Assessment for learning (AfL)

Beyond Levels - Goverance and the role of National Leaders of Governance

A presentation to the LearningFirst event at Sheffield, Hallam University on 5th November 2016. Governors (and trustees) are now firmly ensconsed in the leadership accountability system which is now a joint enterprise with heads and other senior leaders. This short presentation outlined the contradictory pressures on governors, particularly about their level of engagement with pupil performance, and what they needed to exercise their role effectively. The presentation went on to outline how National Leaders of Governance can support governing bodies in this.

Learning to Listen

Aim: To modify the structured teaching programme,"Learning to Listen" (devised for a special school) for use in mainstream nursery classes, to monitor the effects of the programme in improving the listening skills of young children and to examine the support, training and professional development implications for teachers using the programme.

Improving writing through a creative approach

Aim: The main aim was to build and implement an approach to raising achievement using a creative strategy based on the current evidence about improving childrens motivation for writing. Specifically the objectives were: To raise the attainment in writing of an underachieving Year Two class through a creative approach. To improve pupils attitudes towards, and engagement with, the writing process. To make clear links to the Primary Framework Objectives for text, sentence and word level within an integrated approach.

How inclusive are our classrooms?

Aim: Following a recent review of inclusion in the Special Needs Unit at our school, we felt it was appropriate to evaluate aspects of our existing strategies for inclusion. We wanted to discover more about pupils perceptions of their own learning, and their attitudes towards the classroom learning environment and identify features of current practice that supported the effective inclusion of pupils with special educational needs.