Today I watched an Invicta Academy lesson. Here are my thoughts:

A quick summary of the lesson to begin with. The objective was to divide 2-digit numbers by 10 and the lesson used an edited version Classroom Secrets' PowerPoint for this objective and their fluency tasks. https://classroomsecrets.co.uk/divide-2-digits-by-10-year-4-decimals-resource-pack/

The lesson was delivered by two teachers and started with this puzzle.

Before moving onto this recap.

The objective was taught via annotating the Classroom Secrets PowerPoint and explaining the process.

Children were given time to practise questions on pen and paper before sharing their answer in polls.

I think there were 6 slides shared with questions taken from the Classroom Secrets fluency Powerpoint and PDF tasks.

The 'Raise Hand' tool was used to share if a child got an answer correct and to check for understanding.

The final question was a reasoning question.

The lesson finished with the teachers congratulating the children, talking about their ahead (whether that involved the following English Invicta Academy lesson or their schoolwork) and departing.

In terms of timing, around 8 minutes was spent on the squares puzzle and just under 40 minutes on the rest.

Thoughts:
I thought it was a good lesson and I would be happy for my children to take part in it.
The teachers both seemed friendly and personable. One of them took a virtual register at the beginning and called out the first names of children who had registered and attended...

I can't remember how many they said attended. I know it was somewhere between 100 and 200.

I read yesterday that there was no room for interaction in these lessons. This isn't true.

One form of interaction was polling. The % of children who got it right was shown after each question and this increased as the lesson went on, from mid-70s at the beginning to mid-80s at the end.

I was impressed with the Q and A function. I put myself in the mindset of an 8-year-old and asked this after the first question.

And this was answered live. The teacher used my name (Olly) and explained it really well.

Generally, the explanations and modelling were good.

Some criticisms

Retrieval practice and overpractising (see Early Bird Maths / Flashbacks for examples) have had such a big impact on how well children retain what they've learnt over time...

I wasn't a fan of the squares starter. While the nature of these lessons and the diversity of the children taking them means the teachers do not know for sure what the children have been taught before, they would have a good idea...

I think an opportunity was missed to revisit prior learning, especially the method for multiplying by 10 and 100 which comes before this objective in the WRMH scheme used by Classroom Secrets.

I think they should consider embedding retrieval practice into their delivery. If the poll is accurate, 85% of children could solve questions like this by the end of the lesson. Unless it gets revisited, I don't the figure will be that high in a few weeks time.

This is one of the more forgettable objectives.

There also was no follow-up task. So in the course of 40-45 minutes, I think the children will have answered less than 15 questions if we're counting the a's and b's from the Classroom Secrets tasks as separate questions.

... I've got things to do now but I'll continue by comparing it to an Oak Academy lesson around the same objective later.