How to handle the return of lesson observations

How to handle the return of lesson observations - article for tes

An article for tes on how to make the best of lesson observations now they're coming back post lockdown learning.

How to handle the return of lesson observations - tes

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Managing the markload

There is no way to dress it up - marking is and will always be one of the biggest burdens in teaching. The other things like planning, training, meetings and emails all push themselves to the top of the to-do list - their turnarounds are short and they can’t be left. You can’t not plan your lessons, not turn up to meetings (tempting as it may sound) and the emails demand responses. So marking, despite being an incredibly valuable teaching tool, gets left to the wayside. It causes a great deal of anxiety for so many as the pile continues to grow or is something that forever needs doing. It is also one of the biggest reasons so many work well beyond 8-5 and spend so much of their holidays working instead of relaxing and recharging. It will always be a challenge, particularly if you too teach essay subjects like English but there are some tools that have helped me to avoid bringing marking home and to some extent staying if not on top of it, at least afloat. Marking codes The most mundane...

Differentiation: shattering the glass ceiling and stepping up to the challenge

Over the last few years, what we see and what we expect to see in the classroom has massively changed. We’ve gone from super-pacey, four-part, not-too-much-teacher-talkey lessons, to progress for the long haul, repeated learning and in-depth modelling. This is much more a shift in mentality than it is just methodology and thankfully, the same can be said for differentiation. But it is still something so easy to get wrong! Despite all the controversy that comes with differentiation, with high challenge and upward scaffolding, the glass ceilings once put in place with it, can still be shattered for the wide range of students our classrooms hold. While the transformation of what we know as differentiation is in no way complete, we can still adapt during its transition to something better - it is just a case of reassessing how we are differentiating and why. The past life of differentiation Previously, the suggestions and perhaps expectations of differentiation were planning using “All, mo...

Misconceptions about ‘Mixed Ability’ in English

The mixed vs set ability debate is not a new one. It has gone round the houses, done its laps and the research and general consensus seem to have settled quite firmly in favour of blended classes. So why write about it now? Mainly because I (like many on the other side of the debate) was completely and utterly against the introduction of mixed ability classes when it was first discussed in our department. Many of the titular misconceptions were my own but having now researched, taught the classes and reaped the benefits fully mixed sets bring, I have deserted post and I am firmly in the mixed ability camp. Here’s what I thought versus what I found: 1. Differentiation and Challenge is too difficult For context, our previous configuration was to have two top sets on each side of the year with rest in mixed classes, so from my prior experience, going fully mixed would have been extra work for the teachers while taking away specific focus on learners’ needs. But how ...

Miss Mika (English)

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