Year 10: an update.

In other news, I am so proud of the change in attitude my Year 10 class have had since my last post about them.

With three and a half weeks to go until the end of term, I was suddenly struck by the sheer volume of work we had left to do. We still needed to finish annotating the scenes from Romeo & Juliet, we needed to watch the film and make notes about the relevant scenes (a crucial part of the assessment), we needed to carry out a mock, create sound assessment plans and then actually do the assessment. I also needed to mark the mocks to give some feedback to them before the assessment. I panicked. I explained to them. They panicked. Then we pulled together.

Some of the lessons did end up being a bit of a lecture, which I could be happier about but it just became about getting the job done, rather than flowery approaches. The kids seemed to respond well too and they really got their heads down and tackled the work head on. We had several lessons where I encouraged them to work together, use the computers, and make their own interpretations and the notes from the film were largely their own thinking too. They have done brilliantly and I don't feel anywhere near as nervous about the actual assessment as I did last time.

I feel really proud of them; they've stepped up to the plate and taken on quite a mammoth task. Their essay writing skills are the only issue but we did some major troubleshooting of that this week and I'm hoping that some of it will have gone in. There's only one or two who I'm not 100% confident of but I'm hoping that there will be a much higher percentage of them getting into Band 4/5 this time.

It's a learning process for me too. Last year, my classes were all Key Stage 3 and so I am a bit rusty when it comes to GCSE. However, I feel like I and my Year 10 beauties have hit our stride with this work. So, keep your fingers crossed that the assessments show this to be true!!

An American Horror Story

The terrible events at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, yesterday, will have sent a shiver down the spines of parents and teachers alike, everywhere. It is another in a long line of school massacres which have plagued the United States in the last decade or so and raises immediate questions about American gun laws. In the UK, it leaves many of us grateful for the stringent laws we have in place. From my own experience, arriving in America and seeing airport security guards and police officers carrying guns, is something which scared me. You just don't see it over here and it struck me how these sights must have the exact opposite effect on young people who have grown up in a nation where guns are commonplace.

The events of yesterday left 20 children and 7 others dead. The time has come for Obama to step in and put a stop to these flagrantly relaxed gun laws. Not only that, but it raises questions in British schools as to how long it will be before there are similar problems here.

As a teacher, it is part of my job to keep an eye on the children in my care. Some of them are quiet, some of them are loud, but all of them are fragile. Growing up is hard and it's easy to become resentful in an environment where looks, clothes and generally 'fitting in' are deemed more important than anything else. One girl (who reminds me a bit of me when I was her age) is bullied badly simply because she isn't interested in sex, drugs and alcohol like other girls in her year group are. She's made to feel as though she's not normal when actually, she's one of the most normal kids I know. What happens if she felt unsupported at home too, or had less teachers looking out for her? What if she felt so miserable that she became resentful and bitter? What if she lived in a country where she could gain easy access to a gun and decided to silence her bullies once and for all? Kids pick on the weak and then, eventually, the weak get angry, once all the confidence and self-esteem has been drained from them.

We can only speculate why the gunman yesterday, who's being cautiously named as 20 year-old, Adam Lanza, chose to do what he did yesterday. He walked into an elementary school of children aged anywhere between three and eleven, and killed twenty of them. His actions and his choices can never be excused, even if they can be explained but it will never make up for the tragedy they caused. However, we must do more to ensure that disturbed children do not grow up to be disturbed adults and in doing so, we will water down the chances of people feeling so angry that they feel like they need to take such drastic action. Kids like the girl I describe above need support and love to ensure that she knows how normal she is.

No amount of analysis can dismiss just how horrific the events of yesterday were, and still are. However, there is time to make changes to prevent these monstrosities from happening again. Until such time, my thoughts go out to the victims and their families - no words can ever remove the pain they must be feeling.

Ban guns, ban bullets; love our children.

The Man should try teaching Year 9.

The government have launched yet another negative attack on the teaching profession. In short, if you're not deemed to be a strong teacher, you will be paid less than your peers. There are pros and cons to this move, but from where I'm standing, one greatly outweighs the other.

Teaching is already a profession laden with anxiety, stress and paranoia. It's like being at school again but with the added pressure that you actually care about how you're doing and, instead of a detention when you mess up, you get complaints from parents and meetings with your line manager. It is a profession of criticism and you have to be quite thick-skinned. I'm not and one of the hardest things I had to learn was the ability to turn a critical comment into a positive boost to my performance. In every other area of life, if you were faced with constant comments and criticisms, you'd probably either kick off or crumble but, in teaching, you have to cheerfully take it on the chin and then prove yourself to be implementing that advice at the nearest available possibility. Whether we like it or not, if someone is struggling, it does seep out and whilst teachers are generally supportive folk, it does mean you can end up feeling very self-conscious.

So now, the government, in their infinite wisdom, have elected to provide teaching with yet another competitive, performance-based hierarchy to conform to. As if the pressure of line management meetings, observations, data collections, report writing and parent's evening isn't enough (not to mention the pressure we put on ourselves as intrinsic, natural-born perfectionists anyway). All of this is just parts of the job that we grumble about but accept. However, I'd be lying if I said that I didn't feel nervous every time one of these things crops up. I KNOW I'm a good teacher - I'm passionate, enthusiastic, giving and devoted to my job and students but even then, I worry. So now, I have to worry about whether I'm going to receive my pay rise every year and, if I don't, I get to spend a whole year feeling like the loser teacher who messed up so much that they didn't want to pay her properly; an entire year worrying about getting it all wrong again; an entire year of feeling like every email I get suggesting I attend a CPD session is a pointed statement about how crap I am.

As you can see, I put enough pressure on myself as it is.

I can see the benefits of this. The rewards of working hard are relatively low at the moment because we're all equal. Last year, when my Year 8 class achieved a higher number of Level 6s than predicted, I was told 'Well done, you need to improve children going from Level 4 to 5 though.' Fair enough, I do, but it'd be lovely to be rewarded for such things. Also, it might make it easier to spot teachers who do need more support AND it will help to ensure that children are receiving the best possible education which, at the end of the day, should be our priority at all times.

However, another major issue is the potential for this move to create more difficulties than solutions. For example, when applying for jobs in the future, if I've stayed on the same level of pay for a few years, will potential employers see that as a sign that I'm not worth interviewing, or even employing? Or, will it be like we're supposed to do with the kids and have intervention strategies put into place to ensure that we do make progress as teachers?

In short, I can't help but feel like education has become a profession that is too obsessed with targets and progress. The increasing number of academies is not helping the situation, and nor is the government with its incessant demand for more, more, MORE from teachers. The job is hard, the kids are awkward, the hours are long and we all devote ourselves to it; it's not so much a job as it is a vocation - a lifestyle, even. So, why now must I prove myself to warrant being paid correctly?

The government's lust for making teaching a respected profession filled with individuals who have first-class degrees (see the recent changes to the PGCE bursaries) and who reach ever-increasing targets (in spite of it being nearly entirely down to the students anyway), is something which is in danger of alienating passionate individuals who simply just love working with kids. Students must be provided with the best opportunities to learn, I agree. However, all of these government initiatives are only serving to demoralise and stress out the teachers who can give those opportunities. Teaching is in danger of becoming a heartless, soul-sucking profession filled with individuals who are only there for the wage. What a sad state of affairs.

William Blake Meets Year 8.

When my Head of Department said that we could do "whatever we like" with the Year 8 poetry unit this half term, you could see the glee plastered across my fellow English teacher's faces; mine included! One of my big literary interests is John Keats and so I decided to focus on romanticism with my Year 8 class. We began by looking at Daffodils by William Wordsworth and then Ode to Autumn by Keats and the class told me that they were enjoying it. Then, one boy, one little darling... told me he wasn't "connecting" with the poems. So, I felt that this was a challenge and so, I went dark and decided to look at William Blake.

We started off doing a bit of research about Blake and his poetry to whet their appetite. Then we looked at his paintings and I create a mini 'gallery' in my classroom, encouraging the kids to wander round and consider each one and think about how they make them feel etc. Which, obviously, they loved because they got to pretend to be all hoity-toity art critics and say things like: "This one makes me feel uncomfortable" and "This one is beautifully done..." Which, let's face it, is what most of us do when wandering around art galleries whilst the man with dodgy facial hair and a poncey hat stands next to us, adjusting his hipster glasses.

The next lesson, we mind-mapped words to describe Blake's poetry and paintings. They were brilliant at this and it told me that they had really 'got' what I wanted them to know about Blake. They were coming out with words like 'supernatural', 'creepy', 'peculiar' and 'dark.' Perfect. So, I felt they were ready for the next bit: I sent them out around the school in groups, to take photos of scenes around the school which they felt were Blake-esque. I was a bit worried yesterday morning when I got drenched walking into work but then I decided that the gloomy weather suited the task AND Blake suffered for his art, so they should too. They produced some brilliant photos actually - I might get them to email me them so that I can use them in a display. There were pictures of spooky trees, piles of leaves, shadowy lampposts amongst tree branches - they did good!

Today, the kids used these photos to write their own Blake-inspired descriptions. I'm yet to read them all but I was read a few lines and it all sounds very promising. One line involved personifying the tree as 'cancerous' because it was losing its leaves and life. From a middle range Year 8, this makes me wonder what else they've come up with!! In Monday's lesson, the kids will be going back to these sites around the school to film themselves reading their descriptions in the style of Blake. We'll have a screening in the following lesson, I think.

I'm seriously excited about this project actually and the kids seem really into it too. Poetry is always such a tricky subject to teach because it's generally dismissed by kids as being boring and difficult. They struggle to understand what the poet means because of all the metaphors and complicated imagery. A couple of weeks ago, I was teaching this class why romanticism has nothing to do with romance and now they're having a really good stab at walking in Blake's shoes. I'm properly impressed with them and I cannot wait to see these videos!!

How to solve a problem like Year 10

I'm afraid that this will be a bit of a rant today. Largely because Year 10 are driving me mad. Their attitude is just so appallingly lacklustre and I'm struggling to get them to realise that this is it now - this is not some silly little KS3 assessment any more. This IS their GCSE and without an English GCSE, they're basically screwed in today's job market/world. I've spoken to them about this a few times now and it just seems to go in one ear and out the other.

I think there are a few questions that immediately spring to mind here:

1. How can I make them realise how important this is? 2. How can I make our lessons both structured and focused as well as fun? 3. Why haven't some of them freaked out after being told that they'd totally cocked up their first controlled assessment this year?

They should all be Band 4 or above. A lot of them were, some of them were the top of Band 3 which, in terms of averages, is still totally retrievable given that it's the first assessment. However, several of them were bottom of Band 3 and even Band 2 which, for that class, is appalling.

Had they all been crap, I'd be sitting here reviewing my teaching methods and questioning where I went wrong. But in a class where the top mark was Band 5 and the bottom was Band 2, it leaves me a bit stuck with what actually went wrong.

My plan has to be focused on differentiation. Tomorrow, I'm going to redo my seating plan to seat the various ability ranges together so that I can focus on setting them work which will really improve their skills. I would encourage a Level 4 KS3 student to do Level 7 work so why should it be any different here? If the setting is such that the class is a mixed bag then differentiation is the only way forward. I need to plan some homework which is tailored to different skills too.

It's just finding the time and energy at the moment though..! Still, I'll have a go and see whether it makes a difference.

Guest Post & Half Term

Following a talk I gave to my school's NQT and PGCE cohort on Wednesday, Dave Rogers asked me to give a guest post for his blog about my top tips for taking risks in lessons. You can read it, here. Also, IT'S HALF TERM!!!! Finally....!! Have a good break guys :)

Independent Learning: how I intend to achieve it.

As part of my ongoing professional development, and following on from an earlier post, I am determined to encourage independence in my students.

In the end, my Year 10 class showed themselves to be capable of writing their controlled assessments without too much flapping. However, I had to give them the basic tools to encourage their slight increase in independence. Arguably, as teachers, that is what we ought to be doing. I feel like I want to 'set them free' more though. So, I've set about doing some research of methods which can help to promote further independence in students. Since we have one more week of 'The Half Term That WILL NEVER END', I'm going to use this week to put them into practice and see how it affects the kids.

Group Work

I already use a lot of group work in most of my lessons. Last year, I spent a lot of time conducting my lessons by asking direct questions and getting the response from the same seven or eight kids in the class. After Ofsted visited us and said I was doing too much talking (moi?!), I realised that I had to shift my game plan. Now, my lessons revolve around the students having a set length of time to discuss their ideas and answers to a question, followed by feedback from each group. I usually record their answers on the board and get the kids to copy it down into their books. So, in the end, it feels like a team effort, led by the kids. It also enables me to see exactly who gets it and who doesn't, and allows me to ask harder questions to the brighter kids.

Choices

Looking around, many sites and experts suggest giving students a choice of activities. Up until now, I've done things such as give them sentence starters for PEE paragraphs and said that if they feel capable of not using them, then don't. Or, I've said that those aiming for the higher level should attempt it on their own etc. But, what I've never done is give them a choice of 'Activity A' or 'Activity B.' It would promote independence, allow them to take responsibility for their learning, and would open up opportunities for 'Ask the Expert' type activities. However, the immediate problem I see with it is how to assess it; whilst one class is reviewing one activity, what are the others doing? Perhaps it should involve some sort of swap over/peer assessment work. Some sites suggest doing it as homework. I think I'll try it in class first and then with homework next half term, now that my department have scrapped the irrelevant IET booklets.

Learning Goals

We spend so much time setting targets for students - levels, grades, AFs - but how can students really attain independence if they aren't setting their own goals? When I set myself goals, if I don't achieve them, I feel like I'm letting myself down. If someone else tells me what they want me to do, I feel significantly less attached to them and a lot less motivated. It's like that great feeling you have when you achieve something for yourself, by yourself. So, why do we take that away from the kids? This week, I'm going to spend time with all of my classes and allow them to create their own targets. We had book monitoring this week and the feedback I had said that I need to let the kids have time to respond to my feedback because I'm putting in a load of work and it ends up being ignored. So, my plan is to let them have ten minutes to go through and review my feedback and then spend some time setting their own goals. We can have review lessons every few weeks.

Self Learning Facility

An interesting idea which I read on one website is the idea of having a 'Self Learning Facility' which is a space full of resources, activities, quizzes and ideas for students to access and/or add to. The idea being that as students become more self-aware as learners, they will recognise their weak areas and by accessing a store of extra resources, they can actively work to improve their skills in their own time, or, if they complete an activity faster than their peers during lessons. This will take quite a lot of time to develop and implement. I'm thinking it could work by dividing resources up between AFs and then encouraging the kids to develop their skills, based on their learning goals. This facility could even take up part of the learning goals lessons - I can't think of a better way to encourage students to immediately engage with their goals and to also maintain the independent feel of a lesson. Again, the only issue would be assessing their progress. Short of giving myself hours upon hours of disjointed extra marking, it would need to be peer or self-assessment again.

In short, all of these things would need to be practised, trialed, and adapted. It's not going to be a quick fix solution, but rather something which will take a lot of time and effort. I'm excited though and, with Ofsted due back in January, it gives me a couple of months to get started. Game on!