The book club involves staff from across Trust reading a book containing the latest pedagogical thinking; putting the ideas into practice in their respective classrooms and completing a reflection log to critically reflect upon the key messages in the book and what this means for classroom practice. This has enabled staff to become more evident and research-informed and ensures the best possible opportunities for our students. Every half-term we meet up over some tea and coffee and discuss our experiences with the text and our classroom practice. It’s a wonderful opportunity to share and develop one’s pedagogy in a collaborative manner.
This academic year we will be looking at Back on Track by Mary Myatt. There are lots of redundant processes in schools. We need to take a hard look at these and consider whether they are adding value to the core purpose of schools. This is more than a workload issue, it is about focusing our efforts on the most important agenda item in schools today - the development of an ambitious curriculum for every child, in every school.
2019/20 we looked at 'The CRAFT of Assessment' by Michael Chiles.
The CRAFT of Assessment is a strategy that can be applied at a subject level and at a whole school level to assess student learning from across the Key Stages. Michael Chiles' accessible and innovative book provides a practical guide for teachers and schools on how the CRAFT approach can be applied by looking at each of the different elements of condensing, reflecting, assessing, feed-forward and target-driven improvement.
The Evolve Trust book club was a resounding success last academic year, which focused on Kate Jones’ ‘Love to Teach’ as a core text.
Kate Jones has taken a keen interest in how the reading club has taken shape; what the staff are thinking and how this is having an impact on their professional practice. The Evolve Trust reading club even features on one of her PodCasts – Episode 7 ‘Creating a reading culture amongst teachers in schools’. https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id1477068130.
Kate is also the keynote speaker for the Trust PLD Day.
