This policy aims to:

• Explain how we’ll create an environment at our school of high expectations where students learn best and love to do so
• Summarise expectations to make sure all staff have clarity and understanding about what excellent teaching and learning looks like across the school and in their own subject specialism.
• Ensure all members of school community recognise the importance of excellent Teaching and Learning and that a robust curriculum is our most powerful tool to achieve excellent inclusion and equality across the school.
• Ensure all staff have the skills and knowledge to identify gaps in students’ learning and to address this through their teaching.

Our school mission statement is “to inspire our students to be confident and open-minded through exceptional teaching and learning in a caring school community.”

Our vision is to be an exceptional school; inclusive and progressive, where everyone matters and everyone achieves.

This is underpinned by our ethos and culture at Weobley High School: “Ready to Learn”, showing “Respect” and having a positive “Attitude”.

Our belief is that education is transformational. Our role is to support all of our students to succeed irrespective of their starting points. We understand that ‘equal’ treatment is not always sufficient to give ‘equitable’ outcomes – some students need more than others. We are committed to giving students whatever support they need to ensure that they make the progress necessary to get the successful outcomes that they deserve. We work tirelessly to remove barriers to learning for all students. We believe that relationships are the most important element in a school where all pupils have the opportunity to thrive. The way that staff and students relate to each other is fundamental to the success of what we are trying to achieve.

Teaching and learning in our school is a shared responsibility, and everyone in our school community has an important role to play.

Teachers at our school will:

• Follow the expectations for teaching and professional conduct as set out in the Teachers’ Standards.
• Follow the expectations as set out in this policy.
• Update parents/carers on students’ progress through parent surgeries as requested, yearly reports on progress and yearly parent/carer consultation days.

Support staff at our school will:

• Know students well and differentiate support to meet their individual learning needs.
• Support teaching and learning with flexibility and resourcefulness.
• Meet the expectations set out in this policy.

Subject Leaders will:

• Help to create a well-sequenced, broad and balanced curriculum that builds knowledge and skills.
• Sequence lessons in a way that allows students to make good progress.
• Use their budget effectively to resource their subject, providing teachers with necessary resources for learning.
• Drive improvement in their subject, working with teachers to identify any challenges.
• Sequence their subject to allocate time for students to achieve breadth and depth, fully understand the topic and demonstrate excellence.
• Moderate progress across their subject by, for example, systematically reviewing progress against a range of evidence and reviewing performance data.
• Create and share clear intentions for their subject.
• Encourage teachers to share ideas, resources and good practice.

Senior leaders at our school will:

• Have a clear and ambitious vision for providing high-quality, inclusive education to all.
• Celebrate achievement and have high expectations for everyone.
• Hold staff and students to account for their teaching and learning.
• Plan and evaluate strategies to secure high-quality teaching and learning across school.
• Manage resources to support high-quality teaching and learning.
• Provide support and guidance to other staff through coaching and mentoring.
• Input and monitor the impact of continuing professional development (CPD) opportunities to improve staff’s practice and subject knowledge.
• Promote collaborative working at all levels.

Students at our school will:

• Take responsibility for their own learning, and support the learning of others.
• Meet expectations for good behaviour for learning at all times.
• Attend all lessons on time and be ready to learn, with all necessary equipment.
• Be curious, ambitious, engaged and confident learners.
• Know their targets and how to improve.
• Put maximum effort and focus into their work.
• Complete home learning activities as required.
• Show respect at all times.

Parents and carers of students at our school will:

• Value learning and encourage their child as a learner.
• Make sure their child is ready and able to learn every day.
• Support good attendance.
• Participate in discussions about their child’s progress and attainment.
• Communicate with the school to share information promptly.
• Encourage their child to take responsibility for their own learning.
• Support and promote the importance of home learning

Governors at our school will:

• Monitor that resources and funding are allocated effectively to support the school’s approach to teaching and learning.
• Monitor the impact of teaching and learning strategies on students’ progress.
• Monitor the effectiveness of this policy and hold the Executive headteacher to account for its implementation.

Planning is a process not a product. It has one purpose: to enable high quality delivery which enables all students to learn.

All teachers need to be clear and precise about the knowledge/skills they want students to learn in every lesson.

Planning is about hard thinking, not form filling. Teachers should spend time thinking about what they want students to learn first before they give consideration to what they want them to do.

The questions teachers need to ask when planning a lesson are:

1. Where are the students starting from?
2. Where do you want them to get to?
3. How will you know when they are there?
4. How can you best help them get there?

Learning Objectives and Outcomes

It is important that teachers, students and support staff are all clear about the key learning that will take place in a lesson.

Teachers should make learning objectives explicit to students. There is no expectation that they need to be written down, but all students should be able to explain what the key learning of the lesson is.

Long-term planning

Schemes of work must be in place to support a teacher’s individual lesson planning, and should be saved in subject OneDrive so that it is accessible to all staff in the department.

SOW should be identified on the Department’s Curriculum Map, published on the school’s website.

When planning a lesson, teachers should be clear where this fits into their subject’s overall curriculum. Teachers will know what prior knowledge is needed before a lesson is taught, and when students will retrieve the key learning of a lesson in future lesson and SOW.

Short-term planning

We do not expect teachers to produce individual lesson plans, but we do expect to see evidence of short-term planning e.g., in teacher planner or electronic equivalent.

The teacher toolkit 5-minute lesson plan, https://www.teachertoolkit.co.uk/5minplan/ can be used to support teachers in their lesson planning.

Planning to meet the needs of all students

• Knowledge of the students, their prior attainment and specific needs, is a key part of planning.
• Teachers are expected to know the profile of the students they teach by looking at student data. This includes SIMs marksheets, SEND student profiles saved in SIMs and pastoral bulletins.
• If further information is required, they can speak to the relevant form tutor, SEND staff, safeguarding team and pastoral team.
• High-quality teaching is the first wave of intervention for meeting the needs of SEND students.
• Adaptive teaching should be planned over time to ensure a quality first approach which meets the needs of all students and groups and maximises the use of any additional adults in the room. When planning, teachers should consider the different pedagogical approaches we use to engage, motivate and challenge all learners, so that most students find a learning fit most of the time.

Teaching

“Every teacher needs to improve, not because they are not good enough, but because they can be even better.” (Professor Dylan Wiliam)

• Teachers must be explicit about the key disciplinary and substantive knowledge and vocabulary that all students must use. Students must know the knowledge and key skills they want students to learn and the language they are expected to understand and use.
• We are all teachers of literacy. The quality of both students’ and teachers’ language, through instructions and questioning, are significant determinants of progress.

High-quality teaching strategies

• Allow all students to access learning and succeed with even the most challenging content if scaffolded appropriately
• What a “typical lesson” will look like will vary from subject to subject and individual teachers may utilise a variety of strategies based upon their professional judgement and knowledge.
• However, it is expected that the following high-quality teaching strategies are used effectively in the majority of lessons:

Challenge

• We should have high expectations of all students all of the time.
• It is good for students to struggle just outside of their comfort zone.
• All students must be working harder than the teacher over time and should begin learning as soon as they arrive in the classroom and for the whole lesson.

Explanation

Teacher instruction should be planned with awareness of the demands on students’ cognitive load, by presenting new material in small steps.

1. Limit the amount of material students receive at one time.
2. Give clear and simple instructions and explanations.
3. Think aloud and model steps.
4. Use more time to provide explanation and provide many examples.
5. Re-teach as necessary.

Responsive Teaching

• Teachers should ensure that learning has stuck, by checking for understanding.
• All teachers should confidently and accurately use teaching techniques to gather a secure overview about whether the key learning has actually been learnt.
• If learning is not yet secure for students, the lesson should be adapted or retaught differently.

Strategies for Teaching and Learning

We advocate research-based principles of instruction that are ‘faithfully’ adopted and ‘intelligently’ adapted from research in cognitive science, research on master teachers and research on cognitive supports. We encourage all teachers to read these to develop their knowledge and understanding of the art of teaching. https://www.aft.org/sites/default/files/Rosenshine.pdf

• Daily review

‘Begin each lesson with a short review of previous learning: Daily review can strengthen previous learning and can lead to fluent recall’ (p. 13).

• Present new material using small steps

‘Present new material in small steps with student practice after each step: Only present small amounts of new material at any time, and then assist students as they practice this material’ (p. 13).

• Ask questions

‘Ask a large number of questions and check the responses of all students: Questions help students practice new information and connect new material to their prior learning’ (p. 14).

• Provide models

‘Providing students with models and worked examples can help them learn to solve problems faster’ (p. 15).

• Guide student practice

‘Successful teachers spend more time guiding students’ practice of new material’ (p. 16).

• Check for student understanding

‘Checking for student understanding at each point can help students learn the material with fewer errors’ (p. 16).

• Obtain a high success rate

‘It is important for students to achieve a high success rate during classroom instruction’ (p. 17).

• Provide scaffolds for difficult tasks

‘The teacher provides students with temporary supports and scaffolds to assist them when they learn difficult tasks’ (p. 18).

• Independent practice

‘Require and monitor independent practice: Students need extensive, successful, independent practice in order for skills and knowledge to become automatic’ (p. 18).

• Weekly and monthly review

‘Engage students in weekly and monthly review: Students need to be involved in extensive practice in order to develop well-connected and automatic knowledge’ (p. 19).

Questioning

• Effective teachers ask a large number of questions skilfully, as questioning is our main tool to probe, check and extend student understanding.
• Teachers should ask lots of questions, to lots of students, and then use what they learn from this process to adapt and reshape teaching within and between lessons.
• Majority of questions should be done through cold calling, with targeted questioning used to support and challenge students.
• Whole class responses to questioning can be done effectively with mini whiteboards, hand gestures etc.

Use effective feedback

Feedback exists in many forms (e.g., teacher marking of exercise books, whole class marking sheets, verbal feedback, peer and self-assessment), but what matters is what students do with it. Effective feedback should:

• Be frequent and timely as directed by department marking and feedback policies.
• Always generate action and should be more work for the recipient than the donor.
• Be specific and focused on the most prominent areas to improve.
• Be accompanied by support in how to be successful and the next step.

The Learning Environment

 In order for there to be excellent learning behaviour there needs to be the right classroom conditions, where all students feel safe, supported and valued. To ensure all students are confident in knowing what is expected of them in terms of work and behaviour, all teachers are expected to have:

High expectations – teachers should always have high expectations for learning and behaviour for all their students

• Teach to the top, with necessary scaffolds to support those who need it.

• Promoting active engagement not just compliance.

• Establish a growth mindset culture, mistakes are celebrated, use language of “not there yet”.

• Focus praise on effort, value the “struggle of learning”.

Teachers build positive relationships with all students through positive behaviour management

• Welcome all students into your class by greeting them at the door.

• Use positive framing to remind students of expectations and learning routines.

• Use meaningful praise and rewards as much as possible with the use of E-Praise.

• Provide students with the opportunity to change their behaviour, before they are removed

from lesson, continuing with poor behaviour and accepting the resulting sanction is a “choice they have made”

• Have restorative conversations, when necessary and at an appropriately convenient time for all involved, e.g., after a demerit or detention.

• Demonstrate consequences are temporary, e.g., new lesson, fresh start.

Teachers have clear and consistent routines and procedures– so there is a safe, orderly learning environment and learning time is maximised

• Meet and greet students at the door.

• Title, learning objectives and starter activity are shared from very start of lesson – learning begins immediately, every minute matters.

• Have consistent classroom rules and expectations which are fair and reasonable, so that all students know exactly what is expected of them when they enter your classroom.

• Always challenge students when rules and expectations are broken, e.g., use 3 warnings on the board and then internal relocation. Follow up all behaviour issues.

Home learning, or homework, will support students to further develop their learning outside of the classroom. It will be planned, meaningful and set in accordance with departmental policies

All homework will be posted on E-Praise having been explained to students during the lesson. It will be reasonable in challenge and length and students should have sufficient time to complete it. Students will be told on E-Praise where they are to submit their homework, whether online or in class.

It is expected that all students complete homework. All non-completion of homework should be recorded on to E-Praise, and (where possible) contact with home will be made.

Adaptive techniques that are used within class to support students with SEN should also be applied to expectations with regards to homework.

We will monitor teaching and learning across the school to make sure that all of our students make the best possible progress from their starting points

Aims of monitoring and evaluation:

• To make secure judgements of teaching and learning across the school.

• To monitor and evaluate the progress of students.

• To evaluate the performance of individual teachers against the Teacher Standards and check that high standards of professional performance are established and maintained.

• To identify training needs across the teaching and support staff and ensure that it is these needs that drive the CPD programme.

SLT and HODs will monitor and evaluate the impact of teaching on every student’s learning through:

• Conducting learning walks at two points throughout the year.

“Be the best you can until you know better, and when you know better, do better and be better”. Maya Angelou

All staff at Weobley High School should engage with high-quality researched based CPD and to be open minded, reflective and proactive at continually trying to improve their teaching practice.

Teaching and Learning meetings will be focused around what will make the biggest impact to teachers and students, and staff will be given time to work collaboratively in subject-specific teams to implement it. The aim is to ensure all CPD is embedded, reviewed and evaluated.

CPD at Weobley is:

• Focused on Quality First Teaching

• Underpinned by the Teaching Standards

• Developmental

• Research Informed

Reviewed on:                                                                                    June 2024                             

By:                                                                                                       W Holder (Executive Headteacher)        

Adopted by SLT                                                                                June 2024

To be reviewed:                                                                                 June 2025