Back in the 1970s, the educationalist Douglas Barnes noted that ‘learning floats on a sea of talk’. Later this month, Bradfield staff will ourselves be exploring the importance of exploratory talk and how to encourage, structure and harness it to further students’ active learning and prepare them for longer pieces of writing or independent tasks. This will build on our move to using cold calling questioning and moving away from no hands up, as a way of keeping all students engaged in the content of lessons. You can read more about this in our post Hands down...

So, it may seem at odds with this focus on talk that we are also focusing on silence.

Before half term, in assemblies we introduced students to the fact that from Monday 3^rd June, all lessons would begin with a silent ‘do now’ task. Do now tasks have been embedded  in our lesson structures for quite a long time; and in May we revisited them in staff training, looking at what the research says makes them effective and how to consider the needs of both the high prior attainers and those who can find learning hard. We also looked at how we should meet these needs in silent circumstances, noting the importance of routine, encouragement and signalling in writing rather than just verbally what to do ‘if stuck’ and as a challenge.

We also looked at the importance of silence to learning both in staff training and the assemblies. We are all familiar with sayings along the lines of  ‘let’s talk it through’ or ‘shall we talk it over?’ Equally, no doubt at times we have all said ‘just let me think!’ and needed quiet to do it in. When it comes to learning, both are important.

Research shows that the brain needs periods of silence to ‘encrypt information’, to ‘stimulate brain growth’ whilst another recent study showed that noise can impact on students’ cognitive perception, especially some children with an additional educational need or with a different first language than English.

We also shared with the students how scarily long they have to be silent for in formal examinations. Before the reform of GCSEs back in 2016, on average students spent 24.5 hours in final examinations. That average is now 33 hours. And, like the story of the world record-holding female marathon runner, Tiggst Assefa, we looked at in assembly, no one can do any kind of long-distance event without a build-up. Final exams are really no different to marathons : repetition, practice and resilience are key.

Our first week of ‘silent do nows’ has gone really well. Staff are able to nominate their class for a golden ticket  - silence is golden ….. see what we did there!? – and a weekly draw for a prize, with Mrs Dewsnap’s  Year 10 English class bagging the first treat. And feedback from staff is that the silent start has ‘worked well’ making it ‘much easier to maintain pupil focus and engagement’, whilst a governor’s learning walk last week noted the calm atmosphere during the period 5 lessons she visited.

Deborah Banks

Deputy Headteacher

 

Further reading

Science Daily

Psychology Today

Does Noise Affect Learning?