Greenacres Primary Academy
Respect, Responsibility and Really Good Manners
Teacher Research Programme
We seek to find the very best teachers who are committed to keeping up with changes to support our excellent teaching and learning. Each year, our teachers take part in a research programme, where they read, think, plan and deliver CPD to their colleagues about the very best practice out there.
2018
In 2018, we took part in a series of CPD sessions based around 'Teach Like a Champion' where we watched videos and practised a bank of techniques to improve our questioning and get more from our students.
2019
In 2019, every teacher was bought a copy of the book by Paul Dix called 'When the Adults Change, Everything Changes.' We all thoroughly enjoyed it, and although at the time our behaviour was excellent, we knew we could make it even better and even more consistent. We all researched a chapter in-depth and then prepared a presentation which we delivered to each other over a series of a term. After this, we took all the best bits and we changed our behaviour policy and systems in line with suggestions from the book.
2020
All teaching staff received a copy of 'Rosenshine's Principles of Instruction' and after the success of the previous year, we once again all read a chapter in detail and presented back to each other. From this, we devised our own 5-part model lesson based on cognitive science, where questioning, modelling and recall of prior learning are deeply embedded in our practice.
2021
An international pandemic and two lots of schools closures didn't put us off our reading. We each presented back a chapter on Dr. Kagan's Brain-friendly teaching, which focuses on all aspects of how the brain learns.
2023
We have chosen to read Christopher Such's The Art and Science of Teaching Primary Reading as a staff, focusing on further improving reading instruction as part of the changes to our timetable and the way in which we deliver reading (and writing) units.