Early Years Network

 An opportunity to engage in a School to School Support Project between Havering, Barking and Dagenham and Redbridge Schools

Title: “Sustaining effective teaching, learning and leadership in the EYFS”

Leads: Dan Lea and Joanne Stanley

Content:

School to School, Research Informed Peer Review:

  1. The schools participating in this network design their shared focus
  2. Conduct literature reviews to establish understanding of what best practice looks like
  3. Commit to engaging in one piece of practice/teaching/learning/ leadership change to enhance their provision
  4. Share continuous evaluation of change with other schools in the network: learning walks, pupil conferences, practice review, data analysis …
  5. Engage in CPD to further develop knowledge, skills and understanding related to agreed focus
  6. Write up experiences as a piece of recorded learning which can be shared with all schools
  7. Network consists of schools from Havering, Barking and Dagenham and Redbridge

Outcomes:

  1. Improvement to children’s outcomes
  2. Improvement on teacher performance
Element

Session One:

“The End in mind”: Identification of our children’s needs and evaluation of the impact this programme should have on our children’s learning, achievement and well-being.

 

Session Two:

 “Something different”: A review of best early years pedagogies, comparing them to our current practices, critiquing how such pedagogical approaches may support the needs identified in session one, creating a new theory of practice for our own settings.

 

Session Three:

 Why Action research? Why Lesson Study? : The designing of small scale action research projects which focus on enhancing the learning and progress made by our children as a specific result of employing new pedagogic techniques.

 

Session Four:

So what did our mini projects tell us? An identification of successes, discussion of challenges and questioning of why one strategy may have seemed more effective than another. The “co-construct” of deeper understandings around ways of developing our practices. Leading to a second mini action research project.

 

Session Five:

 Joint Practice Development:  Review second project. The whole group will identify one area of new pedagogical approach or professional development/learning that they would wish to explore on a deeper level as a piece of “Joint Practice” development.

 

Session Six:

 Leading on change: This session focuses on how effective professional development requires effective leadership to create the necessary conditions.

 

Session Seven:

 A return to the concept of: “The end in mind”: A sharing of the professional learning experienced so far and its impacts on improved pupil learning, achievement and well-being. Review progress with research.

 

Session Eight:

Write Up: The collaborative writing up of our research’s impacts.

 

Session Nine:

Celebration and dissemination: The sharing of our professional learning with colleagues from all participating schools.