Thoughts from a YC: Positive Parental Communication

By Sophie Nash

‘‘A school without parents at its foundation is just like a bucket with a hole in it’’

Jesse Jackson

Many of us will have walked past the above quotation on the first-floor landing and agreed with the sentiment, yet are we using parental communication to its maximum impact, and are we all completely confident in our interactions with parents? The Education Endowment Foundation states that parental engagement has a positive impact of 4 months’ additional progress, on average. There is also a higher impact for pupils with low prior attainment. It is, therefore, crucial to consider how to engage with all parents to avoid widening attainment gaps and to ensure that this progress is made. Effective phone conversations with parents: Calling home is a simple strategy that should be used frequently and systematically in order to help students to make progress. Positive phone calls home ‘Everyone values being praised and recognised for their endeavours – it is a huge part of nurturing our self-esteem and confidence’ (Thom, 2018). As such, positive phone calls home can be an extremely valuable tool. Both students and parents will be likely to appreciate this recognition and it will normally be a positive experience for the teacher too. Negative phone calls home Negative phone calls home will always feel more daunting. As a result, it is integral that we are well-prepared and that we try to preempt any difficult comments or situations that may arise. It is essential that we are all confident and equipped to make these phone calls, as they are, at times, absolutely necessary. Have a look at the top tips below to help:

• Script the conversation/reflect on different scenarios that may occur in advance
• Practice the conversation with a line manager or ask someone to listen in
• Focus on the issue and the specific behaviour that needs to be addressed
• Speak in a calm, clear, and succinct way throughout
• Be open and confident - confidence is reassuring

Effective face-to-face meetings with parents: An article published by Forbes highlights certain scenarios when face-to-face communication is more effective than communication over the phone. These situations are applicable to schools as well as to businesses and are important to bear in mind. Communicating a sensitive, serious, or recurring issue is often much more effective face to face. The fact that a parent has taken time out of their day to speak to us shows a level of commitment and a strong desire to support their child. As with phone calls, it is important to be prepared, clear, and confident in these meetings. How to have a productive meeting about academic progress As with the conversations discussed above, preparation and planning are key. It is essential that we know what we are talking about, know the child and their progress, and have clear outcomes/steps for improvement. Parents’ evenings can be a great opportunity to get to know parents, to celebrate the students’ successes, and to address any difficulties and areas for improvement. Make the most of them! Bibliography:

• Education Endowment Foundation. (2011) Available at: https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/education-evidence/teaching-learning-toolkit/parental-engagement
• Expert Panel (2020). Council Post: 13 Times In-Person Communication Is Better Than Electronic Exchanges. [online] Forbes. Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescoachescouncil/2020/07/17/13-times-in-person-communication-is-better-than-electronic-exchanges/?sh=3e1b1e682eb7
• Thom, J. (2017) Well done? A guide to using praise effectively in the classroom. [online] The Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/teacher-network/teacher-blog/2017/oct/18/well-done-a-guide-to-using-praise-effectively-in-the-classroom

CPD Reflections: Classroom Talk

By Will Glydon

What got me thinking about this topic? Classroom talk can be tricky! It can be difficult to ensure that all students are fully participating in pair and group work as some students find it difficult to share ideas and are overpowered in conversation by their more extroverted classmates. As well as this, comfort with class talk can certainly vary depending on the stage of your career. As an early career teacher, I know that maintaining solid behavior management can cause teachers to steer clear of group work activities as it can feel risky to let go of complete control. Where did I find some research on this topic? Researchers Doug Lemov and Martin Robinson answer questions on Classroom Talk in 'What does this look like in the classroom?' by Carl Hendrick and Robin Macpherson. I have selected three questions, which the researchers responded to, that particularly piqued my interest as I felt they were applicable to WA. I also looked at the Bitesize Research from last week which had some of the School 21 oracy strategies. Below are some responses that pick out tactics and techniques to tackle Classroom Talk.

How can I make sure that classroom discussion is rich rather than superficial?

I picked out this question as I personally find this difficult. I find that sometimes students are talking without offering much substance or deep thought. The researchers Doug and Martin offer these pieces of advice:

• Writing the key question on the board and leaving it there is an easy way to keep the topic on track
• Think of the extent to which you are valorising ‘outside the box’ comments by saying things like “Oh, that’s so outside the box!” It is important to encourage different ways of thinking, but to generate rich, rather than superficial discussion, what teachers should be aiming for is to generate very insightful ‘inside the box’ comments. They argue that explicitly explaining this to students is important.
• ‘Meta feedback’ is important for students who go off-topic. Language that can be used can be something like “she made an excellent point, let's respond to that first before we move onto a new topic”
• ‘Charting it’ is the final technique mentioned. This involves writing the ‘golden nuggets’ of the conversation on the board to refer back to throughout the lesson. This is not only praising rich and insightful comments made, but as we all have working memory overload and forget conversations quickly, it means the comment will not be forgotten.

Another technique that was mentioned in the School 21 blog post last week is having ‘Talk Detectives’. This involves choosing students to walk around the class, listening to conversations, and monitoring the level of discussion. This could be a great way to encourage the students to think carefully about the richness of conversation whilst in group work. How do you ensure that all students contribute in pair activities, small and larger group work? I have noticed that some of our students are much quieter learners, however, it is still important to encourage these students to fully participate in classroom talk activities. Some of the strategies that the researchers Doug and Martin share are as follows:

• It is important to ensure that students are writing something before they go into their groups. That means their conversation will be Version 2.0 of their thinking and give them more confidence to share their ideas instead of feeling rushed and panicked. This technique also encourages deeper thought.
• For pair activities, a good technique is to ‘manage turns’. This is achieved through the teacher instructing the person on the left to speak for 30 seconds and share their ideas first, then the right. This allows both students to have equal time in sharing ideas.
• For group work, teachers should be giving ‘Meta feedback’. This involves giving large groups feedback on their ability to speak and listen to others and not dominate the activity. The skill of listening should be praised.
• It is important for students to get into “Habits of discussion”- These habits can be achieved through providing sentence frames for the students to follow. Maybe these habits will be too prescriptive for KS4, but they could be beneficial for KS3 to build listening and speaking skills?

How can I get pupils who are used to talking informally (i.e. in slang) to be able to adopt the register required for success in exams and beyond? I chose this question as I have noticed that some of our students can have incredible thinking and brilliant points, but sometimes it is not articulated in quite the right way. The researchers suggest:

• Consistently make a point to upgrade student language. This can be done through responding with something like “good point, but now put that same point into the language of a geographer”
• Putting technical tier three vocabulary on the wall of a classroom can help. This way, students can refer back to it and the teacher can point to the vocabulary to assist them.
• It is important to make a point of the fact that the students don’t need to have classroom talk in the same way that they write in an exam. However, it is important to explicitly say that there needs to be a formal level to classroom discussions, it should not be ‘playground talk’. This will encourage students to think more about what they are saying.

I hope that you find some of this research useful and there are a few ideas that you might find useful to use in your own practice. If anyone would like to talk about some of these ideas any further, then drop me an email and we can arrange a time to meet up to have a further discussion. Likewise, if anyone tries some of these techniques or any other to develop classroom talk, then let me know your findings!

Bitesize Research: Differentiating For Students With SEND

By Jaya Carrier

I hope everyone’s having a great week! Continuing with our theme on student-centred learning for T3, and following discussions with the SEN team here at WA, I was really interested in this article about differentiation for students with SEN by Sobel and Alston. Objectives: To propose a particular perspective on differentiation and offer strategies for this Summary:

• The authors maintain the central importance of differentiation but propose that strategies to do this well don’t need to be time-consuming for the teacher.
• They propose small adaptations and adjustments for inclusive teaching for SEND students.
• They suggest that teachers reframe their thinking about differentiation; making it about a series of routines and priorities that will definitely benefit SEND students but will in fact benefit the whole class too
• They suggest ‘chunking’ lessons into a series of phases (or routines), which could also act as a roadmap for some students with SEND
• Phase One: Transition, entering the classroom and preparedness to learn. This includes starting on a positive note, having seating plans, and using visual timetables of the lesson.
• Phase Two: Settling the class, and starting to learn. This includes making the implicit explicit by using visual prompts, routines around listening, and ensuring everyone knows what ‘I’m ready to learn’ means in this classroom
• Phase Three: Delivering and receiving instructions, and whole-class engagement. This includes checking for understanding of instructions, ensuring you have a written instruction as well as a verbal one, avoid vague or unclear statements e.g. ‘work quietly’ is an ambiguous phrase.
• Phase Four: A whole class of individuals working. This includes making writing more accessible, and managing distractions.
• Phase Five: Individuals fitting into groups of learners. This includes balancing group work in terms of the individuals and giving them explicit instructions for roles to play in the group.
• Phase Six: Finishing learning and assessment. This includes supporting the students to self and peer assess learning, clarifying understanding through overlearning, and providing a clear end of lesson routine.

How does this impact me and my practice?:

Some reflection questions arising from this that might be helpful to consider are:

• How am I currently working with my SEND students in lessons?
• How might I refine my practice in line with some of the phases suggested?
• What might be important about reframing thinking around differentiation?

If you would like to discuss this further with me - please let me know! I’d be delighted to open up these discussions and conversations.

Bitesize Research: Fostering Better Metacognition In Lessons

By Jaya Carrier

I hope everyone’s having a great week so far! This week, continuing with our theme on student-centred learning for T3, I was really interested in this editorial article about metacognition by Muijs in the Impact publication given by the Chartered College of Teaching. 

Objectives: To outline some of the recent educational research on metacognition and outline some of the strategies to foster better metacognition. 

Summary: 

• Muijs argues In the emerging research literature on metacognition, better clarity on the differences between metacognition and self-regulation are required. 
• This article argues that self-regulation is broader than metacognition, and that in fact, metacognition is a part of self-regulation. Muijs then defines self-regulation as being in three main parts;  cognition, metacognition and motivation. 
• Metacognition is about ways that learners appraise their learning processes in an ongoing way, and therein purposefully redirect their learning where necessary.
• Metacognition is not innate and can be deliberately taught and improved using certain teaching strategies that involve planning, monitoring and evaluation.
• Metacognitive knowledge can also be honed by:
• Making generalisations or rules in terms of a thinking strategy
• Deliberating naming the thinking strategy
• Explaining when and when not to use particular thinking strategies
• Generic ideas about ‘learning skills’ may be less helpful than subject-specific strategies for metacognition, although there will be some crossover. 

How does this impact me and my practice?:

Some reflection questions arising from this that might be helpful to consider are: 

• How do I define self-regulation and metacognition?
• What strategies have I deployed that involve the processes of planning, monitoring and evaluation?
• What ‘thinking strategies’ do I use with students? How do I get them to explore these and how appropriate they are for certain tasks?

 

If you would like to discuss this further with me - please let me know! I’d be delighted to open up these discussions and conversations.

Tips For School Staff: Supporting Students' Mental Health And Wellbeing

By Ella Higgs (Education Mental Health Practitioner from the West London Mental Health Support Team at HFEH Mind)

I have worked for three years as an Education Mental Health Practitioner at Mind, but before that, I was a 1:1 special needs assistant in a school. When I worked in the school, I remember wishing there was more training, advice and attention given to how I could support the mental health of the young people I worked with. Looking back now, with the training and experiences I have had, there is so much I wish I knew and there are things I definitely would have done differently. As school staff, you might be the only adult in some students lives who notices how they are feeling. Whilst this can of course feel like a daunting responsibility, it is also the most wonderful opportunity to make a difference. What I hope to do in this blog post is to provide some practical tips for supporting young people, and to empower you to feel confident using them. This sits alongside the variety of experience and diversity of backgrounds you have as a staff team and of course the natural skill and human instinct you all have when supporting young people.

When I discuss mental health in this post, I am defining it as a state of wellbeing that we all have and I invite you to consider your interactions with all young people, not just those who might have a diagnosed mental health condition.

What to look out for:

• The first thing to say here is that a need for support can present itself differently in everyone. One of the key things I want to discuss, which I feel is often misunderstood, is how ‘challenging behaviour’ is almost always an expression of an unmet need or a way of seeking safety. Picture a child who struggles to focus in class, one who appears defensive, rude and talks back when told off, and one who is always acting the class clown to get attention. Each of these behaviours have something in common, they can be part of a ‘survival response’. But what next? If a child is breaking rules and disrupting class, there have to be consequences? How do we support their mental health at the same time? – see the second tip below.
• As well as challenging behaviour, which we would call externalising, some young people turn more inward when they are struggling with their mental health, known as internalising. Signs of this may include withdrawing, avoiding, tearfulness, irritability. Sometimes young people may not have the language to tell you how they are feeling and might say, “I’m fine, I’m just tired”. I encourage you to trust your instincts if you suspect there is more to it – no harm can come from offering a conversation or letting someone know you are looking out for them.

Top tips, techniques and strategies

1. Emotion regulation

• When in distress, or ‘survival mode’, the brain is adapted to focus on keeping safe and deprioritises other functions such as being able to think and plan rationally. We can all relate to having the feeling of not being able to think clearly when we are super stressed, anxious or angry and perhaps doing or saying something we later regret.
  
• An important first step before we try to reason with young people or discuss their feelings, is to help then ‘turn down the heat’ on their emotions. This involves taking the time to help them relax a little. You could spend some time discussing their interests or something in their comfort zone, or you could guide them to use a calming technique such as deep breathing or grounding. See the resources and signposting section below for some ideas.
• Dr Bruce Perry, a neuroscientist, has shown us that to help a child to learn, think and reflect, we need to intervene in a simple sequence known as “The Three R’s”: Regulate, Relate, Reason. See the resources section below for more information on this approach.

2. Separate the behaviour from the young person

• If we know challenging behaviour is an indicator of something deeper, try this simple but highly effective strategy: separate the behaviour from the young person. This allows you to hold all boundaries and stick to school policies, but crucially also allows you to support the young person to feel seen, heard and safe.
• This might look like: “Your behaviour was not acceptable today and there will have to be a consequence, but I really want to hear about how you are feeling and what happened for you.” – then you can follow with some of the tips about having a conversation below.
• This communicates to the young person: you are not your behaviour. You can make a mistake and I still like you and ‘see’ you as a person.
• We are not providing permission for negative behaviour; we are acknowledging the underlying cause. We can hold the key assumption that all behaviours make sense – they always indicate an unmet need or are a way of seeking safety. This allows us more curiosity and empathy to explore what this might be for each individual young person

3. Having a conversation

• When young people are really distressed, sometimes the uncomfortableness of this can drive us - the adult - to want to fix, change or offer solutions. Whilst this can be very useful, there are other times where the most helpful thing is simply to listen and validate – “oh yes, that really is hard isn’t it”, “I understand why you feel so [angry, upset, scared] about that”. This communicates to the young person that you are a safe ‘container’ for their emotions, you are not overwhelmed by them, you accept them. Over time, this kind of validation and safe holding of overwhelming feelings will allow the young person to do the same for themselves – building their tolerance for uncomfortable emotions. Sometimes you are doing more by ‘doing’ less.
• As well as validating and showing empathy, some young people may not have language for their experience, especially if emotions are avoided or not spoken about. We can support young people to give language to their experience by modelling language about emotions and making suggestions – but being sure to allow them to accept or reject them. E.g., “I think I would feel pretty anxious if that happened to me, is that how you’re feeling?”
• Phrases to avoid: “Don’t worry about that”, “You’re okay”, “everything will be fine” – these are phrases we commonly use to try to comfort others and sometimes they can be comforting. However, more often than not, what they actually communicate is “I’m not hearing or acknowledging how this actually feels for you”, this can lead people to feel confused and alone with their feelings: “my body is telling me this is terrifying, yet this person is telling me everything is fine”.

4.Looking after yourself

• Supporting distressed young people can be mentally exhausting and this can make it difficult to be nurturing and attuned all the time. The key here is to be kind to yourself and make sure you are listening to your own needs just as much as you are to those you support.
• Think of it like the instructions for using oxygen masks on an aeroplane – you must put your own mask on before helping others. Understanding and managing your own emotional responses is not selfish, it is quite the opposite. When your own mental health is cared for, you will be far more resourced to be there for others. You can also provide a good role model for what it looks like to understand and respond to your emotions in a healthy way.
• Just as I am inviting you to validate the feelings of the young people, I am inviting you to validate your own feelings too – it is ok if you sometimes feel angry/frustrated, hopeless/helpless, sad, worried, ineffective, guilty, ashamed, to name a few common and understandable reactions to supporting distressed young people.
• It is important to stay aware of your own feelings and triggers It is always good to have some ‘go to’ strategies or activities to use to support your emotional wellbeing.

Thank you for taking the time to read this blog post. I really hope it can be useful to you. I want to leave you with a little take-home message – never underestimate the power of showing an interest in the young people you work with and taking time to build your relationship with them. This can be as simple as remembering (or writing down to remember!) something they talked about the last time you spoke and asking them about it. Warm, consistent and respectful relationships are the foundation for any kind of mental health/wellbeing support.

Resources/References: Beacon House: https://beaconhouse.org.uk/?section=welcome-to-beacon-house ARC Framework: https://arcframework.org/what-is-arc/

Signposting and further support:

If you are concerned about your or your student’s mental health, please speak to your GP or invite their parent to.

 

For Yourself:

• IAPT Services through NHS choices: https://www.england.nhs.uk/mental-health/adults/iapt/​  
• To find a private therapist: ​ 
• BACP: http://www.bacp.co.uk/​  
• UKCP: https://www.psychotherapy.org.uk/find-a-therapist/  
• Mind Info Line: provides an information and signposting service. Open 9am to 6pm, Monday to Friday (except for bank holidays) 0300 123 3393. Ask about:  mental health problems, where to get help near you, treatment options, advocacy services  
• Samaritans: Free phoneline: 116 123, alternatively you can email at jo@samaritans.org  
• YoungMinds Parent Line: detailed advice, emotional support and signposting about a child or young person up to the age of 25. Call for free on 0808 802 5544 from 9:30am to 4pm, Monday to Friday. https://youngminds.org.uk  
• Anxiety UK Infoline: Helpline 03444 775 774 is available from 9.30am – 5.30pm Monday to Friday, or you can email support@anxietyuk.org.uk  
• Helplines Partnership: For more options, visit the Helplines Partnership website for a directory of UK helplines https://helplines.org/helplines/ 
• Hub of Hope:​ The Hub of Hope is the UK’s leading mental health support database. It is provided by national mental health charity, Chasing the Stigma, and brings local, national, peer, community, charity, private and NHS mental health support and services together in one place for the first time.
• Mental Health Support Team (MHST) telephone drop-in service for staff - to support their own wellbeing. We are providing drop-in telephone sessions to support staff with their own mental health and wellbeing. This is a confidential space away from the school where staff can get a listening ear, wellbeing guidance, signposting support, and resources. Each phone call lasts for up to 20 minutes and you can request up to 6 calls – please note this is not a counselling service. To sign-up, use the following link: https://hfehmind.jotform.com/21052318690295

 

For Your Students:

 

• Anxiety UK Infoline: Helpline is available from 9.30am – 5.30pm Monday to Friday, 03444 775 774 or you can email support@anxietyuk.org.uk
• BEAT: eating disorder charity. Information on types of eating disorders, recovery information, support information including helplines & downloadable resources. www.beateatingdisorders.org.uk Helpline: 0808 801 0677, Studentline: 0808 801 0811, Youthline: 0808 801 0711  
• CAMHS: is the name for the NHS services that assess and treat young people with emotional, behavioural or mental health difficulties. Most local CAMHS teams have a website where you can look up how to get access to their service.  
• Hope Again: support for children and young people experiencing grief and bereavement. Helpline. www.hopeagain.org.uk, 0808 808 1677 
• Kooth: free online counselling support for under 25s. www.kooth.com or download the Kooth app  
• Mind: A-Z information for mental health, including treatment options, self-care, information for family & friends, & useful contacts www.mind.org.uk 
• The Mix: information & support about mental health for under 25s. Professional and young person blogs and advice over a wide range of topics. Helpline, crisis messenger, 121 chat, email. www.themix.org.uk, 0808 808 4994  
• NSPCC: charity fighting to end child abuse. Information, resources and further support, stories. www.nspcc.org.uk, 0808 800 5000  
• No Panic: offers advice, support, recovery programs and help for people living with phobias, OCD and any other anxiety-based disorders. https://nopanic.org.uk, 0844 967 4848   
• Papyrus: charity to prevent and help young people thinking about suicide. Information & support, hopeline for under 35s. www.papyrus-uk.org/hopelineuk, 0800 068 4141  
• Samaritans: 24/7, free helpline for anyone. 116 123, www.samaritans.org.uk  
• YoungMinds: mental health charity for children and young people. Information and resources for young people & parents, including parents’ helpline and young people crisis messenger and helpline. https://youngminds.org.uk, Text the YoungMinds Crisis Messenger for free 24/7 support across the UK if you are experiencing a mental health crisis. If you need urgent help text YM to 85258.  

Promoting Literacy: Giving Students The Tools For Future Success

 By Donna Boam

“To be literate is to gain a voice and to participate meaningfully and assertively in decisions that affect one’s life.”

This quote, from the academic Yusuf Kassam in 1994, highlights the importance of ensuring that the children we teach are literate and have the skills and tools that they need to succeed in their lives, beyond our classroom. It has long been agreed that all teachers in a school have responsibility for the teaching of literacy; even 100 years ago it was argued that “Every teacher is a teacher of English because every teacher is a teacher in English” (Sampson, 1922). Yet in the competing demands of a school day, this explicit teaching of literacy skills can easily be pushed to one side. What are we to do? In 2019, the Education Endowment Fund (EEF) released their report, ‘Improving Literacy In Secondary Schools.’ This included 7 recommendations, namely:

1. Prioritise ​‘disciplinary literacy’ across the curriculum
2. Provide targeted vocabulary instruction in every subject
3. Develop students’ ability to read complex academic texts
4. Break down complex writing tasks
5. Combine writing instruction with reading in every subject
6. Provide opportunities for structured talk
7. Provide high-quality literacy interventions for struggling students

So, which of these are you doing at present? As a school, there are some things that we are doing really well. In my lesson drop-ins, I regularly see scaffolds being given to support writing across all subjects (Recommendation 4). I regularly see students being asked to read something, to help support their own knowledge and their own writing (Recommendation 5). And I also regularly see students being asked to discuss their thoughts (Recommendation 6), although this does need to be well structured and with clear success criteria, so that students are not just discussing what they are going to have for lunch that day! In improving literacy, the big focus for us as a school will be Recommendation 1, namely prioritising ​‘disciplinary literacy’ across the curriculum. As I mentioned earlier, part of our February INSET will feature a workshop from the National Literacy Trust, focussing explicitly on this. But in the meantime… What is disciplinary literacy?

Disciplinary literacy refers to the specifics of reading, writing, and communicating in a discipline or subject area.

It helps students understand how language works in different subject areas and supports their understanding of how vocabulary is used, how question phrasing will shape the answer expected, and how to interpret the written and graphic materials used for learning.

Considering it another way, each discipline has a specialized vocabulary and components that are unique to that discipline and secondary students need to be taught what is unique about each discipline. For example, when we ask our Year 11 students to evaluate a text in their English lessons, and when we then ask them to evaluate an experiment from their Science lesson, what is required here from the students has some subject-specific nuances involved. So today, consider: What are the things that I do to help improve my students’ literacy each day? How do I teach key, subject-specific, vocabulary? What could I do better? What are some of Tier 2 and Tier 3 vocabulary that my students need to know? How do I know that they know these and can apply these in a sentence, or in a paragraph, successfully? Further reading:

• https://www.sec-ed.co.uk/best-practice/every-teacher-is-a-teacher-of-literacy-teaching-literacy-across-the-curriculum-part-1/
• https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/education-evidence/guidance-reports/literacy-ks3-ks4
• https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/news/eef-blog-what-do-we-mean-by-disciplinary-literacy
• https://learningspy.co.uk/literacy/closing-language-gap-building-vocabulary/#:~:text=Vocabulary%20can%20be%20usefully%20divided,(osmosis%2C%20trigonometry%2C%20onomatopoeia)

Bitesize Research: Classroom Talk & Oracy

By Jaya Carrier

I hope everyone’s having a great week so far! This week, following our student-centered blog theme for T3, I was really interested in a piece on Edutopia about classroom talk that showcases some of the School 21 oracy strategies. Objectives: To outline some of the strategies from School 21’s acclaimed work on classroom talk and oracy. Summary:

Some of the strategies highlighted include -

• Create discussion guidelines. These include: always respect each other’s ideas, and be prepared to change your mind.
• Use ‘talk detectives’. These are students that circulate whilst group or pair discussions are taking place with a copy of the discussion guidelines. Then they write down the names of students who evidenced the guidelines you’ve set, and what it is that they said. This supports developing metacognition around oracy.
• Consider carefully the groupings of your students. This is both in terms of the students themselves but also the different types of positions they are in.
• Model and clarify what good listening looks like. Be explicit about asking students to demonstrate good listening behaviours which could include looking your partner in the eye, considering their talking volume and giving their partner personal space.
• Create discussion roles. These include: instigator, builder and summariser. One strategy used by School 21 is that they film staff having conversations in these roles and students use these videos to identify the roles being taken.
• Create structured talk tasks including controversial ‘talk point’ statements, ‘ghost reading’ and ‘collective writing’.
• Build up confidence in shy students by giving them talking sentence starters.

How does this impact me and my practice?:
Some reflection questions arising from this that might be helpful to consider are:

• What is important to me about oracy and student talk in my lessons and in my subject?
• How does oracy and student talk benefit student learning in my subject?
• How am I already integrating student talk into my lessons? How successful has it been? How do I know?
• Which of these strategies could be helpful in a lesson I’m planning to teach in the near future?

If you would like to discuss this further with me - please let me know! I’d be delighted to open up these discussions and conversations.

How Can Subtitles On Videos Support Your Students' Learning?

By Nichola Vo

Having spent the last year supporting various subject lessons, I have seen teachers across all departments use videos in the classroom to aid student understanding. Whilst the visuals often help the students engage with the content, I have been thinking more recently about the benefits of captions on videos. However, I’ve noticed that not all teachers consciously think about turning on the subtitles for students. I hope this blog post makes you think twice before pressing play on a video without the captions on. I’ve found this excellent article by Gernsbacher (2015) that has summarised some key takeaways from having captions turned on that I’m going to share here:

1. Those who are hard of hearing

Starting with the most obvious, captions on videos in the classroom help those who are hard of hearing. It is worth noting that not all students who may struggle with hearing wear an aid and so the act of turning on captions can make the classroom a more inclusive space in terms of allowing students to access the activity. 2. Captions aid in developing literacy skills Whether students choose to listen or read along with the captions, having the subtitles there also provides students with the opportunity to improve their fluency in their spoken vocabulary. Whilst there will be students who outside of the classroom will rarely pick up a book, they are likely to watch something and the use of captions as a means to develop their literacy skills without realising. The act of reading involves multiple skills in terms of mapping sounds into text, and if you are not familiar with how a word sounds, this can be a barrier. But what captions on videos do is illustrate how specific sounds are mapped onto words as well as their contextual meaning too. It is all well to teach vocabulary but if a student does not understand how to use it in context, have they really learnt it? 3. Captions support memorising key information Studies amongst even highly literate adults have shown that captions aid memory recall and retention. Nugent (1983) found in her research that both hearing and deaf students performed better with both visuals and captions than they did on presentations with either component alone. Additionally, Nugent states that neither the deaf nor the hearing groups showed unique abilities to learn from the presentations, implying that both groups have similar cognitive processes. 4. Captions support EAL students Whilst captions on videos were co-opted from foreign-language subtitles, it is worth noting the significance of English captions on videos to support those acquiring it as a second language. Captions have been shown to improve listening comprehension. By having the opportunity to engage with the vocabulary used in context audibly alongside captioning, studies have revealed that captioning serves to have a positive effect on students’ working memory. 5. Encouraging open-mindedness! Lastly, I am a big cinephile who loves world cinema and the idea of subtitles being a barrier to people watching them saddens me! As Academy Award winner Bong Joon Ho put it, “Once you overcome the 1-inch-tall barrier of subtitles, you will be introduced to so many more amazing films.” Therefore, if the use of captioning is normalised in the classroom, I am sure this will encourage more open-mindedness within the students we work with. Further reading:

• Why children should be watching TV with the subtitles on (theconversation.com)
• Microsoft Word - 182902 (ed.gov)
• The Benefit to the Deaf of Real-Time Captions in a Mainstream Classroom Environment (cmu.edu)

Bitesize Research: Young People's Perceptions Of Career Prospects Post-Lockdown

By Jaya Carrier

I hope everyone’s had a great first week back having had a restful break! This week, following on from the Unifrog briefing we had in T2, I was really interested in a piece of research conducted by UCL Institute of Education about young people’s perceptions of their career prospects following the lockdowns in 2019 and 2020. Objectives: To understand the potential impact of the Covid-19 lockdowns on young people’s job skills and beliefs about their suitability and readiness for the workplace. Summary:

• 60% of students felt as though their job skills and prospects were significantly diminished by the Covid-19 pandemic.
• 42% of students did not know the job they would have by age 30
• Youth unemployment grew at a faster rate than at any point since the financial crisis of 2008
• One of the reasons for this is because of a loss of opportunities to gain key job skills during their education in the context of the pandemic and the post-pandemic (which has focussed more on ‘catch up’)
• The authors of the paper suggest that there needs to be an immediate refocusing on workplace skills in schools, and partnerships between schools and employers.

How does this impact me and my practice?:

Some reflection questions arising from this that might be helpful to consider are:

• How do I integrate or reference the workplace and workplace skills in my lessons?
• How do I support careers education in tutor time?
• How can I work with students to raise their aspirations around their workplace prospects?
  

If you would like to discuss this further with me - please let me know! I’d be delighted to open up these discussions and conversations.