Established in 2017 by Professor Rachel Lofthouse at Leeds Beckett University, CollectivED is 'a

network of teachers and other professionals, academics and students as local, national and

international friends, partners and practitioners’ interested in mentoring, coaching and other

professional development activities.

They aim to explore how coaching and mentoring can be used to support all learners including teachers,

young people and other professionals in education. They also have an interest in forms of professional

development that draw on similar principles of learning conversations and reflection, such as lesson study

and supported action enquiry. CollectivED recognises the barriers to sustaining a culture for successful

coaching and mentoring and aims to positively influence educational policy at institutional and national level.

The CollectivED working paper series, is open to submissions from practitioners, researchers, and members

of professional and grass-roots organisations centred on the theme of the value of collaboration and

professional dialogue. Issues include think pieces, research working papers, practice insight working

papers, interviews, essays and book reviews from a range of contributors.

CollectivEd co-ordinates the national Coaching and Mentoring in Education Research network and is

planning a series of hub events such as conferences, workshops and CollectivED-Meets.

More information and the working paper series can be accessed here: https://goo.gl/bzbXCq

Tried and Tested

Zooniverse is an online project that allows

people of all ages and backgrounds the

chance to participate in and contribute to real

research led by hundreds of researchers

across the world.

There are over 50 active online citizen science

projects to take part in including transcribing

handwritten documents by Shakespeare's

contemporaries, highlighting features in camera

footage of pelicans or discovering the secrets of

galaxy evolution.

Once you have selected a project there is a short

introduction to let you know how to make the

required classifications and add additional

comments. There is also the facility to talk about

your findings and the projects with fellow citizen

scientists.

So if you want to find the next big discovery or

maybe just fancy taking part, join the Zooniverse.

https://www.zooniverse.org/

Mindfulness Mindfulness is a technique people can use to

recognise how the way they think and what they

think about affects how they feel and act.

The theory behind mindfulness is that by learning to

notice the way they are feeling, people are better able

to control their reactions.

Mindfulness has roots in Buddhism and meditation and

aims to help people become more self-aware, calmer,

more able to choose how to respond to situations and

able to cope with difficult thoughts.

There is evidence that practicing mindfulness can help

with management of stress, depression and some

forms of anxiety, however mindfulness-based

treatments are not recommended for social anxiety and

it is important to seek professional advice before using

mindfulness techniques.

There is evidence to support the use of mindfulness in

schools however research is ongoing and it is

important we don't view mindfulness as the answer to

everything.

More information can be found via mental health

charity Mind: https://goo.gl/vbcTDk and from the NHS.

Edited by Beth Greville-Giddings

Relay Issue 25,

April 2019

Citizen Science:

Take part in

scientific projects

with Zooniverse

CollectivED:

A network for

coaching,

mentoring and

professional

development

EduBlog

Spotlight:

Mr Pink talks

Messy Planning

The Oxford Language Report offers findings from an Oxford University

Press online survey which asked 1300 primary and secondary teachers

across the UK about the word gap in order to answer questions about the

proportion of children affected, root causes, the impact on pupils, and

strategies to put in place.

Limited vocabulary can impact on progress and attainment, affect self esteem

and behaviour, and whether a pupil is likely to stay in education. Language

plays a key role in a child's enjoyment of school and future life chances.

The results of the survey indicate that teachers believe at least 40% of their

pupils lack the vocabulary needed to access their learning, including national

test papers and exams, and that teachers say the gap is increasing.

Practical takeaways from the

report:

Bring vocabulary practice into

every class and subject

Focus on key subject vocabulary,

and learning language in the

context of use

Recognise the importance of

conversations and wider reading

in the classroom and at home

Whether children have exposure to a wide

variety of vocabulary from a young age and a

lack of time spent reading for pleasure are

amongst the root causes suggested, and

strategies suitable for primary and secondary

schools to close the word gap which include

daily time to read, reading across the curriculum

and access to quality talk and quality texts are

set out.

The report presents the key findings from the

survey, examples of best practice and articles

from academics, experts and practitioners to

help find ways to close the word gap.

Full report available here: https://goo.gl/rVtX5u

INS

IDE

Raleigh Learning Trust Learning and Development Bulletin

As part of the CPD programme at Westbury Academy this year, staff have had the opportunity to

take part in self-led professional development through a personal learning focus. Staff have been

asked to feedback on their learning to help build the collective expertise at Westbury and one

feedback route offered is to write for Relay. In this issue Deputy Principal Debbie Ramage shares

some of her work on Making Best Use of Teaching Assistants.

The Education Endowment Foundation

Guidance Report ’Making Best Use of

Teaching Assistants‘ is designed to

provide practical, evidence based

guidance to help Primary and Secondary

Schools make the most effective use of

teaching assistants.

Making Best Use of

Teaching Assistants

The advice is collated into seven recommendations, covering three key elements of the Teaching Assistant

Role within schools:

The effective use of TAs under everyday classroom conditions

The effective use of TAs in delivering structured interventions out of class

Integrating learning from everyday classroom contexts and structured interventions.

The research is based on a detailed study on the deployment and impact of support staff on the progress and

attainment of 8,200 pupils across seven age groups, (taking account other known factors which may affect

progress and attainment).

The results were striking: 16 of the 21 results were in a negative direction. Pupils who had support from TAs

made less progress than other pupils. This result was most marked for pupils with SEND.

However, there is emerging evidence that TAs can support noticeable improvements to pupil achievement

when they were working alongside teachers to provide supplementary learning support.

The DISS project examined the effect of TA support on eight scales representing positive approaches to

learning; distractibility; task confidence; motivation; disruptiveness; independence; relationships with peers;

completion of assigned tasks and following instructions from adults. Although the results showed little

evidence that the amount of support a pupil received from a TA over the school year improved these

dimensions (except in Year 9!) teachers confirmed that they felt TAs had a positive effect in reducing

disruption and allowing them time to teach.

This project also showed that most TAs were used to provide informal, instruction to pupils who were making

less than expected progress or identified as having SEND. As a result of pupils having a high level of TA

support, pupils with the most need spent less time receiving whole class teaching, less time with a teacher

and fewer opportunities for peer interaction. In many schools TAs were deployed as the ‘primary educators’ of

pupils in most need.

There was clear evidence from the DISS project that TAs frequently felt they were unprepared for their role

both in terms of background training, subject knowledge and day to day preparation.

This raises huge questions for us as a school in how we deploy and support our TAs. As part of my

professional learning focus I am looking at how we can support and develop the role of TAs in terms of their

contribution to teaching and learning – we all know they currently do a great job supporting the teaching staff

and pupils in difficult circumstances. It is now time for school to strategically review our use of TAs and plan

how to support and deploy staff more effectively.

The EEF Making Best Use of Teaching Assistants report can be downloaded here: https://goo.gl/hnDXyz

Decoding the

Diary Sheet

Edu-Blog Spotlight

Matt Pinkett is a Head of English and an author in Surrey.

He blogs at allearssite.wordpress.com and tweets as

@Positivteacha.

He recently published a series of posts on 'Messy Planning', a

reference to how his approach perhaps seems from the outside.

In an attempt to show how he does plan his lessons and

hopefully reassure others who do similar, he sets out over three

posts how he does this, uses planning time, and what his

lessons look like without PowerPoint.

The first post covers his reasoning. He focuses on a whole unit

of work rather on individual lessons because 'students learn

different things, at different rates, in different environments

dependant on the differing levels of pre-existing knowledge they

bring to different lessons depending on the different variables

impacting on their different lives at any given moment' and he

needs to react to this. He has a 'brain bank' for each unit,

outlining all the information he needs to cover with pupils and

then he starts reading.

In his second post he describes how he uses planning time for

reading - reading about his subject and pedagogy. Drawing on

expert commentary from a range of sources, he banks

analogies, explanations, and allusions for use in the classroom,

giving examples from An Inspector Calls and Macbeth. In this

post he also lists a range of books, papers and blog posts that

he has found particularly useful in terms of both general

pedagogy and English specific resources.

The final post in the series describes how this looks in practice.

He begins lessons with a low-stakes quiz of previously learnt

material and then he starts reading. He explaines how he reacts

to the lesson as it happens, demonstrating examples using a

visualiser and drawing on the reading he has done during his

planning time to help pupils gain a deeper understanding of the

text before asking them to do a writing task.

From the outside the approach can appear unplanned, but in

reality they are crafted and responsive lessons.

Part 1 here: https://goo.gl/LGTwic

Part 2 here: https://goo.gl/XL757C

Part 3 here: https://goo.gl/wXNNxk

You’ve been asked for some

information or a pupil report for a

meeting, but what do all those

letters mean?

CATs

Cognitive Abilities Tests (CATs) are

used by schools to assess pupils' verbal,

non-verbal, quantitative and spatial

abilities to help inform where pupils may

be particularly skilled or need support.

CATs are standardised and allow

schools to see where pupils are in

relation to the general population. In

instances where pupils have irregular

scores this can be an indication of

particular difficulties.

The tests are designed to be taken

without preparation or revision and many

secondary schools use them to

supplement KS2 data where they feel

this may be inaccurate.