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- The Classify Education Newsletter #5
The Classify Education Newsletter #5
Andrew Wilkinson
August 01, 2024
Welcome to the fifth edition of The Classify Education Newsletter. It’s been a busy month with lots of exciting things happening
What we cover
Want to take a look at Classify Education? Click the button below to take get a guided walkthrough of our prototype dashboard👇
Classify updates
Places are filling up for our early adopter scheme, AlphaWave, which will run for the next academic year. If you are a school in the UAE and would like to signup for one of our limited number of partner spots -email [email protected] or reply to this email.
Development is still not 100% and the development team are working hard to be ready for the upcoming year. All of the core components are in place and functional but a flexible system has lots of variables which is a challenge.
The Learning Curve School Leadership Podcast continues. Episode #7 was a cracker with Lloyd Williams-Jones you can listen here.
We are also releasing shorter podcasts called Leadership shorts which are the perfect bitesize pieces of leadership development for the summer holidays. Listen here.
Leadership reflection
Invert, always invert
Reflection: The summer break is one of my favourite times to plan for the upcoming year and really think deeply about problems and how to make improvements. I enjoy having the space from day to day school life and it really helps produce some of my best thinking.
This quote from Charline Munger, legendary Vice Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, shows one of his approaches to solving problems that can be very useful in all walks of life.
Charlie believed that when trying to think of solutions to problems, it was often easier to think of what you didn’t want and work on avoiding those things. This also helps you see the problem from different perspectives & adds another dynamic.
In education, I believe this mental model can be very effective. For example, we may be thinking about our class routines for the upcoming year and trying to decide on a lining up routine. As well as thinking about the things we want and what a good routine may be, we could also think about what a terrible lining up routine would look like:
No order - children going with their friends to have a conversation
Children slouching and not looking smart
Children talking or making noise
Chairs left untucked at desks & classroom left a mess
This is just an example but you can see by creating the bad example it gives us clear things to avoid and do the opposite of, in order to succeed.
The data drop
For this month’s addition of ‘the data drop’ where else can we go but the wonderful world of Year 6 SATs results from the UK.
The key headlines from this years SATs data was that combined attainment (maths, reading & writing) was up by 1% from 2022/23. There were also gains in reading & writing separately, both of which were up by 1%.
You can see the percentage of students meeting the expected standard year on year for the last 3 years below:
2021/22 | 2022/23 | 2023/24 | |
|---|---|---|---|
Combined (maths, reading & writing) | 59% | 60% | 61% |
Reading | 75% | 73% | 74% |
Writing | 69% | 71% | 72% |
Maths | 71% | 73% | 73% |
Interestingly, the standardised score averages also remained the same this year in the three subjects measured:
2021/22 | 2022/23 | 2023/24 | |
|---|---|---|---|
Reading | 105 | 105 | 105 |
SPaG | 104 | 104 | 104 |
Maths | 105 | 105 | 105 |
It was also notable that 81% of students met the expected standard in Science - up by 1% from 2022/23.
I think it is always useful to look at the UK SATS data as a benchmark for international schools. In the UAE, the GL assessments provide a good, although obviously not perfect, comparison point. I would highly recommend trying this comparison in your own school just to get a rough idea of how children in an International setting compare to those in England.
Reference: Department for Education. (2024). Key stage 2 attainment: National headlines, Academic year 2023/24. [online] Explore education statistics. Available at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/key-stage-2-attainment-national-headlines
Teaching & learning tip
Turn & Talk
Turn & talk is a great tool/routine for all teachers to have in their toolbox. In my experience turn & talk, can be quite inconsistent in classrooms but executed well can provide some real benefits to the classroom such as:
Improve participation - it encourages all students to get involved in a conversation with their partner and is particularly good at supporting those who are reluctant to speak.
Supports class when they are stuck - when a class seem to be struggling & only a few students seem to be participating or understanding of the content, turn & talk works great as a way to scaffold some of the students who don’t understand.
Increases energy & pace - turn & talk is a good way to give a lesson a boost if executed correctly with tight and short timing.
Formative assessment - naturally turn & talk is an excellent formative assessment method allowing a teacher to circulate and listen to discussions to gauge student understanding.
Good for a breather - need a quick rest to grab a drink? Turn & talk is your best friend.
So how do we create & use an effective turn & talk routine?
Cue - you will need a cue to signal that you want children to turn & talk. I recommend keeping it simple here & just saying ‘turn & talk’ to the students. You may wish to reiterate time such as ‘30 seconds, off you go’
Eye contact - students then turn and face each other, making eye contact. This can be one of the the areas where any kind of paired talk can fall down as some students do not engage and can sometimes hide during this part of the lesson. This should be modelled to the students in setting up the routine.
Circulate - the teacher must then circulate with purpose to make sure that the discussion is on task an relevant. This is another place where the routine can fall down if students are allowed to talk about something not related to the learning.
Swap - this is optional but it is important to think about how you will ensure the students have a 2-way conversation vs 1 student dominating. A cue such as '3, 2, 1 swap’ could support with this.
Feedback - follow the turn & talk with a group discussion, highlighting interesting answers that you heard whilst circulating or some misconceptions you would like to explore or just some general high quality answers. You could use a technique such as cold call to support with this.
Good luck implementing turn & talk in your class room!
Five things we enjoyed this month
Learn more about Classify
I hope you enjoyed this edition of The Classify Education Newsletter and you found some value in it. Please share with your colleagues and keep your eyes peeled for more from Classify over the next month. If you have any feedback for us about the newsletter, please get in touch by replying to this email.
Myself & the development team are working hard on the Classify platform at the moment but we are looking for partner schools for AlphaWave - our early adopter programme. If you would like to find our more get in touch using the button below👇