PGCELog

So I got a job this morning…yay!

Then after my interview, straight back to school to teach year 8 this afternoon.

It’s a top set, but probably my least favorite set… With intelligence seems to come arrogance…hmm

Started off well, I gave them the scheduling activity to do without much assistance and kind of gave them prods as they went along, which wouldn’t have worked well with lower ability sets, but they picked it up quickly. In the middle it got a bit messy. Two boys in particular were causing lots of problems and I should have jumped on them much quicker which I didn’t do, which led to everything taking much longer than necessary, and not getting through as much as we should. Their inability to listen to and follow simple instructions which have been constantly repeated is quite astounding! I’m still at the stage where I’m not really sure what each group is capable of/how much they’re likely to get through in a lesson… But part of that is experience, both of the group in particular and having taught this kind of thing many times before…

Had two of my year 8 sets the Wednesday and Thursday. Wednesday I was observed by my uni tutor, and I was hoping for the class to have turned into some kind of angelic collective since two weeks ago… no such luck! It went fine though, I did end up having sent out two kids within the first 10 minutes, but it had the desired effect and I was commended on my handling of a difficult group…so it’s all good! I also got some good ideas about how to make the lesson work better, which as I was doing the same lesson again thursday, was very useful.

Thursday was a bit more fun. Class which aren’t usually too much trouble(although I do seem to forget from lesson to lesson about some of the particular characters in this class…) were an absolute nightmare. I had fists raised in the classroom, 3 different people outside the classroom at various times, and this was with an LSA… I did use the ideas I got from Wednesday’s lesson, and certain sections did seem to flow a lot more smoothly, minimising transitions etc. I’ve got the same lesson again on Monday, but this time with a top set so we’ll see how that goes!

This afternoon helped out with primary inter-school cross-country competition run by one of the teachers at the school. I was responsible for handing out cards to signal the places of each of the finishers. Those kids take it really seriously. There were tears, puking etc.! Great fun.

Taught first lesson in 7.6 the last two afternoons. Interesting. Was doing traffic lights, starting with getting one set working, then moving on to the bridge lights in flowol. No-one got that far on monday, they were all struggling with just getting one set working correctly. This afternoon however, some people had finished with both sets working. They’re supposed to be similar ability groups as well… What yesterday’s group really did struggle with was the concept of having a delay, or period of time when both traffic lights are on red, i.e not having amber on one set corresponding with red and amber on the other set. I’m thinking about trying to create a little video (possibly flash) to demonstrate the problem…

Had my other year 7′s this morning, they’re a lesson behind so they were finishing off modelling, creating their report. Really mixed group – one boy had finished the entire report the previous lesson, so I challenged him to come up with his own additions to the model. He seemed to enjoy it! Really nice class though, very quiet compared to most of the classes I teach…feels odd really…not having to constantly ask for quiet, and people to listen!!

Another department meeting. Minutes in folder again. Mainly discussed moderation of levels, key skills and motivating year 9′s to increase uptake of GCSE. Also KS3 tests.

Taught the bottom set year 9, the second lesson on KS3 test familiarisation. Mentor wasn’t in the class, so was just me and an LSA today. Hard work!! It was red-nose day, two of the pupils from the class had already been sent home to remove the red dye from their hair and returned – well 1 returned part way through the lesson! People kept ending the session to get out of the test so they could go on the internet and play games, logon another machine so they could play games on that one, log off other peoples machines, etc. etc. The intention was to start with going through the database and control application to demonstrate some required technique but in view of the level of disruption we moved fairly swiftly on to doing the test. There are 6 or 7 in the class who work really well, and it’s always really hard trying not to disadvantage them whilst dealing with the issues of the rest of the class. For a plenary I gathered everyone around, and then dismissed any trouble makers back to their PC’s to enable me to do something constructive with those that do actually care about how well they get on. Not sure we’re going to get very meaningful results from the practice tests.

Last night I attended Maths Booster class for year 9s, trying to get them to level 5 in their SATs. I really enjoyed this. Obviously some of them are quite difficult and don’t want to be there, are being made to attend by their parents etc. and the level of maths is fairly low. (In fact quite a few of them were also in my year 9 class this morning) I could quite see myself teaching bottom sets maths in whatever future job I get.

Finished the evening by helping backstage at the school play with “Shushing duty”. There’s lots of movement around the backstage area by the large chorus in the play, and they aren’t capable of doing this quietly without constant supervision! Quite good fun really though!

It’s reports time, so spent quite a while in the last few days getting my head around ks3 levelling for the various classes i’ve taught. It’s a lot easier to do after you’ve seen someone else do it, and what criteria they’re using. I think that’s probably the most important thing. You need to have firm in your mind what thing you’re looking for which demonstrate the various levels, from there it’s quite easy (well relatively – you still need to make lots of decisions when doing sublevels). Once youve got a level you then have to use it to inform the childs expected level, as well as give them a grade for Effort, and a grade for “Courtesy & Cooperation”. Effort is easy enough, but C&C is quite difficult, especially with those two things combined. What happens if someone is polite in telling you they’re not going to do what you asked them? All good fun, also made more difficult by me not knowing the pupils that well, considering I only see them once a fortnight – combine this with inset days, half terms etc. and I’ve only seen most of the classes 3 or 4 times.

Had a bit of a weird year 8 lesson today. Due to a variety of factors, they hadn’t managed to finish the previous unit of work in the last lesson as planned, but they didn’t have enough left to fill up an entire double lesson. So I ended up doing half on one topic and half on the next topic. Makes for a disjointed lesson, and trying to chivy them into finishing in the first half of the lesson to get to the next section was quite hard work. In the end we didn’t have as much time as necessary to get to where we should have in the new topic (8.5 – a project based unit with the scenario of chocolate) In a way it worked out ok, because since then based on department discussions, we’ve slightly refined the unit plan, so they haven’t missed out on that!

Had sixth form parents evening. I only teach year 12, so had to sit through quite a few year 13 appointments which didn’t mean a lot, although the overall experience is obviously beneficial. Again wasn’t able to contribute hugely, as the parents are understandably more keen to hear from the main class teacher. Some very interesting conversations with parents, highlighting differing parenting styles, expectations of their children etc. and those with very high expectations didn’t bring their children with them! I was able to contribute when talking to one set of parents, of a child who I’ve been working with quite significantly within the class so I have contributed and given oral reports to parents!!

Getting coursework out of year 10 children is virtually impossible. Can’t quite understand why teachers want to move towards vocational courses, it’s hard enough getting a limited amount of coursework out of them, even with lots of intermediate deadlines, phoning parents, threats of letters home etc. etc. in a course which they have chosen as 1 of their options. Todays lesson was quite hardwork. There are about 3 boys in the class who are working hard, and will likely meet the deadline (but only just). The rest of the class (all boys incidentally) have produced virtually nothing for this part of the board set assignment. It really is like trying to get blood out of a stone. Not really sure of any strategies that can improve this. This is a bottom set, but it’s only slightly improved for the top set.

There’s been a lot of discussinon recently about what we’re doing next with the year 8. We’re just finishing off the public information systems unit. Previously they’ve done a year 8 project, either focussing on a charity rock concert or a nursery selling plants. This year, to try and increase interest and motivation, particularly amongst girls, they’ve decided to do a charity chocolate project – producing, marketing and selling the chocolate.

Taught a familiarisation lesson to year 9 for ks3 test today. Quite interesting looking at who finds it easy/hard etc. Class is a topset and the boys really enjoy the challenge of the test – obviously as it’s familiarisation no way to find out how well they actually did… but most of the girls find it a real challenge, especially working without much support. Also had to go through various bits at the end as they didn’t really get to the control application, as it’s last in the test. Used this to plan what to cover in the next lesson, when they’ll be doing part 1 of the practice test.

Had year 9 parents evening. None of the pupils from classes I teach actually came, so I couldn’t really contribute, but quite interesting to see the different attitudes of parents to similar comments. Also, at School B, children are encouraged to come with their parents, which seems to be quite effective and gives teachers possibly more leverage, having the child sat there whilst their parents are told of their behaviour/attitude etc.