Mr Pugh (History) – Year 9 were learning about the civil rights movement in America and the effect this had on people at the time. Mr Pugh made good use of carefully selected video clips to explain to students what it would have been like to have been an ethnic minority growing up in America. In order to get students thinking he used the example of a politician who enlisted the army to surround a high school to stop 9 black students from entering in order to score political points. This shocked students and provided a great talking point. Mr Pugh then question students to test their understanding of what they had understood so far, making good use of follow up questions (‘Why?’) to make students think. It was clear to see from the books that students had received purposeful feedback on how to improve their written work and then time had been allocated to redraft, practice and improve their work.

Mrs Finlyson (Maths) – Year 13 students were learning to use the addition formulae and express sin2A, cos2A and tan2A. Mrs Finlyson modeled an example to the class and worked through it with them using feedback from students. This strategy enabled students to test their own understanding while Mrs Finlyson was able to highlight common misconceptions and explain these to the class. The environment in lesson was really calm and purposeful with students being very inquisitive and asking lots of well thought out questions, a good sign of high expectations. Following the modeled example students were then given time to practice this technique further and receive further feedback from Mrs Finlyson.

A-Level maths – example used by Mrs Finlyson to explain/model the process.

Mrs Coke (Maths) – Year 7 students were practice a new process. Students had been given a task to do following an explanation from Mrs Coke. Students were challenged but able to work through the task, keeping in the ‘struggle zone’. Whilst students were working Mrs Coke circulated the room providing further challenge and support. She used great questioning to seek out student understanding and then provide scaffold to enable students improve their understanding. Another calm and purposeful classroom which indicates students understand the routines and Mrs Coke’s high expectations.

Year 7 students using ‘deliberate practice’ during a maths lesson.