Another whirlwind week has gone by and I can’t believe that there are only 3 more weeks left in this placement! We had another university day on Friday, cutting our week short, so this blog will be less about the teaching and more about the other parts of my week!
EPS Presentation
I’ve finally done it and it went really well! All my feedback was lovely, so fingers crossed I’ve passed! It feels amazing to have gotten it over and done with, luckily, I didn’t go my standard shade of maroon (it’s happened with pretty much every other presentation I have ever done. The one thing I find most interesting about this is that I was a million times more nervous presenting to a group of 4 adults than I am for 32 students (or less!). I knew my project inside out – better than some of the lessons I have whipped together! But somehow, I still got super shaky, living through the ‘flight not fight’ response.
World Book Day
After spending around a decade working with under 5s, it was definitely super exciting for me to dress up as one of my all-time favourite characters – Katniss Everdeen! (I nearly went Harry Potter, but felt that it’s a bit over-done). It was the easiest costume ever and I was super comfy all day… unlike some of my colleagues; my AT dressed as ‘sandman’ (had a big coat and a gas mask on) and another English teacher dressed as Mrs Havisham and looked absolutely fantastic!
I also made sure to do something World Book Day related in tutor time… only 2 students put their hands up to say they read regularly! Slightly disheartening, but not unexpected in a Netflix and social media dominating society. (I also think some of them read more often but were ‘too cool’ to admit to it.
Having all the teacher’s dress up is so simple but so effective. The school was buzzing with chatter about different books; students and staff alike guessing who was dressed as who, stimulating talk about favourite books and books we want to read. Simply magical.
Recall Day
We were back at university for another recall day on Friday, having an in-depth discussion about the old KS1 SATS and how it has impacted the way our current students feel about reading. We also got a chance to split up into groups with people at a similar stage in the curriculum practice assignment and then had a lecture about how, why and how our students should approach reading. It was super interesting and made me think about using a class novel – how much should I tell my students and how much should I get them to come up with?
I have done my best to ensure that my classrooms are a safe place, emphasising the importance of alternate opinions, both validating and expressing excitement at the more ‘out there’ suggestions. The idea that students feel like there is a ‘right or wrong’ answer to literature is definitely salient in the school I am at – most of my students (KS3,4 &5 alike) often start their sentences saying, ‘I’m not sure if this is right, but…’ and variations of this. I hate that this probably means that, at some point in their school careers, someone has shut down their opinions, saying it is wrong.
Reimagining the Diary
Unusually, I am writing this on a Saturday instead of a Friday, mainly to mention this! My university tutor is undertaking research into keeping a diary to help teacher wellbeing, inviting the PGCE English cohort along to the launch event. I was the only student attending and, when I found this out on the Friday, I very nearly changed my mind and didn’t attend.
I am so glad I didn’t change my mind. The session was both empowering and inspirational. The children’s author Mimi Thebo came and we did a workshop on diary writing, with the emphasis of staying in the body for an enlightening experience as a writer. She said that in every one of us is a poet (creative, playful, getting words down on a page and not worrying about anything being right or wrong) and an editor (focusing on the rules of the English language as we know it, making sure our work is grammatically correct and is as good as it can possibly be) and great writers have poets and editors that work in harmony with one another.
I won’t go into detail about the workshop, but I will just say that it was completely and utterly transformative for me; I aspire to be a children’s author one day myself – a fact not many people know about me – but I never find the time to commit to doing this. Seeing Mimi and hearing her astounding work (I ordered Dreaming the Bearon Amazon Prime there and then… will be beginning it as soon as it comes tomorrow!) as well as hearing her talk about how busy her life is, yet how she ensures she starts the day by doing at least 45 minutes of writing – just by cutting out some of the less important day to day activities.
As part of this research, we have been asked to keep a diary; writing every day for at least a week. I have regularly kept (and promptly stopped for one reason or another) diaries all throughout my life for as long as I can remember! I am an extremely nostalgic person and love having diary entries, photos and videos to look back on. I am excited to see if I truly find writing on a busy week day as therapeutic as I do when I have designated time for a workshop on a Saturday – or doing this blog once a week!
J
Currently Reading:
Bleak House – Charles Dickens
Animal Farm – George Orwell
Split Second – Sophie McKenzie
This book was rather odd – I cynically couldn’t put it down. The characters were ridiculously annoying and naïve, and it was the most ridiculously predictable plot with the worst possible ending – it was no Girl, Missing! However, it poses some interesting questions about radicalisation and is a stark reminder about how vulnerable children are at risk of getting involved with things they don’t understand – quite topical at the moment!
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!
J
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!
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 19thcentury 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!
J
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!
Back at university again this week, although it has been lovely to see all my colleagues, I can’t help but miss being in school… that’s why I’m doing the course after all! However, despite feeling completely exhausted and pretty unwell, I have enjoyed some of the things we have been doing.
Reflecting on Placement 1
As anticipated, everyone was full of anecdotes from their first placements and we spent a fair bit of time reflecting on our placements using a visual metaphor. I opted for a bungy jump, focusing on the nerves before the placement, the lows, the highs and saying goodbye. I didn’t quite get a chance to finish it, colouring in takes a long time! Yet, I got the main points down before we got a chance to go around and see the metaphors everyone else had created, commenting using post its. It was a lovely way to bring our first placement to a close before we found out where we would be placed for the long placement.
Visual Metaphor of Placement One
Mental Health in Schools
As part of the EPS lectures this week, we had a session on mental health in young people and how we can build strategies to help support our students. This was fascinating for me, particularly as, when I was at school, there were many of my peers struggling with their mental health – including myself – and it never got picked up on by anyone. I struggled by myself for a long time and I know now, after sharing with some of my friends, I was not alone in my feelings. However, when I was at school mental health was nor normalised and actually, I didn’t know that what I was feeling was an illness.
There are many things, such as academic stress, bereavement or bullying amongst others, that can trigger poor mental health. Teachers, due to the amount of time they spend with students, may be the people who pick up on these things, thus have a responsibility to help a struggling young person.
Personally, I feel as if all of this was very similar to the safeguarding lecturers – if I have doubts about any of my students, I will voice these doubts to the appropriate people. However, what I have taken from this lecture is that I need to model appropriate behaviour to my students and I also need to ensure my classroom is a safe space, talking about mental health (particularly in tutor time) to normalise it.
A-Level English Language
We were lucky enough to have an expert in A-level English language come to speak to us this week and it brought back all the amazing memories I have from taking the course myself way back when. We were looking at word classes and linguistic terminology – including a bit on phonetics – and I wish I had been feeling well enough to completely engage in the task. I love this stuff! It also reminded me to send my uni notes to my cousin… something I have been promising since September!
The Science of Learning 2
Following on from his previous lecture about engage-build-consolidate, we had the professor in to give us a specific seminar in how we can relate that to our subject – more specifically the use of creativity.
In a nutshell, different environments can help to stimulate different responses to learning. For example, generally one may expect to find a learning environment that increases focus, offers rewards and has an element of mild stress, potentially through anticipating assessment. However, when doing creative tasks, it is actually more beneficial to have a disruptive or broader focus, less stress and only use evaluation after generating ideas. This is in an attempt to move away from the automaticity usually expected for students to consolidate their knowledge, thus being able to apply this knowledge in different ways (moving up blooms taxonomy).
It’s been a while since I did anything remotely scientific, so at first these lectures appear a little intimidating, but actually this approach makes a lot of sense and will hopefully help me plan lessons in a more useful way!
2 More Assignments
People who say the PGCE year is intense and stressful weren’t kidding – the workload is ridiculously high, and I constantly have waves of imposter syndrome and feeling completely overwhelmed. Every colleague I spoke to this week feels pretty much exactly the same, so I am so glad that we are in this together, providing support when we all need it. Such a lush cohort!
On Monday we submitted the assignment on SEND, I finished this last Friday and relished in having a completely free weekend. By Thursday we had another two assignments left and I was kinda wishing I could Groundhog Day last Saturday. Nevertheless, I am actually looking forward to doing both assignments.
The EPS assignment is a research-based task, and we can pretty much choose to research whatever we want, as long as it relates to one of the teacher standards. My two ideas are:
Looking at something to do with looked after children (LAC) and ready to learn/ behaviour management techniques (influenced by my last placement!)
Looking at something to do with gifted and talented sixth form students
I honestly don’t know which one I would rather do! I spoke to my new PT about this on Friday; she says I will definitely be able to do the second but will need to look into whether there are enough LAC in the school.
The subject assignment is to design your own scheme of work, basing it within selected pedagogy, teaching and reflecting on it. After speaking to my AT, and class teacher, I think I will be doing Animal Farm with the bottom set year 10s. Should be interesting to do from a differentiation perspective!
Placement 2 Induction
I met my PT for P2 on Thursday afternoon, and she seems completely lovely and so supportive (I have heard lots of good things from my colleague who went there for P1). It is a very different school to P1, which I am excited about as it will hopefully give me a completely different teaching assistant. On paper, it sounds a lot like my own school experience – I am most excited about getting sixth form classes!
With regards to what I will be teaching, I have already got a provisional timetable and will have 4 sixth form lessons to teach as well – to be confirmed by January. The classes I will definitely be taking are:
10C2 – Tutor group: not teaching this group this time, hopefully I will build up just as good a rapport as I did with my year 8s in P1!
10×5 – Looking at the power and conflict poetry anthology before half term, animal farm afterwards. A bottom set which will be interesting after coming from all mixed ability!
9×5 – Travel writing before half term, 19thCentury literature afterwards.
9Y5 – 19thCentury literature before half term, travel writing afterwards.
6thform classes to be confirmed.
I am particularly excited to be having two year 9 classes (side note: I observed a lesson with 9X5 today and they are lush, got into a full-blown conversation with a couple of girls about harry potter and the hunger games… I love them already!), my AT gave me the choice of teaching the same thing side by side or doing two different units. I opted to go for two different units, as I know I will learn a lot in teaching each SOW and will be able to put these reflections into good use when teaching the SOW again! I’m excited to have the chance to actually redo the lessons how I see fit, taken on board observation notes.
I am not gonna lie, I am completely nervous to be starting at a new school, even after going in for a day. Everyone seems so lovely and it seems like such a lush school – the kids appear to be beautifully behaved the majority of the time! It’s crazy to think that I have only had a week’s break from teaching – I already feel like I am not sure what I am doing: it’s like the bungy jumping metaphor, no matter how many times I go to start again I will always feel like I am standing at the top of that bridge waiting to jump. Hopefully all will be well – I have already agreed to teach both year 9s from the first day back… jumping in at the deep end worked last time so I am praying it will work again!
Transferable Techniques
Getting A-level English Language students to go through the mark scheme with three different coloured highlighters for nouns, verbs and adjectives. Looking through the bands to see what is expected for each level.
J
Currently Reading:
The Importance of Being Earnest – Oscar Wilde
I seem to have misplaced this play…. reading will be on hold until I find it annoyingly!
The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishguro
Still (slowly) ploughing my way through this novel, don’t hate it and don’t love it, not really much else to say on it at this point in time!
Ketchup Clouds- Annabel Pitcher
I love this book! It is about a young girl writing to a murderer on death row, talking about the boy she says she murdered. It is an epistolary novel; written in letters. The form works beautifully for the story line and each letter slowly reveals a new twist in the plot – I am dying to find out who she killed and what happened, and even if it is even her fault.
Over the next few weeks I am going to prioritise reading what I will be teaching, but I will still aim to read for pleasure alongside it! I am determined that the degree will not impact my reading levels, obviously unless I have too much work to do (like last week). I have also been recommended Mortal Engines by one of my year 9s, so I have promptly ordered that and looking forward to reading that after Ketchup Clouds!
So, this week has been significantly more intense than last week. I have classically gone and done what I always do; agree to take too much on. At the beginning of the week, I agreed to go and talk to the Ofsted inspectors for university, which not only but a halt on my planning time, but also meant I had to rearrange my PT meeting this week. On top of this, I had my university tutor come to observe me on Tuesday afternoon and, despite her being so lovely, I found myself getting unnecessarily nervous for this. So, let’s just say the stress was ramped up a level and I ended up breaking down a bit on Wednesday. However, my lessons on Thursday and Friday proved to be a million times better and I have started the weekend with a new instilled confidence in myself.
Ofsted Round 2
Not long after getting an email, about Ofsted coming to carry out the second half of the university’s inspection, the course leaders sent another email around asking for volunteers to come and speak to the lead inspector. As I had a free in period 5, I offered to come into university, which meant that I sacrificed my planning time, to speak to Ofsted.
Obviously, I am not sure what the outcome is, but the inspector seemed very happy with what we were telling him about the course… fingers crossed to stay outstanding!
University Tutor Visit
As previously mentioned, I was a complete nervous wreck thinking about the university tutor’s visit; I didn’t know what to expect and had no idea how the class would react to my lesson – after the supply teacher incident, my confidence was knocked with this class.
My lesson was the third lesson on Shakespeare sonnets; we focused on the meaning of sonnet 18 and began to compare it to the beginning of sonnet 130. I managed to ensure that every child had contributed verbally, at least once, during the lesson, thanks to my handy ‘good names’ list on the board. I have to say; a lot of credit goes to my gorgeous year 7s… they worked so diligently and had some fantastic comments – I am continuously and regularly very proud to be teaching them!
It didn’t take long for the nerves to wear off to be fair, I got into the swing of the lesson pretty quickly and my confidence grows every time I teach something, and they prove to me in the plenary they have understood it.
I had a meeting with my UT and AT after this lesson and they both had super nice things to say. We worked through my targets for the rest of placement one and my UT noted that, if I gather enough evidence, it seems as if I am teaching at a ‘very good’ standard; for those of you not familiar with PGCE talk, this is the highest you can be. It’s safe to say that I was elated and extremely proud of myself – all the hard work looks like it is going to pay off!
I am going to leave this section with a part of the email that my UT sent me, as a follow up to the visit:
‘Joanne, you should be really proud of the lesson that you taught. You have a calm and confident teaching persona and it is clear to see that you have already established a lovely rapport with your learners: well done. You used a range of questioning techniques to ensure that all learners were involved in the lesson and made progress, and you demonstrated some live modelling with the visualiser.’
Debate Mate
One of the English teachers runs the ‘Debate Mate’ club after school on Wednesdays and, as I didn’t have a PT meeting this week, I came along to help out. Debate Mate is basically a club to help students with their debating skills and they also have an opportunity to compete in national competitions. (Click here to watch the 2018/19 launch video).
I only teach one of the students who attended, but it was super nice to be able to meet a variety of different students. It also amazes me at how much talent lies within the midst of the student body. The students that spoke, spoke eloquently and with such passion and confidence… at the ages of 11-14!
Midweek Breakdown
You would think that after all this great news at the beginning of the week I would be feeling elated and confident in my role as a teacher, that is what any normal human should feel after such fantastic news. Tuesday evening, I definitely felt that way! But for some reason come Wednesday evening I felt my panic and stress levels begin to rise and I just felt utterly overwhelmed and helpless. I negotiated with myself and only checked over my lesson plans for the next day before having an early night.
I’m not going to go into any details, I have no idea as to why this happens to me. It happened the previous week, but I presumed it was a one-off ordeal. It’s starting to become a pattern mid-week, so I am just going to monitor myself and adjust what I am doing accordingly.
Back on Track
Despite this set back Wednesday evening, Thursday proved to be a great day. The only lesson I had to teach was the lovely year 7s…. but, unfortunately, my AT was off again so I was in with a supply! I began to feel the beginnings of panic but held myself together – I knew what I was going to teach (thanks to a kind teacher who talked it through with me in the morning) and I was confident that I knew the lesson well enough, so I only really had to think about behavioural management techniques – that and pray they would be better behaved than last time!
My plan was to give them between 20-30 minutes to finish off their poetry comparisons (I’ve started marking these and some of them have blown me away – there aren’t many adults I know that can write this eloquently about Shakespeare, let alone an 11/12-year-old!), and then we were going to move onto their spacing task for this fortnight – viewpoint writing. The spacing task was to get them to agree or disagree with the statement: ‘‘Parents today are over-protective. Children should be allowed to take part in risky experiences to prepare them for later life.’
Yet again, I have to give credit to the year 7s. They now completely see me as their teacher – it is just the sweetest thing. I felt fully in control all lesson and, despite a few of them getting excited about the spacing task (one kid was adamant that if you went to the park without an adult you were extremely likely to get kidnapped, another asked what would happen to you if you got kidnapped) – I managed to keep them all on task appropriately so I’m calling that a win!
Progress with a Student
One of the biggest achievements for me this week is making progress with one of my more difficult students in year 9. I can’t remember if I have written about this before, so I’ll just do a quick background: one of my year 9 students has a lot of additional needs, which has related to him being off task and disruptive in lessons. I’m not going to give any details, but there are considerable reasons behind this that I am aware of and I have agreed with the normal teacher that she will help me with him. He very rarely does anything more than write the date in his lessons.
Due to him being in Ready to Learn or being excluded, he has only been in the class twice before, and I have only taught part of one of these lessons.
In fact, it is very rare to have the whole class in – more often than not there has been at least 6/31 off for various reasons.
The first full lesson I taught them… there were only 2 off and I had to adjust the seating plan accordingly. On the whole, my behaviour management was not great in that lesson, but I am going to focus on the positive in this section.
I managed to get him to verbally tell me which introduction was better and why; he responded accurately giving valid reasons behind his opinion. He took himself off to refocus during the lesson but, for me, the biggest win was getting him to stand behind a chair at the end of the lesson. It was period 5, so obviously they are all keen to leave, but I have been insisting on silence and order at the end of the lesson to maintain control of the class. He rushed to the door just as the bell went and I calmly asked him stand behind his chair. After reminding him to do this a few times, also informing him that I too would like to leave, we compromised with him standing behind the closest chair. At the end of the following lesson, I got him to stand behind his own seat.
This might not sound like very much, but I did not think I would even get to talk to me in a respective manner, let alone get him to follow my instructions and even begun to do some work. In just a week I have gotten so far with him, thanks to the teacher working with me acting as teaching assistant as well. I am hoping to see more progress, hopefully he will get to the stage where he participates in a lesson without causing too much disruption, even if he doesn’t do it whilst I am teaching them. It’s the smallest steps that feel like the biggest in learning to teach.
EPS SEND Assignment Feedback
On a final note, we got our feedback on the first part of our SEND investigations and I am thrilled to say that not only was my feedback good, but it was also extremely helpful. I have never had such specific feedback that I completely understand and agree with before. I’m not going to look at my assignment until next weekend, but I am glad that my mind is at ease with regards to this.
Teaching Targets
Last Week’s Targets:
Examples & subject knowledge: Subject knowledge is going to be one of those I will be constantly improving, so I am going to remove it from my weekly targets – I am aware I am going to have to adapt and learn as I go, especially as I move from school to school over the PGCE year. With regards to the examples, I am becoming more confident and finding that planning my examples into my lesson plans really helps me – even if I end up not using them and eliciting a model from the students.
Questioning: I have been attempting to use think time, something that is definitely a lot easier in theory than in practice, but I have come to the realisation that before I can even think about attempting some of the more advanced teaching skills, I need to work on my basic questioning skills.
This Week’s Targets:
Questioning: Building on what I have previously said, I have noted to adapt my questioning techniques depending on what I know about the learner I am questioning: ability levels, any SEND or any prior knowledge. To do this, I am going to attempt to use Bloom’s Taxonomy, something I am going to have to read into a bit more before I can make effective use of it. My university tutor suggested I laminated seating plans so I could write next to the student what kind of question I should be asking them: to monitor who is contributing to the lesson and to what level their answers will be. I am going to attempt to include this into my planning – hopefully it will be effective!
Assessment for learning: another target that has cropped up this week, is that I have been neglecting to use assessment for learning techniques to gauge if learners know what they are supposed to be doing; particularly when I give input or set an extended piece of writing. On Friday, I used a few techniques (thumbs up/middle/down; temperature check; common problems) to assess this, and already I am seeing a difference in how well the students are understanding my instructions. As noted in some of my earlier blogs, one of my biggest concerns is that I am not clear enough in how I speak to the pupils, thereby I am wasting my time and their time by having to consistently reword my instructions because I wasn’t clear enough the first time.
Bloom’s Taxonomy
J
Currently Reading:
The Penguin Book of First World War Poetry
Reading first world war poetry on Remembrance Sunday – the centenary of the end of WWI no less – made the readings ever so more poignant. Poetry is one of those beautiful forms where the poet can express a multitude of emotions in written word – often, in my opinion, much more effectively than prose. I find that poetry is not the same read inside my head, so I often read poetry aloud to myself, in doing this last Sunday it made me realise how important this poetry is in remembering those who have gone.
The last surviving English veteran of WW1 died in 2009; in keeping the heightened, harrowing images of ‘the war to end all wars’ alive through various creative means, we are able to remember and be thankful to all of those who fought for us to live the lives we live today, also, hopefully, serving as a reminder to what we should never have to live through as a species again.
The Importance of Being Earnest – Oscar Wilde
So far so good! I’ve not read much but I am looking forward to reading some more this week!
Mrs Dalloway – Virginia Woolf
I have finally finished this novel and I reluctantly say that I did not particularly enjoy this novel. However, I can totally appreciate why people do love Woolf’s writing, the description is detailed and eloquent and her characterisation is phenomenal – I just did not overly enjoy the story.
Dark Woods – Steve Voake
The main gist of the story is that two children go off exploring in the woods near their campsite and a man finds them and drugs them, bringing them up to his cabin deep within the mountain forest. He then shows them that he can bring dreams alive; all he wants them to do is go into his dreams and bring his dog back to life. But there is a twist: he has brought Cal’s nightmare to a reality, and the kids set it free to torment them as they try to escape.
This is a novel that you really have to suspend your disbelief for and I find, when reading children’s and young adult novels, that I read them slightly differently to how I would read other novels; I imagine what my childhood self would’ve thought about them. Bringing myself back to opening up my imagination in any way possible, I am finding I am actually really enjoying this book. It is a simple horror for young people and holds the same gripping nature I would find in that of a Stephen King novel, only made accessible for the younger generation.
Exiting Nirvana: A Daughter’s Life with Autism – Clara Claiborne Park
The chapter I read this week was about her daughter’s experience with language – how long it took her to be able to communicate her unique way of seeing the world. The more I read into autism, the more I feel as if we are extremely fortunate to have these individuals in the world; different perspectives bring layers of meaning to an otherwise mundane world.
Much Ado About Teaching 