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Notes of the NLCS London training event 2012By Patrick Brannac

In my summer holidays I wrote up my notes from the training event. And here they are:

Contents

Contents................................................................................................................................................1

General overview..................................................................................................................................2

Setting High Expectations 09:16 Tuesday..............................................................................................2

Biology symposium. 11:15 Tuesday.......................................................................................................3

Theory of Knowledge. 11:55 Tuesday....................................................................................................4

Pastoral care at NLCS London 13:45 Tuesday........................................................................................4

Friendship issues............................................................................................................................4

Supporting academics through pastoral care. 14:51 Tuesday...............................................................5

Pace and engagement. Wednesday 09:15.............................................................................................6

Giving feedback. 11:15 Wednesday.......................................................................................................7

IB Learner Profile. 11:15 Wednesday....................................................................................................7

IB Diploma. 11:34 Wednesday...............................................................................................................8

Student societies and activities. 13:44 Wednesday...............................................................................8

Science club...................................................................................................................................9

Year 7 form assistants....................................................................................................................9

Reflections on the training event. 14:52 Wednesday..........................................................................10

Development planning................................................................................................................10

The pastoral system 15:30 Wednesday...............................................................................................11

Bullying........................................................................................................................................11

Professional development for staff..............................................................................................12

Final thoughts on the reflections section.....................................................................................12

Headmistress’ closing address.....................................................................................................12

Appendix A: Contents of the scanned images file...............................................................................13

Appendix B: Notes on lab management and science staff contact details..........................................14

Handwritten notes...............................................................................................................................15

Patrick Brannac www.SmashingChemistry.com of 34

http://www.SmashingChemistry.com/

General overview

It’s kinda mainly my attempt to try to make sense of my notes (if I had done this at uni things would have been so much easier!). As with all that is good, at its best it’s more chemistry-focused; but lots of the training event wasn’t subject-specific so there’s plenty of treasure in here for one and all. My notes weren’t great, and I didn’t write them up immediately afterwards so consequently there will be many mistakes. Please don’t consider this to be accurate, complete or in any way well written. It may, however, be useful to skim through before planning an observed lesson. Scanned versions of many of the handouts are in a separate file.

Setting High Expectations 09:16 Tuesday

What constitutes an excellent lesson?

An excellent lesson will have some of the following: ACADEMIC RIGOUR Appropriate level of challenge – How

is that shown? Meaningful level/content Evidence of planning Engagement of students Intellectual importance – Lesson

objectives don’t necessarily need to be met as long as there is real progress.

Assessment for learning – Sometimes requires change of lesson direction to ensure that learning happens

Inspirational teaching Shared enthusiasm – An obvious love

of the subject Student/teacher relationships should

be productive and there should be a clear level of respect

Student voice and student choice is relevant, but not necessarily be of overriding importance

Variety of tasks, resources, assessments, challenges

Praise and challenge Intellectual risks Be mindful of the implications of

English as a Second Language – “Everyone is a English language teacher”

Sensitive to cultural differences, but these should not be overriding

concerns – The school is supposed to represent the NLCS culture, that is what the students and the parents have chosen, so the differences need to be resolved perhaps, rather then pandered to.

Good questioning techniques Look at the ratio of student to teacher

“doing” Awareness of available resources e.g.

iPADS Start of the lesson – “Students decide

in the first 5 minutes if they are going to pay attention to the lesson”

Formative feedback Opportunities for students reflection

on feedback Comment-based marking as opposed

to grades – o Constructive not generic o Consistency within a subject

by different teachers and across different subjects

o Follow up on comments, e.g. target setting

Good use of keywords – e.g. academic vocabulary

Don’t say “this is a really hard topic” because students can find that very off-putting, say perhaps instead “This is really high level – But I know you’re



up to it” or “This will really dazzle your parents”

Increasingly analytical questions/tasks Extension activities - (also beyond the

classroom e.g. though student academic societies

Interdisciplinary links – Use of the Virtual Learning Environment

Could for instance use question of the day, week, or element of the week

Awareness of Blooms taxonomy and thereby addresses the higher levels of learning

Biology symposium. 11:15 Tuesday

Talks given on

Mitochondrial diseases (power point),

Anabolic steroids (flashcards, not obviously a Wikipedia entry though)

Bee biology (really exceptionally well structured, researched and related back to the syllabus)

Overall very high quality, 7 to 10 minutes each in length, with a question and answer session for each. All well beyond the syllabus, but often points covered in the syllabus were linked to.

Theory of Knowledge. 11:55 Tuesday



London has class sessions and one lecture a week, Jeju will have two lessons a week.

Not epistemology or philosophy, the guide textbook for instance has a series of 700 open ended questions without any single `right` answer. But the students must be able to back up their points with reasoned arguments.

Assessment is broken down into two parts:

1. Presentation – either individually (lasting perhaps 10mins) or in pairs (20mins)

2. Essay 1600 words, often can be difficult for it to be produced within the limit. 10 titles are released each year 18 months in advance. In London done in end of 2nd year to allow students to develop their essay skills and their academic and life experiences. Preparation involves a mini essay and in year 10 in London a taster day to do a TOK lesson.

Pastoral care at NLCS London 13:45 Tuesday

Doctor comes to school every fortnight and there’s an on-site nurse and a councillor that comes in 2 days a week.

Junior school problems tend to be more “Friendship issues”.

Senior school tend to be more things like:

Periods and practicalities

Divorce of parents

Depression and self-harm

Anorexia and weight loss is a serious concern – Best to deal with it early if possible and also realise that the parents may also need support. Also try not to fixate on it directly, instead perhaps talk about healthy eating.

Bereavement – often parents assume a lot about what the child is thinking who then can feel excluded as a result.

Also important are the roles played by older students – e.g. older students as: readers, science and maths student societies, escorts on trips, junior school assistants, IB community services and form assistants.

Friendship issues e.g. socially excluding individuals, bullying, arguments.

“Look for the need behind the behaviour” Try role play to encourage self-reflection. How do they think they are perceived by others?

Students need to feel like they will be heard and they trust the form tutor which requires near total confidentiality (obviously this cannot be maintained in instances where maintaining confidentiality places the child’s safety at risk).



Supporting academics through pastoral care. 14:51 Tuesday

Students should “Try themselves out in a variety of different ways”, also we should “create a supportive environment”.

Projects are run in Zambia and a school in Angel and local projects allow NLCS London students to help out.

Students most like extracurricular activities like sport and also enjoyed the variety on offer, e.g. the magazines focusing on winter and poverty.

Acknowledging all of the students’ contributions is an important facet and is facilitated by the documenting and reporting done by tutors to help the school value these achievements. In order to facilitate this tutors have a one to one with every tutee every half term. They need to ask the right questions. “Don’t intrude, but do enquire”. Help students reflect on their achievement.

Reports - Students have ownership of the report and this is helped by the students and the tutors reading the report together first. This helps the students to have responsibility for their progress.

Year 8s won’t get a grade on their homework

Students on report (green slip) – Teachers write their comments of the students, then the students are given the space to respond. Some students ask to go on report to help them improve in certain areas, e.g. organisation.

Possibly a group called the “ Movers and Shakers” – students who help out planning and organising people for events.

“Vertical community” – I could guess what I meant when I wrote that but that would spoil your imagination’s opportunity here. Be as extravagant with this prompt to create as you dare!



Pace and engagement. Wednesday 09:15

Students have said “We like to find out our own answers”,

Also some always wanted an extension activity and also were keen on opportunities to teach others.

Important to teach to the right level of ability to sustain focus (variety also helps).

Support of individual students – through one to ones and impromptu tutorial sessions (e.g. outside of lesson time, it’s important to be available for the students)

Year 13 students applying for a certain subject at university will be allocated to a member of staff to have weekly meetings where they will discuss what extracurricular things has the student learnt in the preceding week. Also students will get support based on the individual universities they are applying for.

“Have the mark scheme in the back of your head” whilst you teach but you should avoid a box-ticking approach, and teaching to the test.

Best approach try to get students to give more precision to their answers, or better explain their answers.

Ask another student if they can understand the answer another student has just given, and perhaps explain it in their own words.

“No hands questioning” – Targeted questions to individual students. If a student doesn’t respond immediately, try mentally counting to 7 to allow them time to answer.

If a student doesn’t answer, try asking them a follow up question that you know they’ll answer and then provide the scaffolding to allow the student to arrive at the original answer.

Be careful with leading questions where most of the answer is coming from the teacher.

Extend the question beyond the subject, make it cross curricular.

“Give me that answer without using a given word”.

The English department doesn’t give out marking/grading criteria.

Try for 1 “wiz bang” lesson a week, maybe a day?

Students should be able to be “asserting not insisting” on ideas, i.e. back up their ideas with a reasoned argument.



Giving feedback. 11:15 Wednesday

Looked at examples of feedback from London. Needs to be detailed: what went right, what went wrong and always targets, with timelines for their completion on how it could be improved.

“Make your feedback odd or idiosyncratic so that it stands out and thereby becomes more memorable”.

Use bullet points, so perhaps focus on just a couple of factors. So maybe right in your feedback:

“Next time

1. Be more careful with homophones

2. Etc.”

One student asked regarding their feedback “If there’s no way I can improve I want harder work”

Feedback can be an opportunity to initiate a dialogue, so perhaps allow students space in the feedback session to address the points. You could for instance write a question either within the work itself, like “what do you mean hear”? that requires the student to write their answer, or at the end in the feedback section. What can work to encourage a response is to actually draw a line, or a couple of lines to provide a space and an incentive for the student to answer the question. E.g. students could annotate their work after you’ve written your feedback to demonstrate their engagement with your targets. For “perfect work” you could maybe set an extension question at the end of your comments.

IB Learner Profile. 11:15 Wednesday (See Hand-out)

Very similar to the NLCS Jeju Ethos.

“Look at a Global Perspectives lesson for iGCSE if you can”

Can be imbedded in teaching either by making a given aspect a theme for a lesson, e.g. in history lookd at “International Mindedness” and asking the students good questions, looking at other perspectives and not just looking at facts about other countries.

Or a theme for a term, at Jeju last term was “Reflection”; the first term was “Risk Taking” which for instance was also the theme for the first edition of the school magazine “The Islander.

IB Diploma. 11:34 Wednesday



Jeju has 57 to 59 students enrolled for the September start to its IB lower 6 th year (none in upper 6th)

The school in Jeju is intentioned to be first a part of NLCS, secondary to that it is an IB world school

There are 6 subjects that students take (plus the 3 core subjects) categorised into 6 groups. At Jeju these will be:

1. Mother tongue language – Mostly will be in Korean, some though in English Lit. At the moment there is no option to do two group 1 subjects.

2. Foreing language – English (B paper, standard and higher level). Mandarin, French and Spanish are also offered.

3. “Humanities” – Geography, history, philosophy and Economics offered, but Econmics is the most popular option by far.

4. Sciences – Biology, Chemistry and physics will be offered. As a group we came to the unanimous conclusion that Chemistry is by far the very best of all possible subjects.

5. Maths – Most higher level, a small minority may take maths studies however.

6. The Arts – Theater, music and visual arts offered, but this is an optional group, students can instead elect to do another subject in one of the other groups (but not group 1) instead.

The IB Core is made up of three parts and students complete all of these:

1. TOK

2. Extended Essay

3. CAS (Community, Action and Service)

Student societies and activities. 13:44 Wednesday (Given by year 13 girls)

Each society has its own teacher attached, who can help for instance in booking school facilities and to help out more generally to ease pressure for instance during exam time, but often most of the work will be done by the students.

The “Pay it Forward” society was, for instance, founded by a student who thought it was a good idea that needed supporting.

Science club Meets weekly and is involved in a variety of activities like:



1. Year 12 students run interesting experiments you wouldn’t normally do in a lesson for year 7 students. So the students will talk to the technician to book the equipment, organise an available room.

2. Structured tutoring system, from year 12 and year 13 students (e.g. yr 10 tutored by yr 12). Tutor and tutee organise a meeting time.

3. Speakers to talk on science issues

4. Maths and science week - an instance where the teacher was asked to help to engage the other members of the society

5. Games workshop – Students were asked to design a game and bring it to the hall. Unexpectedly popular, had 70 entries (e.g. quizzes and, according to my notes, “a wire thing”). 5 prizes of £50 vouchers each.

Year 7 form assistantsOlder students like yr 12 help out yr 7 students adjust to middle school or yr 3 students. Involves the time before school starts where the form assistant will talk to students in their assigned tutor group. Can help with “Friendship Issues”. Simmilar to peer councillors. Can involve introducing students to each other to help strengthen the group and prevent social exclusion. Can help out to alert staff to issues at home that the tutees are reluctant to talk to others about and allows therefore a somewhat informal channel of communication.

For yr 3 form assistants they meet every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Although not mentioned in the conference, there are similarities with vertical tutor groups. Their tutees can also read to them, be involved in helping out with homework and with their understanding of feedback, go to plays and other tutor group events. Part of their role is to be there to be a friend to them.

Other talks were given by the Drama society, the History society and the Debating society.

Noteworthy quotes from the students involved in societies:

“There are many hours in the day”

“The more I have to do the more I can get done”

“The Chair has to pick up the slack from everyone else – they need to be ready to step in”

“Chemistry is the best subject ever. Ergo Chemist are the best people ever”

A summary of their summary of what they got out of participating in societies:

Confidence, communication, people management skills, meeting new people, especially from different year groups…

“It’s what brings people together”

Reflections on the training event. 14:52 Wednesday



What were the elements of NLCS London’s success?

Most important is INFECTIOUS ENTHUSIASM for the subject and for learning, where teachers enthuse students, students enthuse each other as well as enthusing their teachers.

Two way connections between staff and students (effective communication).

A sense of fulfilment where both students and staff feel a sense of joy just to be there (the opposite, perhaps, of “clock watching”).

A sense of freedom to go beyond the syllabus.

Interconnectedness of the pastoral team (which isn’t seen the “school police”, rather helps students to get involved and succeed), the curricula and the extra-curricular activities.

Support

o From the teachers is always at hand. A passion for skilful action.

o Of the can do attitude.

o Allows students to take intellectual risks.

o Available to all, the middle as well as the top and bottom.

o Promotes trust and respect

Self-efficiency of students which leads to remarkable life skills

Important to understand the ideas behind content over process.

This idea of TIGHT and LOOSE, e.g. loose in the sense of uniform policy is lightly enforced, tight with regard to the “can do attitude”. Students are always told they can, never that they can’t do something. Lots of positive encouragement and an understanding that “there are no excuses” for poor performance. Both students and staff ought to do well in this environment.

“From those to who much is given much is expected”

Development planning

o This is crucial to the school’s success

o School has 7 AIMS (like to provide ambitious education)

o These provide PRIORITIES to each area of the school at the start of the school year

o At the end of the year the staff then reflect on these priorities



o Each priority will result in an ACTION PLAN that goes to teachers which is then incorporated into classrooms and lessons

o OFSTED would, for instance, be interested to know if all teachers could articulate these aims and the action plans that they have engendered

The pastoral system 15:30 Wednesday

Hierarchy:

Section Heads are roughly equivalent to head of year

An email requiring the attention of the pastoral team would CC section heads, the BHM and the ABHM.

BullyingSometimes it is related to friction between families, not just students. Relates to appropriate “student power”. Smoking, for instance, will give a student power in the eyes of their peers.

“Ask a student 3 times to get the truth of the matter” – Students often reluctant to tell staff about issues straight away. Might be useful to learn Korean swear words so you’re more aware of what’s happening around you. Korean Schools have 25 to 30 students per class.


Not sure

Head of Boys, Nick Head of Girls

Section Head for girls Yrs 7, 8 and 9, Irene (Toby is the SH counterpart for boys)

Section Head for girls Yrs 10, 11 and 12

Boarding Housemaster BHM 1

Assistant Boarding Housemaster, ABHM

Form tutors

Boarding Housemaster BHM 2


Professional development for staff.

A confluence of factors make it difficult to get good speakers in Jeju, and usually they will not actively be teaching anymore. So the idea is to get teachers to teach each other at the school – sharing best practice.

There will be a selection of particular THEMES and PRIORITIES – e.g. every tutor knows their tutees. This could be done by:

1. Information on how carry out a successful one to one

2. Videoing a successful tutor tutee meeting

3. Offering advice on skills to approach tutees

Final thoughts on the reflections sectionAlthough new, “NLCS Jeju is an established school” it has to be in order for it to be able to attract students and deliver what it promises. It’s not the same as NLCS London, but it is similar such that students from Jeju should have the same attitude, confidence and achievement as their London based counterparts.

The aim of NLCS Jeju is not to create a good school in Asia, but instead an outstanding school. It is therefore not possible to accept “Our context is different therefore X, Y or Z cannot be achieved in Jeju”. Monitoring from NLCS London is therefore vital in ensuring standards are kept.

Reasons can lead to excuses which can ultimately result in explanations for failure which is not acceptable if Jeju is to achieve its aims and achieve parity with NLCS London. Of the 1400 students who applied for the upper school, only 430 students were accepted. The selection process was extremely meritocratic. The school essentially has three years from its first day to produce results and destinations that match the expectations that have been raised.

Headmistress’ closing addressStudents can perform down to expectations, so it’s vital not to write anybody off at any point; the selectivity of entrants means that all should achieve exceptional results. “There are no excuses”. It’s extremely important that we’re identifiably NLCS regardless of location, we shouldn’t try to be “just a good school”. At NLCS there is an understanding that kids don’t come ready made. So we need to be supportive of each individual, and give inspirational subject teaching for our students to ensure they excel.



Appendix A: Contents of the scanned images file

List of attendees..............................................................................Error! Bookmark not defined.

Schedule: Monday...........................................................................Error! Bookmark not defined.

Schedule: Tuesday...........................................................................Error! Bookmark not defined.

Schedule: Wednesday......................................................................Error! Bookmark not defined.

TOK Handout page 1........................................................................Error! Bookmark not defined.

TOK Handout pages 2 and 3.............................................................Error! Bookmark not defined.

IB Learner profile.............................................................................Error! Bookmark not defined.

12 Principles of Green Chemistry.....................................................Error! Bookmark not defined.

Defining an excellent lesson: Deepening the focus..........................Error! Bookmark not defined.

Creating extension...........................................................................Error! Bookmark not defined.

Ensuring engagement......................................................................Error! Bookmark not defined.



Appendix B: Notes on lab management and science staff contact detailsLab notes:

Lorrain Jennings – Lab Technician Head [email protected]

Amanda – Chemistry teacher [email protected]

Paul McKeating – Head of chemistry [email protected]

Equipment in each classroom is alphabetically catalogued and its location listed (for staff and students when they design e.g. IB practicals)

Lab ordering schedule layout

Monday

Date:

Tuesday etc.

Period 1

2

3 etc (9 total)

Chemicals that often run out: HCl (Chem = 60 litres a year, biol = 20l) and Mg ribbon

Total practicals 50 max, usually 35 to 40 a week – Usually most doubles will be a practical (London – 35 mins, Jeju – 40 min lessons)

6-7 per teacher a week (KS3 once a week 6th Form 2 a week)

Approx total teachers

Subject Teachers Technicians

Biology 4.5 to 5 1

Chem 6 1.5 (should be 2)

Physics 5.5 1.5 (should be 2)

Deadlines for ordering practicals – Thursday morning for the week (but more complicated things like assessed practicals need at least 2 weeks’ notice)

Miscellaneous info

NLCS Jeju provides funding for maybe 3.5 bursaries a year for NLCS London, each of 7 years. NLCS London fees cost approximately £14.5K



mailto:[email protected]



Handwritten notes



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