Tuesday 9 July 2013

Focus - electing or selecting?

It's the Summer term and therefore the time of year when I need to start thinking about recruiting new members to our school Focus groups. Having taken on the role from someone else, the lovely Beth who was not precious at all about me making any changes, last year I kept the process largely the same to ease me into my new role. We ran an online Google form and asked pupils to 'apply' for a position on one of our five Focus groups by writing a short statement. We then divided the applicants into year groups. Each statement was then presented anonymously for voting by the tutor groups. The applicants who received the most votes gained a place on school council, or as we call it here, Focus. There are pros and cons to this system and I was loathe to change something that was so well established in school but for the feedback from students and staff. 

The pros were:

  • Election by ones peers - pupils felt it was a fair system and that the 'favourite' pupils weren't always chosen to take part in fun projects
  • It taught pupils about democracy - of utmost importance nowadays, especially to stress that students voices were heard and acted upon in school - it wasn't just the teachers who had a say in the running of the school
  • Anonymous system was more inclusive - pupils didn't mind applying if they knew no one would be able to tell it was them - more applications from a wider range of pupils
However - the system itself was not entirely without flaws. The cons were as follows:
  • Election took a long time - for some year groups with lots of keen applicants, the Voting Voice process where tutors had to read the statements out then establish a winner required far longer than the tutor time that was dedicated to it. Likewise in year 11 there were hardly any applicants so the voting process became entirely redundant
  • Delayed start to the year - the Focus groups couldn't start until the election process had been completed which meant some groups didn't manage to have a meeting until after the October half term
  • Pupils were put off - knowing that they would be judged on spelling and grammar (their words, not mine!) some pupils didn't bother to apply as they thought they weren't academic enough. Their statements were up for everyone to see, despite the fact they were anonymous.
  • Pupils whose statements were at the bottom of the list were missed  off - a 25min tutor time did not prove enough to get through all statements meaning they were often not even considered.
As with any school council, throughout the course of the year people come and go. This year some groups have struggled to have enough members to get projects up and running where as others have had too many to coordinate. 

So the big plan this year? Not massive changes but hopefully a way to eliminate some of the problems we have had in the past. Pupils will still fill in a Google form as found on the front page of our Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) and they are still expected to write a statement. However, this year we are trialling applications instead of elections - the form will be live until the end of the Summer term and the results will be collated. Pupils will then be invited at the beginning of the academic year in September to join the group of their choosing and see how they get along. It is hoped this will allow for larger numbers at the beginning enabling groups with lots of members to perhaps run sub-projects by dividing pupils up and also allowing for the inevitable 'drop out' rate. I am still torn as to whether it is right to remove the whole process of election as it seems such a valuable lesson to teach pupils about politics and choosing someone to represent them as a student body - yet I also feel our Voting Voice and work as an RRR school achieves this within itself.

I will reflect on the process as it happens and welcome any feedback or comments!


Tuesday 2 July 2013

Flipping the MFL classroom

As a member of our school's New Technologies School Improvement Group, I have been thinking recently about what the next step would be. We have looked at a different project each year for the past 3 and I can say that due to the action research projects we undertake as part of membership of the SIG groups I am now confident in using Twitter, blogging and QR codes in my teaching. After talking to colleagues (both in the flesh and on Twitter - follow the hashtag #mfltwitterati if you don't already), it seems Flipped classroom needs to be brought to MFL!

If you are not familiar with the concept, it's basic principle is that the learning happens outside of the classroom - freeing up class time for discussion and enabling the teacher to become the facilitator as opposed to the fountain of all knowledge. See infographic here.

There are lots of people experimenting with this at the moment and some very helpful twitterers have pointed me in the direction of some great blogs on the topic - but I thought I would trial the concept with a class from September next year. This coincides perfectly with the launch of our new VLE platform for pupils, something as staff we have been working to populate over the past few months. The new VLE has a gret number of functions which will support the Flipped classroom demands, including posting videos and enabling students to 'drop' their homework on to the Assignments page in order to hand it in.

The plan:

Class: Year 7 Spanish or German, depending in timetable

Why: Train them up early! I won't be using an accelerated set as I want to measure the results in comparison to another class. I also don't want to risk losing valuable lesson time with the dual linguists if the activity doesn't work out and I need to revisit something (timetables at Wildern mean that languages classes have 5 lessons per fortnight - if the class is accelerated, they are therefore dual linguists, meaning they have 3 lessons of their first language and 2 of their second across the fortnight).

How: A series of tutorial videos concentrating on key skills - pupils will watch these for their homework task and then complete an activity based on what they have learned in the classroom. We could then make the most of AFL opportunities and complete some peer and self assessment. 

Why this way? I'm of the opinion that this style of learning lends itself well to skills rather than vocabulary retention as I feel it is too demanding to expect pupils to learn a number of words and then reproduce them in the classroom. With grammar, we can practise and hopefully iron out any misconceptions as a class - enabling me as the teacher to become a facilitator to their learning and pick up on their train of thought once they have had time to digest the information, rather than expecting them to remember what I may have just presented to them 5 minutes before. I'm open to trying presenting vocabulary and more content to Key Stage 4, but would like to experiment with KS3 first and reflect on the progress there. 

I'm interested to hear anyone else's experience with flipped classroom particularly any top tips. Either way, watch this space come September for some reflections along the way.