G&T Hub Webinar

1. G&T Hub Webinar  7 steps to smarter G&T provision: ensure your provision is cutting-edge, efficient and impactful Ruth Powley  -------------------------------------------------- The webinar slides can be downloaded and printed from: http://bit.ly/Ruthwebinar Do your colleagues need to use the Hub? Your subscription includes 6 log-ins. Make sure you’re using them all. For help call the Hub Line and speak to our friendly team! 0845 0738805

2. Aim of this session To help G&T coordinators to understand where to focus (and where not to focus) time, energy and resources in developing a ‘smart’ G&T strategy that has impact.

3. Focus areas • Identification, tracking and monitoring. • Staff training. • Student training. • Getting staff and students on board. • Extracurricular activities and enrichment. • Curriculum and timetable. • Creating resources for G&T students.

4. Focus questions • What do you want to get out of today’s session? • What areas of G&T provision do you find most difficult?

5. Focus area 1:Identification, tracking and monitoring Remember: It’s all about the progress of key groups Quick tip Who leads your most effective existing strategy for identifying, tracking and monitoring a key group (eg C/D borderline or level 3-4 students)? Talk to them to gain ideas that you can tweak for more able students. Cut time spent on identifying a cohort and spend time on what you do with them that leads to better outcomes, eg A/ A* and level 6s. Idea Student and/or parent monitoring sheets using SISRA data to allow students and/or parents to track student’s ranked position in the year group and ranked position in relation to targets, etc.

6. Focus Area 2: Staff training Remember: It’s all about students making exceptional progress. Quick tip Which teachers get the best A/A* or level 5/6 results in your school? Observe their lessons to get ideas about what they do to differentiate at the top end. How can you get them involved in staff training? Cut time spent on standard Inset. Spend time on coaching programmes that embed good practice. Idea Could teachers with a proven track record of success at A/A* or Level 5/6 have a performance management target of working with colleagues to improve their results? (One to suggest to your SLT.)

7. Focus Area 3: Student training Remember: It’s all about students making exceptional progress Quick tip Your teachers probably know what outstanding teaching and learning looks like due to your CPD programme. Have you ever shared this with your students? Cut time spent on identification methods. Spend time talking to students about effective learning. Idea More able CPD through assemblies or scholarship forms to tackle key learning issues that hold more able students back, such as passivity and lack of resilience.

8. Focus Area 4: Getting staff and students on board Remember: It’s all about students making exceptional progress. Quick tip There is still a perception out there that G&T is about ‘nice’ trips for ‘nice’ students. Cut time that staff spend on picking ‘nice’ students who deserve the G&T programme. Spend time planning a re-brand of what G&T is about – one hour with staff. Idea A self-selecting ‘able and ambitious programme’. Is it enough to be ambitious for 10% of your students?

9. Focus Area 5: Extracurricular activities/enrichment Remember: It’s about students going ‘above and beyond’. Quick Tip Use your staff. Cut time that you spend organising everything. Spend time thinking strategically and building up a network of meaningful activities which will enhance students’ progress in the classroom, their aspirations and ambitions, and their ‘cultural capital’. Idea Every department/year group to have one extracurricular activity or element of enrichment for able and ambitious students which is not just related to the exam syllabus. This could be built into performance management or movement up the UPS scale. (One to suggest to your SLT).

10. Focus Area 6: Curriculum and timetable Remember: It’s about quality, not quantity. Quick Tip Your students will be better served by nine top grades than 11 middle grades. Cut time that you spend on lengthy auditing of the curriculum. Spend time on building in quality opportunities for students to develop higher-order thinking skills. Idea KS2 and KS4 in particular afford limited opportunities to get away from the syllabus. Therefore, use other time to develop higher-order thinking skills: KS1 and KS3, scholarship forms, ‘thinking days’, etc.

11. Focus Area 7: Creating resources for G&T students Remember: It’s all about students making exceptional progress Quick tip Focus on key areas that will prepare students to gain A/A* grades in linear exams (primary colleagues, it’s never too soon: memory skills, ‘no draft’ writing and literacy skills). Cut time on resources not explicitly linked to student progress. Spend time becoming the memory champion for your school. Idea Develop memory assessments to allow students and parents to track the development of their recall skills.

12. Keep in your mind How will what I am doing lead to more able students making more progress than they were previously doing?

13. G&T Hub Webinar  Questions & Answers -------------------------------------------------- Join us for the next Hub webinar on 14 May, when Ian Warwick will answeryour G&T questions 14 May, 4-4.30pm