Help with OFSTED

Jamie very kindly let us include this for the newsletter. OFSTED is still seen and felt as a cause of great stress, and Jamie’s experience shows that we could manage inspections of lessons well by knowing what OFSTED wants to see. But her last sentence is critical; keep paperwork up-to-date as that, apparently, is what education is about.*

Just a note re OFSTED – we got done last year and were rated highly- the school also got in an OFSTED professional to coach us on what OFSTED were looking for – they said to be careful not to be too teacher-led because OFSTED really wants to see the students interacting, self-learning and asking and answering questions – it’s all about engagement (and AFL) – so the more the students are doing and the less the teacher is doing the better! With that in mind, here are a couple of tried and tested suggestions:

Suggestion 1

Start off by showing the brain song (Pinky and the brain) found on U-tube, search brain song.

Sperry study: use the psychologystuff.com building a brain out of toilet paper (very good for the kinaesthetic learners). If you can’t find it e-mail me direct and I’ll send you a break-down, then clips found on U-tube – (there’s a particularly good Alan Alda clip), this helps the visual learners.

Dement – do this study by making posters in small groups – no more than 10 words allowed – it has to be primarily pictorial (works really well as they can cut and stick on the bed and the electrocculogram and the EEG, put in a bell etc) – this is also good for kinaesthetic learners and demonstrates transformation of information. Then each group presents their poster back to the class with Q and A from students about their poster.

Suggestion 2

If you want something OFSTED-friendly for the A2 why not try market place – it’s a great activity and the students love it!

Divide the students into three groups – each group has one of the areas/sections you want covered – one group would have the study, another would have the background theory, another would have the implications. Provide notes and text books – then each group has about 20 mins to put together a crib sheet (they may only use 10 words but as many pictures as they like), then one person stays behind as the ‘seller’, the other two go off to a different group each as a ‘buyer’. The seller tells their two buyers all about their area for about 15 mins. The buyers then go back to their groups and tell them the information they have got – so each group ends up with all three areas of information, teacher going round scaffolding and extending where appropriate. Then do class Q and A for review (with students posing the questions and answering), before final summary note-taking. Obviously you have to adapt depending on how many students are in your group.

Hope this helps and remember – they’ll spend more time looking at your paperwork than your lessons!

Jamie Hack
jamiehack@hotmail.com

*The quotes in this article are those of Evie Bentley and do not necessarily represent those of the ATP