Leading Teaching and Learning:  expertise, drive and the power to motivate.
Teacherhead
by Tom Sherrington
6d ago
As my road-trip work comes to an end for the term, I’m reflecting on the qualities of all the great people I meet visiting schools.  Without exception, people everywhere are working hard, often in tough circumstances, and I have huge respect for everything they’re seeking to do. However, there are some schools I visit where it’s clear that the quality of teaching and learning is high, sometimes within a particular phase or subject team, sometimes across the whole school.  Without exception, when the teaching is evidently strong, you also meet the leaders who make it so.&nbs ..read more
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10 Million x Thank You. ???
Teacherhead
by Tom Sherrington
1M ago
10 million views.  It’s a milestone in the life of teacherhead.com that I couldn’t have imagined reaching when I started out back in May 2012 with my first rather ridiculous post: Kitchen Blackboard!  That’s all it was! Me in the kitchen. I had no idea. After that, it took off and I’ve managed to find a style and an audience that seems to appreciate my observations from the sidelines of school life and the challenges and rewards of great teaching. I’m enormously grateful to anyone stopping to read one my posts and for all the interactions via twitter, linkedIn and the comments over t ..read more
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Two goals for coaching and CPD: Motivation + A Plan of Action. It needs to be both technical and personal.
Teacherhead
by Tom Sherrington
1M ago
I like ideas that cut through complexity – bringing clarity to things that are inherently complex, nuanced (bingo!) and variable. For the coaching process and the general outcomes of a wider professional learning programme, there is sometimes a risk of a false either/or creeping in to the discourse. Also, when I work with schools, I sometimes i find that their CPD processes can fall down because they don’t meet one of two key requirements: a) Specifying Actions: Teachers have to make and sustain changes in their practice that succeed in solving the problems they encounter or, to put it differe ..read more
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The power of a school-defined repertoire of core techniques
Teacherhead
by Tom Sherrington
1M ago
One of the conclusions from our work with schools supporting their development of CPD programmes, is that it’s incredibly helpful to have a teaching and learning framework that contains within it, a relatively small number of core techniques that everyone knows, understands and, ultimately, uses with real confidence and precision. Having initially found that leaders arrived at this conclusion more or less independently time after time, we are now inclined to suggest it up front: select a set of techniques that most teachers use most days, a set you can call ‘The School Core 8’ (or 5 or 7 or 10 ..read more
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Lesson feedback: don’t send it, don’t give it – co-construct it. Otherwise, it won’t be worth it.
Teacherhead
by Tom Sherrington
2M ago
A big part of my work is around supporting schools to develop effective professional development programmes. I encounter a wide range of approaches to this but schools are always on a journey, looking to move forward to get their culture and systems right. One thing I often find is still something of a barrier, is an attachment to/ legacy of senior leaders feeling the need to give feedback on lesson observations in old school top-down fashion. Sometimes, this is even done in writing via email or an online platform – without ever involving the teacher in a conversation. (I’ve written about this ..read more
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10 New Posts from 2023. My selection.
Teacherhead
by Tom Sherrington
3M ago
It’s been a strangely uneven year on teacherhead.com for various reasons. The first half of the year was buzzing – I wrote a lot and each month’s readership stats exceeded the equivalent month in 2022 – until the summer. Then I hit a bit of a block and September was the first month since I started this site when i didn’t write anything at all. I lost the rhythm completely. Largely this was because I was putting all my spare time into writing Learning Walkthrus with @olicav. We finished it in just a few months and it’s ready to go. Despite the hiatus, I’ve written 46 new posts this year.. bring ..read more
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My #EduAdvent 2023
Teacherhead
by Tom Sherrington
3M ago
Here is my #EduAdvent  as a pdf. Scroll through to see all the links.  threadreader_0_teacherhead_1730699088738365523Download Here’s the list of people featured each day..  Such a great group of people; an inspiration to me in lots of different ways: @SCottinghatt @alomshaha @HYWEL_ROBERTS @toetsrevolutie @bennewmark @EfratFurst @MrZachG @Emma_Turner75 @PepsMccrea @unleashing_me and @ChilternTSH The @Steplab_co crew  @MaryMyatt @Inner_Drive  Zaretta Hammond @Ready4rigor Caroline Derbyshire @Morsecat @sccenglish ` Jim Knight! @jimknight99 @CoachingPD @dylanwiliam Jade @PearceMrs ..read more
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Meaning Making and The Power of Students Talking Things Through – a common missing piece.
Teacherhead
by Tom Sherrington
3M ago
Ever since reading Sarah Cottinghatt’s blogs and subsequent In Action book about Ausubel and meaning making, I’ve found it a massively useful reference point for examining teaching practices. The idea is that each individual student has to make meaning themselves, building from their existing knowledge to make sense of new ideas. The extent of their prior knowledge is a massive factor – but so is the process and the time given to that building/bridging process.  In very many lessons, it seems to be a missing piece in the pedagogy with teachers hoping and assuming that meaning making is happen ..read more
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Class Discussion Forensics. Generating and exchanging ideas; involving everyone.
Teacherhead
by Tom Sherrington
3M ago
Class discussion is cornerstone of so many lessons and subjects. We want to engage students in airing and sharing ideas, listening to each other as we explore an area of the curriculum together or reflect on a common experience of some kind. Done well, class discussion allows students to formulate and express ideas – helping them to develop and deepen their understanding, linking ideas together and gaining confidence with the use of the language needed to communicate them. It also allows the teacher to hear what students think, thereby learning more about them and what they know – it’s a form ..read more
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Curriculum in 2023: A celebration and some ways forward.
Teacherhead
by Tom Sherrington
3M ago
Pic via Holli Smith @hsmith1902 Earlier this week, John Tomsett, Mary Myatt and I hosted an event at the Regent Hall on Oxford Street. 200 people gathered for a celebration of curriculum thinking and an exploration of the way ahead – based on our work with schools and discussions with teachers and leaders, much of which John and Mary have capture in their incredible Huh! series. Thanks to everyone who came! And thanks to Alex at John Catt who supported us to include a book with every ticket: The slides from our three keynotes can be accessed here – click image. Each one features five key tak ..read more
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