Reflections on our second year towards Visible Learning

Last week, I thought I need to blog as our second year implementing Visible Learning was coming to an end.

I had a walk round school and mild panic set it. The environment was changing, the learning pits had come down, the progression ladders were being slimmed down, etc. But what I realised when I spoke to the children that some things had become so embedded they didn't need visual reminders.  All our children can talk about the pit and what to do when stuck, nearly all children can use strategies for learning, respond effectively to feedback, and know what their next steps are.  

The culture change has taken place.  The children are taking much more responsibility for their own learning.

Two teachers attended Shirley Clarke's training in June. All classes from year 2 to year 6 changed the classroom layout to Talk Partners.  It was interesting at first, some children resisted working with certain other children, you know what they are like.  After a couple of weeks, it has become the norm that on Monday morning, they have a new Talk Partner.  

 

We have moved completely away from ability grouping, we will do an impact cycle in September asking the children's attitudes and perceptions about themselves as learners.  This has been a great start.

Solo taxonomy now forms the foundations of all our learning and teaching. This has really passed the baton to the children.  This is a year one assessing his learning about Florence nightingale

 

Our VL network has grown this year, for me the network has been very useful in moving us forward.  Particular thanks go to Michelle at Pembroke Dock, Sarah from Midlothian EPS and Simon from Bader.  They have inspired me which in turn has improved outcomes for our learners.

I am really looking forward to visiting Bader primary next term to see how their visits to New Zealand has impacted classroom practice.

So for September

We are starting with Singapore Maths, which we are calling Merllyn Maths.  Our training is on 1st September with Craig Parkinson (would I trust anyone else with our CPD?). Again, it's a whole school approach, fits into an impact cycle, is well researched and supports the teachers.

 

We've also gone Google- I love google classroom and apps for education. We're going to trial different methods at feedback, particularly voice feedback, should be interesting and worth an impact cycle.  Many thanks to JTRS for help us get set up and their advice and support.

We are also developing our P4C.  We have gathered our baseline evidence, it's a whole school approach, it's impact is well researched and the teachers will be well supported.  

Can you see a theme here?  After doing the impact coach training, these principles are essential before we do anything.

 

And we are going to relooked at our learning dispositions to see if we can make them more effective. We have had ours for two years and we do feel they need refreshing. We are change agents after all 

I think the last word needs to go one of our year 1 Polish boys who was going off to Poland the week before we broke up.

"Oh no!" He said, "when I go to Poland, I will miss out on my learning, it's not fair, they will be learning and I won't!"

I love it!! 

Visible learning- two years on

It has been an interesting and extremely busy half term any Ysgol Merllyn .  There have been so many highlights, particularly presenting our work at the World Visible Learning conference.  What an amazing time.  Not just meeting up with the #vlnetworkuk colleagues, presenting our work and listening to amazing speakers, but being in the presence of some educational Giants- John Hattie, Shirley Clarke, Guy Claxton and particularly Andy Hargreaves.  We took so much of his thoughts and musings back to school.  I'm really looking forward to hearing him again at the Incerts conference in June.

 However, for me it's always been how much Visible Learning has impacted on our pupils and how different our school is now.  We had colleagues visit from a local school visit us last week.  It's hard to explain Visible Learning but I can only describe it as forgetting everything we thought we knew about education ( being focused on curriculum and teaching) or as a time a colleague described as 'before we knew anything'

On a daily basis I'm in awe of the impact on our pupils.  A yr 3 girl was stuck last week and asked her teacher if she should find someone to collaborate with, year 1 pupils being able to describe how much progress they had made, year 6 using their own feedforward to set their own success criteria the next day, reception children understanding they knew many things about bonfire night and they were now ready to relate....

We also had 15 schools visit on our Visible Learning open day.  I was so proud at how well the children did on the panel Q and A session with the visitors asking them some tricky questions (we like tricky questions, they are the best type!)

So like good learners we need to know our next steps.

For at least the rest of this term we're focusing on the following

Continue to plan and embed Solo Taxonomy

Begin an impact cycle on the learning process

Begin assessing the pupils against our assessment capable rubric

Use Google apps for education for collaborating 

And continue to develop our pupils so they know what to do when they don't know what to do

Finally, I'm putting my money where my mouth is.  

The teachers are really happy to get feedback from their learners on how to be better teachers.  I'm going to ask the teachers for feedback and feedforward on my leadership!! Should be interesting 🤔

Success criteria success and the importance of impact cycles

Our current focus is on Solo Taxonomy.  It's been brilliant seeing all the children, nursery included, understanding if learning is surface or deep.  Meta cognition has such a high effect size and our teachers are now becoming expert at delivering it

For example 

The year 1 staff wanted to know what the children knew and what Solo level they were before planning the learning.  After teaching they'll then go back to see if they've moved Solo levels to measure the impact of their teaching.

Exciting times

We have also done some work on success criteria this week.  We're definitely not there YET

Our Ministry of Education interviewed pupils and monitored books this week. 

This is a snapshot of what they found out

Unfortunately we didn't get it all but they found inconsistencies that we missed!

When I met John Hattie in Cardiff he asked me what had been the most difficult aspect of VL implementation

I said pace.  He said that was quite common

This got me thinking about change and supporting staff through it,

I hadn't realised the importance of impact cycles really until last week when the staff are trying to implement Solo and feedback as well as the million other things we've introduced and adapted.

I feel after the Inside Series training that things are really happening with regards to building expert teachers

So we've relooked at impact cycles as a means of slowing down a bit and focusing on one thing properly at a time, were in the middle of a Solo impact cycle at the moment.

After Christmas it will be building in the changes we've made to success criteria then after Easter feedback.  Change is happening but the management of change against the backdrop of changes to the Welsh curriculum and me applying relentless pressure gently can I imagine becoming a bit overwhelming

I suppose Rome wasn't built in a day! 

Maybe two days though 😏

A grand day out

We were asked to present our Visible Learning intervention at the Welsh Leadership Conference last week

What an absolute privilege not just to share our practice but to meet the man responsible

The conference was brilliant.

Miss Coppack and I presented where we were up to looking at the matrix before and after

And we shared the stage with some amazing practitioners who we have learned so much from and as a result impacted enormously on our learners

I love my job

I love working in Wales and am so excited for the future of education

I love working with educationalists who are focused on our learners

I love collaborating with and learning from the best

❤️

Now that's what I call progress

This has been a fantastic term at Ysgol Merllyn.

We started the school year by having Solo Taxonomy training with Craig Parkinson.  The day was amazing and really got us thinking about how we teach our children to think.  We have been planning for deep thinking forever but the structure that Solo offers makes teaching meta cognition really easy. I've been very grateful to Pam Hook for offering support and advice these last couple of weeks as we plan to use Solo across all curriculum areas hopefully by January.  Her Rubric Makers on pamhook.com has massively reduced workload.

We've had One World Week in school this week and it was brilliant to go into year 1 today and here them saying ' I'm relating' when comparing Senegal to Tanzania.

Also this half term, I've been asked to present at the Welsh Leadership Conference next month in Cardiff.  I'm so excited and I'm taking Miss Coppack with me so she can talk about the impact as a class teacher.  However the line up is as follows... Professor John Hattie, Professor Donaldson... Then me (definitely not a professor).  no pressure there then 😐

Promoting our four Visible Learning strands has also been a very positive feature.  Team time has really helped focus us in on where we are and what our next steps are.  We visited the inspirational Bader Primary last month.  The #vlnetworkuk collaboration has definitely helped us all.  This alongside our own training has been so effective in raising all our games.

What I find fascinating is how social media has really had an impact on our school improvement.  Yes, we bought into the Visible Learning intervention but being able to share with people on Twitter, for example Michelle at Pembroke Dock, Simon at Bader, all the Scottish VL family, Sarah Martin in NZ, Pam Hook, Craig Parkinson James Nottingham.........sorry if I've missed anyone

This is sounding like an Oscar acceptance speech

Happy half term everyone, we've got one more day with Craig tomorrow on Feedback.

Learner led conferencing

With Visible Learning, we are always asking and evaluating if our pupils know what they are learning, why they are learning something and their next steps.

We have wonderful displays and stickers and learning ladders but was this just wallpaper to our learners ?

Our children would tell you that they are responsible for their own learning but were they really? Could they really lead on their learning journey? What better way to test them out that at parents evening

So we have held our first learner led conferences this week, and what a week it's been.  Also, for many of our parents, school is a bit of a mystery.  You drop them off from 8am then see them again sometime after 3.15 and they might tell you what they had for lunch but they sometimes give the impression they do nothing all day.  It was really important for us to make learning the focus of everything we do.

We'd organised two days where parents/carers came during the day and spent time in their child's class. Each parent had a 15 minute appointment, available from 8am to 5.30pm.  Our teachers were really up for it, let's have a go and see what happens, we can evaluate afterwards to see how we can refine next time.

Aren't they great! 

Anyway, the children were all briefed.  This is your conference, this is a chance to talk about your learning and explain your next steps, it'll really be exciting and you can show off how good you are at learning.

The children had their books, learning ladders, learner reward cards, learning pits etc at the ready and we went for it.

To run the conferences the teachers set tasks the children could get on with to free them up but our kids are very good at getting on with it now, they are so clear on what they need to do, what to do if they get stuck...

Our early years ran the same and out wonderful teaching assistants took groups with some tasks in the areas.  Admittedly, it was a bit trickier with our youngest pupils but we like a challenge.

I generally wandered around for the two days chatting to parents and evaluating how it was all going.  The teachers did find it hard to stand back because they are programmed to lead parents evening but after a few parents in they relaxed into it more and went with the flow.

The children were amazing.  

In the juniors, the parents went into class and their children explained the set up, how the learner displays and pits help them.  They explained all their learning dispositions and how they are used.  They then showed their books and how they are cold task planning using Solo Taxonomy then the learning intention and success criteria are building their learning.  If parents wanted to stay longer, their child took them outside the class and took their books to continue talking about their learning and next steps.  They also at some point took them to our learner progression displays and showed them where they were and their next steps.

In the infants, the children again led the learning in partnership with the teacher.  The teacher became more of a facilitator and were helping the children to explain their learning, taking into account we've been back five weeks and their age they were brilliant.  One of my highlights was a y1 girl, when her mum and dad arrived she made them close their eyes before they came into the class because she was so excited to share her learning. Another was the Polish children explaining their learning in the first language to their parents.

I also think it was so important for the teachers to see the fruits of their labours.  They were thrilled that the children could explain their assessments  and learning, why they were learning something and what their next steps were so confidently and naturally.  It made parents meetings about learning and not about lost jumpers and the dinner menu.

Our next steps is to survey the pupils and parents to measure the impact and to continue to build our school where if we were a stick of rock Visible Learning would run through the middle.

Where we are...where we are going.....

We've only been back for five days and what a five days they have been.

Day one, in our first staff meeting back, everyone was talking about how the new strategies we had introduced last year had become embedded so quickly.  Learner dispositions were ready to go, learning pits in place, feedback, feed forward etc etc.

The school improvement plan for this year was also ready to go from day one

We have split our VL plan into four areas: the visible learner, Inspired and Passionate Teaching, Feedback and Know thy Impact.  Conveniently, we have four senior teachers in school so we've each taken one strand to lead.

Each Thursday we have planned in Team Time to develop our areas.  

Day two, Solo Taxonomy training with Craig Parkinson....wow! An absolute game changer.  If schools can only afford one training session, do this one, amazing.  My most experienced teachers were telling me they wished they'd had this training 15/20 years ago.  My experienced teachers are now becoming expert and experienced teachers.  There is a difference.

Day three, learners are back.  I went into year 6 in the morning.  They were discussing the summer holidays and assessing the questions they were asking as one idea, many ideas, related ideas and extended ideas.  It took us most of the training day to get our heads around SOLO, it took year 6 about 10 minutes.  We are still, after all this time, underestimating the ability of our kids.

Also meeting one of our guiding coalition took place.  This was myself, our family worker, two parents and one ex-teacher who lives over the road from the school.  I explained their role was to help and support our aspirations to become a VL school.  The meeting went really well.  They asked that we start a lending library to support literacy and numeracy.  We discussed making prompt cards with SOLO questions for reading books to take home and next month, the group are going to observe learning so they can have a baseline of how well the learners can explain their learning and next steps.  Powerful stuff!

Day four, year 1 and 2 are using images about electricity in order for the teachers to assess what the children already know.  It was brilliant, they knew so much already and it really focused the planning on what they need to teach.  We are extremely lucky to have a Polish mum in school who comes to help out.  The Polish kids were telling her what they knew about electricity in Polish then she was interpreting for the teachers.   Amazing!

Day five and the rest of this week's plans.  Thursday Team Time to look at a baseline for Inspired and Passionate teaching and Friday, action planning SOLO.   

In a couple of weeks we are having our second #VLnetworkuk meeting at Bader primary.  The collaboration between our UK schools has been excellent and the sharing of our practices have benefitted us all, regardless of the education system we follow.

It's going to be a good year at Ysgol Merllyn.