Teaching and Learning

Teachers make an enormous difference to the lives of students – we can all remember the impact that significant teachers have had on our lives. Without excellent teaching, excellent learning cannot happen. At Freebrough Academy, we have a number of initiatives which are central to the development of teaching and learning.

Continuing Professional Development sessions enable staff to become exposed to a number of exciting and innovative initiatives which they can try out in their classrooms. At Freebrough Academy, staff training sessions happen on a regular basis, with sessions this year including a focus on the following areas:

- Planning and Preparation;

- Thinking Skills

- Questioning

- Assessment for Learning.

Of course, after exposure to these ideas and strategies staff are encouraged to try them out in lessons and to monitor and evaluate the impact that they have on learning. The impact of such work can then be monitored through the learning walks, work scrutinies and lesson observations that occur in the academy. The Freebrough Academy Teaching and Learning Group, which is comprised of our good and outstanding teachers, lead on this training and perform their own reflective research in their own classrooms to see how students can be engaged, inspired and motivated by new and challenging teaching and learning techniques. These strategies are then shared with other staff to help facilitate a culture of reflection and development in this area. In addition, staff are also exposed to strategies which will, for example, improve their use of ICT, their understanding of how to cater for all students and their understanding of how to improve literacy levels throughout the academy.

Since the implementation of these sessions, the proportion of lessons that have been observed as being good or better has increased by a considerable degree.

Our students are central to any teaching intervention or curriculum initiative we put in place. What we do is ultimately for them and caring for young people is ultimately at the core of what we do. Since September we have had new and exciting additions to the teaching and learning focus at Freebrough Academy. An example of which would be Vision2Learn, a web based structure designed to help students access work remotely and to gain GCSE equivalent qualifications in a short period of time. We have had great success with wider key skills and we have made links with Teesside University and Warwick University to provide expertise for our Gifted and Talented Students. Students are engaged in activities within and beyond the school which will develop their business and enterprise skills, their engineering skills, and their ability to think creatively, logically and with care and thought for others.

Our teachers are soon to be involved in Masters Degree level work with the University of Teesside, which will serve to drive up standards even more on our relentless movement towards becoming an outstanding school.

Michael O’Neill – Deputy Principal