Raising Your Game in Your Subject Area

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Raising Your Game in Your Subject Area
Geoff Barton Head, King Edward VI School, Suffolk
Download todays presentations free _at_
www.geoffbarton.co.uk/teacher_resources
(Presentation 49)
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Approach
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RHETORIC
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REALITY
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5 PROVOCATIONS
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The Things that Great Subject Leaders Always
Do Despite the Changing Landscape
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RHETORIC
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The core purpose of the subject leader Subject
leaders provide professional leadership and
management for a subject to secure high quality
teaching, effective use of resources and improved
standards of learning and achievement for all
pupils.  
TDA
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• Key outcomes of subject leadership
• Pupils Sustained improvement , know purpose of
  activities, are enthusiastic
• Teachers Have enthusiasm, shared aims/policies,
  plan/teach appropriately
• Parents Informed of childs achievements,
  targets and how to support
• Head teachers Understand needs of subject, make
  informed decisions
• Other adults Are informed and able to play a
  supporting role

TDA
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• Professional knowledge and understanding
• Subject leaders will know/understand
• Subject links with whole school priorities
• Statutory requirements for the subject (including
  assessment)
• Characteristics of high quality teaching in the
  subject
• Up to date evidence from research and inspections
  about the subject
• How to use data / other assessment information to
  set standards
• How to develop cross curricular aspects eg ICT,
  literacy, PSHE, Citizenship

TDA
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• Skills and attributes
• Lead and manage people to work to common goals
• Solve problems and make decisions
• Make points clearly and understand views of
  others
• Plan time effectively and organise self

TDA
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Key areas of subject leadership

• Strategic direction and development of the
  subject
• Analyse relevant information to inform policy,
  plans, practice
• Involve staff in establishing plans for the
  development of subject
• Monitor progress made against plans and
  expectations
• Teaching and learning
• Ensure curriculum coverage, continuity and
  progression
• Ensure teachers are clear about objectives and
  share these with pupils
• Guide staff on teaching approaches
• Ensure information on pupil achievement is used
  to secure good progress
• Set expectations for and evaluate pupil
  achievement and quality of teaching
• Use evaluations to improve teaching
• Establish partnership with parents / links with
  community
• Leading and managing staff
• Establish constructive working relationships
  (with colleagues, pupils)
• Appraise staff as in school policy
• Audit staff training needs and lead/arrange
  training
• Work with SENCO to match work to pupils needs
• Efficient and effective deployment of staff and
  resources
• Advise head teacher on staff/resource
  needs/deployment

TDA
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DCSF
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• Recent research has found that
• Middle leaders have a vital role in sustaining
  and developing all pupils learning experiences
  and achievements and raising standards for all
• Senior leader teams need and expect all middle
  leaders to be engaged in whole-school
  developments
• The most effective schools have leadership that
  stretches beyond the senior team and includes
  various levels of leadership within the school

DCSF
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• Ofsted has said of subject areas where practice
  is effective
• there is a systematic approach to the monitoring
  of teaching and learning and of progress in
  implementing action plans
• departments evaluate regularly and pupil progress
  data is routinely analysed
• there are clear lines of accountability and the
  structures for performancemanagement are known,
  understood and implemented
• senior leaders support departments with planning,
  training and observation
• analysis of pupils performance has improved and
  targets are set for individual pupils, validated
  against previous results
• underperformance is tackled promptly and
  rigorously.

Ofsted
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Main Findings 1 Middle leaders (subject
leaders, middle managers, heads of department,
curriculum co-ordinators) play a crucial role in
developing and maintaining the nature and quality
of the pupils learning experience, but the ways
in which they do this are strongly influenced by
the circumstances in which they work.
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2.There is a very strong rhetoric of collegiality
in how middle leaders describe the culture of
their departments or responsibility areas, and
the ways they try to discharge their
responsibilities. However, this is sometimes more
aspired to than real, and it may sometimes be a
substitute term for professional autonomy.
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• 3.
• Middle leaders tend to show great resistance to
  the idea of monitoring the quality of their
  colleagues work, especially by observing them in
  the classroom.
• Observation is seen as a challenge to
  professional norms of equality and privacy, and
  sometimes as an abrogation of trust.
• Subject leaders who managed to introduce some
  sort of classroom observation procedure did so as
  a collaborative learning activity for the entire
  department rather than as a management activity
  for the subject leader.

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• 4.
• Subject leaders authority comes not from their
  position but their competence as teachers and
  their subject knowledge.
• Some primary subject co-ordinators doubted if
  they had sufficient subject knowledge, which made
  it difficult for them to monitor colleagues
  work.
• However, high professional competence did not
  appear to carry with it the perceived right to
  advise other teachers on practice.

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5.Subject knowledge provides an important part of
professional identity for both subject leaders
and their colleagues. This can make the subject
department a major barrier to large-scale change.
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6.Senior staff expect middle leaders to become
involved in the wider whole-school context, but
many are reluctant to do so, preferring to see
themselves as departmental advocates. This is
exacerbated by the tendency of secondary schools,
in particular, to operate within hierarchical
structures, which also act as a constraint on the
degree to which subject leaders can act
collegially.
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The core purpose of the subject leader Subject
leaders provide professional leadership and
management for a subject to secure high quality
teaching, effective use of resources and improved
standards of learning and achievement for all
pupils.  
TDA
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RHETORIC
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REALITY
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The Things that Great Subject Leaders Always
Do Despite the Changing Landscape
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5 PROVOCATIONS
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Beacon Schools
Training Schools
Coasting Schools
Super Heads
Consultant Heads
Executive Heads
1 Schools are becoming immune to school
improvement
London Challenge
National Challenge
National Strategies
Leading Edge
Consultants
School improvement partners
Gaining Ground
Leading Light Schools
Trust Schools
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2 More of the same more of the same
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3 Theres no cavalry
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4 Harold Wilson was right
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5 To a worm in horseradish the world tastes of
horseradish
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The Things that Great Subject Leaders Always
Do Despite the Changing Landscape
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5 Words 1 Image
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Visible
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Optimistic
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Work
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Hungry
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Resilient
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1 image
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Raising Your Game in Your Subject Area
Geoff Barton Head, King Edward VI School, Suffolk
Download todays presentations free _at_
www.geoffbarton.co.uk/teacher_resources
(Presentation 49)
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Developing Effective Teaching Learning
Geoff Barton Head, King Edward VI School, Suffolk
Download todays presentations free _at_
www.geoffbarton.co.uk/teacher_resources
(Presentation 49)
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An Evaluation Culture
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Developing a self-evaluation culture

• Whole-school culture
• Some opening assumptions

Michael Fullan 20 years in teaching is
1 year, repeated 20 times
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Developing a self-evaluation culture

• Whole-school culture
• Some opening assumptions

• Good teaching is a set of learnable skills, not
  a God-given gift
• Performance management is about performance
• We should encourage experimentation and
  occasional disasters
• We should be intolerant of mediocrity
• A genuine evaluation culture builds improvement
• Real change comes from within

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Developing a self-evaluation culture
Whole-school culture Some opening assumptions

• Map out the essential skills of teaching /
  tutoring / behaviour management are for your own
  context
• Build everything else around them
• Use evaluation to monitor impact
• Use self-evaluation for teachers to reflect on
  their own improvement

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Developing a self-evaluation culture

• THREE GURUS

Carol FitzGibbon (Durham) Get data into school
life, without necessarily doing anything with it
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Developing a self-evaluation culture

• THREE GURUS

John MacBeath (Cambridge) We should measure
what we value, not value what we can measure
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Developing a self-evaluation culture

• THREE GURUS

David Reynolds (Exeter) Within-school
variation Aim to be a high-reliability
organisation
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Developing a self-evaluation culture

• Such complex social organizations as air traffic
  control towers continuously run the risk of
  disastrous and obviously unacceptable failure.
• The public would heavily discount several
  thousand consecutive days of efficiently
  monitoring and controlling the very crowded skies
  over Chicago or London if two jumbo jets were to
  collide over either city.
• Through fog, snow, computer-system failures, and
  nearby tornadoes, in spite of thousands of
  flights per day in busy skies, such a collision
  has never happened above any city, a remarkable
  level of performance reliability

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Developing a self-evaluation culture

• By contrast, in the U.S., one of the most
  highly educated nations on earth, within any
  group of 100 students beginning first grade in a
  particular year, approximately 16 will not have
  obtained either their high school diploma or a
  General Education Development certificate 12-13
  years later.
• In Britain, just under half of all 16-year-old
  pupils will not have the benchmark of 5 or more
  high grade public examination passes in the
  national system. Obviously, many nations have
  even lower levels of educational performance.

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Developing a self-evaluation culture

• Creating a self-evaluation culture

• Tools for school evaluation
• Student performance data - results, targets, etc
• Staff, parent, governor feedback
• Ethos data
• Questionnaires and focus groups
• Faculty reviews - inc observation sheets
• Self-evaluation

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Staff Evaluations
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Routine monitoring
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Planners
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Book sampling
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Focus groups run by Governors
What is it like to be a tutor here?
Good bits of the job Frustrations
Good Year Teams Good communication with Year Team Trainees are helpful Role will be strengthened by learning plans / target-setting days Lack of time Amount of admin Always dealing with the same students
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What is it like to be a tutor here?

• What impact do you have on students and how do
  you know?
• Informal feedback from students eg a disruptive
  student who admitted privately that he wants to
  do well
• Seeing decreasing number of referral slips
• Can feel a sense of progress
• How would we improve?
• Year 12 mentoring can be inconsistent role of
  mentors not always clear but principle of them
  is good
• Small minority importance of planners not
  recognised by students/parents

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Heads of Year
What are the key ingredients in an effective
tutor?

• Know and care about students in their tutor
  groups
• See monitoring and target-setting as a core part
  of their job
• Understand the need to work with students on
  skills beyond the classroom emotions,
  motivation, social skills, courtesy, how to speak
  appropriately in difficult circumstances
• Are well organised and manage time well
• Listen actively
• Pay attention to small details courtesy,
  thanks, etc
• Treat poor behaviour as simply a choice and good
  behaviour as a characteristic
• Apologise when they do something wrong or
  inappropriate
• Catch students being good far more than they
  catch them getting it wrong
• Have genuine interest in students lives and
  experiences

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Faculty reviews
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Student Evaluations
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Student
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Attitudes to learning
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What for you is the most important ingredient in
a good lesson?
Enthusiasm of teacher Fun Good class control No
disruptive students Practical activities Teacher
interested in the subject Sitting with a
friend Clear instructions and expectations
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What do teachers do that helps you to learn well?
Talk less and let us get on with work Teaching us
techniques for learning and revising Practice
papers Explain things clearly Acknowledge
different kinds of learners Praise us Basic ideas
about how to do things Providing lunchtime
sessions Teach me in a way that I understand
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What one thing would you do to improve this
school?
Longer breaks More trips Dont give coursework at
the end of term Tougher line on disruptive
students More guidance with coursework Stop
giving detentions for trivial reasons Smarter
uniform Regular teacher evaluations by
students Clone Mr Green Be more relaxed about
uniform and jewellery New headteacher Hotline to
support students who are struggling Shorter
lessons Bus to Newmarket Longer lessons Fewer
questionnaires! Dont have such high expectations
of students
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1 Think of people in music, media, sport,
politics. Who do you see as positive role-models?
Michael Jordan Johnny Wilkinson Richard
Branson Marcus Trescothick Gary Lineker David
Beckham Paul Merton Tiger Woods Slash Thierry
Henry Bob Geldof Rolling Stones
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2 Think of teachers who motivate you most
successfully. What do they do?
Mr G - funny tells us what we need to know
knows his stuff Mr W - teaches well encouraging
takes no rubbish from anyone Mr W - honest
encourages everyone, not just the best Mr P -
energetic makes lessons active Mrs C - lively
fun Mrs W - explains clearly not patronising.
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3 How could we encourage you to take on
leadership responsibilities around school?

• Give everyone in Year 11 someone to look after in
  Year 9
• Give us more responsibility
• Get us teaching younger students - eg how to play
  the guitar
• Better rewards policy
• Extra privileges
• Give us more say
• Rewards - eg non-uniform
• Let us run clubs.

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• 4 Put these in rank order
• Lessons
• Breaks / lunchtimes
• Extra-curricular activities
• Weekends

100 like weekends best 79 like lessons least
(98 in bottom two) 5050 split between breaks /
extra-curricular
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Parent Evaluations
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Developing a self-evaluation culture

• QUESTION TIME

• So how high are standards in your subject? How do
  you know?
• How do students on FSM do compared to their
  counterparts?
• If I asked a Year 10 student her target-grade,
  would she know it?
• Does a teacher in your subject know what a good
  or outstanding lesson looks like, and how to move
  from one to the other?
• How good is your leadership?
• BONUS
• Would you be happy for your child to be taught
  in the class of everyone in your team?

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Developing a self-evaluation culture

• Thinking and planning time

1. Which bits of self-evaluation are you currently
   doing well (eg is there an established
   self-evaluation culture across your team)?
2. What could you do more of (eg is self-evaluation
   for accountability rather than improvement)?
3. What 3 things should you and your team do next
   (and how will you make them happen)?

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Developing a self-evaluation culture

• The essential skills of good teachers

Knowing what good teaching and good learning look
like
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Eg Essential Literacy
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Developing a self-evaluation culture

• The essential skills of good teachers

Describe the lesson focus on learning Strengths
and weaknesses Ofsted grade?
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Steps to success ..

1. Be intolerant of mediocrity
2. Start with the end in mind how will you know how
   well youre doing
3. Dont underestimate the power of tin-opener
   evaluation drip-fed constantly
4. The job is to improve teaching learning
5. Children matter more than baked beans

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Developing Effective Teaching Learning
Geoff Barton Head, King Edward VI School, Suffolk
Download todays presentations free _at_
www.geoffbarton.co.uk/teacher_resources
(Presentation 49)