Supporting collaborative learning at SSAT

How Greetland Academy are using video for supporting collaborative learning

By Mark Saul

“To stand still is to go backwards”

During the recent SSAT Conference in Manchester, ‘Outstanding’ school, the Greetland Academy, shared the intriguing story of how they have ‘used the digital age to support effective feedback’ to both their students and their teachers.

The key to the academy’s success is their drive to continually improve; their method to maintaining their ‘Outstanding’ status is to constantly evolve and change. Their motto, inspired by their Chair of Governors, is: ‘To stand still is to go backwards.’

The academy’s approach to whole school improvement has been inspired by British Cycling General Manager, David Brailsford. Credited with championing a philosophy of marginal gains in British Cycling, David’s approach involves breaking down everything that plays a part in riding a bike and improving each area by 1%, to see a significant increase when everything works together.

The academy have used David’s reasoning to break down all the individual parts of the school and make small changes to each; no area is left unchanged.

What have they done?

The Greetland Academy chose to use IRIS Connect to help them develop a culture of reflecting, collaborating and empowering teachers to lead from the bottom up. Based on research by John Hattie and information from the Education Endowment Fund Toolkit about supporting collaborative learning, they also decided to focus on developing their students’ reflective learning.

The academy looked at a group of pupils that were tasked with learning the HAKA. The pupils were recorded problem solving and practicing the HAKA. They were then given the chance to reflect on their learning using the IRIS Connect platform. This process was repeated in short intervals and the school found positive results; showing that reflection led to an accelerated rate of the pupils’ learning.

At Greetland, they wanted to continue this success in the classroom. So, they encouraged a group of pupils to record their learning, watch it back and then engage in dialogue with the teacher to discuss how they could improve their learning. The academy found that by using this technique, the speed at which the pupils were learning progressed significantly.

Where are they now?

Although the Greetland Academy are still experimenting with using this kind of technology, it has been very successful so far, and its innovations like these which have helped them to become one of the top 10% of schools in the country.

Learn how to support collaborative learning: