Sunflower TEACHING AND LEARNING POLICY

1. Rationale

Sunflower Pre & Primary school Teaching and Learning Policy underpin all other policies and practice in the school. It informs best classroom practice and provides the foundation for all children to make progress in all lessons.

At Sunflower Pre & Primary school we believe that:

Good teaching can only take place when learning takes place. It is understood that teachers may teach but that children may not be learning because of the mismatch between teaching methods and the needs of the pupils. Good teaching is based on a measure of progress made in the lesson or series of lessons, a measure of what pupils have learnt or can do at the end of the lesson that they were unable to at the beginning.

We encourage teachers to role model the learning process for our students. We encourage our teachers to recognize learning is a lifelong process. Good teachers are those who are dynamic and evolve; adapting their practice with the curriculum, and the needs of the students in their classes. We respect teachers who are innovative and willing to try new approaches to engage and motivate our learners.  At Sunflower Pre & Primary school we support teachers in their professional development. We encourage teachers to attend courses and promote the ‘life- long learner’ model for our students.

2. Aims:

To involve everyone in the learning process.  To ensure that there is consistent and continuous approach across the  To ensure that the quality of learning and improvement of standards continues; providing children with the best life chances.  To set out our expectations of best practice. Provide a tool for monitoring, evaluation, accountability and school improvement.

3. As a staff team we believe that learners learn best when:

• They feel happy and safe
• They explore, experiment and experience
• There are clear and consistent high expectations
• They are challenged and supported
• They are interested, curious and motivated
• They have a ‘growth mind-set’; they reflect on their mistakes and use them as learning opportunities
• They experience high quality, well-paced lessons
• The physical learning environment is stimulating and well resourced

4. Strategies to promote effective Learning:

4.1. They are happy and feel safe.

Teachers facilitate this by insuring children/students:

• feel they are being treated fairly and consistently
• acknowledge the close partnership between home, school and education
• feel valued: We greet children/students and ask about their welfare so that they develop positive, trusting relationships with adults
• value their ideas and opinions and make time to listen to what they have to say
• we build confidence and self-esteem
• have opportunities for relaxation/energising in and between activities
• can feel proud of their school; it is visually attractive and welcoming
• feel ‘ownership’ through personal spaces, name tags, classroom
• staff rigorously implement equalities and behaviour for learning policies

4.2. They can explore, experiment and explore                                                                                                                 Teachers facilitate this by insuring that they:

• provide interesting, tactile, visual and topic related resources to use/learn from/ask questions about
• look for every opportunities to identify success
• provide opportunities for child-led exploration and investigation
• include ICT is an integral part of learning
• invite members of the local and global community to share with children their knowledge and experiences
• celebrate variety in culture, religion and language
• provide a broad and inspiring curriculum

4.3. To provide clear and consistent high expectations we will:

• implement the school behaviour for learning policy consistently
• give clear goals and time limits
• have high and clearly communicated expectations that every adult on the school premises will set a good example as a member of the community
• involve children in self-assessment and target setting
• explain the learning expectations clearly
• ensure that they experience success and praise every day

4.4. To provide challenge and support we will:

• inform parents about the curriculum they will experience next
• use assessment for learning procedures to track their progress and identify their learning needs
• Use a range of resources appropriate to the children’s needs
• communicate regularly with parents about their progress;
• communicate to children’s families that we value their contribution;
• set homework appropriate to their age and ability
• look for opportunities to catch them doing well and to celebrate it

4.5. To ensure that children are interested, curious and motivated learners, we will

• include a high quality stimulus at the start of the learning
• encourage all staff to be enthusiastic, awe-inspiring and curious
• provide opportunities for them to apply their learning in practical contexts
• display their work and help them to display their own work attractively;
• give them opportunities to discuss their learning
• talk to them about their own lives, hobbies, interests and cultural background
• ensure that a range of learning and teaching styles are used in lessons
• use children as ‘experts’
• use educational visits regularly to enrich learning
• provide a range of extra-curricular activities

4.6. To ensure that children reflect on their mistakes using them as learning opportunities, we will

• encourage all school employees to be active, lifelong learners, who share their interest in learning with colleagues and children/students
• encourage parents to be lifelong learners who are actively engaged with their sons and daughters learning both in and out of school
• plan lessons that are adapted to meet the needs of individuals
• give children opportunities to ask questions
• show respect for them and their contributions, both verbally and through marking
• involve them in self-assessment and the identification of appropriate new targets
• involve them in collaborative working
• involve them in peer assessment

4.7. To help children experience high quality, well-paced lessons we will:

• provide teachers and teaching assistants with day-to-day, line management support and a planned programme of continuous professional development
• monitor the effectiveness of our teaching through line management and subject management arrangements, including lesson observations

4.8. To ensure that the learning environment is stimulating and well resourced, we will:

• ensure that classrooms are tidy and free of clutter;
• have appropriate resources according to the varying needs of the children;
• ensure that resources are accessible to children/students;
• vary the learning environment, using outdoor spaces and educational visits
• set out informative, interactive and celebratory displays.

5. Sunflower Pre & Primary school Principles for effective teaching and learning

Everyone at Sunflower Pre & Primary school is committed to ensuring that learning and progress are the priority. As a staff team, we have identified some key features of lessons that secure good learning.

• Effective opening
• Effective teaching
• Effective independent learning
• Effective review and reflection

These phases are not necessarily discrete; they are interwoven and overlapping. They reflect a learning experience that may be completed over a number of lessons.

EFFECTIVE OPENING

6. At the start of learning experiences, we will:

• Use an engaging stimulus to capture the attention of the children/students and awaken their curiosity
• review prior learning and connect it to new learning
• ensure that the learning is correctly pitched through assessment
• Explain the learning intention and encourage them to identify its relevance to the world and ‘What’s in it for me?’
• ensure that the steps needed are discussed /generated and then displayed (success criteria)
• be enthusiastic
• give children the ‘big picture’ by;
  • describing what they will be doing,
  • encouraging a sense of prediction, anticipation, curiosity, and positive   expectation about the learning to come,
  • providing graphic, pictorial previews and overviews of the topic to studied,
  • showing examples of what other children have produced/achieved

EFFECTIVE TEACHING:

7. In our teaching, we will:

• implement the curriculum (Local or International) agreed upon in the school subject policies and schemes of work
• be clear about the learning intention and success criteria
• ensure that we are clear about what the outcome will ‘look like’
• identify what prior learning is required and what the next steps would be so that we can be flexible and adapt our planned teaching to the needs of the children
• be secure in our subject knowledge
• use assessment for learning techniques to ensure children make progress during lessons and over time
• provide appropriate modelling and demonstrations
• break the teaching content into logically arranged, manageable chunks

• provide plenty of opportunities to practice
• give clear, differentiated explanations and instructions
• ensure that we draw out children’s responses and avoid too much teacher talk
• be enthusiastic and motivated
• fully engage classroom support staff in the teaching and assessment process
• maintain good pace throughout the lesson
• create a positive and pleasant working atmosphere using praise and positive language
• use games, play, humour, drama, music, and competition to enliven our lessons
• use whole class questioning and targeted, differentiated, closed and open-ended questions (incorporating ‘what, how, why’)
• provide opportunities for children to experience awe, wonder and reflection
• ensure all children are actively engaged in the learning process
• input new information using combined visual, auditory and kinaesthetic strategies
• maintain high expectations throughout
• encourage and respond positively to children’s questions
• adapt our teaching in the light of continuous assessment of children’s progress

8. To promote effective learning, we will:

• implement the curriculum agreed upon in the school subject policies and schemes of work
• ensure that children/students use the success criteria to support their learning
• encourage children/students to be independent and to choose their own strategies for learning
• encourage children/students to ‘take risks’ (risk being wrong) in their learning
• engage children/students in a range of independent and collective/collaborative, group-based learning activities, including peer teaching, peer-assessment, talking/work partners, hot seating, role-play etc.
• ensure learning is appropriately differentiated to the needs of the class
• use planning frames for children to structure and scaffold their thinking and work
• provide activities involving problem solving and creative thinking;
• set clear expectations for learning outcomes
• ensure most tasks have time deadlines
• provide opportunities for children to use new knowledge and skills in a variety of contexts
• teach thinking and learning –to-learn skills
• ensure children are aware of personal targets for learning
• give opportunities for children/students to learn in a variety of ways, using their multiple intelligences and preferred learning styles
• provide multi-sensory and ‘first hand’ learning experiences whenever possible

Effective Review and Reflection

9. To enable effective review of learning and children’s reflection upon it, we will:

• pick up on misconceptions and clarify the learning
• use self and peer assessment
• give positively worded, constructive oral and written feedback on their work and how they can improve
• employ a range of assessment for learning techniques
• give feedback related to agreed targets
• praise, reward and share success
• provide children with opportunities to review and reflect upon what they have learned and how their learning might be applied to new situations
• enable individuals, pairs and groups to report back to others
• enable children/students to share what they have learned and can do
• enable children/students to ask questions of others
• provide opportunities for children/students to consider future learning

10. Intervention

As a result of our regular assessment, we plan interventions that will support pupils’ and will move them on in their learning. Every term, our inclusion team identifies pupils’ that would benefit from additional support in core curriculum areas. They plan interventions to accelerate the achievement of these children/students. We know the impact that we expect these interventions to have and we evaluate them with regard to the difference they have made to pupils’ learning.

11. Marking and Feedback

Our marking and feedback policy defines our approach: its frequency; content and depth. We provide time for pupils to respond to marking, so that it improves their learning.

We give ongoing oral feedback to individuals and to groups of pupils throughout lessons. Our feedback is more often positive than negative. It is sharply focused on the learning and aptitudes that we want to improve.

The purpose of all our feedback, in marking, in target-setting and orally, is to give pupils precise and motivating information about how well they are doing and what they should do next to improve.

12. Homework

We recognise the importance of pupils learning at home. We believe it helps them to consolidate and extend school learning as well as helping to involve families.

Our homework policy outlines the arrangements that we make to plan regular and appropriate homework at each stage of our school. We evaluate the effectiveness of our homework by the impact that it is having on pupils’ learning. Sunflower Pre & Primary school