1. Primary Phase Inspector, HIAS
Taking the Lead in Provision for More Able Pupils Effective Classroom Provision
Tamsin Austoni
Primary Phase Inspector, HIAS

2. Introductions Background – all about you School context
What do you want to achieve from today?

3. Outline of the morning 9.30am coffee & registration
Introductions and outline
Exploring the concept of ‘more able’
Growth Mindset and effective provision for all children
Your leadership role
Using data to support your leadership role
Policies, learning and vision
Effective Provision – examples of strategies
Closing thoughts and questions
12.30pm close

4. Who are we talking about when we talk about the ‘more able’?

5. What about children with other needs…
For instance, physical disabilities, speech and language disorders, ASD, anxiety...
Or children with disadvantage…
How easy would it be to put a ceiling on the learning of these children, purely because their difficulties, or disadvantage, prevent them from exploring their ability?

6. Remember…

7. What is the definition of more able?
The DfE and Ofsted define the more able in terms of those whose attainment significantly exceeds age related expectations.
BUT…
NACE looks beyond actual attainment to include those who may be underachieving or whose skills and knowledge may extend beyond the school’s measures of progress and curriculum. .

8. What is your school definition?
Do you need to revisit this in the light of the new curriculum?

9. Will Ofsted inspect our provision for the ‘more able’?
The current Ofsted Inspection Framework places emphasis on the quality of a school’s provision and progress for the more able.
Inspection reports now include a paragraph under leadership and management on outcomes for more able pupils.

10. Published September 2017
The most able
191. Inspectors will pay particular attention to whether the most able pupils are making progress towards attaining the highest standards and achieving as well as they should across the curriculum. They will also consider whether the most able pupils are receiving the support they need to reach their full potential. Where performance information is limited due to small group size, inspectors should gather a wide range of other evidence to ensure the school is providing effectively for the most able pupils, including reviewing pupils’ work, and talking to pupils and teachers.

11. So what do we need to do?
Ensure that you can evidence that your ‘more able’ pupils are making good progress.
Demonstrate provision that challenges and supports the ‘more able’ pupils in the classroom.
Ensure that leaders can demonstrate a strategic oversight:
Pupil Progress discussions that quickly identify children who are vulnerable to underperformance and strategies to address this.

12. Growth Mindset –Carol Dweck
the idea that intelligence can be developed rather than it being set in stone

13. Growth Mindset - Carol Dweck
Children who were praised for their intelligence were more likely to choose future tasks that they thought would make them look smart. Children who had been praised for their effort tended to choose tasks that would help them learn new things.
Children praised for their intelligence said they enjoyed the task less when compared to the children who had been praised for their effort.
Children praised for their intelligence were less likely to persist on tasks than the children who had been praised for their effort.
Children who had been praised for their intelligence performed worse in future tasks. The children who had been praised for their effort performed better in future tasks.

14. And the key messages from all this?
Children who are identified as ‘gifted and talented’ or ‘most able’ are potentially at risk of under performing and struggling to cope with challenge.
Teachers and schools that identify a ‘more able’ group in the classroom risk putting a ceiling on learning for all other children in the class.
We shouldn’t assume that a child is not capable of high attainment simply because they haven’t shown that yet.
Many children experience barriers to learning, including those caused by disadvantage or specific areas of SEND. The key is to believe that you can unlock learning for these children, and for this you need to understand these barriers and provide the right opportunities.

15. How can we ensure that provision is right for the ‘more able’ pupils in our school?
The answer is simple:
Ensure that provision is right for all pupils.

16. PIPS NOT DIPS DIPs model Define – write a definition/checklist for G&T
Identify – use the list to identify and list
Provision – put in place provision for those children
This model assumes that you have a sufficiently challenging curriculum that children can show their potential and meet the criteria.
PIPS model
Provision – ensure that your curriculum is challenging for all and allows children to show their skills and talents
Identify – identify high achievers within your challenging curriculum. You may also, as a school, list the characteristics/define using those children
Provision – enhance provision further for those who need it 16

17. Your Role as a Lead Teacher
What would you expect to get involved in?

18. You may get involved in…
Planning with teachers
Assessment opportunities
Identification of pupils
Meeting with parents
Policies
Monitoring teaching & learning – closing the loop
Collecting and analysing data
Reporting to the Head teacher, SLT, Governors
Contributing to the SEF

19. A Strategic View What is your VISION for the ‘more able’?
Is there a clear policy and strategy? Do you need one?
How do you gather evidence of impact?
What evidence would we see in your school?
What role can you play here?

20. Policies
Does provision for the ‘more able’ have to have a policy of its own?
Learning policy?

21. One school’s vision for learning:
We believe:
in providing an appropriate type and level of challenge for every learner
in the importance of encouraging and developing a growth mindset to learning
that building determination and resilience is crucial to enabling children to be the best that they can be
in praising effort, progress and output – not ability
that labelling children as ‘gifted & talented’ or ‘exceptionally able’ praises ability and that this can be harmful to a child’s resilience and their ability to cope with life’s challenges

22. that Quality First Teaching should enable us to meet the needs of all groups of learners but that there will be cases/situations when it will be important to support or extend a child’s learning beyond the National Curriculum of their current academic year
that we should never put a ceiling on any child’s learning
that it is important that we understand those children who have ‘an unusually high level of sustained interest and/or unusually highly developed skills’ and that we use this to:
- better engage them in other areas of their learning
- further develop their knowledge, skills & understanding and
- develop a curriculum that enriches their learning further.
What is the vision for learning at your school?

23. Planning in your own school context
What do you now need in your own school?
Think about…
Training teachers
Identification and provision
Monitoring
Closing the Loop

24. Nine Essential Practices for Improved Outcomes
High expectations for all pupils
Strong personal connections between adults and pupils
A high level of pupil engagement and motivation
A rich and engaging curriculum
Effective teaching in all classes daily
Effective use of data by teachers and pupils to improve learning
Early support with minimum disruption for students in need
Strong positive relationships with parents
Effective engagement with the broader community
How to change 5000 schools, Levin 2008

25. NACE Recommended strategies:
Rich questioning
Higher order and abstract thinking (e.g. handling ambiguity and paradox)
Problem solving and enquiry
Development of advanced language skills, to include accuracy, precision and fluency
Independent work and self-study
Development of metacognition
Transfer of knowledge across disciplines
Provision of leadership opportunities
Curriculum enrichment
Different subject areas will deploy different and additional approaches according to age and stage.  

26. How might you use these two lists to ensure that all your pupils are sufficiently challenged?
How would you share this with staff? Training – Enabling - Checking How would you monitor this in classrooms?

27. What can we learn from the data?
What are your thoughts on this?

28. Use of data:
Identify your High Prior Attaining group – these must achieve Greater Depth at the end of the current Key Stage
Use the data throughout the year and Key Stage to identify children in this High Prior Attaining group who are vulnerable to under-performance. Challenge the effectiveness and appropriateness of the provision for these pupils.

29. Now look again…
What are your thoughts on this?

30. Use of data:
Identify other children who are not in the High Prior Attaining group who could achieve Greater Depth at the end of the current Key Stage
Use the data throughout the year and Key Stage to identify children in this other group who are vulnerable to under-performance. Challenge the effectiveness and appropriateness of the provision for these pupils.

31. Now look again…
What are your thoughts on this?

32. Use of data:
Compare the proportion of identified children in your school with the national figures for ‘High Attaining’. How do you compare?
Are enough of your Disadvantaged pupils ‘High Attaining’?
Are enough of your SEND pupils ‘High Attaining’?

33. Reading Progress against KS1 Prior Attainment – ASP (Analysing School Performance)

34. Reading attainment against KS1 prior attainment - ASP

35. But is that all…? Which subjects does your data cover?
English and Maths
Should you look beyond those subjects?

36. Some approaches for effective classroom practice

37. SOLO
‘Teaching for understanding rather than for knowing’ (Wiske 1998) ‘SOLO is a solution to the challenge of planning for differentiation’

38. PRESTRUCTURAL… I don’t know what a cake is?????
learning outcomes show unconnected information with no organisation.
I don’t know what a cake is?????

39. Unistructural… A cake is something we eat
learning outcomes show simple connections but the importance of different parts is not noted
A cake is something we eat
My definition has one relevant idea.

40. Multistructural
learning outcomes show connections are made, but significance of parts to overall meaning is missing
As for unistructural plus… a cake is usually sweet, comes after the main course, is often light, is made from flour and eggs
My definition statement has several relevant ideas about cakes.

41. Relational
Learning outcomes show full connections are made, and synthesis of parts to the overall meaning
As for multistructural plus…the ingredients have to be combined to help the cake “rise”, different flavourings can be added, has to be baked in different ways, ingredients work together in different ways.
I have made a cake following EXACTLY, the recipies supplied
My definition statement has several related ideas about cakes, and links these in some way

42. Extended abstract
Learning outcomes go beyond subject and links are made to other concepts – generalisations
As for relational plus… I know the effect that different ingredients, combined, can have on taste buds! I can apply them to bake a cake for different purposes and for different audiences
My definition statement has several relevant ideas about cakes, links these and looks at these linked ideas in a new way

43. BUT…
On the “Bake Off” they never make it again!
Developing “critique”

44. SOLO Lego

47. The Language of Learning
SOLO level
Verbs
Unistructural
Define, identify, name, draw, find, label, match, follow a simple procedure
Multistructural
Describe, list, outline, complete, continue, combine
Relational
Sequence, classify, compare and contrast, explain (cause and effect), analyse, form an analogy, organise, distinguish, question, relate, apply
Extended abstract
Generalise, predict, evaluate, reflect, hypothesise, theorise, create, prove, justify, argue, compose, prioritise, design, construct, perform

48. Writing to persuade from…
What is persuasion?
I have never heard the word before and don’t know what it means.

49. Through the next three phases to…. Writing to persuade
I can write to persuade (purpose) an audience (headteacher) to keep or abandon school uniform. Form (possibly a letter- or a speech) to be decided by pupils and teachers together (to make it particularly challenging ask pupils to write from the point of view they do not share personally.)

50. Using solo- how to do it
Imagine this… You have to teach a Year 3 class focused on using inverted commas to punctuate direct speech. The context is ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ and the children are writing the conversation between the wolf and LRR. The tasks could be…

51. The stages Pre-structural - I don’t know what speech is.
Task – get the children to work with an adult completing a drama activity where they act out the conversation between the wolf and LRR.
Record with photos and speech bubbles

52. Uni –structural
I know that speech is when a character says something in a story.
Task - get children to talk through a text, identify and fill in the inverted commas

53. Multi -structural
I know that inverted commas go around speech and I can use inverted commas (not always correctly).
Task – write independent sentences using inverted commas and the correct speech punctuation (with pictures to support)

54. Relational
I know that inverted commas go around speech and can write a conversation using the correct punctuation accurately. I need to use different ways to use ‘said’ and need to use the correct layout.
Task – write sentences using the correct speech punctuation between the wolf and LRR, using different ways to use ‘said’ and the correct layout

55. Extended abstract
I know how to accurately use all the elements of speech punctuation – no mistakes! I can layout the speech correctly and use different verbs for ‘said’.
Task – write a paragraph using speech conversation between the wolf and LRR. Use action to move the story along (use a picture stimulus)
Check their work against a partner, creating a SC for others

56. Maths
You are working with a Y5 class on area.

57. The stages Pre-structural - I don’t know what ‘area’ is.
Task – children estimate the area of shapes on 1 cm2 paper, then count the squares to calculate the area.

58. Uni –structural I know that area is a measure of surface.
Task – construct different shapes with the same area, using multilink or on squared paper

59. Multi -structural
I know that you can measure area by counting squares and can do this accurately
Task –
5 squares x 3 squares = squares
5cm x 3cm = cm2

60. Relational
I know that I can calculate area by multiplying length by width. I need to use this information to calculate non-regular shapes.
Task –

61. Extended abstract
I know how to accurately calculate the area of regular and irregular shapes. Task – Work out this problem: Your classroom is 60m2. Your teacher has ordered a rug which is 6m by 3m. How much space will be not be covered by the rug? Could you fit a rug which measures 8m x 8m? What other sizes could fit in this space? Prove it!

62. Questions
Now imagine you are teaching your year group to use description in a piece of writing. How could you use solo?

63. What is the purpose of asking questions in the classroom?

64. Purpose of questions in the classroom
Provide information to the teacher about what to do next.
Closed questions?
To cause children to think.
Dialogic questions
Ref: Professor Dylan William

65. Questions to provide information to the teacher
Hinge questions
Dialogic?
Multi-choice – close false options?
The trick to making multiple-choice questions effective is to create several wrong options which are nevertheless plausible and closely related to the right answer.
The best “wrong” options also uncover common misconceptions or false assumptions.
As such, the best way to create the wrong options in a way which makes them plausible is to mine a class’ work – or look back to a previous year when the topic was last taught – for students’ common misconceptions, misunderstandings and mistakes.
The cat purred loudly at me. Where is the verb in this sentence? Is it word A, B, C or D?
Ref: Sec Ed Jan 2017 – Teaching Practice: Hinge Questions

66. Hinge questions
A hinge question is based on the important concept in a lesson that is critical for children to understand before you move on in the lesson.
The question should fall during the lesson
Every child must respond to the question within two minutes.
You must be able to collect and interpret the responses from all children in 30 seconds

67. Hinge questions To devise a good question requires:
sound subject knowledge
a deep understanding of how children learn based on prior learning
An understanding of how early learning can lead to misconceptions
It needs to have low probability of correct guessing without understanding

68. An example to use in a lesson A bottle is taken out of the freezer – the bottle is full of frozen water – the bottle doesn’t leak – soon the bottle is covered with water. Where has the water come from? A the bottle leaks B the bottle is sweating C the ice is melting – the water comes from the ice D the water comes from the air

69. A ‘Precise Learning Model’ – applying it to your lessons
Precision in what children need to learn
Precision in what children need to be taught
Identify key moments in lessons where this precise knowledge should be understood
Check understanding
Deal with the spread
Apply understood knowledge through rich and meaningful contexts

70. What independent application will they do to embed learning?
What independent application will they do to embed learning?
How check?
What new knowledge?
How teach?
How check?
How deal with the spread?
This is one way of visualising the process
This summarises the process.
What makes it hard?
Deconstructing the problem to identify the foundation knowledge
Checking prior learning without it taking over and becoming a poor lesson.
Checking learning efficiently and quickly.
Dealing with the spread of understanding identified
How check?
How deal with the spread?
Essential prior knowledge

71. Differentiation
Traditionally
– Keep the teaching much the same, change the curriculum – More for ‘able’ learner, less for ‘less able’
Mastery – Keep the curriculum constant, change the teaching and support
If children do not ‘get it’ rather than giving them something different, teachers need to ask:
‘What can we do differently to help them ‘get it?’

72. A working model for “Masterly Learning”?
Yes
enrich
Unit of learning and objectives
Next unit of learning and objectives
Sufficiently Learnt? No No
Correct
The expectation is that the majority of pupils will move through the programmes of study at broadly the same pace. However, decisions about when to progress should always be based on the security of pupils’ understanding and their readiness to progress to the next stage. Pupils who grasp concepts rapidly should be challenged through being offered rich and sophisticated problems before any acceleration through new content. Those who are not sufficiently fluent with earlier material should consolidate their understanding, including through additional practice, before moving on.
Bloom, B. S. (1971a). Mastery learning. In J. H. Block (Ed.), Mastery learning: Theory and practice (pp.
4 7–63). New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
Bloom, B. S. (1971b). Individual differences in school achievement: A vanishing point? Bloomington, IN:
Phi Delta Kappan International.
Bloom, B. S. (1974 ). An introduction to mastery learning theory. In J. H. Block (Ed.), Schools, society and
mastery learning (pp. 3–14 ). New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
Responsive Teaching
Adapted from Bloom, 1971
Correct

73. Planning in your own school context
What do you now need in your own school?
Think about…
Training teachers
Identification and provision
Monitoring
Closing the Loop

74. Thoughts from today… What are your next steps in your school?
How will you know that teachers are confident?