Views and opinion
Collaboration, collaboration, collaboration
This month, regular Education Today contributor Graham Cooper, head of product strategy, Capita SIMS, takes a look at the benefits of formal and informal collaboration across schools.
The changing education landscape is encouraging senior leadership teams to revisit existing approaches to school improvement. Many are now turning to collaboration with other schools as a form of CPD; helping them to share best teaching practices, examine the best approaches to assessment without levels and finding ways to help children successfully make the transition from primary to secondary school.
We are all familiar with more formal approaches to collaboration adopted by federations, multi-academy trusts and sponsored academy chains who share an executive head. However, the best teaching and learning practices shared informally between schools with similar interests can have a real impact on staff knowledge, motivation and therefore attainment.
So what are the key characteristics of a successful collaboration?
First and foremost, someone needs to be at the helm steering the collaboration. A school leader needs to champion the advantages of working with other schools.
Clearly everyone needs to have common goals and objectives – what do we collectively want to achieve and how can we realise our ambitions? You need to think long term, but also look at how this will work day to day. Who will meet and how often? What will the objectives of each meeting be and how will we measure success? Collaboration must also fulfil a real need – and benefit all parties. Are you collaborating to address a problem with maths achievement to prevent year seven’s progress stalling as they move to secondary school or to help parents that do not speak English? Having a real need will help all parties buy into offering the extra time and effort required initially to get any collaboration project off the ground. Give ownership to staff so that it does not feel like the collaboration has been forced upon them. Individuals should be encouraged to embrace change for themselves and be open to different approaches adopted by their peers, but not forced to adopt them if they do not feel they are right for them.
This is of particular importance in relation to assessment data, where with the removal of levels, some form of common language needs to be found between primary and secondary schools that demonstrates how far a student has travelled in their learning journey. Introducing a standard of marking (which is moderated) between feeder schools and a secondary might be one way a collaboration could work. However, this will only be successful if it is the teaching body themselves who have been involved in making these choices. Then everyone will be confident of what a particular grade represents. For middle schools, ensuring the consistency of measuring attainment across the divide is even more important as students will already have been taught some of the secondary curriculum. The motivating factor though for teaching staff should be that a successful collaboration will in the long-term save time and resources, as you will no longer have to test students at the start of their secondary school journey or make them cover familiar learning ground.
The practice of collaboration is growing. Once teachers, governors and school leaders overcome any concerns they may have, the benefits can extend far beyond the school gate – leading to increased staff engagement, more opportunities for students and a more exciting learning environment that benefits everyone.
If you have a question about this or any other issue that you’d like answered in my next column, do contact me via the magazine using the email
jswift@datateam.co.uk
www.capita-sims.co.uk/educationtoday-1 Twitter: @CapitaSIMS
12
www.education-today.co.uk
Seven tips for surviving exam stress!
This month, Education Today regular Kirsty Bertenshaw offers her tips for helping your students get through the exam season.
Exam stress has been in the news recently, with concerns over stress in young children tested in primary schools all the way up to GSCE students often sitting 2 exams in one day during a very intense testing period. So what are the signs of stress in our students and how can we support them?
Signs of stress
• Tiredness, usually coupled with struggling to get to sleep and struggling to get up in the morning • Poor appetite
• Lack of interest in activities • Migraines and headaches or stomach pains
• Increased heart rate or increased anxiety possibly with irritability • Seeming worried or depressed • So how can we help?
Food
Eating properly is hard when balancing revision with school, but it is really important to eat fresh fruit and vegetables. A sensible breakfast (not chocolate) and balanced meals will help maintain energy levels.
Drinks
We all know we need to drink plenty of water to uphold concentration levels, but we often rely on coffee or caffeinated drinks to keep us awake. These drinks should be avoided to prevent a cycle of tiredness followed by caffeinated or energy drinks to stay awake, inability to fall asleep at night, and then struggling to get up resulting in more coffee or caffeinated drinks.
Sleep
A good night’s sleep can help reduce stress levels and improve general health, but this is hard to achieve when you already feel stressed. So, avoid revising too near bedtime - keep revision away from the bed too, revise at a desk, table or even on the floor. Avoid sugary food before bed as this can keep you awake, or try warm milk if you are still struggling to get to sleep.
Exercise
Exercise can relieve stress and calm anxiety, and provide a well-deserved break from revision. A gentle walk after revising to help relax could also help you sleep. Using exercise to break up revision in school with revision at home can also be beneficial, leaving you ready for fresh and effective revision at home. If exercise isn’t normally your thing, try swimming or dancing around to your favourite music, or even walking your/your neighbour’s dog.
Time out
Exercise gives a time out, but it is important take time to relax your body as well as your mind. Have treats planned into your revision timetable - going out for ice cream or a burger (as part of a balanced diet of course!) can be a reward for completing a few days’ revision or surviving a week of exams. If you are still struggling to relax, try watching a film you really wanted to see as this can be good distraction.
Plan
Plan your time - revision, exercise and treats should all be planned into your revision timetable. This means you can see exactly what to do each day, breaking the task up into manageable chunks.
No post exam analysis!
As tempting as it is to find out what everyone else wrote to answer a question, if you find out you answered it incorrectly you could feel upset and stressed, distracting you from further revision. Once the exam is over, you can’t change the answers, so don’t worry about what you did or didn’t write - move on to the next one.
These tips can be shared with parents or even students themselves, print them out and display them in your classroom or give them to students. This is one of the most stressful times for students, but we have all survived it and so will they!
http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/content.php?r=16171-dealing-with-exam-stress March 2016
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48