Learning Walks

This term, as well as planned lesson observations, I am going on frequent 'learning walks' to see what is going on around the school at any given moment in time. This involves spending a short time with a class or group just to see what is happening. Over time, these 'snapshots' help to build up a broad picture of teaching and learning across the school on a day-to-day basis. 

 

During a single period, I saw Year 8 during an outdoor Art class, drawing local mountain landscapes with charcoal, and building on some monochromic work they had experimented with last year. Some Year 7 students were in an intensive English class for newly-arrived ESL students. The teacher was providing individualised learning related to each student's needs. Year 6 students were in a PSHE lesson. This was a whole class activity, based on an ‘Agree or Disagree?’ exercise about boyfriend-girlfriend relationships. This took place in a setting outside the classroom and the students participated with great enthusiasm. The students were asked to agree or disagree with a series of questions or observations about relationships.

Year 9 were in a busy Mathematics class, which involved a series of learning activities based on box plotting, related to quartiles and interquartile ranges. Years 1 & 2 were also working with numbers in a mental maths lesson. The class was subdivided for small group work, using flashcards to identify odd and even numbers, with a range of digits. The teacher was able to monitor the students’ understanding, by way direct observation and the accuracy of their explanation of why the number was odd or even.

It was a genuine pleasure to see the variety of learning activities that were going on simultaneously, the expertise of the teachers and the high level of engagement of all the students.