ProgressTeaching

It was an absolute pleasure to visit The City of London Academy Highbury Grove this morning and discover more about how Vice Principal, Oli Hamdi, and the team have been transforming teaching and learning. The school has been on a ‘mammoth journey’ (Oli’s words!) and the impact of their work is clear to see. Back in 2016 the academy was in special measures but is now rated ‘Good’ and their results are really on an upward trajectory. Over the past 18 months, there has been a real change in culture around how feedback is given to teachers, with the school moving to a little and often approach. This is showing as one of the most positive areas in recent staff surveys. Oli said one of the keys to success in this shift was firstly getting some ‘allies’ around him, then getting the Curriculum Leaders on board. The typicality data being generated from this new approach has also transformed the narrative in governors meetings, in which the team can now present a snapshot of the quality of teaching overall and in each subject that is clear and leads to constructive discussion. An added bonus to the visit was that we were joined by Lauren Farrugia from Holy Family Catholic School and Sixth Form E17. It’s wonderful to see a senior leader visit another school for the first time and watch as a double page of their notebook is quickly filled with ideas and reflections! Lauren commented that ‘This is the best CPD’ and I recall feeling the same as a school leader. This also opened my eyes to the potential of our visits this year for bringing school leaders together and further collaboration across our network. A big thank you to Oli Hamdi for hosting the visit and being so willing to share not only the academy’s inspiring journey, but also a whole bunch of resources! If you would like to find out more about the themes above, please get in touch with us at info@progressteaching.com and we would be happy to arrange a call with you. #feedback #teachingandlearning #collaboration #schoolimprovement #teacherdevelopment

I was back on the road for another installment of ‘ProgressTeaching in Action’ yesterday, visiting one of ProgressTeaching’s longest-term users of the platform, The City Academy, Hackney. I ended up amongst a crowd of students on the way from Hackney Central station to the Academy, and I have to say, they were one of the smartest-dressed and calmest groups of students I have seen away from the watchful eyes of a duty team! They clearly have a lot of pride in their uniform and their school, which is great to see. As part of our learning walk, we visited a Key Stage 3 music lesson, where students were preparing a performance for ‘Project Band’. This is a brilliant initiative in which all Year 7 students have peripatetic music lessons and are then involved in a performance at the end of the year. No wonder they were so engaged! Lesson drop-ins and regular, low-stakes feedback are clearly a feature of The City Academy’s teaching and learning strategy, to the point where amazingly, nearly 600 pieces of feedback were recorded in their platform last half-term alone. With such a rich source of data being generated, moderating observers’ feedback for accuracy becomes a really important task. The academy trains its observers by asking them to: - conduct joint lesson observations - apply the academy’s evaluative ratings to sample lesson commentaries - quality assure the content of sample lesson commentaries then discuss in groups. They have also used video extracts of lessons in the past to discuss the feedback they would give. A big thank you to Vice Principal Mhairi Stewart and Assistant Principal Katie James for hosting such an enjoyable and thought-provoking visit at their fantastic academy. If you would like to find out more about schools’ innovative approaches to teaching and learning across our network, please DM me and I would be happy to share further examples of tried and tested, successful strategies. #teachingandlearning #feedback #coaching #musiceducation

My first ‘ProgressTeaching in action’ outing of the year took me to the hugely inspiring Hartsdown Academy in Margate. From the moment a student stood up unprompted, shook my hand and explained what his class was learning in our first lesson drop-in, I knew this was going to be a really positive visit. The academy has embedded a culture of giving weekly feedback to teachers and the teaching and learning lead’s weekly analysis of teaching and learning data means that themes arising are immediately identified and become the focus for the week’s learning walks. There are lots of great teaching and learning ideas going on in the academy from green star stamps to indicate verbal feedback has been given in students’ books to the whole staff reading programme, where all staff read then discuss the same book in CPD sessions (they’re reading ‘Teach to the Top’ by Megan Mansworth this term). But I was particularly taken with one brilliant idea - ECTs can request to accompany SLT on their learning walks and look at a particular theme such as questioning or modelling. SLT then select the lessons of known strong practitioners in these areas for their lesson visits. What a brilliant way of training ECTs, celebrating the excellent practice in the academy and building strong relationships between ECTs and SLT. A big thank you to Matthew Tate and Joss Rebera for hosting me, giving me an insight into the strategy behind Hartsdown’s journey to success and sharing some excellent ideas for the future development of the ProgressTeaching platform.

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I’m speaking at the Trust Education Leaders Conference tomorrow about “Budget freedom for principal without sacrificing financial controls. When are financial models better that reality?” It’s looking like it’s going to be an incredible event…50 senior leaders who oversee 480+ schools with 16 speakers sharing their wealth of knowledge!