Research School Network: Durrington Research School Training Programme 2018 – 19

Now is the time of year in schools, when leaders are beginning to plan their improvement priorities and plans for next year. At the Durrington Research School, we have planned our training programme for next year, around key themes that we think will support schools with these priorities.

All of our training programmes are run over three days across the year, so that the training is ongoing and sustained. They are all based around the best available research evidence and all use the EEF Implementation Guide to help delegates mobilise what they have learnt on the programme, back at their school.

Our training programmes are designed to ensure that delegates experience effective professional learning based on the best available research evidence. Throughout each programme, we will take delegates through the following process:

• At the start of the programme, delegates identify a focus by thinking carefully about their own context (either at a personal level or organisational level) and identifying a specific issue to address.
• Following this, delegates explore the evidence surrounding the theme of the training programme.
• This involves challenging and developing delegates’ current thinking, and should eventually result in an alignment between how delegates think about the problem and what the available evidence says.
• Delegates then start to mobilise the evidence by putting it into action in their own schools. This mobilisation work is an ongoing part of the process that requires ongoing refinement.
• Delegates are encouraged to practise the new approach back at school. Habits form through purposeful practice – and only when evidence-informed ideas become entrenched into habit does real change and improvement occur.
• Review and evaluation is built in throughout the programme to ensure that the new approach is being implemented with success and fidelity to the research findings.
• Our training programmes are designed to have a wide impact. Delegates are encouraged and supported to share their new learning with their colleagues and persuade others to adopt evidence-informed strategies.

Our training programmes for next year (and links to booking information) are listed below:

Improving memory

Over recent years, schools and teachers have become increasingly interested in how students learn and the role of memory in this process. In this course, we will draw on evidence from cognitive science to explore how to design lessons, units of work and policies that encourage knowledge retention and put students on the path to success. This will be relevant and useful for primary and secondary colleagues. We will cover the following questions:

• Which teaching methods have been shown to improve memory recall?
• How can better course and curriculum planning improve the depth and scope of student knowledge?
• What are the most effective revision strategies to teach our students?
• How can we best prepare students for content-rich exams?

Further details here.

Evidence-informed principles that will improve teaching

We know a great deal from the body of research evidence about what makes effective teaching. This training programme will explore this research evidence and then codify this into six evidence-informed pedagogical principles that teachers from all phases can implement in their classrooms.

As well as understanding the research evidence behind these six principles, delegates will also leave with a bank of effective and sustainable teaching approaches that will improve learning in their classrooms.

Further details here.

Understanding and using the EEF Metacognition and Self-Regulated Learning Guide

Metacognition is a vast and multi-faceted area of pedagogy which holds huge promise for improving teaching and learning but can be difficult to implement. This training programme will aim to demystify metacognition and self-regulated learning and make it useful for teachers by unpicking the guidance report’s seven practical and evidence-based recommendations.

Further details here.

Evidence-informed approaches to improving literacy

Currently, there is a lack of practical ideas about how teachers can best support students who arrive at secondary school with low literacy levels.

This will be a three day programme aimed at anybody with a literacy responsibility including secondary literacy leaders, subject leaders and classroom teachers. The training will explore approaches to reading, writing and vocabulary development through the lens of robust research evidence. There will be a particular focus on methods to use with secondary students who currently struggle to access the literacy demands of the Key Stage Three and Four curriculum.

The training will include practical and time efficient strategies that can be taken away and immediately applied in your setting.

Further details here.

Improving behaviour and attendance

If effective learning is to take place in schools, we need to ensure that students are attending school regularly and that a calm and purposeful atmosphere is created within classrooms and the wider school. This will give students the best possible chance of success.

This programme will explore the evidence around improving behaviour and attendance in schools. Following this, it will examine how this evidence can be used to implement practical strategies across a school to address these issues – including how to have an impact on even some of the most hard to reach students and families.

Further details here.

Improving maths at KS2 and KS3

In November 2017, the EEF published a guidance report entitled ​‘Improving maths in Key Stage 2 and 3’. This guidance report highlights eight recommendations for schools and teachers, including evidence informed and practical ​‘do’s and don’ts’ of great maths teacher. This training programme will explore how KS2 and 3 maths teachers can mobilise these recommendations in the classroom.

Further details here.

Leading learning

We know that improving the quality of teaching in the classroom has the biggest impact on student outcomes. To do this, at a time when resources are being stretched, we need to improve the quality of our CPD. This innovative programme provides a comprehensive overview of the most important research evidence in education, including the ​‘EEF Toolkit’, so that school leaders can devise a high impact CPD programme (topics include metacognition, memory and mindset). The programme will support you with a range of evidence-based tools to help you lead learning with success and improve your CPD programme.

Further details here.

Effective use of the Pupil Premium fund

This programme will address the following points:

• How can we best use data to define challenges and drive decisions about how to spend the Pupil Premium?
• How can we use evidence effectively to tackle defined challenges?
• What does evidence tell us about delivering and sustaining quality first teaching?
• What do we want to happen and how will we really know if we’re on track and ultimately successful?
• How can we best gather evidence about the effectiveness of Pupil Premium provision in our own, and other schools?

Further details here.

Improving secondary science

On Friday 21^st September 2018 the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) published its latest guidance report, designed to support secondary science teaching. Improving secondary science reviews the best available research and offers schools and science teachers seven clear and actionable recommendations on how to boost their pupils’ attainment in science.

Previous research by the EEF found that there is a gap in science outcomes between disadvantaged pupils and their classmates at every stage in the education system. The gap first becomes apparent at Key Stage 1 (ages 5 – 7) and only gets wider throughout primary and secondary school and on to A‑level.

This training programme is designed to support secondary science teachers with understanding and then implementing the recommendations in this report. This will help science teachers to ensure that every pupil – but particularly those from disadvantaged homes – receive a high-quality and well-rounded grounding in science and an interest that may lead them to further study.

Further details here.