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📝 Weekly Report #19

Last week I wrote about ensuring the curriculum is of a high quality, this week I will take a look at how we are assuring it is being taught for all pupils.

To what extent does the subject leader and other department responsibility holders assure themselves that there is a high-quality curriculum for all pupils?

One of the keys to the quality assurance in our department is the centralised resources for teachers to use. Teachers are provided high quality resources as suggestions to be used and adapted for their classes. Not only is this assuring a high quality curriculum is being taught it has also drastically reduced workload. Over time this bank of resources head been updated and added to do.

Another way we quality assure is by going in to lessons and actually seeing what is going on. We have been able to identify some real strengths in the department but also support colleagues who may be struggling. While in lessons we also look back at some of the quality of the work being produced in books, cross checking what we think we should see with what we actually see. 

The final way we assure the curriculum is of a high quality is by looking at the end of term assessments that we set students based on our curriculum. We are able to quickly identify trends and areas that may not be taught very well and look to put things in place to improve the quality for the following year while looking to go back over those key topics for the current cohort.

These are just some of the ways we are assuring the curriculum we have in place is being taught to a high quality for all pupils.

🔊 Listen:
Page to podcast talking about teach to the top by Megan mansworth. Idea of teaching to the highest the students in front of you can reach, may be different for different classes and student attainment but needs to be their top. Get rid of all some most differentiation. Have a listen here. 

🔊 Listen:
PiXL pearl telling the story of the architect of Westminster. Do you keep things the same? What needs to be changed in order to achieve greatness. Great for head of departments, observe first then look to optimise, iterate and improve. Listen to it here. 

📚 Read:
Productivity tips from other successful leaders. Read about it here. 

📚 Read:
Peps Mccrea's thread on how habits can inhibit professional development. I think habits massively help in teaching but this thread highlights why we must be aware of the habits we have built up. Read the thread here. 

📚 Read: 
Chris Foley writes about organisation in school, specifically when a school recurved the OFSTED phone call. More than that though he highlights the need to prepare for every occasion. Read it here. 

📚 Read:
Adam Boxers recent post on what we should be thinking about as teachers taking a whole class perspective. Great read with lots of examples. Read it here. 
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