Through our teaching, we aim to equip children with the skills, knowledge and understanding necessary to be able to make informed choices and apply their learning to new contexts. Children are empowered to reach their full potential academically in order to prepare them for the future.
A researched based ‘Teaching and Learning’ model has been created and implemented across the whole school. The implementation of our lesson design ensures there is a consistent approach to high quality teaching and learning throughout and all pupils achieve the best possible outcomes regardless of ability and/or other factors.
Our lesson design metaphor has been adopted from the Flying High Partnership and adapted to link to our locality; following a journey on the Chesterfield canal.
Our lesson design is not to be seen and used as a rigid framework, but as a fluid model. A session would typically begin with a ‘Reactivate’, followed by the ‘Teach, Facilitate, Model’. From this point, staff have the flexibility to navigate the model, as they deem appropriate.
It is imperative that each learning objective is broken down into smaller teaching points within each lesson in order to support the pupils with the understanding and retention of new learning.
Each teaching point should be taught and modelled through the Teach, Facilitate, Model (TFM) section of the lesson design. Pupils should then be given the opportunity to apply each teaching point through the Learn Together (LT) section of the lesson design. Once this has been completed, teachers can move onto the next teaching point to repeat the same steps of TFM into LT. When teachers move the lesson back and forth between TFM and LT to prepare pupils for their Independent Practice (IP), we refer to this as ‘ping-ponging’.
It is important to note that movement between the sections needs to be fluid. Whilst pre-planned movement between the sections of the lesson design is important, teachers must also use AfL to be responsive to the needs of the pupils. For example, if a teacher notices a lack of understanding from pupils during the IP section of the lesson, they will need to bring pupils back to the TFM section of the lesson design to address the gaps in understanding before allowing pupils back into IP. (It is important that when moving fluidly between the parts of the lesson design, this is articulated to the pupils to give them understanding of where they are in the journey of the lesson and why).
The rationale behind our lesson design is to ensure the following is in place: