Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Spirals of Enquiry Case Studies
Spirals of Enquiry Case Studies
How can the Spiral of Enquiry approach help to increase student’s completion
and positive approach to Homework?
Scanning: 2-3 sentences to summarise your scanning process. What did you notice
when you asked ‘What’s going on for our learners?’
We carried out pupil voice with students in our collective teaching groups in years 9
and 10. We noticed that the overwhelming view from the students was that
homework was ‘like a punishment’. They had very negative associations with
homework and the vast majority completed homework to avoid sanctions. They saw
little value in it.
Focus: What key area of learning was your focus? In 1-2 sentences, articulate what
your driving question / focus was and why you selected this focus area.
Our focus was on whether removal of sanctions for lack of homework, and replacing
it with praise and reward for completion of homework would change their attitude and
completion of homework in a positive way.
Hunch: 2-3 sentences to describe your hunches about the ways in which the school
are contributing to this situation for your learners in both positive and negative ways.
Our hunch involved students wanting the inconvenience and work involved in
managing their homework to be recognised and rewarded – for it to feel valued by
teachers more.
Explored the EEF evidence around secondary homework and the impact of that on
progress
We explored schools that had removed all homework and those that had quite rigid
approaches to homework to look at where there had been success
Taking action: 2-3 sentences about the actions or strategies you and your team put
in place to address your focus, and any tweaks you made to increase impact further.
In our classes in years 9 and 10 we removed all sanctions for homework for a 6
week period. Ensuring that when homework was not completed it was not treated
negatively. Instead all students who completed homework were rewarded with
verbal praise, achievement points and in some cases contact with parents. We
moved to showing a greater recognition of what they had done rather than just taking
the work in and issuing sanctions for those who didn’t have it.
We wrote to parents in advance to ensure they were aware of our trial and the
reasons for it.
Checking: In what ways (qualitative and quantitative) did you measure impact?
What was the impact you saw? On students? On teachers and school culture? Can
you provide any quotes from children or colleagues which bring to life the difference
you have made?
We largely measured impact in two ways – through the completion rate of homework
during the six-week period to see what changes took place, and through student
voice following the 6 weeks. We found that the completion rate didn’t change in that
time – students who completed homework continued to do so, and those who didn’t
also continued not to. The difference most noted was that it removed a regular
negative conversation between teacher and student who didn’t complete homework
which lead to a more positive relationship in the classroom. The students who also
received the praise and recognition for their work appreciated it and said it ‘feels nice
to get told straight away if its good’.
Reflections/Advice: 2-3 sentences about what you learned from this inquiry, where
you plan to go next, and what advice you would offer other schools.
The completion of homework is likely to be a far more complex issue that just around
the sanction and reward in school. It is likely the students continued completing
homework for other reasons such as parental involvement and habit. In order to
really see the difference made by this approach it would need to be trialled over a
much longer period of time. We would like to trial it for a whole school year and take
views of parents and students at the end of the year to identify any attitude changes
as a result. We also found that because the students were still receiving sanctions in
other subject areas it reduced the impact of the change we were trialling.
Question or focus area: What is the ‘bigger picture’ of learning?
Scanning: 2-3 sentences to summarise your scanning process. What did you notice
when you asked ‘What’s going on for our learners?’
We scanned a mixture of KS2 children for two of the scanning groups – one was
‘quiet’ children and from a vulnerable background and another KS2 group was higher
ability spellers. The final group were taken from Pupil Premium KS1 children. We
noticed that our children were not aware of the ‘bigger picture’ of their learning. They
were good at talking about grammatical improvements but not for how the skills and
attributes they were now learning could help them in later life beyond just ‘doing well
in SATs’.
Focus: What key area of learning was your focus? In 1-2 sentences, articulate what
your driving question / focus was and why you selected this focus area.
We decided to mainly focus on the ‘bigger picture’ of learning and how skills and
attributes taught are relevant to the children for their life-long learning journey. After
discussion and ideas raised with our Coach, we developed our Theme of the Year
(Warriors – train hard/ are resilient and be an eco-warrior) and our learning powers
(www.warriors for wisdom, willingness and wonder) into the work we were pursuing
with pupils and staff.
Hunch: 2-3 sentences to describe your hunches about the ways in which the school
are contributing to this situation for your learners in both positive and negative ways.
The positive was that the staff had a willingness to take the project forward and there
was good debate and discussion centred on learning. Pupils also trusted us when
we were scanning – talking about things that are personal to them. The only negative
we thought was that staff could have felt ‘oh no, not another thing to complete!’
New professional learning: 2-3 sentences to summarise the new areas of
professional learning you explored and what you found most effective in supporting
the learning of your team.
After discussion with our Coach we researched about Educate Together schools and
also looked at possibly using Character Targets for the children. The idea that most
struck us was researching ‘I Wonder’ walls for facilitating child-led learning.
Taking action: 2-3 sentences about the actions or strategies you and your team put
in place to address your focus, and any tweaks you made to increase impact further.
Checking: In what ways (qualitative and quantitative) did you measure impact?
What was the impact you saw? On students? On teachers and school culture? Can
you provide any quotes from children or colleagues which bring to life the difference
you have made?
Each class completed end of topic evaluations based on the link to the whole-school
theme, learning powers and how their recent learning will help them in life. Classes
showed an increased level of seeing the ‘bigger picture’, being able to state more
purpose for their learning. The children also were more confident and relevant in
discussing their next steps for learning and giving ideas for how they could improve
the topic in the future. For example, when asked “How did the topic link to our theme
of warriors (train hard/ be resilient/ be an eco-warrior)?” Year 5 children could now
answer “The soldiers showed resilience in battle and they recycled clothing and
weapons after the battle”. When asked “What have you learned (ideas/ skills/
themes) from this topic that will help you in your life?” Year 2 children could answer
“Strategy and thinking ahead. English history – why castles were made and who
owned them?” We also sought out the views of children initially scanned to how they
now saw the ‘bigger picture’ of learning.
Reflections/Advice: 2-3 sentences about what you learned from this inquiry, where
you plan to go next, and what advice you would offer other schools.
We have learnt to listen carefully to what the children are saying and not to structure
questions so that we just receive the answer that we want to hear. We will have a
focus on using Spiral of Enquiry Pupil Voice questions to a wider range of children, ‘I
Wonder’ walls being used in every class leading to more child-led learning
opportunities and children will also be given more choice in how they present their
work. Jamie will also trial other staff in using flipped-learning activities with their
classes. Our advice to others would be to take your time, listen to the children and
think carefully about next steps (don’t rush or do too much, too soon!).
School name: Hellingly
Scanning: 2-3 sentences to summarise your scanning process. What did you notice
when you asked ‘What’s going on for our learners?’
Focus: What key area of learning was your focus? In 1-2 sentences, articulate what
your driving question / focus was and why you selected this focus area.
● Our focus was about developing ownership over learning and making this
meaningful for the pupils and ensuring that they understood how to progress.
● We also looked at developing how pupils thought that the adults in school saw
them, particularly for those harder to reach pupils.
Hunch: 2-3 sentences to describe your hunches about the ways in which the school
are contributing to this situation for your learners in both positive and negative ways.
● We wanted to make sure that ALL the pupils believed that all adults believed
in them and that they were positive that they were going to be successful in a
range of ways - our hunch was that we needed to spend more time explicitly
celebrating with the children on an individual level.
● Our hunch involved the children not really caring about their learning or
progress but it was not meaningful to them and they did not have ownership
over this - in trying to help them, we were over-scaffolding them and some
systems were too rigid. Our hunch was that this lack of independence and
frustration was contributing to a lack of resilience and poor behaviour.
Taking action: 2-3 sentences about the actions or strategies you and your team put
in place to address your focus, and any tweaks you made to increase impact further.
● Staff meetings weekly - each teacher chooses a child and something good
they have done to share with another teacher who finds that child during the
week to share this.
● Introduced ‘Secrets to Success’ to support and celebrate learning behaviours
- with children nominating each other as well as the adults.
● Introduced the ‘Golden Phonecall’ for pupils to call their nominated adult
(mum, grandparent, etc) themselves when they had done something which
had particularly impressed their teacher - using the special golden phone.
● CPD on ‘why we learn…’ and teachers sharing this big picture with children at
the beginning of each unit and subject leaders sharing about their subject in
assemblies.
● Personalised target stickers for writing which we used across the whole
curriculum and the children knew were individual to their next steps in
learning.
● Revamping the Maths Passports so that all of the children were clear on their
maths targets - with maths medals awarded in assembly when they complete
each stage.
● Y3 computing lessons - children designed their own games to support their
Maths Passport targets and videoed and edited these - these were shown on
the Anomaly screen in the playground and on the screen in the library. The
children owned these games and videos.
● Both writing personalised targets and Maths Passports targets were
integrated in Pupil Progress Meetings.
● CPD on ownership in learning and developed an approach across Maths
books (renamed Maths Scrapbooks), English, spelling, cross curricular, art
sketchbooks (renamed Art Scrapbooks) giving the children more ownership
over how they presented their work, with praise given where every piece looks
different. For example, in writing - every child writing about their chosen
subject - eg non chronological reports, WW1 topic - some children wrote
about tanks, about nurses, etc. We bought lots of coloured ballpoint pens!
● This sat hand in hand with the development of the art scrapbook approach to
learning - exploring, developing skills, practising / drafting and then creating
their piece - this was developed and then extended across the curriculum.
● Trialled ‘proud cloud’ reflection books where children reflected on what they
had learned and what they were proud of at the end of each week.
● Set up the Dengineers - when the focus group stayed on the green all week,
they got to participate in Dengineers, transforming the KS1 playground, with
tyres, logs, dinosaur land, digger land etc. The children listened to the KS1
pupils and designed around them. They supported them to play structured
games.
● Accelerated Reader - we unpicked with the children where they were going
wrong with their quizzes - eg if their books were too high a ZPD, how they
were answering the questions. A lot of the time the children were rushing and
they were not finding the answers in the text. We introduced paper quizzes
rather than online and teachers worked with target groups. This had an impact
when they understood that they were supposed to use the text to answer the
questions. We have re-evaluated the teaching of reading for this academic
year as the online quizzes are not translating in to success in the tests.
Checking: In what ways (qualitative and quantitative) did you measure impact?
What was the impact you saw? On students? On teachers and school culture? Can
you provide any quotes from children or colleagues which bring to life the difference
you have made?
Scanning: We started the scanning phase with a few selected children in school and used a TA
who was new to role to ask the 4 key questions. The children selected were children who were
particularly vulnerable, less engaged or not meeting their targets. We also included PPG and SEN
children. We noticed that most of them named friends who believed in them but not adults in
school. We then decided to scan as many of the children in school as possible focusing on the first
question after an assembly about what success was and being successful meant. We noticed that
a number of children could not name an adult in school they thought believed in them and that
they were not able to talk specifically about their own targets.
Focus: Our focus was on how we could encourage all children to take ownership of their own
learning and how we could motivate children to take a central role in their progress. We wanted to
look at how we could support them in really understanding their targets and next steps. We also
wanted all children to develop a self-belief in being a success based on them recognising at least
one adult in school who believed in them.
Hunch: Our hunch involved our school vision and our work on growth mindset. We wanted all
children to feel valued and to be able to name an adult in school they trusted and could go to, to
talk. We wanted to build on the positive relationships and family feel we have in school by
making sure staff were more explicit in demonstrating to the children that they believed in them
and ensure that the children recognised that all adults believe they could be successful. We want
all children to understand what success is and looks like.
New professional learning:
- Staff took part in staff meeting, in school training to look at what success means and how
we could talk to children to help them understand that we believe in them
- Staff were introduced to the Spirals approach and asked who they could name in school
who believed they were a success
- Growth mindset training continued and developed in school in order to improve targeted
positive praise that will impact on children’s belief and the way they see themselves.
- All staff had attachment theory training to understand the behaviours of children and how
we can support children to feel secure, safe and supported in school
-
Taking action:
- School assemblies to focus of what success looks like for all children
- Each class takes part in PSHEe/Circle times to discuss what success looks like. Staff talk to
children to ensure that all children can identify an adult in school they trust and can go to.
Children think about an adult in school that believes they will be a success and can name
them. Teacher shares any children that find this difficult as a whole staff so people can
target these children on a daily basis to catch up with and notice.
- If children need to be sanctioned, time is given to listen to children and for them to reflect
on the choices they have made and what they would do differently. Staff focus on
naming behaviours rather than labelling children to build self-belief and change how
children see themselves
- Introduced a critique gallery in the infant classes in order to model how to give and use
positive feedback and to develop peer feedback as a learning tool. Teaching staff
modelled and shared feedback to show children how it helped understand personal
targets and next steps and how to accept them as a positive learning tool.
- SLT had time for short mentor/catch up session with identified children to help them take
pride in learning and to have a purpose to show their best and celebrate this.
Checking:
- Rescanning children and revisiting the question regarding adults who believe in them
throughout the year to ensure that all children can identify someone in school they can go
to
- Pupil voice is happening more regularly and staff and really listening to what children are
saying and how they want to be supported in their learning. Staff are now ‘listening’ more
rather than ‘hearing’ and interpreting with their own ideas
- Identified children are monitored in pupil progress meetings and their individual progress
in tracked to look at the impact from mentoring and adapting the curriculum more
specifically
- Quantitative data used in KS1 to look at the impact of the critique gallery, peer feedback
and allowing children to identify personal, individual targets.
Reflections/Advice:
- Allow plenty of time for scanning the children. Ensure children really understand the
questions before scanning them to get the most accurate results.
- Scanning the staff first helped our staff team to understand what we were asking the
children and what it meant
- We have really learned to use pupil voice more regularly and more effectively to adapt
our teaching and learning to the needs of the children
- Talking to children has helped us realise the importance of explaining the reasons why we
do something as part of helping them understand their targets.
How can
the
Spirals of Enquiry approach help to develop pupils’ independence?
Scanning
We began by each scanning children in our class randomly to try and identify a
focus. Between us we scanned around 75 children but no specific pattern emerged.
We then drilled down into how most of our ‘Towards’ children found it really hard to
talk about school, their lives and their learning.
Focus
Our focus was on taking the time to talk to some of our ‘hard to shift’ children and
find out about their experiences of school. These children have had school based
interventions which have only had limited impact and we wanted to explore the
bigger picture.
Hunch
Our hunch was that the issue was deeper than just filling in gaps and was more
linked to their attitude to learning and particularly their levels of independence. The
emerging pattern was that these children were either over or under parented and
didn’t have the skills to take responsibility for themselves and ultimately their
learning. We wanted to explore what we could do in school to support them to
develop this.
Develop a separate independence project for each year group to support age
specific goals and motivate targeted children to take responsibility for themselves.
Held regular meetings to discuss progress, share successes and research and refine
the process.
Checking
Reflections/Advice
The most important thing we learned was not to miss the children out of the process
of school development and improvement. We had tried so many different strategies
and ways of trying to move these children but hadn’t actually taken the time to talk to
them about their experiences.
Taking the time to involve the parents more closely in the process of target setting
for their children has been a revelation. Having a clear role in how they can support
their child is something which they really like and has helped to build stronger
relationships with the child as the focus.
Sawtry Village Academy
E.g How can the Spiral of Enquiry approach help to impact on pupil
premium children’s progress in writing by increasing their growth mindset?
Scanning: 2-3 sentences to summarise your scanning process. What did you notice
when you asked ‘What’s going on for our learners?’
We carried out face to face interviews with a selection of pupils from Years 1 to 6 (20
pupils). We also gave out written questionnaires to all pupils in KS2. We noticed that
our pupils are very unsure about how they can improve their work (in particular their
writing). They are over reliant on the teacher to tell them how to improve, and
struggle to take ownership of their own progress.
Focus: What key area of learning was your focus? In 1-2 sentences, articulate what
your driving question / focus was and why you selected this focus area.
Our focus is on empowering our pupils to understanding the learning process more
clearly by making the skills of learning more explicit. Part of this involves the pupils
becoming more reflective and skilled at self and peer feedback and critique.
Hunch: 2-3 sentences to describe your hunches about the ways in which the school
are contributing to this situation for your learners in both positive and negative ways.
We researched Guy Claxton’s learning powers and started to develop our own
unique way of introducing these to the children through stories and displays and
incorporating into the daily classroom dialogue. Staff learning sessions have also
been focused on metacognition and developing the pupils’ verbal reasoning skills.
Taking action: 2-3 sentences about the actions or strategies you and your team put
in place to address your focus, and any tweaks you made to increase impact further.
Each class created a ‘critique gallery’ to encourage reflection and train the children
to give feedback that is ‘specific, kind and helpful’.
We have adapted the way we give feedback and the pupils are much more involved
in the feedback process through self and peer assessment.
We have started to introduce ‘learning powers,’ beginning with the ability to reflect on
learning.
Checking: In what ways (qualitative and quantitative) did you measure impact?
What was the impact you saw? On students? On teachers and school culture? Can
you provide any quotes from children or colleagues which bring to life the difference
you have made?
Classroom displays also reflect the school’s focus on the learning process and peer
critique.
I can help others to get better by giving them feedback to help them to
know how to improve.
Reflections/Advice: 2-3 sentences about what you learned from this inquiry, where
you plan to go next, and what advice you would offer other schools.
We plan to introduce more of the ‘learning powers’ to make the language of learning
more explicit.
We will continue to embed opportunities for self-reflection and peer critique into
teaching and learning across all subjects so that it becomes second nature and
pupils begin to see how they can positively influence their own progress and that of
their peers.
My advice to other schools would be to take your time with the process so that you
can really tune in to what the pupils are telling you and involve all staff in the different
stages of the Spirals process to achieve maximum impact.
We would also say: Don’t settle for your first hunch! Dig deeper if you need to.