Good practice in learning and teaching at secondary school

Talk; Good Practice - Secondary

Wednesday stream 3 Session 14.00 - 15.40 Length 25 minutes

Good practice in learning and teaching at secondary school

Ann Saunders

Sittingbourne Community College

Abstract

I am a Deputy Head at a secondary school in Kent and have been so for five years- since a failing boys' school merged with a girls' school to form The Sittingbourne Community College. The college has 40% of its students on the Special Needs Register; there is a grammar school system in the area, which takes 25% of the brighter students. However, 20% of our students achieve 6 or more GCSE's at A-C grades and 13 of our students went to university in 1999. Our students are largely from poor socio-economic backgrounds and we need to employ highly skilled teachers and Learning support assistants to cope with the diversity of need and challenge. Learning styles and methods of teaching feature highly on the agenda. We are a training agency for Kent County Council- Level ll City and Guilds and Level lll OCR CLANSA- for Learning support assistants and have trained 200 over four years. Learning Support assistants and teachers are trained in multi-sensory methods of teaching, using small steps and reinforcement in different learning/teaching styles. When Suzanne Briggs from the BDA visited, she was most impressed by the teaching/learning methods used at the College and by the outstanding multi-sensory learning resources produced by the Learning Support Assistants on the OCR course. I would be happy to talk about how our learning/teaching methods are useful for all children- particularly those with dyslexia. One of the students in Year 7 came to us from primary school with a recommendation that he be placed in the bottom group. Following tests, he was placed in the top group, with support for his dyslexia. He is coping very well and will achieve his potential. My own daughter is dyslexic. She has a degree, is a psychiatric nurse and has just been voted a City Councillor for Canterbury. Dyslexics can achieve- sometimes it just takes a different approach and more time!