Skip to main content

📝 Weekly Report #29

Finally at the end of what seems like the longest term so far! With staff absence, job interviews, mock exams it just seems like things have been non-stop! 

I will definitely be using the 2 weeks off at Easter to rest up, not think about work at all and put myself in the right frame of mind ready for another tough term with GCSE exams right around the corner.

In the build up to the GCSE's we have provided students with lots of resources to help them to revise e.g. past papers, websites etc but one thing struck me that I hadn't thought about. A number of students aren't clear on the best ways to revise. I even had one student tell me that he just highlights the revision guide!

I spent part of my lesson this week going through exactly how I would like my Year 11s to revise. We spoke about retrieval practice, spacing the topics they are doing and ensuring thy are interleaving topics in the revision they are doing. 

Hopefully now they have concrete strategies that they can use to best prepare them for next term.

📚 Read: 
My latest post on teaching Literacy in Maths. It outlines some strategies a classroom teacher could use but also discusses questions departments could use to improve how Literacy is taught in Maths. Read it here.

🔊 Listen:
Dr Rangan Chatterjee on the High performance podcast talking about Happiness. He talks about always choosing happiness, being authentic to who you are and aligning yourself to your core values. Listen here 

🔊 Listen: 
I've listened to two podcasts episodes about trust. What's essential podcast talking to Stephen Covey where they discuss trusting and inspiring your team to perform.  
High performance podcast with Rachel Botsman talking about trusting yourself to perform and getting others to trust you.
Labels:

Popular posts from this blog

📝 Weekly Report #21

The trainee teacher in our department has started to teach my Year 10 group this week. It has taken me back to when I was training and the struggles that I had and the feedback my mentor would give me. One thing I didn't consider back then was how the class teacher feels who I was taking over from.  I know that as a trainee I was no where near being an amazing teacher but over time I have continually improved. So it has been a struggle for me to allow the trainee to teach my class thinking that there would be aspects that I know I could deliver much better. On the flip side of this it has been great to learn from him by watching him teach and being able to give small steps to improve for next time. The initial focus has been on general pedagogy, e.g. use of questioning, planning for misconceptions etc. It's made me reflect on my own teaching ensuring I don't just talk it, I walk the walk too! I've also enjoyed seeing the improvements he has been able to make lesson on l...
Read more

📝 Weekly Report #7

👨‍🏫 Teaching: Colin Hegarty has recently been posting questions from Sparx and discussing which questions are better to use and why. Check out some of his tweets here . It got me thinking about the questions and examples I use in my own teaching, in particular around the numbers I choose to use. It highlights the need to carefully craft questions to pull out misconceptions and ensure students are learning the concept correctly rather than getting to the answer by chance. Unfortunately time is precious and so it is very difficult to do this for every question in every lesson I teach. Having said that, I have made a conscious effort to ensure the examples I am using are there on purpose and can be used to highlight key concepts so students can generalise ideas more easily. Will definitely look into this more as part of my NCETM course throughout the year. Definitely given me lots to think about to improve my teaching.  🔊 Listen: High performance podcast with Mark Cavendish. Mark t...
Read more

📝 Weekly Report #4

👨‍🏫 Teaching: We had our schools open evening this week which was a fantastic opportunity to show off some of the great things we are doing in our department. Ended up speaking to lots of parents and potential future students until late in the evening. It's really noticeable how much of a difference a positive attitude towards maths from parents rubs off on their child. When parents are supportive and encourage their child to do well in maths, the child themselves is happy to have a go at activities and shows much more resilience when challenged. Hopefully this bodes well for next year's Year 7s and we have another fantastic cohort.  🔊 Listen: Have done a bit less listening this week as I have started riding my bike to work rather than driving so the podcast have taken a hit. However I have managed to re-listen to James Clears Atomic Habits on Audible. It's a great book with lots of takeaways. I regularly revisit this book and take something new away. This week's th...
Read more