Best of the Best: Progress

In Progress, Isabella Wallace and Leah Kirkman explore our understanding of this core educational concept, drawing together ideas from leading international thinkers and practical strategies for busy teachers. The Best of the Best series brings together – for the first time – the most influential voices in education in a format that is concise, insightful and accessible for teachers. Keeping up with the latest and best ideas in education can be a challenge – as can putting them into practice – but this new series is here to help. Each title features a comprehensive collection of brief and accessible contributions from some of the most eminent names in education from around the world. In this exciting first volume, Isabella Wallace and Leah Kirkman have curated a collection of inspiring contributions on the theme of progress and have developed practical, realistic, cross-curricular and cross-phase strategies to make the most of these important insights in the classroom. Each expert has provided a list of further reading so you can dig deeper as you see fit. In addition, the Teacher Development Trust has outlined ideas for embedding these insights as part of CPD. Suitable for all educationalists, including teachers and school leaders. Many myths abound about progress. We have to show that learners are making progress, but what do we really mean by the term? Who decides what constitutes progress? Who should set targets, and why? How do we measure progress? How do we know when pupils are demonstrating it? How do we differentiate and allow for learners’ different starting points? Should we be measuring everyone against the average or should we be looking at ipsative progress, where achievement is relative only to the pupil’s personal best? Indeed, if everyone is making expected progress, is that really progress or just doing as expected? Do we need to rethink assessment? Does meta-cognition hold the answer? What about other approaches like SOLO taxonomy or Building Learning Power? If progress isn’t linear, what kind of shape does it have? What implicit value judgements may we be making when applying the term uncritically and unthinkingly? How do we ensure that funding, including the Pupil Premium, is having a tangible effect on progress? Can we make learning and progress visible? What does the evidence base – the research studies and meta-analyses – have to say? Will that be applicable in all contexts? These are just some of the questions that the educational experts delve into in this first volume in the Best of the Best series. The practical strategies offered by Isabella Wallace and Leah Kirkman demonstrate how teachers can immediately use these ideas in the classroom. Advice from the Teacher Development Trust demonstrates how to plan sustained and responsive changes to practice based on the book’s key insights. Contributions include: Professor John Hattie – Pupil premium – monitoring what works. Geoff Petty – Improving progress by learning from the best research. Sir John Jones – Demographics, destiny and the magic-weaving business. Sugata Mitra – Schools in the Internet age. David Didau – The real shape of progress. Professor Mick Waters – Doing well for your age? Will Ord – What is progress? Claire Gadsby – A climate for learning. Professor Robert Bjork – Creating desirable difficulties to enhance learning. Professor John West-Burnham – Progress and practice. Professor Guy Claxton – Building Learning Power: finding your own sweet spot. James Nottingham – Progress, progress, progress. Mark Burns – Learning without limits. Martin Robinson – The pupil’s progress. Mike Gershon – Exemplar work. Pam Hook – On making progress visible with SOLO. Andy Hargreaves – Uplifting colleagues. Teacher Development Trust – Next steps …