Educating Melon
A blog about education; hypothesising and reflections from my research and evidence-informed practice – a secondary science middle leader in the UK.
Curriculum and Assessment a Symbiotic Relationship
Over the past two years curriculum and assessment have changed and developed more rapidly than I can remember; the emphasis on evidence informed practice is refreshing and brings clear rationale to the ‘why’ when individuals, faculties or whole schools introduce change. The drive to improve becomes purposeful and a collaboration when exploring the evidence together.…
Deeper Curriculum Thinking in Science
Over the last two years in science we have worked hard on thinking about how we sequence our curriculum. In doing so we introduced a ‘spiral curriculum’ which splits topics up to ensure deliberate spacing and returning to topics to encourage retrieval and consolidation of each topic. Our next step was to then consider the…
Thinking Differently not Working More
Following on from considering the components that will help to structure a lesson for online learning that ensures not just engagement of students but progress in their learning, it is important to think about how PPA is utilised to maximise impact. It is all too common to hear the phrase ‘online teaching is more tiring’.…
Adjusting to Online Teaching
Following the first week back teaching remotely, it has been noticeable how full edu-social media has been with teachers sharing tips and ideas on how to use a range of different technology for ‘live teaching’ – it’s brilliant! Technical barriers aside, there have also been adjustments to make in the delivery and execution of the…
Feedback NOT Marking
During the first phase of introducing our new approach to assessment we have focused on how we build in opportunities within the Learning Journey to directly assess students against our Age-Related Expectations. In doing so staff were encouraged to explore ways of providing students with feedback that was timely and helped move students forward throughout…
Implementing a New Assessment Model
My last (very long) blog on Assessment introduced the ideas I’ve been exploring over the past year to introduce a new approach to assessment that complements our improved curriculum. This past half term we have focused on introducing our assessment strategy with KS3, Year 7-9. We had a vision for the half term to work…
Subject Knowledge and Misconceptions in Science – Part 2
Part 1 – considering specialist v. non-specialist teaching in science can be found HERE. Having had my ambitions to explore subject knowledge and misconceptions across the KS2/3 transition with our feeder schools derailed by the pandemic, I settled for a more in depth focus over the last seven months on the KS3 curriculum. As a…
Assessment
Following a year carefully sequencing our curriculum and focusing on improving teaching techniques to deliver content effectively, my aim for the coming year is to review how our assessment model can be improved and complement our curriculum content. Assessment has already begun to evolve as a result of our improved curriculum delivery, but also now…
Subject Knowledge and Misconceptions in Science – part 1.
How many science teachers teach only their specialism? So far from my experience, and also identified by the DfE 2016 report on impact of specialist and non-specialist teaching, the general answer is that hours taught by ‘specialists’ increase the further through the key stages students progress. Beyond this the DfE report is difficult to use…
Learning Goals and Success Criteria
Every lesson I have taught since I became a teacher I have created learning goals/objectives/intentions (whichever phrase you choose to use) for each lesson. It is drilled into every teacher from the moment they begin training that these are the foundation of each lesson and the starting point for your planning. Knowing that these are…
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Educating Melon 