Deputy Principal (Andrew Healey)

Lemov’s High Expectations

In an earlier Heard on the Hill, I shared a resource highlighting Lemov’s strategy of No Opt Out. Further to that information is this scripted video that shows the strategy in its simplest form: No Opt Out Strategy Video.

When students aren’t used to the discipline of No Opt Out, start out with questions that have one clear, correct answer and can be answered in a single sentence: “What phrase shows that Hemingway’s old man is tired? Anna?”

Note to use a student’s name for direction.

Coffee Club

Starting next week the Coffee Club will be up a running again starting at 8.00am in Rm 30. This club is open to all staff to participate in a safe, non-judgmental environment that promotes collegial support. The focus is on setting smart goals regarding teaching strategies within our instructional framework. This is a great vehicle for classroom observations. A reminder will be emailed this week and coffee orders will be on offer as well. Have a chat with Cathy if unsure.

Connect

A reminder for teachers to have minimum requirements uploaded to each Connect class. This includes an Assessment Outline, Course Overview, and the marks book is turned on for each SIS class. A flexible class can be established manually to combine classes but the marksbook for each class will not be linked to this flexible class.

Data Literacy

The Best Teachers have a sound understanding of their students. One facet of developing this understanding is to access available data and reflect on the information presented. Now that we are starting Semester 2, I have observed some teachers looking in RTP at their current student list to see what they have done last semester.

With any presented data standard questions are asked:

“What do you see?”

“What does the data suggest?” and “What are the assumptions we make about students and their learning?” Or as Dr Julius Sumner Miller said “Why is it so?”

“What are the implications of this data for teaching and assessment?”

From this point forward the reflection needs to be put into action.

In RTP for each class, you can view data from the previous two semesters. To do that you just use the drop down window and choose ‘Show Grades for Last 2 Semesters’.

As can be seen here that is shown as 2021 2 and 2021 1. You should now be able to see 2022 2 and 2023 1.

The value of this data differs year to year. As a Yr7 teacher, the data is quite valuable to see what happened in PS. For example; students ranked 14, 16 and 17 are of big concern (potentially). B grades in PS but D here, plus student 16 has NAPLAN 427 in Numeracy. I would like to know why student 16 is struggling in my class.

As a reflective tool, this data is good to use. For the other years (8 and 9), same process for reflection.