Introduction
The general buzz around on Friday was how excited everyone was to be back at uni, having finally finished all our placements for the PGCE. I, however, cannot help but think I would rather be back in school! I’m taking this as a positive, seeing as this is what I intend to do for the rest of my career. I mentioned before, when I left my first placement school, that I am absolutely rubbish at goodbyes, especially when I have grown fond of the place and the people there.
Thursday was hard. After nearly 6 months at this wonderful school, I had to say goodbye. Saying goodbye to my classes was hard, I was very fortunate to have had not many issues at all with my lovely students, however what I found the hardest was saying goodbye to the English department. Every member of the faculty had gone out of their way to help me if I had asked, and I worked alongside the majority of them. I got along with them really well, making it that much harder to leave!
However, the bitterness of leaving that school was intermingled with going to see the people at the school I have my job at on Thursday afternoon. It was only for a very short period of time but going back there brought back so many fond memories – and I saw a few of my old students too, giving me big smiles and waves! I am confident I have made the best possible career move so now it is just a waiting game!
9Y3
Unfortunately, there were a bunch of school trips on, so I had a fair few students missing for the last week. However, with the one I had left, they wrote, practice and presented their Room 101 speeches, signifying the end of the unit.
It was only intended to be a 2-week unit, but I felt that there was a lot to cover in just 8 hours – especially when you factor in actually presenting the speeches. I originally intended for them to write their speeches over the weekend, so we could have more time making them better etc. before practicing to perform them, but I didn’t have a chance to go through the plan in detail, so I felt it was unfair to set them to plan and write the speech. However, I believe it would’ve been a more effective use of time if they had given a first draft in, as some students worked at a significantly quicker pace than others, meaning peer assessment didn’t line up as well as I hoped in Monday’s lesson. It also meant I set them more homework for Monday evening – to finish their speeches so they could practice them in Tuesday’s lesson.
Tuesdays lesson was fun – I got them to condense their speeches down onto cue cards and then we went to the hall to practice speaking. The catch was, they had to make sure they were speaking loud enough, clearly enough or slowly enough to get their partner to hear from fairly far away. It really helped them to realise how important presentation skills were, as well as just having a good speech.
One of the things my students struggled with the most was condensing their speeches down to cue cards. The actual act of writing out their speeches seemed pointless to them – especially as I didn’t mark their speeches. If I were to do this again, I feel like it would be more useful to split up the weeks – spend a week crafting their speeches, where I could do a mid-term assessment on their speeches, basing it on the English language paper 2, question 5 mark scheme, before concentrating on the speaking and listening the following the week. In segregating the two purposes, I feel like it would be clearer to year 9 students as to what they should be doing and why.
10X5
We had sped through their speaking and listening lessons, leading me to get to a place where they could plan out their speeches earlier than anticipated. This allowed me to get them to spend some time on computers to research their topic. This was the first time I had ever gotten all the students to do all the minimum work without a battle! I’m not sure if this was because it was my last lesson with them, because of the time of day etc or if they are just generally better behaved on computers, but I was extremely impressed by them – and made sure I told them repeatedly!
On a side note, I also had a chat with them about what would make a useful display for Animal Farm, giving them a bit of time at the end of Monday’s lesson to draw some pictures to go up on there. It’s still a bit of a working progress, as they will be coming back to revise Animal Farm briefly next week before their PPE, but this is what it looks like so far! (Just a shame I won’t be there to see the finished product!)
12A
Luckily, as my AT had just taken over the class, I was able to spend one last lesson with this group on Monday – as they were not in lessons on Thursday and I wasn’t in school on Friday – so I was able to watch the finished ‘revision’ videos the class had made. The class clearly had a lot of fun creating the videos (other than the group that made the last-minute decision to just film random bits of nature around school!). However, in watching the videos, it was clear that they had focused purely on AO1 – their knowledge of the poem, as opposed to anything else, despite us talking about adding in extra bits, other than the Kubla Khan group adding in a bit of context.
We discussed how effective we think the videos were and the consensus was that it was useful in the sense of it helped to get to know the poem better, however I personally don’t think the actual videos will be much use in the future! If I do a similar task again, I will ensure all groups are completely clear of my expectations by checking in on them more! Unfortunately, all their other lessons clashed with my year 10 lessons, so I wasn’t able to see them very often – and I think they all just got a bit over excited about the task!
12E
As they were just finishing their mini-investigations, there wasn’t anything for me to explicitly teach this week, so I was more of a facilitator. This was good as I was able to talk to students one on one, but I wasn’t overly clear on what their usual teacher’s expectations for the coursework was and I didn’t want to step on her toes – particularly as this is the model for their actual coursework, that they will be starting in September. This led to me feeling a little awkward at times, but I have learned to be totally confident in admitting I am not 100% sure (it turned out that most of the time I was right – but didn’t hurt to double check).
J
Currently Reading:
Noughts and Crosses – Malorie Blackman
I thought I would love this book – and I was not wrong! Having a book solely written about the dangers of segregation and racism is extremely important. There were a few things I wasn’t too keen on (the 14-year-old alcoholic storyline that came out of nowhere and the ending was a bit abrupt – not in the best way!) but on the whole I loved the characters, the setting and the plot! I will definitely be reading the following books in the series… when I get around to buying them!
The Missing Girl – Jenny Quintana
Survivor– Chuck Palahniuk
Much Ado About Teaching 