When we think about professional learning, our first thoughts might go to all those twilights, courses and INSET days that we’ve attended over the years that didn’t quite work. We’ve all had to sit through hours of training that just hasn’t quite cut it for one reason or another. Ineffective CPL encompasses much of the following: […]
Read more "The Thinking behind our CPL"Our CPL year came to an end last week, culminating in a wonderfully collaborative Nano Meet. Summed up nicely in Alan’s plenary talk, the event was designed simply to give us space as colleagues to talk, reflect and critique. Alan reminded us of Wiliam’s notion that ‘everything works somewhere/nothing works everywhere’ and also Warren Little’s […]
Read more "Our CPL Year"Teachers ask around 400 questions every day, which adds up to a staggering 70,000 a year. Most of these are low cognitive questions and it’s important to consider how to make these questions more effective in developing pupils’ learning. One way is to add variety to you questioning strategies. For example, randomly select pupils – […]
Read more "Questioning Ideas"We spent yesterday afternoon’s OLE session reflecting on our own strategic leadership planning. Our goals – be they focused on personal growth, operational management or based on capacity building into the long term future – were drafted, discussed and reflected upon. WAQs (or Wisdom Accessing Questions) were the model of the day – a helpful toolkit […]
Read more "Coaching & Covey"Here it is: our new Learning & Teaching policy. We have worked with our students and staff to shape this. Max launched this with College Leadership yesterday, check his slides out here. The policy very much reflects a partnership approach and, as a cooperative college, we believe this to be the right way to formulate […]
Read more "Our New Learning & Teaching Policy"Today we held our first primary secondary partnership, focused on transition between Key Stage 2 to 3. Colleagues from our feeder primary schools joined us for the afternoon. We selected a representative sample of students across Year 7 to help shape our conversations, evaluations and reflections. Our learning conversations were very much focused on how we […]
Read more "Reflecting on learning with primary partners"As we begin our CPL programme again in 2016-17, it’s worth reflecting on our professional creativity. Our programme has tried to structure itself on the thinking of Steven Johnson – notably his thoughts on making sufficient time and space for ideas to emerge. Like Johnson, Brian Eno has also written extensively about creativity. Eno pictures […]
Read more "Brian Eno: On creativity"Eddie Jones and Chris Coleman – two coaches currently enjoying summer success – have both grounded their management in growth mindset philosophy. Following Wales’ greatest night of football against Belgium, Coleman said not being afraid to fail was key to his team’s victory: “If you work hard enough and you’re not afraid to dream then you’re not afraid to […]
Read more "Coaching a Growth Mindset"Continuing our Growth Mindset series, check out Eduardo Briceño’s TEDx Talk on The Power of Belief below. Briceño powerfully argues the benefits of a Growth Mindset approach: ‘When students or adults see their abilities as fixed, whether they think they’re naturals or just not built for a certain domain, they avoid challenge and lose interest when things get […]
Read more "The Power of a Growth Mindset"We are really keen to see a Growth Mindset approach to learning and life cultured and developed across the College. We’ve begun to see pockets of practice emerge over the course of the year – for example the excellent work that Emma and our Feedback Hub has been developing on Growth Mindset marking. Here’s a […]
Read more "The Science of a Growth Mindset"
KEVICC CPL 