I saw three Outstanding lessons last week- this is what I think characterised them 1) Lessons were very well planned and resourced and all followed the Cramlington Learning Cycle structure. Imaginative use of resources e.g. Michael Jackson moon walking in Maths lesson on "transformation", use of hexagons with statements to link ideas

about topic used in Humanities lesson, students used Galaxy tabs in science to take pictures of bugs they had collected and to research the bugs they had found. 2) Teachers knew students well and had established good relationships and consistent classroom protocols.

3) All lessons had clear learning outcomes and teacher/ students had discussed what success in learning outcomes would look like and reviewed these throughout lesson.

4) All three teachers made explicit reference to learning behaviours/skills e.g. Resilience, Responsibility, Group work protocols ( Learning wall on screen etc) throughout lesson.

5) All three lessons were well differentiated and offered students choice of resources e.g. Red/blue/green "connect the learning" activities as students entered Maths classroom, red "hot chilli peppers" sources of information (1 pepper- easy, 2 peppers- harder etc) in Humanities lesson.

6) Students active (and engaged) in their learning and thinking- teacher facilitated this through good use of questions and through "bouncing" questions around the classroom for students to answer. This helped to ensure real progress in learning.