Term 1… Blink and You’ll Miss it! [Part Two]

Now I finally know all my students (bar the few that have never turned up to my lessons), life is so much easier. There is so much power in learning a name – particularly when there is a ready to learn behaviour system!

7C – Tutor

Firstly, I thought I would update you on my lovely tutor group. Unfortunately, I have had to have a lot of chats about kindness with them. The transition to secondary proved hard for a lot of them, especially the ones who struggled in primary. I have decided to make this a priority in the next term, where I will have a focus on emotional literacy. Other than that, they have been a complete delight! My head of department (also my NQT mentor) has very kindly offered to take the tutor group on a Friday, giving me a chance to catch up with various different tasks. Even though it’s only 15 minutes in the morning and 10 minutes in the afternoon… it does make a big difference to my day!

7A3 – Introduction to Poetry

Differentiation has been the biggest challenge with this group. I have got two lovely students with a reading age of around 5 – they only got 2/20 on a KS1 reading test. They have a teaching assistant with them and I had made them various worksheets to do instead of the main lesson. However, they still found these sheets inaccessible. I had a think and a chat to their TA to come up with something that they could access, that would promote the use of different words and could potentially build up their vocabulary. As seen in the picture below, this is the kind of sheet I do for them in each lesson now. The picture is loosely related to whatever we are studying (for example, the birds are for Hope is a Thing with Feathers) and then they have to complete the tasks.

So far, this seems to work really well. The colouring really helps them to settle and the repetitiveness of these activities mean they know exactly what they are doing in my lessons. I am also able to give them praise points if they go above and beyond what I expect of them, which is completely fantastic!

One of my highlights of this group this term has been the relationship I have built up with one particular student. At the beginning of term he didn’t contribute much and, in his notes from primary, it said that he was very shy. I will never forget we had on O’ Captain, My Captain’ where I witnessed a confidence shift in front of my eyes. He has a ridiculously detailed knowledge about American presidents (he knows more than me!!) so I referred to him as the class expert throughout that lesson. At the end of the lesson, he stayed behind to thank me. He said he has never felt that confident in a lesson before. Since that lesson, I have watched him blossom into the kind of student who will answer any question I throw at him. He has also showed me some poetry he had written in his spare time. I made sure to ring home to tell his parents about how fantastically he is doing this term, and his father sounded like he was crying with joy! Honestly, I can’t get over how amazing this job can be.

8A2 and 8C – Ballads

I see 8A2 a bit more than 8C they work harder and stay on task more so they are an easier group to manage – they are also a much smaller group which helps! On the other hand, 8C are an extremely lively class, but we have had some incredibly interesting debates about the various topics that come up. I do not do the spacing tasks with 8C, which is a shame because they love creative writing.

I have found that with both groups, but especially 8C, the lessons we have in period 5 are extremely challenging. I have tried a few different strategies with both groups – 8A2 respond well to having a 15 minute quiet task to start off with, before moving on to the main lesson, but 8C would still remain off task for the majority of the lesson. Then only thing I have found that works with them, is watching a video and then doing creative writing based on it. (An example being watching a video on the jobs children had in the industrial revolution, then writing a diary entry about a day that went wrong at work).

Whilst this has been great, because anytime I tried to do a normal lesson, I would end up having to redo it the next lesson anyway, I am concerned that I am not following the scheme properly, and we have missed out a few bits. At this point, however, the students seem to be enjoying English and I had my first period 5 lesson with 8C in week 8 where I did not want to cry from exhaustion at the end of it!

10F1 – Macbeth

I LOVE TEACHING MACBETH. There, I said it. I did not think I would enjoy teaching GCSE English literature in a year – it is a lot of work, but so far I am thoroughly enjoying it and, I am ecstatic to say, we have finished reading the play! We’ve got a week and a half left on the play, and I have left out a few important scenes I want to go back over before their end of unit assessment, but I am feeling, on the whole, confident with these students. I have got such a delightful class – I always look forward to teaching them!

11S – English Language Paper One

Year 11s have proven to be my most challenging group. Their behaviour is technically good, they follow all the school rules and get the work done well. However, they just don’t engage with me or each other! It is actually painful at times. I’ve only had three hands up over the term, to answer a question I have asked, and two of them were from the same person! Hands down questioning has definitely been my best friend in this class.

Luckily, the HLTA in our department has been allocated to this class in a week 1, so I am not alone in my misery! Don’t get me wrong, they’re a lovely bunch, I just find myself getting bored or doing a LOT of teacher talk. They have their mocks on the first day back, so we will see how they go before I comment further!

Currently reading

Knife Edge – Malorie Blackman (currently on hold as I’ve lent it to a student over half term – I knew she would read it quicker than me!)

Tales of Mystery and Imagination – Edgar Allen Poe

Wise Children – Angela Carter

Othello – William Shakespeare

And just like that, it’s September again!

I knew in my heart of hearts that my two months off would go quickly, but that didn’t stop the sheer panic I felt Sunday evening, knowing I would be starting a new job the following day. As I worked at this school during my first placement, I was grateful that I already knew the team fairly well – I had spent a few hours catching up with one of the lovely ladies on Sunday (she was incredible at calming my nerves… so thanks if you’re reading this!) and I knew I couldn’t do anything else to prepare for the job as I did not have my timetable yet.

Luckily we had an inset day Monday, so I was able to ease myself in. In all honesty, I was completely terrified and felt totally overwhelmed. I knew not much would go in so I thought I would be kind to myself and not give myself any more work than necessary! I found out I am going to be a tutor for a year 7 group, which is super exciting as I will get to experience helping out the newbies and hopefully become their first port of call over the year!

The one thing I knew I was going to have to get a grip on straight away was my own wellbeing. I have a tendency to throw myself completely into my work and think about the consequences of my own feelings later… which proved tricky last year. I am a workaholic but I know I’m going to need to try and minimise the amount of work I do at home (for my partner’s sake just as much as mine!). This week I have combated the anxiety by taking everything a day at a time and making sure I am not ‘reinventing the wheel’ by making use of the faculty’s amazing resources (my partner can vouch for how excited I get when I am looking through lessons on the shared area ).

I am also going to try and limit the amount of time I spend blogging – there were a few occasions last year when I spent well over an hour, because I was avoiding doing anything else. So I am going to trial just thinking about what has gone brilliantly and what I want to make a priority next week. I am hoping these small steps will help me to have a positive outlook on the week and give me focus for the next. There will be no doubt the odd funny anecdote included too… I have got a few um…. interesting characters in my classes that have had me in hysterics.

Things to celebrate

This week I have made a good start in building good relationships with my classes. My year 10 and year 11s are a tad painfully quiet at times, but I’ve got them working hard already so that’s fantastic. They were the two classes I was most nervous about, with the looming GCSEs in the summer. My year 10 this year couldn’t be further from my bottom set I had in my final placements last year, but I have a feeling I am going to like them just as much. My year 8 and year 7 classes are completely bonkers… which I love, but may become challenging at times. I also survived my first time on duty… which was on the first day the students were here!

I am also proud of how I have been dealing with the work load – I’ve even made sure I have time to do a bit of yoga and jogging this week (let’s see how long that lasts)! As I said earlier, the faculty is AMAZING and I know I could ask anyone anything and they will help me out with anything I need…no matter how ridiculous the question! The support I have there is the main reason I was so ecstatic to accept the job there. Most importantly the lovely head of department (who obviously has loads on her plate without adding me to it!) is my NQT mentor and I couldn’t ask for a better mentor. She helped me out a ridiculous amount last year, so I am looking forward to having her help me out this year too!

Things to focus on

During my first NQT meeting with my mentor, we discussed the targets we should make for me in my first term. The two main things that came out of our conversation were getting used to the KS3 curriculum, including how grading works, and becoming ‘warm but strict’ (she picked up on the fact that I can be a bit soft at times and I need to ensure I am using the behaviour policy correctly and effectively). As it is still early days, I am going to focus on RtL next week, hopefully getting to learn more of their names in the process (honestly makes RtL MUCH easier to use). In particular, I want to work on my year 7 group. I’ve only taught them once, but they were an extremely lively group and I need to ensure standards are set well, as they will be mixed up in the next few weeks and we will have slightly different groups.

I am also intending to continue to organise my classroom – note to self, bring my folders into school!!! – and I would like to have a look through at least the year 10 and 11’s books mid week.

The most entertaining job…

I’ve had a couple of face palm moments this week (often things I do or say oops). But here are a couple of great moments from my classroom this week…

Year 8

(Written on the board is the class’ definition of a ballad starting with ‘A ballad is…’

Me: Do we all think this is a good enough definition? Does anyone think we should add anything or change anything?

Student: Me! I think we should…. oh wait I’ve forgotten……………… OH! Yes we should put at the end ‘and it is a ballad’.

Tutor group

(I had been explaining the ready to learn behaviour system)

Year 7 student: Had this been checked out by a psychiatrist? Us year 7s have enough stress to deal with without having to worry about being in isolation…

Safe to say I reassured him that many schools were using ready to learn and that if he was concerned, maybe he should simply follow the school rules and not end up there.

Anyway, I have finished the week on a high – I am truly loving teaching Macbeth (the text I was most worried about teaching) and I am feeling more confident now I have met most of my students. Bring on next week!

Currently reading

The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories – Ken Liu (This is the book I will be reading during ‘drop everything and read’ at school!)

Jack the Ripper – Paul Rigg & John Bennett

Macbeth – William Shakespeare (Obvious reasons)

This is Going to Hurt: Secret Diaries of a Junior Doctor – Adam Kay

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine – Gail Honeymoon (Finally… late to the party with this one, I know!)

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 18 – Back at it again!

Introduction

So, I am sat writing this a day early, as I have a rather busy weekend ahead of me, and I already can’t quite believe what I have achieved in 3 days of teaching and observing (excluding the inset day on Monday!). I am over the moon to be back at school; by the end of the week, I will have taught 4 starters, half a lesson and 3 full lessons. I am extremely proud of how hard I have been working this week, and I am certain I will keep this up for the rest of the term (hopefully!!).

Alongside the highs, I have also seen a glimpse into the lows – they have already started and will inevitably only get worse as my work load increases. My university tutor has suggested I make sure I take one night off during the week (probably a Tuesday or a Wednesday as that’s when the stress seemed to be hitting me) and actually get out of the house! Now, I haven’t done that this week, but I aim to start it next week and I will hopefully see some improvement in my wellbeing! I am also already ridiculously tired… so if anyone reading this has any suggestions other than sleeping more (I always average 7-9 hours a night) or drinking coffee (can’t abide it!) they will be more than welcome!

Inset day

It was really interesting to see what happens on an inset day, after making the most of so many of them as a student with lie ins and socialising with friends/family! The day was split into three: Housekeeping, feedback and gifted and talented students; Faculty based work (I also had a chat with my AT about my teaching this week); recent safeguarding issues and recapping ready to learn.

I am not going to into too much detail about this, as a lot of it is directly related to the school’s recent Ofsted inspection (happened the day after the inspection for my P1 school!). However, it was interesting to see the sort of training that goes on for teaching and support staff; it was also really good to get a chance to get to know the faculty a bit better before the students came in!

EPS assignment

Following the inset day, I felt as if it would be more appropriate to go for my second idea of looking at gifted and talented students in sixth form, with an emphasis on how feedback can aid pupil progress. I feel that this will be particularly interesting, as I looked at a few different ways of giving feedback in p1 – this should definitely both help me give feedback that genuinely aids pupil progress, as well as reduce marking time for me! I submitted my proposal mid-week, so I will hold off on doing anything further now until my idea has been ok’d!

Sixth Form

It was amazing to finally get a chance to officially observe sixth form classes – I thoroughly enjoyed helping out in 12 literature and 12 media last year when I did a bit of work experience! In particular, I really enjoyed going into the English Language class – looking at Robin Lakoff really brought back memories of why I am so passionate about my subject! I intend to purely observe the lessons for the first few weeks before beginning to teach. Teaching sixth formers is slightly different to teaching ks3/4, therefore I want to ensure that I am able to adapt my teaching style to suit each class.

9Y3 – Nineteenth century prose

I believe I have manged to grasp at my students’ interest, thanks to an interesting start to the Dickens half of 19^thcentury prose, and on the way, I have been reminded about how much I love fiction from the Victorian era! My AT started off Tuesday’s lesson with a game https://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/multimedia/dickens/(need to make sure flash player is allowed, or disable then allow flash player for it to work). There is the opportunity to get 2000 points and the students had the challenge to get as high as they could get in the time limit. The winner got just over 1,200 points!

I then introduced the research task, which was finished off for homework and helped them to create posters on Dicken’s life, works and times. We had a competition to see who had the best poster – all the students seemed to have a lot of fun doing this and, as I opened the second lesson by asking them to tell me a fact they had learned when I called their name on the register, they all seem to have good contextual knowledge in time to start on Bleak Housenext week!

9X5 – Travel writing

This topic gives me great pleasure as it combines two of my all-time favourite things: English and travel! The introductory lesson was about the differences between a tourist, traveller or explorer. I introduced the definitions of the three, before doing a quiz with the students to find out if they were more of a tourist or a traveller. This was also a lot of fun; the students all appeared to be engaged and were loving finding out what everyone was!

The next lesson I taught was on the ‘ingredients’ of travel writing, which involved analysis of the first extract they will see. This was the first full lesson I was to take, and I was pretty nervous about doing so! However, on the whole it went really well – the students are completely amazing, I am very lucky to have two eager year 9 groups!

Tomorrow I will be taking them again, looking at the positive and negative connotations of different words, particularly adjectives.

10X5 – Power and Conflict poetry

It has been decided that I will be teaching the year 10s for the first-time next Wednesday, looking at ‘Exposure’. In the meantime, I have been doing ‘Haribo’ starters with them – a quiz looking at different aspects they have covered so far, tallied up each lesson and at the end of the half term, a winner will receive a packet of Haribo. They seemed to really enjoy this concept – although not many of them got the questions right. Teaching bottom set will definitely be a challenge for me – I am so used to having to stretch and challenge students predicted grades 7+ that I am going to have to do a lot of work to in order to teach them well – one of the reasons I decided to do my curriculum practice assignment with them!

The lessons the teacher is doing with them have a rigid structure that is applied to each poem, with the theory behind it being that they will then be able to apply this to any poem that they come across. Each student has chosen their own colour for each of the three assessment objectives, has split up the page in the anthology so that each AO is together, and annotated the poem, heavily scaffolded by the teacher. This has meant that each poem has only taken one or two lessons to teach, and they all seem to be getting a basic understanding of the poems. My challenge is to keep them engaged to continue this for the rest of the term!

I have also chosen to let them know I am a trainee teacher – only time will tell if that was a stupid mistake or not! I want my students to know that I respect them, so if they ask me why I am here and what I am doing, I intend to be as honest as I can and hope that they have the integrity to respect me back! So far so good, I have already got a couple saying they are excited for me to take the lessons – this may because the only teaching I’ve done with them so far has involved the prospect of sweets, but I’m taking it as a win!

Teaching Targets

I have decided to start my targets a fresh and will only do one main target a week until I get back into the flow of teaching (hopefully by this time next week but you never know!)

Lesson timings: pacing is one of the aspects of teaching I regularly seem to not quite get right. One of the teachers I am working with suggested that I put the time expected for the activity on the PowerPoint so that the students are completely clear, thus, in theory, helping me to not go off on a tangent!

Currently Reading:

Poetry – Tissue by Imtiaz Dharker

I had a look at this poem earlier on in the academic year, when myself and a colleague prepared a lesson plan for it – little did I know that it is many teacher’s least favourite poem! I love this poem. The extended metaphor is beautiful, and I love how it questions the fragility of humanity in such an elegant manner.

Drama – The Importance of Being Earnest byOscar Wilde

Ok, so I only read one-page last night before falling asleep…. Update next week!!

Novel –Bleak House by Charles Dickens

Definitely questioning whether I will finish this book before I get around to teaching it the second time! Just got to the part where Esther meets Lady Dedlock for the first time. I have read a summary for this novel, as I will be teaching extracts from it next week, therefore it has been very interesting to me to read it in light of what I know about their relationship to each other!

YA Fiction – Girlhood by Cat Clarke

I intend to start this novel tonight, so will update next week!

References (if necessary)

Week Four: Poetry, Planning and Placement Preparation

Introduction

Another week has flown by, and my head has once again been bombarded by pedagogy – starting placement next week will be a refreshing change! Sitting here on Friday, as I begin to write this blog post, I am looking back over the week and Monday feels like months ago. Yet, at the same time, I cannot quite believe that the past month has passed by so quickly. I am definitely looking forward to relaxing this weekend with a few of my old uni friends!

First Tutorial

We had to sign up for one-to-one tutorials with our tutor last week, and I was eager to get this done as soon as possible, mainly so I could clear my head with someone who knew what was expected of me. We talked for quite a while, and I expressed some of my concerns about getting in front of a class for the first time. I am so used to observing, or acting as a teaching assistant, that I am starting to freak out a bit about making the transition into teacher! She made me feel heaps better about it, and we decided that the best approach for me is to jump in at the deep end and teach sooner rather than later. As much as I hate to admit it, that will probably be the best way for me to get over these ridiculous nerves as quickly as possible! Watch this space… I could be saying a completely different thing next week!

National Poetry Day

I wouldn’t be an English teacher if I didn’t acknowledge that it was National Poetry Day on Thursday! In spirit of this, our lecturers gave us a small anthology of four poems all written by female poets and taken from the current AQA GCSE Poetry Anthology. The poems were:

– The Emigre by Carol Rumens

– Poppies by Jane Weir

– Tissue by Imtiaz Dharker

– Kamikaze by Beatrice Garland

I focused on Kamikaze to begin with, after quickly reading through all four I found I was particularly drawn to the narrative. It follows a story about a Japanese girl’s father, who left to be a suicide bomber but came back, bringing shame to the family. I fell head over heels in love with the poem. The language is beautiful: ‘strung out like bunting on a green-blue translucent sea’; ‘dark shoals of fishes flashing silver as their bellies swivelled towards the sun’; ‘cairns of pearl-grey pebbles’, as well as presenting a powerful thought whether it would have been better for her father to die a ‘hero’ or live but bring shame on her family. I always find it interesting looking at different perspectives on the war, particularly after visiting Laos and seeing the devastation the ‘bombies’ from the Vietnam war, amongst other places.

We were then given the task to work in pairs to create a lesson plan for one of these poems. As much as I loved Kamikaze, the poem my partner and I chose to write the plan for was Tissue. It is such a beautiful poem, and I love the use of homonym ‘Tissue’ and the process of it starting as paper and becoming skin. The more I read it, the more I came to appreciate it. I will explain the lesson plan we made a bit further down.

On National Poetry Day we were asked to get into groups to perform different poems, and we were all given different ways in which we should perform. I won’t go into detail, but it just reminded me how powerful it is to see a poem performed, and how that could be used as a way to get my students to actively engage with the text, rather than just listening to it being read by me.

The Planning Process

We spent a lot of time in our sub sessions talking about lesson planning, focusing mainly on medium term and specific lesson plans. I am going to focus on the lesson plan I created with my partner, and the turmoils we faced whilst we attempted to perfect the timings and activities.

Our initial idea was to explore figurative language in Tissue. We drew upon ideas, decided to do various activities and then hit a brick wall. How where we going to cover everything in a one hour lesson? After getting a bit of help, we realised that it would be more beneficial to us and the students if we were more specific with what we wanted the learning outcomes to be – in other words keep it simple and specific. So we narrowed it down to imagery. Turns out this is just as vague so eventually we narrowed it down to the senses and then our plan took place!

I’m including a picture of our plan, it is hella messy because we changed it heaps, it is also not 100% finished as we discussed a lot but ran out of time to write it down! However, I am confident that we have refined our plan and it is now a teachable lesson. This was also due to, I believe, finally getting a mock up class list so we had an idea of how we could differentiate the lesson. This made it somewhat easier, but I think it will also be a million times easier (note easier not easy) when I know the children I will be teaching well enough to adapt the lesson for everyone. (I know that probably sounds optimistic but we’ve all got to aim somewhere!)

Class Readers

We also had a look at class readers, the text (generally a play or novel) that a class will read together and follow along at the same pace, usually over a few lessons. We discussed various ways to approach class readers and also talked about the advantages and disadvantages of using them.

We then got the first few chapters of Pigeon English by Stephen Kelman, and were asked to try out a few techniques to read them in a group. I think the resounding thing our group found was that, even as literature lovers, we found we got distracted easily for a range of reasons. The text itself was phenomenal and I have definitely decided to put it on my to read list… so why did we find it so hard?

Reading out loud can be a nerve racking thing, everyone slips up now and again and it is easy to get bored if someone is reading too fast or too slow. For me, the best way we did was the ‘popcorn method’, where the reader can nominate anyone to read and each person only reads as much as they want to. This kept us on our toes and, interestingly, we found ourselves picking on our colleagues that did not appear to be paying attention. Now who knows if this is something the children will do or if this is just the teacher within us all making an appearance!

Inclusion and SEN/D

For our first masters level assignment, we will be following ‘learner x’, a pupil with SEN/D (Special Educational Needs or Disability) and we had the introductory lectures to this task this week.

My favourite of the lectures has to be the one where we had people from a SEND department come in and talk to us, bringing along a few students with additional needs. Hearing the students side of their school life really hit home – I know inclusion is important of course, but knowing the little details that could change the child’s day for the worse only emphasised to me that it is of the upmost importance that I get to know my students as well as I can.

I am actually looking forward to this assignment, and eagerly anticipate next week when I hopefully get to meet my learner x.

Observation Versus Judgement

This will just be a brief note here, mainly to remind myself if I ever forget. Observations are what you actually see, judgement is what I think I see. For example, an observation would be that children have their heads down on their table, a judgement would be that these children are not engaged. Use the observations to back up judgments ad explicitly state what I have seen in my assignments – every judgement needs evidence!

First Impressions

Most excitingly this week we got to meet our personal tutors for our first placement, well I say personal tutor, in my case one of the deputy heads came to greet us due to unforeseen circumstances. It was honestly such a relief to be able to have a little chat before starting next Tuesday, and having a few trivial questions answered.

The school I will be working at has a ‘ready to learn’ behaviour management scheme in place, which is basically a zero tolerance method. I am grateful that all the behaviour management is in place for me to use already, as I feel like that is one less thing I need to worry about when I teach for the first time (scary how this is getting closer and closer!). It is also a Catholic school and I am excited to see how faith is integrated into the English curriculum.

Transferable Techniques

Working with a collapsed text: Using all the words of a poem (or any other text) put in alphabetical order and ask the students to create a piece of creative writing only using the words provided. Also, using a word wall – where all the words of a poem (or other text) are blanked out and words are revealed one by one (or however you want to do it).
The ‘popcorn method’ for class readers

Currently Reading:

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

Back to the world war poetry again, I think I’m gonna alternate each week between this book and the contemporary poetry book. One poem that particularly stood out to me this week is August 1918 (In a French Village) by Maurice Baring. It is a short poem, only having 2 stanzas, but the contrast between the 2 stanzas was what really grabbed my interest. The first is a beautiful description of village life, and this is juxtaposed with distressing imagery of war and death.

The Tempest – William Shakespeare

I have just begun Act 2 of the Tempest, and I am further reminded of the interesting character of Caliban. I can remember having discussions at school whether he was evil or whether he was merely an innocent being that Prospero is abusing. I also can quite confidently say that I have no idea how the play is going to turn out! To be fair to myself, it has been over 10 years since I last studied the play. I am excited to remind myself about the play and to follow the characters into the unknown for the second time in my life. This just goes to show that rereading a text is never a bad idea!

Mrs Dalloway – Virginia Woolf

The more I read this novel the more I fall in love with it. Woolf is quite clearly an ingenious writer, to cover so much detail over a course of a day is astounding! The part I read this week focuses on Mrs Dalloway’s daughter Elizabeth and how she has her own independent mind. Her relationship with Mrs Kilman is a bit confusing, potentially because I have the bad habit of skim reading, or could be that way on purpose! I am still not sure if Mrs Kilman loves her or is jealous of her… or both! I am also waiting for the climax of the novel… I feel as if there is something building and Mrs Dalloway will be the cause of some great distress. Time will only tell if I am way off the mark or not!

Junk – Melvin Burgess

This book was harrowing. The book follows Gemma and Tar as they both run away from home and go live in squats and, not surprisingly due to the title of the book, become heroin addicts. I don’t want to give too much of the plot away, but the changes you see in the characters – particularly Tar – just emphasises how ‘junk’ can destroy someones life. There were moments where I was nearly brought to tears (probably would have been brought to tears if I wasn’t reading it on the bus!) and it really opened my eyes to how important safeguarding is within a school! (Definitely would have had a different reading if I read this as a teen!) If someone at their school noticed that Tar was being abused at home, would he have run away in the first place? How different would their lives have been?

This is definitely a book aimed at an older reader, with themes such as drug addiction, prostitution, abuse, rape, pregnancy and abortions, a heroin addicted baby, homelessness amongst other things found throughout the novel. I would definitely be reluctant to recommend it to students until I knew they were mature enough to handle these deep issues. Nevertheless, it is a fascinating read and I am intrigued to watch the BBC adaption in the near future!