A warm welcome back

This week marked the first time back at St Mary’s and for the next few months I will be working in Year 5 alongside a shared classroom. My aim is to improve on the targets set by my Second Placement mentor and build up to a Good if not Outstanding teacher by the end of July.

The first 4 days I spent getting to know the class and was fortunate enough to have taught many of the students during Maths from September to January, and coached both boys and girls in the school football teams. I've been given the progress ladders and mid-term planning overviews to look into and I made it a top priority.

In English, biographies is the unit choice and the students have been asked to research various well-known people, in order to create their own biography of them. It was very interesting to see obvious choices such as football players and TV or Music celebrities but what did strike me was the quality of note taking and after hearing 'ooo I didn't know that about this person' was great because it showed the students there is more to a person than meets the eye.

I am also excited for English because from the April 27th it will use the General Election as the stimulus and I am planning to teach the class how to write a persuasive speech based on the 7 political parties manifestos. By using the BBC Newsround site, it will enable the children to access politics on a low level but give them a chance to have a 'theoretical' say in how they want the country ran. This unit will include videos featuring children interviewing the party candidates, asking why a TV debate matters, what a General Election actually is, and the power of using persuasive language. 

In Science the teacher asked the students what they knew about the life-cycle of animals and reproduction cycle. This will inform us when planning future lessons to ensure the national curriculum is adhered to but taught according to the what the children already know. I already have some ideas about how to facilitate this and am thinking to split the class into research groups and feedback to their peers with written presentations.  It will be used as a Speaking and Listening assessment.

The Music unit is exciting because it's based around Holst's 'The Planets'. Due to Earth not being used as one of the planets (because at the time of composing, everyone thought the planets revolved around the Earth), their task will be to compose their own idea of what Earth sounds like. I am envisaging solo pieces at first then leading to a group ensemble for their peers to evaluate. This will help with marking and using Success Criteria to show progress.

 Next week will be spent team teaching and getting prepared for the big step up to 80% teaching. I am nervous especially as it's getting closer to the final assessment plus I now have a position at the school as a full-time teacher next year so don't want to make too many mistakes. A good piece of advice I was given is - use this time to make mistakes, as there won't be a lot of room for them once in charge of class by myself.

Half term review Spring 2

To say that this term has been busy would be an understatement. I could not wait to start planning for my new class and boy was I given the chance to do just that.  I was given the responsibility for planning: 3 weeks of English, 4 weeks of Maths, 5 weeks of PE, 1 PSHE, 3 Science, and 2 Topic (History) lessons, and I thrived at this opportunity.

Marking also played a huge part in this term and I have begun to appreciate the power of peer marking. I agree that children need to be training into doing this properly and efficiently but given the right time and focus it will help those same children to become better at analysing others work and gaining proofreading skills that they will transfer to their own work.

One of my next targets was to be able to differentiate work. I was told that some of the children are performing above national average (especially in Maths) and I had to ensure work was pitched at their level. I did this and during my planning ensured everyone was catered for and scoured online for resources and asked teachers in the years above for advice. At parents evening during the 3^rd week of 5, a few parents commented on the great work the mentor and I had been doing in pushing their children rather than allowing them to complete easy tasks without any effort.

My mentor was very good at giving feedback and I certainly learnt a lot from him. Being a young teacher himself, he was able to impart the wisdom of what to look out for and how to make my planning, training and teaching easier. 

At the school I was made to feel extremely welcome. The head teacher’s daughter is also on the Schools Direct course so she knew what was expected of me. I am local to the school and a few parents whose children were in a year above and below knew me from my running club and it was soon apparent that some money I helped to raise and donate from my club was given to the PTA, in which most of the member’s children were being taught by myself. I spent most of my break outside with the various cohorts and the loyalty and respect from the children I gained was spread across the school. ‘You coming to play football sir?’ ‘Here sir let me get that for you’ ‘When will you be teaching us?’ Were all comments regularly heard and it filled me with immense pride that I had both an academic and sociable sense of respect from them.

During World Book Day I took 12 children from KS2 and taught them how to interview their peers and teachers about the costumes they had worn, then showed them how to put it all together into their own newsletters. I created one master newsletter which went out to all the parents. Print outs of all are displayed in one of the main corridors with pictures of the group dressed up for the day.

Am I ready for 80%? I think the answer is yes. Will I achieve Outstanding in my QTS? I hope so. After being one of the lucky few to attend the talk by Andrew Pollard, I can see how interesting the life of a teacher can be. I do need to fine tune my classroom behaviour management and in doing so will stick close to my philosophy which is to be fair, fun and firm.

I reflect on almost anything in life from the choices I make in my wedding plans, to why did I set off too quickly in a race, to why on earth did I place those children together in a project. This is why I enjoy teaching because I can build on my mistakes and improve them day on day, week on week, month on month etc. I will continue to make mistakes but as long as I can see how to rectify them and do so properly, I will strive to be the very best I can be. I do have aspirations for the future as we all should do but for now my immediate aim is to knuckle down plan for the remainder of my training year and look forward to taking on my own class in September (which I can gleefully confirm is going to be at my main placement).

Stepping up into 60% Teaching

First week back and it was a full on action packed timetable. I have been asked to use my filming background to assist both Year 6 classes with planning, directing and editing their group suspense films. There are 10 films to be made and the teachers have to come up with a plan that enables everyone to film their scenes and have a slot available on the PC’s to use a software programme called ULead. I spent a few days researching YouTube clips on ways to edit their films. At the end of the week they are expected to have come up with a story, bullet points breaking down the scenes, and finally a storyboard in which the director of each group can use when overseeing the filming.

My first observed lesson of the term did not go to plan. Its objective was to focus on the countries in South America but in order to do so I had to introduce an atlas, the 7 continents and what countries were to be found in each. I spent too much time on the initial tasks which were to label a map of the world and a map of South America. The time spent on the carpet was too long and I think I am used to seeing this classroom on it during a lot of other lessons. My mentor who is next door, hardly uses a carpet because it’s uncomfortable and a lot of the children are starting to get taller and it’s unfair for them to be on the floor too long. I did however have eye contact with all and there was a lot of interaction when I asked them to discuss the continents and countries in question.

When they did eventually progress to their tables, the tasks took much longer than anticipated and I didn’t introduce the atlas early enough. Had I done so, I feel the class could have labelled the continents sooner and there would have been time for the final task which was to find 5 fascinating facts about South America. My mentor told me during the meeting we had afterwards, that after asking different children what they thought they were learning, a few said; to label a map or learning about countries and continents, but not that they were learning about countries in South America. I need to be more explicit when teaching a lesson.

On Thursday I encountered a teaching first. I took my mentor's class for the entire day and this helped to establish myself with the children, and also prove that I can work through the entire day. My favourite part was teaching what to include when drawing and detailing film storyboards. I gave them a little insight into my past and let them know I used to work in the filming industry but kept out my acting secrets. The 5 groups busily discussed their ideas and split into smaller groups to make A3 storyboards. Each had 8 scenes or parts to the film and I asked them to include locations, camera angles, characters needed in each scene, and length to be shown.

Next week I will be going out with each film group and assist them with the editing process. 

Inspiring Primary Teaching - Book Review

I haven't done a book review in a few months and for good reason. Most of my time has been taken up researching many different books from Andrew Pollard's Reflective Teaching, to one of three Science topic books on Electricity.

The Inspiring Primary Teaching book by David Hayes has taken me every train journey to and from Reading University to complete. Funnily enough as I went through each chapter I managed to relate that part of it in some way to my own experiences.

At the end of Chapter 2 The Characteristics of Effective Teachers, it describes in a case study of how Mr Clerk was chirpy, wanted his class to do well, didn't spare himself in offering advice, explained things carefully and celebrated openly when his class succeeded. I often look back at those who taught me including Mr Brian 'BA' Anderson, who was my Geography teacher from Year 7 right through to the end of my GCSE's. He was the only teacher in Secondary to teach me all 5 years and despite not taking it up as an A-Level, I have found that his sense of humour, strictness on presentation of our work, reward schemes, school camping trips and being the backbone of what was Turnpike Secondary School (until it closed in 1999) was one of the very reasons I decided to become a teacher.

Sadly for both the case study and my own experience, both teachers have since passed away. Mr Anderson's funeral was earlier this year and I had the honour of being there and seeing other students and teachers whom he had taught or worked with during his many years of service. Once during a lesson about the London Docks and the East End, he mentioned Eastenders and I decided to start humming the theme tune. His response was to get me to stand up on a chair and hum the whole theme tune in front of the entire class. Although it did embarrass me, it served two purposes; one that I would never do it again and two that I liked being a performer and it possibly helped form a path to my previous acting career.

In Chapter 4's Effective Questioning, it explains a lot about the purpose of questions, what types of questions are most relevant, what do pupils learn from being questioned and when is questioning likely to be most effective. 

This is extremely important in assessment of pupils because it doesn't always have to be written work that will gauge pupil progress. I have seen some great examples of this where the teacher will question a child on what they have previously learnt (during starter this takes place), how does it link in with the LO and where do you think the lesson might lead to. Now this shows that the teacher doesn't have to do all the talking and telling but that the children can read, think, absorb and tell the teacher what they know. Just because a child can copy on paper what someone else has said does not necessarily mean they have learnt anything. Speaking and listening is one of the things I feel are important in education.

At University we looked at Blooms Taxonomy and strangely enough the following week I read the part which looks at Questioning and higher order thinking. This method of questioning begins with testing Knowledge - Straight forward answers, secondly moves on to testing Comprehension - Understanding of the answer and not just stating a fact, then it looks at Application - Links to practical activities that help to simulate creativity and foster imagination (How would you arrange the cubes to make an interesting shape? What can you do to work out the problem in a different way? What design would you use to build a magic castle out of chocolate?). As you can see this requires more than just basic knowledge and needs some form of thought, attention and imagination.

It then starts to progress to more complex questioning starting with Analysis- this has a variety of definitions, including; an investigation of the component parts of a whole and their relations; the process of splitting up an action, an event or an idea to understand how it works; a form of criticism in which the structure of something is scrutinsed. (What evidence can you find that one type of paper absorbs water more quickly than another? What are the points in favour of and against the suggestion?)
Synthesis quickly follows analysis and draws together separate points to create something new by using old ideas creatively or empolying new ones imaginatively. 
(Can you think of a different way to take the register? How would you teach a bully to be kinder? and How would you go about designing a new school uniform?)
Finally and with all good questioning and indeed letter writing and scientific experiments, there is Evaluation - making a judgement or decision about the significance of quality if something, based on a careful study of its features. (What is your opinion of school dinners without chips of French fries? How can we decide who is the best teacher? How would you choose the winner of a fancy dress competition). This all requires some thought and its not a quick decision process. Often stats and other questions or even experiments have to be made before evaluations can happen.

The final chapter I would like to mention is Effective Communication. Without it this can cause disharmony is lessons, frustrate even the brightest of students and can cement problems for those already disaffected with learning or feel uninspired. This ultimately leads to restlessness and misbehaviour.

Actually listening to pupils and giving a genuine interest in them will benefit the long run. It may seem like a 5 min chat is the last thing you want to do but to the student this is an ideal time to let off steam, retell a story, tell you all about the playground at lunchtime and anything else that springs to mind just before taking the register or commencing a lesson. 

Showing the qualities of listening to a student and responding with dialogue will enhance their own speaking and listening skills and possibly make them feel more at ease when answering to questions in class. 

To summarise, I would say this book is extremely insightful, it has sections which can be called Reflect and Respond, which can be worked into your own teaching, each chapter is laid out with easy to read diagrams and description, full of teaching hints and case studies, and offers Key Questions at the beginning of each chapter to enable to reader a quick insight into the content. 

Half Term review for Autumn Term 1

This time last year I had only just started getting experience in a school environment and yet fast forward 12 months I am now planning lessons, attending meetings, being a student myself again, reading even more than I did in my youth (I was an avid reader so that says a lot) and really enjoying my new career.

To recapitulate the past 8 weeks in just a page or so will be tough going especially for me. I’ve had to learn the names of at least 100 children, 20+ adults and the layout of quite confusing school grounds. My head teacher has an open door policy and this has made it easier to say hi and ask her opinion on things, from what I am hoping to teach in a lesson to how I am getting on at University- this I feel helps to create a positive working environment

MY CLASS

The class are the Year 6’s. I have managed to: engage with each and every one of them, share stories of the summer holidays, explore the theory and practical side of Light, in a Science unit, oversee and sometimes join in with a game of basketball, bring up the Maths and English Reading levels of two students chosen for my School Based Training, offered support both inside and outside the classroom, and building solid teacher-pupil relationships.

MEMORABLE OBSERVATIONS

During this half term I managed to observe quite a number of lessons. This covered every age group from Year 3-6 and in a number of lessons. Personal favourites included: Science with Year 4 about keeping a hard-boiled egg in different liquids for a week and recording what had happened to them, Topic with Year 3 looking at the compass points and the teacher making it fun and interactive by having the children place the 8 points on the classroom walls, Phonics with Year 1 because I didn’t do this as a child and the Read Write Inc programme is a fun and quick paced way to learn without it being tiresome and predictable. In all of the observed lessons I focused on a variety of things. Behaviour Management was one of them and I saw some unusual ways of gaining class attention very quickly. Differentiation was also evident in the Year 3 and 4 classes because the Learning Objectives were clearly defined and each task was relevant to the group/s of children.

MY TEACHING

As for my own teaching, I hadn’t done as much as I’d hoped. Having only 3 days a week in school and fitting in observations, planning and meetings, I did fit in quite a few. Guided Reading was a success because not only did it bring out some excellent speaking and listening skills from my 5 students but I was able to develop a series of lessons based on the tough subject of immigration. All of them responded well and came out of the lessons with new vocab, they realised that past and present is not that dissimilar, and their inference is much better.

I took a Maths lesson a week after Central Training on the subject. The starter was well received and the pace of the lesson and differentiation meant that every child learnt something. I could have done better with my plenary as well as explaining one of the tasks better but this is something that will come with experience and practice.

UNIVERSITY CENTRAL TRAINING

My University life has been very different. I have made a ton of friends, shared teaching experiences, given and taken plenty of advice, learnt a lot in a short space of time and have come away each week with a feeling that I am going to make it to July in one piece.

As you know I am a social butterfly, I do not stick to one group and like to give my opinions in class. Some people are either too shy or are just passengers in this rollercoaster ride and whilst that’s ok for them – I would rather say something even if it turns out I am wrong. Music and Maths were two of my favourite lessons so far. I like practical teaching and being an outgoing, and active person I hope to create a fun learning environment whenever possible. There will be times when silence is golden and independent work is needed but on the whole I believe people need to express themselves, share ideas and not be afraid to get things wrong. The sooner children learn that the better.

PLAN FOR THE NEAR FUTURE

My aim for Autumn 2 is to plan an entire Science unit based on Electricity, teach at least one Phonics lesson a week, assist in the planning of an excellent class assembly based on Remembrance Day, co-manage the school football teams, carry on with the Upper School choir and take part in a joint-schools concert in December, crackdown on the classroom behaviour, deliver both SEND and Behaviour Management presentations with my groups and finally, head into the Christmas holidays a lot more prepared for the 60% teaching.

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.