I have been a Head of English for more than a decade at both maintained and independent schools. Leading the rollout of HPL at my current school, Ellesmere College, Shropshire, has been an interesting and rewarding challenge as it has given us a coherent pedagogical framework that explains much of what we knew, instinctively, works well in the classroom. It has also given us license to work with the students in a creative manner which, for many (if not all) of us was why we went into teaching in the first place.
As well as leading on HPL, I am also in charge of the Navy Section of the CCF and head of one of the College’s four academic and sporting competitive houses.
During HPL Pathway Programmes we look to embed the HPL VAA and ACP vocabulary into our classrooms giving our students, teachers and parents a shared language to talk to and about learning. After accreditation we look to address progression and assessment for the VAAs and ACPs. How do we do this in our schools? How do we do this within subjects? Should this be teacher led assessment of pupil self-evaluation?