What are JCQ looking for in the practical endorsement section of the new A Level Sciences?

One of the main changes to the new Science A Levels is the removal of formal course work and the introduction of the practical endorsement.  When speaking to many other teachers the main thing that they seem to be concerned about is at some point during the first two years of beginning the course you will have a JCQ monitoring visit to look at the procedures you have put in place to teach, mark and track the assessment criteria students have achieved.  During last term, we had our JCQ visit so hopefully some of the things that came out of it will help you prepare for your own visits.

1. The first thing that JCQ will want to see when they come in is an A Level lesson where a required practical is taking place.  To enable you to inform them when you are roughly going to be carrying out the practical’s it is important that you roughly map out when over the two-year course, you intend to carry them out.  The way that I’ve approached this is to produce two tables, one for year 1 and one for year 2, split into half terms, noting which required practical’s should be carried out in that half term.  This document also serves to remind you what practical’s you need to be doing and when so that you don’t miss any out and will give you time to get any extra equipment ordered if you need it.  A prime example of when this really helped focus me was before the blood smear practical where the blood needed to be ordered at a specific time.
2. Once you have a time and a date that they are coming in make sure that you are fully prepared for the practical and have trailed it.  Don’t assume that the practical’s are as straight forward as you think.  I’ve found that in lots of the methods there are instructions that are different from how you might do it.  As one of the main things that student’s need to be able to do is follow the instructions it is important that you can properly demonstrate what to do.
3. Don’t rely just on printing off the method sheet from the exam boards website.  One of the pieces of feedback I received was to add in a small section explaining to students exactly which grading criteria will be covered in the specific practical.  Some of the reasoning behind this is to help give students greater ownership over their own progress towards the practical endorsement. 
4. Before getting students to work through a practical ensure that you have a tick sheet covering the practical skills they need to demonstrate during the lesson.  Some of the things that you can include are; works safely, focuses a microscope correctly, take correct measurements ect.  The only criticism that was made of what I’d put together was that I needed to include a date and staff signature section at the top of the sheet.
5. During the practical activity, be aware that the JCQ inspector will be genuinely interested in what you are doing and your interaction with the students.  Although JCQ aren’t there to make a judgment about your teaching, I think it really helped that during my inspection that the students knew what they were doing and are incredibly enthusiastic about Biology.  Don’t be frightened of helping students work through the practical if they need it.  The inspector wants students to achieve, to the point that during my lesson the inspector at one point was almost acting as a TA and got really involved.  Precision within the activities is also an important part.  During my lesson, I constantly kept students focused on exactly what they need to do to achieve all the assessment criteria, and when nessarcery I pointed out how students could improve what they were recording. 
6. Most of the exam boards have produced hand books for students to use to help them meet the criteria.  The inspector really liked that my students had access to these documents.
7. After the lesson the inspector will want to sit down and discuss how you are going to mark the practical and why you would award the assessment criteria.  The main piece of advice that I would give at this point is don’t be too generous.  Students should have the opportunity to meet each assessment criteria several times so if you have any doubt over giving it, I wouldn’t.
8. Following on from my previous point the question that the inspector asked me was “what will you do if a student has not met the assessment criteria?”  The discussion that I had with him after this question was possibly one of the high points of my inspection as there were no criticisms made and I was told that my solution is going to be recommended to others.  The answer I gave centred around two main factors.  The first was that within A Level Biology there are three practical’s that students can do for each PAG.  The other key thing that I have put into place is that for a range of other investigations, I have written them up and tracked them through using the assessment criteria so that they can be used to enable students to complete the practical endorsement if they have either missed or not passed the required practical’s they have worked through.
9. The inspector will want to spend some time working through student’s practical books to ensure that the marking is correct and that the marking within the books matches what you have entered on your tracking sheet.  The other thing which I’ve put in place after each marked practical is to include a mark sheet covering the assessment criteria that the practical covers, with feedback on how the student can either improve their work to achieve the criteria in that practical or during their next practical that includes that specific assessment criteria.
10. Tracking:  The main, and most important thing that JCQ want to see when they come in to do a monitoring visit is that your tracking of the PAG criteria for each student is up to date and accurate.  Many exam board have produced tracking excel sheets for you to populate.  If you are using one of these sheets be careful that you go into the criteria achieved by each student and change the tab to not achieved if the student has not achieved a criteria during a particular practical.  Because we’ve been a little OCD about this, the inspector was impressed that we had gone into each student and altered their individual sheets

Your JCQ inspection is designed to check what you are doing but more importantly help you put into place an action plan if there are things you need to improve.  I hope that some of this helps you prepare for your JCQ visit and helps put your mind at rest about what they are looking for. 

You can follow me on twitter @teacherchalky1 or on Facebook @teachlikeahero. 

Thanks for reading

D Chalk

Chalky's Well Being Tips For NQTs & ITTs

As I move into my 11th year of teaching, I find myself thinking about well being seriously for the first time.  If I think back to when I was in my NQT year to how it is now, thankfully, there is little comparison.  I remember my NQT year being very "get on with it, you trained in a city so you should be able to cope".  Luckily things have moved on a little now and in most cases, I hope, that there is support put in place.  As a NQT you will at times feel a little overwhelmed by expectations and workload, so it is important to remember to think about your own well being as when you get run down you won't perform as well.  This will in turn have a knock on effect to your students progress.  As this is the start of the year here are 3 main things that I think you need to think about to help maintain your own well being during this first year. 

Marking:  DON'T TRY AND MARK EVERYTHING!  One of the major pitfalls that almost all new teachers fall into is, the assumption that everything needs to be marked.  In a year you will teach around 840 lessons.  If you spend just 5 minutes marking the work students have done after every lesson, that works out as an extra 70 hours worth of extra marking to fit in.  That in itself doesn't sound like that much over the course of a year, however, when you start adding in all the other work you need to mark (start of year base line tests, tests throughout the year, end of year exams, homework ect....) you run the risk of burning out.  Remember, not everything is worth marking, but when you do give students feedback on how they have done, but more importantly give them a meaningful target of how they can improve the piece of work you have marked, so that they can improve it, and therefore make progress.  One last tip on marking that has made my life easier over the last few years is "if you plan on getting students to do a piece of work that you know you will be marking get them to do it on paper and stick it in after".  On the face of this it sounds ridiculous however, 30 sheets of paper is a lot easier to carry around than 30 books.  This means that you will be more likely to take it home to mark or more importantly, carry it around with you so you can get it marked when you have a spare second. 

Classroom management:  As you move into your first year of teaching, it only natural that you will worry about student's behavior and what you can put in place to ensure they make progress.  A simple rule that I try to live by is "if students are enjoying the lesson they will be engaged in the content.  If students are engaged then their behavior is likely to be good.  Students who show good behavior for learning make good progress".  Good lesson planning brings it's own rewards and is something that you will continue to develop throughout your carrier.  The other main thing to think about is being consistent.  Students like to know where they stand, what to expect and how you will react during lessons.  The last bit of advice that I think is important about classroom management is be organised.  If you are organised then you won't need to rush around at the last minute which will reduce the stress you are feeling thereby increasing your well being.  Don't forget to build in some down time in lessons when students are working through activities by themselves, so that you have time to pack resources away or put more out.

Observations:  Many NQTs worry about lesson observations.  During initial teacher training you will have been observed to death so it's understandable that there is often a misconception that this will continue into your NQT year.  Ofsted however, will not be judging any teacher based on one 30 minute lesson observation as it would be ridiculous to make a sweeping statement about yor ability to teach based on 0.06% of the lessons you teach in a year.  Most schools will to the same view as Ofsted so will be looking at progress over time.  This means that your marking and mark books should also be taken into consideration.   Observations should be developmental so before being observed think about what you want to improve and discuss it with your mentor, they can then specifically look for what you are trying to achieve then give feedback and advice on how you can take your practice forward.  If for whatever reason you have a bad observation, don't worry about it, remember that you are on a journey and observations are only one small step towards the destination.      

Throughout the year you will face many challengers and you'll find that not all of your ideas will work (I have a full back catalog of them).  The last and most important piece of advice I can give you to help maintain your own well being is this.  "If you have a problem ask for help, we're all in it together to help all students make the progress they deserve."

I hope some of this helps and throughout the year I'll be adding tips to help maintain your sanity as the year progresses.

Thanks for reading

Chalky

What well being means to me at the start of the year

Over the summer I've read, taken part in lots of discussions and have for the first time in over 10 years of teaching, have seriously thought about teacher well being for the first time.   Teacher well being, whether you're talking about mental or physical, is often seriously overlooked due primarily on the constant focus on student well being.  In all seriousness student well being should always be the primary focus of a school as if students feel safe and valued, they will be more likely to reach their potential and make significant progress.  Often due to this focus school leaders at times have forgot that staff need the same.  

If I can take away one phrase from this summer that I think sums up the importance of staff well being it's probably this.

"Good staff well being means happier staff.  Happier staff will teach better lessons Better lessons will mean happier students.  Happier students make more progress.  Better progress being made by students is good for staff well being."

As a middle leader I've been as guilty as anyone else of not making staff well being a priority, so after some time to sit back and think (possibly by a pool with a pint in hand)  here are some of my thoughts on how well being could be improved.  I don't claim in any way to be an expert but here are a few of my ideas.

Lesson observations.  Most teachers at some point of their career will have felt anxious about lesson observations as often they are viewed as make or break points in a persons year.  I think it's important to remind staff that a one off observation is only a small part in looking at a classes progress over time.  So, what are we using observations for, a stick or a developmental tool?  I hope that by now in most schools it's being used to develop teachers.  If this is the case it opens up the door to embrace a coaching model of teacher development.  There has been lots of discussion about this however, here are a few of my ideas about how the lesson observation could be developed into a real developmental opportunity.   Why don't we speak to teachers about what they will be teaching before we observe them?  What I'm going to try and do is have a short discussion about what a teacher is trying to develop in the lesson, then give specific feedback on that aspect and how they can improve it.

SLT telling teacher if they are doing a good job.  I personally don't need constant reassurance and praise if I am doing a good job, however every once in a while (especially after exam results) it would be nice.  In my opinion the first step in making staff feeling valued is by recognizing their achievements with students.  It's a relativity small thing but could make a real difference.  With the current drive for accountability where there may be consequences for teachers if their class are not making enough progress, I find it disappointing that when their class makes good progress, it is rarely celebrated on an individual basis. 

Letting teachers in departments share good practice.  One thing that really helps my feeling of well being is sharing new resources and new ideas.  I really have no idea why I've never embraced this in terms of the whole department before.  Allow teachers to share good practice and ideas, they will feel a sense of achievement, their practice can be praised and in turn they will feel more valued.  Over the next year I'm going to set up a good ideas board for teachers to showcase their ideas and am going to be insistent about time in meetings for good practice to be shared. 

Appraisal!  At the start of the year after exam analysis, I  think staff appraisal and often the way it's viewed can put the first dint in a teacher's well being.  The appraisal system in part is based on a classes progress, which it should be. Student progress should be at the forefront of everything we do.  The problem occurs when a teacher has excepted a number of students in Year 11, with long standing behavioral problems, which over a period of time has effected their progress then has the progress of this group treated the same as any other.  If this has been the case I think it's important for these teachers well being, for this to be recognized during their appraisal rather than it being almost implied that the poor progress in terms of percentage is just down to that teacher. 

There is a lot more to maintaining staff well being that I've not mentioned here, however, these are a few important things I think need considering at this time of the year as we all want to have a positive start to the year.

Thanks for reading 

Chalky