Personalised Learning

David Miliband, minister of state for school standards, made personalised learning the central plank of his speech to the North of England Conference in January.

"Personalised learning," he added, "means assessment, teaching, curriculum and school strategies designed to ensure that the talents of every individual can be fully realised."

"It aims to raise standards for all by setting high expectations based on a sound knowledge and understanding of every child."

This is not individualised learning where pupils sit alone at a computer, nor is it pupils left to do their own thing.  It is the practical application of the insight that every single child has a talent of some kind or another.  It is up to teachers and schools to recognise that talent and develop it.

Exemplar Lesson

Pupils come into the classroom and there's something to do right away. There's a puzzle on the board, a challenge on the desk, something to think about. Right away, the teacher has the attention of the class. The lesson is off to a flying start.

The first ten minutes are spent on a brisk mini-activity to catch the imagination.

This is the starter activity. They might work out and explain the pattern in a sequence of numbers written on the board or write down what they can infer from a statistical graph.  
Click here for a download of the whole document.

Summary Document of what constitutes good teaching in Mathematics
Registration time was used efficiently to reinforce mathematical vocabulary. Without repetitions,

pupils answered the roll call by giving a mathematical word starting with the first letter of one of

their names. The teacher occasionally asked a pupil to spell a difficult word or explain its

meaning. Click here for a download of the full document

Ofsted Inspections exemplar evidence from books, observations, discussions etc...

Evidence and evaluation from an analysis of pupils' work; Year 9 set 4/4.

A lot of routine number work using standard procedures -but often in simulated practical contexts e.g. decimal addition and subtraction in context of money, distances, weights -with some occasional examples of real materials -menus, bills, etc.
 Click here for a download of the whole document.

Other documents that might be of interest:

HMI Recommendations for what constitutes Effective Homework - Click here
A checklist on what constitutes effective Teaching by R Loose - Click here
A checklist on what should be included in a Successful Plenary - Click here

Video Clips of lessons

This funny video clip lasts about a minute and looks at the problem of doing 25 divided by 5 - Click here. 

The aim of the following clips is to give some exemplars on lesson structure and use of equipment such as the interactive whiteboard.  Again because the files are quite large they might take a while to download.

Louise Welsh from Samuel Ward Upper School teaching 'Percentages'
This is the first of a series of videoed lessons based around the Key Stage 3 Key Objectives. It is taught by Louise Welsh at Samuel Ward Upper to Year 9 Set 2 based on the topic of Percentages. The lesson highlights the multipart structure, how to develop the main activity and effective structuring of the plenary. The edited lesson lasts just over 5 minutes. Click here to view or download.

Julie Barratt from Farlingaye High School teaching 'Transformations'
This is a lesson taught by . It is delivered to a Year 9 group on the topic of transformations. It highlights effective use of an interactive whiteboard and a multipart lesson structure. The edited lesson lasts just under 5 minutes. Click here to view or download.

Mark Greenaway from St Alban's High School teaching Straight Line Graphs
These three video clips show how Mark would begin to teach the topic of Straight Line Graphs and Sequences - there are no pupils present.
Click here to view or download Straight Lines 1
Click here to view or download Straight Lines 2
Click here to view or download Sequences   Click here for a copy of the PowerPoint used