Academy Life
Teaching and Learning
Our aim is to develop both staff and students to ensure all students excel in lessons and achieve the highest outcomes.
The breadth of the curriculum at Smith’s Wood Academy and the needs of our students mean that the implementation of the curriculum in each subject is not identical but feature a number of common aspects.
As a school we have adopted the Teaching for Excellence Model to the curriculum and to curriculum delivery. The curriculum for every department is knowledge rich and emphasises the development and securing of deep knowledge. Teachers plan learning around carefully designed Learning Journeys. Our curriculum is designed to provide a flexible, personalised education – knowing that one size does not fit all and preparing students for their future lives. This allows our children to succeed in modern society.
Teachers at Smith’s Wood are asked to adopt the Teaching for Excellence model of teaching which is based on 6 key principles;
- High quality explanation
- Deliberate practice
- Modelling
- Questioning
- High quality feedback (live and deep feedback)
- High expectations
Teachers also ensure regular reading and the use of targeted vocabulary is prioritised to allow students to access the full curriculum offer.
Smith’s Wood Academy aims to support every member of staff in becoming an outstanding teacher. A varied professional development programme is provided that caters for teachers at all stages in their career; teachers are encouraged to share their ideas and learn from each other. Our Coaching Programme has been well received by staff and is highly effective in terms of developing teaching and learning. This is supplemented with a Professional Learning programme offered by the Trust.
Teaching and Learning
Knowledge is power. Information is liberating.
Kofi Annan
At Smith’s Wood Academy, we believe all students, whatever their background, are able to become experts in the disciplines that they study. Their expertise will be achieved through
quality teaching and the dissemination of deep knowledge by highly skilled and knowledgeable subject experts. The Teaching
for Excellence Model will prevail – in every classroom, every lesson, every day.
Our students have the right to be introduced to deep knowledge and
a wealth of information from the spectrum of subjects that they study. They will be introduced to, and understand, theories and principles
that have influenced, continue to influence, and will influence in the future, the world in which they live. They will be prepared to fully engage in academic discussion about their learning.
This learning will secure a successful place in society for our students. They will go further than they ever thought possible.
To support teachers in delivering this vision the Academy;
- - Does not require teachers to mark classwork; they focus instead on live in-lesson feedback and on providing students with individual and whole class deep feedback.
- - Provides training and support in delivering lessons using the Teaching for Excellence Model for teaching and learning
An overview of the curriculum coverage for each subject area can be found on the curriculum link above, in “Our Academy” tab.
Teaching for Excellence
At Smith’s Wood Academy we have transformed the way in which we plan lessons and give feedback to students. Our starting point for the recent revolution has been a bedrock of scientific research into the science of learning. For example, “http://www.danielwillingham.com/”Daniel Willingham’s assertion about the importance of knowledge:
“Data from the last thirty years lead to a conclusion that is not scientifically challengeable: thinking well requires knowing facts, and that’s true not simply because you need something to think about. The very processes that teachers care about most — critical thinking processes such as reasoning and problem solving — are intimately intertwined with factual knowledge that is in long-term memory (not just found in the environment).”
There are two parts of Willingham’s assertion:
1) You can only think deeply and critically about what you know well and what you have a lot of knowledge about.
2) To aid thinking, that knowledge must be encoded in long-term memory. Retrieval practice is the tool that encodes knowledge in long term memory.
Further research in the cognitive sciences makes clear that the battle against forgetting begins as soon as you learn something and that the best time to practice retrieving something from long-term memory is when you have started to forget it. When you have to work harder to remember something, but then do so, you build a stronger neural pathway of the thing you are trying to remember (or not forget).
Therefore, in May 2017 we began the first tentative steps of our journey toward a knowledge based curriculum, and the Teaching for Excellence Model. Fast forward to September 2022 and we are well underway with the transformation and evolution – we have re-set our expectations around T&L, with a clear focus on what we our expectations are. This approach ensures that lessons follow a very simple framework.
The lesson structure can best be described as follows:
- DNA (Do Now Activity) – retrieval practice is the purpose of DNAs (to stem the forgetting).
- Explanation (modelling is key here) – the teacher (the expert) tells the students the key information they need to know/understand.
- Making sense (through questioning and further modelling/support) the students get their heads around the concept – and prove to the teacher that with support, they can grasp the knowledge.
- Deliberate practice – here students deliberately practice the knowledge, applying it towards a scenario/proving they really understand the concept.
- Feedback – the teacher is able to address misconceptions and check for clear understanding, while putting the onus on the students to correct their errors and improve their work.
To support our delivery of this work we’ve put in place (and are continuing to do so) some very highly focused training on each of these aspects.
Feedback
Our approach to Feedback has also been transformed. At Smith’s Wood Academy we recognise that effective feedback is one of the most powerful tools in enhancing student achievement (Hattie in Ainsworth & Viegut 2006). As a result, all students have an entitlement to receive regular feedback.
We understand the importance of teacher workload in relation to feedback, therefore the policy outlined below is underpinned by the following key principles of best practice as outlined by the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF).
- Feedback should redirect or refocus either the teacher’s or the learner’s actions to achieve a goal.
- Feedback should identify strengths within student’s work.
- Feedback must give a short term target for improvement (be able to be completed within a lesson).
- Attainment grades will only be given where relevant (end of unit assessments).
Feedback at Smith’s Wood Academy therefore takes two forms. Live feedback and deep feedback. Teachers no longer mark a students’ book, instead the teacher spends time identifying errors made by students at point of error, addressing these immediately. Whilst teachers will also read through a students’ work, making notes in a teacher notebook – to share success and areas for development with the class as a whole. The improvement we have seen within students books as a result of these changes has been incredible.
