Personalised Learning

David Miliband, minister of state for school standards, made personalised learning the central plank of his speech to the North of England Conference in January.

"Personalised learning," he added, "means assessment, teaching, curriculum and school strategies designed to ensure that the talents of every individual can be fully realised."

"It aims to raise standards for all by setting high expectations based on a sound knowledge and understanding of every child."

This is not individualised learning where pupils sit alone at a computer, nor is it pupils left to do their own thing.  It is the practical application of the insight that every single child has a talent of some kind or another.  It is up to teachers and schools to recognise that talent and develop it.

Exemplar Lesson

Pupils come into the classroom and there's something to do right away. There's a puzzle on the board, a challenge on the desk, something to think about. Right away, the teacher has the attention of the class. The lesson is off to a flying start.

The first ten minutes are spent on a brisk mini-activity to catch the imagination.

This is the starter activity. They might work out and explain the pattern in a sequence of numbers written on the board or write down what they can infer from a statistical graph.  
Click here for a download of the whole document.

Summary Document of what constitutes good teaching in Mathematics
Registration time was used efficiently to reinforce mathematical vocabulary. Without repetitions, pupils answered the roll call by giving a mathematical word starting with the first letter of one of their names. The teacher occasionally asked a pupil to spell a difficult word or explain its meaning. Click here for a download of the full document

 

Ofsted Summary Documents

 

 

These summary documents of Ofsted's finding provide an excellent reference point for teachers and HoDs seeking to improve the teaching of Mathematics and provides a good reference point against which to measure the quality of teaching whilst providing guidance of the next steps.

 

What is the difference between a Good and a Satisfactory lesson in the Secondary Classroom, plus Examples of key teaching points with suggested development ideas - Click here

What is the difference between a Good and a Satisfactory lesson in the Primary Classroom, plus Examples of key teaching points with suggested development ideas - Click here

Planning and Observation Sheets

Lesson Planning Proforma - This combines the best of practice in Suffolk Schools and was based upon a successful model used for Ofsted in Nov 2009

The following documents are linked to Ofsted's new criteria and I think it only fair to point out that the Teaching Unions are warning against the use of Ofsted criteria in terms of awarding a grade as it limits the quality of scope of feedback from lesson observations and creates an environment where observations are undertaken for the limited purpose of monitoring rather than supporting professional development as part of an effective system of performance management.

Lesson Observation Sheet - This is based upon Ofsted's 2009 criteria
Ofsted's Lesson Criteria - This picks out some of the key descriptors from the Evaluation Schedule Criteria 2009 (see below)
Ofsted's
Evaluation Schedule Criteria 2009
 

Video Clips of lessons

This funny video clip lasts about a minute and looks at the problem of doing 25 divided by 5 - Click here