The return to teaching

So here I am, after only returning to teaching from maternity leave for a few weeks before schools closed for COVID, I have found myself mindlessly scrolling on my phone for more hours than I am willing to accept in the last few months. With the reality of returning to the classroom approaching I began to think I could be using this time more productively!

During (my now toddler's) nap times and evenings, I’ve been reading our School's ‘touchstone texts’; Teach like a Champion 2.0 by Doug Lemov and Teaching Walkthru’s by Tom Sherrington & Oliver Caviglioli; or completing CPD webinars with The National College but I wanted to make my ‘mindless scrolling’ a useful learning time too!

As a Lead Practitioner in Teaching in Learning I want/need to make sure I’m ready for the return to the classroom (Twitter: @teachingreturn) so I thought a blog might be a useful way for me to reflect on my practise and hope I can help others along the way. So here’s to making that mindless scrolling a little more mindful and sharing Teaching and Learning ideas for the 'new normal'...

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Lessons learnt from a cyber-attack

No one quite knew what to expect for our first week back in the classroom, but we certainly did not plan for a cyber attack! All use of technology was blocked and it has left us with very little resources... but as with everything there are lessons to be learnt! Thankfully I was organised for the first few weeks with seating plans and all resources printed ready to go. Staff rallied round and shared what resources we had and at the end of the week many staff felt quite invigorated by teaching without technology. Many admitted they had become reliant on the same old resources and it forced them to re-plan around student led activities. Some teachers felt devastated that years of resources have been lost (we are still waiting confirmation on this and are hoping some can be recovered from the cloud somewhere - I am hopeful the Care Bears are looking after them...) and when a teacher was in tears 'but I can't teach without my resources' another teacher said 'of course you c...

Lessons Learnt from Year 10

The honeymoon period is over and the learning gap between the students is emerging. This week I want to reflect on a lessons learnt from my Year 10 class. Despite having been teaching for 10 years now, every year I struggle with a Year 10 class and my Year 10 class this year is no different! They are a mixed ability class and when I say mixed ability my gut tells me their likely GCSE outcomes will range from grade 7 - 3. I say 'gut' because our systems are still being re-built from our cyber attack and I have very little information about their prior attainment. They are also very mixed in their behaviour and levels of engagement so I have to pull every trick out of the box for meaningful learning to take place. Which brings me to my lesson learnt this week and building on my last post about the use of modelling it is also the use of scaffolding that has given me some success with this class. One of Roshenshine's Principles explains how rather than setting lower ...

Lessons Learnt

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