When Jon Beck joined Hamble Community Sports College he led a series of Middle Leader meetings in which we discussed a “teaching standard,” to which all staff could aspire subscribe. Following a series of meeting and discussions we drafted an A4 poster to be used as an aide memoir for staff.
Sadly, here at The Wellington Academy we did not have the luxury of a series of meetings. In fact, we had just one Senior Heads of Curriculum (SHoC) meeting and one Department meeting. I accept that this was not the best approach, but we did accelerate the first discussion phase, taking full advantage of the Hamble Community Sports College document.
Following the SHoC meeting, our SHoC colleagues led departmental discussions, submitting their recommendations or adaptations, predominantly requesting additional items – for example adding an “orderly exit.”Next, we returned copies to all staff with the expectation that they will be either taped to their teaching desk or with eye-shot of their desk. As for a ‘room zoom‘ – getting around the room to check students books and encourage staff to break the imaginary front desk teaching line.
Finally we have an A3 copy in the staffroom. Each week one or two of the boxes will be the focus of SLT and SHoC learning walks. Each week we intend to feedback to staff by adding a RAG (red, amber, green) dot to the poster. Next week we are focusing on the 100 minutes lessons being separated into “2 x 50” lessons (and seating plans, not on the standard).
If you are embarking on a similar teaching standard and need another examples – help yourself to a copy of our Version 1.0. Giving the document a version number was a purposeful rather than a geek decision, the intention is to revisit the TWA Standard and improve it, when time is on our side.
[qr_code_display]