This week we were privileged to host renowned UK educator, Tom Sherrington, at our school. Tom is the author of the WalkThrus framework that we have adopted at Magid Campus. WalkThrus is a series of high impact, evidence-based teaching strategies that have been shown to increase the opportunities for learning for all students.

Good schools focus on enhancing professional standards and student accomplishment through investing in targeted and meaningful professional development opportunities for staff members. Frequently these learning opportunities focus on curriculum development, or enhancing our holistic understanding of our students. 

Unfortunately, a discrete focus on pedagogy – the art of teaching – is far less frequent as this is assumed to have been taught in initial teacher education or is simply assumed to be successfully obtained through experience.

Tom Sherrington points out the failure of such assumptions. He shared the analogy that champion tennis players practise the mundane core elements of their jobs – serving, backhands, forehands, lobs, smashes and volleys and never believe that they have achieved sufficient mastery to cease working on their fundamentals. 

So too, argues Sherrington, teachers need to focus on the core routines and practices that lead to student learning. This is why he built the WalkThrus framework, as it directs teachers to practise and ultimately adopt the strategies that are most likely to achieve positive outcomes.

He pointed out something that is not often acknowledged. Teaching is very difficult and the classroom is a very complex environment. He unpacked just why it is so challenging to try to teach a substantial number of children at the same time. He pointed out that this involves trying to encourage students to adopt various cognitive practices, to maintain their engagement, to provide positive emotional experiences, to ensure that everyone acquires knowledge  and that everyone is able to succeed when there will be a vast range of prior attainment to build upon. 

Sherrington explained that the goal is to try to teach every student as if they were the only student. He articulates that this is actually an impossible goal but that the design of WalkThrus is to achieve as close an approximation to achieving this goal as is possible.

Sherrington said that in order to do so we need to “engineer attentiveness” and prevent opting out. He encouraged staff to utilise strategies that create accountabilities that secure students’ focus and motivation to participate. 

We also need to constantly check that students have understood the lesson and Sherrington posits that this is something that is often poorly achieved in schools. Vague questions such as “does everyone understand?” are insufficient. Rather, simple strategies like adopting  repeated “cold calling”, non-judgmental feedback and variety in the approach to check for understanding can ensure that we can appreciate where even the most reluctant sharer is with their learning. 

Along with presenting to all staff, Sherrington was able to observe a range of classes where teachers were adopting the WalkThrus framework and then offer direct feedback. Additionally he focused on training the trainers – working closely with the Learning Area Leaders that are supporting our teachers to practise and refine these approaches.

It was so inspiring and beneficial for our staff to be able to hear from Tom Sherrington and to appreciate the thinking that underpins this exceptional pedagogical framework. 

I was left with no doubt that the hard work that our teachers are undertaking in this training will provide enormous academic benefits for all of our learners in the future.

Shabbat Shalom,
Marc Light