Really enjoyed delivering T&L briefing this morning on mini-whiteboards. I had lots of buzzy conversations with people who tried working with them today or who have ordered them for their department. I started with Dunlosky's paper on what helps students remember 1/ I shared the top 2 strategies that came from his research - practice testing & distributed practice and explained these. Practice testing can be boiled down to our quizzing, testing and questioning and distributed practice means learning whole sequences not individual items 2/

Behaviour: After 12 years in a school where students present with challenging behaviour, here is my absolute top behaviour tip 1/ A good behaviour policy is worth its weight in gold and schools, leaders, departments must support teachers to do their job. Systems need to be clear, stripped back and followed. BUT 2/

T&L morning briefing today on modelling and our school strategy of basic to brilliant. I started off using @rlrossi64 brilliant analogy about starting points. I made the point that despite the difference in support needed, the destination for students is the same. I then explained that as well as the difference between starting points, we can be sidetracked by their overconfidence, we believe they are further along the competence path than they are. In the I, We, You stages of modelling we need to return to I (expert modelling) frequently.

1/ Literacy interventions: a thread. Many non-specialists find themselves having to line manage or strategically plan intervention. This can be really tough. 2/ Curriculum time is precious. The ideal scenario to me is adding time to tutor. Run your interventions intensively during tutor 3 x a week so that students do not miss out any more teaching. Plan for impactful intervention.

A few main points from 'Just reading: the impact of faster pace reading on poorer adolescent readers' (Literacy Journal, May 2019): #reading #literacy #TeamEnglish 1. A fast read through aims to give students an uninterrupted and sustained reading experience. 2. Poorer readers are more likely to be expected to focus on discrete skills, slowing down the reading process 3. However, 'listening to and following a text read aloud by a more capable reader...a less fluent reader can experience autonomy and fluency'.

I haven’t blogged or shared much for a bit so here is the first thread on Literacy – on raising the profile of reading: 1/ Invest in AR & a member of staff to deliver it. RA progress becomes measurable and can be tracked. Give students reading logs to respond to reading so they can track their progress. Get English Department on board put them in the AR training. 2/