Back to School - the Immediate Implications of the Ofsted Research Review in Modern Languages.

 Time to sum up the series of posts on the Ofsted Research Review in Modern Languages and make myself a list of things for the start of a new term.

The start of Year 7 for us is always built around Phonics. But this year it won't just be for Year 7. Without chanting and choral repetition last year, the pupils going into Year 8 and Year 9 will need a top up. We shall see if they take to the keywords and hand gestures with the same enthusiasm as Year 7 usually do. A lot of my focus will be on a gentle start to the year, with staff settling back in, spending more informal time together and catching up on everyone's ideas and thoughts for the year. But phonics is the one thing that we must hit early on. We know it's vulnerable to staffing changes - because it's what we start with, sometimes new teachers aren't up to speed with how we teach it. So we need to make sure it's the one thing we're all ready to go with. And then throughout the year we can explore the NCELP resources for continuing to work on phonics, sharing what we have found and building it in to our Scheme of Work.

 Another one for the start of the year is obviously going to be Transition. Rather than a Baseline Test, we do an information gathering exercise. We have to make sure we are all genuinely interested in pupils' prior experience of languages, valuing what they have already learned at home and at school. And now is the time to renew our contacts with our feeder schools. The interruptions of the last two years mean we have to reach out and renew networks, and make them stronger than ever.

Then there will be areas to highlight with the whole department, to focus on our strengths. Our snowballing curriculum means everything we teach is joined up, and nothing is left behind. We make sure that pupils develop a core of language that new knowledge can stick to. This works for Vocabulary and for Grammar. Rather than micro-planning interleaving and returning to words from previous topics, we try to make sure that pupils' learning is always accumulating more, and the words and structures they have learned in one topic, are transferrable to future topics. To make sure this is even more explicit, we are going to make sure the computer room activities are programmed to include revisiting language from previous topics. I want to talk to the department about pooling our starter activities and using these as another opportunity to link current content to known language. And maybe branding them like maths with their "fluent in 5" silent lesson starters based on a gradated mixture of recall and problem solving questions.

We will keep our Grammar bound up with our Vocabulary teaching, building a cumulative repertoire of language that pupils can use. Pupils will meet structures and concepts over and over again, moving from lexico-grammatical chunks towards being able to manipulate and inflect the grammar for themselves. During the year we will look at the NCELP resources for ways to focus on drawing pupils' attention to grammatical forms, carefully integrating new language with existing knowledge.

The greatest strength of our curriculum is an area that Ofsted have missed, or downgraded: Communication. But actually, curating the repertoire of language pupils can use in order to express themselves, is the best regulator for all the things that Ofsted do want us to be doing. As I wrote in this post on the central flaw in the Ofsted view of language teaching:

If Ofsted want us to keep a close eye on what pupils can manage and what overwhelms them...

If Ofsted want us to think about how knowledge sticks...

If Ofsted want us to think about how knowledge accumulates...

If Ofsted want us to keep a close eye on how knowledge can be recalled fluently...

... then the best way to monitor, regulate, cement, and ensure this, is to focus on developing pupils' repertoire for expressing themselves, communicating more and more independently and spontaneously.

Much of this communication happens in the lesson activities, but Ofsted also want us to plan for how we use the Target Language for Classroom Communication. This will be important at the start of the year as teachers introduce their routines. And we have a speaking frame to encourage pupils to use these structures for different purposes. We will bring back the laminated TL Connect 4 game to incentivise pupils to use the target language to communicate. As the year goes on, we can look at James Stubbs' blog and think about how he makes sure classroom routines develop so that classroom language continues to keep pace with the language pupils are learning in the curriculum.

We have started to make new Assessments so that we are testing what has been learned, rather than labelling the pupils with good underlying literacy as the ones who are "good at languages". We have stopped worrying about tests producing a spread of marks from "top" to "bottom" and are concentrating on how the tests show pupils that they are doing well and making progress. We will continue to use vocabulary tests in class, but more as a way of showing the importance of continual low stakes testing as part of the learning process, rather than as a way of checking up on learning at home. We will make more use of asking for direct online evidence of learning done at home.

We will continue to focus Feedback so it has most impact. Books will be marked using criteria labels prior to the final assessed piece, so that the feedback can have immediate impact. The key performance indicators for the assessed work will continue to use exemplars rather than descriptive statements. And we expect similar quality of work from all pupils, with different levels of support or independence. We will use the exemplars to give pupils a clear view of the progress they are making.

The final section of the Ofsted Review that I looked at was Leadership and Structures. Much of this is focused on the take up of languages. We will be doing a survey of Year 9 in September to start them thinking about options choices and to get an insight into their thinking right from the start. We will need to renew our creative projects and links with other subjects. And we will want to renew our links with partner schools for exchanges (real or virtual) to get pupils back into widening their horizons and friendships. 

But thinking about Leadership is where we need to split away from the Ofsted Review. Because the return to school isn't going to be determined by Ofsted. It will be about human beings. Staff and pupils. Spending time together, catching up, listening, valuing, supporting, thinking, seeing things from different perspectives, and enjoying working together.