Reflections on the Learning and Teaching policy – typical features of more / less successful lessons The following is designed to help colleagues identify areas of strength / areas for development, with reference to the key elements of the Learning and Teaching Policy: 1. This must not be treated as a ‘tick box’ of expected practice; instead, it is a summary of typical features of more / less successful lessons, gathered by scrutinising feedback on recent lesson observations

2. Clearly, it is not expected that all of these features will be witnessed in a single lesson – these are typical observed features rather than criteria.

Core Element from policy Typical features of stronger lessons include... Typical features of weaker lessons include...

Learning Intention - what is the focus of the lesson? Is the

choice of skill / knowledge appropriate and well-judged?

● Learning intentions are appropriate / clear / challenging / focused / understood by the students / interesting / important / simply-expressed / linked directly to the activities in the lesson

● Learning intentions are over-complicated / too wide or unfocused / focused on task not learning / jumping between skills / not linked to the activities in the lesson

Success Criteria / Modelling – do they know how to do the lesson

tasks well? Are students helped to see what excellence in each task

might look like?

● Success Criteria are sharply focused on and relevant to the skill or process being taught / used by students to help them make progress / differentiated / supported by effective models / referred to repeatedly during activities / explicit and clear.

● Models are shared and students understand how they hit the criteria/ differentiated so that all have appropriate model to aim for / ‘micro-modelled’ so that a small part of the larger task is modelled and students complete the rest.

● Each activity the students do is accompanied, at some point, with a sense of how they might do the task to a high level of quality.

● Students are given tasks to complete without a sense of how to be successful in doing so

● Success criteria are provided for the lesson as a whole, but not the actual tasks that the students do

● Success criteria / models are reserved only for the longest task in the lesson - other tasks have little or no sense of quality attached

● Success criteria are lacking challenge / limiting /unclear / present but not used in the lesson / un-modelled / overly-abstract or complicated to the extent that students don’t understand them

● Models are absent / present but links to success criteria are not clear (why is this a successful / unsuccessful response) / shared but not explored, so students don’t understand what they show

● Models are too close to the task or too detailed, so that they effectively complete the task for the students

Tasks / Activities - What are they doing, and is this helping

them to make progress towards the learning intention?

● Tasks and Activities are effective in helping students to think deeply about the learning in the lesson

● Tasks and Activities are focused on well-judged learning intentions and success criteria / challenging/ modelled / accessible for all / low-access and high challenge / differentiated appropriately

● Whole class and individual questioning and discussion is well-judged / structured so as to encourage high levels of participation / pushes student thinking and understanding

● Direct Instruction from the teacher is well-judged in terms of length, style and content, so that students learn well during periods of ‘teacher-talk’

● There is some variety in tasks, and this helps students to think deeply about the learning

● Tasks and Activities are superficial and lack challenge / low in purpose or value

● Questioning technique (e.g. exclusive reliance on initiation - response - evaluation) means that very few / only more confident students take part in discussion / student answers are limited in scope, depth and detail

● Direct instruction from the teacher is not well-judged in terms of length, style and content, so that students don’t learn well during periods of ‘teacher-talk’

● Too many tasks and activities are set during the lesson, so that little time is available for students to be challenged / find depth in the work

Feedback - do the students receive useful feedback in lessons as to how they are

doing and how they can improve?

● Feedback gives students clear and helpful advice as to the extent to which their work meets criteria for success, and ways in which they can improve further

● Feedback is positioned in the lesson so that students have time and opportunity to take action on the advice they’re given

● Feedback in the lesson is focused on well-judged learning intentions and success criteria

● Feedback promotes a growth mindset by praising effort and progress

● Various techniques are used to generate feedback, such as effective peer and self-assessment, so that the number of students receiving and acting on feedback in a lesson is high

● Feedback on student work during lessons is vague / superficial/ imprecise and unspecific in identifying what the student has done well and how they might improve work still further - ‘that’s great, well done’

● Feedback makes no reference to the stated learning intention and success criteria for the task

● Feedback promotes a fixed mindset by focusing only on praising high levels of attainment, rather than progress and effort

Inclusive teaching - is this lesson working for all students?

● All students in the lesson are able to access the learning to a suitable and appropriate level of challenge - students are given ‘hard work they can do’

● Use of TAs and other adults is planned for and effective in helping the class make progress

● The teacher actively engages with and teaches SEN/D students during lessons

● Learning intentions and tasks in the lessons contain inappropriate levels of challenge, being too difficult for lower attainers and / or too easy for higher attainers

● Use of TAs is ineffective, because their work is not planned for by and with the teacher/ all TA time is spent with the same students /

Literacy - are the relevant literacy skills explicitly taught in

the lesson?

● Appropriate literacy skills (i.e. those which are required for the learning intention to be delivered) are taught explicitly in the lesson so that all students can

● Students are prompted, taught and expected to provide developed, detailed and thoughtful answers when providing spoken contributions in the lesson

● Attention is brought to key words of the subject; they are expected and taught to spell key words correctly

● Reading / Writing is required in order to complete the tasks, but students are not taught to read / write in ways which help them to be successful. As a result, students with existing higher levels of literacy make quicker progress.

● Spoken contributions by students are usually limited and brief, and they are not expected / prompted / taught to extend their contributions.