[senco-forum] Top teaching tips

Hello Colin and everyone

  Are we all working with the whole Assessment for Learning and Behaviour for Learning initiatives?  It pains me to say it but this seems to me to be the best pieces of advice on how to teach successfully I've ever used - and it is a government initiative!!!  How embarrassing is that!!!!!!!
  And 'Two stars and a wish' is exactly what this says alongside a load of other common sense ideas about how to motivate pupils to behave and to learn.  As all SEN teachers have always known - tell them what they are good at, tell them the next tiny step up the ladder for success, reward them for having a go.

  Amanda
  Secondary SENCO (and AST for AfL)
  Cornwall
  And in my bottom set classes, we NEVER comment on spelling unless that is the specific focus of the lesson - we reward ace vocabulary and my TAs and I supply every spelling on demand.  We do discuss and comment on punctuation, especially of sentences.  All this on the grounds that most people can read correctly punctuated but mis-spelled text.

SEN Marketing <sen.marketing at dsl.pipex.com> wrote:
  If you get an opportunity to listen to Neil MacKay, [former SENCo of
Hawarden High School, Flintshire and author of Removing Dyslexia to as a
Barrier to Achievement], he suggests rather than marking every fault and
doing a "proof-reading" task on every piece of work, teachers should focus
on boosting the pupils' skills and self-esteem and adopt a positive marking
policy of "Marking for Success" he also talks about "2 Tips and a Wish".

Marking for Success
1. Nothing succeeds like Success
2. Pupils can only handle a small number of variables at a time, so less
marking can mean greater results
3. Target marking implies tactically ignoring some issues in order to focus
on others.

2 Tips and a Wish
Tips identify errors in a non-threatening way. Points the pupil to an issue
they should be sorting out. Can offer ways of remembering how to correct
persistent spelling or grammar errors, so you don't need to underline every
spelling error or poor choice of grammar. 

A Wish is a clue, or a target, as to how to improve their content so pupils
can raise their marks and thereby gain a greater sense of achievement. 

Dense marking of every, or most, errors is often only seen as a sign of
persistent failure by the pupil.

Colin

Colin Redman
SEN Marketing

-----Original Message-----
From: senco-forum-bounces at lists.becta.org.uk
[mailto:senco-forum-bounces at lists.becta.org.uk] On Behalf Of brian hepburn
Sent: 04 November 2006 20:57
To: jwwray14 at hotmail.com; jeanld at fish.co.uk; pmacken1 at bigpond.net.au
Cc: senco-forum at lists.becta.org.uk
Subject: RE: [senco-forum] Top teaching tips

>
>Sometimes I tell busy teachers that if they can't write every line in a 
>different colour then put a different coloured dot at the end of each line 
>when they've finished.

I heard the great Sir Tim Brighouse talk about marking. He said teachers are

the most highly paid proof readers in the land. Surely we're creative enough

to come up with and then sell to parents a system that doesn't involve the 
Jill Swinburne (Beiderbecke Connection) regime of taking 30 exercise books 
home to mark 30 essays on Tess.

And I bet Trevor Chaplin never even heard of a highlighter pen, and 
certainly never took 30 book ends home to mark(because of education dept 
cuts, we're only going to make 1 book end, you lean the other side against a

wall)

Brian

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Amanda
Secondary SENCO
Cornwall