Headteacher: Mrs L. DawsonSt James C of E Primary SchoolHullHU7 6BD
Tel: 01482 825091 Fax: 01482 825091 e-mail: lauradawson@st-james.hull.sch.uk website: www.st-james.hull.sch.uk
Started programme September 2002 |
Facilitator: Helena Webster |
|
| Once
the whole school had finished the Co-operative Learning Training we
decided to concentrate on one aspect a week. The first week we talked to
the children about Active Listening and we all had a poster of an ear in
the classroom. We also introduced the management signals and some of the
staff came up with some of their own. The following few weeks we recapped on Active Listening and concentrated on paired work, developing ‘Think Pair Share’. This has worked tremendously well. We have incorporated the use of individual whiteboards into this structure. This has really helped when introducing Ben Brunwin’s Writing Process, where there is a need for a good listening partner. The pieces of writing that the children have produced from discussion, listening and asking questions was incredible. We have now adopted this style, so that it may aide the children’s writing levels as writing is an aspect on the school improvement plan. We then introduced roles, 1 a week, such as the noise controller, resources manager etc. At key stage 1 we only introduced a few roles. Within circle time we talked about what the children should do and how important their role was. This worked really well at first and the children were very enthusiastic to be a certain role and have a job to do. We were going to make badges for the roles but at first we just used stickers. Most classes found this of value. In one class the time past and the enthusiasm diminished and the children became disrespectful to the people who had roles. It came more of a hindrance to classroom activities. We decided we had rushed in to using roles at an inappropriate stage and so that class went back to the start to embed Active Listening and pair work. We found each class has their own needs and so now the classes are at different stages within the development of Co-operative Learning. Group work activities with roles have worked well in the upper key stage classes especially with Science investigations. In the Early Years Class and Year 1 they enjoy having roles and it has worked well. All the school including Key Stage 1 are now doing group spellings and times tables and the results have rocketed. The children enjoy the tests more and they are under less pressure. Overall Key Stage 1 are focusing and embedding the skills of Active Listening, Management Signals and pair work. Key Stage 2 are repeating this and the aim is to build up to group work.
|
||
| Updated 06 Mar 2003 |
||