As a research informed school, we do not leave anything to chance. All of our teachers take part in “Continuing Professional Development” (CPD) regardless of what stage their career is, and part of that CPD is to learn how to learn! By engaging in school programmes of CPD our teachers know how people learn best by following methods that have been researched and tested by leading Cognitive scientists and researchers.
In addition to this, it’s important that our students learn how to learn, and know what works for them! There are various methods that we will teach them to use and talk about in class, during form time in the pastoral curriculum and in parent evening events like the ‘Year 7 working together evening’.
Some of these methods that students will learn about are:
Dual coding – this is combining words and visuals such as pictures, diagrams, graphic organizers, and so on. The idea is to provide two different representations of the information, both visual and verbal, to help students understand the information better. Students can use this in the learning and Key knowledge learning at home to help them remember work. More information about this can be found here Dual Coding
Elaboration – The concept of elaboration among cognitive psychologists is broad and can mean a lot of different things, but in educational practice, it is often used as elaborative interrogation (asking how and why questions) and self-explanation, where a student will explain something to themselves. More information about this can be found here – Elaboration
Retrieval – It’s easy to remember what you know isn’t it? If we “retrieve” information frequently, it sticks. Think of your childhood home telephone number, you will always remember that, because it’s part of your neural pathways now. In lessons retrieval is often a quizzing activity, students can do this easily at home and will be retrieving information in lessons to make sure that they know more! To find out more about this – Retrieval Practice
In lessons, we will use lots of these approaches to help students learn effectively. We are always learning more about this ourselves and will ensure that our lessons are planned using the most current research to deploy the most effective methods of teaching and learning.
The word assessment comes from the Latin root ‘assidere’ meaning ‘to sit beside’ and that is what we are striving for in our assessment and through our teaching, learning and assessment cycle.
The modelling shows students what a ‘good one looks like’ the scaffold has given students the steps to success. Feedback is the catalyst for improvement.
Assessed work can be self-assessed or peer assessed. Sometimes the teacher will give feedback through whole class feedback. There will also be frequent knowledge tests to ensure that the students know the core information and revisit that knowledge so that they don’t forget.
For more information about assessment at Thorpe St Andrew School – See the assessment procedure document.