HAYFIELD LANE…. BUILDING CRITICAL THINKERS OF THE FUTURE, WITH A ZEST FOR LIFE-LONG LEARNING, WHO SHARE COLLECTIVE RESPONSIBILITY AS ACTIVE AND EQUITABLE CITIZENS.

With themed links being part of the education at Hayfield Lane, we are striving for children to make automatic connections in learning which will in the future become useful when they enter a future workforce by ensuring that they are not compartmentalising knowledge and skills. Problem solving in the real world and life in the workplace requires this.

At Hayfield Lane Primary, the following items are evident in all lesson structures to enable children to access knowledge and skills and build them into their long-term memories so they can make applications and connections in future learning.

These items are not necessarily in a chorological order as the school uses a ‘chunk and chew’ approach in lessons- meaning that a small step is examined and children are then able to actively unpick, apply and digest this aspect before moving on. This can happen many times in a session to consolidate thinking.

At Hayfield Lane, we learn about different religions through stories, exploring celebrations and festivals and through our enquiry questions.  We encourage deep questioning, critical thinking and equip our children to celebrate diversity.

Each unit begins with an enquiry-based question. 

Step 1—Engagement –Why is my starting point (human experience) in my own world?

Step 2– Investigation - What do I need to know about the world of religion to support my enquiry?

Step 3—Evaluation—Critical reflection on the knowledge I have gained. What is my answer to the enquiry?

 Step 4—Expression—How does this effect my starting point?

Each unit is a sequence of steps that progressively builds knowledge, skills and gives children an opportunity to express their own views. 

The following items are the format of standard lessons at Hayfield Lane Primary:

REVIEW- opportunity for children to connect to prior learning from a previous learning journey or session. The connection to prior learning (and comparable themes within curriculum areas) is drawn attention to by teachers and staff/children recall previous learning with links explained by pupils. This helps to ensure that items are retained by children in the longer term.  Each learning journey has been crafted to ensure that underlying connections and themes can be explicitly made-these are called the ‘schema’. Examples of this are evident in the DAILY REVIEW BOX, recap questions, retrieval practice or quizzing.

EXPLAIN- teachers then explain the small step teaching point, previous gaps and deeper understanding elements of the lesson – we call these our LEARNING STARS. These are the criteria for the children to work to, with the 3 star aspect being a deepening of understanding aspect. 1 star is the gap in knowledge from previous journeys for the class. These are progressive and enable children to build to a final outcome- the BIG PROJECT/final piece of the journey. Within this section, misconceptions from formative assessments are discussed with children.

MODEL-Pupils are given high quality examples via teacher modelling. The modelling of the example also requires lots of active practice of the pupil. In these mini ‘chunk and chew’ active elements, children are able to develop critical thinking and collaborative learning aspects which are then embedded further by the class teacher. They are given time to verbalise and refine their thinking in collaboration with others.  Quality worked examples are created and added to the classroom working walls to support learning across sequences of lessons. Misconceptions are also addressed. An example of this would be a teacher modelling how to create an introduction in a report about a point in history by having mini learning connection tasks, linking to prior reading,  that build to the teacher modelling of an effective paragraph of text.

APPLY-  This is the element of the lesson where pupils/collaboration partners begin to undertake the task set. Additional scaffolds and methods of support may be used to allow children to succeed within this aspect- working wall support, word mats, voice dictation apps, targeted support via a teaching assistant.

DEEPEN- at the end of the lesson the teacher will examine how effectively the children have met the star grids. Within this aspect, pupils will critique, summarise, explain, compare and contrast their findings. These elements are used to enable children to transfer knowledge and skills into their longer term memory.  DEEPENING LEARNING is present in the REVIEW, EXPLAIN, MODEL and APPLY stages.