The Classify Education Newsletter #7

Author

Andrew Wilkinson
October 01, 2024

Welcome to the seventh 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

  • Classify development continues in all of it’s frustration. Version 1 is close to being done but unpredictable issues keep arising. All core features are now working but there are still a few issues in working through the full workflow.

  • Episode #13 & #14 of The Learning Curve School Leadership Podcast is live and I was fortunate enough to speak to Michelle Hinds (Repton School Dubai) & Cat Chowdhary (Al Riyadh Charter School) who were both absolutely amazing. You can listen to the two episodes here.

  • I will be speaking at TeacherCon DXB on October 5th - I will be giving a talk on data and exploring Classify in supporting teachers’ with their assessment. Sign-up here if you are interested

Leadership reflection

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A WALL OR A BRIDGE?

Marti Perarnau

Reflection: I have been reading Marti Perarnau’s new book which is an insight into Pep Guardiola’s time at Manchester City. The book contains an anecdote about 2 conductors (Karajan & Bernstein) but who approached their task in different ways. Karajan built a wall between himself and the orchestra believing that the barrier would create synergy whereas Bernstein builds a bridge to connect with the orchestra and let the music flow.

This analysis from Perarnau is so interesting and is something to be mindful of as a teacher with the children and with the staff we work with. There is no correct approach as both conductors were hugely successful but the bridge naturally seems like the best approach in terms of education and in leadership.

The data drop

Data from Teacher Tapp

More interesting data from Teacher Tapp this month and I think this is such an interesting area, especially at the start of the year and setting those class expectations. In particular, I find it interesting that the trends are generally quite universal and seem to be relatively consistent in frequency. On the whole, these issues were more prominent in Primary vs Secondary which is to be expected when thinking about maturity.

I would be intrigued to see a follow up on this asking about how many times particular disruptions occurred and how much time was lost. Also, I’d be interested to know what follow up action was taken.

Teaching & learning tip

Backward Fading

I have been doing a lot of reading about backward fading and using it to support students meet desired outcomes.

Backward fading is very simple but effective scaffold and requires little preparation for teachers. In a backward faded question a teacher would do the following:

  • Teacher completes all steps in a question/task except the last one

  • Student then works to complete the 1 step left

  • Teacher then removes a step in the next question

  • Student then works to complete multiple steps

  • Teacher removes steps until question is blank and is to be fully completed by the student

Backward fading is an excellent way to build independence in students and provide some children who may struggle with the opportunity to have some success. It is also helpful in identifying a particular step a student may be struggling with.

The examples above from Backward Faded Maths are a great format to follow. In terms of variations sentence frames or sentences which omit specific elements could be used to support students in only thinking about one element when writing or constructing answers.

Lloyd Williams-Jones discusses the potential of backward fading on this excellent episode of TDaPE - Establishing a Belief in the Potential of ALL Students.

Five things we enjoyed this month

Learn more about Classify

Thank you as always for taking the time to read this month’s edition of The Classify Education Newsletter. It is genuinely a pleasure putting it together and sharing with passionate educators.

As always, if you have any feedback on anything we do…give me a shout and let me know. I want this newsletter to be a valuable resource and I would love to know if people wanted something specific.

Myself & the development team are continuing work on Classify, building a website is hard work - who knew? If you’d like to know what we do, schedule a call using the button below👇