Visit to OLA to observe and gather ideas on collaboration and engagement.

Today we visited OLA to observe and gather ideas on collaboration practices and student and engagement.

We observed engagement. Compliance for many was obvious. There did also seem to be elements of competition and choice which drove engagement through opportunities provided by the likes of the maths hub.

Some of the good practices/systems we saw on our visit:
Use of devices - tracking systems (Reading/Writing/), blogs.
Prove It (Sheets) - How do you monitor it’s independent work.
One teacher to collate on one document.
Spelling - lists write the words out - interesting. Spelling programme called FROGS.
A parent comes in and tests children before school.
Mindset installed in students: ‘I can’t do it yet!’

Some strategies that were used to promote the children’s self management:
Checklist - traffic light system
Prove it sheets.
Workshops available to fill gaps.

Activities students were completing: 
Independent tasks - device related.
Maths books - one book.

Resources that would be useful in our team:
Jenny Eather 2012 strategy examples
Unleash Education- writing
Maths Playground (Good for basic facts)

The timetables had set Reading, Maths and Writing times which enabled collaboration.

Questions we had in regards to what we saw? Ideas that challenged our thinking?
Less workshop time for children? - There was a lot of follow up self regulated work.

The role the teachers played during the lesson:
A lot of conferencing time when not in workshops.

What their planning systems looked like? 
Very similar to current planning.

What could we implement in our own team:
Free choice writing

We have collaborated and are now looking forward to having more devices in the future. OLA had devices and are now focusing on aspects of increased collaboration.

One to one devices allowed many opportunities for self regulated learners.

A teacher commented that one of the downfalls is that you loose those teachable moments due to the fact that you have to keep moving to set times.

The overall feeling we all left with was that devices drove self regulated learners and we were fortunate to have opportunities to discuss where we were each at on our journey and recognised the extra effort and thinking required to make collaboration work. Another thought that resonated was that we had all made lots of changes that were constantly being tweaked and that we weren't there yet