cognitive acceleration

DEVELOPING CHILDREN'S THINKING

Ofsted and CA


Here you can read about:

 

what ofsted inspectors and LA consultants say about CA

In an excellent Year 6 lesson, pupils were observed solving a golfing problem. Pupils challenged each other as to how they could link strength and weight to compute the distance the golf ball would travel when struck. The quality of group discussion and interaction was high and facilitated extremely well by the teacher who asked pupils questions in order to prompt their thinking and strategy

From a London primary's Ofsted report

Although inspectors and consultants may not have heard of CA or be familiar with the methodology, lessons delivered during inspections or for observations by outside consultants have received almost universally positive feedback.  However, it is difficult to find evidence of this within Ofsted reports, as they will not mention CA (as a published resource) in the feedback, leaving schools to decipher which feedback relates to the CA lesson and which to a 'normal' Maths lesson.

Welton Primary School in East Riding have developed a whole school CA approach and Ofsted noted: 'The focus on thinking skills across the school is providing pupils with opportunities to reflect and challenge their own views in a range of situations. This is supporting learning and promoting well-balanced individuals with a desire to learn' and graded their curriculum as Outstanding. Read the full report.

If you are able to extract any information from your Ofsted report about CA lessons, we would love to hear from you and add these comments to the website. Please email sarah@cognitiveacceleration.co.uk

When OFSTED came to call….I wrote the inspector a letter telling him our class achievements. Top of the list was to ask the pupils about their 'Thinking Maths lessons.' He did. He came to my CAME lesson. He graded it 'outstanding.' I want to say thanks for writing such quality lessons.

Feedback from a grateful teacher

This is not to say that merely teaching a CA lesson will enable your teachers to deliver 'outstanding' learning.  The quality of a CA lesson depends on more than just the lesson plan – it also depends on teacher expertise, teacher familiarity with the approach and with the particular lesson being taught, students' capacity for social construction and many other factors. 

supporting teachers in improving Ca teaching and learning

Senior leaders in schools often ask for support in embedding the approach at whole school level and supporting less experienced members of staff with teaching CA lessons.  Much discussion on this theme takes place on our Continuation and Extension courses.  We also offer a whole school training package to support teachers and teaching asssistants across the school to embed CA.

We have drafted a lesson observation proforma that school senior leaders could use as part of a school audit or quality control of CA learning or which could be useful for peer monitoring.  This is intended to give guidance on what (beyond the lesson plan) constitutes quality teaching and learning in a CA lesson.

outstanding judgements - CA and the inspection framework

Find out how the introduction of CA at whole school level might be evidenced within a school SEF and which Outstanding grade descriptors could be demonstrated by a school which has successfully implemented a whole-school CA approach.

how to prepare for a CA lesson observation

Experienced CA teachers have offered the following tips for managing observations of CA lessons:

  1. present the inspector or observer with an annotated version of the CA lesson plan – this will help to show that you have thought through the delivery of the lesson and tailored it to your knowledge of the students;
  2. annotations of lesson plans might include: the story you will be using for your 'hook', key questions you want to ask the children, instructions you intend to give the students to ensure effective social construction, etc;
  3. annotations of lesson plans should not include timings or predicted solutions/outcomes as this will be misleading for an observer and may lead you to over-direct the intended child-led pace and outcome of the lesson;
  4. if a learning intention is expected (and in fact, such rigid use of learning intentions is not in the true spirit of Assessment for Learning), then the cognitive challenge can be written as a learning intention for the lesson plan and/or thinking objectives can be used to share with the students (eg 'We are learning to communicate more effectively with our group when solving problems');
  5. some information about the approach (eg the 'Five Pillars') might be helpful if you feel the observer is likely to be confused about CA pedagogy.

You may also wish to look at our lesson observation proforma or Outstanding grade descriptors in order to guide you in ensuring quality teaching and learning of a CA lesson.