The Cult of Outstanding™: the problem with ‘outstanding’ lessons

Knap weed, slender and creeping thistle.

The Cult of Outstanding™: the problem with ‘outstanding’ lessons

First of all I need to come clean. Up until pretty recently I was a fully paid up member of

the Cult of Outstanding™. Last January I considered myself to be a teacher at the height

of my powers. In the spirit of self-congratulation I posted a blog entitled Anatomy of an Outstanding Lesson in which I detailed a lesson which I confidently supposed was the apotheosis

of great teaching, and stood back to receive plaudits. And indeed they were forthcoming.

I was roundly congratulated and felt myself extraordinarily clever.

And then Cristina Milos got in touch to tell me that there was no such thing as an outstanding lesson. I was, she patiently pointed out, deluding myself. When I sputtered my objections she directed me to a video of Robert Bjork explaining the need to dissociate learning from performance.

Now no one enjoys being told they’re a fool, but I have to say that I’m profoundly grateful

to Cristina for not pulling her punches; nothing else has had anywhere near the impact

on my thinking about teaching and learning. When you start thinking in this way,

it becomes increasingly obvious just how little we know and understand about what we do.

The more I’ve read and the deeper I’ve delved into this, the more convinced I’ve become

that in our efforts to cast teachers in the mould supposedly preferred by Ofsted we are unwittingly, but actively, undermining our pupils’ ability to learn. Understandably, this is not a popular message.

A lot of very influential people have got an awful lot invested in the belief

that the pedagogical methodologies popularly understood to result in

‘outstanding’ lessons are the right way to teach.

In fact it may well be easier for a rich man to pass through the eye of a needle than for an

Ofsted inspector, an education consultant or a school leader to admit that they’ve been wrong.

But are they wrong? So far this is just a piece of polemic and can be easily dismissed

as the ravings of a loon. Well, I think you’d agree that most teachers in most schools

are expected to teach lessons in which students make visible progress.

Although the past year or so has seen the pernicious myth of ‘progress in 20 minutes’

rightly debunked, as a profession we still believe that the best lessons are those in which pupils

are learning. Now as a whole raft of academics have proved (at least to my mind) learning is, in fact, invisible. Judging the effectiveness of teaching by assessing what pupils can do during a lesson

is arrant foolishness. It would be like me telling you that the capital of Poland was Warsaw

and then asking, a few minutes later, what the capital of Poland was. What’s that? Warsaw, you say? Oh jolly good. Marvellous progress. This is an obviously risible example

but not really so very different from the literally thousands of lessons I’ve taught

in which I’ve shown pupils how to do something and then proudly watched them do it themselves. They are merely responding to cues.

They may have learned something, but this can only be inferred from their performance.

Now the truly mind-bending bit of all this is that sometimes (often?) current performance

is not only a poor indication of learning, it actually seems to prevent it. When we design lessons that boost pupils’ performance, the net result is that we are retarding the likelihood that they will learn. Conversely “Conditions that induce the most errors during acquisition are often the very conditions that lead to the most learning!” (Bjork 2013) So are all those slickly outstanding lessons

we’ve venerated for so long really just fluff and nonsense?

Lessons which are generally judged to be outstanding are characterised by pupils

being visibly engaged and ‘getting it’. Ofsted’s criteria for outstanding teaching and learning

include the following:

Sustained & rapid progress

Consistently high expectations

Excellent subject knowledge

Systematic, accurate assessment

Well judged, imaginative teaching strategies

Sharply focused & timely support

Enthusiasm, participation & commitment

Resilience, confidence & independence

Frequent & consistently high quality feedback

Engagement, courtesy, collaboration & cooperation

In order to thoroughly expose the Cult of Outstanding™,

we might do well to investigate each of these criteria in turn.

Sustained & rapid progress

I’ve already written extensively about the problems with progress so let me summarise

by asking this: if we do something really quickly is it likely to last? I contend that rapid and sustained progress are mutually exclusive: they cancel each other out. You can have one or the other.

We have to choose and I’d strongly recommend sustained progress. The problem is that the route

to sustained progress is deeply counter-intuitive. We’re all a lot more comfortable with the idea

of making rapid progress because it ‘feels right’. But there’s a significant body of research

which suggests that slowing performance and increasing the errors made during instruction

has a significant impact on our ability to retain and transfer skills and knowledge.

Simply put, we learn better by struggling. But this is not what happens in an outstanding lesson where pupils are expected to demonstrate rapid progress and not look confused

as they grapple with challenging concepts.

Consistently high expectations

On the face of it you’d think I would have little to argue against here.

And on the face of it, you’d be right. But consistently high expectations of what?

If our expectation as teachers is that pupils perform to a high level only in our lessons

then we may will be guilty of engineering a situation which makes it harder for them to retain

and transfer what we’re teaching. This leads to a culture where it becomes routine for pupils

not to remember or be able to apply the basics. Consider this: in a Year 11 English lesson,

we read an article about Barrack Obama taking a 5% pay cut to show support for the plight

of the American economy. We decided to award him a nicely rounded salary of $150,000

and calculate what this 5% reduction might represent. I was appalled when the class,

which contained some very bright mathematicians, signally failed to work out what is, even for me,

a pretty simple sum. I’m fairly sure the same thing goes on when students I know for a fact can spell and paragraph accurately in my lessons suddenly lose this ability in, say, geography or science.

Excellent subject knowledge

OK, you got me. Having expert subject knowledge is highly desirable and likely to result

in pupils making significant gains in their learning. In particular, it pays teachers to understand

the likely mistakes and misconceptions pupils are likely to make in a given subject.

If these mistakes are anticipated and headed off before they become ingrained

then a great deal of harm is avoided. Naturally it’s not sufficient to merely have great

subject knowledge, but it is necessary and your kids ain’t  gonna get very far if you’ve not got it.

Systematic, accurate assessment

Again, this seems obvious doesn’t it? How can systematic and accurate assessment be a bad thing? The short answer is that it can’t. But the problem is that very little assessment is accurate

and systematic in the right way. Most mark schemes are highly subjective and do little to encourage accuracy. Daisy Christodoulou has written eloquently about what she calls ‘the adverb problem‘

and this is something of which we should be ever mindful.

Our assessment is a lot more inaccurate and vague than we’d like to admit.

Well judged, imaginative teaching strategies

Of course well-judged teaching strategies are brilliant. But if we believe that improving pupils’ performance is the desired outcome then it’s highly unlikely that the strategies we select

will be well-judged. It’s certainly very rare for a lesson to be judged outstanding if pupils

are still struggling by the end of the lesson; this is normally judged inadequate.

But if sustained progress is our goal then neat resolutions and slick performances

will undermine our aim. And we don’t really mean ‘imaginative’, do we?

What we mean is ‘conforming to a fairly narrow set of expectations

of what constitutes good teaching’. And that just isn’t the same.

Sharply focused & timely support

Providing effective support is, of course, highly desirable, but too much support

will create learned helplessness. Also we often support pupils because we’re obsessed

with improving their performance. But there’s nothing inherently wrong with struggle,

in fact it’s often essential for information to wend its way from working to long term memory.

So why are we so squeamish about children being stuck? We’d do better sometimes to set out

our stall to celebrate what’s hard and damn what comes easily. There’s a toxic trend in our society

to dismiss hard work as the preserve of thickos and plodders. It’s in our language: ‘Hard luck!’, ‘

Easy does it!’ All this sharply focussed support may well be eroding the confidence and resilience

we so desire in our students. The point of scaffolding is that it must be removed.

The problem with outstanding lessons is that they rarely devote the time necessary

for effective explanations or modelling (see below) for fear that the teacher

will be accused on talking for too long.

Enthusiasm, participation & commitment

These, along with engagement, are the very stuff of Robert Coe’s ‘poor proxies for learning’.

These things are lovely and certainly sociably desirable, but the tell us nothing about the quality

of pupils’ learning. It’s relatively well-known that doodling can increase your retention

and in the past I’ve taught children whose apparent attention is lessons is minimal

and yet they learn. One boy I shepherded through GCSEs spent 2 years building piles of rubbers

only to get an A*! We can, and should, insist on good behaviour because the alternative is horrible. But we must be informed and honest enough to acknowledge that observation feedback like

‘that boy at the back was off-task for 3 minutes’ is utterly meaningless.

Resilience, confidence & independence

I’m all for pupils being resilient, confident and independent. Who wouldn’t be?

The problem here is that we’ve got ourselves into the perfectly understandable muddle

of believe that independent learning will result in independence. It doesn’t; independent learning actually makes pupils more dependent. If we really value independence and want our pupils

to be confident and resilient then we’re much better off teaching them.

I’ve written extensively about the teaching sequence for developing independence, but just to recap, the process is broken down into 4 stages:

Explaining – you can’t think about what you don’t know so if we want our pupils

to do anything interesting or creative we must give them the vocabulary

 and background knowledge required to explore a subject.

Modelling – no one is ever going to get good at anything unless they go through the process

of deconstructing high quality examples and then ‘seeing’ the expert thought processes

which go into creating an expert example. The road to hell is paved with vague success criteria.

Scaffolding – once pupils have had new concepts explained and had great examples modelled

then they’re ready to have a go. Our job is to make sure that everyone is challenged to do something they will find difficult and help them deal with the frustration of not being able to get it.

Practising – pupils are now ready to work independently. Our role is to be aware of the fact

that practice doesn’t make perfect, practice makes permanent. We must be vigilant about

the mistakes pupils are likely make and prevent them prevent them becoming embedded.

Frequent & consistently high quality feedback

Yet again this appears entirely desirable. That is until we examine the staggering weight of research that suggests that delaying and reducing feedback, while having a negative impact of short term performance gains, tends to boost long term retention and transfer.

This leads us, inevitably, down a rabbit hole of trying to determine exactly what ‘high quality’ feedback might be. Is it high quality if it visibly supports pupils’ performance in the classroom?

Or is it high quality if it means that they’re more likely to pass an exam? This issue is that one of these is easy to check for during an observation and the other isn’t. Guess which we tend to prefer?

Contrary to what almost everyone else would have us believe, Bjork tell us this: “Numerous studies—some of them dating back decades—have shown that frequent and immediate feedback can, contrary to intuition, degrade learning.” This is an earth shattering bombshell

and goes completely against the grain. I intend to devote my next post to dealing with this at length.

Engagement, courtesy, collaboration & cooperation

We’ve already dealt with engagement above and no right thinking teacher would object

to politeness except to say that it has very little bearing on learning. But collaboration

and cooperation betray a preference for group work. There’s a time and a place for group work:

it slots in neatly to the scaffolding phase of teaching. But the idea that all lessons should contain collaborative or cooperative learning is preposterous.

Thank goodness that the subsidiary guidance to inspectors added in December 2013 confirms this:

Do not expect to see ‘independent learning’ in all lessons and do not make the assumption that

this is always necessary or desirable. On occasions, too, pupils are rightly passive rather than active recipients of learning. Do not criticise ‘passivity’ as a matter of course and certainly not unless

it is evidently stopping pupils from learning new knowledge or gaining skills and understanding.

It’s become abundantly clear to me that what might appear to be passive may well conceal

a vigorous and seismic inner turmoil that heralds real learning. So the next time you think

you’ve seen an outstanding lesson, think again. There’s no such thing! We can certainly have outstanding teaching – it’s the preserve of those teachers who get consistent and startling results, where students really learn. The received wisdom on what an outstanding lesson is,

actively obstructs outstanding teaching. We all need the humility to accept that our preferences

and biases are just that: ours. They do not lead to better learning. And further, it is my considered and contentious opinion that the pursuit of outstanding lessons has done more to damage education than any of the more obvious goonery like VAK and Brain Gym that we’ve had to put up with

over the years.

The fact that Ofsted appear to be officially distancing themselves from some of the more deluded facets of Outstanding™ lessons can only be good news. But that still leaves us with a situation

where most inspectors and school leaders have got where they are on the strength of their ability

to dance the rapid progress jig.

Will they be able to admit the possibility that they were hoodwinked by the Cult of Outstanding?

I’m sure you’ll have an opinion on all this and I look forward to discussing it in the comments below.

Related posts

Don’t trust your gut: a little bit more o the problem with grading lessons
Deliberately difficult: why it might be better to make learning harder

http://www.learningspy.co.uk/learning/cult-outstanding/

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To quote the Dr Seuss himself, “The more that you read, the more things you will know.

The more that you learn; the more places you'll go.”

Beware the carrot: rewards don't work

Yellow flag.

Beware the carrot: rewards don't work

Adi Bloom

Treats may produce only short-term performance improvements

Pupils who are given rewards such as sweets or stickers for good work often lose interest in learning, according to new research.

Indeed, Emma Dunmore, head of psychology at Harrogate Grammar in North Yorkshire, argues

that pupils who are given rewards simply for completing a task often lose motivation altogether.

Ms Dunmore conducted a review of research into school reward systems. She found that tangible rewards, such as points, stickers and treats, could help to improve behaviour in the short term.

But once the rewards ceased, behaviour would return to its original levels.

When given in exchange for good work, rewards were even less effective:

once they were withdrawn, work often fell below original levels. Meanwhile, pupils who failed

to meet the standard necessary for a reward lost motivation altogether.

"The reward system has reduced intrinsic motivation," Ms Dunmore said.

 "The teacher now has a greater hill to climb."

Pupils also resented being rewarded merely for completing a task: they would rather be rewarded 

for winning a race than for taking part. "The reward provides little useful feedback on performance, and so does not increase the individual's sense of competence," Ms Dunmore said.

When pupils are told at the start of a task that they will receive a reward at the end,

it is seen as a bribe. They come to rely on this bribe for motivation,

expecting a reward every time the teacher sets a new piece of work.

"Receiving the reward may reduce the individual's sense that they were doing the task

because they chose to," she said. "Instead, they felt that they were doing it for a reward,

and so were being controlled by someone else."

Ms Dunmore suggests that verbal praise is less detrimental to motivation.

"Verbal rewards are often unexpected," she said. "

And verbal rewards are often given with information on performance."

But even verbal praise can reduce a child's internal motivation. A statement such as "excellent –

you must keep up the good work" suggests an element of compulsion.

And she argues that even simple praise, such as "that's really good",

can prompt children to lose interest in a task.

The message they receive is "this task pleases the teacher", rather than "this task pleases me".

Instead, the teacher should wait until the task is finished

and then ask children whether they enjoyed it.

Alternatively, praise can be given in return for performing the task to a specific standard:

"you've got better at colouring in within the lines". Meanwhile, statements such as

"excellent - you're working well above average" offer helpful progress reports.

"The reward provides useful information about competence on the task,

and strengthens the student's perception of improving," Ms Dunmore said.

Ideally, pupils should believe that they are doing a task out of their own choice.

This, along with the belief that they are improving over time, increases motivation.

"We like what we are good at, and we keep doing something when we see ourselves get better," 

said Ms Dunmore.

"Rewards may strengthen behaviour in the short term, but ... they can undermine motivation

in the long run because they reduce the individual's perception

that they are doing that task of their own free will.

Instead, the person gets a sense that they are engaging in the task simply to gain the reward."

PERFORMANCE PRAISE

- Reward pupils for performing a task to a specific standard rather than just completing it.

- Use unexpected rewards as bonuses for particularly impressive performances.

- Make sure any reward is clearly linked to improved work or behaviour.

- Encourage reflection by asking pupils why they think they are being rewarded.

- Verbally encourage more than reward.

- Praise pupils in a way that encourages them to reflect on their own motivation.

Comment (1)

As a supply teacher I use beegifted.com sticker to motivate even if the school does not use the system as a whole school system, it allows me to motivate and engage pupils as the stickers they collect from me can be registered online and pupils can receive real prizes, check it out, personally I have not had any problems with these stickers and one kids actually one a BMX bike from collecting stickers from me this motivated all the others.
The differences with this system is, it’s a online shop with prizes kids want that they can buy using their points, it really works.

Gosh, I made 13 corrections to this comments with more to be made – but I’ll leave that to you.

Giving out sweets and stickers can actually diminish motivation.

Yet some schools are spending up to £30,000 on such rewards as ipads, laptops and games consoles.

From previous blog

https://www.tes.com/article.aspx?storycode=6027535

Turbo Charged Reading: Read fast>>>Remember all>>>Years later

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You can TCR software and engineering manuals for spontaneously recall – or pass that exam.

I can Turbo Charge Read a novel 6-7 times faster and remember what I’ve read.

I can TCR an instructional/academic book around 20 times faster and remember what I’ve read.

Introduction to Turbo Charged Reading YouTube

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To quote the Dr Seuss himself, “The more that you read, the more things you will know.

The more that you learn; the more places you'll go.

Learn English - 4 ways to understand what you hear

Self heal.

Learn how to understand almost everything you hear right now in 4 easy steps!

If you are an advanced English student, and you already know grammar and can understand

what you read, but have trouble understanding when people speak in movies and in real life,

watch this lesson to find out HOW to listen and UNDERSTAND!

LBCC - IMPROVING LISTENING SKILLS

Learn English Listening Skills - How to understand native English speakers

Turbo Charged Reading: Read fast>>>Remember all>>>Years later

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You can TCR music, poetry or self development material for internal knowing.

I can Turbo Charge Read a novel 6-7 times faster and remember what I’ve read.

I can TCR an instructional/academic book around 20 times faster and remember what I’ve read.

Introduction to Turbo Charged Reading YouTube

A practical overview of Turbo Charged Reading YouTube  

How to choose a book. A Turbo Charged Reading YouTube

Emotions when Turbo Charged Reading YouTube

Advanced Reading Skills Perhaps you’d like to join my FaceBook group ?

www.facebook.com/mreenhunt

www.pinterest.com/mreenhunt

Perhaps you’d like to check out my sister blogs:

www.innermindworking.blogspot.com         gives many ways for you to work with the stresses of life

www.ourinnerminds.blogspot.com               which takes advantage of the experience and expertise of others.

www.happyartaccidents.blogspot.com        just for fun.

To quote the Dr Seuss himself, “The more that you read, the more things you will know.

The more that you learn; the more places you'll go.”

Collocation

Collocation

The explanation pages on this website cover the big grammar topics, such as verb tenses,

the articles, the passive. With such topics it is appropriate to use the words correct and incorrect. 

For example, it is incorrect to say: My father don't like German food or Do you have dog?

However, there are aspects of language where correct/incorrect are not the right terms.

Consider the sentence: She is completely beautiful. Many native English speakers would say

that the expression completely beautiful does not sound quite right;

that incredibly beautiful or extremely beautiful sound better.

But the expression is certainly not incorrect in the way that Do you have dog? is.

This aspect of usage (the expected combination of words) is called collocation.

A grammarian would say that incredibly and beautiful collocate more strongly than completely and beautiful.

There are no collocation rules that the student of English can sensibly learn.

He or she must be prepared to use a dictionary in each case to find out about 

the expected word combinations, or to ask a native speaker.

An excellent modern alternative is to type the word combination into Google 

and see how many results are returned.

In the example above completely beautiful got 36,100 hits,

whereas incredibly beautiful got 861,000. It is very clear which is the stronger collocation 

(more common usage).

Do a quiz on collocation.

Read more about collocation.

http://esl.fis.edu/grammar/rules/colloc.htm

p.s.  As a natural born English speaker I often use the synonyms option in MS Word

or a Thesaurus if I don’t want to repeat the same word in a sentence/paragraph.

Or I want to check the word’s generally understood meaning – its collocation

– is in harmony with what I want to express.

p.p.s. I don’t know why ‘do you have a dog?’ is wrong.

                  Should it be 'have you got a dog?'

Collocation:

A co-occurrence of words >

the association between two words that are typically or frequently used together.

The closeness of things >

an arrangement in which things are placed next to each other or close together.

http://esl.fis.edu/grammar/rules/colloc.htm

Turbo Charged Reading: Read fast>>>Remember all>>>Years later

Contact M’reen at: read@turbochargedreading.com

You can TCR specialist and language dictionaries that are spontaneously accessed.

I can Turbo Charge Read a novel 6-7 times faster and remember what I’ve read.

I can TCR an instructional/academic book around 20 times faster and remember what I’ve read.

Introduction to Turbo Charged Reading YouTube

A practical overview of Turbo Charged Reading YouTube  

How to choose a book. A Turbo Charged Reading YouTube

Emotions when Turbo Charged Reading YouTube

Advanced Reading Skills Perhaps you’d like to join my FaceBook group ?

www.facebook.com/mreenhunt

www.pinterest.com/mreenhunt

Perhaps you’d like to check out my sister blogs:

www.innermindworking.blogspot.com        gives many ways for you to work with the stresses of life

www.ourinnerminds.blogspot.com              which takes advantage of the experience and expertise of others.

www.happyartaccidents.blogspot.com       just for fun.

To quote the Dr Seuss himself, “The more that you read, the more things you will know.

The more that you learn; the more places you'll go.”   

‘Can you teach well without a sound knowledge of educational theory? The answer is no’

Cockoo pint aka Lords and Ladies, Arum Lily.

‘Can you teach well without a sound knowledge of educational theory? The answer is no’

Janet Orchard

The structure of teacher training needs a radical overhaul, argues one leading education academic

On what evidence did George Bernard Shaw base his infamous slur

"Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach"?

In the case of teaching teachers, this simply isn’t my experience. Excellent classroom teachers

take up teacher education positions in universities as a positive mid-career choice.

It enables them to focus on developing teaching and the curriculum within their chosen subject specialism to a very high level. Teacher training offers them a high degree of professional autonomy in return and is intrinsically rewarding. This is just as well, because it is poorly paid

compared with comparable positions in school leadership.

Why, then, do negative views of teacher educators in England persist?

In a published pamphlet, Professor Chris Winch and I argue that the structure of teacher training may be contributing to teacher education’s image problem, so it needs a radical rethink.

We are not particularly concerned with the practical aspects of training,

as these seem to be well-established already within existing arrangements.

Broadly speaking, most trainee teachers undertake a form of internship or unpaid teaching practice for a total of 120 days in two contrasting schools, during a 36-week postgraduate certificate

in education (PGCE). A few are in effect "higher grade apprentices", so that in the case of Teach First, for example, new teachers balance university-based learning with paid employment.

Instead, we are concerned that teachers also need to know and understand educational theory

if they are to teach well, and this aspect of their professional knowledge is insufficiently developed at present. Teachers need to be able to plan successful lessons independently, and distinguish clear and legitimate aims from unclear and questionable ones. Teachers need to be able to communicate what they are doing clearly and coherently to parents and other stakeholders,

justifying their professional judgements with legitimate and contextually relevant reasons.

Solicitors are required to study law for three years (or undertake a conversion qualification)

followed by further training for at least two years, undertaken on the job.

Why are the same conventions not in place for teachers?

Teachers need to know and understand established theories that have stood the test of time

about how children learn, and apply them successfully to their practice. They use this knowledge

to distinguish new insights into learning, as they are identified by educational researchers,

from unsound ones. Those former teachers who have become teacher educators in universities

are best placed to lead trainee teachers’ engagement with theory of this kind.

They develop expertise in how to mediate theory to trainees appropriately,

becoming, in effect, bilingual through the process,

and well-versed in the language of both university and classroom culture. 

There are serious defects in the argument that the university-based element

of teachers’ professional formation is unnecessary. In particular, the idea that teaching can be done without an understanding of education’s underlying principles and practices is profoundly mistaken. The quality of practical judgement necessary to good teaching combines sophisticated theoretical understanding with practical expertise. Really good teachers are wise people,

able to judge time and again the right thing to do in the right way at the right time.

Yet, current programmes in England (unlike other jurisdictions) are simply not long enough

to do this careful balance justice.

We support the mixed economy of internship and higher grade apprenticeships

in teacher education, which are emerging through recent reforms to the sector.

However, we urge greater clarity and coherence with regard to the distinctive advantages,

as well as limitations, of each respective approach. Furthermore, we do not accept that either approach on its own is sufficient to guarantee quality in the next generation of classroom teachers. We advocate the introduction of an initial licensure for teachers to recognise the contribution these established programmes offer, whether through bachelor degrees with qualified teacher status, PGCEs, or the small number of employment-based routes into teaching.

We believe an additional period of further licensure is needed – leading to full licensure

after a three- to five-year period – to prepare teachers adequately for a fully fledged career

in teaching, and to support them through the trials and tribulations that are likely in the early years. As well as practical support from skilled mentors in schools, teachers should be entitled

to further subject-specific training, with flexible opportunities to work with experts in other schools as well as universities, who hold the keys to developing research-informed,

subject-specific professional learning communities. Teachers need grounding in recent research

in this extended period of professional theory underpinning their classroom practice,

as well as time to reflect on how that theory and personal practice may be integrated.

The schools minister, Nick Gibb, responding to a parliamentary question in the House of Commons earlier this month, assured us there is no "crisis" in the supply of teachers in England.

However, such assurances ring hollow to those of us engaged closely with trainee teachers

and teaching on the ground. 

Too many are leaving the profession and too few are coming in to replace them.

This is so sad. Teaching at its best is a brilliant job, whether it involves adults in universities

or pupils in schools, and the very best classroom teachers in action are an inspiration.

The best teachers love what they do and understand their work as a vocation.

They want to be left alone to get on with their work, without interference from policymakers

or overly directive school leaders and managers. However, to earn that autonomy teachers need

to know, understand and be able to apply the theory of education, so they have a clear

and legitimate basis on which to distinguish good ideas from bad ones.

‘What training do teachers need? Why teachers need theory’ is to be published by

the Philosophy of Education Society in Great Britain on Monday 30 November 2015

Dr Janet Orchard is senior lecturer and co-director of the secondary PGCE programme 

at the Graduate School of Education, University of Bristol

https://www.tes.com/news/school-news/breaking-views/can-you-teach-well-without-a-sound-knowledge-educational-theory

Turbo Charged Reading: Read fast>>>Remember all>>>Years later

Contact M’reen at: read@turbochargedreading.com

You can TCR software and engineering manuals for spontaneously recall – or pass that exam.

I can Turbo Charge Read a novel 6-7 times faster and remember what I’ve read.

I can TCR an instructional/academic book around 20 times faster and remember what I’ve read.

Introduction to Turbo Charged Reading YouTube

A practical overview of Turbo Charged Reading YouTube  

How to choose a book. A Turbo Charged Reading YouTube

Emotions when Turbo Charged Reading YouTube

Advanced Reading Skills Perhaps you’d like to join my FaceBook group ?

www.facebook.com/mreenhunt

www.pinterest.com/mreenhunt

Perhaps you’d like to check out my sister blogs:

www.innermindworking.blogspot.com         gives many ways for you to work with the stresses of life

www.ourinnerminds.blogspot.com               which takes advantage of the experience and expertise of others.

www.happyartaccidents.blogspot.com        just for fun.

To quote the Dr Seuss himself, “The more that you read, the more things you will know.

The more that you learn; the more places you'll go.

Phrasal Verbs with TAKE: "take to", "take in", "take after"...

TRANSCRIPT
I'm Adam. Today's lesson is, again, phrasal verbs; everybody's favourite lessons.

Today, we're going to look at phrasal verbs using the verb "take".

Again, a quick review: what is a phrasal verb?

A phrasal verb is a verb and a preposition, when put together, giving different meanings.

Sometimes one, sometimes two, sometimes more.

So, today, we're going to look at "take out", "take in", "take over", "take up",-excuse me-

"take after", "take back", "take off", "take on", "take down", "take to".

Let's start with "take out". All of you, of course, know takeout food.

You go to McDonald's, they ask you if you want to eat in or take out.

So, take out means to take your food to go. That's one meaning.

Another meaning of "take out" is the literal meaning; exactly what the words mean.

For example, you have a turkey in the oven. It is finished cooking. You take it out of the oven.

Then, there is also the slang. If you want to take someone out, you kill them.

You see this in kind of the mob movies. They want to take someone out; they want to assassinate. Assassinate. I'll have to... Yeah, I'll leave that for now. Okay.

"Take in". What does "take in" mean? A few meanings as well.

The first is the most common one. If your clothes are too big, if you've lost some weight,

you might want to take in your shirt, or your dress, or your pants.

You take it to a tailor, and he or she will take it in; make it smaller, tighter.

Another meaning of "take in", for example, if you go outside your house and you see a cat,

and the cat is sitting there: "Meow, meow", you know, it's all sad and lonely. You take it in.

It doesn't mean you take it into your house. It, of course, means that.

But more, it means like adopt. You take it into your house; you give it a home, it’s part of the family.

So, you accept, you take in, you adopt something or someone.

"Take over". "Take over" means assume control of something.

So, for example, if I own a big company and you own a slightly smaller company,

but you're my competition, one way I can beat you is I can take over your company.

I can buy a lot of shares in your company, and I take over. I take control.

If we're going on a long road trip, and I'm driving and I'm getting tired,

I say: "Oh, can you take over the driving?" Means we switch, and you continue driving.

"Take up".

If you take up space, for example, it means you use. You use space. You take up space in a room.

Another way to say "take up" is you start to do something new, like a new hobby, or you start learning something new. So, recently, I took up Spanish. It means I started going to Spanish classes, and I started to learn Spanish.

Now, if you add "with", you can take something up with someone. It means you can discuss.

So, if you have a problem in your class and you're falling behind, and you're not doing so well,

take this problem up with your teacher. It means go to your teacher and discuss the situation.

See how you can fix it. Okay.

"After". If you take after someone, means you behave like them. It's very similar to look like,

except it's not about physical features; it's about personality. So, if you take after someone,

you are similar to someone in terms of character or behaviour.

So, for example, I take after my mother. My sister takes after my father. My father was

a very hot-tempered man. My sister's a very hot-tempered woman, so she takes after him.

"Take back". Again, two meanings. There's the literal meaning, so I lend you my pen. You use it.

You finished. I take it back. You give it back to me, it returns to me; I take it back.

Now, if I said something really mean to you or something not nice, or I made a promise

and then I take it back, it means I cancel what I said. So, if I said something that made you upset

and I take it back, it means I apologize. I take back the bad words and everything's okay, hopefully.

If I made a promise then take it back, it means I'm not going to do this promise anymore. Okay?

So you have to be a little bit careful about take backs.

"Take off". I think most of you know the airplane takes off. It goes down the runway,

then "whew," takes off.

But "take off" can also mean to be very successful or very quickly to do well. So, a business starts and, you know, the owners are doing what they can, but suddenly the business just takes off.

 It becomes very popular, very successful, making lots of money, hopefully, again.

English phrasal verbs - take after, take back, take down, take in

English and Russian online

Aprende inglés online - Phrasal Verbs 10 - take off

Turbo Charged Reading: Read fast>>>Remember all>>>Years later

Contact M’reen at: read@turbochargedreading.com

You can TCR music, poetry or self development material for internal knowing.

I can Turbo Charge Read a novel 6-7 times faster and remember what I’ve read.

I can TCR an instructional/academic book around 20 times faster and remember what I’ve read.

Introduction to Turbo Charged Reading YouTube

A practical overview of Turbo Charged Reading YouTube 

How to choose a book. A Turbo Charged Reading YouTube

Emotions when Turbo Charged Reading YouTube

Advanced Reading Skills Perhaps you’d like to join my FaceBook group ?

www.facebook.com/mreenhunt

www.pinterest.com/mreenhunt

Perhaps you’d like to check out my sister blogs:

www.innermindworking.blogspot.com         gives many ways for you to work with the stresses of life

www.ourinnerminds.blogspot.com               which takes advantage of the experience and expertise of others.

www.happyartaccidents.blogspot.com        just for fun.

To quote the Dr Seuss himself, “The more that you read, the more things you will know.

The more that you learn; the more places you'll go.”

A revolution in behaviour at Kingsbury School

Rhododendron.

A revolution in behaviour at Kingsbury School

Jamie Barton Assistant Headteacher, Kingsbury School and Sports College

When Ofsted labelled behaviour ‘Poor’, our new head knew that only by changing the culture,

and overhauling the climate for learning, would teachers be able to teach effectively.

Since February and the arrival of new headteacher, Mark Rhatigan, the senior leadership team (SLT) have been relentlessly supporting staff to make classrooms purposeful learning environments

where students can make progress.

Too many students were acting boisterously and dangerously; starts and ends of lessons

were chaotic with many students arriving late, and students were defiant towards teachers

who challenged them. Staff had given up teaching – they were just trying to get through.

The new head told the staff what we would do as a team and why.

He wanted them to be able to teach again so students could achieve. 

He established his vision with the students in assemblies to each year group

and we set about implementing it,

making sure all staff followed and if students weren’t on board, they were excluded.

"All meetings were cancelled as nothing was more important.

We were changing a culture, second by second, conversation by conversation."

This was now a ‘no touching’ school. Play-fighting saw a same-day detention.

Students sat boy, girl, boy, girl in rows; facing the front, no excuses.

They followed instructions first time, every time.

The mantra was adopted by staff across the school

and repeated by us as senior staff in the many post-exclusion meetings with parents.

We were in and out of lessons, every lesson – all meetings were cancelled as nothing was more important.  We were changing a culture, second by second, conversation by conversation.

This climate for learning established the next phase: a structure for learning and progress.

We did developmental work with staff on planning around the teacher standards,

setting a ‘Kingsbury Standard’ of non-negotiables: visible learning objectives and success criteria,

 a basic structure to lessons which would produce high quality outcomes.

We asked staff to write lesson plans and we gave them feedback. Every teacher had an ‘active file’ – we gave them the data for their groups through a computer programme called CLIPS

to produce meaningful seating plans so they could tailor questioning and activities in their lessons, differentiating through support and challenge effectively.

They kept records of CPD in these files too.

We gave additional support to those that didn’t meet the standards yet. Every lesson, we checked that staff were doing what we had asked them to do, giving them support and feedback

as necessary; collating these together at every SLT meeting, until we were sure it was embedded

and all were following expectations. It was relentless but staff welcomed it.

They were teaching and we were clear that they should ‘teach’ – lessons are for learning.

Ofsted agreed on their visit this June: ‘Teaching is improving’, they said.

HMI talked about staff morale and ‘team spirit’. The report (released today) was the best outcome we could have but it couldn’t have come without the relentless legwork to ensure consistency, underpinned by a firm belief that structure liberates children to achieve.

http://www.future-leaders.org.uk/insights-blog/revolution-behaviour-kingsbury-school/?gclid=Cj0KEQjw9tW5BRDk29KDnqWu4fMBEiQAKj7sp93dsSkf---NJnHw0uHPN11Wp4x0u5iIcjbufADBRqIaAtd-8P8HAQ 

Turbo Charged Reading: Read fast>>>Remember all>>>Years later

Contact M’reen at: read@turbochargedreading.com

You can TCR specialist and language dictionaries that are spontaneously accessed.

I can Turbo Charge Read a novel 6-7 times faster and remember what I’ve read.

I can TCR an instructional/academic book around 20 times faster and remember what I’ve read.

Introduction to Turbo Charged Reading YouTube

A practical overview of Turbo Charged Reading YouTube 

How to choose a book. A Turbo Charged Reading YouTube

Emotions when Turbo Charged Reading YouTube

Advanced Reading Skills Perhaps you’d like to join my FaceBook group ?

www.facebook.com/mreenhunt

www.pinterest.com/mreenhunt

Perhaps you’d like to check out my sister blogs:

www.innermindworking.blogspot.com        gives many ways for you to work with the stresses of life

www.ourinnerminds.blogspot.com              which takes advantage of the experience and expertise of others.

www.happyartaccidents.blogspot.com       just for fun.

To quote the Dr Seuss himself, “The more that you read, the more things you will know.

The more that you learn; the more places you'll go.”