Adapting existing lesson sequences to increase teacher autonomy

Ask the majority of educators what they would like more of and I am certain most will reply, ‘time’. Therefore, it is not a surprise that many schools and educational establishments opt to purchase a ready-made scheme or platform to support staff with their lesson planning requirements. There are some absolutely fantastic solutions out there, which are research-informed, built on best practice and have an educationally sound understanding of the concepts which educators are required to teach. The question I pose is, do these pre-packaged lessons sometimes take teachers more time to unpick and to tailor to their own cohorts? Is the joyful element (which drew many educators to the profession) present when delivering lessons which are lacking the autonomy, the interests and the prior knowledge and experiences of the class teacher?

It has been such a pleasure to work with Tibshelf Infant School, a two-form entry school in rural Derbyshire. The school’s Executive Headteacher and the Headteacher (who is also the Leader of English) has identified that the current approach to the English curriculum which they were implementing had some flaws which were affecting the knowledge and skill building within the writing sequence. Subsequently, teachers lacked confidence when teaching the content as they did not believe that the lessons, as arranged, were empowering the children to be successful writers. In turn, there were a number of spelling, punctuation and grammar (SPaG) objectives which were pitched beyond the point of the curriculum to where the lessons were matched to.

In the initial consultation meeting, the Primary Headteacher and I lived the experience which we were planning to present staff with on the subsequent INSET Day. This involved taking a pre-planned unit of work and plotting it onto a bespoke writing cycle grid. We were in agreement that the children needed to be exposed to, and have the experience to practice, a number of non-negotiables across the writing cycle.

These included:

• A high-quality text which subsequent reading and writing experiences centre around.
• A hook lesson to create a sense of excitement and intrigue.
• A model text which includes ambitious grammar, punctuation and vocabulary choices, whilst remaining within the Year Group expectations.
• A dual-coded, accompanying success criteria chart which is adapted to meet the needs of groups of learners.
• Lessons which explicitly build skills to empower writers in their independent pieces and are taught contextually – emphasising the importance of purpose and audience.
• The opportunity for lots of writing.

Another point raised, which was creating a perceived barrier to children’s progress, was the introduction and exploration of multiple genres within a 3-week cycle. Teachers felt that the children were not able to get to fully understand the purpose of a genre and the accompanying features, without a clear focus. 

As there were lots of positives recognised within the existing curriculum approach, the Headteacher (through consultation with staff) was keen to continue to use a number of existing lessons and the accompanying texts. The main changes to be made were the order of these lessons in securing building blocks of learning. The addition (or re-jigging the position) of the model text was also required, shifting the focus of all subsequent lessons to the singular genre. Additional lessons were needed to be planned by teachers to support the acquisition and exploration of the SPaG skills which were required to write independently.

Following a successful INSET Day, the Key Stage One teachers walked away with a framework to make purposeful adaptations to their existing English curriculum framework. The training session walked staff through the rationale behind the changes and encouraged conversations around why these were necessary and how these may be achieved. Teachers’ initial comments centred around feeling dis-empowered by the rigidity of the current approach as it wasn’t just a case of adapting the lessons to suit individual pupils or cohorts but instead a need to alter the whole structure. The disjointed flow and mis-match of objectives, plus a reliance on too many genres, meant teachers felt dejected when teaching the lessons and frustrated that their pupils were not making the progress which they would hope for. The teams finished the training session with one full cycle of writing adapted and the objectives and genres mapped for the remainder of the academic year.

Upon returning to the school a month later, it was heartening to see such a change in each teacher’s demeanour when discussing the English lessons. A sample of the key feedback points included:

• A feeling of empowerment and ownership now having the option to engage with the framework and to use the bespoke writing cycle grids to make impactful changes.
• The increase in effectiveness when focusing on one genre and how progress was improving for all groups of children.

Back to my initial point about time. There is no denying that making these changes to a Primary English curriculum framework, which has been purchased to both provide consistency as well as ready-made resources and lessons, takes time. Staff shared that there is now more of a demand on their time to change the order of lessons in the sequence as well as plan additional learning experiences. However, staff were unanimous in sharing that despite this added time pressure, they recognise that this investment has a long-term, invested impact. They also spoke of enjoying planning and teaching the lessons, whereas before they were questioning the content and relevance.

Feeding back these findings to the Executive Headteacher and Headteacher, both were keen to support staff with the additional time needed to make these impactful changes. Conversations around finding dynamic ways to release teams to collaborate on future writing cycles (at the end of a half-term) were had, as well as committing to reviewing and forward-planning for staff meeting time. The Headteacher was also keen to support staff in the reviewing of coverage across the year, to ensure an engaging and balanced range of genres are encountered as well as the objectives which match these, securing the requirements of the national curriculum.

During the follow-up consultation, teachers began to focus more specifically on the groups of learners in their class in relation to attainment judgements. The writing cycle which has been adapted aims high and is aspirational for all learners. Considering the individual learning journeys for pupils, particularly after reviewing the independent outcomes, was where teachers next want to place their efforts. 

We discussed the importance of vocabulary mats, sentences stems and the use of the learning environment for supporting and challenging children when they make their writing choices. Dual-coding of resources was also a recommended addition as well as developing areas where children can independently access tools to support and stretch them, such as thesauruses and ambitious vocabulary cards. Celebrating writing was another recommendation – particularly linked to a specific focus point which links back to writing effect or SPaG choice. Increasing opportunities for oracy was discussed and I shared the idea of Paired Writing, an approach which can be embedded in the middle of a cycle where children write together, orally rehearsing word and sentence-level choices to create a collaborative piece.