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students speak English as an additional language. Boys make even better
progress than girls and the attainment gap is closing. The department’s
approach is highly individual and distinctive. The head of department feels that
their journey to excellence begins with ‘getting it right in the classroom; if the
students don’t find it rewarding, we change it’. The timetable has been adapted
to allow students time to work in depth. Having experimented initially with one
weekly four-hour session, English has now opted for two, two-hour lessons a
week. Students say longer lessons ‘help us bond with each other and get more
out of our teachers’. Teachers say that they need time for ‘experiences which
enable students to feel emotions’ and for talk. Both are seen as essential to
engaging students and inspiring confidence in the light of obstacles such as
weak literacy and lack of self-esteem.
112. The key features of the curriculum include linking interesting reading to
practical activities and emphasising independence, teamwork, speaking and
listening skills. These are illustrated in a Year 7 project-based course which
reflects students’ interests and the local community. As one student recalled,
‘You learn to stand up and speak, and that there’ll be no laughing at you.’
Classes may be based on ‘stage not age’ groupings; in other words, students
are selected for groups on the basis of their ability to make progress rather
than their age. Promoting students’ independence remains a high priority and is
reflected in teachers’ own professional research and discussions. In one recent
workshop, for example, teachers considered ways to get students to answer
their own questions. Teachers, too, are encouraged to show initiative, take risks
and evaluate together. One new recruit was exhilarated by the freedom she
was given to ‘just get them reading’.
113. As part of this emphasis on independent learning, teachers have high
expectations of speaking and listening and provide students with very good
opportunities to learn how to work in groups, in ways which foster
independence. This could be seen in one lesson observed in Year 8, about
analysing language features in poems, where very well-managed group work
led to excellent collaboration by pupils of different abilities and good progress in
writing analytically. The recently qualified teacher was trialling a particular
approach to structured group work within the department. The principles of this
approach were that:
the activity could not be successful unless all pupils cooperated
there were clear procedures to check that each participant individually
contributed a fair share to a group effort
all pupils received the same chances and incentives to be involved in the
class
all students were actively engaged at the same time during the class.
114. At every stage, students played a leading role in learning, because of the
teacher’s excellent planning. For example, the students interrogated the
objectives: ‘What’s “to identify”?’; ‘How do you annotate?’ The starter involved
Excellence in English: what we can learn from 12 outstanding schools
May 2011, No. 100229
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