Overview - Implementation

Evident in our lessons is:  
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Good teacher subject knowledge: Our teachers have good subject knowledge of the subjects they teach and subject leaders provide effective training and support where required.

‍Clear, detailed explanations and modelling: Teaching is very clear, WALTs (What we are learning today) and success criteria are used to provide clarity for the children and to scaffold their learning. We also use teacher and pupil modelling and questioning alongside class instructions to engage the children in different activities. Modelled work is displayed in the classroom for children to refer to.  

‍Effective talk: At Stone, we explicitly teach discussion techniques such as phrase starters, questions, turn-taking patterns. We also teach the children how to agree, disagree, support, challenge, clarify and summarise. This means that talk is more productive. 

Strategies to meet the needs of identified groups i.e. SEN, EAL, disadvantaged children and the most able pupils: Teachers use subject progression documents to ensure that the curriculum is taught progressively, builds upon prior knowledge and gaps are filled if needed. Adaptations are made to lessons, where required, to ensure all children may access the learning and progress. We use a ‘Keep Up’ not ‘Catch up’ approach so that children do not fall behind. 

‍Educational visits and enrichment activities to develop cultural capital: We bring children’s learning to life through planned experiences including ‘Wow Days’ which may be a trip, hands-on experience or a really exciting visitor that will ignite the children’s desire to learn and bring their learning to life. This makes learned content both memorable and engaging.  

Skilful teacher questioning: Teachers use skilful questioning to systematically check learning, identify misconceptions and provide clear, direct feedback. To support assessment, we use a variety of questioning strategies which enable us to direct questions to individuals where necessary, or use a ‘no hands up approach’ to allow children to contribute freely. Responses allow teachers to adapt teaching if necessary. To check understanding at a deeper level, class teachers probe for reasoning and clarification, and, as children move further up the school, they are taught to give full, detailed and reasoned responses.  Strategies to help pupils remember: The teaching of knowledge and skills is sequential and builds on prior learning. All lessons begin with retrieval strategies i.e. Flashback 4, which focus on content from previous year, previous topics, as well as the current topic, enabling learning to be moved into the long-term memory. Mind maps are used at the start of topics/units of work to help children retrieve previous learning and at the end of a topic to assess what has been learnt. Knowledge organisers are used in some subjects to support learning by clarifying key knowledge, skills and vocabulary. Metacognitive strategies – The opportunity for children to plan, monitor and evaluate their won learning.  

‍Resilient, independent learners: Using our Skills for Life principle, we teach children to be responsible for their learning, reflective, resourceful, resilient and ready to learn. Growth mindset strategies are also implemented in classes. These strategies are based on the work of Carol Dweck and include: teaching the value of challenge; giving feedback which highlights the values of planning and trying different learning strategies and the growth mindset concept of not being able to do something ‘yet’. Children’s question driving questions in lessons.  

‍An effective learning environment: teachers provide a learning environment filled with resources that allow the children to focus on learning. Ever changing learning walls provide scaffolds, vocabulary and prompts to support the learning that is happening in the class at that time reflecting the ambitious intentions or our coherently planned curriculum. Quality schemes are used in some subjects to avoid an unnecessary workload for staff. These schemes support our ambitious intentions for a curriculum which is sequenced towards cumulative sufficient knowledge and skills for future learning and employment and include: Charanga for music, Switched On Computing, SCARF for PSHE and Amaven for PE.

‍A rigorous approach to the teaching of reading: We use Read Write Inc. Phonics which is a DfE-validated systematic synthetic phonics programme which is designed to ensure progress for every child. This is taught from the beginning of Reception. Children learn to read sounds and blend them into words. They apply this phonic knowledge to read and comprehend story books that are carefully matched to the sounds they know. Children learn to read these books with a storyteller’s voice. Frequent assessment ensures that any pupil who is falling behind is quickly identified so that targeted support canbe given immediately. As children’s reading develops we encourage children to read broadly. We teach reading as a priority across all year groups including through cross-curricular reading opportunities which have planned teaching objectives. We carefully select texts and resources to inspire, engage, challenge and promote discussion. We read to children daily.

‍Vocabulary Development: We develop vocabulary by reading to children in a way that excites and engages them. We also introduce, teach and use pre-planned subject specific and technical vocabulary across the curriculum (star words).