As we all continue our journeys to a mastery focused KS3
curriculum challenge has been brought to the fronts of our minds again as we
find ways to prepare KS3 for new (ish) challenges of GCSE. Here are some of the
ways that departments around the school are incorporating challenge into their
lessons every day.
Geography
We have seeking more opportunities to broaden student’s range
of vocabulary they are using through high challenge low threat starter
activities. Pictures are added to support the lower ability and to enable every
student to have a go at forming a sentence.
History
I have taken to pushing
challenge through discussions. Recently I have been getting students to think
about adding, building and contesting a topic based on the previous person’s
answer. For example, in a year 7 lesson we were discussing the reasons why
Henry VIII broke from the Catholic Church. I asked a student to give me the
most important reason. They then nominated another. The person nominated was
then asked to add on to the previous point with a fact, build on the previous
person’s point by explaining why that would lead to the break with Rome, or
contest it by saying a different reason was the main factor. This was then
repeated for 5 minutes. In the end, students pushed themselves by considering
what they could do from the previous points – the top end loved to contest, but
there were a number of students who really wanted to build on factors. It led
to a very detailed class discussion that fed into the students to create their
own conclusions regarding the topic which we then used for an assessment on the
Reformation.
MFL
With my Year
10 classes, I wrote a short model essay to use in their exam DIRT lesson and I
did this because students often struggle to see how they can improve their
essays unless they have a concrete example in front of them. I gave them a
copy each and also put it on the board. We talked through all the elements of
the answer that would have gained high marks and we annotated these on the
board and on their copies. Students were then asked to apply these elements to
their own work and either improve or rewrite their essay.
For
most students, this task led them on to improve their work but there were a few
who could not apply the information and all they did was copy out the model,
which was not a good use of effort, although it did serve to show me what they
needed to work on in their next steps.
Taking
this forward, we are developing ACTS sheets in MFL which will have specific
celebrations and targets for each piece of marked work. We have begun trialling
them and discussion with students has shown that they value being told
specifically what they have done well and what they need to work on. Supporting
this by modelling out key structures or sentences will help them adapt key
language and hopefully apply it to their own ideas. Following on from some of
the ideas at the recent JPD session, we have now discussed getting students to
colour code phrases in their work which relate to the celebration and target
statements.
Technology
- I have trialled ‘support students achieving
excellence’. I began with a heavily scaffolded pro forma for
evaluating a practical food lesson, with an exemplar version for them to
use as well.
- I thought this would enhance this lesson as
it’s a skill they repeat regularly in the food module as well as
throughout technology. They often evaluate the dish they have
cooked well, but fail to delve deeper into how they worked, or use their
scientific food knowledge to explain when things went wrong.
- I have only completed the first scaffolded
version, but students produced some high quality work – the pro forma made
it much more difficult to avoid the sections they find more difficult.
- Next week for their next evaluation I plan to
give them the exemplar evaluation and their first marked evaluation to use
as guidance but without the pro forma.
Technology have also
been working on the idea of securing knowledge or even spending less time on
the knowledge acquisition and focusing on the application of the knowledge
using higher order thinking skills such as evaluation and justification skills.
Drama
Challenge to me is one of the
most significant parts of our planning as teachers. Personally, I try not to
view my classroom as a teaching space, but as a creative studio; a place for
students to experience theatrical workshops, building an imaginative eye and
perspective. I always try to remember that students could
be 'learned thespians' and in contrast some who have never ventured
into a creative space. Therefore, when shaping the curriculum with
the Drama department, steps of challenge is a key planning point for us
this coming year.
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