Report+on+visit+to+Qatar+Academy

**Report on Visit to Qatar Academy **
Mr. Alan, the English AT of Ahmed Bin Hanbal Independent Secondary School for Boys and three teachers of English visited Qatar Academy to exchange experience with the teachers there. Mr. Alan sent me this report about the visit.

Three Grade 10 teachers, Ahmed, Anwar and Medhat, went to Qatar Academy on a Professional Development visit arranged by Alan to observe Grade 10 classes in action, examine the book resources available to the Department and students, view the Library and assess the presentation of class work in the classrooms.

The teachers were hosted by Janet Haigh - Senior English, Wayne Symes and Mike Bowe - Grade10 classes. The arrangement, which took two months to confirm, was a success as the debriefing report from the teachers shows. The visit was interesting and informative, especially the revelation that the teachers had 25 contact hours in a 30 hour timetable during a week.

The teachers found the presentation of lessons a re-enforcement of the messages given during PD by the SSO team with teachers encouraging student response and discussion as well as ensuring there was a provision of adequate time for the students to complete tasks before eliciting discussion.

The process of encouraging student commentary on their work explaining why and how they had chosen to represent their understanding of the chosen text or lesson content was noted as being a means of ensuring that the students’ spoken and written English was developed by creating opportunities for higher order thinking and analysis.

The classroom environment with presentations designed to showcase student work and to provide background material on texts and lesson content was commented on. The teachers noted that the displays were better able to be presented because the rooms were subject specialised with students moving from room to room. This arrangement also meant that teachers could create and establish classrooms that reflected both the teachers’ personalities and interests and the presentation of high interest displays.

The Teachers were also introduced to e-learning projects using wikispaces and blogs that teachers at Qatar Academy were experimenting with. They are interesting in trying to use the techniques with their own classes.

The e-learning projects also encouraged the students to take responsibility for their own learning by completing tasks not only in the classroom but as on-line homework so that they could respond and contribute to class discussion. The teachers commented on a particular homework task designed to encourage students to engage and empathise with characters in a novel or short story that was required.

The effective use of group and pair work was commented on. Especially when used to encourage shared responses with the total class after analysis and discussion. One classroom used groupings differentiated by ability level to encourage greater group interaction rather than domination by the more articulate student in the groups.

They noted the effective use of “rewards” within a class to encourage student participation as part of the routine three part lesson. The teachers were also shown different assessment methods -using static images and commentary to interpret texts (poetry and short stories) -linked to detailed standards based marking rubrics which they felt could be used in their classrooms.

The teachers also noted the flexibility and encouragement of different teaching styles in the classrooms even though the teachers had collegially decided on common units of work over the semester.

The resources available to the subject area resource rooms and to the student body, through the Library, were seen as an aspirational goal for the ABHSS English Department especially if the goals of encouraging reading and writing are to be met.


 * Conclusion:**

Staff were impressed with the facilities available and were inspired by the use of the classroom environment to encourage learning. A request by Mike Bowe, who is involved with the Qatar Reads programme, to visit ABHSS was received and an offer to reciprocate given. Mr. Bowe will ring Alan when he is able to visit the English Department in the future.

The Library at Qatar Academy also offered to donate its remaindered books to the ABHSS library. This offer was passed to Mohammed Darwish to follow up.

The visit was, in the teachers’ opinion, worthwhile, valuable as a re-enforcement of the change process they are experiencing at ABHSS and useful as a provision of contacts in the wider education community.

Our thanks to Qatar Academy for hosting this Professional Development visit.

Alan Papprill Cognition Education Ahmed Ahmed Hassanein Anwar Mohamed Maalej Medhat Moharam