First week teaching at SGS.

I have taught a number of year groups this week and obseved a few 6th form lessons, of which I will begin teaching partly next week.

My experience to date has been very different to The Langley Academy. Going into a grammar school, I though that a lot more material would be covered; this at times hasn't been the case but areas of study do tend to be looked at in greater depth. Although saying that, that is not the experience I have had with my year 10 class!

The first thing I have struggled with is learning all the new names! Knowing students names certainly helps behaviour management, I have found at times there has been some low level chatter and not knowing the student(s) name has certainly slowed down the process of rectifying this problem. Although on the whole, behaviour is generally very positive and students appear engaging and motivated the majority of the time.

In regards to lessons I have taught so far: The Year 7's were very impressive academically, they asked lots of questions and showed a real thirst for geographically knowledge.  This however sometimes hindered moving the lesson on but it is encouraging to see real passion. My first lesson with them went well but again there was some low level chatter and students were very keen to have discussions as a class but a bit more reluctant to get so much detail down on paper. In my next lesson with them I was much stricter with low level chatter and kept a few boys back to show them I wouldn't tolerate this. After receiving feedback I altered my style slightly and ensured my questioning had a stronger focus, attempting to build on prior answers. This is something that I see as a weakness of mine and am continuing to develop.

The year 8 lesson appeared to go quite well. The students enoyed the false/true starter I played with them but more thought could have been put into the order of the lesson. If I'd had a different order then the plenary activity would probably have been a bit tighter as a result. On the whole not a bad lesson with this bunch though.

I used a wide ranging style of activities with my  year 9 class. Again the students appeared to really engage in these tasks but I felt pace could have been improved in these lessons. I taught this class for the second time last thing on a Friday. The starter activity was really fun and helped drill home some key terms but I felt it should have had a more evident outcome. In response to this I used an on the board interactive quiz to gauge how much the students had taken and learnt from the starter. I got the feeling they learnt quite a bit but it could have been conducted in a more focused manner, as opposed to whole class calling out.The main activity I gave them definitely required more instructions and 'modelling'. However, I was attempting to promote independence amongst them. This in turn lead to confusion and a bit of a lethargic manner. Possibly more guidance is required for this last lesson of the week.

With regards to the Year 10's, a very quiet bunch, whom aren't overly keen on partcipating in a Q+A session and slow to get down to work. In fairness I am teaching them a topic that I, myself, am not overly confident on. This meant my questioning was not as focused or driven as it could/should have been. However, my mentor has assured me that they are like that with her too- I will have to try a different style/approach to get them more active.

In reflection, I need to improve on my questioning, especially to get immediate feedback to see how they are responding to the lesson. Secondly, I need to start learning students names asap to make real in-roads into dealing with petty behavioural issues.

Inset day 20th February, 2012.

Monday 20th February was an Inset day. We had a whole school briefing regarding the new Ofsted criteria and then we were split up into small groups to watch video clips of teachers in action and attempt to grade them accordingly. This was very benefitial and certainly it has helped focus my and teaching and practice. In addition to this I also attended two other sessions. The first session was on positive communication with students; this involved us looking at various techniques for engaging and promoting postive behaviour, management skills etc. The other was on links between children's early experiences, emotional well-being and performances in school.

Both sessions were of value and helped give insight into external issues, which sometimes are neglected and not taking into consideration.

First week at second placement

Last Monday, 6th February, I began my second placement at Slough Grammar school. The first week was spent doing observations; these observations were primarily focused across the 6th form as I have had little experience of this key stage at The Langley Academy. It was very interesting to see a variety of lessons: Chemistry, Classics, English and Geography and watch the different teaching styles to match. I'm sure this will put me in good stead considering I will be teaching some Geography lessons across KS5.

In addition to all the 6th form observations, I did also watch some KS3+4 Lessons (Mostly Geography but aslo English and Chemistry.) I believe this week has given me a good insight into how these students respond, engage and interact during lessons.

From what I have seen in this first week, there are some key differences that I have picked up upon. The majority of students at Slough Grammar are more independent in their attitude to class work, and as a result don't require the same amount of 'spoon feeding' as some of the lower ability students at Langley Academy. The majority of lessons are not pitched at that much of a higher level, as I was expecting but are quicker paced and students will expand upon questions to a greater extent. Also, quite a lot of the class sizes are smaller, particulalry KS3, this definitely has impacts upon behaviour, work levels and pace. All of these factors I will need to take into consideration when planning and delivering lessons.

As well as observing lessons, I also shadowed a Yr 9 pupil for a day. I had done this before but only for certain lessons, so it was interesting to see how a student responds under different environments, teachers, amongst other students etc through the course of  a day. In terms of pastoral experence, I've been placed within a Year 9 tutor group. This, again, will be another new experience for me as I have only worked with vertical tutor groups in the past.

Another Weekly observation and beginning my second placement.

I had another observation with my Year 8 class last week. I didn't spend anywhere near as time planning it in comparison to the prior week, yet it seemed to flow far easier. I think this was for a few reasons; firstly, I didn't quite pitch the work at as high a  standard as the week before, this made it far more simple for the lower ability students to remain on task. Secondly, a few of the students were out (representing The Academy or sick.) This made numbers less and so was naturally more manageable.

Now why the lesson went more to plan, had lesson interuptions and appeared more on task, I think was to do with the factors I mentioned above but what worries me is that am I challenging the higher ability students enough?

This is something, that with my second placement coming up tomorrow, am wondering how I will alter my style to cater for a Grammar school cohort. This week I am just observing an array of staff, I think I will have to acclimatise myself quite quickly and understand how to further push students as opposed to keeping those lower ability students engaged/ motivated and on task.