Learn how to improve teacher subject knowledge of the planned curriculum, and student understanding of the taught curriculum through talk in the classroom.

Your curriculum is well resourced, aligned, sequenced, and vocabulary-led.

But your team is not as experienced as they might be and they have never delivered the planned curriculum before.

“Assessment For Learning” and “Differentiation” are perceived as solely about engaging with what students write.

We are told things like “adapt it to your classes”. But what does this really mean (and is it helpful?)

In this session, we will speak about how establishing strong talk routines and how responding to them with live feedback ensures increased success and confidence in writing.

We will talk from a classroom teacher’s point of view as well as from a leader’s — we are interested in how a department can become more consistent and effective when successful talk is clearly outlined, practised and observed.

How to roll out strong talk routines in the classroom

How to collect live data from students in the classroom

How to notice patterns in student talking

How to respond to patterns, improving student work before they write by spotlighting success and excavating errors

How to use department time to create a shared, purposeful drop in culture which strengthens routines

Bridie McPherson is the Head of English at Oasis Academy Southbank.

Josie Sacks is the National Curriculum Lead for English at Oasis Community Learning, English teacher at Oasis Southbank and former Head of English at Oasis Academy Coulsdon, which in 2019 was one of the highest performing departments in the country.

Oasis Academy South Bank is a high performing school in South London (P8 0.71 in 2019), which enters 96% of students into EBacc.

You read more about the outcomes here and Ofsted here.

Senior and faculty leaderswho want to close the gap between the planned curriculum and taught curriculum to and make sure teachers knowledge and delivery of it is consistent.

Subject leaders (in any subject -- not just English), who want to learn how to train their teams to work together to better understand and teach the curriculum more effectively.

This session is available to all live for free. It will be available on demand (with resources) to members of the Curriculum Thinkers Community only.

Talk in the classroom: how to improve teacher subject knowledge and student understanding