Becoming a reflective professional

Today in University, the Schools Direct students were given a lecture on 3 of the ten principles that were conceptualised by the UK's Teaching and Learning Research Programme (TLRP).

These have been extensively researched based and is intended as a guide and support for teachers making the professional judgements which they are uniquely positioned, and required, to make.

The BOLD description of each principle was taken directly from Andrew Pollard's Reflective Teaching in Schools. The added information was what I gained from the lecture and based on our group discussions.

Principle 2: Effective teaching and learning engages with valued forms knowledge.
Teaching and learning should engage with the big ideas, facts, processes, language and narratives of subjects so that learners understand what constitutes quality and standards in particular disciplines.

Firstly we discusses, who decides what goes into the NC, who decides what to teach and who decides at what age should it be taught. This principle is about making sense of the world we live in; whether we think geographically, scientifically mathematically, creatively, religiously or other possible ways.

We need to use our own personal knowledge and create lessons that a significant and give the students a strong experience.

Good primary teachers should be ale to know each subject well enough to be able to explain it without requiring a degree in all subjects.

This will then become part of you, and almost like breathing you will be able to teach each lesson without constantly planning and checking subject knowledge is secure.

When observing we need to look at what the teachers do with their subject knowledge and how do they focus in on the students learning.

Principle 6: Effective pedagogy promotes the active engagement of the learner. A chief goal of teaching and learning should be the promotion of learners' independence and autonomy. This involves acquiring a repertoire of learning strategies and practices, developing positive learning dispositions, and having the will and confidence to become agents in their own learning. 

In the group discussion we spoke about Piaget and his theory of a condition and assimilation. In other words, make the knowledge your own. How and what you do in the classrooms will help children to learn through their challenges and  master independence via scaffolding and discussion. 

Teachers should equip their students with life skills. A video from the website teach media,  showed how different roles can be shared amongst a group and enable each student to take ownership and feel part of a bigger picture.

These are the following Thinking Skills.

Manager-makes sure everyone works together.

Scribe- writes down the group ideas.

Encourager- praises people on the group and boosts positivity.

Reporter- reports the ideas back to the class.

These skills help students work in a group, promotes speaking and listening, gives more time to think, all can take part , and is important for personal/social development. 

Principle 8: effective pedagogy recognises the significance of informal learning. Informal learning, such as out if school or away from the workplace, should be recognised as at least as significant as formal learning and should therefore be valued and appropriately utilised in formal process. 

This focused on home/school knowledge. It made me think about next year with what I should find out about my class and their personal experiences.

Parents should ask their children to complete sums at home (shopping, time until bus arrives, fractions with pieces pig pizza).

Finding out what hobbies and activities they do as well, will help to shape an opinion of them plus give some indication as to why they could be tired, anxious, excited, sleepy etc. Also praise could be given for those who may have achieved something or want to talk about holidays etc.

My first encounter with Fred the frog from, ‘Read Write Inc’

There are only two things I am going to reflect on this week and these are to be about my phonics observations in Year 1, and notes about my Half Term Observed lesson by my University Tutor.

Firstly, it was agreed that I should spend time in Year 1 to complete the phonics part of my Schools Direct training. I am to observe the different phases of the Read WriteInc Phonics programme that the school use, and after half term I am to take a small group and teach them for at least 4 weeks (how many days depends on time restraints). I am to observe how my teaching benefits their learning.

PHONICS
The teacher I observed teaching first, taught the highest ability of 5 groups. The programme uses a set of books which are designed to follow a set pattern. This helps install structure to (the lesson and also gave the children a set of clear objectives throughout each unit. Each lesson looks at different phonemes and uses Fred the Frog as a fun character who can say and read words only in pure sounds. This beanie toy can be used flexibly as part of Read WriteInc to help introduce children to letters, sounds and words in a fun, dynamic and fast-paced way. At our University Centralised training this week, I was lucky enough to receive some phonics training which also included some video clips of the Read Write Inc teaching. I learnt the phrases phonemes, graphemes and pure sounds.

On Wednesday was the first of my University tutor observed lessons and I decided to stick to my original plan of a guided reading session; except rather than teach the first part of a unit I planned, I was able to go in at a more advanced stage and teach the third part of the unit. Being in a smaller room I found I had complete attention of the students, my questioning skills were well thought out and adapted pending the outcome of answers. Some of the vocabulary learnt from previous two sessions was well remembered by the students and a few surprised me with added responses. Rather than dismiss them, I built on them and used it to add extra learning. One thing I should have done was ask each in turn what one of the words meant, rather than giving the answer straight away.

For the main task I touched on the skills they had been learning in a recent grammar lesson. I wanted to link the two together and assess if they had grasped the intended learning which was to change the tense of a sentence.

My tutor noted that a few times one of the students interrupted another and this could have been dealt with quickly by me asking them to respect their peers and wait for a chance to speak. Otherwise he said my subject knowledge was secure, my starter was good, the main activity which focused on a recent Grammar lesson helped to reinforce previous knowledge, and I have a good rapport with the pupils.

Agreed targets are to work my use of the LO/SC at some stage of the lesson and use of a plenary.  This I will aim to put right during my science lesson next week.

  

The University is Alive With The Sound Of Music

Yes it's in the title, music was the lesson taught at Reading University this week, and I also joined the School Choir.

Most of you reading this don't know me but I grew up loving music; from singing Scouting songs around a campfire, playing the piano from the age of 11, to singing at every step along my educational path. I found a passion for drama on top of all this and decide to follow a dream of becoming an actor (see previous blog posts to give a more detailed breakdown on my previous career).

Extra-curricular activities
Anyway why did I join the School Choir? Well, the music teacher is teaching the KS2 children some Christmas songs for a concert and I didn't want to miss out on both performing and assisting. This combines fun with learning and it ticks off Standard 8 in the process. The children were surprised that Mr Harte was in the music room and made a bit of fuss but hopefully the novelty will wear off next week. I am using this experience to hopefully assist with the end of school production and also add the responsibility to my teaching repertoire because it will give weight to any interviews in the future. 

Guided Reading
I taught a good lesson using only a picture to get my group to think about how the illustrator gains sympathy from its reader without the use of text. One thing I should have done was to give pen and paper to the children and asked them to write their thoughts and feelings down rather than me asking them and doing it for them.

Marking my 1st set of English papers
The Year 6 were given an English Reading SAT's paper. This I welcomed because it will enable the teachers to see how the cohort has been developing since the start of term. I can also see how my Focus Reader (a University based task) is doing since I started working with him. I wanted to gain experience of marking papers so only did the unambiguous questions which didn't require much thinking.

Year 3 observations
I have literally been all over the school these past few weeks and that is precisely what I should be doing this Autumn Term. I spent Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday morning with a class in Year 3 AND I was able to see: a guitar lesson taught by two external music teachers, a topic lesson based on the compass points, Maths lesson looking at subtracting two digit numbers and both a guided reading and English lesson focusing on letters and sending mail. 

i saw some excellent transition tactics being employed. The pace of the lessons meant that for their age, the children didn't spend too much time on their own during the lesson. I can see that for Year 3 it needs to be a gradual process to becoming more independent learning especially so soon after being in Year 2. With 2 TA's in the class as well, both knew their class tasks and all of the adults moved about the different groups to ensure the teacher spent time with as many of the class as she could. This is important because each child feels as if the teacher isn't just concentrating on the lower or higher ability groups.

Maths Test for all of Year 5/6
On Thursday another SAT's paper was sat except this time covering Year 5 as well. This is because we stream in 5 classes and this will give a chance to see not only what needs teaching but also whether some children need moving around the classes. We have had a few new students and despite a few bits on informal assessment, I feel a test will show the real ability of a student. That is just my opinion but with something like Math's it is vital each teacher knows that what they are teaching matches their students' level of learning. 

Yet again I am pleased this has happened because my Focus Math's student is in my class and I can quickly see what she needs immediate help with.

Second Guided Reading Session
Picking up from what I noted on Monday, I ensured my group had pen and paper to convey any thoughts they had by simply looking at a second image I showed them. Some of the vocab learnt in the last lesson was remembered and my Focus reader came out with an amazing metaphor saying 'the people on the top deck of the ship were huddled around like penguins trying to keep warm'. 

Plans for next week
I spoke to my mentor about how my two lessons went and how I adapted my teaching strategy. We spoke about a pending Science lesson that I am planning based on Light and how it travels in a straight line. She wants me to think how to challenge the Gifted and Talented children in my questioning.
In my Personal Learning Profile, I added that I will be focusing on Year 1 Phonics over the next two weeks and she gave advice on which classes to observe and for what I should be looking out for. As well as this I will be getting a day's worth of Phonics Training at University so it will consist of a lot of new learning.
One thing she did like a lot was that I have been updating a personal calendar on the schools Public Data drive and ensuring everyone can see what classes I am observing in, when I am teaching and what meeting I have planned. This will be beneficial across the whole school. 

In just one day I learnt how to teach a terms worth of music
It does sound extreme but on my University Centralised Training day it was spent with the lovely Jay Deeble, who has been teaching Music for many years and even assisted with the first ever National Curriculum when it was introduced in the 1980's.
To start with we looked at the Universal words for reading music, Ta and Ti. This system allows the value of each note to be clearly represented no matter its placement within the beat/measure. The folk song lyric "This Old Man, he played one, he played knick-knack on my thumb, with a knick-knack paddy whack, give my dog a bone, this old man came rolling home" would be said, "titi ta titi ta titi titi titi ti-tiri titi tiriti tiritiri ta titi titi titi ta".

In our tutor group we worked on some exercises that included clapping a rhythm or the pulse. The teacher is expected to distinguish for the children to help less able.  
We built on this by working as two big groups then three groups to make a canon (same song being sung but at different start times). It progressed into even smaller groups and finally a big challenge where everyone went solo. 
LO: To maintain a tune.
SC: I can add/find rhythm. I can clap the pulse I can work in a group, pair or solo

The tradition SO, MI RAY, DOE and La were then introduced as a way of remembering the different pitch of a song. These are familiar to me from The Sound of Music.
We were given a few songs to practice on Xylophones, Metalaphones or Glockenspiels and asked to come up with different ways of playing the song. Changes could include; the pitch, tempo, playing in octaves, two songs at same time, or even different notes, 

Teaching music in KS2 will vary from school to school and indeed cohort. Some classes will pick it up quickly whereas elsewhere only a handful would have any musical experience. By gradually increasing the difficulty of the lesson, each child should feel as if they have made progress. 

To appraise a music unit, we were given the Mnemonic  CLASP.
C- Composing: Creating a piece of music
L - Literature studies: looking at the background of music
A - Audience: Listening and giving feedback
S - Skills: Oral/Aural, Technical and Notating
P - Play: Performing

The National Curriculum literally has two parts.
1 - Performing and Composing
2 - Listening and appreciation

When analysing, students should be thinking about a variety of questions:
Concepts - What was understood and what was needed to understand?
Attitudes - What did you demonstrate and what was the attitude to the performance?
Skill - What did you do and what did/could you do better?
Knowledge - What did you know and what did you need to know?

Music can be linked right across the curriculum but it rarely is. A story or poem could be used for composition plus it could even be linked to Geography or Science. 

Summary of the week
Yet again, this week I have a lot to think about. I look forward to teaching much music and will adapt the things learnt today.
Marking my first sets of tests was tough because it made me realise even more that the future of others in my hands and I have to be thorough and fair in everything I do.

What's needed in the classroom and a test..,

With various lessons being taught and tests taking place throughout the year I thought - what exactly is needed in terms of equipment etc?

Below I've added an equipment list made previously plus an extra bit for tests. 

Is there anything missing?

Maths Test

Tracing paper

Protractor

Mirror

Sharp pencils

To write with

Pencils - HB

Pens - Berol Handwriting (only to students with a pen licence). Name these because they will go AWOL.

Bic/Staedtler and other brands do Black/Blue/Red and Green-  depending on what your school prefer

Felt tips

Crayons

Coloured Pencils

Whiteboard markers plus spray and cloths to wipe it clean

Craft Pens

Whiteboard pens for individual use - Staedtler are the ones I have used and are pretty good

For general use

Handheld whiteboard

Rulers - plastic

1m measuring sticks

Scissors - orange ones for adults and the red or yellow/green ones for students

Blu-Tac (plenty of it will get used and possibly taken by other classes so be careful)

Folders

Plastic Wallets

Card for backing work

Display borders

Labels for folders

Files for each student

Paper Stapler and plenty of staples

Wall stapler for displays and plenty of staples

Cellotape

Drawing pins

Butterfly clips

Pencil sharpeners (metal not plastic are better)

A4 paper

Scrap paper

English Kit

Dictionaries - varied for age and level

Thesaurus

English terms and skills (spelling rhymes, what a simile,metaphor or personification is)

Laminated help cards for Punctuation and Grammar

Laminated list of prefixes and suffixes

Suitable reading books for the year group both fiction and non-fiction

Maths Equipment

Essential

Protractors

Tracing paper

Mirrors

Compasses

Number lines

Number grids

Dice

Coins

Place value cards

Graph Paper

Calculators

Desirable for classroom but should be in school

2D and 3D shapes

Graph Paper

Calculators

Trundle Wheel

Tape measures

Playing cards

Fraction cards

Dominoes

Clocks

Is anyone reading this a Maths Specialist because I could also do with some Math's websites or resources to use in class. 

From Year 6 to Reception

Reception Duty

I was asked to assist in Reception and this was great because being all the way up in Year 6, I am unaware of the daily routines further down the school. 

I have lots of cousins this age and friends who have children this age and it struck me that one day I will be having my own children and this will become an everyday occurrence to me so I had better make the most of it.

PE was very interesting; the children got changed into their PE Kit (with a lot of assistance) and back again, in more time than they actually did any PE. I am sure that the main classroom teacher has a lot more success than I did. During the second half of the day I spent most of it outside,helping the children learn some numbers on a dice, balance whilst walking on a route of tyres and encouraged them all to tidy up at the end. 

Would I do it again? I would like to see how the year group have developed in a year and it was a good chance to see how 'play' and learning works hand in hand.

I have observed some excellent behaviour management skills and where LO’s and SC’s matched the pupils well, as did the increase in difficulty throughout the unit. Rather than just working with the G&T or Low Attaining students, classroom teachers manage to effectively get around all of the groups throughout the course of the week and made all of them value the work they did.

Lead School Meeting

On Tuesday I was able to speak to my link teacher from the lead school about my 2^nd school placement and we discussed that I would need to spend 7 weeks there due to it being my 60% teaching school. 

Focus children for Maths and Reading

Tuesday I also selected my Math’s and Reading ‘focus’ pupils to boost their skill’s I chose them both from my tutor group because I get to see them quite often and believe they will both benefit from my teaching not just the skills but also as a chance to take a break out of the class/group routine. I am making some initial assessments but will make more formative ones next week and then use that plus last year’s assessments to use as a starting point. My aim is to increase confidence in their work, boost self-esteem and mainly attainment.

Maths Lesson Observation of me

Wednesday I had my second class observation to date and in this one I took the whole of a Math’s lesson. It was well planned and I used a starter that I’d only just been shown in one of the centralised training at University. The children responded well and have since asked when I am teaching again.I was given plenty of feedback which I will use to best ability.

During the day I met both of my focus pupils to see how they were doing. My reader had his mum read with him and she signed the reading record, and my mathematician had improved on her multiples. This was also something we covered in my lesson so I was doubly pleased.

Future planning

I have added some new tasks from my PLP. 

On Thursday I started to plan my guided reading session with advice from both my class tutor and Deputy Head. It's based on a picture book and will be a good tool to use.

University

Finally, on Friday with University, it was a chance to see how the Teaching Standards are used and how I can monitor my ability in each of them I have to remember that as a trainee I may be working towards Excellent in all Standards but as soon as I hopefully become an NQT, the expectation is greater and I will need to show I am progressing further into the career of a teacher.

Next was how to work with TA’s and support the great work that they do. The group discussion was really useful and I have many notes on that. Afterwards was a chance to see how Play, Active Learning, and the Outdoor Environment all work hand in hand to give the children a greater experience in their education.

Summary of the week
This week I learnt that being a teacher is not just about the teaching. It is about nurturing and getting the best out of the children. Now that I have two focus pupils to see each day, I can track progress and also have a good idea of whether or not my teaching has been successful or not.
After surviving my first full lesson and in a Core subject, I feel more confident to move on and teach English, which is something I am dreading. Next week I will be looking at how the Year 3 class teacher operates and also how the Lower School children are doing.