Teaching & Learning at JOG
Intent
High expectations of students and staff are central to the ethos and culture at The John of Gaunt School (JOG). It is our conviction that students can achieve excellence regardless of their starting point, and our approach to teaching and learning hinges on raising our students’ confidence and aspirations.
Teachers are expected to set ambitious learning aims for students every lesson, and monitor their learning closely, providing focused support where needed. Research suggests that this kind of responsive teaching is much more likely to result in students making good progress. It also ensures that students are effectively challenged, and that they aspire to achieve their best.
We are a school of reflective practitioners, who are committed to our continuous professional development. We aspire to remain abreast of cutting-edge educational research, in order to equip our teachers with the knowledge and skills to have the greatest impact in the classroom.
Implementation – The EQUA Mead Essentials
At The John of Gaunt School we ensure that teaching and learning is consistently excellent so that every child can achieve their full potential. To facilitate this, a framework for high quality classroom practice – the EQUA Mead Essentials – has been created, and all teachers use this to guide their curriculum delivery in the classroom.
With a foundation built upon educational research (e.g. EEF, OFSTED, The Sutton Trust, Rosenshine, Lemov etc.,) the EQUA Mead Essentials establish the expectations of six key elements of classroom practice:
- Behaviour and Engagement
- Explicit Instruction
- Adaptive Teaching
- Modelling
- Independent Application
- Assessment and Feedback
All teachers receive termly CPD in these six areas, and are supported in developing their pedagogy through twice-termly developmental drop-ins (DDIs) and coaching conversations. This process means CPD is ongoing, needs-based and self-driven for the individual teacher and always contextualised for the classes they teach.
Implementation – Oracy
Put simply, oracy is the ability to communicate effectively through speaking and listening. Research shows that the benefits of an oracy education are far-reaching: oracy plays a key role in improving outcomes across all subjects, including maths and science, improves memory, increases vocabulary acquisition and develops reasoning skills. By talking through their ideas, building on the contributions of others, and questioning each others’ thinking, students actively engage in their own learning, deepening their understanding of concepts and ideas. As quality classroom talk is shown to have a measurable impact on outcomes, at The John of Gaunt School we prioritise oracy strategies as teaching tools in all classrooms. These strategies are woven into each of the EQUA Mead Essentials, to ensure all teachers have regular training and coaching to develop consistency and confidence in their use.
Implementation - Knowledge organisers and retrieval practice
In order to succeed in their learning, students need to be able to remember key knowledge. Recent research points to the importance of students regularly reviewing their learning, so that it is retained over time (e.g. McCrae, 2018; OFSTED, 2019; Rosenshine, 2012).
At The John of Gaunt School, the key knowledge that students need to remember for each topic is summarised in a knowledge organiser, and students are given a booklet of these at the start of each term. A significant portion of a student’s homework involves self-quizzing using their knowledge organiser, and every lesson starts with retrieval practice so that students can purposely recall this learning. These quizzes interleave content from current topics with that learned previously, so that students can strengthen their recall.
Basing homework on knowledge organisers means parents are able to access homework resources easily, and can support their child with the learning of core topic knowledge for each subject. Knowledge organisers are made available to parents on the school website.
