With the end of term approaching and potentially the end of some units of study, I thought I would write a short thread about how we, as a school, go about monitoring standards in our subjects:

Things we don’t solely rely on:

- formal lesson observations. Although drops ins may

be useful, this may lead to a false view of standards in your subject. Observations, if done poorly, judge performance. Not learning.

- Books- although there is some value in this, there is a danger that pretty, well presented books can lead to a false view of standards. Books

show performance in lessons. How chn respond to given information. They generally don’t show learning unless retrieval practice is embedded effectively.

- Displays. Enough said.

What we do:

Last year, as SLT, we homed in on how to effectively check standards in subjects. We

decided that talking to the children would be incredibly powerful. If learning is a change in long term memory, then chn should be able to hold increasingly sophisticated conversations with you about subjects

This is not just a random conversation, a ‘Tell me about the Romans’

It’s more meticulously planned then that. All subject leaders have a clearly defined set of outcomes for their subjects. They know the key disciples in the subjects that chn need to know in order to progress on to the next stage of learning. This shapes learning conversations.

The more we did this last year, the more we were able to check to see if children were seeing the bigger picture, connecting the dots. For example yr 4 pupil talk on the Romans, started with prehistoric Britain talk (yr 3 learning). Fascinating to see and hear chn making links,

remembering previous learning.

This approach allowed subject leaders to see standards in their subjects. What aspects had been taught well? What needed reteaching? What CPD did staff require?

I’m setting up focus groups next week and really looking forward to it!