Mont Nicolle School
Teaching for Learning Policy
January 2016
At Mont Nicolle School our Core Values underpin everything we do. They
represent our school ethos and principles. We aim to care for and believe in,
every child at Mont Nicolle School to enable them to be successful learners and
people. Our primary purpose is to ensure all our pupils attain the highest
standards in all aspects of their learning, achievement in its widest sense, but
primarily success in literacy and maths. We aim for children to leave this school
with both high levels of attainment and having progressed well from their
starting point. We believe that we will be more successful if we have a shared
‘Mont Nicolle Pedagogy’ that clearly describes our approach to teaching and
learning and can be applied in every lesson. We also believe in catering for and
developing children’s well-being as well as their achievement. We want to
ensure children enjoy being part of our school, and develop and share our
passion for learning.
If our shared core pedagogy is right, it should not need to ‘change with the
wind’ or be sidelined as new initiatives come along. Rather, it should help us to
select and integrate change that further enhances teaching and learning, and
therefore evolve naturally, as we explore and research developments and
improvements to our practice to enhance learning further.
We use our core pedagogy as the basis for all lessons, but we are also
developing a ‘tweaked’ pedagogy to suit the demands of specific curriculum
areas, such as Maths, English, Science etc.
As a school, we aim:
 To strive for the highest standards for all;
 To create a supportive community where we can challenge each other;
 To ensure that we inspire in all pupils a love of learning and the desire to
continue to learn;
 To equip all pupils with the tools and self-confidence necessary to
constructively influence their own lives;
 To ensure that all pupils have an equal opportunity to take part in the life
and work of the school.
We believe children at Mont Nicolle School should have a wide range of
opportunities to excel both in and out of school. We have compiled a list of
these, and we check on these, and encourage children to check on these
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regularly (see Appendix 1- Experiences and Opportunities at Mont Nicolle
School).
Quality of Teaching and Learning Expectations
We use the Teacher’s Standards (2012) and the Teacher’s Task as the
fundamental basis for setting the expectation of teachers. These documents
have been used in conjunction with materials from DfESC and OfSted to
produce our Lesson observation form and our Quality of Teaching rubric that are
used to assess lesson effectiveness and guide internal evaluation. (See
Appendix 2)
We expect and check that teaching in our school is at least ‘good’, and expect
all staff to strive towards lessons in all areas being ‘outstanding’. We challenge
and support staff at all levels towards achieving this through our comprehensive
CPD programme.
We expect that children will make expected progress, and that many children in
our school will develop deep learning skills that enable them to apply their
learning in new contexts, or in different ways, independently. This is sometimes
called ‘Mastery’. It is the teacher’s responsibility to monitor this and to
maximise all children’s progress and learning.
Our Mont Nicolle Core Pedagogy:
Well-being AND Learning Skills TO ENABLE Academic Progress;
Engaging, rich, varied, interwoven curriculum;
Plan for and have high expectations for ALL learners;
Clarity, Consistency, Consolidation and Application;
Promote independent thinking and curiosity;
Teaching and Learning exactly matched to purpose of lesson.
This core pedagogy applies to children AND staff. We have very clear reasons
why these six elements form our core pedagogy. Each one is explained below:
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Well-being AND Learning Skills and Dispositions TO ENABLE Academic
Progress
Why?
Research into learning explains that in order to be a successful learner, people need to feel safe
and valued. Under high levels of stress, the thinking part of our brain literally shuts down, and
our brains are reduced to low level survival responses, sometimes called ‘fight or flight’. No
human can learn successfully in this environment. This is why our first Core Value is ‘Care’. We
actively promote a caring environment where children can feel safe. We do this by teaching the
children through our Core Values, Personal, Social and Health Education (PSHE) curriculum,
Religious Education (RE) curriculum and our work on Rights Respecting Schools. However, we
believe catering for children’s well-being in every lesson ensures children are ‘learning ready’
and make the best possible progress. Mutual respect and high quality relationships are key, as
are consistent clear boundaries and expectations for children.
Where children have anxieties, whatever these may be, we tackle these and offer support if
needed in class and through our Well-being provision. Learning is hard work however- it would
be easy to think we learn best when we are ‘comfortable’- we don’t! We learn best in a state of
‘relaxed alertness’ where we are working in our ‘Challenge Zone’ not our ‘Comfort Zone’, and
this is something we teach children about.
To be successful in the modern world, as often quoted by surveys of business leaders, great
Literacy and Numeracy skills are essential, but so too are the so-called ‘soft skills’. Transferable
skills like leadership, problem solving and decision making are vital to success, and businesses
are crying out for people that have these sorts of skills. This is why we teach them as part of
our Core Curriculum and Core Values. Within our Core Values are skills and dispositions like
collaboration, perseverance, resilience, organisation and respect.
You will see/hear
You won’t see/hear
 Agreed Class Charters in every room
 Lots of shouting
 Use of calm music.
 Children swearing and
 Laughter
being violent towards
 Children getting Core Value beads and knowing why.
each other
 Staff constantly communicating with each other.
 Children hiding work
 Staff working as a team.
 Lots of rubbing out
 The Core Values being discussed daily
 Lessons only focussing
 Teachers talking through issues with children.
on well-being or skills
 Time for meetings with parents/carers.
or knowledge
 Use of calm spaces/a well-being room.
 Anxious children
 Children being included
 A ‘one size fits all’
 Tailored support plans for behaviour/learning.
approach to managing
 People encouraging each other.
behaviour/learning.
 People questioning each other.
 Lots of extrinsic
 Teachers having set up individual plans for children.
motivation- stickers,
 Teachers having a deep knowledge of children as
charts, sweets.
individuals.
 Children are happy at school.
 Teachers planning for Core Skills and Dispositions as
well as Curriculum content.
 Teachers volunteer to run clubs after school.
 Children volunteer to take on roles and responsibilities
around the school.
 We have special events and traditions that celebrate
success in its widest sense (Sports Day, Christmas
Plays, Year 5/6 Production, Liberation Day)
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Engaging, rich, varied, interwoven curriculum
Why?
We learn best when we are interested and intrigued by something. Our brains are hard-wired to
respond to novelty, and often the things we find the most enjoyable are those that are slightly
unexpected or capture our imaginations.
This is the same in the classroom. Whilst routine and structure are vital aspects of how a school
day and lessons are organised, and help children to feel safe and teachers to organise time
productively, we need to ensure as often as possible there are ‘Hooks’ that engage children and
real, meaningful and motivating outcomes for learning.
We believe children should get out and see our fabulous Island, and learn in and from the rich
opportunities on offer. Teachers plan carefully to ensure that experiences are linked together,
and form part of a holistic Learning Journey for the children. It is often these links that help
learning to become effective.
All learners can learn things in a shallow or in a deep way. Shallow learning tends to be short
term, say learning something for a test, whereas deep learning, once learnt, is learnt forever.
In our school we use our interrelated and varied curriculum to enable children to learn deeply,
and so apply their skills and knowledge in meaningful ways. We value depth more than
breadth.
You will see/hear
You won’t see/hear
 Teachers seizing the moment- when it is
 Too much ‘chalk and talk’,
snowing…we will be out in it!
teacher-led activities
 Using the best, highest quality resources on offer.
 Children all doing the same
 Us providing ‘out of the box’ opportunities –
thing
planned and spontaneous
 Books full of work sheets
 Teachers planning from the children’s and the
 The same topic taught in the
teacher’s own interests.
same way each year
 Experiences that encourage children to apply
 Formulaic topic planning and
knowledge and understanding
lessons.
 Teachers sharing planning and ideas.
 Innovative ways of doing things, using
technology, video, internet, pictures.
 We often have musicians, artists and sports
people in school.
 We offer a wide range of sports, including unusual
ones like fencing.
 Teachers work together in school and in our
schools partnership to share ideas.
 We have special events and weeks, like Narnia
writing week, Comic Relief fundraising.
 Children go on at least one visit per term.
 We have a large fund for coach hire, and also
have a school minibus, and another we borrow.
 We use the Library loans to ensure we have topicrelated books in our classrooms.
 We have a Rights Respecting School Council that
meets regularly.
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Plan for and have high expectations for ALL learners
Why?
Every learner is different and we work to ensure that all children make progress and experience
success, every day and in every lesson. This can only happen when we understand and build
relationships where we can admit our development needs and those areas we struggle with. It
is always fine to make mistakes at our school, and teachers use these to help find out what
children are having difficulty with, so they can design learning and experiences to help tackle
this. We use assessment to drive learning, using research on Assessment for Learning (Black
and William; Clarke) to reflect on and develop our practice.
We try to engender in everyone a ‘Growth Mindset’ (Dweck), where children know that hard
work, perseverance and determination will not only produce success, but also build resilience to
tackle bigger challenges in the future.
Teachers work hard to ensure that learning experiences have the right amount of challenge for
children. We use the work of Vygotsky, and his ‘Zone of Proximal Development’ to help us work
out what children will need help with today, so that given the right support, they will become
independent in tomorrow. We use modelling as a key teaching tool, and ensure children know
exactly what success looks like. We recognise and celebrate children’s individuality- we do not
want to produce clones, but thinking individuals. As learners, we also strive to remove specific
barriers to learning that children may have, for example English as an Additional Language. We
are an inclusive school.
You will see/hear
You won’t see/hear
 Teachers having high expectations of all learners.
 Everyone in the class
 Differentiation is carefully planned in.
doing the same thing!
 Modelling being used.
 Children who are not
 SEN children targeted in planning.
engaged in lessons/class
 Plans show support for EAL children.
 Lesson plans without
 Explicit learning intentions and success criteria.
annotations of pupil
 Next steps made explicit and acted upon.
success/progress
 We are prompt and stick to timings and deadlines.
 Children always taking
 Teaching assistants being used for learning and
the easy option
targeted interventions.
 Children worrying about
 Children taking risks and the language of ‘good
making a mistake.
mistakes’ being used.
 Silence for whole lessons
 Fluid groups depending on needs.
 We have a weekly Achievement Assembly, including
Superstar Achievers of the week
 Staff using the language of growth mind set.
 Attendance and Punctuality are high.
 Children produce high quality work.
 Classrooms are high quality environments, and not full
of clutter.
 We ask children what they know and want to find out
when we start new topics.
 Children have the chance to learn the Ukelele and the
Recorder in Key Stage 2.
 Staff work hard- well beyond our ‘opening hours’.
 We have a culture where people readily volunteer to
help beyond their normal role.
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Clarity, Consistency, Consolidation and Application
Why?
Teaching requires excellent communication skills. Learning is also all about communicating.
Therefore, communication is central to what we do. It is essential that we communicate to
children clearly, concisely and use consistent language so their learning makes sense. We work
hard to use the same language throughout the school, which we build on each year. We also
use precise language, e.g. it is not a ‘describing word’, it is an ‘adjective’, from a young age, so
children learn the correct terminology.
Learning experiences are designed to build on prior knowledge and skills. We aim to deepen
knowledge and embed skills for life rather than accelerate progress superficially. Children need
time to consolidate their thinking and learning, and also be able to apply this in a different
context before they move on. We actively plan for children to ‘master’ their learning across the
curriculum. To become an expert at anything you need 10,000 hours practise (Syed)…and so
practise is built into our lessons, and children have reminders, scaffolds and prompts available
to help them.
When teaching something new, we use concrete ‘real’ representations first, then move to
pictorial representations, then finally to abstract representations.
You will see/hear
You won’t see/hear
 Modelling being used in all lessons.
 Static, out of date displays
 Similar language for praise/calling
 Children sat on the carpet for long
attention being used throughout the
periods of time.
school.
 Children only ever working in one mode
 Children revisiting previous learning.
(alone, pairs, groups).
 Children having time to practise.
 Different words used to describe the
 Consistent use of systems for tracking
same thing.
progress, setting targets.
 Unlabelled, untidy books
 Well planned units of work that are
 Untidy classrooms filled with clutter.
detailed and reviewed, updated
 Teachers moving from concrete to
regularly.
abstract, or straight to abstract without
 Writing on display in all classrooms.
the precursor steps.
 A Literacy and Maths Working Wall in
each classroom.
 A RWI Speed Sounds poster in each
room.
 High quality outcomes celebrated on
corridor displays.
 Children talking about their next steps
and acting on them.
 Opportunities across the curriculum to
apply learning and have
mastery/challenge activities.
 We teach children to memorise and
recall poems and songs to help them
develop their working memory.
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Promote independent thinking and curiosity;
Why?
To develop learners who can cope with, and in fact revel in situations where things are unfamiliar, be
it the context, the presentation or the level of challenge. The one constant in the world we live in is
that things will change. Whilst we cannot be sure what knowledge, skills and dispositions our
learners will need in the future, it is likely they will need to be able to cope with a world that looks
hugely different to the world we live in now, doing jobs that are not needed now, and using
technology that has not been invented yet. Therefore we believe the most important skills and
dispositions we can teach the children are those that are transferable. We want to ensure all children
have a quest to be independent life-long learners, with a real curiosity to find things out for
themselves.
It is this creative thinking that has enabled most of the inventions we take for granted to become a
reality. Who knew that in 1995 we would all have a smartphone to communicate in 2015? Without
those people who throughout history asked ‘What if…?’ and made it clear that mediocre was not good
enough, we would not be where we are today.
We promote creative and independent thinking. We let children have some degree of choice in their
learning, and present them with the curious and unusual to challenge their thinking…we all know
plants need water…so why do cactus’ grow in the desert? We also teach children logic, method and
reasoning- what is the quickest and best way of doing something? If I know this, what generalised
statement can I make? We also teach children to manage and evaluate information, in what is a very
information-rich world.
Good teaching requires careful questioning to ensure we find out what children know and think, and
provoke them into new ideas and thoughts. We use tools like Bloom’s Taxonomy and Edward De
Bono’s Thinking Hats as part of this.
You will see/hear
 Teachers planning high level questions
 Children contributing ideas in discussions
 Children being determined when faced with new
challenges or complex problems and drawing on
their skills.
 People asking ‘what if’.
 See learning that is moving from concrete to
You won’t see/hear
 People sitting silently if they don’t
know something/can’t do
something.
 People giving in when learning is
not easy.
 Teachers accelerating the
learning too fast, moving on too
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pictorial to abstract
Link learning from home and school.
Children teaching one another.
Pupils using technology to access a wider range of
sources and media.
Exciting ‘hooks’ planned for creative topics
Teaching as there is a need.
Children asking higher order questioning, and
being deliberately taught to do this.
Children being asked to ‘prove it’.
Children at the front of the class teaching.
Children using technology instinctively and
without being told.
All classes have a book corner.
As a staff, we have real discussions at meetings.
Teachers try out new ideas and lead action
research.
We work in a partnership of three schools to
actively challenge and support each other.
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quickly, or not dealing with
misconceptions.
Children waiting for the teacher
to give the answer.
Children waiting around with
nothing to do.
A barrage of closed questions
being asked.
Accepting one word/low level
answers.
Teachers allowing children to rely
on laborious methods without
logic/reasoning being applied.
Children doing learning they
already know the answer to.
Children not being allowed to use
technology when it would be
beneficial.
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Teaching and Learning exactly matched to purpose of lesson.
Why?
Teachers spend a lot of time planning high quality learning experiences to impart knowledge or
develop skills. High quality lessons are hugely complex when dissected into their constituent
parts, but some of the key features that impact on the design of the lesson is keeping the
purpose clear, the outcomes clear, and the children in the class at the forefront of the teacher’s
mind.
Lessons need to be well-paced, delivered with passion, with precision and with a clear purpose,
so they lead to progress. Learners are different and need different approaches, so lessons
cannot be generic and teachers need to design learning for that specific group.
The simple view of Black and William’s research on Assessment for Learning is learners and
teachers need to know three things:
 Where is the learner now?
 What does the learner need to be able to know/do next?
 How can we break this into a learning journey of steps that the teacher and learner can
understand?
We value formative assessment and make sure we use all assessment, formal and informal, to
drive learning. Effective feedback to children about how they are doing is vital, and according to
research by the Sutton Trust, has the biggest impact on progress. We build feedback time into
lessons so children can act on their next steps. Teachers try to ensure marking is useful to
children and gives relevant feedback: that is its primary purpose.
Teachers have a responsibility to keep accurate and detailed records of children’s progress. We
do this using School Pupil Tracker Online (SPTO) and Tapestry (in Foundation Stage). Teachers
monitor children’s progress carefully and map children’s progress using these systems.
You will see/hear
You won’t see/hear
 Lessons have variety of component parts:
 Teachers download lesson
o Modelling
and read/teach from the
o Teaching
script.
o Discussion
 See planning in detail too
o Practise
far ahead.
o Reflection
 Re-used plans year on
o Acting on Feedback
year
o Linking learning
 Scores/grades used to
o Application of skills
compare in classrooms.
 Lessons are part of a series- linked to a logical Learning
 Teaching assistants
Journey.
cutting and sticking when
 Learning intention and success criteria are explicit and
children are learning.
appropriate.
 Formulaic lessons that do
 Children knowing, reflecting and acting on next steps
not follow need.
 Teachers adapting tasks for different learners
 Teachers blindly following
 A range of resources used well
initiatives without
 Children understanding their current position and their
reflecting and questioning
learning journey.
their effectiveness.
 Children knowing how to be successful.
 Teachers who don’t know
 Over a week, children learning alone, in pairs and
where children are in their
groups, in class, in the library, outside…
learning.
 Teachers being innovative and trying new approaches.
 Teachers using data and trackers to guide practice and
target children’s needs.
 Teachers planning is reviewed and monitored.
 Classroom layouts are flexible and allow for whole
class/individual/group learning to take place.
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