Mobilise Account of Practice

School Name & Contact Details
Ellison Boulters C of E Academy Headteacher: Suzanne Scott
Sudbrooke Road SBL: Michaela Howard
Scothern
Lincoln
LN2 2UZ
Tel: 01673 862392
Email:
Recommendation Exemplified
III: use TAs to help pupils develop independent learning skills and manage their own learning.
Context
The staff team recognised the importance of helping pupils to develop independence in their learning, partly because of the need for TAs to work across a variety of classes and contexts due to a relatively low number of pupil premium children and the restraints of the school budget. The overwhelming factor in our choice of focus was the belief we collectively held that all staff working with children, not just TAs, could support children in this journey towards independence and thus enable them to become more confident in the classroom – and beyond the classroom - with the ability to take control over their own learning.
Account of Practice
We held a PLC on an INSET day and devoted a substantial amount of time to discussing what independence would look like in the classroom. Staff worked together in teams – based around year groups – to write joint action plans for how they would develop best practice in this area. As part of the training day, we carefully considered the use of the scaffolding framework and how we could apply this to the classroom. A key principle of this for us was our own version of this scaffolding framework which replaced the term ‘TAs’ with ‘adults in the classroom’ as we believe that this recommendation is for all adults, and that often TAs have the skills and experience to lead on it, particularly with lower achieving pupils. Each team had their own take on how they would seek to implement the recommendations; examples included TAs and teachers taking it in turns to carry out paired 10 minute observations of questioning techniques used within the classroom, and re-writing the scaffolding framework into a child-friendly version for use in the classroom.
This training day session was then followed up with lesson study sessions in both Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2. Staff worked together to plan a lesson which would allow children to develop their independence in the classroom, allowing observing staff the opportunity to see how this might look at to note any points for further development. The Key Stage 2 team decided to use a model of a teacher and TA working together in the classroom to support children in their learning by careful use of questioning within the context of a Whisper Maths session.
Staff met in teams after the lesson study to consider the outcomes and to discuss the experience; all felt that the importance of planning for questioning opportunities was key, both for teachers and TAs.
The next step will be a staff meeting to consider the synthesis of our learning from investigating this recommendation with our learning from other recommendations: how can the first 4 recommendations of the Mobilise project be woven together to develop outstanding practice in our school?
Reflection
We all believe that developing independence in children is key; it gives them breadth and space to develop in order to achieve their full potential. Independent learners are effective learners: they have toolkit which they can access when learning becomes tricky. However, we recognise that at times, task completion can seem like the over-riding objective and that knowledge and information has to been internalised in order for children to jump through assessment hoops. We know that we need to work together as a staff team to ensure that our questioning is thought-provoking, deep and relevant, and that questioning opportunities need to be carefully planned and shared between teachers and TAs. We know that careful resourcing of our lessons is a factor which can build independence and we recognise the value of a high-quality classroom environment which supports learners on their journey.
Supporting Evidence
This is a screen-shot of a slide often used in Y6 – the panic button is interactive and produces a noise not dissimilar to a submarine siren! We use it to demonstrate to children how they can avoid placing themselves in that zone and regularly collate notes on the board form shared discussion to give examples of strategies they can use to develop independence.