In your class, the explicit permission to do something to help their learning is so important to your pupils. Especially the less confident.
Example 1.
I was in a Y2 class with four other members of staff (teachers and TAs) in a Talk for Teaching, green path, reflection. Numeracy lesson. After a short and excellent, whole-class start on the carpet, the response of the class and their work on whiteboards, showed that there was no-one who couldn’t begin table tasks at that level. Off they went; the lowest ability well-supported by a TA. Pupils worked well and were applying their new knowledge securely.
The spark (OK, teacher in old language), sure the highest ability had grasped the initial concept, kept a group of 9 on the carpet to introduce some more stretching mathematics for her higher ability pupils. Then she gave a wonderful permission: if you feel you’ve understood, please leave the group and go to your table to have a go at the examples I’ve set you at any time. Very soon, two boys decided they were OK with this and headed off together. Shortly afterwards, a girl followed. The teacher kept the other 6 with her as it was clear they needed a little more explanation and input.
A couple of minutes later, two of us went to that table to talk with those pupils. I thought I’d find three 7-year olds flying! The two boys were. Working together, they had already completed a couple of examples correctly and were ready for the challenge. They could explain their methodology and attempt even further steps. However, the girl was sitting opposite to them and we could see she was struggling. When a pupil tries to cover their work, it’s time to say hello and talk. My colleague sat with her and gently talked her through what she was doing.
Coming back together, the reason for the girl’s distress was not quite what we’d expected. She was stuck; wasn’t sure of how to get unstuck, but crucially she didn’t feel she could return to the group she’d left because the teacher had left off that permission and was still working with the group. With a little encouragement from my colleague she went back to the carpet and gained the understanding she needed.
Example 2
A high ability Y10 maths class. This time an old style observation with an SLT member. The class were initially working well, after a resume of a particular question in their mock exam, with which many had not had the greatest of success. The class was arranged in rows, facing the teacher. They then chose the level at which they accessed the work by a range of 4 worksheets, depending upon where they felt their needs lay – a good permission. They also had to return to seats to work with others in the same row that were working at the same level as they were. On the surface, an interesting change of dynamic. While circulating and talking to the pupils, however, it became apparent that many had some skills at the level they had chosen and once they’d realised and solved their exam mistake, the work contained no more challenge, became pretty easy and a lot of extraneous chat and relaxing was happening. On questioning the pupils, they were not getting a great deal out of working with others at the same level as they were and thus were tending to work only with the person next to them – mainly their friends, though some had broken their friendship group because of the instruction to work on the same differentiated row.
I asked why they weren’t accessing the row behind for extra advice and they said it wasn’t normally what they did. They stuck with the people next door to them and knew they could work together – again a decent permission. Also I asked, then tried to encourage them (!) to try the differentiated sheet above their chosen level, but without much success. The missed permissions to a) work with whomsoever they felt could help them and not just with the people at that level and b) to stretch themselves if they found they understood their chosen level sheet, showed a lack of group work that occurred in that class and the lack of independence, even though the pupils had chosen the level at which to work. The pupils were not stuck, but had completed their task at their expected level without recourse to anything more challenging. It was all down to a lack of permission to take control of their own learning.
Follow-up reflections/discussion.
Example 1. Talk for Teaching encourages participants to talk to the teacher during the lesson, as well as with each other. There was a culture of openness in the school, staff were very used to being in each other’s lessons and open to live coaching, which stems naturally from this process. As soon as her retained carpet group, including the girl, returned to tables we chatted about what the two of us had seen and what we’d brought back to our reflection group. Indeed all 5 of us gathered to talk. The spark just raised her eyes and said “of course”! She didn’t know the girl was struggling, as she was still teaching her group on the carpet, but a terrific discussion about the nature of permissions in the school resulted!
Example 2.
In discussion with the SLT member, it was clear that issues around holding onto the learning were common in this class. It’s by no means an insurmountable difficulty, as evidenced by the permission for the pupils to choose their own level of access to the lesson’s work. Feedback centred upon helping the teacher to hand over even more of the learning to the pupils, especially through more explicit permissions and clearer learning outcomes.
In both, very different, lessons, the pupil(s) came up against barriers to further learning because of missed permissions from the teacher. Both lessons had elements of good construction, but in both cases, further progress was hampered by that lack of permission. Both lessons could have engendered more progress if the teachers had established a culture of pupils making decisions for themselves.
Most children are keen to learn and will do their best for their teacher. However, if a child has limited access to either resources, or people, to help with their work, they’ll do the best they can, but in a personal bubble. Permissions need to be very explicit; encouraging pupils that it is OK to do particular things which will help their learning even if explicit permission was not forthcoming at that time. For me; that’s what real independence in learning means.
It’s sometimes not easy to remember to give that permission. Remember the less confident pupils!
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This blog post has been gestating for a while, as I talk regularly about “permissions” with teachers in schools. It finally emerged onto the blog as a result of a twitter post from Mr. Ord @JarrowComputing who tweeted and sent a piccie of the “help desk” for pupils in his class. http://bit.ly/1lhdn5C
He later tweeted, in response to a post of mine around permissions that his pupils had permission to access the resources at any time. Super!!