Activity Log and Reflections
Thursday 9th June 2016
Kings School Placement (Public School.)
8:00- Met Jen Ewens (Head of Year 7) who told me a bit about the school, how the day would go and then showed me the child I was shadowing for the day (Year 7 pupil.)
- 5 lessons a day, 1hr 15 mins each
- Accelerated reader (Whole school read every day for 30 mins and once they’ve completed their book they have to do a comprehension test about that specific book online.)
I think the accelerated reader scheme is a great way of encouraging children to practice and improve reading skills and to develop an interest for reading. Additionally the tests the children complete after reading the books are great for improving comprehension skills. I also like that children are assessed to determine what books they should be reading (similar to primary school) as this makes the books the children are reading level appropriate and therefore more engaging. However it does take 30 minutes away from the main lesson which can be seen as a negative to the scheme.
8:45 Morning Tutor time. General knowledge, fun quiz.
9:10 Business studies
Accelerated reader 30 mins.
Lesson objective: Create a storyboard that shows the spirit of the Rio Olympic Games. (Include 6 sports.)
Showed the class the BBC Olympic Games 2012 advert for inspiration. Followed by engaging questions ‘What do you think the Olympic spirit is/means? How did that advert make you feel? What did you think about the graphics? What did you or didn’t like about the graphics? How did the music make you feel?
Next showed the pupil how to search for images of Rio de Janeiro, giving ideas of what to feature in their storyboards.
Pupils then went onto student access area to find the pre-made story board.
Those that had finished their storyboards were encouraged to being using Pivot, an animation software, to bring their adverts to life.
Discussion with teacher: Business studies is Kings Specialism; every secondary school has to choose a specialism. KS3, more ICT skills. KS4, more business skills. Pupils have to choose it as a GCSE.
This lesson appeared really well planned out. The teacher had visual aids for the children to engage with, she had a main and extension task and answered questions effectively. However due to the accelerated reading not many pupils advanced to the extension task which was a shame.
10:15 English
10 minutes reading to start.
Learning objectives: Reading for meaning-differentiating between facts and opinions.
Working with a worksheet.
Engaging questions, how do you prove it’s a fact? What kind of evidence might you find? Give me an example of an opinion, give me an example of a fact.
Discussion with teacher: Do a test to determine which sets the pupils go into. The lower ability groups are very small, 5-8 pupils so they can get the most from the lessons. Next lesson they will be looking at texts and trying to depict it, picking out the facts and opinions. Teachers plan as a group-each plan is composed of, assessment tasks, lesson overview, extension, support and literacy and grammar focus.
Slightly outdated worksheet-all about cars, not very engaging. Some of the phrases were hard for children to answer as they didn’t have prior knowledge. For example; 70MPH is the speed limit in the UK. The worksheet could have been more relatable to children.
11:15 French
Learning objective: To finish mobile safety poster.
Pupils were encouraged to use textbooks to help them. (Found this lesson was a tad boring. Some pupils were just copying large texts of French from the textbooks and putting it on their posters-real learning?)
Also went to observe Spanish with another class. Working on time, teaching was getting pupils to come up to the IWB and fill in the correct time on the clock face. (This was more interactive and engaging-children were practicing speaking and writing their Spanish.)
1:10 Art
Learning objective: Painting with ink using textile materials. Attaching materials by sewing methods.
Most pupils had finished their ink work and were now moving onto sewing. The teacher gave them a plain patch of material to practice first. One group were really struggling so the teacher took them to a table and showed them an example.
I was impressed by the large amount of resources available. Plenty of string, buttons, sequins etc.
2:15 Maths
Began the lesson by handing back marked test papers. Pupils had to check their answers and RAG each section. I.e. Symmetry-Green Place Value-Red.
Re-capped on last lesson.-very helpful for this lesson.
Lesson objective: Recognise and plot graphs of cubic functions.
Teacher drew examples on the board and talked the children through the method. Discussion with teacher: The test paper was comprised of questions from past GCSE maths papers; pupils of ALL abilities took the same test. (Not sure if this is a great method-lower ability children would have struggled and may have become disheartened/unmotivated.)
I think getting the children to RAG their work is a great way of getting them to reflect on and analyse their work. It gives the pupils themselves and the teachers an indication of what areas they need to work on in order to progress. Additionally teachers can then track progress using these results. However if pupil has lots of red/amber areas, this may be more discouraging than motivating. This practice relates to both Teaching Standards 2 & 6.
This pupil shared with me his completed RAG results from a recent test paper. He was able to identify areas for improvement.
See Pinterest Page for images of my day:
https://uk.pinterest.com/alhoward23/kings-school-year-7/
reflective blog 