. Please see ‘CPD Cascade’ section below for further details.
- Walton Reads – thanks to staff who have volunteered to read with a student over the coming weeks. This will be invaluable to those students. Please let RLO know if there are any issues. All material has been emailed to those involved.
Reflect…
How much has lockdown encouraged us to reflect upon and adapt our craft?
March 20th, 2020: schools were mandated to close. When the final Year 11s left site and the significance of this event had started to resonate, teachers were thrown into a slow-motion Matrix-style state of emergency remote teaching. WLD students and staff, thankfully, have been able to stay connected accessing Teams; this has made remote ‘teaching’ a possibility – more positively, an opportunity.
‘A recent report published by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development found that, prior to the crisis, only half of teachers reported using online technology for classwork on a frequent basis, and up to a quarter of schools faced shortages or inadequacy of digital resources or issues with internet access.’
Over the course of the last month, hats need to be taken off to teachers who have tried a range of strategies to engage with students; from live lessons, to recorded voiceovers; to dialogue through calls, ‘chat’ and email. Getting to grips with new systems and technologies - on top of planning quality learning (plus juggling their own family circumstances) – is no mean feat. It is this tenacity and dedication that gives credence to the research that, ‘the vast majority of teachers [are] open to change and want to be able to support learning through the use of digital technology’.
There is some welcomed light at the end of the tunnel. As a result of this pandemic, many teachers have been able to upskill, having access to a range of online material, courses and webinars.
So is ‘blended learning’ the new normal? Remote teaching technologies, insight into student and staff well-being and other skills will be part of the standard toolkit for the post-Covid teacher. For useful resources and discussion around post-covid teaching, read the following article from the Irish Times.
R – retrieval and recap activities. Low-stakes. Quick feedback. Self-marking.
E – Engage students – stimulus, questions, ‘chat’, feedback etc.
M – motivate through peer interaction (peer marking, sharing WAGOLLs, prompt live discussion through ‘chat’ function of Teams)
O – Outcomes – make explicit using check lists, success criteria, weekly plan/big picture etc. INTENT.
T – Teaching quality – this is more important than how it is delivered. Think about how you assess what students have learnt.
E – Expectations – be realistic but aspirational.
Top Tips
REMOTE LEARNING – TEACHING RESOURCES
- The online classroom, Oak National Academy, will stay open for another academic year, supported by the DfE. Resources will remain free and accessible for teachers to help ease their workloads, support high quality teaching in the classroom and minimise any disruption for pupils who are not able to attend.
- The DfE has published a list of independently quality assured online resources, all of which are currently free to schools. This includes Isaac Physics, Hegarty Maths and a wide range of other excellent provision.
- The BBC’s expanded Bitesize offer is attracting over 4 million users each week and they have plans for themed weeks over the summer term, in partnership with the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Science Museum Group.
REMOTE LEARNING – CPD CASCADE
NB: Please refer to the previous ‘TLD’ for already publicised CPD activities.
Please make use of the newly updated CPD calendar saved in WLD Teachers Team (also saved in WLD Staff Team under CPD). There are lots of free webinars and other courses to look at, if you feel that you have the time or circumstances allow you to do so.
Continue to make use of the video CPD sessions stored in the same Team here.
CPD Cascaded by Our Staff
NEW THIS WEEK!
Research Ed Home Page on YouTube
Contains links to lots of great speakers.
CPD contributed by RHO – many thanks
…attended a free MFL webinar with Joe Dale. Joe Dale is a MFL specialist and his presentation was called "Remote Language Learning Configured". He spoke a lot about "synchronous" and "asynchronous" learning (live and offline teching/learning). Below, are some links to his research.
Even though this was a MFL webinar, there is lots of information here about tools that could be useful for lots of subjects e.g. Flipgrid, Screencastify, Whiteboard.fi (virtual digital whiteboards), Screencast-O-Matic, Jamboard, Loom, Flippty.net (online flashcards), Vocaroo - for pupils to record their voices when reading aloud (and for speaking exercises in MFL), QWIQR - QR code generating software, Quizizz and many more.
The link to his presentation is here:
Here's the link to his research document which has links to many learning tools.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1CyCAO4T03ScPYzrsuyMOFktdodZ-a3h650oTT7Wm4qk/mobilebasic
FROM PREVIOUS WEEKS!
REMINDER National College Membership – We are all members!
You will hopefully have received login details for the National College. We have purchased subscription for all staff within school. Please have a look at the resources on offer. This will be an important source of CPD next year.
RHO – wellbeing CPD
This will be useful for us all in light of wider reopening. Many thanks for this feedback.
RHO feedback on Dyscalculia CPD
Supporting vulnerable students
Information sheet attached
Resources on Remote Learning from Lancashire
PDF attached to this email
SYA – Excellent Resource to Aid Remote Planning
This resource links to our acronym REMOTE and contains practical advice and resources. It is saved here.
Closing the Literacy Gap Post-Coronavirus
RLO attended a webinar with Alex Quigley on Friday and the Powerpoint is here. It makes very interesting reading in the context of the pandemic.
Microsoft Educator Community
AHA has kindly produced a PPT to explain how to access the course material, accessible here.
Teams CPD from LCH
Below is a link to a YouTube video that shows useful formatting tips when messaging students and staff or announcing new work/important events within a channel.
Subject Knowledge Enhancement
https://www.subjectassociations.org.uk/the-cfsa-directory/
Society for Education and Training
They are offering a wide range of free CPD webinars on a range of topics, from behaviour to well-being. Have a look here if you are interested…
CPD Sharing from JMJ
All webinars completing saved here. Please make use of this shared resource.
ALY – shared these useful webinars…
- ‘This much I know about mind over matter…. improving mental health In our schools’ by John Tomsett.
- ‘Closing the Reading Gap’ by Alex Quigley
- ‘Just Great Teaching’ by Ross Morrison McGill
- ‘Rosenshine Masterclass’ by Tom Sherrington
- ‘Teaching Walkthrus’ by Oliver Caviglioli and Sherrington
- ‘Seven Myths About Teaching’ by Daisy Christodoulou
Posted by Rachel Long
Category: Teaching and Learning Digests
