Back to School: All Change

Change: a word that we in the teaching profession are over familiar with and experts at dealing with.  In the classroom no one day is ever a facsimile of another and the best-laid plans so often end up in the recycling bin.  So too does policy and guidance change.  We will often spend days, weeks, months and even years getting our head around a new piece of policy only for it to be binned the following day, week, month or year.  However, we are a resilient bunch and whilst we know that the change we have been grappling to get our collective heads around for the past few months will be a challenge, it will ultimately not phase us.

Never before will there have been a return to school quite like this, with such a tangible sense of change, and whilst for many of us it might not quite feel like a ‘re-turn’ at all – perhaps just a ‘turn’ having possibly spent much or most of the summer getting to grips with ever-changing guidance right up to the eleventh-hour – this does feel like a new beginning in some brave new world of education.  Equally, for our children, some will have barely been away if they are in key year-groups or in vulnerable situations.  For many, though, this will be the first time back in a formal education setting for some six months.  Some will have had a keen parental eye watching over their home learning, with plenty of discussion over the dining table had, and time to explore the great outdoors; others will not.

The key question many of us will have been pondering over is how do we bridge this gap in teaching and learning that will have opened up – a chasm that will be much more substantial for some than others, all whilst navigating and adapting to the many changes in the way school operate?  With the latest research suggesting that children will have, on average, lost up to three-months of their education, how do we track back and cement the lost-learning whist ensuring that we’re not going backwards at the expense of moving forwards, notwithstanding the recovery children will need in terms of their social and emotional well-being?

Fortunately, for those of you using a book-based curriculum, we have always advocated an approach where learning is continually layered and objectives are reinforced over and over again, children meeting a concept in different forms, embedded in diverse contexts and employing it in varying points of application. So, for many whilst they may be out-of-practice using a fronted adverbial or a noun-phrase, they will have hopefully at least been exposed to the concept at some point previous to lockdown (however long ago that feels now!) and they will certainly be meeting it again soon in a writing experience that feels authentic and purposeful.  What we would urge is to ensure that the pace of learning is such that children are re-exposed to key concepts for their respective year-group regularly and in a variety of contexts.  Use shared writing precisely, as a tool for modelling expectations and working walls and other displays to expose children to the vocabulary and language that is vital to their writing and refer to these throughout a journey through a text.

Many schools will want to move away from the planned curriculum for a week or two to take on a new text as part of a ‘Recovery Curriculum’ (see our recent blog) and for this, the same advice would apply – ensuring lots of revision of key principles with plenty of application points to challenge children to apply their learning in writing.  Be sure – whether planning for a distinct recovery curriculum or nor – to choose books that support children to understand the changes they will no doubt be adapting to.

For some. the act of tracking back will be paramount.  Those moving key stage or phase will need a particular reinforcement of skills (e.g. those moving into Y3 or Y5) and children in lower year groups will need to ensure an understanding of key concepts before moving on, especially as regards transition from Reception into Y1 and then into Y2, where we would advocate making the learning experience as practical and authentic as possible, with lots of opportunity for role-play and drama to build into meaningful application points.  In all cases, we would recommend keeping a keen eye on which objectives might be built on shakier foundations that others and those that might have been missed altogether.  Use a coverage map or an assessment tool that has build-in opportunities to identify gaps (our subscribing schools have access to both of these on our ‘Whole School Resources’ page) and make sure these key concepts are visited on multiple occasions using different approaches to ensure different learning styles are reflected.

Adapting any existing plans will be vital to ensuring we get the coverage and application we need whilst tracking back to move forward through this curriculum.  Don't be afraid to take off on a tangent whilst journeying through a book, or taking slightly longer than you had planned in order to get to a finished point of published application so that children can remember the purpose of writing and having time to celebrate their written work.  We cannot under exaggerate the importance of finishing the journey through a book and children having a sense of completion – and most importantly, something to show for it!

There will be no one-size fits all approach for any school, class or indeed any child in these strange and uncertain times, but the best thing we can do is to offer children a sense of stability and security during the changes they will encounter over the next few weeks and books are undoubtedly the steady comforting hand we need to support us to do this.

Posted in: Curriculum