Head’s Blog: Improving Teaching

I am very proud to work alongside my colleagues at Fearnhill. I have huge admiration for their commitment, professionalism and care for all the students. We share an ambition for all students to achieve well regardless of the challenges they face.

Why improve?

I believe that excellence in any activity requires a constant desire to improve. Teaching is no different. One reason that teachers at Fearnhill are so good is because they are reflective and engaged with professional development. Dylan Wiliam, Professor of Education at University College London has put it like this, “Every teacher needs to improve, not because they are not good enough, but because they can be even better.”

Lesson visits

My focus in the coming weeks will be on visiting lessons and providing feedback to teachers. I always find it inspiring to visit colleagues’ lessons, share best practice and discuss how lessons could be better. It is not just me who does this. We encourage all staff to engage in visiting each others’ lessons when they get the opportunity. As a result I know that teaching is consistently good and consistently improving.

Responsibility

Just because a student has a good teacher does not mean they will do well. Students need to develop a good attitude. Each student has responsibility for their own effort and attitude. Students need to have very good attendance and work hard in and out of lessons. This is a message we reinforce to students: they are responsible for their own success.

Disruption

In all schools some lessons are disrupted by unwanted behaviour. This is not fair for teachers or for the vast majority of students who want to do their best. It is imperative to me that disruption is not a feature of lessons at Fearnhill. Where students are disrupting lessons they will be held to account. Of course, we will offer support to help these students, but ultimately they must change their behaviour or accept that they will not attend lessons.

Open Evening and Mornings

We were very grateful to the many students who helped showcase the school at Open Evening and Open Mornings over the last 10 days. Students have been fantastic ambassadors for the school and represented Fearnhill so well. We had a large number of visitors at these events and hope to be oversubscribed again in 2025.