Curriculum Improvement:

Advice to educators, 2012

This handbook is a training resource for all educators including

Curriculum organisers, School Leaders and Teachers. It will be
updated at regular intervals.

It begins with the agreed statement of our national curriculum and

then describes a variety of the best teaching and learning practices.

Our curriculum includes everything that we will offer to children and

adults during their time in education. Therefore the resource also
gives powerful advice about what should be happening in a good
school.

And why bother changing the curriculum in education at all?

As the saying goes, if your horse has dropped dead … dismount!

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The prior task of education is surely to inspire, to give a
sense of values and the power of distinguishing in life as
in lesser things what is first-rate and what is not.
Sir Richard Livingstone

Over the years I have become firmly convinced that the

size and degree of elaboration within planning
documents is inversely related to the quality of action
and learning. My advice at this stage is to be aware of
the dangers of over-planning and lengthy
documentation. Those restaurants with the longest
menus don’t tend to offer the best food because there is
too much for the chefs to think about.
Gilbert, Ian; Ryan, Will (2001-03-10). Inspirational Teachers Inspirational
Learners. Perseus Books Group. Kindle Edition.

The Curriculum is Designed Not to Cover but Uncover

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Section A. The National Curriculum Framework
Your first step is to work through the statement of the national
curriculum on pages 4-10 and find out what’s in it and why. There are
questions to help you work out your own view of our country’s
educational plans. Make notes about your ideas.

Reflect: What is the PURPOSE of education to a Nation?

In what ways does Education need to Improve?

What are the consequences of employing educators

who are not having any effect on improving education?

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 Puntland's Curriculum for Positive Performance for all

This section describes an overall framework for the curriculum for our schools and
non-formal education programmes. As you read it, you may wish to think about
and comment on your ideas and thoughts about Puntland’s education system and
where it is heading in this 21st century.

WHY?
Education is important for a number of reasons – to help our country and its
people to develop and prosper, to support and encourage children and others to
help them live a peaceful, happy and healthy life with a strong basis of Islamic
values; to help them develop and achieve their ambitions; to prepare them for a
creative and productive working life, and to prepare them to be active citizens in a
changing world. We look to the future to develop an education system which
meets all of these needs, for all Puntlanders.
WHAT?
To prepare for the future, we need to think about what children and others should
learn. The balance between learning about individual areas of knowledge and
learning the skills with which to apply that knowledge is important. There will be
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key things in the future that are important for everyone to learn, such as learning
to read and write. There are also likely to be specialist areas of interest only to
particular individuals.
It is important too to measure how learners are progressing.
Different people are interested and talented in different ways, whether that is in
traditional academic areas, in practical vocational skills, or other personal
achievements such as sport, the arts and music. With this in mind, what sort of
information should young people be able to show potential employers?
HOW?
How do children learn? There has been much research in recent years about how
the brain functions. We should be helping children to be creative in everything
they do. We all function best when we are fit and well – mentally and physically.
How can we get most benefit from research into learning, and how can we help
children with their ethical, emotional and physical wellbeing?
Technology develops at a rapid pace, and provides ways to research and
communicate like never before – how can technologies such as mobile phones
help us realise our vision for the future?
WHO?
Some children and others find their experience of education rewarding, some find
it less useful. What people want from education is likely to change in the future.
Changes in the way we live and work, in relationships between people and the
impact of information technology will all affect what young people want from
school. The challenge is to help every person have the best kind of life.

Teachers are at the heart of education. In the future, teachers may have new ideas
about what they aim to provide for their pupils. They may need to acquire new or
different skills. Young people come into contact with a wide range of people in
their life – family, employers and members of their local community. Different
people can potentially share their skills and knowledge with young people at an
early age, and can offer support during difficult times in their life.
Parents and other carers are often a child’s first teacher. Parents’ views on what
they want from their child’s time at school are different now from in the past, and
may well be very different again in the future. The relationships between parents
and their child’s school could develop in different ways in the future – and parents
may wish to know more or different things about how their children are doing at
school. There may be different ways of helping parents and carers to become
more involved in a child or young person’s education.

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“An old African proverb says, ‘It takes a community to raise a
child’…..the starting point has to be an understanding of the
current advantages and disadvantages of growing up within a
specific locality.” Gilbert, Ian; Ryan, Will (2001-03-10). Inspirational Teachers
Inspirational Learners (Kindle Locations 729-730). Perseus Books Group. Kindle Edition.

Reflect: Here are some “starter” suggestions for some of the

things that might help to stimulate your thinking. You can discuss one,
more or all of these areas with colleagues. And there may be other
issues to add, that are important to you. After the discussion, make
some short notes of your own.

Why? Why should we educate children and young people.

What? What do children learn, and what takes place in schools.

How? How should learning and teaching be delivered.

Who? Who can help children and young people to learn.

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Puntland's Curriculum for Positive Performance for all

1. Values
The Ministry of Education for Puntland intends that all learners will be
taught to

 Respect self and others

 Apply Islamic values such as Honesty and Justice
 Apply Islamic values such as sense of community, good relationships with
others, hospitality and willingness to share)
 Have a knowledge and understanding of Somali culture (such as poetry,
literature and dance)
 Be confident and have self-belief
 Be an active, engaged and responsible citizen within a supportive society
 Develop a sense of community and be patriotic
 Be informed and have proper, relevant knowledge and understanding
 Be entrepreneurial
 Be creative and adaptable to a changing world

Thinking question 5. Do you agree

that these values should be at the
heart of our curriculum? Are there any
others that you would add to the list?
2. Curricular framework
The curriculum throughout the
country will develop the same three dimensions of a person’s mind to give
a) a breadth of knowledge and understanding
b) an application of skills that are needed for a positive, successful and
meaningful life
c) an increasing intellectual challenge as the person moves through the
levels.
The three dimensions can be pictured as a box. All the dimensions are
important if the person is to become educated.
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Old curriculum framework

Thinking question 6. The new framework for the

curriculum is more complicated because the
things that modern people must learn are also
complicated. It includes core areas of knowledge
and understanding but also core themes. It
recognises that skills are also important. Finally,
different levels of challenge are included to
make sure that people are learning at the right
level for them. Does the change from a single
‘ladder’ to a 3D curriculum make good sense?

New curriculum framework

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 3. Curricular levels.
The higher the level, the more challenging is the learning. Within the curriculum the following
broad levels of achievement are defined. The five broad levels will be applied equally to formal
schooling and to programmes of non-formal education.

Formal Curricular level Non Formal

education education
stage

University
College
12 Level F
11
10 Level E
9
8 Level D
7
6 Level C
5
4 Level B
3
2 Level A
1
Preschool

Thinking question 7. The framework has different levels of challenge are

included to make sure that people are learning at the right level for them. The
same levels will apply to formal and non-formal education programmes. This
should allow people to move from one programme to another at the correct
level for the. For example a person should not start at level C if they haven’t
mastered level B yet. Do you think the levels are drawn in the correct places?

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 4. Core knowledge and understanding
Our curriculum must be broad to encompass all the different parts of human knowledge. The
teaching of the following curricular areas and cross-cutting themes is to be included at every
level.

Core curricular areas Core cross-cutting themes

Science Peace and reconciliation

Maths Human and Children’s rights (UNCRC)
Social Studies Environmental Studies
Islamic Studies Health and well-being
Languages Civic literacy
Technology Global issues including finance
Creative Arts Gender Issues
Physical education

Thinking question 8. All children and other learners should be

educated in all of the core curricular areas and the core cross-
cutting themes. Do you agree with these areas and themes?

5. Skills
The curriculum includes those skills sets that enable a learner to apply their
knowledge and understanding in the modern world. The skills sets are
overlapping. Examples are offered rather than a complete list.

Skill set Examples

Life skills Problem solving, be creative.
Interpersonal, relationship building, how to live with others,
socialisation.
Decision making, judgement, communication.
Self-belief and confidence. Resilience.
Plan for the future.
Learning and thinking Acquiring knowledge of core curriculum, Understanding, Apply,
skills Evaluate, Creativity & capacity for synthesis, Think critically,
Problem solving.
Literacy and numeracy.
Teamwork.

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 Work skills Ethics (commitment), Communication, Innovation, Decision-
making, Evaluation, Business/entrepreneurial,
Organisational, Managerial, Leadership
Problem solving, Flexible, Adapt to change.
Technical skills like practical and technological (ICT) and
production.

Life skills. People now live in a technology and media-saturated environment,

with: 1) access to much information, 2) rapid changes, and 3) the ability to make
individual and shared contributions on an unprecedented scale. To be effective
people must be able to exhibit a range of functional and critical thinking skills
related to relationships, information, media and technology. People must form
and sustain good personal and inter-personal social and working relationships,
demonstrate self-belief, confidence and self-motivation, show resilience when
faced with personal challenges and setbacks, be empathetic, look at things from
someone else’s perspective, think ahead, look to the future and make plans for life
and career and for one’s family
Learning and thinking skills increasingly are being recognized as the skills that
separate people who are prepared for increasingly complex life and work
environments in the 21st century, and those who are not. A focus on creativity,
critical thinking, communication and collaboration is essential to prepare learners
for the future.
Work skills. Today’s work environments require far more than thinking skills and
content knowledge. The ability to navigate the complex work environments in the
globally competitive information age requires people to be flexible, adapt to
changing situations, be creative and make their own jobs if there are few
employment opportunities.

Discussion question 9. The framework recognises that skills

are also important. A skill like literacy is important for
learning, work and life. So at the moment, it’s not important
which category it appears in, just that it is included
somewhere in the curriculum. Do these three categories of
skills make sense?

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Section B. Building the Curriculum

What we resolve to do in school only makes sense

when considered in the broader context of what the
society intends to accomplish through its educational
investment of the young

Jerome Bruner, The culture of Education

The framework gives us the structure to hang our whole curriculum upon. We can
now build our curriculum, guided by the national plan that is the framework.

The process is simple but takes some time. It is also an evolutionary process and
your first version should not be considered as a final one. Your most valuable
critics will be those other teachers who have some advice to offer about
improving the curriculum statements.
1. We must first build our standards for each level, covering all the areas,
themes and skills. All formal assessment will be against those standards.
2. Then we must add the learning outcomes which will help to guide the
teachers and schools in how they must reach the standards.
3. We will add some important learning activities. Others will be developed by
teachers in schools.

Pairs discussion. How do we write the standards?

Discuss this example. What makes a ‘good’ teacher?
List all the qualities that you and your partner think a teacher
should have. Then have a look at the example overleaf.

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Elements of the Standard for professional teachers. (GTC Scotland)
http://www.gtcs.org.uk/standards/standard-initial-teacher-education.aspx

The elements of the professional standard are intended to clarify and illustrate,
particularly to new teachers and those advising, supporting or reviewing them,
what needs to be achieved. They also provide a baseline professional standard
which applies to all teachers throughout their careers.

Aspect of Professional
The Professional Standard
Development
1.0 Curriculum 1.1.1 Registered teachers have detailed knowledge and
understanding of the relevant areas of the pre-school,
primary or secondary school curriculum.
1.1.2 Registered teachers have sufficient knowledge and
understanding to fulfil their responsibilities for cross-
curricular themes including citizenship, creativity,
enterprising attitudes, literacy and numeracy; personal,
social and health education; and ICT. (As appropriate to
the sector and stage of development.)
1.1.3 Registered teachers demonstrate the knowledge
and understanding to enable them to plan coherent and
progressive teaching programmes, and justify what they
teach.
1.1.4 Registered teachers understand the nature of the
curriculum and its development.
1.2 Education Systems 1.2.1 Registered teachers have a broad, critical
and Professional understanding of the principal features of the education
Responsibilities system, educational policy and practice, and of their part in
it.

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 1.2.2 Registered teachers have detailed working
knowledge of their sector, of the school(s) in which they
teach, and of their professional responsibilities within
them.
1.3 Principles and 1.3.1 Registered teachers articulate their professional
Perspectives values and practices and relate them to theoretical
principles and perspectives.
1.3.2 Registered teachers have research-based
knowledge relating to learning and teaching and a critical
appreciation of the contribution of research to education
in general.
2.0 Teaching and 2.1.1 Registered teachers are able to plan coherent,
Learning progressive and stimulating teaching programmes which
match their pupils' needs and abilities, and they can justify
what they teach.
2.1.2 Registered teachers communicate clearly making
skilful use of a variety of media, and interact productively
with pupils, individually and collectively.
2.1.3 Registered teachers use a range of teaching
strategies and resources which they can evaluate and
justify in terms of curriculum requirements and of the
needs and abilities of their pupils.
2.1.4 Registered teachers set and maintain expectations
and pace of work for all pupils.
2.1.5 Registered teachers work co-operatively with other
professionals, staff and parents.
2.2.1 Registered teachers organise and manage classes and
resources to achieve safe, orderly and purposeful activity.

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2.2 Classroom 2.2.2 Registered teachers manage pupil behaviour and
Organisation and classroom incidents fairly, sensitively and consistently,
Management making sensible use of rewards and sanctions, and
seeking and using the advice of colleagues when
necessary.
2.3 Assessment of 2.3.1 Registered teachers understand and apply the
Pupils principles of assessment, recording and reporting.
2.3.2 Registered teachers use the results of assessment
to evaluate and improve their teaching, and the learning
and attainment of the children they teach.
2.4 Professional 2.4.1 Registered teachers learn from their experience of
Reflection and practice and from critical evaluation of relevant literature in
Communication their professional development.
2.4.2 Registered teachers convey an understanding of
practice and general educational matters in their
professional dialogue and communication.
2.4.3 Registered teachers reflect on and act to improve
their own professional practice, contribute to their own
professional development, and engage in the process of
curriculum development.
3.0 Professional 3.1 Registered teachers show in their day-to-day practice a
Values and Personal commitment to social justice, inclusion and caring for and
Commitment protecting children.
3.2 Registered teachers take responsibility for their
professional learning and development.
3.3 Registered teachers’ value, respect and are active
partners in the communities in which they work.

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These standards are used in Scotland to assess whether or not a student teacher
has reached the right professional level. It will be the same for our standards; they
will be used to decide if the learner has reached the right level.

The benefits of using an agreed set of educational standards across the whole
country are immense. The standards will be derived from the national curriculum
and therefore be directed towards what our country needs. They will define what
is important and everyone will have a clear idea of what the education system is
aiming for, for every learner. Teachers can then focus on the same things whilst
still using different methods and resources and even different whole programmes
of work to reach these same standards. Examinations and indeed other types of
assessment will be based on the standards rather than on textbooks or others’
different viewpoints.

Brunner again.

We teach a subject not to produce little living libraries on

that subject, but rather to get a student to think
mathematically for himself, to consider matters as a historian
does, to take part in the process of knowledge getting.

Knowing is a process, not a product.

How do we write the standards?

Using the ‘teacher’ example as a guide, write down four
relevant standards for the curricular area of literacy at level 1
or 2. We will share these with the whole group.

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The difference between a curriculum and a programme of study

It is important at this stage to again remind ourselves that ‘curriculum’ is not the
same as ‘textbook’.
The curriculum is everything that contributes to the learner’s learning.
In a school, this will certainly include using textbooks and completing tasks that
occur in the classroom. It will also include discussing, reading, asking and
answering questions and researching topics.
Importantly, it also brings in aspects of school life such as visits, talks from the
Headteacher, a fun run or a concert, watching a film, chatting with your teacher
about the weather. All these events offer the good teacher an opportunity to
guide the learner’s education in a positive way. If the event ‘just happens’ then it
can be a neutral or even a negative learning experience. (A child who witnesses a
fight is learning something –the good teacher can make this a positive learning
experience. I learned a great deal about mourning from my English teacher at
school just by watching and thinking about how he was acting when his wife died.

A useful analogy (from Male, B. (2012), The Primary Curriculum Design Handbook
London, Continuum.) is that of the curriculum as a tree. Whilst the knowledge and
comprehension are the leaves of learning, it is the roots that ensure that this
learning grows high. The roots are the higher level skills.

Reflect. In pairs discuss and list

every single thing you can think of
that influences what a child learns
at Primary school. At this stage,
don’t worry about including things
that might seem to be trivial.

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A development of Bloom’s famous taxonomy (by Anderson in 2001) describes the
cognitive skills – in order of importance and sophistication - as Remembering,
Comprehending, Applying, Analysing, Evaluating and Creating. Male describes his
curriculum roots, the Higher Level skills, as

Curriculum is about young people and learning. It includes

 The ethos and life of the school
 Curriculum areas and subjects
 Interdisciplinary projects and studies
 Opportunities for personal achievement

a wordle diagram of the Scottish Curriculum policy paper

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Part C. Expanding the learning standards

There will be two parts to our expansion of the standards of the curriculum;
learning outcomes and learning activities.

We will explore the area of literacy at level 1. Here are some examples, adapted
from the Scottish ‘Curriculum for Excellence’.

Standard Learning outcome Learning activity

The learner will 1. I use signs, books or other texts

be able to read to find useful or interesting
and understand information and I use this to plan,
material that is make choices or learn new things.
judged suitable 2. I enjoy exploring and choosing
for level 1 stories and other texts to watch,
read or listen to, and can share my
likes and dislikes.
3. …

The learner will 1. I explore sounds, letters and

be able to write words, discovering how they work
simple sentences together, and I can use what I
at a level judged learn to help me as I read or write.
suitable for level 2. I enjoy exploring events and
1 characters in stories and other
texts and I use what I learn to
invent my own, sharing these with
others in imaginative ways.
3…..
Notice that

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 1. The standard is written from the point of view of the Ministry of Education.
It is what the teacher must aim for and it is what will be assessed.
2. The learning outcomes are written from the point of view of the learner. It
is what each individual learner (whether school pupil or adult) should
achieve at this level.
3. The learning outcomes are written as statements of competency. They are
‘doing’ statements that will help to demonstrate that the learner has
achieved the standard. For example, I am a competent cook because I can
use my knowledge of cooking methods and ingredients to prepare a meal
that my friends will enjoy.
4. The learning activities are varied. Some will be from one textbook, some
from another, some from the teacher’s own innovation.

This is a description of some of the possible learning outcomes for level 5 literacy.

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Learning outcomes for different levels

The learning outcomes for level 5 are more complex than for level 1. This is right
because all learners should progress through the levels. It is progression that
defines education really, the change in the understanding of knowledge, and the
development of skills that comes from the effort of learning.

Let’s begin by writing the standards and learning outcomes for levels 1and 2 for
Languages (including literacy) and Mathematics (including numeracy).

In groups of three, write out a table for Languages (including literacy) at level 1 on ONE
sheet of paper. You should aim for 3 – 6 standards and 5 – 8 learning outcomes for each
standard. Don’t spend much time at this stage on the learning activities. When you think
you’ve finished, compare your result with the poster and make adjustments you wish to.

StandardLearning outcomeLearning activity

The learner will be able to read and understand material that is judged suitable for level
11. I use signs, books or other texts to find useful or interesting information and I use this
to plan, make choices or learn new things.
2. I enjoy exploring and choosing stories and other texts to watch, read or listen to, and
can share my likes and dislikes.
3. …

Now adjust the same standards to apply to level 2. Write between 5 and 8 learning
outcomes for each standard. Then compare your list with the poster and adjust.

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Part D. Active learning

What is active learning?

Active Learning is a process that encourages pupils to engage in the learning

process. It involves them in “doing” rather than just learning about. This is crucial
for higher level learning to take place. Research shows that the average retention
rate by pupils increases significantly when they are more active in their learning.
Active Learning methods also:
 Give the learner feedback on their knowledge and understanding of what has
been taught.
 Give the teacher feedback on which learners understand, and who requires
support.
 Develop thinking skills such as analysis, problem solving and evaluation.
 Help learners to use their learning in realistic and useful ways, and see its
importance and relevance.

We learn by doing. Research shows that when pupils are involved in active
learning, their recall is quicker, they have a better understanding of what has been
taught and their learning experience is more enjoyable. Some pupils are able to
tune in and learn from more passive methods, but others do not. We now know
more about the different ways in which children learn and how best to support
them. All pupils improve their learning enormously when they are involved in a
more active approach to learning. When active methods are compared with
traditional methods, active methods produce much better achievement.

Interestingly, children also prefer to learn actively.

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This was confirmed in 2009 when Ipsos MORI carried out a survey entitled
‘Understanding Learners’.48 An initial part of the work was to establish the three
main ways in which Year 6 pupils prefer to learn. From the survey of just under
2,000 pupils…

In which three of the following ways do you prefer to learn? In groups 55%; By
doing practical things 39%; With friends 35%; By using computers 31%; Alone
21%; From teachers 19%; From friends 16%; By seeing things done 14%; With
your parents 12%; By practising 9%; In silence 9%; By copying 8%; By thinking
for yourself 6%; At a museum or library 5%; From others 3%; Other 1%.

The same group of children were asked, ‘Which were the three most common
forms of activities carried out in the classroom?’ The most frequent answer was
copying from a board, book or worksheet. A staggering 55% of pupils thought that
this was the most common method employed by teachers. The second most
common answer was listening to the teacher for a long time. One third of pupils
thought that this was the most common strategy used. The third most common
answer was by having a class discussion. The fourth was taking notes whilst the
teacher talked. Down at the bottom of the list were a range of strategies which
are regularly employed by our most inspirational teachers. These include learning
outside the school grounds, creating pictures and maps to help remember and
taking responsibility for teaching classmates about something.

Gilbert, Ian; Ryan, Will (2001-03-10). Inspirational Teachers Inspirational Learners (Kindle
Locations 1320-1338). Perseus Books Group. Kindle Edition.

There are many definitions of what active learning is, however, the following
provides a useful summary:
“In traditional or pedagogical education, material to be learned is often
transmitted to students by teachers. That is, learning is passive. In active learning,
students are much more actively engaged in their own learning while educators

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take a more guiding role. This approach is thought to promote processing of
skills/knowledge to a much deeper level than passive learning. Related
terms/concepts include: experiential learning, hands on learning.”

In our curriculum, active learning will be a way of engaging young people in the
deeper learning that develops higher order skills. This engagement comes from
greater involvement and it also leads to learning about something rather than
learning that or learning of something.
For example, from a textbook I can learn that a camel is a mammal and that its
internal skeleton is similar to other mammals. This knowledge is not as deep as
the knowledge of a person who owns and looks after a camel. He or she has
learned about the camel. Therefore introduce your youngsters to a real camel -
active learning comes from experiences.

Some people believe there is a great mystique to developing children as creative

thinkers or independent enquirers and that frameworks and systems are needed.
They can be helpful and some will be referred to here. Others believe that only
certain people are born as creative thinkers, and I am sure that some children are
naturally gifted in this area. However when the climate for learning is right, where
the stimulus is strong or the emotions engaged, children can develop very
powerful thinking skills.

Gilbert, Ian; Ryan, Will (2001-03-10). Inspirational Teachers Inspirational Learners (Kindle
Locations 1275-1278). Perseus Books Group. Kindle Edition.

That survey of just under 2,000 pupils showed how pupils

preferred to learn.

Conduct your own survey (by interview) to find out how adults
prefer to learn. Is the situation different with adults?

24
How can we encourage people to be active learners?

‘Spoon feeding in the long run teaches us nothing but the shape of the spoon.’

In our curriculum, the learning activities are where the life, learning and work
skills can be introduced and also where higher level cognitive skills are developed.
In addition, elements of the cross-cutting themes can be explored if the learning
activity is designed with that in mind.

For every suggested learning activity, the educator should evaluate it by asking the
following questions (adapted from Male).

A Design Checklist

 At the end of this experience, what is the key thing that will be learned?
 Is it really necessary to learn this at all?

 What level will learners attain?

 What key life, learning, work skills will learners be developing?

 What key competencies will they be developing?

 Will the experience really bring about this intended learning? And is it all necessary?

 How long will it take?

 Where should it take place? (Classroom, school grounds, wider locality?)

 Who should be involved? (Teacher, parents, others?)

 How could we make it even more interesting?

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Design.
In your group of three again, choose one of the standards and its associated
learning outcomes for Languages (including literacy) at level 1 that you worked
on earlier.
Use the diagram of what active learning might involve and write down between
3 and 5 learning activities that an educator could use to develop those learning
outcomes.
Swop with another group and use the design checklist to evaluate their work.

26
27
Some examples of Active Learning (TAPAS), designed by teachers.

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Making a meal of it – designing TAPAS

What are TAPAS?

Usually “Light snacks or appetisers”, TAPAS are in this instance ‘Take Away
Practical Active Strategies’. To share TAPAS ideas, members from each school
across a whole region paired up to identify transferable ideas and complete
templates. These were then shared with all the other schools.

How can we develop this idea further?

The page before shows four completed templates. A display menu also groups
these into ‘Starters’, ‘Mains’ and ‘Desserts’. Staff can now try new ideas with
classes, and hopefully be inspired to develop some new ones! A Word and Excel
template can also be provided to each teacher.

Together with a partner, complete the TAPAS template overleaf for one
of the learning activities that you designed earlier.

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Putting life into existing topics

Educators are currently using teaching materials in classrooms. There is no sense

(and no need) in throwing all these valuable resources out onto the rubbish heap
and starting to remake new ‘Active Learning’ materials.
We can make an old topic more engaging for pupils by thinking about how to
involve the learners emotionally in the learning.
For example, read the following extract from Gilbert and Ryan,

Create an emotional ‘hook’ for children to become involved. For example, change
‘The Victorians’ to ‘Victorian heroes and villains’ which could look at those reformers who
promoted better living and working conditions for all. ‘The Second World War’ to ‘The special
qualities of people living through the Second World War’ which could focus on bravery, loyalty
and resourcefulness of the volunteers of the Home Guard or the Women’s Land Army or the
bravery of those youngsters who were evacuated or the commitment of those who received
them. ‘Britain in the 1960s’ to ‘What it was like when Grandad was a boy’ which creates the
opportunity to use real people to bring recent history to life. ‘The journey of a river’ to ‘The
story of the river …’
In addition to looking at the key geographical features of a local river the project consider how
mankind uses and possibly abuses rivers. ‘What happens when the earth gets angry’ which
could examine not only the geographical but the human tragedies of earthquakes. If
appropriate this could make use of current news items.

In his recent book The Decisive Moment, Jonah Lehrer wrote: ‘The end result is that the
uniquely human parts of the mind depend on the primitive mind underneath. The process of
thinking requires feeling, for our feelings are what let us understand all the information that we
can’t directly comprehend. Reason without emotion is impotent.’35

Gilbert, Ian; Ryan, Will (2001). Inspirational Teachers Inspirational Learners (Kindle Locations 1073-1088). Perseus
Books Group. Kindle Edition.

Draw a line down the middle of your page. On the left hand side write
down brief descriptions (up to 10 words only) of as many ‘topics’ that
you remember being taught in a Primary classroom.
Once you’ve filled that side, write down on the right hand side any ideas
you have for making that topic more engaging for learners.

30
Part E. Curriculum into classrooms

‘It’s an excellent school!’. What do people mean when they

say that? Is there such a thing as an excellent school?
Can lessons be ‘excellent’ across the board? What sorts
of things are people thinking of when they talk about
excellent teaching? Would children and young people have the
same idea of an excellent school as their teachers, or
their parents, or members of the local community?
(Adapted from HMIe ‘The Journey to Excellence’)

This diagram illustrates some important aspects of learning. The skilful educator
will structure the environment to make sure that the learning ‘works’.

The skilled educator will know about, and be passionate about, the community
that the learners come from.

31
The importance of inspiration.

Know your community.

Answer these questions for your own school community:

Who does well in our school? What do they do well in and why do they do so well?
Who does less well in our school and what causes them to do less well? This no doubt
will trigger a host of follow-up questions that could include: Do the children come to
school ready to learn and well-equipped to learn? Do the children come from homes
where the use of oracy and the spoken word are actively encouraged? Do the children
come from homes where learning is valued? Do the families have high levels of
aspiration for their children? Do the children come to school able to build relationships
and deal with conflict? Do the children have values and a sense of right and wrong?
Do the children have a clear sense of identity with their community and understand its
history and geography? Do the children work well independently and collaboratively?
What is the faith make-up of our community? What is the cultural make-up of our
community?

Be Passionate.

?? In the context of curriculum design, what would you be passionate about? The
prompts below could be helpful to you. Which ones do you read and say, ‘Yes, that’s
what I really believe’?
Learners need to see the links that exist between the subjects. It is important that
learners learn to think for themselves. Learners need to be taught to become
enterprising. The Learners need to have an in depth knowledge of their locality.
The learners should take a key role in planning learning opportunities alongside their
teacher. We must make sure learners understand the nature of learning and strive to
become better at it. The curriculum must help to make learners socially responsible.
There must be opportunities for learners to actively explore the issues associated with
growing up in the twenty-first century. The curriculum should be used to develop
emotional intelligence and raise aspirations. There should be opportunities to develop
creativity across the curriculum. Learning opportunities within humanities and the
arts are essential and can also be used to raise standards in literacy and numeracy.
Schools should actively create a sense of awe and wonder in its pupils. ICT is not a
subject in its own right but should be used to develop deep learning across the whole
curriculum. Much of the best learning takes place through the creation of high quality
experiences that take place outside the classroom.
32
This diagram shows the ten dimensions of excellence that, international research
says, make up an excellent school.

The central position of ‘learning and teaching’ is the key factor in making a school
excellent.

The following few pages contain some extracts from the document ‘Journey to
Excellence’. You are asked to read and reflect on all of these before tackling the
activity at the end.

33
Dimension 1 – Learning

This dimension refers to the kind of relationship that a very good educator will
foster.

Draw a line across your page. Mark it as follows.

Unsatisfactory mediocre satisfactory good excellent

The line represents the continuum of excellence from unsatisfactory on

the left hand side to excellent on the right hand side.
Where would you judge your own educational practice to be on this line?

34
These two diagrams show a similar definition of ‘Active Learning’. Again, please
use the judgement line from the previous page to judge your own work in lessons.

35
Dimension 6 is ‘Working with parents’. Again, please use the judgement line.

36
This is from the description of dimension 7, ‘Reflects on its own work and
thrives on challenge’.

Draw a judgement line across your page, as before.

Unsatisfactory mediocre satisfactory good excellent

Where would you judge your own educational practice to be on this line?

School Improvement is what our work has really been about. Discuss in
groups of 3 what have been the most striking and/or successful
improvements in the countries classrooms within the past 3 years. Agree
on a list of 5 to share with the others groups.

37
38
39
40
41
42
Some examples of Active Learning techniques for older learners.

Specific Techniques
You may be more comfortable with some techniques than with others. Feel free to
modify any of the techniques to suit your learners, but do not be afraid to try new
techniques.

1. Warm Up/Ice-Breaker/Energizers
Use quick games (five-ten minutes) to relax or energize a group. Warm ups
generate a lot of energy and laughter in a group. They can be an easy,
fun, and an informal way to begin. There are examples in this book.

2. Brainstorming
Generate a large number of ideas in the shortest possible time, with everyone
taking part. For example, a group of children could brainstorm their ideas for
improving the place they live in. These could be listed.
In brainstorming, the points raised by the persons are included without
discussion. There is a general discussion afterwards.

3. Working Around the Circle/Round Robin

Making sure that everyone in the group gets a chance to speak

4. Working in Pairs
Allowing learners to discuss ideas and opinions with a partner and then sharing
them with a larger group. This is another useful way of making sure that everyone
participates in the discussion. Pairs can agree on what they do and do not want to
have repeated in the group.

5. Small Group Discussion

Working in small groups of 4-6 people
Group discussion is a technique often used in classes

43
6. Surveys/Quizzes
Using a wide range of surveys/questionnaires as a basis for group discussion
A wide range of questions can be used as a basis for group discussion or to enable
individuals to reflect on their attitudes towards a given topic. Multiple choice, true
or false, or open-ended questionnaires can be used.

7. Case Studies
Designing a very brief story/situation relevant to the issue being explored by the
Group. This is a useful and non-threatening way to illustrate and bring to life very
important issues. Case studies can generate discussion on sensitive topics and can
also provide an opening for participants to talk about their own situation if they
want to.

8. Role-Play
Giving learners parts of a story to act out, often unrehearsed.

9. Drama
Using drama as a learning tool.
Drama is a useful technique for large groups and is also a useful learning process
for those actually involved in creating the drama. Actors are given a topic or issue
to work with, and they create a drama, based on that particular issue, to perform
for the large group. General discussion should be encouraged at the end of the
drama.
Specific questions can be designed to keep the group focused.

10. Songs
An exciting way of spreading and reinforcing key messages
Songs can be used in a number of different settings, for example:
 At the beginning and end of a drama.
 At the start of a workshop.
 As an introduction to an educational topic.
Groups can also make up their own songs.

44
11. Videos
Showing learners a story or documentary illustrating the issue being explored. The
use of videos needs input from the educator and discussion with the participants.

12. Continuums
Finding out how people feel about a topic based on their knowledge about that
topic.
Continuums involve placing people or cards along a line. Learners can be invited to
physically place themselves at that point on the line

13. Story Telling

Using stories to evoke responses, feelings, values, and explore attitudes of
learners.

14. Picture Codes

Using a set of pictures to tell a story about a particular issue
A picture code is a poster-sized illustration that presents one familiar problem or
issue that a community or a group has strong feelings about.

15. Story Board

A sequence of pictures used to tell a story about a particular problem.
Whereas picture codes are used to highlight one particular problem or issue, a
storyboard is used to raise questions of how one situation leads to another.

16. Cycling Around the Newsprint/Flipchart Paper

Asking participants to share their views on more than one issue. When working
with large groups there are occasions when facilitators may want to
find out a group’s level of knowledge, beliefs, or attitudes about various aspects of
a subject or their experiences on certain issues. On such occasions a large group
discussion can be difficult to handle.
An alternative is to use a technique called “Cycling around the newsprint or
flipchart paper.”
Procedure:
45
a. The facilitator writes each aspect of an issue on a separate piece of flipchart
paper and places the papers where each participant can see them and read
them.
b. Each participant then moves around, reads the different headings, and writes
her or his personal feeling or belief about the issue.
c. Each participant does this until s/he has written on each piece of flipchart
paper.
d. When using this exercise the facilitator should note that participants usually
need less time at each piece of paper towards the end of the cycling, because
by this time most of the points would have been written down.

17. Debate/Panel Discussion

Asking participants to present advantages and disadvantages of an issue or several
points of view relating to it.
Debate and panel discussion are two similar techniques that provide a forum for
discussion. In a debate, the advantages and disadvantages of an issue are
presented, while in a panel discussion several viewpoints on an issue, and not
necessarily conflicting viewpoints, are presented.
Debate
A question, issue, or problem is presented. The issue should have a strong positive
and negative aspect that the debaters can argue for and against. There are two
teams, each of which argues for a different side of the issue.
Panel Discussion
A number of panellists speak about their viewpoints on a chosen subject to an
audience. The audience is given an opportunity to ask the panellists questions
after their presentations.

18. Devil’s Advocate

Deliberately putting forward an undesirable or unpopular point of view to
stimulate discussion.
This technique involves a participant who acts as a “devil” and advocates risky

46
behaviour or undesirable attitudes. The other participants question and argue in
an attempt to defeat the devil’s argument, unaware of the deliberate intention of
the devil.

19. Poetry
Using poetry to allow the participants to reflect and share their views on related
issues
A facilitator may use existing poems about a topic to provoke discussion, or may
encourage participants to express their own thoughts and feelings by writing a
poem.

20. Letter to the Editor

Using letters to pose questions or address problems.
A variation on the case study technique is the use of actual letters that appear
in local magazines and newspapers. These pages are very popular, and relevant
letters from these sections can be used as case studies.

21. Lecture/Presentation
A formal presentation made to a group by an individual speaker
A lecture is a structured and orderly presentation of information, opinion, theory,
or fact delivered by an individual speaker or panel. However, lectures can involve
audience interaction and participation by allowing time for comments, questions,
and feedback. The creative use of visual aids can help capture audience attention.
These are just some of the many different participatory techniques that are used
in experiential learning workshops.

47
Frequently asked questions

1. What aims does this curriculum serve?

This curriculum aims to ensure that people acquire and apply knowledge and skills
in ways that enable them to build meaningful lives. In this regard, the curriculum
promotes aspects of health; cognitive, emotional, physical and spiritual.
Knowledge in developed in the local context, whilst also being sensitive to global
imperatives.
(b) The National Curriculum serves the purposes of:
 helping the people of our country to develop and prosper
 equipping learners, irrespective of their socio-economic background, race,
gender, physical ability or intellectual ability, with the knowledge, skills and
values necessary for self-fulfilment, and meaningful participation in society
as citizens of a free country;
 equipping learners to be active citizens in a changing world;
 providing access to higher and further education;
 facilitating the transition of learners from education institutions to the
workplace; and
 providing employers with a sufficient profile of a learner’s competences.

2. Is the content in the textbooks the most important part of the curriculum?
No. There are three parts to our curriculum and all of them are very
important if our children and young people are to be educated.

3. Aren’t we already teaching all this stuff?

No. Some core areas are likely to be taught at the moment but some of the
themes will not be. The lower level skills are being taught in most
classrooms but the higher level skills are seen in only a few.

4. What’s the difference between curriculum objectives and curriculum

outcomes?
Objectives are what the educator hopes to achieve. Outcomes are what the
learner should achieve.

5. Should teachers be assessing pupils against each of the experiences and

outcomes within the guidance, across subjects?

48
 No. Teachers do not have to show evidence of assessment against each
individual E&O within the guidance. Assessing pupils against every
experience and outcome in each curriculum area risks promoting a narrow
“tick box” approach to learning. Instead, teachers should develop a range of
assessment approaches to demonstrate the learner’s knowledge,
understanding and skills from a broad range of contexts, checking how a
learner is progressing and that learning is secure. The evidence will be
different depending on the kind of learning being assessed, the learning
activity and learners’ preferences about how to show what they have
learned. Evidence will come from day-to-day learning as well as from
specific assessment tasks, activities, tests and examinations.
Within a level for a curriculum area, or part of an area within an organiser
such as reading within Literacy and English, the experiences and outcomes
describe the knowledge, understanding, attributes and skills expected.
Pupils will need to show that they: have achieved a breadth of learning
across the experiences and outcomes for an aspect of the curriculum; can
respond to the level of challenge set out in the experiences and outcomes
and are moving forward to more challenging learning in some aspects; can
apply what they have learned in new and unfamiliar situations.

6. Will the examinations reflect the skills young people are gaining, building
on new approaches to the learning and teaching, as well as just the
content of subjects?
The examinations will support the values, purposes and principles of the
National Curriculum, and will develop subject specific skills alongside skills
for learning, life and work. The qualifications which learners achieve will
recognise the skills, attributes, knowledge and abilities they have acquired.

7. How much time should be set aside for each of the components of the
curriculum?
This is still to be determined and will be part of the consultation. Teachers
and parents will have a view that will be taken into account. The Cambridge
Review in England suggested that 70% of available teaching time should be
on the National Curriculum and the rest devoted to a ‘community
curriculum’, built by each school. The following table is from the curriculum
of South Africa and it indicates how that country divides up the time.

49
 suBJeCt Grade r Grades 1-2 Grade 3
(hours) (hours) (hours)

Home Language 10 8/7 8/7

First Additional Language 2/3 3/4
Mathematics 7 7 7
Life Skills 6 6 7

• Beginning Knowledge (1) (1) (2)

• Creative Arts (2) (2) (2)

• Physical Education (2) (2) (2)

• Personal and Social Well-being (1) (1) (1)

total 23 23 25

8. Who will write the courses?

The courses are already in schools. The teacher’s task is to use any and every
suggestion for a learning activity to create exciting and engaging lessons; e.g. The
English National Curriculum has set out broad expectations of learning, and it has
been left to educators to draw up schemes of work that provide the detail.

Each pair has 15 minutes to come up with questions about any part of the work that we
have completed . As an aid, these are the titles of the different parts.

Section
Topic description The National Curriculum FrameworkThis is essentially the ‘consultation’
document that I prepared before. Its included as revision for some, and an introduction
for othersBuilding the CurriculumIntroduction to three building materials: Learning
standards, Learning outcomes and Learning activities.
Writing descriptive statements of Learning standardsExpanding the learning
standardsCompetence
Writing descriptive statements of Learning outcomesActive learningWhat is active
learning?
Writing descriptive statements of Learning activitiesCurriculum into classroomsTeaching
and learning – the Journey to Excellence for schools.
Inspiration and passion.Next stepsFrequently asked questions
Relevant research
Future plans

50
Appendix 1. The Scottish Standard for Headship
The purpose of the Standard for Headship is to define the leadership and management capabilities of
headteachers.

It defines the professional actions required of effective headteachers and acts as a template for
aspiring headteachers to evaluate themselves against.

The Standard analyses the role of the headteacher into Professional actions, and three essential
elements which are:

 Strategic vision, values and aims

 Knowledge and understanding

 Personal qualities and interpersonal skills

Professional actions of the headteacher are to:

 lead and manage learning and teaching

 lead and develop people

 lead change and improvement

 use resources effectively

 build community

Headteachers should provide vision, direction and high standards of education/care to enable children
and young people to become:

 successful learners
 confident individuals

 responsible citizens

 effective contributors

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Appendix 2. Guidelines for Working with Out-of-School or
Semi-Literate Youth (from Botswana curriculum: LIFE
PLANNING SKILLS)
Experiential Education
Learning by actively doing an activity is called “experiential” education because
the youth are experiencing part of what they are learning. Experiential activities in
the LIFE PLANNING SKILLS curriculum are designed to help young people gain
information, examine attitudes, and practise skills.
In experiential education, participants do something and then talk about the
experience together. They make some general statements about what they learnt
and try to relate the new information to how they could use it in the future.
Experiential learning is participant centred. Your role as facilitator is to:
• Monitor and manage the environment to make sure that each person in the
group gets the chance to actively participate.
• Keep discussions on track so as to achieve the activity’s objectives.
• Clarify, summarize, and conclude discussions and activities, making sure
that facts are given.
• Assess participants’ acquisition of knowledge and skills.
Each group of youth is different. It is important that the facilitator takes time to
assess the group’s needs so that the most effective ways of meeting these needs
are adopted. To adapt the activities in this manual for young people with limited
experience with reading and writing, follow the principles and guidelines below.
Key principles:
Be creative. You can find fun and exciting ways to implement the same activity or
a completely new activity to achieve the objectives.
Involve the group. Invite the participants as much as possible to help with any
preparation that needs to be done, including getting the room set up, preparing
materials, etc.
Use audio-visuals as much as possible. This includes posters, pictures, drawings,
models, local materials identified by the group, etc.
52
Guidelines:
 Use simple and local language and terms as much as possible.
 Use group work and sharing a lot.
 Let members of the group answer questions and summarize as much as
possible, using their own vernacular and terms.
 Use real-life examples when trying to make a factual point.
 Use normal, everyday things as part of the training resources where
possible, e.g. paper, tins, buttons, sticks, etc. Get the group to collect these
if and when needed.
 Ask a person from the group to repeat or copy what you have said or done
to check that the group understands.
 Use youth interactive activities such as: Playing games; card games are
good. These may need to be developed from scratch depending on the
issue. Let the group help with this, if possible, by letting them: Identify the
activity. Collect and cut up pictures. Cut or paste/glue cards. Making
collages (pictures made from cutting up small pieces of papers and sticking
them on a board or other solid backing).
• Making up songs and poems using facts. This makes the facts easier to
remember, especially if the participants make up their own songs or poems
and teach the group.
 Encourage and allow the group to share experiences so they can learn from
each other.
 Use local folklore, stories, and proverbs that relate to life experiences of
value formation, teaching, and learning.
 Encourage demonstrations

53
Appendix 3: The Highland Council Learning and Teaching Reflection
Framework. © The Highland Council/Robert Fisher
Permission is granted to individual schools for the free use of these materials on
condition that copyright is acknowledged. No other use is granted without the
prior agreement of the copyright holders.

Most teaching starts by drawing on a basic repertoire of three kinds of classroom talk:
• rote (teacher-class): the drilling of facts, ideas and routines through repetition.
• recitation (teacher-class or teacher-group): the accumulation of knowledge and
understanding through questions designed to test or stimulate recall of what has
been previously encountered, or to cue pupils to work out the answer from clues
provided in the question.
• instruction / exposition (teacher-class, teacher-group or teacher-individual):
telling the pupil what to do, and/or imparting information, and/or explaining facts,
principles or procedures.

These provide the familiar and traditional bedrock of teaching by direct instruction.
Less universally, some teachers, but by no means all, also use:
• discussion (teacher-class, teacher-group, pupil-pupil): the exchange of ideas with
a view to sharing information and solving problems.
• scaffolded dialogue (teacher-class, teacher-group, teacher-pupil, or pupil-pupil):
achieving common understanding through structured and cumulative questioning
and discussion which guide and prompt, reduce choices, minimise risk and error,
and expedite ‘handover’ of concepts and principles.

The two groups are not mutually exclusive, and the argument is not that rote, recitation
and exposition should be abandoned. All five have their place. Dialogic talk, therefore, is
part of the larger oral repertoire which is needed in order that schools may meet the
diverse objectives of a broad curriculum, and so that children may be empowered both
in their learning now and later as adult members of society.
But talk empowers socially as well as cognitively, and children themselves need to
acquire the capacity to:
• narrate
• explain
• instruct
• ask different kinds of question

54
 • receive, act and build upon answers
• analyse and solve problems
• speculate and imagine
• explore and evaluate ideas
• discuss, argue, reason and negotiate

and, in order that they can do this effectively with others:

• listen
• be receptive to alternative viewpoints
• think about what they hear
• give others time to think.
•
The quality of classroom talk depends on many factors: the speaking and listening skills
of children and teachers, teachers’ subject knowledge (for taking children’s thinking
forward requires a clear conceptual map of the directions which that thinking should
take), classroom climate, classroom organisation, and so on.
The indicators below are placed in two groups. The first group deals with the wider
context within which dialogic teaching is placed. The second group lists some of the
main properties of the talk which provides the core of dialogic teaching.
Dialogic teaching is indicated by:

Teacher-pupil interaction (for example in whole class and collective - teacher-led - group
settings) in which:

• questions are structured so as to provoke thoughtful answers and answers

provoke further questions and are seen as the building blocks of dialogue
• individual teacher-pupil and pupil-pupil exchanges are connected into coherent
lines of enquiry
• there is a balance between the social and the cognitive purposes of talk, between
encouraging participation and structuring understanding;
• pupils, not just teachers, are encouraged to ask questions and provide
explanations
• those who are not speaking participate no less actively by listening, looking,
reflecting and evaluating,
• the classroom is arranged so all can see and respond to each other
• all are encouraged speak clearly, audibly and expressively;
• children have the confidence to make mistakes, and understand that mistakes
are viewed as something to learn from, not be ashamed of.

55
Pupil-pupil interaction (for example, in collaborative group settings) in which children
listen carefully to each other; encourage each other to participate and share ideas; build
on their own and each others’ contributions; strive to reach common understanding and
agreed conclusions, yet respect minority viewpoints.

Teacher-pupil one-to-one monitoring which lasts for long enough to make a difference;
is instructional rather than merely supervisory and provides diagnostic feedback on
which children can build.

Questioning (whether in whole class, group or individual interactions) which: is

anchored in the context and content of the lesson; builds on previous knowledge; elicits
evidence of children’s understanding; combines invitations for closed / narrow and open
/ discursive / speculative responses (what is?’ and ‘what might be?’ questions);
combines the routine and the probing; uses cued elicitations and leading questions
sparingly rather than habitually; prompts and challenges thinking and reasoning;
balances open-endedness with guidance and structure in order to reduce the possibility
for error; and achieves consistency between its form and intent (e.g. where questions
are questions rather than instructions, and open questions are genuinely open, rather
than invitations to guess the one ‘right’ answer).

Responses to questioning which: address the question in the depth it invites rather than
worry about spotting the ‘correct’ answer; move beyond yes/no or simple recall to
extended answers involving reasoning, hypothesising and ‘thinking aloud’; and are
considered and discursive rather than brief and prematurely curtailed.
Feedback on responses which: replaces the monosyllabically positive, negative or non-
committal judgement (e.g. repeating the respondent’s answer) by focused and
informative diagnostic feedback on which pupils can build; uses praise discriminatingly
and appropriately, and filters out the routine use of ‘wow’, ‘fantastic’, ‘good boy’, ‘good
girl’, ‘very good’, ‘excellent’ etc.; keeps lines of enquiry open rather than closes them
down; and encourages children to articulate their ideas openly and confidently, without
fear of embarrassment or retribution if they are wrong.

Pupil talk through which children: narrate, explain, instruct, ask different kinds of
question, receive, act and build upon answers, analyse and solve problems, speculate
and imagine, explore and evaluate ideas, discuss, argue, reason and justify and
negotiate.
Good talk does not always just happen – it needs to be planned. Good questioning
promotes children’s understanding and does not merely test their recall of information.
Such questioning can improve comprehension in reading and writing as well as in talk.
The quality of children’s talk is greatly enhanced if children are given time to think.
Discussion increases pupil’s access to learning.
56
Talking before writing helps children to think, and then write, in sentences. Shifting the
proportion of time in a writing lesson away from the writing itself and towards the talk
actually benefits the writing.

Talk is a powerful tool for raising the confidence of children with special needs and
those with low self-esteem.
Children enjoy and are stimulated by well-structured oral lessons, and they readily
adapt to the rather different ground rules which are necessary for such lesson to run
smoothly.
Though the assumption that written work is the only ‘real’ work is deeply ingrained,
children come to appreciate that talk is work too, especially if it requires the kind of self-
discipline which is normally associated with written tasks.

Questions
• What is the best way of organising the class for group discussion?
• What are the best conditions for whole class dialogue?
• How can we ensure that collaborative (pupil-led) group work is as disciplined and
productive? What kinds of tasks are appropriate? What kinds of skills do
participants need? How can they be developed?
• Dialogic teaching encourages us to reduce the dominance of ‘Now who can tell
me…?’ questions followed by bidding, and to use more focused questions linked
to the nomination of specific children. what is the right balance of bidding and
nomination, and how is each of them best used?
• What kinds of questioning promotes children’s understanding? What is the right
balance of questioning and exposition? When should we question and when
should we tell, inform or explain?
• What kind of feedback informs and extends as well as encourages.
• What are the differences between talk, discussion and dialogue?

57
Appendix 4: PEER and SELF-ASSESSMENT AND
PERSONAL LEARNING PLANNING; USEFUL STRATEGIES

Involving pupils in marking

Pupils can mark their own work and that of others against clear criteria and learning
intentions. The criteria can be developed as a class activity; this clarifies the teacher’s
expectations and involves the pupils in reflecting on how far their work fulfils these
expectations. The aim of the activity should be to identify ways that the pupil whose
work is being marked can move forward. (Good examples of this strategy are provided
from the AAIA publication ‘Pupils learning from Teachers’ responses’).

Marking in groups
An alternative to marking individually is for pupils to do this as a group. The focus
should be on a recently completed piece of work and the group help each other to
assess the work against agreed criteria and suggest ways in which the work could be
improved.

Marking against annotated examples

Another useful marking strategy is for groups to work together to see how closely their
work measures up against an ‘ideal solution’. Whilst it will be important to emphasise
that there could be many ‘ideal solutions’, group discussion should aim to help each
pupil understand the extent to which their response achieves the criteria and what they
can do to improve. Individual self-assessment sheets
These can be developed for some elements of a programme and invite pupils to reflect
on the extent to which their work has achieved identified criteria. In the light of this they
have to indicate what they need to do to improve.

Traffic lights
This has proved a popular strategy and invites pupils to reflect on the current state of
their learning in relation to a particular task or activity. If they feel confident that they
understand a given piece of work, they use a green indicator (a marker, coloured
pencil / crayon, or a sticker). If they are not quite sure of their understanding they use
amber. If they are very uncertain, they use a red indicator.
In the light of their judgement, it is important that pupils then think about what they need
to do to move from red/amber to green. Students indicating green could be used to
advise those who used amber and the teacher can then work with those who used red.
An alternative to the traffic lights is to use three versions of smiley faces or post it notes.

58
Last five minutes
At the start of a lesson, the teacher makes the purpose of the lesson clear and during
the last five minutes, one of the pupils explains what they have learned in the lesson.
Others in the class question them about this.

Questions and tasks to extend understanding

At the end of a lesson or a unit of work, pupils can be invited to suggest questions that
could be used to assess their understanding against the established criteria. These
could become homework tasks, which could be assessed by pupils in ways described
above.

Gauging self-improvement against their own past work

The same problem or task could be reintroduced from time to time, as part of a revision
exercise, so that pupils can judge for themselves how much better or more
sophisticated their reasoning is now than before. By returning to a problem or task and
comparing current responses to those produced in the past they can develop an
appreciation of their own mental growth and the development of new forms of thought
and perspective.

Portfolios of past work

Pupils could be invited to produce a class or subject portfolio of completed work that
illustrates the standards expected. This could be regularly added to by drawing on
examples from the above activities.

Presentations
During the course of a unit of work, providing opportunities to present to the class allows
an individuals and groups to illustrate current understanding and progress. Self-
assessment is involved in making decisions about what to include and how best to
present. Feedback from teachers and peers contributes to the development of Peer
assessment.

Videoing group presentations

This allows pupils to reflect on and review their knowledge in the light of their own
reflections and further feedback from other members of the class.

“Plan, Do and Review”

This is a process developed in the High Scope Project for very young children. At the
start of any activity the teacher works with the children to decide on the focus for a
session. The children engage in the activity or task and then at the end, time is
allocated for them to work with the teacher to review what has been learned. Over time,
this responsibility can be devolved to the children themselves.
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It’s OK not to understand and be stuck
An important element of developing the skills of self-evaluation is how the teacher deals
with situations where pupils find their work difficult. The language that teachers use is
influential in building an acceptance that it is OK to find things difficult and that
recognising this is an important aspect of learning. Consider ways in which you can get
that message over to pupils.

Reflection
To supplement this teachers have found that introducing a framework for reflecting on
learning can help develop confidence in pointing out areas which need support as well
as those that have proved successful.
For example, the following list of questions (perhaps using one or two at a time) can be
used to start the process. It is usually best to relate these to the specific learning
intentions of the lesson.
o Have you learned anything new?
o What were you most pleased with?
o What did you find easy?
o What did you find more difficult?
o What helped you to solve your difficulty?
o What can you do now that you couldn’t do before?
o What do you need more help with?
o How would you change this activity

60
61
Appendix 4. External Assessment – an example
Assessment will focus on the application of standards and expectations of each
learner’s progress and achievement in:

Learning outcomes Breadth - how much

Skills by assessing Challenge - how well

(Life, Learning, Work)

Learning experiences Application - in unfamiliar

contexts

62
The three aspects of learning and
The three aspects of assessment
teaching

ACROSS BREADTH OF LEARNING BREADTH

This will involve sustained achievement in an A variety of assessment approaches

increasing number of outcomes across the
breadth of learning described in the
experiences and outcomes. Learners will
demonstrate success by building on previous
learning and being able to make links in
learning by looking back as well as forward.
Broadening and enhancing experience within
a level are important parts of progression to
the next level.
should allow learners to demonstrate
their knowledge and understanding, skills,
attributes and capabilities across the
range of the experiences and outcomes.
Assessment of this nature is aligned with
teaching that develops a broad range of
learning.

CHALLENGING ASPECTS CHALLENGE

Participating in challenging tasks and activities
develops learners’ interest and confidence in
some aspects of their learning. It also
develops some skills, attributes and
capabilities to a high level.
Assessment should give learners the
opportunity to demonstrate aspects of
learning where they have a depth of
knowledge and understanding skills. This
allows them to progress in areas of
strength and interest.

APPLYING LEARNING IN DIFFERENT AND APPLICATION

UNFAMILIAR CONTEXTS
Assessment needs to sample learning in
Applying learning in different ways is the context in which it was developed and
important to developing higher order thinking in straightforward ways. Assessment
skills and provides relevance and purpose to should probe the ability to apply the
learning, as well as making it more secure. It learning in more challenging tasks and in
also offers opportunities to make links across unfamiliar situations (these are important
ideas and concepts they have already learned,
63 abilities for life and work) and to develop
st
an important dimension of 21 century skills. resilience and the ability to stick at a task
until it is completed.
Planning for learning and assessment:

Assessment of progress and achievements 3-15 will be based on teachers’

assessment. A coherent approach to planning courses, learning and teaching and
assessment is necessary, as illustrated in the following diagram.

Literacy and Numeracy:

All teachers in schools will assess children’s progress in literacy and numeracy to
support learning and teaching.

Moderation and quality assurance:

Moderation is the term used to describe approaches for arriving at a shared

understanding of standards and expectations for the broad general education. It
involves teachers, and other professionals as appropriate, working together, drawing on
guidance and exemplification and building on existing standards and expectations to:

 plan learning, teaching and assessment

 check that assessment tasks and activities provide learners with fair and valid
opportunities to meet the standards and expectations before assessments are
used
 sample evidence from learners’ work and review teachers’ judgements
 agree strengths in learners’ performances and next steps in learning
 provide feedback on teachers’ judgements to inform improvements in practices

Moderation helps to ensure that there is an appropriate focus on outcomes for learners,
that learning is at the appropriate level and that learners develop the skills for learning,

64
skills for life and skills for work, including higher order thinking skills, which will allow
them to be successful in the future.

Reflective questions:

What is different?
What is currently already good practice?
What are the implications for the school?
What are the implications for the authority?
What are the implications for you?
What are the challenges?
What are the opportunities?
How are we going to develop shared understanding of standards within experiences
and outcomes?
How will we show progression throughout a level?
What is a realistic timescale for producing and using summative assessment
information at transition from each stage to the next?

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Appendix 6 –An example from Ethiopia (The English scheme of work)

Introduction
In grade 1 the students have 5 periods of English a week. The syllabus
contains 15 units and each unit is divided up into 11 and 12 periods (see
the syllabus for the details). At this level there are no revision units.
The focus of grade 1 is on speaking and listening as students are still
developing literacy skills in their native languages. However, there is still
some basic work on forming and recognising letters of the English alphabet.
Topics are familiar and concrete and language content is basic. The
activities are active, learner-focused, varied and most importantly fun.
They include many games and songs and opportunities to draw. The main
goal is to give students some basic language appropriate to their level and
age. This will act as a foundation for grade 2. Teachers are strongly
advised to the look at the Grade 1 Minimum Learning Competencies for all
of the four skills which also act as objectives.

Competency Content/Language item Learning activities and Resources

Unit 1: Greetings (12 periods)

Unit Outcomes: Students will be able to
• exchange greetings and give their name and grade
• name objects in the classroom environment
• follow some classroom instructions
• handle writing implements correctly
• use a pencil to draw strokes used in forming English letters using straight lines.

Students will be able to:

• exchange greetings
• say sentences that express their personal details
• name some classroom objects
• read letters a,e,t
• copy patterns that are made up of vertical strokes used in the formation of English letters.

A. Listening and Speaking

Good morning/afternoon
teacher/students.
Greeting and telling names

66
E.g. Good morning. My name is .
My father's name is .
I’m in grade one. Repeat after me Show me a pen, pencil, etc. Give me a book, bag, etc.

B. Pre-Reading
letters e,t,a
Names of classroom objects

C. Pre-Writing
• Writing patterns
• Greet and tell your name and father’s name first. E.g. T: My name is (name).
• Ask the students to exchange greetings and tell their names and grade in turn.
• Teach some greetings in a song.

• Read letters and let the students repeat after you.

• Make them read letters aloud
• let them match letters e to e, a to a, t to t. Let them find a letter you call out from a mixed
group of letters.
• Write the patterns on the blackboard. Show students how to hold their pencils
• Make students copy them down into their exercise books.

Assessment
Speaking and listening
In pairs students practise meeting each other for the first time. One student points to an object
and other says the object.

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Appendix 8
Research round-up: Materials for discussion and summary

1. Vision and Leadership

Fifteen Thousand Hours: Secondary Schools and their Effects on Children

M Rutter, B Maughan, P Mortimore and J Ouston (1979), Open Books

Consensus on the values and goals of the school is associated with improved educational
outcomes. Unity of purpose, particularly when it is in combination with a positive attitude
towards learning and towards the pupils, is a powerful mechanism for effective schooling.

The atmosphere of a school will be greatly influenced by the degree to which it functions as a
coherent unit. Consistent approaches to discipline are particularly important in that pupils are
more likely to maintain principles and guidelines of behaviour if they see that standards are
based on the general expectations set by the school as a whole.

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The Organisation of Effective Secondary Schools

V Lee, A Bryk and J Smith (1993), in L Darling-Hammond (ed) Research in Education,

19, 171-226, American Educational Research Association

This review of the literature concerning the organisation of effective secondary schools points to
the importance of a sense of community as being a crucial factor in success. Elements such as
cooperative working, effective communication and shared goals have been identified as being
particularly important. Whilst the extent to which this is possible is partly in the hands of the
headteacher, it also relates to other, broader features of schools which are not necessarily
determined by particular individuals.

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School Matters: The Junior Years

P Mortimore, P Sammons, L Stoll, D Lewis and R Ecob (1988), Open Books

Linked to the idea of working together and achieving a sense of community is the extent to
which teachers follow a consistent approach to their work and adhere to common agreed
approaches to matters such as assessment, and the enforcement of rules and policies regarding
rewards and sanctions. In schools where teachers adopt a consistent approach to the use of
school policies and guidelines there is a positive impact on pupils’ progress.

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Successful Secondary Schools

B Wilson and T Corcoran (1988), London: Falmer Press

Collegiality and collaboration are important conditions for creating and sustaining the vision.
Pupil success is greater in schools with a decision-making process in which all teachers feel their

68
views are represented and seriously considered. The contribution to achievement also comes
through a strong sense of community among staff and pupils, fostered through relationships
involving support and respect. It also comes through staff sharing ideas, observing each other
and generally working together to improve the teaching programme.

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The Quality of Schooling: frameworks for judgement

J Gray (1990), British Journal of Educational Studies, 38, (3), 204-33

The importance of the headteacher’s leadership is one of the clearest messages emerging from
research. There is no evidence of a school being effective with weak leadership.

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Principals as Leaders in a Culture of Change

M Fullan (2002), Educational Leadership, May Issue

The leader of the future has to be much more attuned to the big picture, and much more
sophisticated at conceptual thinking, and transforming the organisation through people and
teams. The key aspects of leadership are the personal characteristics of energy, enthusiasm and
hope, together with the five core components of leadership: moral purpose, understanding
change, relationship building, knowledge creation and sharing, and coherence making.

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Distributed leadership as a unit of analysis

P Gronn (2002), The Leadership Quarterly, 13, 423-51

Instead of a view of leadership that focuses primarily on the deeds of individual leaders, the idea
of distributed leadership is proposed. The focus of distributed leadership is on leadership as
‘concertive’ action, the idea that distributed leadership is more than the sum of its parts. This
view of distributed leadership is about the leadership that emerges from within groups and the
influence that individuals can have acting together.

There are three varieties of concertive action: ‘spontaneous collaboration’ on particular tasks in
which leadership is reflected in the interaction and relationships among people with different
skills and from different organisational levels; ‘shared role’ which emerges between two or more
people and involves close joint working; and ‘institutionalisation’ of structures of working
together, such as committees.

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Leading or Misleading: Distributed Leadership and School Improvement

A Harris (2005), Journal of Curriculum Studies, 37, (3), 255-67

The idea of distributed leadership offers a new and important way of interpreting and evaluating
leadership practice in schools. Research suggests that distributed forms of leadership can assist
capacity building within schools. However, further work is needed to investigate the relationship
between distributed leadership and improved school and pupil outcomes.

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 back to top

Transformational Leadership

K Leithwood and D Jantzi (2005), in B Davies (ed) The Essentials of School Leadership,
Paul Chapman Publishers

Transformational approaches to leadership emphasise emotions and values, and have the
fundamental aim of fostering capacity development and higher levels of personal commitment to
organisational goals on the part of leaders’ colleagues. Some of the research has shown that
transformational leadership practices can explain a small but significant amount of variation on
pupils’ engagement in school.

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Principals’ roles in the development of US programs of school, family, and community

partnerships

Frances Van Voorhis and Steven Sheldon, International Journal of Educational

Research, Volume 41, Issue 1, 2004

There are many reasons why any given school may be more or less successful educating
students. Perhaps the most important of these is the school principal Educators, researchers,
communities, and politicians interested in improving the quality of schools have long recognized
the principal as a critical force in creating and maintaining strong schools. Principals are vital to
the success of schools because they play many roles as leader. They supervise staff, interact
with students, oversee student discipline, work with families and the community, manage school
facilities, assist in curriculum decisions, plan staff development, and administer the budget, to
name a few. With so many responsibilities, it is not surprising that strong principal leadership
contributes to effective schools.

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2. Culture and Ethos

Self-concept and School Achievement

W W Purkey (1970), Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall

Teachers should be supportive of pupils and create a climate in which their contributions are
valued. Praise is useful but should not be overused as otherwise it will be perceived as insincere.
Teachers should emphasise pupils’ successes rather than their failures. They should draw
attention to those parts of a task that are done well, and emphasise that making mistakes is a
way of learning rather than something to be ashamed of. Pupils should be encouraged to strive
for their own personal best rather than compete with others by always comparing their results
with those of their classmates.

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Caution: Praise can be Dangerous

C Dweck (1999), American Educator, Spring Issue

When we praise children for their ability, we are telling them that successful learning is all about
ability, appearing intelligent, not making mistakes. If a pupil believes that they are unlikely to

70
succeed they tend to disengage from the task in hand to protect their self-esteem. On the other
hand, when we praise children for the effort and hard work that leads to achievement, they are
motivated to want to keep engaging in that process. Whether their belief about the likelihood of
success is strong or not, they will engage with the task to improve their ability. They are not
diverted from the task of learning by a concern to look intelligent and preserve their self-esteem.

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Interpersonal Teacher Behaviour in the Classroom

Dhaqanka khaaska ah ee macallinka markuu fasalka ku jiro.

T Wubbels, M Brekelmans and H Hooymayers (1991), in B J Fraser and H J Walberg

(eds) Educational Environments (deegaan waxbarasho): Evaluation (qiimeyn,)
Antecedents (ugu horeeya) and Consequences ( natiijoyin,) Oxford: Pergamon Press

A warm supportive environment has been found to be important to teacher effectiveness,

especially in encouraging pupils to contribute constructively in the classroom.

(waxaa laga ogaday in deegan diiran oo taageere ah uu muhiim u yahay macalinka wax
qabadkiisa gaar ahaan markii dhiiro galinayo ardayda si ay uga qayb qaataan si wax ku ool ah
fasalka dhexdiisa).

Teachers who are perceived as being understanding, helpful and friendly and show leadership
without being too strict have been found to enhance pupils’ achievement and their affective
outcomes.

(macaliminta loo arko in ay yihiin kuwa wax fahma, caawiye iyo sxb soona bandhiga hugaamin
ayaga oo aan aad hal meel ugu dheganayn waxaa loo arkaa in ay kor u qaadaan guul gaarida
ardayda iyo iyo natiijooyinka la xiriira dareekooda.

Teachers who come across as uncertain, dissatisfied with their pupils and admonishing produce
lower cognitive and affective outcomes.

(macaliminta aan aan is hubin, ku kalsonayn ardaydooda canaantana wax soo saaraan
natiijooyin garaadeed iyo kuwo dareemeed oo hoose)

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Emotional Intelligence and Interpersonal Relations

(caadifadda maskaxda iyo xiriirada khaaska ah)

N S Schutte, J M Malouf, C Bobik, T D Coston, C Greeson, C Jedlika, E Rhodes and G

Wendorf (2001) , Journal of Social Psychology 141 (4), 523-36

Recent research points to the importance of developing emotional intelligence, the extent to
which people are able to empathize, show social adeptness and adaptability and are self-aware
with respect to their impact on others.

Cilmi baaristu hadda waxay tilmaantaa muhiimadda horumarinta caadifadda maskaxda, ilaa heer
ay dadku awood u yeeshaan inay xoogga saaraan, muujigaan khibrad bulshadeedka iyo la
qabsigai noqdaana kuwa wacyi gashan tixgaliyana raadka ay ku sameeyaan dadka kale.

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71
School Matters: The Junior Years

Xaalaha iskuulka: (sanadada hore/hoose)

P Mortimore, P Sammons, L Stoll, D Lewis and R Ecob (1988), Open Books

In classes where the pupils were stimulated and challenged, progress was greatest. Particularly
important was where teachers used more higher-order questions and statements, when they
encouraged pupils to use their creative imagination and powers of problem solving.

Fasallada ay ardaydu dhiiro gashanan jireen lana xujeyn jirey, hor u kaco aad buu sareyn jiray.
Gaar ahaan waxaa muhiim ahaa marka ay macalimiintu isticmaalaan su’aalo heer sare ah iyo
oraahyo marka ay dhiiro galinayaan ardaydu inay isticmaalaan hirdise hal-abuureed iyo awoodo
xallin dhibaatoyin.

Also, in classrooms which were bright and interesting, where the context created by the teacher
was stimulating, and where teachers succeeded in communicating their own interest and
enthusiasm to the pupils, greater pupil progress occurred.

(sido kale, fasalladii fir-fircoona xiiso gashanaana, halkaas oo jawiga macalinku abuuro uu ahaa
mid dhiiro galinaya isla markaasna macalimintu guul ka gaaraan danahooda iyo himmad galinta
ardaydooda, waxaa dhacay hor u kac sare.

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Onward to Excellence: Effective Schooling Practices - a research synthesis

Kor-u-kas sare: wax-qabadyo waxbarasho oo wax ku ool ah. Alifaad cilmibared

North WestRegional Educational Laboratory (1990), North West Regional Educational

Laboratory, Portland, Oregon

Teachers had lower expectations for younger pupils in the class and for those from lower social
classes, even when account was taken of children’s attainment in areas such as reading and
mathematics.

Macalimintu waxay lahayeen filashooyin hooseeya dhanka ardayda yar yar ee fasalka ku jira iyo
kuwa ka yimaada dabaqaadka hoose ee bulshada xitaa marka lagu xisaabta lagu daro
horumarka ciyaalka sida akhrinta iyo xisaabta.

Even if teachers do not believe success is possible, conveying conviction that achievement can
be raised can have a powerful effect.

Xitaa haddii macalimintu aysan aminsanayan in guul la gaari karo, xambaarsanaanka tuhuhka in
guul gaarka kor loo qaado wuxuu yeelan karaa saamayn xoog weyn.

Teachers may need to monitor either or both their beliefs and behaviour.

(macalimintu waxay u baahnaan karaa in ay qiimeeyaan waxa ay aminsan yihiin iyo

dhaqankooda.)

Raising expectations is an incremental process and success plays a critical role.

Kor u qaadida filashooyinku waa wasiilo mid lagama marmaan ah guul gaariduna waxay
ciyaartaa dowr muuhiin ah.

Reinforcing this success through praise is a key opportunity for communicating high expectations

72
Xoojinta guulshaani ayadoo loo marayo ammaanid waxay fursad muhiim ah u tahaygaariga
filasho heer sare ah.

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Effective Teaching Methods (3rd edition)

Qaab wax-barid wax ku ool ah.

G Borich (1996), New York: Macmillan

Among the teacher behaviors that may be necessary to attain high achievement gains in
classrooms are the following:

Waxaa ka mid ah dhaqamada kuwaas oo lagama marmaan ah si loo gaaro guulo sare fasalka
dhexdiisa kuwaan soo socda:

 generating a warm and supportive climate by letting children know help is available;

in la abuuro jawi diiran oo taageere ah ayadoo loo ogolaanayo caruurtu inaan ogaadaan
iyo caawin helayaan.

 the use of individually differentiated material;

isticmaalka qalabka loogu talo galay shakhsiyaadka kala duwan.

 the use of the experiences of pupils;

isticmaalka khibradaadka ardayda.

 Posing questions that that require associations and generalizations;

Weydiinta su’aalo u baahan ururo iyo baahsanaan.

 The use of projects that require independent judgment, discovery, problem solving

Isticmaalka saadaalo u baahan go’aanno madax bannaan, daah furrid iyo xallina
dhibaatooyinka.

 And the use of original information

Iyo isticmaalka macluumadka asalka ah.

 And encouraging learners to take responsibility for their own learning.

Iyo in la dhiiro galiyo bartayaasha si ay mas’uuliyada waxbarashadooda u qaadaan.

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3. Learning and Teaching

How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience and School

73
 National Research Council (2000), Washington DC: National Academy Press

The evidence from research is that when the following principles are incorporated into teaching
pupil achievement improves.

 Teachers need to draw out and work with the existing knowledge and understandings
that pupils bring with them into the classroom. They need to involve learners actively in the
learning process through questioning and discussion, and by creating appropriate tasks and
activities. The use of formative assessment to provide frequent feedback is also important if
learning with understanding is to be achieved rather than merely the ability to repeat facts or
perform isolated skills.

 The teaching of metacognitive skills should be integrated into the curriculum in a variety
of subjects and curricular areas. It is by talking about their thinking that pupils’ understanding
can be reinforced and developed. Research has demonstrated that children can be taught a
range of strategies including the ability to predict outcomes, explain to oneself in order to
improve understanding, note failures to understand, activate background knowledge, plan ahead
and apportion time.

 Teachers should provide a firm foundation in terms of subject matter. The ability to plan
a task, recognise patterns and connections, put forward arguments and explanations and draw
analogies are all more closely intertwined with factual knowledge than was once believed.
Factual knowledge also needs to be taught in an organised way so that the key concepts within a
discipline can be understood.

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Progression and Continuity in early Childhood Education: Tensions and Contradictions

E Wood and N Bennett (1999), International Journal of Early Years Education 7 (1) 5-
16

Research has shown that young children learn best when they are actively interacting with others
and their environment rather than being passive recipients of information. Early years teaching
should be highly interactive and pupils should be encouraged to explore their environment.
Children should have opportunities to record their learning in a variety of ways - verbally,
written, through painting, drawing and building things.

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School Effectiveness and Teacher Effectiveness: Some preliminary Findings from the
Evaluation of the Mathematics Enhancement Programme

R D Muijs and D Reynolds (2000), School Effectiveness and School Improvement 11

(2)

The pupils who showed the strongest gains in mathematics achievement were those whose
teachers spent more time teaching the whole class as opposed to teaching individuals. More
whole-class teaching allows teachers to be effective, in a way that individualised approaches do
not. While spending a large proportion of the lesson teaching the whole class is beneficial,
individual or group practice is also necessary to enhance pupil learning.

The centrality of the teacher in pupils’ learning processes is clear. Any approach designed to let
pupils learn on their own, with the teacher acting merely as a 'facilitator' is likely to fall short of
the cognitive demands of primary age children.

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74
Developing the capacity to collaborate

L Dawes & C Sams (2004). K Littleton, D Miell and D Faulkner (eds), Learning to
Collaborate: Collaborating to Learn, Nova Science Inc.

The direct teaching of speaking and listening skills can help children to understand the purposes
of group work and provide them with the means to collaborate with one another.

A number of strategies have been shown to help children as they develop effective discussion
skills and begin to apply them, for example modelling the kinds of conversations that children
are being asked to engage in and encouraging children to reflect on and evaluate the quality of
their discussion.

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Promoting Thinking for Learning through Collaborative Enquiry: An Evaluation of

‘Thinking through Philosophy’

S Trickey (2006), Doctoral Thesis, Dundee University

Experimental pupils in the Cognitive Abilities Test (CAT) study gained an average of six
standardised points on the Cognitive Abilities Test suggesting that the Philosophy for Children
process had a positive impact on the pupils’ reasoning abilities. Gains were also found in the
experimental group in the Myself-As-a-Learner-Scale (MALS) study suggesting that the process
of enquiry can lead to improvements in self-perceptions of academic self-esteem.

The study of the impact of ‘communities of enquiry’ on dialogue and critical thinking through
video analysis of classroom discussion found evidence of gains in critical thinking, increased
participation of pupils, more elaborated pupil responses and increased use of open-ended
questioning by teachers.

The study of pupil perceptions of social/emotional outcomes arising from their participation in
‘communities of enquiry’ suggested that collaborative enquiry increased pupil perceptions of
participation, communication skills, confidence and concentration.

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An Exploration of Long-term Far-transfer Effects Following an Extended Intervention

Programme in High School Science Curriculum

M Shayer and P Adey (2002), in C Deforges and R Fox (eds) Teaching and Learning:
The Essential Readings, Blackwell Publishing

Pupils involved in the CASE (Cognitive Acceleration in Science Education) project performed
significantly better in the English GCSE science examination than a matched control group, not
just in science but in other subjects as well. The gains in English and maths as well as the
expected gains in Science appeared several years after the initial intervention.

The learning activities involved cognitive conflict - pupils are led to make observations that do
not fit with their expectations; dialogue with the whole class and with individuals and small
groups; metacognition - pupils are helped to become aware of and articulate the sort of
thinking they are using to solve different problems; bridging - linking what has been developed
to the broader science curriculum and pupils' own experiences.

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75
A Curriculum for Excellence: Overview of Recent Research-Based Literature for the
Curriculum Review

Donald Christie and Brian Boyd, University of Strathclyde

A Curriculum for Excellence identifies three factors upon which the opportunity for children to
develop the four capacities will depend - the environment for learning, the choice of teaching and
learning approaches and the ways in which learning is organised. In their review of the research-
based literature the authors identified a number of common themes across the different ‘areas’
of the curriculum and grouped them under the three factors. The themes are listed below
together with some key questions.

The environment for learning

Respect - to what extent is the integrity of individuals and groups safeguarded and enhanced by
the learning experiences provided?

Pupil voice - to what extent are pupils consulted and encouraged to express their views about,
and hence shape, their own learning experiences through constructive dialogue?

Experiential learning - how can we create an environment in which students are allowed to
interact in real life contexts, to construct individual meaning and to engage in complex actions
that reflect life outside school?

Relevance - can learners relate the purposes of the learning to their own needs and interests
arising out of their individual experiences of life – in school, in their families and in their
communities?

Clear goals and feedback - to what extent can pupils share in setting targets for their own
learning and how is attainment and progress tracked and effectively communicated to learners in
ways that can enhance their learning processes?

The choice of teaching and learning approaches

Active engagement - how can learning activities be designed in order to provide a stimulating
context for the active engagement of individual learners?

Meaningfulness - how can we ensure that the learner can make the necessary connections with
new information, and make sense of the learning experiences provided?

Motivation - is there a willingness on the part of pupils to engage with the process of learning?
How can we make the learning challenging, enjoyable and/or seen as worthy of effort?

Metacognition - how can pupils be encouraged to be reflective – to ‘learn how to learn’?

ICT and learning - how can we use ICT tools to enhance and transform pupils’ learning?

The ways in which learning is organised

Cooperative and collaborative learning - what opportunities are provided for peer mediated
learning? How can a collaborative learning community be constructed in order to reap the
advantages of a classroom culture within which teachers and students support one another in
pursuit of clearly articulated goals?

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Problem-based learning - how can we provide pupils with the challenge of real problems to
solve as individuals or in collaborative groups, thus fostering the motivation which comes from a
genuine ‘need to know’ the answer?

Grouping - how can the needs of individual pupils best be met by differentiation and
organisational strategies that do not themselves create negative consequences?

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Formative assessment and the design of instructional systems

R Sadler (1989), Instructional Science, 18, 119-44

The core of formative assessment lies in the sequence of two actions. The first is the perception
by the learner of a gap between the desired goal and his or her present state of
knowledge/understanding/skill. The second is the action taken by the learner to close the gap in
order to attain the desired goal. The learner first has to understand the evidence about this gap
and then take action on the basis of that evidence. Although the teacher can stimulate and guide
this process, the learning has to be done by the learner. This suggests that the development of
self-assessment by the learner is an important feature of any programme of formative
assessment.

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Classrooms: goals, structures and student motivation

C Ames (1992), Journal of Educational Psychology, 84, 261-71

This study describes the importance of learning intentions or goals for learning. Ames calls these
'mastery goals' because they are based on the belief that effort will lead to success or a sense of
mastery. With a mastery goal, individuals are focused on developing their skills, trying to
understand their work or improving their level of competence. Students’ beliefs that they can
accomplish a task with reasonable effort, and their willingness to apply the effort, can be
enhanced when tasks are defined in terms of specific and short-term goals.

Mastery goals increase the amount of time children spend on learning tasks. They also
strengthen their persistence in the face of difficulty and improve the quality of their engagement
in learning. Active engagement is characterised by the application of effective learning and
problem-solving strategies, and students’ use of these strategies is dependent on a belief that
effort leads to success and that failure can be remedied by a change in strategy.

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Inside the Black Box: Raising Standards through Classroom Assessment

P Black and D Wiliam (1998), London: School of Education, King’s College

Formative assessment can have a strong positive impact on pupil performance, especially if
particular feedback strategies are used. For example, rather than just giving marks teachers
should provide written comments on pupil work, in particular comments that focus on precise
ways pupils can improve their work. This has been found to lead to significant improvements in
learning.

Developing pupils’ self-assessment skills can also help them to become more self-regulated and
effective learners. For pupils to be able to do that three elements need to be in place: clear goals
or targets for pupils, clear information on where they stand in relations to those targets, and

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some understanding of how they can close the gap between where they are now and their
targets.

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Enhancing and Undermining Intrinsic Motivation: The Effects of Task-involving and

Ego-involving Evaluation on interest and performance

R Butler (1988), British Journal of Educational Psychology, 58, 1-14

The study set up three different ways of providing feedback to learners: marks, comments and a
combination of marks and comments. Learning gains were greatest for the group given only
comments, with the other two methods showing no gains.

Marks and marks plus comments had similar and generally undermining effects on pupils
learning. Among the possible explanations for this are: pupils ignore comments when marks are
also given, preferring to compare marks with their peers as their first reaction to getting work
back; teachers rarely give pupils time to in class to read comments and few, if any, pupils return
to consider these at home. When comments alone are given pupils are motivated to engage
more productively in improving their work.

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Getting it right - distance marking as accessible and effective feedback in the primary
classroom

S Clarke (2001), in S Askew (ed) Feedback for Learning, RoutledgeFalmer

Distance marking is where the main form of individual feedback a pupils receives is via the words
and marks made on their work by the teacher. Clarke describes formative assessment and
explores the research that establishes the conditions necessary for successful feedback and
marking. She also describes some practical strategies, based on her own research, for making
distance marking a more accessible and effective form of feedback.

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Eighth Grade Mathematics and Science Benchmarking Report: Executive Summary

TIMSS 1999

TIMSS 1999 a successor to the acclaimed 1999 Third International Mathematics and Science
Study (TIMSS), focused on the mathematics and science achievement of eighth-grade students.
Thirty-eight countries including the United States participated in TIMSS 1999.

The choices teachers make determine, to a large extent, what students learn. In effective
teaching, worthwhile mathematical and science problems are used to introduce important ideas
and engage students’ thinking. The results showed that higher achievement is related to the
emphasis that teachers place on reasoning and problem-solving activities. This finding is
consistent with the video study component of TIMSS conducted in 1995. Analyses of videotapes
of mathematics classes revealed that in the typical mathematics lesson in Japan students worked
on developing solutions to report to the class that were often expected to be original
constructions. In contrast, in the typical U.S. lesson students essentially practiced procedures
that had been demonstrated by the teacher.

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 4. People

The New Meaning of Educational Change

M. Fullan (1991), London: Cassell

Research points to the importance of staff development being school-based. It should be focused
on providing assistance to improve classroom teaching and the course being taught, and it
should be ongoing and build on what has been done before. Staff development should also be
embedded within overall school planning, and ideas from development activities should be
routinely shared. A number of studies show that one-off presentations by outside experts can be
counterproductive.

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The Learning School

G. Southworth (1994), Chapter 5 in P. Ribbens and E. Burridge (eds) Improving

Education: Promoting Quality in Schools, London: Cassell

Excellent schools are learning organisations, with teachers and senior managers continuing to be
learners, keeping up to date with their subjects and with advances in understanding about
effective practice. Learning has most effect when it takes place at the school itself or is school-
wide, rather than specific to individual teachers. The need for schools to become learning
organisations is increasingly important given the pace of societal and educational change. In a
learning school there is a need for learning at five interrelated levels – children’s, teacher, staff,
organisational, and leadership learning

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Student Achievement through Staff Development

B. Joyce and B. Showers (1995), New York: Longman

The research evidence suggests that skill acquisition and the ability to transfer to a range of
situations requires ‘on-the- job- support’. This implies changes to the workplace and the way in
which we organise staff development in schools. In particular it means the opportunity for
immediate and sustained practice, collaboration and peer coaching and a focus on development
and implementation.

The major components of training are: presentation of theory or description of skill or strategy,
modelling or demonstration of skills or models of teaching, practice in simulated settings,
structured and open-ended feedback, coaching for application.

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Planned Educational Change in Japan: The case of Elementary Science Instruction

C. Lewis and I. Tuschida (1997), Journal of Educational Policy 12 (5), 313-31

Teachers regularly present ‘research lessons’ to colleagues, in which they demonstrate some
innovative practice in the subject they are teaching. Colleagues and the teacher will then discuss
the lesson. Usually the whole faculty is invited to attend. Some schools are designated ‘research
schools’ and will present lessons to teachers in the area or in some cases nationally.

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 back to top

Eighth Grade Mathematics and Science Benchmarking Report: Executive Summary

TIMSS 1999

Improving teacher quality depends on providing opportunities for professional development.

Across the Benchmarking participants, there was considerable variation in the type of
professional development that teachers engaged in. For example, there were only a few
examples in which mathematics teachers reported both observing and being observed by other
teachers. In many cases half or more of the teachers reported that their professional
development activities emphasized curriculum, but only about one-quarter of teachers reported
that their professional development activities emphasized content knowledge.

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Using Learning Environment Assessments to Improve Classroom and School Climates

B J Fraser (1999), in H J Frieberg (ed) School Climate: Measuring, Improving and

Sustaining Healthy Learning Environments, Falmer Press

A classroom or school’s climate or environment not only is important in its own right, but can
also influence student achievement and attitudes. The research suggests that achievement can
be enhanced by changing the actual classroom environment in ways that make it more
congruent with the environment preferred by the class.

Teachers have a more positive perception of the climate in their classrooms than their pupils.
Therefore, getting information from pupils is important. Involving pupils by getting them to give
feedback on classroom climate will also help to make pupils feel valued and important and can
therefore contribute to school and classroom climate in turn.

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How to Improve Your School

J Ruddock and J Flutter (2003), Continuum

One of the elements that can lead to disaffection is the feeling among pupils that they don’t have
a ‘voice’ in the school. The contrast then between school and society, where they have increasing
choice and freedom, results in frustration.

Involving pupils in the work and leadership of the school has been found to be an effective way
of empowering young people and combating disaffection. Pupils can become ‘pupil leaders’ who,
as well as taking responsibility for their own learning, are actively playing a role in the running of
their schools. This needs to be more than merely symbolic, and encompass consultation on
important as well as trivial decision making.

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Freedom’s Orphans: Raising Youth in a Changing World

J Margo and M Dixon (2006), Institute of Public Policy Research

In just over a decade, personal and social skills have become 33 times more important in
determining relative life chances. For a significant proportion of those born in 1970, social

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immobility - the passing on of disadvantage through families - was clearly due to the connection
between family background and personal and social skills. At the same time, young people from
less affluent backgrounds became less likely than their more fortunate peers to develop these
skills.

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Teaching Pro-Social Skills to Young Children to Increase Emotionally Intelligent

Behaviour

K Kolb and S Weede (2001) , Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American
Educational Research Association, New Orleans, LA.

There is increasing evidence that approaches that combine direct instruction on social skills with
collaborative group work are effective in developing pupils’ social skills. Researchers have found
that the group work in which the skills were practised was important but that direct coaching was
also needed to change pupil behaviour. Direct instruction of skills such as listening, keeping
hands to oneself, being courteous, encouraging others, and their implementation through
collaborative group practices was effective in developing these skills. Other skills developed
through cooperative learning included compromising, accepting differences, staying with the
group and using encouraging words. The post intervention data indicated that pupils
demonstrated an increase in pro-social behaviour and emotional intelligence, and that learned
social skills transferred across the curriculum.

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School factors related to Quality and Equity

PISA 2000, OECD

Some factors are more readily controlled by policy makers, school managers and teachers. What
impact do school characteristics that are more easily amenable to policy have on student
performance? PISA allows a classification of policy-amenable school characteristics into three
main categories:

School resources - this includes material and physical resources such as the quality of a
school’s physical infrastructure and school size, as well as human resources such as the
proportion of teaching staff with a tertiary qualification and the number of teachers within the
school compared to the number of students.

School climate - this covers different aspects of a school’s culture, including the disciplinary
climate, how well students and teachers get along, how strongly students identify with their
school and how motivated and committed the school’s teachers are.

School policies - this includes the level of autonomy a school enjoys in decision making, and
various accountability issues such as whether or not the school conducts self-evaluations and
monitors student progress and whether or not the school communicates student performance
information to parents or the local authorities.

Student characteristics, school context and school climate, policies and resources explain “three
quarters” of the differences in school performance. School climate has more impact than school
resources or school policies. School climate, policies and resources together explain 6 per cent of
the performance differences between schools, but this varies greatly across countries. Of the
three, school climate has the greater impact.

The lesser impact of school factors that are more easily amenable to policy does not make them
any less important. The results indicate several potential policy levers to improve school

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performance - improved disciplinary climate and student-related factors affecting the school
climate, and a strong sense of belonging at school. A sense of belonging has a relatively strong
impact on the performance of students in education systems where they are selected for
particular institutions or educational programmes.

In many cases school climate is heavily influenced by the school composition. However, this is
also sometimes the case for school resources and school policies. These are areas over which
schools and educational systems have more control and efforts could be made to ensure a more
equal distribution among schools. This could be seen as specifically relevant for schools with a
comparatively disadvantaged student population.

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Appendix 9

A Dozen Extracts from the Quality Assurance of Schools Service

handbook.

1. The Quality Assurance Service is a department of the Ministry of Education (MOE). We

contribute towards achieving the Government’s strategic goal of “Improving the relevance
and quality of education.”

2. The International context

 All government ministries and departments have the strategic purpose of contributing to
sustainable economic growth.
 Education makes a crucial contribution to this growth.
 The inspectorate makes a crucial contribution to education.
 Inspection is about and for all learners

International research has shown that there are a number of key factors which influence young
people’s learning and educational success. These factors include the following features, all of
which are the responsibility of teachers and are evident in the effective classroom:

• having a positive attitude

• developing a pleasant social/psychological climate in the classroom
• having high expectations of what students can achieve
• lesson clarity
• effective time management
• strong lesson structuring
• the use of a variety of teaching methods
• using and incorporating learners’ ideas
• using appropriate and varied questioning [Reynolds]

3. Having children at the centre of all that we do.

Inspection is about
and for all learners

4. This concept of “Reflective Practitioner” where teachers are professionals who

continuously seek to improve their own effectiveness by working together, reading research
and innovating, is critical to the culture-change we are seeking to promote in schools.

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5. Leadership and management in schools involve a wide range of activities and
responsibilities. However, the most important responsibility of headteachers is to
manage and improve the quality of learning. This principle has implications for the focus of
and balance among inspection activities in schools.

6. Measuring standards and evaluating quality

 What do we mean by ‘standards’?
 What do we mean by ‘quality’?

A ‘standard’ is a benchmark. You can measure whether or not you have reached a standard.
You can decide whether it has been achieved, or not achieved.

For example, we have a set of Minimum Standards. When measuring whether appropriate
standards have been achieved, we can check the existence of things like files, policy
documents, timetables, classrooms, latrines, trained teachers, textbooks or lesson plans.

7. ‘Quality’, on the other hand, is associated with the idea of:

• value • extent of
• worth • merit
 degree of • significance

8. When we evaluate quality we ask questions like:

 How good?
 To what extent?
 How well?

9. Quality is evaluated using ‘quality indicators’ (QIs). Evaluations against QIs are
professional judgements. By using QIs, we ensure consistency across all inspectors, all
inspections and all contexts and schools. The use of QIs requires evaluators to balance the
strengths and areas for improvement (weaknesses) and come to an overall view.
Evaluation is based on the relative importance of each strength and area for improvement,
and on their impact on young people, not on the numbers of each.

10. Quality Indicators are related to each other. QIs can be expressed in two groups

INPUTS The OUTCOMES the

(those things the school does) school achieves, its IMPACT

 Curriculum  Effective learning

 Teaching  Students’ achievement
 Leadership  Ethos and Climate
 Accommodation & Resources  Improvement through self-
evaluation

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11. We evaluate the quality of the INPUTS and measure the success in achieving the
OUTCOMES and the IMPACT through inspection and self- evaluation

For example, the quality of learning and teaching is related to the quality of leadership in the
school. Children’s attainment relates to the quality of teaching.
These relationships are causal.

12. Making evaluations based on reliable evidence

Making evaluations relies on three main sources of evidence. You cannot come to a view of
quality using only one source of evidence. This approach is called ‘triangulation’.

Quantitative People’s
Data Views

Evaluation
of Quality

Direct
Observation

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What are the best ways for educators to share good
practice that we see to raise standards across schools?
Can you think of any examples from your own experience
when good practice has been shared, one school with
another, or within a group of teachers? How successful
was this?

Think of all the ways in which good practice can be

shared and consider how successful or practical each of
these might be. Think of things like printed material, face-
to-face interactions, public media

Select THREE examples from you list which would enable

educators to build improvements into the education
system. Note down these specific developments and how
learners would ultimately benefit.

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 LESSON OBSERVATION RECORD Best Practice
Teacher: Subject:
Class: Date: Time:
Subject:
Brief description of activities observed:

Prompts: Underline from observations Evaluation or description

use + or – at the start of each note

Teaching for Effective Learning

 There is evidence that the lesson has been well

planned using assessment of students’ skills
 Lesson content/aims and objectives are shared
and reinforced with students, and reviewed
 Explanations, instructions and directions are
expressed clearly
 A range of teaching approaches/styles are
used including the skilful use of questioning
 Activities and resources are used appropriately
to support learning
 The use of direct, interactive teaching with class,
groups and individuals is appropriate
 Teacher-student interaction is of a high quality
and all students are involved
 Praise and feedback given effectively/regularly
and there is evidence of high expectations
 Students are actively involved in learning
 There is evidence of regular/appropriate homework

Students’ Learning Experiences

 Students are motivated, enthusiastic, hardworking,

on task and well-behaved
 Students take responsibility for learning, work inde-
pendently and are required to think for themselves
 The quality/extent of collaboration and interaction
among students is very good
 There is an appropriate level of pace
 The learning environment takes appropriate account
of students’ prior attainment and abilities

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Comments on the Environment for Learning: (positive or negative)

Specific accommodation issues; health and safety; bright, stimulating learning environment? Issues relating to
morale, care and welfare, ethos or relationships; student behaviour and discipline; consultation with students and
their active involvement in their learning and life choices etc.

Specific feedback given to teacher:

Issues to follow up:

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