Harris Academy Ockendon provides an exciting, personalised learning curriculum, which supports and challenges all our students.
Our expectations are deeply rooted in a belief that all students can succeed. To achieve this, learning is at the heart of everything we do. Our staff are experts and focus on how students can be challenged and supported to master the powerful knowledge they need to be the very best they can academically and to help them develop the skills and attributes required to thrive and have successful and happy lives.
We ensure that all teaching and support staff have access to the highest quality training programmes to provide the most innovative and cutting-edge learning opportunities for every student.
Our teaching approach is based around the Six Principles of Teaching. It forms the basis for all CPD and accountability in the academy.
Principles of ‘better practice’
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So that…
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1. High expectations of Learning Behaviour
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- Routines and effective classroom management
- Consistent application of behaviour policy
- Promote active participation not compliance
- Reinforcing effort and providing recognition
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- Minimal valuable lesson time is wasted dealing with low-level disruption
- Students can think hard about their learning free from distraction
- All students are engaged in thinking about key learning
- Students understand the connection between effort and achievement
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2. Quality of Instruction
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- Highly effective explanations
- Clearly defined outcomes
- New knowledge is founded upon old knowledge
- Teachers model excellence and how to achieve it
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- So that students quickly grasp key ideas
- Students have complete clarity around what they are learning and what success looks like
- Students can learn new ideas by reference to ideas they already know
- Students know what excellence looks like as well as how to achieve it
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3. Subject Mastery
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- Exam specification expertise
- Misconceptions are planned for and addressed
- Comprehensive understanding of curriculum
- Promote and uphold the highest standards of literacy
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- Students are successful in examinations
- Students overcome common misconceptions
- Teachers can confidently teach to the top
- Students read, write and speak with fluency and accuracy
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4. Making it Stick
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- Making connections between underlying concepts
- Regular low stakes testing
- Practise deliberately
- Learning is interleaved
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- Students can make links across key subject skills
- Students can embed learning into their long-term memory
- Students can develop fluency and accuracy in key skills
- Students revisit material in a way which promotes long term memory
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5. Adaptive teaching
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- Support and scaffold in lesson for the less able
- Pitch high every lesson
- Adapts teaching as needs emerge
- Developed understanding of Special Educational Needs in the classroom
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- Students can access the learning they are doing
- Students are challenged to exceed expectation
- All students make exceptional progress
- All students with SEND make exceptional progress
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6. Effective feedback
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- Timely feedback to maximise learning
- Formative assessment is embedded throughout a lesson
- Comments are specific, accurate and clear
- Time to reflect and act upon feedback
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- Students can swiftly unlock further learning
- Teachers know which topics to re-teach that were not grasped first time
- Student actions are refocused or redirected to achieve a goal
- Students are self-regulated learners
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