This document provides information on literacy initiatives and professional development opportunities for teachers. It lists strategies to improve literacy like speaking with an essay-style, writing expertly, and allowing time for work improvement. It also recommends dropping everything to read and implementing intervention programs. The document then provides links to reports on effective teaching and surveys on teacher workload. It suggests topics for staff to learn about like visible learning, cognitive science, and evidence-based teaching strategies. Overall, the document aims to promote literacy and evidence-based professional development for teachers.

1. Literacy Magic 3
• Speak like an essay in EVERY lesson
• Write like an expert in EVERY subject
• Aim high: allow TIME to improve work
• Literacy in tutor time - Reading for pleasure, literacy booklets &
tutorials, Accelerated Reader for selected Y7 students
• DEAR – Drop Everything and Read Y7
• Intervention - KS3 intervention timetable & one to one

2. Own your own CPD

3. News…
• Sutton Trust report: What makes great teaching?
• http://www.suttontrust.com/researcharchive/great-teaching/
• Ofsted inspections: clarification for schools
• http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/sites/default/files/documents/inspection--
forms-and-guides/o/Ofsted%20inspections%20-
%20clarification%20for%20schools.pdf
• Survey on teacher workload from DfE – deadline 21 November 2014.
• https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/Workloadchallenge

4. http://headguruteacher.com/2014/08/18/contemporary-educational-
ideas-all-my-staff-should-know-about/
Twitter for CPD

5. CPD challenge
• Maths – Hattie’s Visible Learning
• English – Martin Robinson’s Trivium 21st c (grammar, dialectic & rhetoric)
• Science – Daniel T Whittingham ‘Why Students don’t like school’
• DT – Robert Bjork’s Desirable Difficulties.
• CCS – Carol Dweck, Growth Mindset
• Creative and expressive arts – Doug Lemov ‘Teach like a Champion’
• Humanities - Ethic of Excellence, Ron Berger
• MFL – Guy Claxton & Below the Line Learning
• Learning support – NTEN Lesson Study
• Teaching & Learning group – Pygmalion effect (Robert Rosenthal)

6. Twitter & tweachers
• http://headguruteacher.com/2014/10/24/10-silver-arrows-ideas-to-penetrate-
the-armour-of-ingrained-practice/
• What are your ‘silver arrows’ ?

7. Visible Learning: John Hattie – the idea of
measuring impact
• John Hattie’s work provides an important insight into the nature of
educational research and the notion of measuring impact. The idea
that some strategies can be shown to have had more impact on
average over time relative to others is crucial and his general message
about the implications for teachers and the profession is very strong.

8. Lessons from Cognitive Science: Daniel T
Willingham
• The field of cognitive science is giving us ever greater insights into
how learning works. There are lots of people in this field but Daniel T
Willingham does a very good job of making the ideas accessible and
relevant to our school experience. His book, Why don’t students like
school, is a must-read. He provides a handy summary in the
concluding chapter which gives a feel for the key ideas and their
implications for our practice. In particular it gives a firm steer in
terms of the discourse around thinking, memory, teaching factual
knowledge and the need for conscious effort and feedback to secure
improvement.

9. Sutton Trust: the seven examples of strategies
unsupported by evidence are:
• Using praise lavishly For low-attaining students praise that is meant to be encouraging and protective can
actually convey a message of low expectations. The evidence shows children whose failure generates sympathy
are more likely to attribute it to lack of ability than those who are presented with anger.
• Allowing learners to discover key ideas for themselves Enthusiasm for ‘discovery learning’ is not supported by
research evidence, which broadly favours direct instruction.
• Grouping students by ability Evidence on the effects of grouping by ability, either by allocating students to
different classes, or to within-class groups, suggests that it makes very little difference to learning outcomes. It
can result in teachers failing to accommodate different needs within an ability group and over-playing differences
between groups, going too fast with the high-ability groups and too slow with the low.
• Encouraging re-reading and highlighting to memorise key ideasTesting yourself, trying to generate answers, and
deliberately creating intervals between study to allow forgetting, are all more effective approaches to
memorisation than re-reading or highlighting.
• Addressing low confidence and aspirations before teaching content Attempts to enhance motivation prior to
teaching content are unlikely to succeed and even if they do the impact on subsequent learning is close to zero. If
the poor motivation of low attainers is a logical response to repeated failure starting to get them to succeed
through learning content will improve motivation and confidence.
• Presenting information to students in their preferred learning styleDespite a recent survey showing over 90% of
teachers believe individuals learn better when they receive information in their preferred learning style, the
psychological evidence is clear that there are no benefits to this method.
• Being active, rather than listening passively, helps you rememberThis claim is commonly presented in the form
of a ‘learning pyramid’ which shows precise percentages of material that will be retained when different levels of
activity are employed. These percentages have no empirical basis and are pure fiction…