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19/11/23

Our Year 12 Art students curated and organised their own exhibition celebrating black and minority artists. We were all inspired by the research and pieces on display. We’ll done Year 12 🎨🎨 pic.twitter.com/wq65ygWS49

19/11/23

Our Year 12 Art students curated and organised their own exhibition celebrating black and minority artists. We were all inspired by the research and pieces on display. We’ll done Year 12 🎨🎨 pic.twitter.com/gWOHHnttfJ

19/11/23

As the excitement built ahead of the and FA Cup match yesterday, our students spoke to about what it meant to have an FA Cup match played across the road. https://t.co/75OK0WJBq5

13/11/23

Today we hosted a panel featuring four really successful black speakers who have made significant contributions in their respective fields. Our students left the panel feeling motivated and empowered pic.twitter.com/ybhVVESIPk

01/11/23

There will be a pre-loved uniform sale Today, 1st Nov from 5.30-6pm in the fitness studio at HAGR. This will be cash only. We have plenty of uniform items – please come along and support the Friends of HAGR PTA.

13/10/23

Our students enjoyed some Jollof Rice yesterday for lunch. As you can see, it was in high demand. Seal of approval 👍🏾💥🥰BHM pic.twitter.com/AQ3Yu2GPNy

09/10/23

This morning, our year 11 sports leadership class delivered a PE session to a group of Year 3 students from . Absolutely loved it🥳We’re looking forward to our next session, lots of fun activities pending 🏆💥🙌 https://t.co/qpn6iOItRr

09/10/23

Who remembers when dropped by ?A huge opportunity for RTM students to show off their skills to one of the UK’s best! Thanks & Play.⁠⁠📸 Nici Eberl pic.twitter.com/3cmrFl0XRb

03/10/23

Jamal from blowing us away with his piano skills at Battle of the Bands 2023! pic.twitter.com/womUrRzkhZ

02/10/23

Harris Greenwich is excited to begin the celebration of Black History Month with this year's theme "Saluting Our Sisters." Celebrating the accomplishments of our sisters, we acknowledge their invaluable impact on various fields and their unwavering commitment to excellence!🥳🥳👏🏽 pic.twitter.com/X5em6Ul5OB

28/09/23

UKMT Mathematical Olympiad for Girls 2023-2024. We are proud of our female mathematicians! Shout out to Miss Tortone for organising this!😎 pic.twitter.com/A4bNAAvHUo

25/09/23

Back by popular demand, our students enjoying the new PE extra curriculum. ⚽️🏐🥋🤼 pic.twitter.com/xGHUaC2bBM

20/09/23

Our Y13s having an NEA Masterclass with our Geography Federation Consultant this morning. Lots of deep thinking happened! 🗺️🌍🎓 pic.twitter.com/qOpzgUpJPL

01/09/23

Inset day 1 tallest tower ice breaker!😎 I love our team! 🤍 pic.twitter.com/nLarmEVyeN

24/08/23

💥🥳🏆Congratulations to the year 11 students on their GCSE results. Wishing them all the best as they move on to the next chapter of their educational journey. 👩‍🎓 👨‍🎓 pic.twitter.com/FZ7ALQXPs1

17/08/23

🎉📚 To our exceptional students, a huge congratulations on your Year 13 results! Your determination and effort have led to this achievement. Best wishes for the exciting paths that lie ahead. 🌟🎓 pic.twitter.com/BWGlQWqDxA

17/08/23

Thank you to some of the rainbows 🌈 in Esther life at such as Mr McNeil & her Art teachers who’s support during her A-Level journey has been lead always from a space of 💛 We are very grateful 🤲🏾wonderful example that schools should learn from pic.twitter.com/ojUXur36ZT

25/07/23

RTM Battle of the Bands 2023Player of The Day 🏆 - / / / pic.twitter.com/PkuGS7sfkx

25/07/23

RTM Battle of the Bands 2023Player of The Day 🏆 - / / / pic.twitter.com/PkuGS7sfkx

21/07/23

RTM BOTB 2023! Thanks to ALL students for bringing their talents to the stage pic.twitter.com/3eupcpDgcL

Harris Academies
All Academies in our Federation aim to transform the lives of the students they serve by bringing about rapid improvement in examination results, personal development and aspiration.

Central Office

Bexley

Bromley

Clapham

Croydon

Greenwich

Haringey

Havering

Merton

Newham

Southwark

Stratford

Sutton

Thurrock

Wandsworth

Westminster

Willesden

How do students learn the curriculum at Harris Greenwich

How students learn the curriculum

Our implementation of curriculum is governed by our Teaching and Learning Blueprint. We care deeply about practising our teaching craft to ensure we are crystal clear in instructing powerful knowledge and we foster an academic climate for this teaching.

The six principles that govern our teaching craft are led by the mantra of ‘Knowledge is Power’ and  ‘Making it Stick’ to stop the forgetting happening.

Knowledge is Power

Because we know the above is true we know the teacher is the expert and therefore we carefully practise our direct instruction, dual coding and interleaving of sequenced knowledge. We know that our curriculum should be taught to be remembered not merely encountered. With this in mind, we follow the following principles in our planning, teaching and assessment to ensure pupil success.

Making It Stick

Every decision we make about learning and teaching is governed by two truths about learning.

  • If nothing has changed in long term memory, nothing has been learnt
  • Forgetting is inevitable

No matter how brilliant a year 8 Spanish lesson appeared, if the students cannot remember it two weeks later, it wasn’t learnt. Understanding sometimes gets confused with learning, but they are not the same thing. Therefore, everything we ask students to do, and everything we talk to teachers about, is designed to make more knowledge stick in long term memory.

The Teaching and Learning Blueprint

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All staff contribute to training around our six principles of Teaching and Learning which we refer to as our ‘Blueprint’. This Blueprint underpins all of our Teaching and Learning training session, training programmes and instructional coaching curriculum.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lessons and lesson structure

We are not overly prescriptive on how lessons should look at Harris Greenwich, but there are some principles that all teachers adhere to.

All lessons start with a high challenge retrieval activity, followed by a period of fully guided instruction (‘I do’  ‘We do’  ‘You do’). This is surrounded by a warm/strict approach to behaviour management: ‘Because we care, what we ask students to do is not optional’.

Stopping the Forgetting – How lessons start

Every lesson at Harris Greenwich starts with 10-15 minutes of high challenge retrieval questions designed to stop the forgetting of the most vital knowledge, facts and skills. The questions pull from a broad knowledge base, including previous topics and sometimes previous years!

Such is the importance we place on ‘stopping the forgetting’, it is expected that all students attempt all the ‘Do Now’ questions, and those not attempting all of them are challenged. Teachers will refrain from providing too much help in the first 10 minutes, instead motivating students to think hard without looking back over previous work.

The teacher then spends time going through the answers, reteaching the most important points if necessary, and students make corrections. The graph below illustrates our belief, that the more knowledge is retrieved in Do Now quizzes, the more is remembered.

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Examples of Interleaved Do Now Quizzing in English, History and Maths.

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An example from Year 9 English.

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An example from Year 8 History.

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An example from Y10 Maths.

Fully guided instruction: ‘I do’  ‘We do’  ‘You do’

Following the ‘Do Now’, teachers pitch high in the ‘I do’ phase. This is where teachers introduce the new content clearly with great examples, models and explanations. We pitch it high, often above the most able students in the class, so everyone is challenged.

We follow this with a ‘We Do’ phase that provides support. Here you will see processes deconstructed, lots of questions being asked, students helping the teacher do some more examples, paired talk, and practice with writing frames.

Finally, students practise the new thing they’ve learned independently without support. The ‘arm bands are popped’ - there will be no / minimal support from the teacher. Rather than different levels of task, we strive for everyone doing the same, difficult thing. The support given in the ‘We Do’ phase ensures that all students can perform the ‘you do’ practise successfully, gaining confidence and embedding vital knowledge in long term memory as they do so.

How do we get better at teaching?

We know that practice is essential to making change and therefore all teachers having teaching partners where they meet regularly for instructional coaching where get granular about how to improve in service of students learning over time using StepLab to support development.

 

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