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Teaching and Learning at GJA
Improving Teaching and Learning
Our mantra is ‘Godolphin Grows Success’ and this attitude and relentless drive for excellence applies to everyone in our school; the adults just as much as the children. We strive to develop excellence in our teachers so that our pupils benefit from exceptional provision and as a result have the best opportunities and outcomes in their education. We support our teachers to improve, progress in their careers, relish challenge and develop specialist knowledge in areas or subjects that they enjoy.
At Godolphin, we have created a high-trust culture where classrooms are open to be visited, feedback is valued and teachers work openly and collaboratively to learn and improve. Everyone is a learner at GJA. We have adopted Covey’s trust behaviour of ‘Get Better’ as our ethos to continuous improvement. As Covey states, when seeking to get better there are two strategies that are particularly helpful: seek feedback and learn from mistakes. At GJA, we encourage everyone to be ambitious, to take appropriate risks and to be reflective learners.
We adopt a variety of approaches to improving teaching and learning. To learn more about our approach please read the document below about the Godolphin approach to teacher development.
Effective Feedback at GJA
Our aim at Godolphin Junior Academy is to ensure that all children have their work marked in such a way that improves their learning, develops self-confidence, raises self-esteem and provides opportunities for self-assessment.
Aims
•At Godolphin Junior Academy we aim to value each child as an individual so that they can develop their potential through an active role in their own learning.
•Provide consistency and continuity in marking throughout the school so that children have a clear understanding of teacher expectations.
•Use the marking system as a tool for formative ongoing assessment.
•Improve standards by encouraging children to give their best and improve on their last piece of work.
•Develop children’s self-esteem through praise and valuing their achievements.
•Create a dialogue which will aid progression.
Principles
•To communicate regularly with children about their individual progress.
•To inform the next step in a child’s learning.
•To assist children by setting clear targets to focus on aspects of their work which need further development.
•To motivate children to further their effort by raising or celebrating current achievements and raising self-esteem.
•To provide teachers with feedback of how well the children have understood the current work.
•To enable teachers to plan the next step in teaching and learning.
•To help teachers to monitor children’s progress and to diagnose what has not been understood to assist in forward planning.
•To enable the teacher to make judgements about pupils’ attainments particularly relating to teacher assessments within the National Curriculum.
•To inform individual, class and whole school assessment and planning.
•To promote high quality work.
•To develop clarity of purpose.
•To evaluate quality of teaching and learning.
•To encourage reflection and self-improvement.
•To identify if work has errors which children need to correct or if there are misconceptions which need to be addressed by teachers.
•To provide opportunities for questioning which deepens children’s learning.
Marking and Feedback Policy
Mark Mate
At GJA teachers use Mark Mate to assist with their marking and feedback to pupils. This is a tool that is based on speech recognition to allow teachers to provide specific and personalised feedback in a timely and effective way. This approach have supported teacher's workload without limiting effective feedback to enable pupil progress. It is a valued tool at GJA that both teachers and pupils enjoy.
