Week 27: Kindness

Introduction

Kindness. It goes a long way. I have grown up smothered in it and I know first-hand what a difference it can make. I am a massive advocate for bringing a tiny ray of sunshine into someone’s gloomy day; just one moment of brightness has the potential to change someone’s life around.

I learned this from my paternal grandparents. Like myself, they were secondary teachers, as well as being Methodist missionaries. Their lives revolved around making the world a better place, bringing this light into people’s lives and consistently putting other people first. They were retired by the time I came into their lives, but I can imagine the sort of teachers they were. On my bad days I think of them, I think of the difference they must have made in hundreds of thousands of students’ lives between them and I know that this is in my blood. I want to be like them.

This week has been a great week for me. Because I have been putting other people first, putting kindness first. There are a few people (both friends and students!) in my life that are going through a tough time (understatement – you know who you are!) and it completely breaks my heart. However, in putting these other people first and giving up a bit of my ‘busy’ schedule to show how much I care for and about them, and doing my best to make a difference in their lives, no matter how small, I have found that I have become quicker at lesson planning – particular now I am planning in reverse and keeping it more focused around lesson objectives and outcomes.

I am so happy to say (and with two weeks left of placement 3 I’m hoping it stays this way!) that I am feeling the best I have felt in years both mentally and emotionally. I am genuinely proud of myself and the progress I have made – doing it the Duncalfe way!

So, if this is as far as you read (and I won’t blame you if this is the case… I’m clearly in a rambly mood!), make sure you sprinkle a bit of kindness in your day – it can really make a difference to both your life and the people around you. This is something we all need to remember – especially with the news about New Zealand this morning. My heart still belongs in that country, and it is broken to hear that such devastation has hit Christchurch again.

Anyway, now that’s off my chest, I will go through my week as usual!

Cutest moment with a year 9 student!

Its moments like this that make everything worth it. One of my lovely year 9s mentioned last week that she had read ‘Red Queen’ by Victoria Aveyard, and she said she enjoyed it just as much as the Hunger Games… I was sold!! I just mentioned in passing that I’d add it to my ‘books to read’ list and she said she would let me borrow it. I didn’t think anything of it and, honestly, totally forgot about it!

Tuesday’s lesson came around, and this student hung around after the rest of the class had gone. She rummaged around in her bag for a bit, I asked her if she was ok and then she pulled the novel out of her bag with a shy smile on her face. My heart melted. She was so excited for me to read it. She even said to me “Don’t rush it. I know you’re really busy and reading lots of other books too!”

MY HEART COULD BURST. This is one of the sweetest things anyone has done for me – let alone a student. I will remember this moment for the rest of my life.

9Y3 First drafts

I was extremely proud of my 9Y3 class this week! As (I think) I have mentioned before, I decided to take more of a coursework-y approach to the travel writing unit with 9Y3. When I did this unit of work with my other year 9 groups last term, it couldn’t have gone better and nearly all of them met or surpassed their target grade. So, after speaking with my AT, I decided to try something completely different – and I figured I may not have a chance to do this kind of drafting and redrafting when I have my own classes (hopefully!) next year.

This idea of coursework was lost on the majority of the class – they are reluctant to edit their own work, often struggling to pin point what they have done well, let alone what they could improve!! However, I believe they have come around to the idea – particularly after saying they may jump up one or even two grades after editing their work!

The majority of them finished their first drafts on Thursday, and there were even a few keen beans who wanted to do more at home! I started marking them today… and I have to say… the progress made from the last paragraph I marked (just over a week ago) is phenomenal already! I am very excited to see what they will be producing!

10X5 absolutely crushing Animal Farm!

It’s clearly the week of feeling proud of my students this week. My bottom set year 10 classes are showing a fantastic understanding of Animal Farm. I have taken to do ‘team challenge’ plenaries (they love a bit of competition) and they have been flourishing. Some of them have even started quoting from the text already!

Language A-level

I’ve sandwiched this part in with the good parts of the week, hiding the not so good amongst the great to lessen the blow. I mean, it’s not that bad, but it is definitely more than the recurring little niggling thought it started out as.

So, my university tutor is coming to observe me with my 12 language class. This is totally fine. Totally fine, except I still haven’t taken them for a whole lesson. Totally fine, except not all of these students want to be here (thanks to the ‘you must stay in education until your 18 rule’). Totally fine, except I am 110% terrified.

Now, it may not seem like a big deal. On the whole, they are a well-behaved class and I have really enjoyed teaching them when I have team taught a lesson. However, the amount I am required to know suddenly shoots up. I have always loved English language – I definitely would not have graduated with the grade I did if I did not do language. So why then…. Why why why does my brain decided to regularly fail me. I KNOW WHAT THESE TERMS MEAN. Why do they disappear from my head when I need them to be fresh.

I guess it is partly because my priorities lie with the year 9s and 10s. I see them (pretty much) for all their lessons, whereas I only see each a-level class around twice a week. Therefore, I often find it lower down on my priority list.

But anyway, I’ve spoken to the class teacher I share the class with. We have a plan in place. It’s just a waiting game now. I’ll take the whole lesson with them – for the first time – next week. So, I’m just praying that it goes well and gives me a confidence boost!

Rime of the Ancient Mariner – Feminism, Marxism and Psychoanalysis!!!!

Contrasting my previous point, I have found that I am loving teaching a-level English literature – and I was completely sure that I would not enjoy Coleridge one bit!

This week I took my two lessons to go through the mammoth ‘Rime of the Ancient Mariner’; I quite enjoy the poem myself and (after reading York notes along side it) found it relatively easy to understand – particularly in comparison to some of his other poems! As my feedback was to use a range of different activities with the 6^thformers, I made sure I meticulously planned a range of different activities with them.

I was then told 5 out of 10 would be on a school trip! Slightly annoying, but not the end of the world!

I decided to keep my plan similar (I won’t go into the details – just included group work then creative consolidation), however, I ended up completely changing this as 4 out of the 5 students weren’t sure about the poem (I’ll bet a couple didn’t even attempt reading it!). I ended up literally talking through the poem with the students – and it felt fantastic. They went from not having a clue to coming up with remarkable suggestions that I hadn’t thought of in the space of just under an hour. It was a lesson where I could see definite progress had been made, and the students were very thankful for me to have helped them out with it!

The following lesson I had them on my own for the first time and, annoyingly, the lesson went perfectly! Exactly as I wanted it to go! Obviously there are still many things I need to improve on, especially stretching and challenging, but, by the end of the lesson, the students had adopted different critical points of view (feminist, Marxist and psychoanalysis) and used them to talk through ideas and themes in the poems, then seamlessly linking it altogether with An Ideal Husband. I don’t see them next week, but in my last week I will definitely make it my aim to ensure I am including way more challenging moments to ensure I have covered enough for the students to get the top grades!

#reimaginediary

Finally, I wanted to end by talking about the reimagine diary project I started last weekend. I have loved keeping a daily diary – especially as I have been using Mayfly Sound(click to go to their website!). Now, don’t get me wrong, I love writing! But it is ridiculously time consuming. With Mayfly, you capture your voice recording and link it to different pictures of mayflies – so you can listen back to the recording when you scan the picture. Very simple, but very effective; saves a lot of time too! I love it!

Currently Reading:

Rime of the Ancient Mariner – Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Red Queen – Victoria Aveyard

Animal Farm – George Orwell

Week 21: Happy Snow Day

Introduction

I am currently writing this in bed, in the middle of the afternoon on a Friday… thanks to the amber weather warning and waking up to a load of snow outside. (Kinda annoying as I spent ages preparing for today’s lessons, as it didn’t look like it will happen… at least my planning for Monday is done!) Today has been a short week at school, as we had a university recall day on Monday, so I have only had 3 days of teaching – luckily, I had an official lesson observation on Thursday!

This week has also been a week of assessments – so not the most thrilling to teach! In light of this… I don’t have masses to say this week, so will be a short post!

University Recall Day

As always, it was wonderful to be able to spend time catching up with my fellow course mates. Everyone generally has a funny anecdote to share, and there seems to be no one who can empathise more closely with the highs and lows of our PGCE placement.

In the morning, we had a session on how to go about applying for jobs; what to write in letters of application, and how to respond to typical interview questions. I’m not planning on looking to apply until around the Easter break – I want to make sure I put everything into this placement, so I don’t let my standards slip! However, if a job comes up that looks like it would be perfect for me, I am not ruling out applying before then… scary and exciting stuff!

The afternoon session was about how we can integrate the classics into the curriculum. Greek mythology is something I have always been fascinated with…. and something I would love to increase my subject knowledge in! It was really fun and also pretty useful to see how we can teach writing with just pictures. Inspiring.

Bleak House assessments – 9Y

I set the year 9s the assessment ‘compare how Dickens presents characters in Bleak House’ this week, breaking it down to a planning and a writing lesson. One of the students missed the planning lesson, and this was clear in his essay, suggesting to me that the planning lesson was in fact worth doing, and I am thinking about doing something similar for their official assessment.

I marked these essays this morning, and I would like to take a moment here to relish this feeling… the vast majority completely nailed the essay and have proven they understand how (and in a lot of cases why) Dickens presents his characters. It’s such a good feeling being able to see that my teaching has been beneficial to these students!

Unseen poetry assessments

I also had my bottom set year 10s do an unseen poetry assessment. They worked really hard on them and some of them have got higher than their target grades. Unfortunately, a few of them have not managed to get their target grade, so I am going to have to seriously think about how to word my feedback to them.

The main issue with this class is linking their ideas together – they know what language features to look for and they can use terminology accurately, it’s just they don’t always write points that make sense, therefore don’t link the evidence and analysis well. Bearing this in mind, I am going to trial a different approach to another poem on Monday, and hopefully this might help them understand what they need to do.

First Sixth Form Teaching

I honestly felt as nervous as the first time teaching my year 7 class back in October! I kept telling myself that they are just year 11s that are a little older and in non-school uniform… but that doesn’t really help. Mainly because it is the subject knowledge step up that is daunting!

I taught a section of the lesson on accent and dialect, and it went about as well as it could do! I think it is going to take a while to work on how to go about teaching sixth formers, but I know I am going to enjoy it!

Currently Reading:

The Emigree – Carol Rumens

Read in order to teach the year 10s. I’m slowly growing to love the poems in the poetry anthology… wonder if I’ll say the same after a few years teaching them on repeat!

Bleak House – Charles Dickens

A Monster Calls – Patrick Ness

Week 9 – What a week!

Introduction

I’m not going to lie, this has been the longest most intense week. My placement school got the call from Ofsted Monday morning, which led to panic stations all around and, even though I wasn’t directly affected, I think I subconsciously picked up on everyone else’s stress. I also helped my AT with a poetry workshop ran by Black Artists on the move… which was also fairly stressful, some of the reasons I will note below. Then, to top it all off, I had my comfort blanket (my AT!) taken off me on Thursday, as she was off sick. I have so many different emotions and thoughts running through my head, I feel like this blog post may end up being fairly rambly… bear with me, I may say something of use or interest somewhere!

Ofsted

I have avoided Ofsted for the whole decade I have worked in childcare, unintentionally already having a day off in place when they have come in to the settings I worked at. One of my friends even informed me that I narrowly missed Ofsted at the primary school I was placed at – her daughter attends that school.

Monday morning.

The end of period 3.

The gossip started.

“Have you heard, they’ve had the call”

“What call?”

“Ofsted are in. For 2 days!”

Long story short, the main gist of it was, (I mean I think this was the main gist, I am getting my information from a wide variety of sources!) that they wanted to do an in-depth inspection due to the 2017 results. They focused on the disadvantaged kids and high ability kids. They have made a decision, and we do not know what it is yet – that will take up to 15 working days to come through. We did have a feedback session about it Wednesday morning, but I am unable to share anything as it was strictly confidential. However, I will definitely post the result in the blog after I find out!

Despite the stress it caused my colleagues, I actually feel as this couldn’t have come at a better time in my career. I got to witness first-hand the impact Ofsted has on the English department as well as the whole school. There were some teachers that have been qualified for longer than 4 years and still never encountered an Ofsted inspection, so I feel fortunate to have been able to witness this.

Despite this, after getting an email saying that Ofsted have spoken to the university to say they are getting the second half of their inspections, I really hope that they will not be coming to my placement school to look at the Bristol uni NQTs there!

Black Artists on the Move

On Wednesday we had a poetry workshop run by the CEO of Black Artists on the Move, Akulah Agbami and, as she kept what she was going to do a mystery from everyone, we had literally no idea what to expect! All that we knew was that there would be 2 workshops for 2 different sets of year 8s, handpicked by their teachers, and then there would be a showcase period 5 – a chance for them to show their work to their peers.

Speaking to one of my tutees, who is also in my year 8 English class, she expressed how concerned she was about speaking in front of everybody. I can totally empathise! I would have completely hated that at her age. I reassured her and said that if she honestly felt that strongly about it, she wouldn’t have to do it.

In the first session, she asked the students questions to warm them up, before taking key points and writing them up to create a class poem. To emphasise the fact that poems don’t have to rhyme, and that repetition is a key point in poetry, she randomly decided that they would say each line a certain amount of times. The end result was pretty cool and, eventually, the kids seemed to be actually engaging and enjoying themselves.

They were then given three different scaffolds to base their poems on. A lot of the students wrote some really beautiful poems and were inspired by what they were asked to write. However, I feel like the better poems digressed from the scaffold a bit, so I feel it would’ve been better if they were given as a suggestion rather than being told to work that way.

At the end of the first workshop, the kids were told they would be sharing their poems in the showcase and, naturally, they were reluctant to come forward and the initial few volunteers took a little coaxing to come forward. Akulah seemed adamant that everyone should be proud of themselves and show their poems to each other, so much so that when the bell rang, she let the volunteers go and asked the others to stay behind to see if they would change their minds.

The next session was much the same, they made another group poem and the same kind of process took place. Although this group seemed more confident, they were still pretty reluctant to do the showcase.

The showcase ended up being a shorter workshop, asking the kids to write a poem in response to a Fairtrade video, and one of the kids in my English class won the prize for the best poem! I was very proud. Then the students had a mini-assembly on the impact of poetry and then some of the workshop students bravely read out their poems to the rest of the year.

This was an interesting day, being able to see the students outside the classroom was great, as well as being able to see some of the work of students I do not teach. On the whole, I feel as if they enjoyed themselves – although one student said defensively ‘miss told me it was going to be fun!’ – so maybe it wasn’t for all the students!

Supply in the Room

Unfortunately, my AT, who has been suffering all week, was too unwell to come into school Thursday, which meant that a supply teacher would be covering her lessons. Initially, we discussed whether or not I would be happy to still take the lesson, as Jo had set cover work, and, me being me, I smugly said I would be happy to still take the class, as they are such a lovely group, as long as it was alright with everyone else.

The head of English agreed with me, saying that it would actually be more beneficial for me to save face in the class by continuing with them, as I have fully taken over this class. I was to teach sonnet 18 to them, focusing on the structure of sonnets, and I was fairly excited about this as I absolutely love Shakespeare’s sonnets.

I’m not totally naïve, I did expect the class to act differently without my AT there as well, I just thought that they would try it on and then go back to normal when they realise, I am running the class as normal. And, to give them credit where credit’s due, they weren’t that bad either… they just wouldn’t shut up! All they seemed to do was talk talk talk. It was driving me up the wall to be perfectly honest! I gave out a few RtL warnings and they settled a bit, but every time I had to sort something out (technology was not my friend today… never thought I would be that teacher!) they would just start whispering again… and those whispers got louder and louder.

Like it wasn’t the end of the world, and the supply said that I did a great job (even if she kept her face completely emotionless throughout the whole lesson). It was just disheartening to go from feeling like their teacher, to feeling like an outsider again.

Ready to Learn

Luckily my AT was back on Friday’s lesson, and it was a library lesson too – basically just doing crowd control! We agreed that I needed to make myself known as an adult in charge and, due to this, I would really crack down on behaviour in this lesson. The rules are simple in the library – work in silence and work hard!

One kid in particular, I’m going to call him Harry*, for no reason other than I love Harry Potter and I can’t use his real name in this post, is regularly and consistently off task and chatting away to anyone who is remotely close to him, distracting both them and himself. He gets a warning almost every English lesson – from either my AT or myself – and has been sent to RtL twice before.

I don’t want to tell the kids off. I get that it can be boring or it’s just generally hard to maintain concentration for large periods of time – I am horrific at procrastination myself and I’m over a decade older than them. I gave him an informal warning before giving him a RtL warning, willing him to just do the right thing (next library lesson I’m going to make sure he is sitting away from people who will engage with him!).

I then had another discussion with my AT, and again we agreed that I should be the one to send anyone to isolation if they are not following the rules (by this point there were a few more names on the RTL warning list). With a few minutes to go before the end of the lesson, AT had begun to tell them about homework expectations, as I was unsure about what they needed to do. I was keeping an eye on all of them, as they were spread out around the library, and Harry* started laughing and speaking to another kid, who was stifling a giggle but not responding to him. I quietly went over to him, said that he had had a few warnings and that he was still talking over AT, being rude and that he had to pack up his things and go to isolation.

Naturally, he did not take this well and stomped off to pack up his things. I repeated that he was not ready to learn etc. and also that I had given him extra chances and he was still talking when he wasn’t supposed to be.

I can’t help but feel slightly guilty – to me, it feels irrational to send a child to isolation just for talking. I know that is the point in RtL – cutting down on low-level disruptive behaviour – and I am also confident in my decision – I had given Harry* amples of warnings on top of the official warnings, in both this lesson and previous lessons. I also get that just giving a warning and not sending them to isolation defeats the object of RtL, but I still feel for Harry*.

Later on, AT informed me that she had received an email from Harry*’s mum, asking why a ‘cover’ teacher had sent him to isolation. AT replied saying that I was a trainee teacher and would be taking the class for the next month – hopefully nothing more comes of this!

A View from the Bridge – Beginning of Act Two

On a lighter note now, as I’m sure those of you who have read AVFTB are aware, the beginning of act two has Rodolpho and Catherine having sexual intercourse for the first time, and Eddie catching them just at the end.

Reading this with year 9s, 13-14 year olds, proved to be highly amusing. This play covers many mature themes, and I am very proud of them for being able to understand and apply them in their writing. Now, the reason I am writing about this week is to thank the teacher I was working with for letting me team teach this session, as I would not have bene able to compose myself as she did!

So, after blowing their minds by telling them that the fact that Rodolpho and Catherine were in the bedroom together, and that Catherine had to ‘adjust her dress’ after coming out of the bedroom, implied that they had engaged in sexual intercourse (a good three quarters of the class were unaware of this), the teacher asked them to compare how Catherine is feeling after being caught by her uncle as opposed to how she should feel after losing her virginity with someone she loves deeply. A few students said she should feel happy etc, but one student said that she would feel ‘sticky’.

LUCKILY, a handful of people heard (I didn’t!), and the teacher kept her composure beautifully, telling him that that was inappropriate and giving him an RtL warning (the poor boy looked a bit confused as to why it was inappropriate) and she moved the class swiftly on and eventually everyone forgot about it (or just ignored it!).

The main reason I am bringing this up is that I had literally just read the scene with them, and passed over to the teacher to set the writing task, as I wouldn’t be with them in the lesson they will write it in, and it got me thinking – how would I deal with a situation like that?

Anyone who knows me knows that I have a slightly immature sense of humour, and yes, I definitely find things like that hilarious. Therefore, I feel like I have to start practicing maintaining a straight face for circumstances like this – any tips would be gratefully received! (side note – I did manage to keep a straight face when the class were roused by Eddie kissing Catherine and then kissing Rodolpho! So hopefully all is not lost!)

Teaching Targets

Last Week’s Targets:

Examples: Still need to work on this to know exactly what I want to do!
I’m confident on the majority of the names of the year 9s now, there are still a few I’m unsure on but the seating plan I have made really helps!
Subject knowledge: This will be an ongoing target as there is a lot of stuff coming up that I’m not 100% sure on!

This Week’s Targets:

Examples & subject knowledge – to keep adding to my subject knowledge and to attempt to make my examples as relevant and useful as possible.
Questioning: One of the teachers, who observed me this week, suggested that I mix up my questioning techniques in order to stretch each pupil to their maximum potential. One interesting thing she was telling me about was think time – not giving praise straight away so that the students build on their responses independently.

Currently Reading:

Contemporary Poetry: Poets and Poetry since 1990 – Ian Brinton

I gave up reading the theory, as I feel like my time is better used elsewhere at the moment, as I am not actually teaching contemporary poetry as of yet. I’m not sure if it was because I wasn’t in the right mindset when I was reading it or what, but I wasn’t overly enamoured by the majority of the poetry. However, it did reignite my love for Carol Ann Duffy’s poetry – The World’s Wife was one of the first anthologies I fell in love with, and also I stumbled across the poem Prac Crit by Anthony Wilson. I have not come across this poem before, as I can remember, and it is a poem about analysing poetry – I love it!

The Importance of Being Earnest – Oscar Wilde

Although this is the next play I will read, I have not had time to start it as of yet.

Mrs Dalloway – Virginia Woolf

I am totally aware I am taking an embarrassingly long time to read this novel and, honestly, I do feel this is because I am not feeling overly engaged by the text. I want to love it – I really do! I’ve heard so many fantastic things about it from a range of people, but I just can’t get into it. I appreciate that it is written beautifully, but the story isn’t gripping me, so if anyone can recommend me a Woolf book to change my opinion it would be most appreciated!

Dark Woods – Steve Voake

I have been wanting to read some of Voake’s novels since he came into university to talk to us. This one was on the top of the pile in the YA fiction library we have at uni, so I thought I would give it a go! I’ve only read a couple of chapters… and the chapters are a couple of pages long (I’m not so good at reading before I go to sleep anymore!) but so far so good!

Exiting Nirvana: A Daughter’s Life with Autism – Clara Claiborne Park

I bought this as I came across it on blackboard when researching autism for my assignment. It is a memoir about Clara’s autistic daughter Jessy, and her life as an adult. I am enjoying it so far… but again, finding the time to just read is proving difficult!

Week Six: Early Days Yet

Introduction

This week I worked in school Tuesday – Thursday, which meant that I have taken place in ‘Curriculum Enrichment day’, where one-year group spends the day in two subject areas, tutor evening and a whole school photo. Interestingly, this whole school photo on happens once every 5 years… just happening to fall on a day that I was at the school. I was also wearing a very subtle blazer… the shade of vivid canary yellow. Great… I will now be the member of staff that no one can remember! We missed a lesson and a quarter due to the photo, something I feel the kids appreciate more at the moment than the photo itself! It also provided me with having to make small talk to a lot of members of staff that I have no idea who they are or what they do… one thing I am forever grateful for is that everyone at the school is genuinely welcoming. I am also feeling relieved at the fact that a lot of the people I have met have graduated from the same university I am studying at… makes the future job prospects seem a little less further away than anticipated!

Assessments

In our university sessions this week, we had been focusing on assessments and looking at progress 8. We had been discussing how useful formative versus summative assessments are, as well as focusing more on what how assessment works at our various placement schools.

It was very interesting to hear about the different ways schools go about marking work. Some schools just give feedback on SPaG, whereas others focus on positive reinforcement – with the majority doing a mixture of both. Some give out grades for every piece of work and others just use comments, as they say the students were focusing too much on the grade and not enough on how to improve themselves. I think that a mixture of everything is healthy – and I also believe marking should be differentiated appropriately. For example, a higher attaining student would benefit from a focus on SPaG, if that is what could potentially bring their marks down, whereas a student with mental health issues may benefit from a lot more positive feedback so that their self-esteem does not go down.

The way the schools are now judged on attainment is, I feel, a lot better than the old system. When I was at school, a student had to get 5 A*-C grades to count. This potentially meant that lower attaining students might not have got all the support they needed, and they may have felt like a failure as schools were pushing students to expect to get a C grade. The way they work it out now is to do with how much progress they individually make. Each student gets a calculated predicted grade for year 11, and ‘progress’ depends on if they meet this grade, which potentially means that the higher attainers in year 6 have a harder time meeting this than a lower attainer. Obviously, the system isn’t perfect, and I feel as if it would be hard to create a perfect system in ‘judging’ schools, as there are a lot more factors in how a student does in their exams than just the school’s input.

Curriculum Enrichment Day

On Wednesday this week, the school I am at had a Curriculum Enrichment Day (CED). This is where each year group spends half the day looking at one subject but doing things a little differently to a normal lesson, sort of like intervention sessions. English had year 9, and we spent the day looking at context for poems they will study for GCSE. It was super fun, most of the students seemed engaged, which was probably down to having a few more video clips to analyse than they would normally have! We also finished with a Kahoot! Quiz… they loved it so much that I have decided to put one in place to do in a revision session for A View from the Bridge.

‘Marco’ Starter Critical Analysis

My criteria for creating a starter for this lesson was to focus on the character of Marco in order to remind the class about him before getting to the ever-important chair scene at the end of act 1.

My first minor mistake was writing the title ‘Marco’ on the board, as the regular teacher asked me what the title of the lesson-was and I eagerly offered to write it out on the whiteboard. I swiftly realised that this then gave away the answer to my bell work question… and I didn’t intend them write anything down until we moved on to the language use… oops! My not so subtle groan and remark to the other teacher about how ‘I gave it away’ now lead to a few laughs in the class so at least I’m building up relationships with the class?

Screen Shot 2018-10-18 at 21.19.52 One thing I am going to note here is that my classroom management for this class did not feel very natural and I know that this is down to me only knowing a handful of names. Seating plans, without photos, are only helpful if everyone is sitting exactly where they should be, and this isn’t always necessarily the case. One thing the head of English (HoE) said to me was to ask them to remind me of their name if I am not sure. Side note… I also find a lot of names extremely hard to pronounce, so if parents could start naming their children one syllable regularly pronounced names that would be great!

Nevertheless, I strode on with the lesson and, despite muddling my words up every now and again (still working on that… and I imagine it will be something I will be working on for the rest of my life). I introduced the next part, where we were looking at the language used and whether they felt it had positive or negative connotations. I asked them to discuss this with a partner for around 5 minutes, and I went around the classroom ensuring I spoke to a range of different students.

Focusing now on one of the students I talked to, I was particularly proud with the progress she made. She did not engage with the text originally, but when I broke it down for her, asking what the connotations for each individual word have, she came up with a fairly strong analysis of his character. I then asked her to share this with the class and she seemed very proud of herself for being able to share a valid response with the class.

Another student analysed the picture instead of the stage directions, so it made me aware of both being completely clear with my instructions, and also ensuring that the PowerPoint slides are clear – I could potentially have made the image smaller, not used an image at all or even explicitly stated do not use the image.

Screen Shot 2018-10-18 at 21.20.01 In order to provide a better understanding of why Marco and Eddie’s relationship begins to get a bit strained at the end of Act one, I decided to focus on what kind of relationship Marco and Rodolpho had, and where the power lies with the siblings. I had discussed with their usual teacher during their previous discussion to tell them that I will expect silence in this part. I did this, but, as they are sharing the class reader between two, in my opinion it was hard and potentially unfair to enforce silence. In hindsight, I feel like this task should’ve been a discussion and the previous task could’ve been in silence.

Screen Shot 2018-10-18 at 21.20.08 When it came to getting feedback from the group, I used the seating plan to randomly pick on people who hadn’t contributed much so far. This kind of backfired on me, as one of the pupils I asked had quite clearly not been doing the work and could not give me much more than ‘I don’t know’. I said to him to have a quick look now and then I will come back to him later. Firstly, I forgot his name when I went to get back round to him, and then he was still adamant that he did not have anything to contribute. I was not sure how far to push him, but I also did not want to lose their respect so early on in teaching them, so I went over to him and pointed to a stage direction that would help him. He eventually gave the class an answer, even if it was not particularly well thought out.

It was around this time that the class started to lose concentration, and one of the things the teacher observing me said was to make sure I wait for silence, use my language and my body language to be clear about what I expect in the classroom.

Ultimately, I feel as if the students did revise the character of Eddie, and they used that understanding later on in the lesson when they read the play. Despite a few classroom management issues, I feel that this went ok for my second time.

Drop Everything and Read

I’m not sure if I have mentioned this before, but drop everything and read is where the students spend 20 minutes silently reading, regardless on the lesson they are in. I absolutely love this idea. Reading is something that generally is only done in English lessons and, despite being asked to spend at least an hour a week outside of school reading for pleasure, this is not something every student does – or even has the ability to do.

Tutor Evening

This week I stayed behind to see how tutor evening works. The class I am with for tutor time is also one of the classes I will be teaching in English, so I felt it was extremely useful to learn a bit more about each child that came. I was only going to stay for an hour, but I ended up staying for the whole time as English came up as an issue with a few of the students. I feel like the more I get to know the students, the better equipped I will be able to teach them. It was also good to be able to spend some time at the school in a less formal setting. They have subject evening next term, and I will be interested to attend that to see the difference!

Transferable Techniques

Kahoot! – Being mindful of the fact that the kids have a great time choosing their names (trying not to laugh at some of the more inappropriate names is going to be a challenge for me!)

Teaching Targets

Last week’s targets:

Teach at least 2 more starters next week.

Target complete! Well, I only actually taught two more starters, but that was mainly down to being off timetable Wednesday.

Ensure I am confident in all aspects I will be teaching before I begin to teach.

Before taking the two starters, I ensured I read through the content thoroughly the night before, even reading the out loud to myself to make sure I don’t jumble my words up too much (my cousin must think I’m mad when she hears me!). However, I am 100% sure that I did not complete this target. I feel this is mainly due to making it a bit too broad, thus being unachievable in my second week (something I fully intended not to do!). There is no way I am going to be confident in all aspects of what I am teaching at this stage. There is far too much going on in the classroom and I have learned my lesson this week to concentrate on just a few things at a time, which I am going to choose for next week’s targets.

Next week’s targets:

Scripting ‘teacher talk’ so I know what I will be saying when, and also scripting ‘student talk’ so I have a clear idea of what I want the students to be saying to me, so I know they have learned something.
A focus on minor behavioural issues: Remember to use the Ready to Learn system already in place, and also ensure that the students are silent when I speak as well as before I start speaking.
Learn all the names of the students I will be teaching. Slightly ambitious, I know. But, as stated earlier, class management felt 100% easier and more natural with the year 7s, as I am fairly confident I know all of their names now. I am in school all week next week and honestly, I this is the only thing I achieve next week I believe I will thank myself a lot for it! (Let’s just hope I don’t forget them all again over the half term!)

Currently Reading:

Contemporary Poetry: Poets and Poetry since 1990 – Ian Brinton

Still ploughing through the theory… kinda just want to get on to the poetry now.

The Point – Kate Tempest

I don’t know what it is about poetry, but the more I analyse it the more I grow to love it, and this is definitely the case with this poem. I looked at it briefly last week, with the intentions of taking half the lesson and, in preparation for playing it in the lesson, I listened to Kate performing the poem. Listening to poetry poignantly read out always provokes an emotional response to me, but the more I listened and reread it, the more its beauty stood out to me.

The Tempest – William Shakespeare

I don’t know if I’m the only one who does this, but to appreciate Shakespeare plays fully I need to read them aloud and give voices to each of the characters (another way for my cousin to find me slightly insane). I have whizzed through acts 2 and 3 now, and I have to say my favourite parts are still with Caliban! The scene in which Ariel winds up Caliban, Stefano and Trinculo is absolutely hilarious, and the fact that Caliban keeps insulting Prospero and treating Stefano like a King is equally funny. I am thoroughly enjoying rereading this play!

A View from the Bridge – Arthur Miller

I am going to have to add this to my list at the moment, seeing as we are reading it in the year 9 class I am team teaching in. We are just at the end of Act 1, and I reread the closing scene of the act whilst preparing for the lesson starter I designed. The power struggle in that scene provides gripping entertainment. The more I read this play the more I completely fall in love with it!

Demon Dentist – David Walliams

I read just over a third of the book in the half an hour I designated towards teen fiction this week, and I have to say it is a blessing to my overworked brain to be able to zone out and just read something ridiculous! I can totally see why this novel would be popular with the young people. It plays on the idea of a fear of dentists by creating a hyperbolised evil character that has all sorts of gruesome ways to ensure the children go to the dentist. I also appreciate the fact that Walliams has made the protagonist’s father a single Dad in a wheelchair, and a social worker is called in to help them. I always find it refreshing to see children’s authors taking a step away from the nuclear family – something I know authors like Jaqueline Wilson have always made an attempt to do.