Bas data Arfer Dda >> Athrawon yn Hyfforddi Cyfoedion rhwng CA2 a CA3
| ALl | Merthyr Tudful | Enw'r Ysgol | Afon Taf High School |
|---|
What was the focus for improvement?
How can opportunities be provided for primary and secondary teachers to share experiences and expertise by, for example, observing each others’ classrooms and teaching, or meeting to discuss or prepare joint schemes of work or bridging units?
What did we do?
The secondary school and all of its family of primary schools identified teachers who were willing to take part in the coaching project. After this, the following took place:
• An initial plenary meeting for all of the teachers involved in the learning community, to discuss the project, its intended outcomes and the nature of peer-coaching in detail.
• Form coaching pairs, made up of a Year 6 teacher and a Year 7 teacher. Each pair will chose a teaching/learning strategy, from the wide range covered in the Cluster Think2Learn Conference in December 2007, to use together and develop, to enhance teaching of thinking skills.
• Each coaching-pair works together during the term to plan together, share/observe a partner’s lesson, and discuss outcomes and further development.
• A final plenary meeting to report the progress and impact of the work, and to explore how it might be taken further.
What were the outcomes?
In the great majority of cases, coaching-pairs were able to identify both strengths and areas for development in their own practice, as revealed through shared lesson observation and discussion. For example, almost all responses identified that common teaching strategies are applicable to both Key Stage 2 and Key Stage 3 contexts, when chosen carefully, and they can have equally powerful. Equally, it was recognised that pre-conceived ideas about pedagogy and incorrect assumptions about what pupils are capable of achieving can limit the impact of the same strategies. In the great majority of coaching-pairs, the opportunity to work together added to each partner’s understanding of the nature of the curriculum, its organisation and the teaching context in the other Key Stage.
What evidence have we collected to demonstrate improvements?
The participants’ own suggestions for continuing to improve transition for pupils transferring between Afon Taf Cluster primary schools and the secondary schools include:
o A programme of regular planned opportunities for greater contact, collaboration and discussion of pedagogy between teachers in Year 6 and Year 7 in the cluster;
o Shared approaches to embedding thinking skills into all aspects of learning, in all subjects, within and between Key Stage 2 and Key Stage 3;
o Shared understanding of the role of structured group-work between Key Stage 2 and Key Stage 3, and strategies to introduce and maintain it;
o Consideration of the structure of the Year 7 timetable, particularly in the first term, to promote more opportunities for extended working and links between subjects.
What have we learnt about teaching practice and pupils learning?
The great majority of coaching-pairs reported the positive impact on their own practice of observing and discussing the shared work with their peer-coaching colleague. A significantly common observation is the degree to which the individual Key Stage 2 and Key Stage 3 teachers in the project are already experimenting with AfL and thinking-skills techniques in their own practice, but the often different extent to which these practices have become embedded in the school as a whole (in primary schools) and between different subjects and classes (in the secondary school).
What we aim to do next
Clearly, the WAG requirement for good quality cluster transition-plans, the standardisation and moderation of summative assessment within and between schools and the flexibility of the revised Key Stage 2 and Key Stage 3 curriculum are, in themselves, levers for improving pupils’ experience of transition between Year 6 and Year 7. However, the extent to which they lead to the elements of a stronger pedagogical bridge between learning in Key Stage 2 and Key Stage 3, that have been identified by the participants in this project, depends upon teachers in the two phases having more and meaningful opportunities to develop their pedagogy and practice together and on headteachers identifying that need, and being able to engineer the structures within which it can be met.