Transcript Beckford Primary School

Camden School
Improvement
Success for all
Lesson Study in Mathematics
Nigel Bufton
Anna Middleton
Rachel Fort
Context
Camden School
Improvement
Success for all
• Camden sought to develop Lesson Study
approach across primary schools
• Keen to improve progress in mathematics
across Years 2, 3 and 4
• Invited group of 7 schools to participate
• Importance of head teachers’ involvement
• Schools meet half-termly, self funded
• Develop case studies to share practice
Progress
Camden School
Improvement
Success for all
• First meeting with heads and teachers
• Schools identified focus on learning from
– Core Skills of Number
– Language, dialogue
– Problem Solving
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Ongoing input of ideas to explore
Updates on learning and practices
Focus on writing case study
Phase 2 schools about to be invited
Camden School
Improvement
Success for all
How Lesson Study has helped
to improve learning in
mathematics
Beckford Primary School
Inner-city school
453 pupils on roll
42% eligible for FSM/ Pupil Premium
67% of pupils do not have English as a first language
19% of pupils are on the SEND register
Attainment low on entry
Progress over KS2 is improving
Focus and Aims for lesson study
Talk in Mathematics
Our aims were that our children would be able to:
• talk confidently about learning and explain thinking.
• make links across learning and derive new facts from
know secure facts.
We wanted to use the project to:
• generate resources and ideas that best supported
children with EAL.
• explore the way pupils learn, thorough discussion and
explanation of their mathematical thinking and
reasoning.
Our lesson study format was flexible
to suit our needs and focus
Who? Maths Subject Leader/Year 2 class teacher, parallel class teacher
What? Lessons with different foci but planned for maximum maths
talk and explanations
Where? Year 2, observing children from parallel class
When? 3 lesson cycle, over a 2 month period
Why? A need to identify barriers to embedded learning
How? Class teacher cover made easier with supportive Leadership
team and available GTP student
Lesson outlines
Lesson 1 – Mental Maths session – Odd and Even
- star words for key vocabulary to include in explanations
- Sentence prompts ‘I know…..because’ ‘I know…so…’ ‘…is not…’
Conclusion: Lack of structure to children’s explanations – prompts needed. Without the
frames find it difficult to structure thinking. With frames, the thinking is modelled. Was
excellent way to assess true understanding of the concept e.g. ‘It’s a little bit odd!’
Lesson 2 – Reasoning about number, finding possibilities
- Envelope challenge to find hidden numbers with differentiated clues, clues given
sequentially and then reasoned as to which numbers can be eliminated
- Sentence prompts ‘I know…..because’ ‘I know…so…’ ‘…is not…’
- Developing resilience in approaching a problem
Conclusion: Children could answer questions like “How do you know that?” or “Can you
explain your answer?” using the frames as starting point. Developed possibilities.
Lesson 3 – Division
- Contextualised examples involving making into groups and the link main back with
earlier x learning. Use of “I know ... so…” prompts, oral rehearsal alongside
practical solving
Conclusion: Using context that children understand and beginning practically whilst
developing language alongside meant a quicker move to using abstract symbols than
with previous Year 2 class. Oral rehearsal gives children confidence very useful AFL.
What has worked for us?
• Speaking prompts we used
“I know…so ...”
“I know…because...”
“...is not…”
“...is not but...is...because...”
• Set high expectations through
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Framing explanations
Full sentence responses
Accurate vocabulary, explanations
Star words – to be included in explanations
Allowing sufficient thinking time
What has worked for us?
- Talk rich activities planned e.g. More opening
ended/using and applying activities/supportive grouping
- Greater ownership of assessing own learning and
next steps
- Shared language - Speaking prompts used
throughout school now and in other curriculum
areas e.g. Explanations of character “I know…because…”
- Emphasis on inverse relationships and links to
known facts
- Maths opportunities beyond the maths lesson
Impact?
• Greater confidence in approaching and talking about maths
• More accurate assessment of children’s understanding
• More secure with inverse relationships, use of known facts to derive
new facts
• Increasingly making links across mathematics
• Talk prompts adopted as whole school focus - noticeable
improvement from Summer group of children to Autumn term group
increasing confidence and articulation with introduction into Year 1
• Whole school use of shared language
• Whole school use of tested activities
What next?
Lesson study extended to other year groups as a key to identifying
gaps in children’s understanding and barriers to learning.
Carlton Primary School
Inner-city school
400 pupils on roll,
79% eligible for FSM/ Pupil Premium,
75% of pupils do not have English as a first language
35% of pupils are on the SEND register
79%Historically low but rising attainment
Significant progress KS1 to 2 last year
Focus and Aims for lesson study
We wanted to use the project to:
• identify barriers in number for those ‘stuck’ children
• identify why some children were having so much
difficulty in using a number line
Our aims were that our children:
could overcome the barriers that were holding them back
How our lesson study operated
Who? Maths Subject Leader, experienced Year 3
teacher, NQT Year 4 teacher
What? Lessons with a focus on calculation and place
value
Why? Support core group of children struggling with
calculation and not making progress, a ‘dip’ in Year 3
that follows some children through to Year 6
Where? Year 3 class, taught by class teacher and
subject leader
When? 3 lesson cycle, over 2 terms
Lesson outlines
Lesson 1 – Calculating with TU numbers
• Offered children a range of models, images to represent 2-digit numbers and use for
calculations with 2-digit numbers
• Wanted to investigate exactly what the difficulties were
Conclusion: our focus group had some shocking gaps in their understanding and
basic skills - we didn’t know what they didn’t know!
Lesson 2 – Breaking down skills needed for calculating, splitting class according to need
• Two mini lessons – first adding multiples of 10, second adding units to multiples of 10
• Wanted to go back to basics with focus children where understanding was muddled
Conclusion: ‘stuck’ children need precision teaching; splitting according to their
needs worked well
NB Before Lesson 3, focus children had additional intervention from subject leader
Lesson 3 – Applying skills to data handling
- Children calculated with 2 digit numbers through interpreting a bar chart; question
language
- Wanted to investigate impact of intervention on focus children
Conclusion: improved recall of number facts made huge difference, more
competent calculating – improved understanding of place value?
What worked?
• Time and space
Lesson study gave us the time and space to really
observe the children and unpick their difficulties
• Breaking down skills
Required careful thought about number of separate skills
needed for a ‘simple’ calculation – each part needs to be
mastered
• Intervention group
Children most at risk of not making progress given
opportunity to catch up – put them in a much stronger
position
• Matching teaching effectively to gaps
Teaching more needs led; different groups can go ‘off
objective’ if that’s what they need to support learning
Wider impact
Key skills
Identified importance of key skills such as number
facts and place value, to ensure children make
genuine progress throughout school
Progression
Dialogue with current Year 2 teachers on how to
avoid same difficulties being repeated
Wider professional development
Lesson Study rolled out across school – every
teacher involved in some Lesson Study focus
What factors contributed to a
successful lesson study group?
Camden School
Improvement
Success for all
• Supportive Leadership team
• Two-form entry school was useful in having a partner from the
same year group.
• Cover to allow observation (e.g. GTP student)
• Time to feedback the same day
• PPA time used to reflect on findings
• Continued focus/theme through lessons, allowing it to develop
• Trying something new that wouldn’t be done in ‘normal’ practice
• After school staff meeting time given to group meetings for
review, sharing and further planning
• Working with same class for consistency
• Subject leader able to share findings beyond year group
What to avoid?
Camden School
Improvement
Success for all
• Going alone without the support of senior staff
• Having too many people involved at once
• Not providing participants with sufficient explanation about or
background to the purpose of Lesson Study
• Treating the process as separate learning sessions – needs
continuation between lessons to see development over time
• Not sharing the responsibility for planning and delivering the
lesson as the process unfolds
• Focusing planning on the teaching rather than expected learning
• Observing teaching and not learning of children
• Delaying post-lesson discussions and review
• Being too cautious