Good quality marking

 

‘High- quality marking of written work makes a vital contribution to pupil progress. Marking provides children with a clear and precise guide to how to improve their next piece of work and a clear expectation that they concentrate on improving this aspect as the next small step in making progress in their learning overall. In effect, marking is short- term target setting for pupils, as well as an opportunity for teachers to make accurate assessments of pupil progress and needs.’ – Desford Primary School (2017).

During my placement, there was no marking policy. However, I agree with the statement above and consider effective marking as a crucial form of assessment. The children love receiving feedback and next steps. It is evident that I have also used positive reinforcement within my marking to praise the child for producing such a fantastic piece of work. I always ensure to begin with strengths and then provide areas for improvement. I expected the children to respond to my marking to ensure that they have fully understood their feedback and if I have corrected spelling then I complied with the class teacher and expected them to correct underneath. Although marking is very time consuming, it is key to pupil progress through providing effective feedback. I aim to continue providing good quality written feedback as I develop into an NQT.

 

Multi-sensory teaching

 

“If a child is not learning in the way you teach, change your teaching strategy and teach the child in the way he learns!”

Multisensory techniques are frequently used for children with learning differences. Multi-sensory teaching techniques and strategies stimulate learning by engaging students on multiple levels. They encourage students to use some or all their senses to:

• Gather information about a task
• Link information to ideas they already know and understand
• Perceive the logic involved in solving problems
• Learn problem solving tasks
• Tap into nonverbal reasoning skills
• Understand relationships between concepts
• Store information and store it for later recall

The images above were used in a specialised setting with children who had ASD. They were really engaged with the crafts activity and loved the idea of using shaving foam to dye their eggs. The boys who I used it with loved touching and feeling the shaving foam, as they were Autistic, they would have loved the texture and the feel of it. It was a great way to teach them about the different colours and what happens when you mix colours together. A very messy but meaningful activity!

Guided Reading CPD session – Phase 1b

During my time on professional practice, I attended a CPD session on Guided Reading. This was a fundamental opportunity to improve my subject knowledge within English. Through attending the session, I learnt a variety of tips that have stayed with me and support my teaching of English and Guided Reading.

• Teachers should be reading to the children ASWELL as the children reading to the teacher – this was an interesting point that I had never actually considered before. I knew that it was important to read to children but I never knew the theory behind it.
• Do not group by reading ability – differentiate questions but same objective!
• Children do not need to hold the book for the initial reading, they should be listening to the story.
• A.F’s should NOT be used (As I used on my previous practice)
• The same text should be used for each group with differentiated questions
• Use ‘test’ language – ‘Can you…? Will you….?’
• Starter activity – fastest finger
• The difficulty of the text should not increase the difficulty of the objective
• Question maps
• Children should have the opportunity to read for pleasure, without questioning

How do children learn?

LAURA BOLTON PED1011 ASSIGNMENT

During my first year at university, I wrote an assignment based on how children learn. Inspiring the focus of this critically analysis, were a variety of learning theories.

‘It is evident that the practical applications of different theories are evident in schools today. I have realised how influential theorists are today within education and this is because I have observed teacher’s implement important theories into their daily classroom settings. I have also reflected on how I have seen these theories used in my previous placements, but also how they could be implemented within the future. Learning theories impact children’s learning in many ways but however, I believe that Operant Conditioning is the most influential. This is because this can be implemented practically but effectively, which I have observed through frequent experience. Operant conditioning is also a theory I strongly believe I will use throughout my future development as a teacher.’

End of Professional Practice report – Phase 2

Laura Bolton End of Professional Practice Report (Scanned)

 

Self-assessment of Speaking and Listening

This self-assessment template was used after a lesson based on Anne Frank’s no silent campaign. The boys used their speaking and listening skills to reflect on their verbal performances. This enabled them to identify strengths and areas for improvement. As the boys watched their performances back on video, this enabled them to evaluate their work personally. This was a key strength as I used technology effectively to support learning and reflection. However, the IWB that I was using chopped off half of the boys faces which they found comical! I learnt to always test out technology prior to planning! Although this encourages rigorous self-reflection, it is important that the children know how to do this effectively. I had to model quite a lot in order for them to understand how to do this so if I were to implement this again in the future, it is important that the children know how to reflect and don’t just tick ‘yes’ without meaning.

Grade 1 English Observation

Using ‘I can…’ statements

During my Phase 2 practice, I implemented ‘I Can’ statements which enables pupils to reflect on what they have learnt so far, as well as providing as an assessment tool. The template was given to the children at the beginning of the topic and we would tick off what we have done so far. It was a good way to look back and reflect on when children were absent and what they have missed. This could then be implemented into future planning. I got the idea from observing the year 6 teacher’s Science lesson so I asked for support with regard to planning the templates and how to implement them within the classroom. This was a beneficial tool for me but I question the effectiveness for the children. Although it allows them to see their own progress, some children were ticking things dishonestly and inaccurately. For example, a child ticked every box on the first lesson. This was a critical incident for me – as it taught me that I must model how to use checklists to prevent this from happening again. This is something that I will always remember.

Observation of English – Phase 2

History observation Y4 – Phase 2