Let’s go play in the sandbox
Phil Herd
Maths & Digital Expert
As a teacher how would you like to teach in a school that defines the structure of a lesson? I have taught in a school like this and at times, I felt it was too constrictive. However, the mastery approach to Mathematics and a trip to Canada has changed my thinking. John Malloy, the then director of the Toronto District School Board said that through support, we provide the sandbox for the teachers to play in. That is to say, a framework is provided, in which the teachers have the flexibility to create their own lessons which best suits their personality and consequently best supports the needs of their pupils.
As a Mastery Specialist Teacher and PD lead for the NCETM I have worked with teachers on the following structure which will be familiar to many who follow this approach.
The assessment was done through an anchor task, then the teacher would model a solution, the children would have a practice at a similar question before completing independent work with variation. I liked this sandbox, as a teacher, the structure it provided freed up the cognitive load on my brain, thus allowing me to focus my thinking on populating each stage and crucially, create an individualised lesson which I find intellectually stimulating and is vital for the needs of a class. For instance, which task would best assess the children’s current understanding; which Mathematical representation should I use and why; what questions will I ask to make connections to previous learning; how will the learning be guided; what variations will be asked on independent questions and at all stages, how will I support and challenge as necessary?
In discussion with a Headteacher from my trust and following further CPD on the science of how we learn, a review section was added in so that the lesson was now.
This then got me thinking whether this model could be applied to any lesson. First, I tried it with a PE lesson, as another subject I am confident teaching. Imagine a PE lesson on hockey dribbling skills.
Support and challenge can be offered by changing the size of the playing area, the size of the ball being used or the speed at which they move. Now this might look like an obvious PE lesson 101 to some (possibly everyone). However, the naming of the stages provide a common framework and language upon which I could base my lessons. During my planning time, I no longer sat thinking what am I going to do next, nor did I pluck random activities out of my memory bank. I had a specific structure which, vitally still allowed for a flexible approach.
Although this sandbox provides a structure for teachers it still gives autonomy to adapt the lesson so that the lesson addresses the needs of the children. The diagram below provides two examples of how this could be achieved.
If every lesson a teacher taught had the same amount of time for each section it would not necessarily meet the needs of the children. But simple adaptation outlined above can make the theoretical applicable to real life.
This sequence does not have to be a single lesson but could be used over a concept, however I would argue that it is a good starting point for the creation of any lesson. I say this because it was very comforting when I tried to apply it to a music or art lesson (neither being my forte). The beauty of this model is in its ability to both support teachers who are not confident in a subject whilst not stifling subject specialists.
If this were on the BBC news, it would be at this point the newsreader would say “And other lesson models are available,” I appreciate that and would not suggest for a moment that a lesson that doesn’t have these elements would be bad but as a starting point for a lesson I felt it helped me in my planning. So what do you think, rigid lesson structure, semi-rigid or complete freedom?