FEATURE FOCUS: VIEW FROM THE CLASSROOM


children come back to the Lees Brook Academy in September and participated in student INSET days.


This was something new this year which I introduced for several reasons. Over the course of a year, teaching and support staff in all schools undertake a number of teacher training days and continuing professional learning sessions to ensure we improve the learning experiences for all our students. Often in schools, when developments and changes are made, these are implemented without the time given for students to fully understand the rationale and research behind the ‘why’ and the ‘how’.


Traditionally, Inset days give teachers the chance to understand and adapt to new systems, structures and routines, but not the students who are expected to simply begin working with changes straight away.


I wanted to ensure that we dedicate time for our students to understand the developments we make to all aspects of school life. A great example of this is that this year we have introduced ‘The Lees Brook Leeson’; a structured teaching approach based on the Accelerated Learning Cycle by Alistair Smith. Each section of the lesson is designed to ensure that students make the most progress in lessons. We spent time this year in our student inset days, as we did our staff inset days, explaining the concepts of this approach and process behind the research and how this will improve their own learning.


It meant that, when classes started, students already understood the changes that had been made, and most importantly, why this had happened. This meant that students were r eady to work with the new approach, and not against it.


This is just one example where we work together as a team of staff and students to ensure that the students here at Lees Brook have the best educational experience, and we do this together, with openness and transparency. We really are, as our motto says #TEAMLeesBrook.


What has the impact been of this? Feedback from students and parents has been so positive that Lees Brook Academy will be repeating the process at the start of next year. It has had a significantly positive impact on both behaviour and teaching in the academy. Students understand that when they arrive at the lesson they stand behind their chairs in silence, get their equipment out and wait to be seated as instructed by their teacher. By being consistent across all lessons, this reduces the cognitive load on students and therefore allows them to focus on the learning. This is supported by the five minute silent retrieval activity at the start of every lesson which is understood by students because of our student INSET days.


Teacher feedback has also been extremely positive as staff feel it empowers them to plan for learning with the knowledge that students understand the rationale to their own learning process.


Do you think all schools should bring in INSET days for students?


Whether it is through an INSET day or some other method of communicating with students, I think the important point is to ensure schools are taking the time to talk to their students and explain the “why” in their decision making. We cannot just impose changes on our students and expect them to instantly adapt to those changes and work with them, if they don’t know why they are being introduced. Everything we do is for our students so it is paramount that we take the time to tell them that, to explain not just what we are doing, but why we are doing it and how we hope it will benefit them.


For Lees Brook Academy, we will continue to have an INSET days for students at the start of every year, but we will also maintain constant communication with students and parents, throughout the academic year so that we can all work together to learn, believe and achieve.


Febraury 2023


www.education-today.co.uk 17


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