2nd Term passed and a lot to look forward to next year

This week is memorable for many reasons. Firstly the Choir sang at the local conference centre alongside many other schools who use the School Music Service, I finished a science project I had been working on for the past two weeks, my tutor has noticed an improvement in my teaching, and it was my last day at University until we all go back in January.

Last week’s reflection was focused on achieving Standard 8, and in particular 8.1, which for some people can be difficult especially as it often requires juggling work and study with something to attend at lunch and after school. Luckily for me I have always been a busy person both in childhood and as an adult by joining the local Scout Organisation, coaching a football team whilst studying my degree, and running with a local running club during the past two years (proudly won their club championship and am also men’s captain).

I had to swap my break duty with a colleague on Tuesday due to a final rehearsal at the centre and this shows interpersonal skills because I need to strike a chord with those I work with and not expect someone to simply cover me because I need it. During the event I assisted the Music Teacher in making sure our students were kept both safe and on task- we were the best behaved in my opinion. If you know me I am all for making friends and did just that by introducing myself to all the other teachers from the other schools. You never know who you could meet at a job interview or on a course and teaching is a small community. One of the schools had a problem with a song that I knew and the teacher was thankful for me briefly singing along.The evening was a huge success and many parents and school friends attended to watch the performance. I felt extremely proud of the students and can’t wait until I am able to organise a choir to go to such an event.

Finishing my circuit game for a Science Evening that took place during the week was one of my mini-projects althoughI kept experiencing problems with certain parts of the circuit. However, when I added a second battery, it allowed the bulb to become brighter and despite originally wanting to use a buzzer (it’s a game in which you slowly and carefully manoeuvre a looped piece of wire around a windy path from one end to the other). Some of my class helped to put it together and a few were chosen to be Science Ambassadors as well for the event.

2nd Half Term University Observation

Wednesday loomed and I was nervous about teaching in front of my tutor but prepared myself as well as I could. The last Math’s lesson I was observed in, gave me a few things to progress and improve on including; Subject Knowledge, use of assessment, praising appropriately and explaining why, and giving a plenary. I managed to do all of these however didn't give a good plenary and this is something I need to work on. I rushed it and forgot to include the LO although during the lesson I did point out to the class that they had managed to achieve each of the Success Criterion and explained why I moved them around the classroom (recent assessment and also to get year groups working together). With the starter I assessed quickly who grasped the concept of the lesson and didn't move onto the main task until I was confident everyone was ready to do so.

During my last two days at University I helped to deliver a SEND presentation on Down Syndrome and learnt a lot from other presentations who focused on Autism (4 groups), another Down Syndrome, and how Support staff are used in the classroom. Ours was 2^nd to last due to the majority of the group coming from Group C. In hindsight I wish the course would have given the list of topics and said all needed covering so first come first serve. The actual result was a few similar presentations and a lot of us felt it could have been more useful with a group looking at ADHD for example or even someone with Speech and Listening Difficulties.

Two ladies from the a local LEA came to discuss life after training and how to apply for our first teaching job. It is scary to think that in a few months we will be searching for jobs, whether it be our training school, second placement or other. I have been in many interviews although this is going to be one of the most important ones in my life ranking alongside both my University interview and the one I did to get on this course.

I am yet to start thinking about 2015-16 especially with January to come. 

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.

  

A week at University and being a model student again !!

Being a model student! I am not sure if that implies my work ethic or that I am studying the art of making models. Hopefully the first one.

Being an ex-Reading citizen, (I lived there from age of 6-11 and also went to two of the local primary schools) and now studying at the University, it felt as though the great circle of life had ascended down on me - cue Disney's 'The Lion King'.

I had to think back to 2005 at Coventry University when I last did any real student work, although in a lot of my jobs there seemed to have been an element of studying that took place. My 2:2 was not purely coincidental, I did indeed not enjoy a lot of my time at Uni, I am sad to say. Growing up, I was destined to end up at a University of some sort. My parents didn't mind what I did as long as I had something to fall back on should my dreams of becoming a TV/film/stage star didn't materialise. I am fortunate to say that since leaving 'The Midland's', I amassed a huge wealth of experience not only in the performing industry but many other working sectors, and all of these have helped shape the person I am today.

So why didn't I enjoy my time at Uni, you might ask? Well I thought it would be just as easy as my previous BTEC Performing Arts course at college and that I would be a social butterfly and make 'friends' quicker than I could sing the theme tune. I was an open book and should have kept myself to myself, or at least slowly allowed my fellow students to get to know me rather than be 'hey look at me'. This wasn't the only reason but it certainly didn't help; friendship groups were made quickly, this impacted on who people chose to work with, collaborative work was harder due to less choice of colleagues, tutors were not always supportive (apart from Micheal Fry), many drank way too much and smoked a lot as well. 
I also had a part-time job working at many places including: the Golden Arches ,a nightclub, B&Q, and a pub, to help support my student loan. Yes my fees were not high compared to what they are today but accommodation didn't leave a lot in the bank balance. These two jobs plus taking on the coaching role at a junior Sunday League football team, to give something back to the local community, all hindered my relationship with my fellow students.

Of course I can't just blame it all on that, I should have taken control of my studies and said to myself 'Yes you need to earn and enjoy football, but you came here to learn and leave with a degree'. This is exactly what I am now having to say to myself. I don't have any extra jobs apart from the teaching one, but I am an avid runner and I need to balance the schedule so that it doesn't impact on my work life. Saying that if I don't keep some part of my active social life 'alive', I won't be doing my life any favours. So I need to strike the right balance.


Right, where was I? Oh yes, I was meant to be focusing on the future and not the past. Last week I enrolled at the University of Reading, at their Whiteknights Campus, met all of the other trainee teachers, and spent the 5 days looking at what being a teacher is all about.

In a recent blog I mentioned some of the things we covered and I shall now go into a little bit more detail and mention what I got out of it.

Monday
Mentorship - this was a chance for my mentor to hear about the basics of School Direct training, reflective practice, responsibilities and expectations. A lot of interesting information arose from this session and I will need to apply this into my weekly mentor meetings.

Registration: - sounds obvious but this also includes a meeting with the Union rep's. I am now officially a student again. Still need my NUS card though to get a freebie at McD's.

Tuesday 

Behaviour Management- does exactly what it says on the tin, except more, and I wish I had seen this session before entering a school environment because the guest lecturer was brill. There is another session on this later on so will be good to see how I cope in my classroom up until then.

The role of the teacher- management and organisation. What we think being a teacher is all about and what the children might come to expect of us. I had a great analogy about teachers being gardeners because; the children are like seeds we sow and not only do we watch them grow but we nurture and feed them knowledge and even prop them up when they grow up too fast or start to droop.

Wednesday

Tutorial: A chance to see what was expected from a reflective journal. This blog is not going to contain some of the more sensitive issues. Also on the agenda was: how to keep track of files and what to store in each one, weekly mentor meetings, being observed and half termly reviews. I am usually an organised person but this is going to require some forward planning.

Learning Hub: This is an impressive place that any school would be proud of to call their library. I was amazed at the resources and glad that it's close where I live and teach.

The structure of a lesson: How to consider planning and evaluating. This included a lovely YouTube clip of a Yr 3 Geography class out on a field trip in the woods. Being in a Yr 6 class, I will adapt some of the ways in which the teacher interacted with the class. She clearly knows each of her pupils well and had planned her lesson meticulously.

Thursday

How children learn: It was about exploring the ways in which we as trainee teachers define learning. Behaviourism, Constructivism, Social Constructivism, the Zone of Proximal Development,  and the Bruner Scaffolding Theory, were all mentioned and discussed. I still need to read up on these theories but at least I can think about why children learn and what makes them want to learn.

English activities: This was led by Liz Howe and we were asked to work in small groups to create 3 sentences to open a story. We had to agree on what our 3 sentences would be.
The stimulus we had to use was a hiding place among the University grounds. My group found an location that was covered in ivy, contained wheelie bin and a plastic spatula. We based our story on some children who were playing and came across a newspaper article.

'Ben, Ben, come and have a look at this'

Ben ran over to Emily and Vicki who were in the enclosed space, entwined in ivy, containing a wheelie-bin, spatula and a piece of newspaper. It read 'ESCAPED'

Suddenly, they hear a creak and turn around to see the bin-lid slowly opening....

Liz asked the groups to reflect on this session and below are some comments.
Literacy Skills Used: Speaking and listening, imagination, description, punctuation, WOW words, editing work, using suspense and creative writing.

Aspects of Tasks Facilitated:Teamwork, negotiation, discussion and collaboration.

The effect Joint Writing have in the thinking process: Child initiated learning, expanding on ideas, power of persuasion, its also non level dependent and improves and develops vocab.

Scaffolding Differently (what we could have done differently): storyboard, props, pictures as well of or instead of writing, use of a camera, swap groups to come up with different sentence after the first 3

This was an excellent session in which I can adapt in a lot of different lesson plans.

Science activities: We were told its OK not to know everything about Science. A few of my fellow trainees are very despondent when it comes to teaching this lesson. Our main role is to guide the class and adapt to the children's needs.

• Science should be hands on, a lot of listening, lots of looking and a bit of talking.
• Always TEST before TEACH. There is nothing worse than doing an experiment in class that looks great on YouTube but fails in front of the children. 
• Teaching Science is like a magic show. It should provide an element of suprise.
• Science is the study of nature. Nature is full of suprises.

We were asked to think back to our childhood memories of science lessons. Mine were of the hydrogen/oxygen bottle experiment, putting a finger over a flame without it burning, and watching chemical reactions when placed in water. 

It was time to do an experiment and it included the 'ooo' factor. Placing water in a tray, cutting small pieces of paper to float on top, dip finger in washing up liquid and then into the water. This disrupts the 'water tension' and causes the boats to pull to the other side. 

After some more things to consider when  teaching science and how to plan effectively, the lecturer gave us the following to remember:

Science is a body of existing knowledge.

Science is something you do whether it be to explore, model. theorise or create an experiment.

Maths activities: This was similar to Science, in which that some of the group don't feel at ease with teaching it. We were given a group activity to complete all about averages and asked to describe how we came to the logical outcome.
'How many apples are eaten each week in the UK?'
'A traffic jam is a mile long- how many cars are stuck in the jam?'
Now this required an element of investigating and asking each other for opinions. We based answers on who ate apples on our table, how many a week and how many people live in the UK.
For the other question we looked at the average length of a car and imagined they were quite close to each other in traffic.

Yet again Math's is going to be one of those subjects that will get easier to teach with practice. The more you  teach, the more you learn.

Friday

Use of voice: This was a brilliant session in how to use or even not use your voice. Simple warm up exercises, knowing which level use in class depending on the situation, how to prevent sore throat and possible risk of injuring vocal chords, were all covered.
It was less of a written session and more of a practical one. Taking a couple of deep breaths before teaching is recommended as it stimulates the brain. I will be doing this no doubt more often.

Observing teachers and children: This session covered; Why is observation so important?, Why is observation so difficult?, Classroom arrangement and classroom Management, Classroom Talk and Teacher Talk.

Not all of the time will we be observing teachers, some of the time we need to focus on the class and how they respond to learning. 

The National Curriculum: Finally, a session on why we have the National Curriculum (NC) and why it has recently changed. We have it because in 1976 it was decided that there should be a centralised approach to teaching.

The NC does not apply to Academies, Free Schools or Independents. They do however have to follow a school curriculum.

In the session we spoke about what we remembered at school. With such a big age gap between the youngest and oldest of us, the results varied but mine included: Sports Day, PE, varied curriculum, incentives for doing well, school plays and being able to use a computer for the first time.

The children of today may have a different outlook and could say: Sports, assemblies, going to 11+ tutoring, Levels drummed into them. 

Our role is to improve maths and literacy but also respond to the needs of those we teach. 
More foundation subjects are being considered or revamped, adults need the courage to teach unknown subjects and not to be afraid to ask for help from peers. 

Of course that's just a small slither of what our job is but you get the gist. After a full mind-boggling week at University I have come away feeling challenged but not lost. I have fellow trainee students to call on for help and there is a social network page to use as well. 

Being a 'mature' student, I hope I will learn from past mistakes and inject a new lease of life into my learning. After all it's not just about me now, it's about the lives of the next generation

.

Thursday 4th September- Grammar Training for INSET

AIM
The aim of this course was to give us as teachers; a more secure understanding of grammatical terms in the New Curriculum, to understand the function of grammar in the curriculum, and to be able to apply this understanding to teaching across the curriculum.
All of the terms can be found in the back of the New Curriculum book and are required with confident use of terminology for both teachers and students alike.
We need to look at how applicable grammar is cross-curriculum and also which terminology has change recently.

Students also need to be able to understand whats wrong with what they have written, in order to move forward. The aim is that understanding becomes broader and more consistent. 

PERSONAL PRECONCEPTIONS
Having spent the past week or so reading my new book 'Primary English, Knowledge and Understanding', I was pleased to see if I could apply what I had learned and what other methods of teaching I can take on board. 

Before the course we were asked to tick how confident we all were with grammar. A table list showed the obvious choices; noun, adjective, adverbial, verb, tense, phrases and clause, preposition, conjunction, clauses, and subject/object. I had ticked a few of them at Not Confident, most as Average, and the remaining few as Very Confident. The reasons behind these choices stemmed a lot from what I had recently read and own personal writing experience.

WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT GRAMMAR
The questions given were to test our basic knowledge of grammar. My table partner and I worked through each sentence and decided whether or not they made sense.

The big red bus or The red big bus, was up first and although both make sense (and my opinion was that if you wanted to chose a red or blue big bus you would chose 2nd sentence) but its a given in this country that size comes before colour when adding description. Red is a fact whereas big is an opinion. 

The boy kicked the cat or The boy the cat kicked, asks the question of who did the kicking? However the second of the two isn't grammatically correct as a stand alone sentence and either needs to be written as The cat kicked the boy or The boy the cat kicked....with more detail to complete the sentence.

The mans went to the shops. This indicates the incorrect use of plural: men or man.
The girl love her dog. Again, this could indicate incorrect use of plural or change of verb. 
It could be either The girls love her dog or The girl loves/loved her dog.

HOW GRAMMAR IS CLASSIFIED
After testing our basic knowledge, the speakers proceeded to talk in depth about pretty much most of the grammatical structures that we as teachers are required to instill in the students, right from Foundation through to Year 6. 
Word Classes-  was looked at briefly and is what all teachers should be confident in using and the children should also be confident with as well.
Verb, Noun, Determiner, Adverb, Adjective, Preposition, and Conjunctive

NOUNS, ADJECTIVES, ADVERBS
Nouns -Our first table task was to come up with a sentence or sentences that describe what a noun was. We agreed that 'a noun is a place, person or thing'. In the bigger picture this broadens out to the following; common noun, proper noun, concrete noun, abstract noun, collective noun, or countable and uncountable nouns.
There was a lot of debate about countable and uncountable, especially with regards to water, rice and sand, because you count grains of rice/sand or a measure of water for example; a litre a pint,  100ml.
Noun phrases - We need to explicitly teach a noun phrase by using appropriate adjectives

• What is it?
• What's it like?
• What kind is it?

Adjectives- A class of words that modify/change/describe nouns and pronouns.

One of the sheets used for a task had 5 different bags to describe. There were lots of adjectives surrounding them, some give colour, type, size and material. As explained above, their is a Standard English order to follow. Size, colour and type. Opinions always come first because they can be intensified - big, bigger, biggest. Colour and type follow because they generally stay the same for that individual place, person or thing. 

Example: The shiny, red, hessian shopping bag. 

In fiction, more characteristics are used, whereas with non-fiction, more category words are used.

Adverbs - A class of words used to describe the manner, modifies a verb, time , where and includes adverbial phrases and clauses. More on this later


PHRASES AND CLAUSES
A phrase is defined as a group of related words that does not contain a subject and a verb.
The phrase 'to the shops' does not make sense on its own.

Noun phrase: A big, black dog...
Adverbial phrase/Prepositional phrases: ... in the evening

A clause is defined as a group of related words that contain a verb.
Noun clause: What Mary said was wrong. (subject)
                        I like what I see. (object)
Adverbial clauses: He drove quickly because he was late.
Relative clause: A python is a snake which constricts its prey.

The word 'it' can substitute for a noun clause. 

This was confusing for me even though I have recently read up about it and its now been explained to me. I have some English self learning books which I will catch up on this particular area of grammar.

RELATIVE CLAUSE
These are used to make it clear (modified) who/what (the noun) we are talking about. 

The man, (who/that is) crossing the road, is my boss
The butterfly, which is an insect, develops from a chrysalis.
I love the black fur-lined overcoat which hangs at the back of my cupboard.

The first two sentences would make sense without the extra information, however the 3rd sentence would require more to make sense. 'Hangs' allows the reader to know what the coat is doing.

Activity 
Each table was asked to interpret a picture of some women, sat around a table at a cafe/restaurant, one had her back to the camera. We had to think about the questions 'who, which, that, where and when' to help describe part of the scene, and also make it clear who we were talking about. 

The girl with the blonde hair, is sat chatting to her friends, about the guy in the yellow shirt. 
This sentence clearly tells us which girl we are talking about and which man (albeit the only man in the picture). 
If you took out 'with the blonde hair' or 'the guy in the yellow shirt', you could be talking about anyone of the four girls and also any guy in general. It is very important therefore to add in a relative clause to clarify the person/object in question. 

ADVERBIAL
Adverb - He ate slowly.
Adverbial phrase/prepositional phrase - The bus leaves in five minutes .
Adverbial clause - She worked until she had finished.
Fronted adverbial - In the evening, they went...

This in modify the verb and  tells us more about how, when, why, where or with whom/what 

Activity
We studied 6 sentences and thought about which type question each one answered.

Adverb Example: He greeted her cheerfully - How

He usually goes to Paris by train - How

Adverbial Clause Example: John went to the grocery store because he needed some bread.- Why

Adverbial phrase/prepositional phrase Example: He spoke to him in Spanish - How

He went to Greece with his friend Alice - With whom

VERBS
My understanding is that a verb is a 'doing word'. Something you can add -ed, ing, and s to, to modify its tense. After this part of the lesson, I soon realised that, while this is partially correct,  there is a whole other level to tenses and how a verb is used in a sentence. 

TENSES
Now with 3 different tenses for past and 3 for present, I will only name them but not describe them in too much detail. The SAT's paper is getting increasingly more difficult and questions being asked of the students include; listing them, highlight which one has been used in a sentence, and also chose the correct one in a given list. 

Present tense
Past tense
Present continuous (progressive)
Past continuous (progressive)
Present perfect
Past perfect

Growing up, I was able to use them when writing and talking but if you would have asked me to highlight/name/locate the present continuous or past perfect, I wouldn't have had a clue.

The speakers went on to explain the meaning of these, and this is how I will remember them.
Present tense - I work at this school.
Present continuous - I am working at this school.
Present perfect - I have worked at this school since September.

Past tense - I worked at another school.
Past continuous - I was working at another school.
Present continuous - I had worked another school until July.

MODAL VERB
These are used to express dilemma, decision making and course of action. These always come before an auxiliary verb; be, do, and have.

Can/could - ability or possibility
May/might - asking permission
Must/need/ought - doing what is right
Shall/should - recommending action
Will/would - preference

It explained that this type of questioning can fit into the different subjects. This will be great for questioning skills and can be useful when asking the students to think a lot more for themselves.
History - might this be, could have
Science/ Maths - would, should, could do

Activity
Our table was asked to look at a picture of young man who is lost in a forest, looking for his friend and has arrived at a fork in the road. What does he do? Using the modal verbs, we had to come up with possible choices of action he might take.

Ability - He could shout his friends name or ring him on a mobile.
Preference - He would rather to be at home relaxing.
Recommending action - Which fork should he have asked his friend, to take.
What is right - He ought to carry on looking for him regardless.

Obligation - He must carry on looking for his friend. 
Imagined situation - If he had a map, he would know where to go.


ACTIVE VOICE
This section looked at how two sentences can mean the same thing but the verb needs to be modified.

Subject Verb Object

The girl threw the ball - this is written in the past tense

PASSIVE VOICE

Object Verb Subject 

The ball was thrown by the girl - this is written in the past participle

TRANSITIVE/INTRANSITIVE
This nicely linked with the previous part of the session because Transitive verbs have active and passive voices. The sentence must have a subject and object. 


He hit the ball (Active) OR The ball was hit by him (Passive), are both transitive.

He fell OR He cried, are intransitive because they don't have an object.

This is one part of grammar I feel comfortable with and should be easy to teach. I will use the different colours to highlight each type of word.

FUTURE TENSE
Most of the time we use will, when expressing the future. This can be seen as a problem solving tense. 
This is used when; making plans and intentions, predicting something will happen, being certain about something, making an arrangement, making an offers, a regular occurrence, or its a habit.

Examples: 
Arsenal will win the league. (prediction or certainty if its is mathematically going to happen)
I will help with the party. (promise)
I'll carry your bag for you. (offer)The flight to Rome departs at 8:30 am. (a regular occurrence or routine)
I hope you can make it. (hope)

Yet again this is another part of grammar I am comfortable with teaching. The session helped me to realise the different reasons that the future tense is used.


SUBJUNCTIVE
This is a verb proceeded by that.
There are 3 types.

A verb followed by a subjunctive.
He demanded that she handed over the lettuce immediately.
An expression followed by a subjunctive
It's important that he takes the medicine now. 

Hypothetical situation
I would take the train to Paris if I were you.

With the first two sentences, the word take could be removed and still make sense. However 'I would the Paris if I were you' does not make sense.

FINITE/NON FINITE 
Verbs that have the past or present tense form are called FINITE verbs. 
Verbs in any other form are called INFINITE verbs.

This means verbs with a tense are FINITE, however verbs without are INFINITE. This distinction is very important in grammar, since it affects how verbs behave in sentences.

Example:
Mary plays the guitar. Finite
My sister ate calamari every day on holiday. Finite

I like to run. Infinite 
Running is my favourite hobby. Infinite

NON FINITE CLAUSE
The verb phrase before, while or after, does not carry a tense so we can't predict when the event is happening and doesn't contain a subject.

Example:
After eating pasta, he chose a light desert.
Playing tennis is expensive.
Deprived of oxygen, humans will quickly die. 

GRAMMATICAL COHESION - Cohesive devices
Determiners
These are words that come at the beginning of a noun phrase. They tell us whether the noun phrase is specific or general.
This class of words I had never heard of before but took for granted in my speaking and writing. Yet again this will be something I can teach now that it has been explained to me in detail.

The specific determiners are:
The definite article: the
Possessives: my, your, his, her, its, our, their, whose
Demonstratives: this, that, these, those
Interrogatives: which
Orderly: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc
Numerical: One, two, three. etc

The general determiners are: a an, any, another, other, what

Activity
All of us in the room were asked to shout out determiners to complete a paragraph. Some of the sentences could have a range of determiners, however as the paragraph progressed, the rest of it had to include the correct determiner to make sense.

Pronouns
These can be used to replace someones name or a previously names place or object. This helps to track backwards/forwards through text.
Subject pronouns: I, he, she, they
Object pronouns: Him, them himself
Possessive nouns: Hers, his, mine, theirs
Demonstrative nouns: These, those
Relative pronouns: Who
Interrogative pronouns: Who did that?

Example:
Do the students know who or what the pronoun refers to?
Can you see the boulder just above the tree-line on the right slope of that mountain across the valley? It looks like... Would the students know that 'it' refers to the boulder?

Can the students work out who the pronouns refer to later in the text?
He's famous the world over. Everyone recognises him when he has a football at his feet, he's modelling some jeans or showing the tattoos on his arms... Would the students know that 'he' and 'his' refers to a footballer, and more importantly are they culturally aware that this refers to David Beckham? 

Who is they?
If you want one of the last box of greasy nuggets, you better visit Joe's Chicken Delight today. They say that the restaurant closes for good tomorrow. Would the students know that 'they' could refer to someone working at the restaurant or someone who knows that it's closing?

Who is he?
Bill told Sam he was lazy.This I think is the trickiest one of them all because 'he' could refer to Bill being lazy, Sam being lazy, or even Bill describing a totally different person.

SUBSTITUTION AS A COHESIVE DEVICE
Possessive pronoun: He likes his steak rare, I like mine well done.
Numerical: She likes the knitted coat, whereas I like the leather one.
Adjective: The climate is tropical in St Lucia in the Caribbean. It's the same in Fiji in the Pacific. 
Distributive: You can have the steak rare or well done. I don't mind- either is fine.


LEXICAL COHESION
This refers to semantic relationship between words in a text. It uses words that thread through  and relate to each other, or uses words/phrases that are opposite in meaning. 

Related words e.g. synonyms: Dinosaur, prehistoric monster, large extinct lizard
Opposite words in meaning e.g.antonyms: Unlike plants, animals cannot make their own food...
Classification words e.g. hyponyms: The great white shark.... This huge sea creature...
Component words e.g. meronyms (or parts of whole); Plants generally consist of leaves, roots, petals and at certain times, seeds.

Before this session I had merely read up about lexical cohesion, yet certainly didn't know what it meant. Hyponyms and meronyms are also new types of words that I had never heard of before. This is going to be a challenge to me, not only to get my head around these terms but to also confidently present them to a class and ensure they have it clear in their minds.

CONJUNCTIONS
There are three kinds of conjunctions. The two main types are:
Coordinating conjunctions: for, and , nor, but, or yet, so
These link equal (independent) pairs of word or clauses.

Example:
Amira and Susan met in a cafe.
Kylie is young but she can kick a ball.

Subordinating conjunctions: Including; after, because, then, whenever, though, where, why
Subordination can be thought of as an unequal relationship (independent and dependent) between 2 words, phrases or clauses. This indicates time, place or cause and effect.

Example:, 
We can watch TV when we've finished.
Arsenal can win the league if Chelsea lose today.
Let's go to the shops after school.
We can go bowling unless anyone else wants to go swimming.

PREPOSITIONS
The question was asked of us: why can learners find prepositions so difficult. To me it seems easy. The fox jumped over the fence, the ball went in the goal, the car went through the tunnel. However it's not that simple and some words can have more than one meaning or may not even mean an action at all. 

A preposition comes before a noun to show the relationship to another noun, pronoun or noun phrase.
These can be positionally, figuratively, mathematically or a persons manner.

ActivityAs a whole room, Andy asked us to add missing prepositions to a slide, that was based on the flow of water from its source to the river itself.
This seemed easy to some but tricky to others because a lot of the words could be used in each gap but our geographic knowledge should enable us to know the most efficient use of each one. 
Example:
A river can begin as a spring. Water pours through cracks in the ground down the hillsides. 

Prepositions are confusing words because the same word can often have very different meanings.

Example: About
Great Expectations is about a boy who... (topic preposition)
I think the hotel costs about £50 a night. (quantity preposition) 
I think the train leaves about 10 am. (time preposition)
She looked about the house for her phone. (location preposition)

Verb Collocations (verb and noun) with a preposition

Spend                        at      charity
Lose                          by      food
Give            money   to        wine
Save                         on       the supermarket
Leave                        in        the stockmarket

This could be a rise and shine activity, get the class to come up with their own verb collocations.

After what seemed to be a lot of information to take in and digest, we were asked to look at the table list again and tick how confident we now were with the different grammar areas.
This session was of great value to me because it reiterated what I had been reading, plus I was able to put it to practice during the activities. 

Grammar is going to require a huge effort across the whole school, not just those completing their SAT's next year. The sooner the students; get used to hearing key phrases, speaking grammatically correct sentences, and applying it to their writing, the sooner everything will slot into place and it will not be seen as an extra thing to learn, but is part and parcel of everyday school life.

Official First Day: INSET Training

Today I woke up filled with a stomach of nerves and the mentality of a child who was starting his first day at school.

I arrived at school and was greeted by those I had met already and a couple new faces. My classroom is being shared by 3 teachers; myself, the main classroom teacher, and another who is new to the school but not teaching. Their roles are going to be shared during the week with the main teacher teaching Mon, Tues and Wed (afternoon), and the other teaching Wed morning, Thurs and Fri. This I can see will only benefit my training because I will be learning from even more teachers' practices. 

Our head teacher held the training, and on agenda first was the schools strapline (motto).

We were asked to go through a list of other schools' straplines and choose out top 3. 

Our selection is as follows:

Believe and achieve together

Aspire, achieve, advance 

Together we make a difference 

Each one we looked at have a different message to parents and the outside world. A strapline should be shared and owned by everyone. It should be something to believe in and is the bottom line in everything you do. It also needs to be understood and used: right from the youngest students through to the oldest. 

In my table group we were asked to write down what we think ours represents and what the school does to achieve it.

Thoughts included:

We give an exciting curriculum.

School Council and Eco Council involvement.

Extra-curricular clubs.

Always learning- teachers as well.

It's an inclusive environment.

The children feel aspiration all, industrious and open-minded.

They have great behaviour management in place.

Most importantly the school is going forward, making the world a better place.

Secondly we looked at the 5 Core Values; Love, Forgiveness, Responsibility, Honesty, and Respect.

Each table was given a value and asked to think about what it means. The head spoke about a company whose own values are clearly printed and given to each member of staff to bear on mind on a daily basis. Failure to uphold 'Integrity' could result in getting the boot. 

Now looking at 'Forgiveness' what did this mean to our table group?

You need to understand that everyone makes mistakes.

Be able to forgive others.

Nobody is perfect including yourself.

Before asking for forgiveness you must first understand why the the mistake was made and the consequences it could have. 

To ask for and gain forgiveness requires humility, strength and courage.

Words may not always be enough.

Each day starts afresh with no qualms. 

Every group gave feedback and it was decided that over the first term all if the values will be shown and modelled by the teachers. We need to ensure each value is lived and breathed throughout the school life. This could be done during PSHE or Collective Worship, and should always be referee back to by the teachers should the need arise.

Finally the main focus of the day was  the schools 'Steps to Outstanding. This is how we want the world to see these happening. 

1) Every Lesson Counts

2) Engage All

3) Reach for the Stars

4) Begin with the end in mind

5) Progress, progress, progress

Engage All was our chosen step and we explored all the different ways this can be achieved.

Ensuring all students are motivated and that the teaching is relevant to them a and their needs.

Cater for different types of leathers.

Differentiation- same age but different ability so will need varying work and discussion.

The children should be enjoying the work they do and develop a passion for learning.

Have a sense of belonging,

Able to say what they are doing and why.

Feel Inspired to take things further (after school and into the big wide world). 

To summarise today, it was insightful, helpful, positive and encouraging. I am entering a school with quite a few changes plus it's grown in size with more 3-form classes. I have already met some brilliant members of staff who I know will share their wealth of knowledge and accept anything I have to offer from not only my short time in a school but also my past life experience.