Using a seating plan!

My first BTEC year 11 lesson consisted of: minimal workload, off task behaviour, unauthorised exits and a large amount of distraction.

Reflecting on the lesson and discussing with my colleagues, we devised a possible solution and concluded that it may be beneficial for all students if I changed the seating plan in search for a positive learning environment. Initially I thought this would be difficult as it being a fairly ‘challenging’ group, and the reaction would be un-manageable.

However, on entry to the classroom when given the starter the students looked at the seating plan shown on the board. This plan identified the students who contributed to the distractions previously were seated away from each other yet still allowed people to work in pairs, although these pairings were strategic. I decided to pair students with non friends and opposite typical behaviour with the ambition that the quiet work of a pair would encourage the other. I also felt that the students working would obviously receive lots of praise and therefore could motivate the ‘non doer’ to try harder.

The next lesson- HUGE DIFFERENCE!!

I feel the contributing factors were: 

An effective, well thought through seating plan. Particularly, the 1 student who instigated alot of the previous distractions is isolated at the front, away from others where he is unable to distract others or be distracted.

An engaging starter activity, they didn’t have a chance to complain about the seating plan. After this I could then just flow through the main activity.

Understanding Ethos

Spending hours within various schools within the CLF has been extremely beneficial in terms of my understanding on how each school has a slightly differed ethos.  Each ethos has an impact on the teaching and learning within the school, I have found this ethos is reflected within the environment of the school. Beneath the school ethos becomes the individual teachers, this is essentially the atmosphere/ learning environment the teacher implements/ encourages throughout the day

In one recent observation, I was extremely impressed with the approach taken by the teacher: the teacher planned a group work activity where the students had the freedom to be creative and make a dance/ sequence. This teacher set objectives relating to personal skills, the teacher then adopted a relaxed approach to let the students take a lead on their learning. Initially the students messed around and didn’t work well together, the teacher remained patient. When stopping the group, rather than telling them how to work together they used clever questioning to encourage discussion on how they can make progress with their routine.  After 3 interventions/ discussions, the students were working effectively in teams and therefore began developing the ‘creative routine’.  The progress the students made was completely student lead which I found intriguing, despite this being the school ethos, the teacher had to comply with it and integrate this into his lesson.  

 I have also found various teachers adopt different communication techniques especially in their tone of voice, as well as their choice of language.  I feel the way in which we communicate with the students sets the tone for the lesson and can encourage a positive climate for learning. Each teacher changes in the way in which they communicate. The two most effective techniques I will attempt are- 

·         One teacher was speak so quietly the students need to be near on silent to hear, in this case students would peer behaviour manage and ask their peers to be quiet during explanations.

·         One other  teacher would always crouch down to communicate with the students so they are at the same level, the teacher used language the students understood which made the I feel made the students feel equal within the class.

My ethos will continue and expand throughout this year as I experience different situations and discover various skills and strategies, however, I feel it’s important to recognise that regardless of my ethos I will need to be flexible to adapt to suit the school.

The Studio CLF

Experiencing a day within the CLF studio today was really beneficial in terms of broadening my knowledge and understanding on behaviour management and what strategies are used to reintegrate students into school. The learning environment of the studio is very unique and clearly suited to achieve the aim.

Throughout the day I was given an insight to the potential barriers to students learning and why it's important to differentiate and be adaptable in the way we teach certain students. I felt I was really able to relate to many of the students given my childhood and background, therefore it helped when building relationships throughout the day.

Each student at the start of the day students are required to set targets, these are then reflected upon and discussed as a class at the end of the day. I found this to be a really interesting but really a successful strategy to use. Initially, I thought giving the students a license to grade themselves would result in biased grading. However, I was fascinated to see the students were really over critical when self assessing and extremely productive during peer discussions.

Today reinforced the importance of creating, and the students understanding expectations within both a school and a classroom. The students at the facility clearly have an understanding on the boundaries and the outcomes if they 'over step the mark'. Relating this to my teaching, I will certainly create and implement a set of expectations/ classroom rules for each class; these will need to be personalised for each class I teach.

My journey of becoming a teacher- in school observations

After a day of observations within Bath Community Academy (BCA) my teaching philosophy has expanded and my whole outlook on teaching PE has been strengthened. The PE department have adopted a very innovative teaching style and have changed their focuses within their lessons. Myself and the other trainee were asked to complete a task: we were given 40 cards displaying various physical, personal and sport specific skills, we then had to select the 10 that we thought were the biggest conventions of a successful athlete. After this process we then were asked 'which of these are your focuses in your lessons?' The fact was that none of the selected cards were skill based/ sport specific skills. We were then shown a model that the school use during PE lessons (pictures attached) this model contains 6 qualities the school believe students can posses in order to make them 'good' at PE, it was reiterated that the student doesn't need to be 'good' at kicking a ball to be 'good' at PE, they can exceed in another area which equally makes them 'good' at PE.It was compared with a 'cog system', all cogs combine to make the wheel go round. The learning objectives used within the lesson therefore have a main focus upon the 'cogs' through the use of an activity. For example a lesson in the gym,  the students were given the objectives to: set independent targets and to work independently to reach these targets. 

It's my task as a trainee teacher to adopt the magpie approach and start collecting theory's and experiences and build on my personal teaching philosophy.

   

The 10 chosen key skills needed for a successful athlete.

The 6 PE learning cogs focused upon in lessons.

Starting UWE

First day at UWE today, feeling like a student again. It was really positive to see how all members of the CLF appeared really confident throughout the lectures and definitely appeared to be a tight group, this will definitely be beneficial when establishing cross curricular links.  The seminar contained some real interesting content, firstly the discussion of ice breakers gave me some ideas to try when starting my placement which will help with learning names and ‘knowing my students’. The key thing I took was: the importance of reflection and self-knowledge. Self-knowledge effects decisions and actions which then will influence reflection, if we as teachers reflect we will have a better social understanding, a better social understanding allows a teacher to show more empathy for the students therefore bettering the relationship.  Does sound a little confusing but in my head it makes sense :)

The start of my ITT with the CLF

Finally, the start of my ITT has come. It`s been a very positive start to the program and has been very productive. Reflecting on the start I am extremely happy with the progress I have made on my confidence, originally I found I was slightly uneasy when speaking in front of the group however that’s began to change. I think being involved with group projects has improved relationships within the group which has helped me feel more comfortable getting involved.  Confidence is a brilliant thing!