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!

Week Three: Facebook Isn’t Cool Anymore

Introduction

After meeting a few of my PGCE colleagues at the weekend, I was eager to start on Monday. Still buzzing from the excitement of primary placement and desperate to start work in schools, I was eagerly anticipating the week ahead and finding out in more detail about how the PGCE is going to work.

EPS, Sub & Placements

The course itself is split into three parts: EPS (Educational and Professional Studies – the ‘core’ teaching theory that is applicable to every PGCE student), Sub (the subject you will be teaching, obviously English in my case) and school placements. We have two weeks of initial university work before going to our first placement school on the fifth week.

I am equally nervous and excited for my first official placement in a secondary English classroom, especially when I found out I would be teaching a lesson or part of a lesson by the end of this placement. Will I be able to put into practice all I have learned and said I could do? What will my lesson be about? Will it be something I am confident in or will I have to learn something new myself in preparation? How much support will I be given? What will my class be like? What age group will I be teaching? Will I know any of the students through the volunteering I have done in this city before?

Teacher Standards

In order to be seen as a competent teacher, there are certain standards one has to meet. These standards are used throughout a whole teaching career, and the way you meet them develops as you gain more experience. The standards are:

Part one:

Set high expectations which inspire, motivate and challenge pupils.
Promote pupil progress and outcomes.
Demonstrate good subject and curriculum knowledge.
Plan and teach well-structured lessons.
Adapt teaching to respond to the strengths and needs of all pupils.
Make accurate and productive use of assessment.
Manage behaviour effectively.
Fulfil wider professional responsibilities.

Part two:

Appropriate behaviour in and out of school.
Treating pupils with dignity and observing proper boundaries.
Safeguarding pupils’ well-being.
Showing tolerance and respect for the rights of others
Not undermining fundamental British values.
Proper rear for ethos of school – including high standards of punctuality and attendance.
Awareness of, and act within, statutory frameworks that apply to teachers.

The fact that gaining QTS (qualified teacher status) relies so heavily on these standards made me panic a little at first – what if I can’t meet all of them? Or what if I know I can but can’t provide sufficient evidence? However, after rationalising my thoughts, I completely understand why these standards are in place – teachers are such respected members of society and there are many ways that we have to safeguard ourselves as well as the young people we teach. I am confident that I will be able to meet each one of these standards with amples of experience and, hopefully, this time next year I will have my own classes in my NQT (newly qualified teacher) year.

Taking on a Tutor Role

Our first guest speaker of the year was an experienced Deputy Head teacher, who came to talk to us about the pastoral side of teaching. It was interesting to have the role of a tutor put before us so early in our teacher training – nevertheless I agree with how important this role is.

It got me thinking about my own potential tutor classes, and how I would go about being in a pastoral role. He told us all that teachers should ‘generate the sort of adult we would be happy to live next to when we are old.’ That is it. That is what, as a teacher, my ultimate goal would be. Yes getting students to achieve their target grades or higher would be an amazing feeling but at the end of the day, school is such a minute part of a persons life and the different experiences a teenager may face during this time will ultimately shape them as a person, regardless of socioeconomic background.

Interestingly, he noted that ‘parental income is the biggest hurdle to overcome for pupil progress’. As well as this he suggested that children with illiterate parents or even potential refugees will struggle more in schools simply because they don’t have the extra support at home. This highlighted to me how important it is to get to know my students individually to ensure that nobody is struggling just because of their life outside of school.

Ultimately, I feel as if the guest speaker was trying to say that it’s not just in your lessons that you may find yourself caring for these students. It is important to acknowledge them as individuals and to give them appropriate support as and when they need it – whether that be in the classroom, tutor time or on your breaks. You never stop being their teacher and even the the little things you may say to a child could resonate with them for a lifetime.

Online Safety & Safeguarding

Facebook isn’t cool anymore… Instagram and Snapchat are the social media sites that today’s young people are using more regularly. Not only now are we the generation of ‘A*-U GCSE’s’ but we are now the generation of Facebook. Apparently the biggest group of people joining Facebook at the moment are women over 40, whereas young people are more concerned with keeping their ‘snap streak’ with their best friends as high as possible.

The online safety lecture we had with a retired police officer was honestly one of the most interesting lectures I have ever had. Filled with statistics, like the previous paragraph, he told us about the good and bad sides of the internet. It is not the technology itself that is bad but rather the behaviour of the humans using it.

The recent Fortnite craze also posed some questions regarding he safety of using it’s online mode – many parents have been setting up a closed group for their children so they can only talk to the people they actually know. We were also warned to have plenty of parents asking us about how to get them off video games!

We also looked at the slightly darker area of the web – and I warn you not to read this paragraph if you are sensitive to issues with children and sex. Sex education is in place in most schools, but according to this speaker not many schools tackle the issues of online sex education. Apparently the average age of a child accessing porn is 11 and there are many ways in that children are groomed and abused online. Sexting is also an issue that is not explained properly to the children – how are they to know that sending or receiving a pornographic picture of an underage person is a criminal offence even if they are underage themselves or if it’s their photo they are sending. One key thing to focus on is scalability, durability and audience. Any photo sent online – regardless of the platform it is shared on – has the potential to be seen globally by any type of person and will be on the internet forever.

I believe it is important that we as a society talk about these issues. Keeping a taboo on these subjects only discourages children to come forth with any issues they may have, and that could have a detrimental effect on some of these young people’s lives.

This leads nicely onto the safeguarding lecture we had following this. A DSL (designated safeguarding lead) from a local school came in to train us in safeguarding. I am not going to dwell too long on the safeguarding aspects – I have had regular training since I first started working with children a decade ago – but it is still important to talk about.

Talking to people outside of university, it surprises me how some schools will have people in their settings without telling them basic healthy and safety rules – including their DSL.

I can’t think of anything more important than the basic safeguarding rule of just pass it on. If you have any concerns, no matter how small: whether it’s something you see; something someone tells you or just a gut feeling… it should not be kept to yourself! If a child is disclosing you something use TED questions – Tell, Explain Describe and always tell them you have to pass it on if it concerns you, write it up and get you both to sign at the front and also next to the last sentence.

It is all very well and good saying it won’t happen where I work, not at this school. I cannot think like that, we all should never think like that. I already know too many people in my personal life that have experienced abuse, a few of them when they were minors. It needs to stop. Acting in loco parentis puts the responsibility of these young people into our hands as teachers and I strongly feel that by committing to a teaching career we have to do anything in our power to keep these young people as safe as possible.

What is the Role of an English Teacher?

This is the question we have been looking at all week in our ‘sub’ sessions. We have had many a heated debate, looked at different theories about the origins of English as a subject alongside the differences in the precious national curriculum and the 2014 model. One of the most interesting to me has been Cox’s five models of English teaching: Personal Growth; Cross Curricular; Adult Needs; Cultural Heritage and Cultural Analysis.

At the end of the week we had the opportunity to work in small groups to create a short video depicting the roles of an English teacher. We chose to make a mockumentary starring ‘Louise’ Theroux… it was a lot of fun to make and I offered to edit it over the weekend.

One of my favourite things about the course so far is that the English subject tutors have been showing us different ways of teaching by getting us to carry out the activities. This has been extremely useful and has helped me to think ‘outside of the box’ when it comes to lesson planning.

Some of the key ideas we came up with for the role of an English teacher are:

Teaching the SPAG (spelling, punctuation and grammar) basics
Teaching both canonical texts alongside other forms, i.e. media, non-fiction etc.
Carrying out formal assessments to check progress
Facilitating work
Build skills necessary for the outside world
Ensure wellbeing
Differentiate between learners
Encourage creativity and personal growth

Transferable Techniques

Drama starter – get the students to organise themselves without talking
‘Diamond 9’ tasks – where the most salient point is at the top and least salient at the bottom
iPad work – creating a short film about a certain topic
Counting down to regain the attention of the class
Checking that the task is understood by asking someone to repeat it back to you before starting

Currently Reading

Contemporary Poetry: Poets and Poetry since 1990 – Ian Brinton

Ok I have to admit, I didn’t read the amazon description fully and I presumed this was an anthology of contemporary poetry. This is actually a companion to contemporary literature which has actually proved to be rather useful. I am currently half way through the first chapter ‘approaching contemporary poetry’ which so far has offered an interesting insight into the beginnings of the contemporary movement, however, I am looking forward to reading the texts later on in the book!

The Tempest – William Shakespeare

Shakespeare is one of those authors who is inevitably going to come up during my teaching time, I would imagine that his works are taught regularly in every school by pretty much every English teacher in the UK. I first read The Tempest in year 9 and it is the first play that made me fall in love with Shakespeare. I am rereading the text to both refresh my memory of the play and to begin to explore how I may go about teaching Shakespeare.

Mrs Dalloway – Virginia Woolf

I actually started reading this novel earlier on in the year, but lost it! I happened upon it after moving to my university accommodation and decided to continue with it. I was just about half way through with the novel, so I was reluctant to start it again (I quickly reminded myself of the plot… thanks to spark notes!). This is the first Woolf novel I have read, and I can see why she is such a popular author. The character of Mrs Dalloway herself is interesting, I thoroughly dislike her but also I am hooked and am fully interested to find out more about her past and how the rest of the plot is going to unfold. Will she stay with her husband or will she reignite her relationship with Peter? What is going to happen at the party? What role does her daughter play in all of this?

Junk – Melvin Burgess

I have actually yet to start this novel, as I have only just acquired it through the young adult and teen fiction library at university. I have heard a lot about it, it was discussed a few times during my children’s literature module for my undergraduate degree. I am excited to start it this weekend!