Reflection on lessons learnt in 2013/2014
The first lesson I learnt from my first year in teaching was that there
is a lot of work to cover. Effective medium term plans allow you as a teacher
to have a good idea of what needs to be covered and by when. If learners
understand a concept move on if they struggle think of new ways to cover it but
efficient teaching is critical.
The second lesson I learnt in 2013/2014 was that Christmas is chaos
ultimately a hectic Christmas period is unavoidable but the most effective way I
dealt with this last year was by giving learners a clear focus through a
project creating their own Christmas Market it made use of the enthusiasm that
learners have for Christmas related activities developing global learning and numeracy
at the same time.
The third lesson was the effort required to complete assignments for the
Masters in Educational Practice. Again the workload on this is always going to
be high so embrace it and try to make your assignments both interesting to
yourself your school to give it real value. Every assignment I have completed
this academic year has achieved a distinction pass and it is because I enjoy
what I am studying.
The forth lesson was to join a union and this is clearly increasingly
important to ensure you are supported in the classroom should anything go
wrong. The experiences and opportunities I have had since joining ATL have been
second to none and helped me develop a strong network of education
professionals I can call on for advice.
The final lesson of 2013/2014 was that the summer term is not a breeze with report writing and transition taking up a lot of time alongside the potential for increased behaviour issues as learners get tired and also seize upon the frayed nerves of teaching staff to get emotive reactions. The key to this again is to accept in plan effectively and really focus on strong behaviour management systems and supporting staff.
Midpoint evaluation 2014/2015
Last Christmas I had
picked up three further lessons from teaching and these were communicate,
routine and collaborate.
Communication is
critical in all work places and between all the individuals involved in that
workplace and getting it right is a difficult process. Social media has
increasingly played a part in more effective home school communication however
it needs careful management.
Routine is again an
important factor alongside a role that is always changing and always has
different challenges. Having regular staff meetings in to communication and
setting yourself regular hours 8am – 6pm for me helps with the work/life
balance.
Collaboration can be
really effective and this can be as simple as attending CPD events and
socialising. ATL has been very effective in allowing me to achieve high quality
CPD through collaboration and #primaryrocks is also a pain free way of
connecting with other schools. I have increasingly focussed upon global
learning in the classroom and am part of GLPWales as well as engaging in a
number of Etwinning projects. Practical collaboration (sharing resources)
though is perhaps one lesson to look at for the year ahead.
2014/2015 Lessons Learnt
Lesson 1 - Collaborate
As identified at Christmas and previously in this post effective collaboration
is an important way in which learning opportunities can be maximised. In a
small school with a limited budget it is always difficult to provide high
quality resources however through collaboration with other schools resources
can be shared and expertise brought in from different areas. This year I
discovered a sports based cluster that provides exciting competitions in a
number of different sports and that has helped me to provide increased
opportunities for the learners in my class.
Lesson 2 – Simplify Planning
Planning can be an area of debate and I understand that there will be
individual differences in opinion into how best to plan and how effective and
important it is. Personally I have discovered this year that the most effective
way of planning is to have A4 landscape planning sheets for year, half term and
week I am also flirting with the idea of creating and using a daily one. This
is manageable and if it’s manageable it is effective. Evaluating your weekly
lesson plan is also an important part of developing as a teacher simply writing
down what went well and what to improve is important in learning from
experience.
Lesson 3 – Manage Behaviour
Towards the summer term there was an unexpected increase in poor
behaviour being displayed by the learners in the class and this identified some
weaknesses in my behaviour management toolkit. It is important that there are
both extrinsic and intrinsic rewards for displaying correct behaviour however
the most important area of behaviour management is developing positive working
relationships with the learners and being able to explain why it is in their
best interests to behave in a positive way.
Lesson 4 – Give 100% to applications or don’t bother.
My personal career
plan was based on leaving my current school after two years and moving to a
larger more diverse school in North Wales to hone my teaching skills and
complete my masters before moving to London to experience what I see as the
cutting edge of education in the UK. However next year’s year 6 are a group I
feel will need a lot of support perhaps the least able class we have had in the
school for a while and I am keen to see them through transition into secondary.
With this mind-set I applied for jobs but did not put enough effort in to my
applications and therefore any effort I did put in was wasted. Competition for
teaching places is tough and giving schools the opportunity to notice you is
difficult it requires much more effort than I put in and I feel the lesson
learnt is that is more important to produce a few strong applications rather
than lots of weak ones.
Lesson 5 – Enjoy the circus.
Working in education throws unexpected problems into your path almost
every day and the key is to not let this phase you. Quick thinking and patience
are important in adapting to an ever changing environments and group dynamics.
It is always worth considering whether an unexpected event can provide an
exciting learning opportunity for the class and having a good Plan B in case
Plan A goes awry is a necessity.
Goals for 2015/2016
My
goals for 2014/2015 were to set up an eTwinning opportunity with at least one
other school, run an adventure club and introduce new ICT opportunities
for learners and all of those goals were met by December. I then revaluated and
hoped to continue the eTwinning project by putting together a video made by the
learners about our school and putting it on to our school website. Increase the
amount of collaborative feedback and give learners
an opportunity to suggest how they would like to learn and hoped that the
work covered in Year 2 of my Masters in Educational Practice would lead to
exciting learning opportunities for the learners I teach all of these goals were achieved.
Therefore
the goals I am setting for 2015/2016 are as follows,
1) Make better use of
the cluster networks through sharing resources.
2)
Host a CPD event (on use of twitter and sharing best practice if allowed
by SLT).
3)
Utilise the teaching assistants within the school more effectively (small
group work and different interventions including utilising the school garden).
4)
Focus on spelling.
5) Run more lunchtime
clubs that have a clear focus (e.g. news group and competition prep).