One KEY STRATEGY in Reading and Maths

Our writing data across the cluster shows accelerated progress in writing. We are currently looking into how we can make that a "threefer" as Russell Burt puts it. That is accelerated progress across all 3 core areas - Reading, Writing and Maths. 

One of the reasons why we thought writing was making that shift consistently across the cluster was that there was a shared understanding and knowledge of what writing covered. And we all had a similar way of delivering this part of the curriculum for our students. So how could we do the same for reading and maths? What are some key strategies/practices that we think every class should be doing (because we've seen it work in our own classroom setting). Our hope is in collating this data using our CoL group would be a great starting point in trying to achieve a "threefer".

I decided to share my strategies with my team during our morning meetings to see if they agreed and if this was THE ONE that would benefit students in Years 7/8. 

For reading we decided: 

Deep diving sessions with the teacher using texts that are difficult/challenging for students in that group. This has students pushing themselves to unpack unknown vocab and looking at phrases in and out of context.

For maths, I couldn't decide on just one so the top 2 strategies that have worked for Year 7/8 students in our block are:

1) Teaching number knowledge through strand

2) Pitching your lesson focus/problem at Level 4 of the curriculum, then differentiating from there. That means pushing your extension kids out further from level 4 and bringing up students who are struggling to level 4 work.