Established in 2017 by Professor Rachel Lofthouse at Leeds Beckett University, CollectivED is 'a
network of teachers and other professionals, academics and students as local, national and
international friends, partners and practitioners’ interested in mentoring, coaching and other
professional development activities.
They aim to explore how coaching and mentoring can be used to support all learners including teachers,
young people and other professionals in education. They also have an interest in forms of professional
development that draw on similar principles of learning conversations and reflection, such as lesson study
and supported action enquiry. CollectivED recognises the barriers to sustaining a culture for successful
coaching and mentoring and aims to positively influence educational policy at institutional and national level.
The CollectivED working paper series, is open to submissions from practitioners, researchers, and members
of professional and grass-roots organisations centred on the theme of the value of collaboration and
professional dialogue. Issues include think pieces, research working papers, practice insight working
papers, interviews, essays and book reviews from a range of contributors.
CollectivEd co-ordinates the national Coaching and Mentoring in Education Research network and is
planning a series of hub events such as conferences, workshops and CollectivED-Meets.
More information and the working paper series can be accessed here: https://goo.gl/bzbXCq
Tried and Tested
Zooniverse is an online project that allows
people of all ages and backgrounds the
chance to participate in and contribute to real
research led by hundreds of researchers
across the world.
There are over 50 active online citizen science
projects to take part in including transcribing
handwritten documents by Shakespeare's
contemporaries, highlighting features in camera
footage of pelicans or discovering the secrets of
galaxy evolution.
Once you have selected a project there is a short
introduction to let you know how to make the
required classifications and add additional
comments. There is also the facility to talk about
your findings and the projects with fellow citizen
scientists.
So if you want to find the next big discovery or
maybe just fancy taking part, join the Zooniverse.
https://www.zooniverse.org/
Mindfulness Mindfulness is a technique people can use to
recognise how the way they think and what they
think about affects how they feel and act.
The theory behind mindfulness is that by learning to
notice the way they are feeling, people are better able
to control their reactions.
Mindfulness has roots in Buddhism and meditation and
aims to help people become more self-aware, calmer,
more able to choose how to respond to situations and
able to cope with difficult thoughts.
There is evidence that practicing mindfulness can help
with management of stress, depression and some
forms of anxiety, however mindfulness-based
treatments are not recommended for social anxiety and
it is important to seek professional advice before using
mindfulness techniques.
There is evidence to support the use of mindfulness in
schools however research is ongoing and it is
important we don't view mindfulness as the answer to
everything.
More information can be found via mental health
charity Mind: https://goo.gl/vbcTDk and from the NHS.
Edited by Beth Greville-Giddings
Relay Issue 25,
April 2019
Citizen Science:
Take part in
scientific projects
with Zooniverse
CollectivED:
A network for
coaching,
mentoring and
professional
development
EduBlog
Spotlight:
Mr Pink talks
Messy Planning
The Oxford Language Report offers findings from an Oxford University
Press online survey which asked 1300 primary and secondary teachers
across the UK about the word gap in order to answer questions about the
proportion of children affected, root causes, the impact on pupils, and
strategies to put in place.
Limited vocabulary can impact on progress and attainment, affect self esteem
and behaviour, and whether a pupil is likely to stay in education. Language
plays a key role in a child's enjoyment of school and future life chances.
The results of the survey indicate that teachers believe at least 40% of their
pupils lack the vocabulary needed to access their learning, including national
test papers and exams, and that teachers say the gap is increasing.
Practical takeaways from the
report:
Bring vocabulary practice into
every class and subject
Focus on key subject vocabulary,
and learning language in the
context of use
Recognise the importance of
conversations and wider reading
in the classroom and at home
Whether children have exposure to a wide
variety of vocabulary from a young age and a
lack of time spent reading for pleasure are
amongst the root causes suggested, and
strategies suitable for primary and secondary
schools to close the word gap which include
daily time to read, reading across the curriculum
and access to quality talk and quality texts are
set out.
The report presents the key findings from the
survey, examples of best practice and articles
from academics, experts and practitioners to
help find ways to close the word gap.
Full report available here: https://goo.gl/rVtX5u
INS
IDE
Raleigh Learning Trust Learning and Development Bulletin
As part of the CPD programme at Westbury Academy this year, staff have had the opportunity to
take part in self-led professional development through a personal learning focus. Staff have been
asked to feedback on their learning to help build the collective expertise at Westbury and one
feedback route offered is to write for Relay. In this issue Deputy Principal Debbie Ramage shares
some of her work on Making Best Use of Teaching Assistants.
The Education Endowment Foundation
Guidance Report ’Making Best Use of
Teaching Assistants‘ is designed to
provide practical, evidence based
guidance to help Primary and Secondary
Schools make the most effective use of
teaching assistants.
Making Best Use of
Teaching Assistants
The advice is collated into seven recommendations, covering three key elements of the Teaching Assistant
Role within schools:
The effective use of TAs under everyday classroom conditions
The effective use of TAs in delivering structured interventions out of class
Integrating learning from everyday classroom contexts and structured interventions.
The research is based on a detailed study on the deployment and impact of support staff on the progress and
attainment of 8,200 pupils across seven age groups, (taking account other known factors which may affect
progress and attainment).
The results were striking: 16 of the 21 results were in a negative direction. Pupils who had support from TAs
made less progress than other pupils. This result was most marked for pupils with SEND.
However, there is emerging evidence that TAs can support noticeable improvements to pupil achievement
when they were working alongside teachers to provide supplementary learning support.
The DISS project examined the effect of TA support on eight scales representing positive approaches to
learning; distractibility; task confidence; motivation; disruptiveness; independence; relationships with peers;
completion of assigned tasks and following instructions from adults. Although the results showed little
evidence that the amount of support a pupil received from a TA over the school year improved these
dimensions (except in Year 9!) teachers confirmed that they felt TAs had a positive effect in reducing
disruption and allowing them time to teach.
This project also showed that most TAs were used to provide informal, instruction to pupils who were making
less than expected progress or identified as having SEND. As a result of pupils having a high level of TA
support, pupils with the most need spent less time receiving whole class teaching, less time with a teacher
and fewer opportunities for peer interaction. In many schools TAs were deployed as the ‘primary educators’ of
pupils in most need.
There was clear evidence from the DISS project that TAs frequently felt they were unprepared for their role
both in terms of background training, subject knowledge and day to day preparation.
This raises huge questions for us as a school in how we deploy and support our TAs. As part of my
professional learning focus I am looking at how we can support and develop the role of TAs in terms of their
contribution to teaching and learning – we all know they currently do a great job supporting the teaching staff
and pupils in difficult circumstances. It is now time for school to strategically review our use of TAs and plan
how to support and deploy staff more effectively.
The EEF Making Best Use of Teaching Assistants report can be downloaded here: https://goo.gl/hnDXyz
Decoding the
Diary Sheet
Edu-Blog Spotlight
Matt Pinkett is a Head of English and an author in Surrey.
He blogs at allearssite.wordpress.com and tweets as
@Positivteacha.
He recently published a series of posts on 'Messy Planning', a
reference to how his approach perhaps seems from the outside.
In an attempt to show how he does plan his lessons and
hopefully reassure others who do similar, he sets out over three
posts how he does this, uses planning time, and what his
lessons look like without PowerPoint.
The first post covers his reasoning. He focuses on a whole unit
of work rather on individual lessons because 'students learn
different things, at different rates, in different environments
dependant on the differing levels of pre-existing knowledge they
bring to different lessons depending on the different variables
impacting on their different lives at any given moment' and he
needs to react to this. He has a 'brain bank' for each unit,
outlining all the information he needs to cover with pupils and
then he starts reading.
In his second post he describes how he uses planning time for
reading - reading about his subject and pedagogy. Drawing on
expert commentary from a range of sources, he banks
analogies, explanations, and allusions for use in the classroom,
giving examples from An Inspector Calls and Macbeth. In this
post he also lists a range of books, papers and blog posts that
he has found particularly useful in terms of both general
pedagogy and English specific resources.
The final post in the series describes how this looks in practice.
He begins lessons with a low-stakes quiz of previously learnt
material and then he starts reading. He explaines how he reacts
to the lesson as it happens, demonstrating examples using a
visualiser and drawing on the reading he has done during his
planning time to help pupils gain a deeper understanding of the
text before asking them to do a writing task.
From the outside the approach can appear unplanned, but in
reality they are crafted and responsive lessons.
Part 1 here: https://goo.gl/LGTwic
Part 2 here: https://goo.gl/XL757C
Part 3 here: https://goo.gl/wXNNxk
You’ve been asked for some
information or a pupil report for a
meeting, but what do all those
letters mean?
CATs
Cognitive Abilities Tests (CATs) are
used by schools to assess pupils' verbal,
non-verbal, quantitative and spatial
abilities to help inform where pupils may
be particularly skilled or need support.
CATs are standardised and allow
schools to see where pupils are in
relation to the general population. In
instances where pupils have irregular
scores this can be an indication of
particular difficulties.
The tests are designed to be taken
without preparation or revision and many
secondary schools use them to
supplement KS2 data where they feel
this may be inaccurate.