Inclusive School Improvement Service ‘Using Significant Individuals from History to develop pupils’ literacy skills. James Woolven Learning and Teaching Adviser – Primary Curriculum Abi King Teacher – Castle Hill Junior School, Ipswich

Current thinking on Learning John Hattie – Visible Learning (2009) Achievement for all is changeable and not fixed. Learning is primarily a social activity. Pay attention to the way that students describe and interpret learning … begin to understand learning experiences from the unique perspectives of students.

Chris Watkin In many schools … ‘learning = being taught’ ‘talking at’ pupils through statements rather than more talking with pupils by asking questions less use of active learning strategies as the years of schooling increase (those learners who are described as being of ‘low ability’ report a faster decrease)

A way forward … Active Learning Collaborative Learning Promoting Dialogue (Pupil to Pupil, Pupil to Teacher, Teacher to Pupil) No Puzzle … No Learning … avoiding ‘right answer’ tasks Learners in the driving seat … more personalised learning

TASC

Why use TASC? Challenge Independent Learning Problem Solving and Dilemma Based Learning Active Learning AfL … Assessment for Learning PLTS … Personal Learning & Thinking Skills (Enquiry, Effective participators, Self-Managers, Team-workers, Creativity, Reflection) Knowledge producers/transformers not knowledge consumers

Initial Stimulus Material - Mystery Starter PowerPoint – Use the 5Ws to encourage pupils to make inferences from the portrait at each stage of the reveal. Use a ‘layers of inference’ diagram to structure their thinking and encourage pupils to generate their own enquiry questions.

Mystery Starter

LAYERS OF INFERENCE

What can I see? What does this tell me? What can I infer? What other questions could I ask? Expensive clothes He was quite rich How did he become rich?

What was the name of his ship? How did he know that the USA was there? How old was he when he moved to Bury St Edmunds? Where did he get the money from to start his building in the USA? Where in America did he land and is there a town named after him? How long did it take to sail to the USA? How old was he when he died? How did he die? What religion was he? Did he have any parents or was he an orphan? What year did he die? Why did he go to the USA? Did he travel around the world? Why did he choose America? Did he marry someone? Where did he get buried? Did anybody go with him to America, if so how many? Where did he live? Why did he want to make a town in America? What was the first town in America? What was the name of his ship? Was he a risk taker when he sailed? How old was he when he went to America? How long did it take him to get to the USA? Why is he not well known round here?

Enquiry question Why should Olaudah Equiano be remembered?

Introduce the task – Equiano is not very famous and few people know about him. The task is to persuade the Publisher of “Suffolk Heroes” that Equiano should be included in their book. The end product is going to be a piece of persuasive literacy work (e.g. speech, letter, report, presentation). Co-construction of success criteria.

After the living map pupils complete a living graph activity. Tell The Story of Equiano and create a living map from it, with pupils being places (wearing signs made from labelled pieces of sugar paper with head holes cut in the middle) and string between them.

Prioritise Information using a ripple diagram

Ripple Diagram

The task is to persuade the Publisher of “Suffolk Heroes” that Equiano should be included in their book. The end product is going to be a piece of persuasive literacy work (e.g. speech, letter, report, presentation).

Self assessment against the success criteria established in the “Identify” section. Peer assessment using “Two stars and a wish” technique.

Pupils finish and present their work taking into account the evaluation of it from the previous section.

Reflection - Where else could this be used? Which sections of the TASC wheel did the pupils find easy / hard / the most interesting?

How should Equiano be remembered? To produce a piece of work that teaches others about Equiano. Note to teacher – This time pupils can work their own way around the TASC wheel. An audience should be picked for the task (e.g. Their peers, their parents, visitors to Playford. Pupils should be given freedom to choose their own outcome (e.g. A play, a short video, a cartoon strip, a collage, a sculpture, etc.)

Using Other Significant Individuals Olaudah Equiano Bartholomew Gosnold Eilzabeth Garrett Anderson Charles Darwin Michael Faraday Boudicca

A way forward … Active Learning Collaborative Learning Promoting Dialogue (Pupil to Pupil, Pupil to Teacher, Teacher to Pupil) No Puzzle … No Learning … avoiding ‘right answer’ tasks Learners in the driving seat … more personalised learning

What makes an outstanding school? Ofsted statements … The schools’ curriculum … ‘engenders excitement and enjoyment in learning.’ ‘makes exceptionally good links between subjects’ ‘focuses on developing pupils’ skills’ ‘encourages individual creativity’ ‘makes learning more relevant’ ‘means that pupils have a better understanding of their place in a culturally diverse society’

With thanks to: Castle Hill Junior School Claydon Primary School Grundisburgh Primary School Middleton Primary School Hardwick Middle School