Introduction

I was lucky enough to have my first placement in a fantastic primary school, where I knew a few of the pupils already. I had been to the school the previous term to have a look around, and it was agreed that I would spend one week in year six, then the following week in year five along, as well as observing English lessons throughout the school. As I am going to teach Secondary English, the main intentions for this placement were to focus on where literacy fits in with the school day and primary-secondary transitions.

The whole school follows a relatively similar timetable. The day begins with ‘early morning maths’, a selection of age-appropriate, challenging maths questions, used to bring focus to the class as soon as they come in the classroom. Mornings are always dedicated to Maths and English, as these form the core of the curriculum, and afternoons are for topic-based work covered through a variety of subjects.

 

Literacy Experiences and Lessons

English is a crucial part of the Early Years, KS1 and KS2 curriculums, and is also the one thing that every subject has in common, therefore it is natural that primary school English teaching does not just fall into designated English lessons. Throughout the school day, standard English and grammar was emphasised, to an extent, and in some of the discussions that took place, I witnessed literacy development taking place. For example, in a year six RE lesson, extracts were read about creation vs. science and the children had a discussion about the differences between the two. Within this exercise, there was an encouragement of use of terminology, such as ‘genre’, reinforcing their literary knowledge alongside the main lesson.

ERIC (Everyone Reading In Class) is used as a starter throughout the majority of lessons, and each child has a reading log to ensure that they sustain their reading both in and out of school. I believe that one of the main battles for English teachers is getting students to enjoy reading regularly, and this helps to create a reading culture. Comprehension and spelling practice are also completed daily, as well as a focus on phonics in Early Years and KS1.

Before every child starts a new topic in English, they have to write a ‘cold task’ and finish with a ‘hot task’. This a visual way in which they can see how much they have learned and how it has improved their writing. The cold task is not assessed because usually it is not to the highest standard, and the teachers do not want to demoralise work. The students all knew that the hot task was to be their best work, and they all worked very hard to both meet their personal targets and also to impress their teacher.

Key Issues

Primary – Secondary transitions is inevitably going to be stressful for both the students and their parents. From what I have witnessed, and experienced for myself, this is the next biggest transition in a child’s life after starting school as a 4 year old. Primary schools are smaller, they have one teacher who oversees the majority of their lessons during the whole year, it is a less academic, more familial setting – the teachers’ roles as in loco parentis is significant in that the pupils are younger and have totally different needs – particularly in the lower years. I feel as if good communication between the schools, parents and the students themselves will help this transition to go as smoothly as can be.

Another issue that came up was that, as the primary curriculum has become exceedingly more challenging, the students are coming up to secondary already knowing a lot of things taught at KS3. Again, I feel as if communication between the two schools is vital here as how can a secondary teacher teach what is needed if they do not know what each child has already been taught? This school has begun to tackle this issue by inviting year 7 teachers at the feeder secondary school to observe lessons.

Conversely, after discussing Primary school placement with my new PGCE colleagues this week,

 

Transferable Techniques

Being at the start of the school year, the teachers are still working out the skill levels and the best techniques to use to ensure each child reaches their full potential. Year 5’s have realistic, personalised spelling targets that, if achieved, win them house points. This focus on personal achievement instead of getting full marks really struck me as a way to ensure that the lower ability children are properly motivated.

Another way they achieve personalised learning is through the labelling of their books; the labels are colour coded to represent SEND, underprivileged and forces children, and the position of the label corresponds with the pupil’s academic level in that subject. This allows any adult working with the child to be able to know exactly the needs they may have.

Instant feedback was also a big hit throughout the school, particularly in year 6. This seemed to work fantastically in maths – the students either marked their own work or the adults in the room marked as they went. It was a little harder to do this in English, but they had regular verbal feedback with either their teacher or peers. Obviously this would be harder to implement in secondary, but one thing the year 6 teacher said that really struck me was that the sooner they get feedback  the more likely they are to actively engage with the feedback.

Another thing about the marking I liked was that the pupils have to respond to their marking. A few people did not like this idea as they said the pupils might just say what the teacher wants to hear. However, surely that is more useful than them not reading the marking at all? And also, when it comes to SPAG issues, they were asked to re-write out their mistakes correctly underneath rather than just passively read where they were going wrong.

A couple of techniques I particularly liked were:

• Sentence Surgery – Where a sentence is put on the board with SPAG errors, differentiated to the abilities of the class, and the students are asked to rewrite the sentence grammatically correct. This is was useful in two ways. Firstly, it was a great, quick, engaging starter and just a different way to teach grammatical structures. As well as this, I noticed it was used later on in the English lesson, when the students were editing their work. The teacher would say to them to ‘make sure to do sentence surgery on your (or a peers) work’ and they would immediately know the sort of things to look for in their work.
• ‘Dot it don’t dodge it’ – The basis of this was to get the pupils to use more interesting words even if they were not sure of the spelling. They would write a word they weren’t sure how to spell down and dot underneath it. When they had finished their writing, they were encouraged to look up in a dictionary and ask a peer, the teacher or teaching assistant to find out the correct spelling. This I feel will be particularly useful with lower ability pupils in secondary.

 

Interestingly, coming in as an unfamiliar adult did not seem to affect the pupils in any way other than they were excited to have me in the class. By the end of the fortnight I had been put in a teacher’s role a few times; I assisted with marking, answered literary questions, had the children read to me and, by the end of the fortnight, assisted with the teaching input. The children I worked with engaged well with me and I felt as if I genuinely helped them create some outstanding pieces of work.

J

Currently Reading:

The Penguin Book of First World War Poetry – Edited by George Walter

Knowing that it is part of the curriculum, I have purchased this book in order to explore different First World War poems. A few that I have particularly enjoyed so far are In the Trenches – Richard Aldington, Bombed Last night – Soldier’s Song and Arms and the Boy – Wilfred Owen.

Blood Brothers – Willy Russell

I completely fell in love with this play. I am somewhat familiar with the story line, but have never read the play itself before. It is easy to follow, has an utterly gripping plot and the protagonists are interesting characters whom you easily empathise with. As it is a musical, I will definitely be on the look out for local performances to be able to fully comprehend what Russell was intending the play to be.

The Diary of a Young Girl – Anne Frank

The Diary of a Young Girl has always been a novel I wanted to read, particular after visiting the annex they hid in in Amsterdam. I feel as if this is an extremely important text for young people to read, as it is fascinating to see a child’s perspective of the war. Being largely set in the annex itself, the reader is immersed in the family life and how isolating it must have been. The heart-wrenching ending really puts it into perspective and reminds the reader that this is actually a non-fiction text – this really happened to her family.

Uglies – Scott Westerfield

Another novel I had heard a lot about but never got round to reading. Uglies is a dystopian novel; everyone is an ‘ugly’ before their sixteenth birthday where they become a ‘pretty’. Tally, the protagonist, ends up leaving her society and going to ‘the smoke’, where a group of uglies live, in order to preserve the history that the government are trying to wipe out. It is an exciting novel with an ingenious plot, would be perfect for students interested in dystopian fiction, or just looking for a gripping novel… I am looking forward to reading the sequel at some point!