Lazy Marking in Geography
Its not an original thought I know, but I HATE marking. The only bit all year I enjoy is adding up the scores for my pupils’ mock exam scores and even that isnt really the marking part.
Additionally, the younger the pupils the more I struggle to motivate myself to mark. I think that’s because they are more likely to just regurgitate back what I said in the lesson or they read in the book or from the webpage. So this means I am even more likely to have to write the same things over and over again.
Then there is the question “Do the pupils read what I write?” Even when I remember to set aside some time in class for them to do this I am not sure if they do. Last month I read part of Dylan Wiliam’s “Embedded Formative assessment”
In there he quoted research to say that if you give a grade/mark/level and a comment then the pupils only look at the grade and ignore the comment. I have to say this backs up my personal experience.
So I have developed a plan to get round these two problems of me wasting time marking and pupils not reading what I write. I only use this for the more major assessment pieces where I am likely to give them a level. I dont think for more run of the mill marking it would save me time. Also It would then start to take up too much timje in the mere 90 minutes a week i have with KS3.
The Lazy Marking in Geography Technique
While I am marking their work I don’t write down any targets for improvement. Instead I collect these targets and put them on a document. This I then sort into levels and hand out to the students next lesson. All I write on their actual work myself is a NC level and a positive comment on something they have done well.
Then in the lesson, they read their work and look at the level I gave them. Then I hand out the target sheet and ask them to choose targets that they wish to aim for. I don’t limit them to the ‘next level up’ I tell them they can choose any 2 they wish.
I make them write these targets in the middle of a new page and then draw a simple unadorned box around them. nothing else goes on the page. that way it sticks out in their book and can be easily seen by pupil, parent, tutor and of course me. This target can then be referred to any time over the next half term. After that I find it becomes a bit repetitive.
I have attached below the various lists of targets I have set out over the last 18 months. You will notice there is much repetition in them. The trick is to find targets that relate back to what has just been covered AND to the next topic as well. all the below are my own.
Please steal and adapt them if you wish. If you have any comments or would like to tell me if and how you used them and how you improved them i would love to hear back. The only resource that is not mine is the “Geography Ladders” powerpoint. i cannot remember where on the internet i got this from. If you recognise it and know the author please tell me.
I am sorry they are in no order and their names dont tell much about them. I originally only wrote them for myself
level targets start of tectonics topic y9
targets at the start of the topic
Why are Teachers so Vulnerable to OFSTED?
When it was announced recently that a member of our SLT was being seconded to OFSTED and HMI for 12 months there were boos in the staffroom. It wasn’t connected in any way with that person, but rather at his destination. Much has been said about the negative aspects of inspection. Pages have been written by teachers and teachers representatives on every uttering of Sir Michael Wilshaw since he took his job as head of that organisation. I do not want to add to those topics here.
What I want to consider is why teachers are so affected by all observations of our classes. In any other job it is pretty standard practice for someone to inspect and assess your job every day and to observe you doing it. Yet recently teaching unions were unhappy when the 3 hour a year observation limit was dropped.
Teaching, we are often told, is a vocation not a job. Everyone knows how vital education is for individual children up to the whole nation. So teachers are acutely aware of the importance of what they are doing. There is a STATUS that comes from working in schools. Firstly it is seen as a key to the future and secondly because it is seen as a difficult job. Teachers are always being told by our friends “I don’t know how you could spend all day with that age group. I couldn’t do it.”
And that social standing makes us feel good. When we are marking books at 10:30 at night or never getting a response from the parents of a badly behaving pupil, when we have to buy the coloured paper we need as a resource for Monday’s lesson because there is no money for it in our budget or when we have to set cover again for a colleague who is off long term with the stress of the job, we can fall back on the fact that deep down we are appreciated and valued for what we are doing.
So when the inspector runs down what you do, tells you your school is no longer satisfactory, criticises your lesson because it doesn’t fit the way their piece of paper says all lessons have to be taught, or says that you should be adding more for EAL pupils in your department, then the pride part of our job, that bit that keeps us going gets publicly slapped and we don’t have any other comforts to fall back upon.
If most teachers did it for the money then an inspection that doesn’t affect your pay would be no big deal. But an inspection that tells everyone that you and your school is poor becomes a public humiliation for staff. Thats why we are vulnerable to OFSTED’s negative comments – they are a personal insult made in front of the whole community. OFSTED are like an insensitive teacher who cruelly and unfairly criticises a pupil in front of the rest of the class.
Update on SOLO taxonomy in Geography GCSE
I am really good at getting excited about a new idea and not properly following it through. The fact that SOLO is still influencing my teaching and hopefully the pupils learning is a reflection of it usefulness in my lessons. Prompted by an interesting post from http://reflectionsofmyteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/secret-soloist-part-1.html#comment-form I have been reminded of when I started uding the SOLO approach only a few months ago. I have not prepared as well as he, nor have I reconsidered my teaching and learning styles as much This is something I hope to reflect onover the summer months. Isnt it good to read other teachers’ reflection in their blogs!
What I have done with my classes is to apply SOLO to the learning objectives I use. Our Head told us that we must include differentiated Los in all our lessons (she made it one of every teacher’s performance management targets for 2011-12)
I write 3 LOs for every lesson: the first is based around naming and being able to describe the features of the topic, the second around describing, explaining and linking these features and the third to more linking as well as comparing evaluating and applying to a case study. The first LO is associated with grades G to D, the second to C to B and the third to A-A*.
It has now got to the stage where, given the topic and a brief introduction to the work my Y11’s can write their own LOs using the key words. They can also state which grades these are associated with. To me this shows they know how to structure not only their learning in a lesson but also their answers in their GCSE exam. They now know what makes a C or an A grade answer. Interestingly my Y10s who have been using SOLO for a month or two less cannot quite do this yet.
I have included below a couple of my LO slides from GCSE classes
What I plan to do next is to use some hexagons in my lessons. I have taken some advice from http://learningspy.co.uk/ and plan to try them in revision classes this month. i will let you know how it goes
Appointing a new teacher What qualities should i look for?
Its been a few months since my last post. I have in between times run 4 field trips, marked 45 controlled assessments and well you know how the list goes. What has made it hardest for me is that in a school of around 800 pupils I am the only specialist Geography groups. I have one history teacher who has been teaching geography for 3 years now and is a superb classroom practitioner. i would love him to see the light ditch history and share the GCSE groups with me as well as take the few KS3 classes he has at the moment. However that isn’t going to happen
So I have been badgering my head for the last two years to appoint a second geographer. Last week at last my nagging paid off and the ad appeared in the TES and on our website.
A new geographer will allow me share the workload, but more importantly it would let me have another professional contribute ideas to the department. I have been teaching for 20 years now and 13 at my present school. I hope someone will come in and look at what i am covering in my Schemes of Work and how i am covering it and say “YOU STILL DOING IT LIKE THAT?” I need some shaking up and some help in revitalising the department.
This need has become more and more apparent the longer i have spent on twitter. Pretty well every day i click on a tweet that points me to a fantastic new resource or idea or lesson plan or teaching method. Sharing collaborative teaching is what i need to improve. The new teacher can be any age but innovative and collaborative approach to teaching is what i want!!
What qualities would you look for?
What they don’t tell you about using IT in class
This week I am planning for my GCSE pupils should make a short video of their work to present to the rest of the group on tourism in Kenya. I haven’t done this before; I feel pleased I am doing it, but I think most teachers have been allowing their pupils to learn like this for quite a while.
I always feel that other people are using newer technology in their teaching, other classes are learning with more appropriate ICT, other schools have quicker PCs or netbooks or tablets and other teachers are going to more useful CPD and meetings than I or my classes ever manage. Because I spend a lot of time on twitter, where there are naturally a higher proportion of IT savvy teachers per square mile than elsewhere in the world, this feeling can sometimes be overwhelming.
Our school, like all the others over the country, is short of cash. When I take my class into an IT room there are 20 machines with at least one or two that need some repair or another. The children therefore don’t have a machine each. Also there is not enough space in the room so they are almost sat on top of each other. When I unlock the door (having arrived 5 minutes after my class as i have had to traipse over from my last lesson) there is a rush for the best seat and the least slow PC. The slower, weaker, less popular pupils end up in the chairs with the wobbly legs furthest from a computer. It then takes 5 minutes for the teacher laptop to warm up and for me to get the presentation up on the IWB. Meanwhile I have to work out which of the pupil computers is the one today on which the mouse isn’t working. Finally, after silencing the group and getting Emily off her emails we are all ready to go; 16% of the lesson has gone. I do tell my pupils to save their work regularly in case connection is lost, but they don’t always and then at the end of the lesson disaster can strike. That excellent site I found at home is blocked at school.
So when I read your blog or listen to your speech telling me how easily you got your pupils into the school grounds with their tablets or collaborating on some online app or site I feel that I am going wrong or missing out.
When I hear the secretary of state for education saying that IT teaching is boring, but that there is no money left for school to buy new equipment or time and finance available to let me have CPD to find out about new technologies I wonder how I am supposed to keep up to speed.
Anyone got any ideas?
Michael Gove’s ministerial statement on ICT in schools
Below is Michael Gove’s ministerial statement that is to accompany his speech toady at Bett:
Please feel free to comment below. I would love to know what people think.
The Secretary of State for Education (Michael Gove MP) today made the following Written Ministerial Statement:
I am today announcing my intention to launch a public consultation on my proposal that the National Curriculum Programmes of Study and associated Attainment Targets and assessment arrangements for Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in maintained schools in England should not apply from September 2012.
There is a significant and growing base of evidence, not least from Ofsted inspections, that demonstrates that there are persistent problems with the quality and effectiveness of ICT education in schools. Evidence indicates that recent curriculum and qualifications reforms have not led to significant improvements in the teaching of ICT, and the number of students progressing to further study in ICT-related subjects is in decline. Furthermore, the ICT curriculum in its current form is viewed as dull and demotivating for pupils. Its teaching may not equip pupils adequately for further study and work, may leave them disenchanted or give rise to negative perceptions that turn them off the subject completely. At the same time we know that the demand for high-level technology skills is growing, and many employers in the IT industry are concerned that the way in which ICT is taught in schools is failing to inspire young people about the creative potential of ICT and the range of IT-related careers open to them.
However, we also know that ICT teaching in schools can be done well. There are numerous positive examples of schools that are leading the way in developing new and exciting visions for ICT, and of industry-led initiatives which are invigorating ICT teaching in schools. In order to facilitate more innovative ICT provision in schools, I am proposing to make provision under the 2002 Education Act to disapply the existing ICT Programmes of Study and Attainment Targets at all four key stages, and the associated statutory assessment arrangements at Key Stage 3, from September 2012.
Under this proposal ICT would remain a compulsory subject within the National Curriculum, subject to the outcomes of the National Curriculum review. However, schools would be freed of the requirement to adhere to the existing Programmes of Study, Attainment Targets and statutory assessment arrangements.
By disapplying the ICT Programme of Study from September this year schools will be able to offer a more creative and challenging curriculum, drawing on support and advice from those best positioned to judge what an ambitious and forward-looking curriculum should contain. I am encouraged by the work of subject organisations and others on how universities and business can develop high quality Computer Science qualifications. I’m keen to explore how Government can continue to facilitate this.
If, having listened to the views expressed in the public consultation and subject to the will of the House, I decide to proceed with the proposed disapplication of the ICT Programmes of Study, Attainment Targets and assessment arrangements, it will represent an interim measure that will be effective from September 2012 until September 2014, when the outcomes of the National Curriculum review will come into force. The status of ICT within the school curriculum is currently being considered by the National Curriculum review alongside that of all other National Curriculum subjects (aside from English, mathematics, science and PE), and I will bring forward proposals later this year.
The public consultation on this proposal will commence shortly and run for 12 weeks. A consultation document containing full details of this proposal and how interested parties can respond to the consultation will be published on the Department for Education website. Copies of that document will also be placed in the House Libraries
Starting KS4 and GCSEs in Y9
This new term has felt more like a new academic year and not just a new calendar one because our Y9s are beginning their GCSE subjects. Now I am not yet sure if this is a good thing.
I like the fact that I have extra time to teach my GCSE classes. I will have nearly 30% more lessons with them. The rush to fit everything in, especially around the 25 hours I have to give to controlled assessment will be a blessing. I will not miss the overriding necessity to get stuff completed which influences the way I have planned and delivered the content of the course over the last few years. The extra time can be used in so many positive ways; deeper learning could be happening. more investigations could occur and I could move the learning in new direction more led by what enthuses the pupils and me rather than just slavishly stick to the syllabus.
In many ways it will also improve my teaching quality of life to have only the y9s who chosen my subject in my classes. After all they should be more motivated because they went for my option. (should)
And for the school as a whole the move makes sense. KS3 SATS are no more and the one measurement that matters more than any other is of course the 5 A* – C grades including English and Maths so why should we swap over to a longer KS4?
But against these three points there is a nagging noise in the back of my mind. Will learning subject content in Y9 really help pupils answer questions on those topic later 2 and a half years later? Is there any point in doing anything except skills at this stage in their learning? And will my pupils lose momentum if there is less pace to my teaching? How can a 13 year old really envisage something happening so far in the future? (its about another 20% of their life so far)
One of the reasons the change was brought in was because of all the extra exams and the increasing modularity of most GCSEs. Now of course the wind has changed and terminal exams are all.
What about those who opted NOT to do my subject? They will have nearly a 1/4 less time doing a subject that is not separately taught at most primary schools. Where is there Geographical learning going to come from? Are we selling them short by focussing on exam courses earlier?
Of course the pragmatic answer to all these questions is that this is what I have been told is going to happen and so I should make the best of it for ALL my pupils whether they elect to study the subject at KS4 or not
Extra thoughts
The knock on effect for the whole school is that we have two timetables a year. Our poor assistant head has had to disappear twice in the last 6 months to work out the minutiae of who gets y9 on a Friday afternoon. No one deserves to have to do that. but the double change has other impacts too. A class I was just getting to know has been taken from me. That means there is an issue of continuity and pupil support. How can the parents evening be so well informed if the teacher doesn’t yet know the names of all their pupils?
Finally I had one of my new Year 9 GCSE groups today. They were lovely. They all wanted to be there. They felt special and that their work had a new impetus because it was GCSE. We took time over a couple of the questions, deliberated over the answers, I asked more than one pupil for their opinion and they felt (I think) more valued.
A KS4 group with no curriculum
Does your school still do Study Plus? Ours doesn’t apparently since we don’t have the money to have 15 pupils with one TA and one teacher in the room together to help them get their GCSE grade C’s in English and Maths. So this year there is a group of pupils starting their GCSEs with a unit called ‘Study Plus’ which isn’t actually study plus. And this is beginning in January because our pupils are now starting KS4 in January of Y9.
There are two of us who are going to be responsible for these 51 pupils. Put basically these are the pupils who have not, for whatever reason, chosen to do a language. This means they are predominantly the less able pupils of the year group, but just looking at maths one of them is predicted and A and 5 a B grade, so the spread of ability is wide.
So far, so statistical. The real difference about this is that no curriculum has been given to us to teach. The Head has said that we should choose something that inspires us. She thinks a qualification at the end would be a good idea for some of the group. The deputy thinks that the last thing they need is another set of exams.
SO WE CAN DO ANYTHING WE WANT.
This is fantastic, we can choose our topics our learning styles our methods of teaching, we can go at our own pace.
This is frightening; how do we measure progress, how do we convince the girls we aren’t just filling their time or that they aren’t a sink group?
Microsoft Partners in Learning (Reading) 2011
This is a story and about INSPIRATION and NETWORKING
I am a teacher. I like signing up for free stuff. My CPD purse holder at school is the same and so when I asked to go on a full day course she wasn’t really listening. When I said it was free she started paying attention. So I filled in the planned absence form, got it signed, set the cover the day before and battled through some packed and ugly rush hour traffic to attend the evening meeting before and the main event (#itmeet and #mspiluk2011 as twitter called them).
Firstly I have to say that I am not sure this will be a structured piece of writing. Since I met SO MANY people with great things to share and I had the time and opportunity to speak to so many of them too, I will probably not include them all letalone put it all in a logical order.
I arrived at the #itmeet not knowing anyone there. Within 5 minutes I was talking to one of this year’s award winners; I hadn’t realised there were 9 more in the room. As a build up for the next day the meeting was a great success, the food was delicious (I can highly recommend the Royal Tandoori in central Reading) and the informal chat exciting. But the best thing was that I started meeting inspiring and approachable teachers. People doing the same job as me under the same time and money constraints, under the same curriculum and SLT pressures as I face every day. Yet they had all produced some excellent ideas that were working in their classrooms. They weren’t trying to sell me something or force some brand idea on me it was simply outstanding practice being done in ordinary schools for typical students by hard working and talented teachers; the inspiration was starting.
And so was the networking. Over the next 24 hours I was to meet people I was already in twitter contact with and I was to meet many many more who I am now following and who are also following me I am sure that this facet will be the one that does my professional practice the best in the long run. It is a whole other post to describe the effects twitter has had on my teaching and thinking and indeed many others have already written more intelligently than I could about it.
So for now I will talk about the inspiration
the first person I talked to at the #itmeet was Glyn Rogers one of the 10uk award winners. And he was a geographer with a great idea using photosynth. He set up a 3D picture of his room packed full of clues to a mystery about Global warming for KS3. From the outset I was meeting people doing incredible stuff in their classroom. You can access his photo at the bottom of this school web page
Then I listened to Dave Rogers (@DavidERogers)talk about the mobile school policy he had got his pupils to write. I really liked the guerilla nature to this policy writing (more on Guerillas in a bit) . He has kindly posted his presentation here
Then I also got to listen and talk to Julia Skinner (@theheadsoffice) . Her 100 word challenge (#100wc on twitter) is already developing into a big hit and I can see me using it with a Y10 group later in 2012
Even more exciting was two student teachers from Plymouth. To hear such thoughtful practitioners talk so well about blogging and networking through twitter was an inspiration. The older ones in the crowd (yes me) were all commenting on how we felt the profession was safe in the hands of young professionals like this. Please check their new blogs out here and here. you can follow them on twitter too (@trainieteacher and @kforeilly)
And ALL this before the actual day itself at microsoft!!
The key speakers (@olliebray @ian_livingstone and @alexbellos) were all good but i wasnt there to hear key speakers i was there to hear AND SPEAK TO) teachers. Therefore I made sure I spoke to some of the other award winners during the day and went to workshops that would hopefully result in me having something else to help my students learn
And I certainly found that!!
First I spoke to Emma Dawson (@squiggle7) who did some fab things with www.missionexplore.net with her Y4′s. now this is just what I wanted to hear, because I signed up to this website and promised i would do something with them, but never quite got round to doing it; you know term time pressure, reports, marking, SLT lesson inspections, meetings, all that sort of thing all got in the way. But Emma had side stepped this sort of thing and because she has done it I now have the motviation to do the same myself. Her blog is here I also went to @ravenellison and @geoblogs @missionexplore presentation where I met @tonyparkin. we had a great chat after all about guerrilla education and how to spread the word. I hope I can help gents I hope I can.
I also talked to one of the many Saltash community (@boothmank) who is doing some excellent stuff inspiring ICT in History. She blogs here Please look up her work with H.I.T squad I really liked the ‘motivating pupils’ part of this work. Though for Geography it loses something in the translation (GIT squad anyone?) I also listened with great interest to the social network in schools thoughts of the deputy head @chickensaltash especially as I am trying to get my geography department facebook page up and active at the moment. And in the spirit of the day I was able to chat to Mr. Chicken after and ask him where to go next.
One other workshop I went to was the reassuringly simple skype in the classroom one (@skypeclassroom and http://education.skype.com/) I have signed up already and will be searching out the network of 19, 000 teachers as soon as I can. And it is free 
The final workshop I attended has really pleased my 10 y.o. son because I have already downloaded kodu onto my home laptop and started to create worlds in preparation for a course I am teaching in January. @geekynicki gave a great presentation and I am sure I will be using this programme in my lessons in the near future even if at the moment i only have a kodu who bumps into tress and says ‘ouch’
To me #mspiluk2011 was a real jolt to my practice. It made me think. It got me excited, engaged, and thinking. I made new teaching friends and I met many many twitter friends and I am sure I will be using many new tools to get my pupils excited, engaged and thinking in my lessons too.
I hope to meet you all again next year. This final link is for the Microsoft partners in learning website
Blogging for Teachers
On 1st December I am leading a CPD session within school on blogging. To be honest i am a bit nervous. I have never done this sort of thing before and my knowldge of blogging is related only to wordpress and only to me doing the blogging. I have yet to get my students blogging.
Therefore if you are reading this and have any suggestions as to what I should do (or not do) during the session I would appreciate your comments
I thought i would split the session which is only 75 minutes long into two simple parts:
- introduction: Why blog?
- Start your own blog
- er.. that’s it
I am running a second session in 7 months so i thought that those who have taken to blogging from next week’s group could all meet up again.
Part 1: Introduction
This will involve briefly looking at bloggin, referring to the list of education blogs i have gathers on the other page of this blog and seeing what i have done with www.geogteacher.wordpress.com and to a much lesser extent with this blog as well.
Then I want to look at the advantages of blogging. I met two BEd teachers from Plymouth Uni a the microsoft partners in learning forum and they presented intelligently and thoughtfully at the #itmeet the evening before on this very topic. So why re-invent the wheel? Here is their blog on the matter.
That covers what blogs are and why to blog.
Starting your own blog
Since I dont know a lot about blogging and have not taught anyone about it before I will do what any self respecting teacher would do and copy somone else’s lesson plans. So I will show the wordpress support pages on getting started and let the session flow from there.
Also because I am running the another session in June I can ask people who have taken to blogging between now and then to come back and we can compare progress.
Finally here is the content of the welcome email i sent to staff who have signed up:
Thank you very much for choosing to come to this session. My main aim is that you will leave HAVING STARTED YOUR OWN BLOG
Since the only blogging I have done is through www.wordpress.com our time will be spent around using this site. However other blogging hosts are available only not between 11.30 and 12.45 in room 9 next Thursday.
Before the session
Obviously this is completely voluntary but if you want to get a head start I would recommend
- looking at the wordpress support page and clicking on ‘getting started’
- thinking about what you would like to blog about – this could be education but of course it could be about anything
- you could even start up and register your blog before the day and write your first post
- If you just want to have a look at blogging in general you could look at the search page on wordpress and type in what you are interested in to find someone’s thoughts on the matter (you could even write a comment on their post!)
- I have collected a list of education blogs on one of my pages. Click here to look at this list
- I have run this geography blog for a while now so if you wish to see how this has developed then have a read and look at that
- Recently I have started a blog for other teachers and for my own professional development please read this if you wish and comment on any of my posts and add in your own opinions if you wish. Click here I am at the moment writing a post about this very CPD session so if its finished you could read that one
