Everyone (students, parents and teachers) at Little Lever is involved in creating the policies and practices that we use to ensure we have the right climate to learn and we have the right teaching practices to promote great learning.
We have two simple ways in which we do this:
Before any learning can take place the climate must be right and everyone at Little Lever takes responsibility for this. With the help of students, teachers created ‘The Little 8’… The 8 Little things every teacher in the building can do to ensure the climate is ‘Perfect’ for learning. Students must follow the expectations of our Perfect Climate and Corridor Climate. Please see Our Expectations webpage for further details on this.
1 MEET AND GREET
BEFORE students enter:
2 CONNECT NOW…
3 PERFECT CLIMATE… is referenced and adhered to for every activity
4 STUDENT ATTENTION…
5 STAR
6 PRAISE CULTURE
7 PATROL and POSITION
8 DOOR and DISMISS
Understanding how students’ learn is imperative if we are to select the teaching practices and strategies that will have the greatest impact in helping students know more and remember more! Co-constructed with students, teachers and using the latest educational research the Big 10 is a set of principles that will promote great learning in any classroom.
1 SUCCESS: Create a culture of success and resilience through clear success criteria, modelling and WAGOLLs.
2 READING: Support the reading of ALL students.
3 KNOWLEDGE & UNDERSTANDING: Check for student understanding and adapt teaching to meet the needs of ALL learners.
4 WALT: Share the WALT so students understand the purpose of the lesson and how it fits into the bigger picture.
5 CONNECTIONS: Make connections to prior and future learning, using a range of contexts and examples.
6 QUESTIONING: Question students to challenge and support their knowledge and understanding, informing next steps.
7 COMMUNICATION: Communicate information clearly (explicit instruction, storytelling, dual coding…).
8 KEYWORDS: Share and define keywords.
9 FEEDBACK: Provide timely feedback that is concise, specific, and targeted.
10 SCAFFOLD: Scaffold learning so ALL students are appropriately supported and challenged.
We use many different forms of assessment on a daily, two weekly and approximately half termly basis to assess whether students have stored the knowledge they have gained in their long term memory… i.e. have they learnt what we have taught them.
The most important aspect of assessment is we are able to spot students’ knowledge gaps. We are then able to use a range of feedback strategies to re-shape learning for students and plug the knowledge gaps!
Please view the following video on how we do this.
Our core purpose is… to help every person achieve things they never thought they could. We refer to every person because this applies to all our staff. When it comes to teaching staff, we have created nationally recognised Professional Development programmes. We deliver, facilitate and co-design Professional Development programmes for various leading training providers including Ambition and Teach First who we work very closely with.
We have a range of professional development opportunities for all teaching staff from NQT through to SLT. We have created a collaborative and developmental culture at the school where teachers can be the best they can be! We expect all our teachers to be self-reflective and work hard to improve their teaching no matter what level of expertise they have. We believe in personalised professional development and we have a range of opportunities for teaching staff to become exceptional practitioners!
We have developed a variety of ways to support and encourage collaboration and the sharing of best practice including:
Weekly teaching and learning briefings where colleagues showcase and share effective strategies
Weekly subject collaborative planning sessions – 2 hours of dedicated subject collaborative planning every week… this enables teachers to focus on their subject curriculum, reflect on the impact of their teaching strategies and share teaching practices that have a proven impact on students’ learning
Teaching and Learning Communities – teachers work with each other and the latest educational research to develop, embed and evaluate an identified area of pedagogy and practice
Learning walks and talks – many of the best ideas are picked up when simply walking around the school and talking to staff
Study Tours – teachers liaise with and visit other schools, to gather and share best practice.
