Month: September 2015

Week 5

420px-Auguste_Renoir_ConversationS1 Conversations and a visit from Rae renwick

Today Mia and I wanted to mop up the outstanding S3 learning conversations and complete the S1 conversations in one period. This didn’t happen! Again, we are caught between our determination to stick to the agreed timeline (which requires four conversations a week so each year group has four conversations a year) and our determination to make the conversations as meaningful and pupil-led as possible. 

Rae wanted to see how we were putting our coaching into practice. She observed Mia’s conversations with S1 pupils and then offered feedback on the session.

I felt that the conversation I had were helpful to the students who engaged well with the experience and seemed to have put a lot of thought into their goals. The area which is most time-consuming is still the identification of options and it’s hard not to jump in and suggest possibilities yourself.

In the study class, some pupils are really using their time effectively while others are still struggling to remember to bring work with them. Some think that just staring at a textbook will help them remember their French verbs or physics formulae. Most were willing to try and become more active in their learning. Others (seniors) did not seem to know if they had homework or what work they had to do!

Week 4

We were supposed to complete S3 Learning Conversations today – that didn’t happen. 

Issues arising are:

  • the bulletin takes too long.  From next week the Coaching teacher is just going to extract student 1 at the beginning of class.  They can read a print out of the bulletin when they get back in.
  • Difficult to keep to 10 mins.  We need a way of measuring the time, without being intrusive, so that we can stay on schedule. 

On the plus side:

  • Conversations took a bit longer because they were going well.  Maybe the first sessions were always going to be like this, until we find our feet.
  • All pupils came with things to do in the study session.  They worked in silence.  Simon spent some time with students who were absent last week, catching them up on the process.  After that, he was free to add a few notes to his CPD journal in relative peace.

Also, Mia suggested to the kids that they keep a reflective journal each week to focus them on their goals and ways forward.  If it works with older students, why not with kids?  She showed them an example from her own reflective journal.  It might be worth exploring this option further after the Oct holiday after more pupils have had a coaching session.

Mia was on Learning Conversations today:  ‘I thought it went quite well.   In fact, I was really impressed with the way the students responded to the process; they seemed to really engage and explore ‘real’ issues that affect their learning.  However, I found it HUGELY difficult not to give advice.  I mean, really difficult.  I need to work on the open ended questions for Options and Ways Forward so that I’m not mentoring rather than coaching.

These learning conversations will often involve talking about personal circumstances – we saw that in our own training sessions.  It makes the trust aspect all the more prominent, for me.  The kids need to be able to confide in you, essentially, about how or why they face barriers to learning.  As coaches, we need to respect that, absolutely.

I decided that a jotter was where I was going to keep my notes as it’s easily portable and keeps everything together.  I just allocated a couple of pages per child.  My entries from this week were just bullet points, dated and with dates entered for the times the pupils were to action their Ways Forward’.  It took less than 5 minutes to do a couple of entries at the end of the lesson.  As a system, it may evolve over the year.  I didn’t make notes in the session.’

Week 3: The first conversation

This week saw the start of the learning conversations.

Students in S3 used a self-evaluation wheel (similar to that used for PRD) to reflect on the strengths and areas for development in their learning. They pinpointed goals to improve their learning and highlighted the impact of achieving these. To assist the conversation, the student also explored the status quo: what the issue is, why something is not working and what they have tried to do already. This forms part of the coaching conversation and we thought that students coming in prepared would help us achieve our aim of 4 conversations per period.  They seemed to find all this quite easy and were comfortable with it.  So far so good.   The conversations will show how accurate this assessment is….

Due to having to catch-up the 3rd years on the process (S3 assembly last week blew our carefully laid plans out of the water), we only completed one learning conversation rather than four.  And that one conversation probably lasted about fifteen minutes.  Still, Simon found that the coaching questions flowed quite naturally.  He noticed that the student had a strategy already in mind, but that she found exploring the options difficult.  She couldn’t see past her initial solution.  Maybe the blue-sky thinking bit needs to be developed?  Maybe we need to explain to kids how the options should take in a range of things that they might consider unlikely, but could solve the problem.

However, by the end of the conversation, the student had identified a way to achieve her goal and was clear about how and when she would know if she had been successful.

Mia supervised study this week.  Three little blighters either didn’t have homework or didn’t have resources.  Mia, very kindly, gave them an eye-wateringly difficult editorial from The Guardian to analyse (all were S3 or S4 and capable of dealing with this task) and warned them that they must come prepared for next week.  The rest got on well after a spot of Shark Eye from Mrs Stewart.  Mia then got on with checking emails and migrating contacts to Glow.  All very efficient.

Thoughts from this week:

  • how to keep to time on a regular basis?
  • encourage students to think outside the box when it comes to solving their own problems.
  • what to do with those who don’t have homework?  That’s a problem we need to solve.  Off the top of our heads, we’re thinking something news or current affairs related would be topical and relevant for all.  Also news articles can be heavily differentiated – Newsround vs Time magazine for example.  We could stockpile a selection in the shared area maybe?  Or a batch of articles could be organised each week?  Finding a range of articles covering a range of abilities might not take too long to do.  One person could do it within half an hour – time would need to be provided.  It could ensure the smooth running of the course for everyone else.  Just a suggestion.  Any others would be gratefully received.
  • We think Personal Support is a clunky name.  It needs to be rebranded.  Answers on a postcard please.

 

Week 2

This week, our aim was to continue to build the rapport with the class and to foster positive relationships between the students, particularly between different years. We used a couple of icebreakers which worked well. Some senior students were still reluctant to get involved but they were in the minority. Students learned the timeline for learning conversations and what they are expected to do: self-evaluate; participate in a conversation and reflect on how to take their learning forward.

We also analysed the pupil evaluation document completed by the class last week. The responses were overwhelmingly positive – here are some comments about what students hope to get from the class:

  • “I would like to be more organised with studying and doing schoolwork.”
  • “I hope that I can be more confident about my learning and I have a teacher I can go to.”
  • “To be able to talk about my subjects and any difficulties I might have.”

Personal Support Starts

positive comments before the lesson
Initial positive responses
IMG_20150903_160251
Initial negative responses

The first lesson of the new Personal Support class was held today. To evaluate the lesson, we asked the students for their ideas about Personal Support at the start of the lesson and you can see their thoughts in these pictures.

 

After the pupils shared their expectations of the class, we discussed the qualities needed for successful coaching before going on to outline the approach that we will be taking in the learning conversations we have with students.

Feedback from pupils at the end of lesson 1
Positive feedback in plenary
IMG_20150903_150151
Negative feedback from plenary

At the end of the session, students shared their thoughts again and the results are shown here.

Hello!

build curric 3This is a blog designed to follow two teachers as they deliver a Personal Support program at Peebles High School for the first time.

Our starting point is Building the Curriculum 3 which states that,

“All children and young people should have frequent and regular opportunities to discuss their learning with an adult who knows them well and can act as a mentor helping them set appropriate goals for the next stages in their learning”.

Personal Support is a time during which pupils can evaluate their own learning; identify goals to develop their learning and find ways to achieve these goals. This blog will follow our progress, share good practice and identify ways to improve the support we offer the students. Hopefully!

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