Week 13, observations, textiles demonstrations and bioplastics...

 Monday was my first formal observation. My uni tutor came in to see my lesson with the year 8s and their pop-up books. I felt quite nervous but well prepared I had planned my lesson and readied my resources it was just the behaviour management I was worried about as this is a tough class. The lesson was probably my best lesson so far with that class but still I felt didn’t go great due to some of the student’s behaviour. My tutor spoke to me after the lesson and gave me a pretty good report. He suggested things that need working on and things I had missed. I was really annoyed at myself because one of the things he picked up on was that I don’t give clear timings for activities however this is something I am good at and almost always do, I guess I forgot due to nerves. Some of his suggestions I thought were good and I will take them on however my mentor gave me the good advice of ‘knowing your audience’. This class is a hard class to teach and I felt some of his suggestions just would not work with that class due to behavioural and SEN issues although they would work really well with some of my other classes so still really appreciated the advice.

Tuesday I had my year 7s and decided to take on some of my tutors advice by giving  the students something to do whilst I take the register so they are focused as soon as they walk through the door. I had 2 statements on the board of things I would like them to think about as they were settling and listening out for their name. I asked them to think about all the new skills they had learned and what they feel most proud of. After I took the register we had a bit of a group discussion about this as students put their hands up and gave their thoughts. I felt this worked well and will try more activities like these in lessons. The students then got on with finishing their boxes. Some of the higher ability students have finished already so I had planned some extension activities, the first being a self evaluation of the work, a form a self assessment really. Then I asked them to work on packaging for their products using manufacturing nets which also brought some numeracy to my lesson, brilliant! In the afternoon I had the year 9s who are carrying on making their toys, I handed out production journals for them to fill in throughout the lesson. The journals were for them to assign roles in the group, write about who has being doing what and at what level they are working and then deciding as a group how things can be improved, a bit of self assessment, peer assessment and literacy all in one a activity, I’m getting the hang if this! Last lesson I was with the year 10s and it was now my mentors turn to give me a formal lesson observation. They have just starting working on their new projects for their GCSE and are in the initial stages of coming up with an idea for their project as they have a fairly open brief. I used this lesson to go through the marking criteria so it was easier for them to understand how to get top marks then though a group discussion and a powerpoint presentation we talked about how to focus their ideas and then be able to write an appropriate brief, after this I let the students just get on with their work giving one to one help where needed. My mentor gave me some good feedback and will give me my observation form back next week.

Wednesday I had year 8 textiles again and I said I would take the second hour and demonstrate how to do appliqué, seen as I had only learned the technique last week I was feeling pretty nervous. Due to it being near the end of term and Christmas concert rehearsals pretty much taking over the timetable meant that my class was diminished down to a lovely size of about 8 students. The demo went fairly smoothly, I felt I had covered pretty much everything that needed to be covered, stressed health and safety and let the students talk me through how to set the machine up giving me the chance to check their understanding. As my class was so small I didn’t have to worry about the lack of machines as for once there were more machines than students so they were all able to get on and practice. I was really impressed with some of the skills in this class and their ideas so again left feeling quite sad that I won’t be able to see their finished products. The teacher gave me great feedback from this lesson and was impressed that I had taken on her advice from last time, to talk slowly and be clearer and more focused; she said she could see definite improvement…good news! That afternoon we had professional studies, all about getting literacy into lessons this time, I found it quite helpful and am finding I am getting better at including literacy and numeracy into my lessons. Finally last lesson the year 7s had a cover lesson, I said I would take them and plan their lesson. I got them to start their evaluations and then start working on their nets. A couple of students finished so I gave them a Christmassy activity, they designed and made little 3D Christmas trees out of paper.

Thursday I gave a short presentation about what the Design world is like after school. For those who are wanting to continue on to University I told them about how different it is to A level and explained about all the new techniques and technologies they will be able to work with. I then spoke to them a bit how a Design office works and also about how setting up your own Design business works. The students asked a few questions then just got on with their work, they seemed to be in a fairly sombre mood as they were all pretty far behind in their coursework and had a deadline the next day.

Friday at Goldsmiths we were back to our first subject specialism and learning about plastics. The first half of the day was alright, I know a fair bit about plastic already and didn’t really feel like I needed to play with the plastic to learn anymore although it was quite fun to heat and bend the acrylic. The afternoon however was brilliant, we were told all about bioplastics and were shown how to make our own out of various food ingrediants. A great cross curricular way to educate the students about plastics as it obviously covers materials and food but also biology. The cornstartch bioplastic I have seen before and seem to have started being used commercially but is still more expensive than other plastic so will be a while before it is wildly used. Because the bioplastics are technically just food we thought we would eat some and see what it tasted like, turns out it had no taste but I loved the thought of being able to get the students to make their own plastic and then eat it although I would hope this doesn’t lead them think that all plastics are edible!  Definitely the best workshop session we have had and I will be trying to make some of the plastics at home!

Week 12, losing the love...

 Monday I was back with the year 8s and decided to make this lesson the lesson I tested out my ‘handling collection’ for my PARPA assignment. I found out 2 new students had joined my class now making it much larger than it should be for a workshop and one of those students has been moved as his behaviour is so bad he can’t be around certain students. So I went into the lesson already feeling low in confidence but I also felt I had planned it well and was keen to try out new methods of behaviour management after advice from my mentor and from the professional studies. I started the lesson with a recap on what we had learned last time, this was for me as formative assessment to test their understanding but was also a chance for the students to tell the two new students about what we had learned so they could catch up. I had asked the students last time to bring in a mechanism from home, I was really impressed with some of them especially the student who brought in a door lock and handle. I placed a few mechanisms on each table and asked the students to discuss them in their groups. Find the mechanisms and figure out what is going on, I also asked them to think about if the mechanism could be used for something else. I gave them about 5 minutes per table then asked them to swap so everyone got a chance to see and play with all the mechanism. I then asked them to bring them all back to the front and organise them into piles of what they thought were complex and what they thought were simple with the intent of showing them that just because something looks complex doesn’t mean it is. The second half of the lesson I gave them a short design brief, I asked them to invent a device for waking someone up early in the morning. The devices must have at least one mechanism, I wanted to see if they could put their knowledge and understanding of mechanisms into their design ideas. I then asked them to present their ideas to the class. This class is a particularly hard class in terms of behaviour and other issues. I soon realised that the ‘handling collection’ was lost on them and I should have given them specific tasks, kept them focused and definitely not let them move around the classroom. Most of my mechanisms came back broken which I wouldn’t have minded if they were broken by exploration as that is kind of the point of the ‘hands on’ learning. However they were broken through sheer lack of respect, they were thrown around the class, ripped up and smashed. After speaking to my mentor we decided that I would try again with this class and next time get them to sit at their table and draw out the mechanisms, not the product, the mechanism to see if they can figure them out and how they work. I had a really bad day this Monday, the year 8 class didn’t really help but neither did being shouted at by one of the senior teachers twice for things that had nothing to do with me. I went home feeling really annoyed and needing reassurance as to why I had chosen to go into the teaching profession.

Tuesday, the year 7 class was a cover lesson but I went in to help out as I haven’t been with the year 7s for a while. They were unable to do practical so were given worksheets and asked to draw a manufacture plan for their boxes. So they had to think right back to the beginning when all they had were 4 pieces of wood and give a detailed account of how they got to where they are now naming tools and processes. Some of the students found this quite hard so I encouraged them to help each other out and the lesson went quite well in the end. I then had a year 10 class with my mentor. They are starting their GCSE project so my mentor spent the first half of the lesson explaining what briefs they allowed to choose and how they are assessed. I then gave a Powerpoint presentation about finding a need. GCSE students have a tendency to design something they want just want just because they want to make it without any real thought behind it so I wanted to explain to them about why it is important to find a need. If they want to make a chair that’s find but I want them to really think about how many chairs are out in the world already so what is the point of making another one? What makes theirs different? Why does their chair deserve to exist in the market? After talking to them about this I asked them to mindmap some first thoughts on a project and from looking at these thoughts I think what I had said made sense to them. Last lesson I had another cover lesson where I went in to help out. They were the year 9’s making a children’s toy. They were really disappointed about not being able to carry on with their practical so we tried to make sure that their cover work was fun and sort of relevant. We gave out worksheets with a games cover for a games console on the front and asked them to label parts eg. logo, rating etc. We then asked then to explain why a cover is so important, then gave them a brief to come up with 3 cover designs for a game they have made it, so they had to think about characters, stories and superpowers. If they finished this they were to design their own superhero along with costume and super powers. After the students initially complained about having to do a worksheet “that’s boring Miss”, once they got started they actually seemed to enjoy it and came up with some great ideas. 

Wednesday my school was closed due to the strike, judge me if you will for not taking part in the march to support the strike I decided to stay at home and get on with some work and actually had quite a productive day. 

Thursday, I had the 6th formers. Year 12 I just went in to give some one to one help with their initial coursework. I was really impressed with the amount of work they had produced and especially impressed with a girl who I gave some advice to last week and found that she had taken that advice and had done the activity I suggested she should do and got great results from in. This brought some of my love for teaching back. Year 13s were just getting on with their work so I just gave help to those who needed it. It is really nice to see how the students are getting on with their project, today made me quite sad that I won’t get to see the finished things.

 

Friday, back at Goldsmiths I had my first textiles workshop and I felt pretty lucky as the sewing machines we were using is the sewing I have at home, the one I bought a few years ago for £30 at a flee market and never really fully knew how to use. Rose told us what we were going to being doing in the workshop and I felt lucky again as we were making cushions and learning different types of embellishment including applique, my year 8s are designing and making cushions and learning how to do applique…handy! After a few test drives on the sewing machine we tried out a really cool technique, cut and slash which involves at least 3 pieces of materials, sewing a series of straight lines through then cutting in between the lines allowing the bottom materials to show through. As a group we loved this, it look great and had a really nice textural feel to it. We were then shown how to do applique which was fairly easy, then we were free to experiment. We were given dot and cross paper with measurements on for each part of our cushion and had complete freedom of what materials we could use so as indecisive as I am it took a good half an hour to select just one material and then decide on a colour. Once we had all of our pieces ready we started making our cushion’s but by this point it was the end of the day so we have to finish them at home.

Rubbish Penguin...

As it is the last week of term and also my last week at my first school placement I have decided to make my last year 7 lesson a Christmasy one. After a festive quiz I will supply each team with one bin bag, one metro newspaper, one piece of A4 white paper, one piece of A4 yellow paper, one black felt pen, some scissors and some sellotape. This is all they are allowed to use and with these materials they must make a penguin much like the one I made whilst testing out this idea, quite cute I think! The team with the best penguin will win some Christmasy chocolatey treats. I'm excited to see their creations, will post pictures of theirs later!

Lonely London Bike #2...

I'm using this as a test shot as well I think as I'm not sure that this classes as a lonely 'bike' due to the fact the it is only a wheel. I do however really like that the wheel is bent, it makes it look sort of slumped which adds the lonely/sad kind of emotion. Still, more to come...

Week 11, rotations, cultural celebrations and peer assessments...

Monday, the year 8s had their rotation so I got a brand new class and I had been given the responsibility to take them from the start. I got their class list and there are quite a few SEN students and students with behavioural issues so I decided to make a seating plan. I started the lesson by going over health and safety in the workshop then spoke to them about mechanisms. I went through a powerpoint and put together a worksheet that we could all go through together as a class. I questioned the class throughout using formative assessment I tested their understanding. The students were then shown a how to make ‘the mouth’ paper mechanism and given a design brief to make a Christmas card using the mechanism. I left the lesson feeling really unsure as to how it went there were good points and pretty bad points, the thing I definitely took from the lesson however was that I really need to work on my behaviour management, I am struggling to keep their attention and really need to work on that.

 

Tuesday I had to take a day off school for a not so fun reason so I’ll skip straight onto Wednesday and the year 8 textiles, again because of the rotation there was a new class. Their teacher did the first part of the lesson by introducing their workbooks and telling them about their new project; making a cushion with surface designs inspired by cultural celebration. I took the second half and spoke to them about getting inspiration and about going from inspiration to design ideas. I told them about how obviously when thinking of countries people think of flags and we don’t want 22 cushions churned out with flags on. I explained to them how to draw inspiration from a flag by getting them to think about the colours, the shapes and the symbols and how they could make them into a new image. I found a great image off the internet that I think got the point across. It features stars and stripes and the colours red, white and blue however it is not the American flag but you can tell which country it is trying to portray. 

That afternoon we had professional studies ran by the music teacher who was running a session on voice coaching. We had a similar session at Goldsmiths a while ago from a drama teacher. It was all about finding different ways of getting the students attention so you don’t have to shout and if you do need to shout we were taught techniques of how to shout from your stomach and not your throat as to preserve your voice. My throat has been killing recently I’m not sure whether it is from shouting or from the cold that seems to be sneaking up on me but either way I will be taking her advice.

Thursday I spent the day at a Primary School, we have to do this to see how the year 6 students are prepared for their transition into Secondary School. I visited a school in Hackney, it was a new building, only two years old and was really beautiful. The corridors and classrooms where so spacious and with big windows they were so light. The students at this school do not have to wear uniform and can call the teachers by their first name which I found a bit strange. The year 6 class I was sitting in on was being covered by the head teacher of the school and the students were even calling him by his first name. I asked one of the teachers about this at lunchtime and she explained to me that they see uniforms and calling teacher’s sir and miss or Mr and Mrs whoever… is too strict and too military and doesn’t provide a good atmosphere in the school. I’m not sure I agree with this and I definitely feel that the year 6 students from a school like this will struggle when moving into a secondary school with these rules and restrictions.  I spent the afternoon with the year 3 students who were doing arts and crafts; this was really fun and good to see the difference in how creative studies are taught in Primary. I really liked one of the systems they had in place for behaviour management however. They had a big poster on the wall with little pockets on, on each of the pockets was the students names. All the students start with a green card in their pocket if they are rewarded throughout the day their cards go up from green to bronze to silver to gold and of course they can go down too. If students are behaving badly or are late their card goes down through the colours to red being the worst. I really enjoyed my day but left knowing that I am glad I went into Secondary teaching and not Primary, it’s definitely not for me.

 

Friday at Goldsmiths we were put in groups to talk about our PARPA projects. We were put into small groups who are to be our peer assessment groups now until January. We used this day to talk about what we have done so far and got advice on what we need to do and where we go from here. It was really helpful and I feel a bit more on track with it now, will be testing mine out on Monday so will see how that goes…

Week 10, inventions, countersinkig and the NEC...

Monday was my first experience of really taking a class in terms of I had complete control with what I wanted to teach them and what I would like them to do. It was the last lesson of the year 8s pop up book project before they move onto textiles so for the first part of the lesson they were self-assessing their finished books and handing in all their work. I then did a short presentation recapping what they had learned from their project and then showed them a really short youtube clip of Wallace and Gromit at their best playing around with inventions. I explained that I would like the students to in groups design their own invention thinking about all the mechanism and motions they had learned over the past few weeks. They seemed to really enjoy this mini project and some of the results were great! Some students made card models and had thoroughly thought about each part of their invention. However one big issue from the lesson was I realised I really need to work on my behaviour management, they are a good class and got on well with their work but when it came to me talking to them and students presenting their work to each other I found it hard to keep the class silent. I spoke to my mentor about this, she gave me some good advice and I will try a few different methods when I get my new year 8s next week. 

 

 

Tuesday I started with my year 7s and their wooden trinket boxes, I did a demo of how to paint their boxes to a quality finish then let them get on with it. I thought the lesson went really well and my time management is definitely getting better. That afternoon I had the year 9s and their children’s toy project. I did a demo of how to countersink screws which again like the year 7 class went well. I still think I talk to much when doing my demos which eats into the students practical time so will need to keep working on that. Other than that the lesson went well so I went home on Tuesday feeling quite pleased with myself.

Wednesday I was back with textiles. It was also their last lesson of their cushion project so they were finishing their products and self assessing. I am still not feeling too confident with the textiles classes so decided to just observe and help out again. Most of the student finished and actually looked really good. I was impressed with some of the effort students had gone to, above and beyond what was asked of them. I spoke to the textiles teacher about the lesson next week with the new class of year 8s. We decided I would take the second half of the 2 hours lesson and talk to them about inspiration and initial designs. That afternoon we had professional studies which was all about behaviour management, rather handy for me as that is what I have discovered I really need to work on this week. The two guys who came in to talk to us were great. They are teachers at a school down the road and gave us some great hints and tips and some brilliant stories from when they were training. It was great to get to talk to all the other trainee teachers about this and nice to know others were finding it hard also.

Thursday I took the other year 9 class also doing the children’s toy project. I did my countersinking demo again which was definiately my best demo so far. I felt really pleased with how it went. I was organised, prepared and managed to not talk and talk and talk to them taking up most of the lesson. It was precise and quick and they seemed to understand so that’s also a plus! Still a couple of things to work on but I feel like I am getting there. Later that day I gave a short presentation to a year 12 class about what the design world is like after school. I spoke about presenting to clients, dealing with harsh criticism, handling open briefs and various other things. This seemed to prove quite useful to some of the students, I spoke to a few of them one on one later that lesson and some of the things I had talked about they had started really thinking about and thought about how they could add various things to their coursework to step up the grades. I then had a meeting with my mentor after school. She looked at my lesson plans and gave me good advice on how to improve. I need to add in more specific terms about questioning and assessment, she also told me how to link my lesson plans to the curriculum, the schemes of work and my Qualified Teacher Status points.

Friday we were asked to get up bright and early and be at Goldsmiths for 7.15am. We all met up looking rather sleepy and not so enthusiastic and eventually boarded a coach heading to Birmingham. We were off to the NEC to visit the Design and Technology show. Due to a bit of a strange coach driver who had to ask for directions it took a long time to get there, so we arrived around 12. There were a lot of laser cutters and 3D printers and only really a few that were of any interest to me. I was particularly impressed with a company who had come up with a conductive paint along with educational packs you can use at schools. They had an example on their wall; paintings of instruments which when you touched them their sound was played. I was also really impressed with the Dyson stand and the educational pack they loan out to schools. I spoke to the Craft Council about knitting clubs, I have to teach textiles up to key stage 3 in schools but other than wool and knitting I don’t know much about textiles and don’t have much interest in teaching it. They don’t teach knitting in school but the Craft Council have come up with after school knitting club that are run by the WI and it sounds brilliant so will look into how to get that started if I can in my second school placement or if not then I will when I am in my first proper teaching job.

Week 9, highs, lows and laser cutters...

Monday morning yet again…Miss Milne was away this particular Monday morning so I had to take form on my own, well with a cover teacher in the room as with being a PGCE student I am not allowed to be in a classroom on my own yet. I have been in school for a month now so know quite well how form is run on Monday mornings. Silent reading, check they have had their planners signed and read out any announcements. It all went quite well although I am finding that when Miss Milne isn’t there they tend to act up a bit and don’t always respond when I ask them to be quiet. I think they are aware that I am not technically a teacher so seem less bothered when I tell them off. Silent reading therefore was not so silent but they didn’t behave too badly and would quiet down when I asked. I then went off to the year 8s again as always on a Monday morning where they were finishing off their pop-up books. I was asked to give them a quick demo of how to safely use a Stanley knife for cutting card. The class were then just getting on with their books and didn’t really need any help so Chrissy asked if I would like to try out some marking. She gave me coursework from two year 11s, one was of a high standard and one of a low standard and whilst referencing to a GCSE leveling sheet she asked me to mark the first two sections. She had already marked them so when I was finished we compared our results to see if I was doing it right. There were fairly close although I seemed to be too harsh in parts and too generous in others, it was good practise though.

 

Tuesday started with my form having assembly with the theme being Remembrance Day and the importance of the Poppy. I then had a year 7 lesson where Yazz asked me to do another demo. My previous demos for the year 7s had gone pretty well so I had gone into the lesson feeling confident…mistake. I should have listened to Yazz, no two lesson are the same and always be prepared. My demo went horribly wrong with my biggest mistake being not prepared. It should have been easy and taken 5 minutes however due to my mistakes I confused the students and talked for about 20 minutes eating away at their practical time. The silver lining from this epic fail is I now know first hand what not to do and can greatly learn from this. Tuesday afternoon, Yazz and Chrissy were off timetable so had organized cover teachers for their lessons however I asked if I could still go along and take the lessons anyway. I had Year 9 first working on their children’s toys in groups. They had been moved to a different classroom and knew they were having a cover teacher, a recipe for bad behaviour. I gave them their tasks to do and tried out my behaviour management skills as the class where playing up from the start. I sat one student on his own after he was persistently being distracting to other students and was impressed when he spent the rest of the lesson getting on with his work in silence. The lesson didn’t go too badly I left feeling I had much work to do with my behaviour management skills but feeling quite proud of how I handled the situation. I then had the Year 10 class also being covered. They were in their normal classroom, a small and really nice group. I had the lesson for them well prepared and it all went smoothly.

Wednesday I decided to get my form to do silent reading again as they had failed to be silent for me on Monday, this seemed to make them realise that although I am not technically a teacher I can still enforce rules and punishments. They were quieter than I had ever seen them. I then had my second textiles class where I was now more prepared to deal with the students with SEN as I had looked up their needs. I was still just observing so the lesson was spent helping out where needed and speaking to students about their work. I had professional studies that afternoon about school councils and how valuable they are to schools, I will take what I had learned from the session and make sure I work on the importance of ‘student voice’ in my form. I then decided to take the year 7 class again who I had the bad lesson with the day before. I don’t usually take this lesson but felt I needed to redeem myself. Yazz let me take the whole class from start to finish and told me to focus on my time management bearing in mind the class tend to be quite slow in packing away. The lesson went much better than the day before but there are still areas I need to work on, preparation still being my problem so I have organised time to work on this when Yazz is free. 

Thursday I spent some time with Yazz who showed me how to change the blades on the three different scroll saws she has in her workshop and spoke to some of the year 12s about their projects. In the afternoon Chrissy had asked if I would do a short presentation for the year 11s about social and environmental issues when designing products so I whipped up my first Powerpoint which took me about 6 hours to do 6 slides due to my slight OCD in regards to choosing a suitable font and making sure all the images where the same size and in line with each other. My presentation went pretty well and the students actually took notes which was great to see. I spent the rest of the lesson helping students out with their projects and coursework.

 

Friday, back at Goldsmiths we played about with 2D design, another programme schools use as it is free but is so outdated and actually really annoying to use. However 2D design links really well with laser cutters which is what the session was all about. We learned a lot about the laser cutter and I now really want one of my own in my flat shame they cost rather a lot of money! We made a small design on 2D then sent the file to be laser cut. I decided to make a little present for my boyfriend who I’m sure is getting a bit sick of all the stuff I keep bringing home from the workshops. It is really cool to watch the laser go and the results are brilliant. There is a laser cutter at my school that the students are currently doing a project where they will be using it, I feel a lot more confident in teaching the students about it now. We were then shown the 3D printers which I am quite familiar with already having used one at University where I printed off a model I had made on Maya but no matter how much I already know about the process it’s still pretty impressive what you can do.

Lonely London Bikes...

I had an idea a while ago about a photography project I would like to do. I find it quite sad seeing bikes locked up around London which are broken or have had parts stolen rendering them useless. I have a tendency to add personalities to inanimate objects and that is how I came up with the idea. I think the bikes look really sad and lonely now their owner has decided they no longer want them so leave them abandoned on the streets of London. This is my first shot and a bit of a tester, more to come...

Autumn...

Week 8, belt sanders and orthographics...

Back to school after half term and feeling (not so) refreshed I spent Monday shadowing a year 7 student for the day so I could get a feel for their typical school day and how they get on with adjusting from Primary to secondary school. I sat in on History, English, Music and Drama. The lessons were all similar in terms of structure; all teachers used starter, main, plenary and the same sort of behavioural methods. The countdown with a raised hand seems to be most commonly used and most effective. I really enjoyed sitting in on the Music lesson the teacher was brilliant. Starting off with a clapping game where students were eliminated if they were wrong got the students really excited especially when the teacher said the winner would get a reward. The students then gathered round the Piano as the teacher started to play, they suddenly broke into Adele – Rolling in the Deep. It was brilliant, a current song so the students were clearly enjoying it and wanting to sing along. She got the boys and girls to sing different parts to create a harmony then instructed whilst still in song ‘louder’, ‘now really quiet’, ‘now in cockney’. The students loved it, all the students who I had seen acting up and not paying attention in previous lesson were now joining in and behaving as good as gold. Overall I got a really good feel for a typical school day; the difference in behaviour and teaching in non practical and practical lessons was particularly useful to me as I need to know how to teach effectively in both situations.

Tuesday, I went into my year 7 class with Yazz who I did a starter with before half term thinking this lesson I would just be observing and helping out if needed. However Yazz insisted that I brought them in from outside and took the register again so they see me as their teacher as well. I then did a demonstration for them, they are still making their boxes out of Plywood and some of them have gotten to a point where they need to sand down their edges. So I showed them how to use the belt sander. They were all familiar with sandpaper and seemed to get the gist pretty quickly as to what the belt sander was and how it worked. I went over all the health and safety and did a quick demo for them, some of them seemed quite scared by the machine so I ensured them that this was fine and it they didn’t feel confident using it I could show them again one to one. They then got on with finishing their boxes and I spent the lesson checking everyone was getting on all right and helping out where needed. Later that afternoon I also did a starter for a year 9 class. I again brought them in from outside, took the register and explained that I would be doing a quick demonstration for them before they got on with things. They are working in groups designing and making children’s toys, they have just about finished making prototypes so it was a perfect opportunity for me to introduce them to orthographic drawings. I gathered them around a table and showed them by drawing on a set out piece of paper how it was done, they seemed a bit confused so I got a radio down from a shelf and showed them with that so they could see how the drawing made sense with the physical object. This seemed to make more sense to them and they all got on with it. I didn’t feel like it went very well despite the students getting on with their drawings with no real confusion and Yazz telling me she thought it went well. Yazz then decided that maybe I should try and improve on the demonstration and try again with her other year 9 class later in the week. After school there was a department meeting so I got to meet the textiles and food tech teachers as well as the art teachers. The meeting was a great opportunity to see how a department works and how they link together in their learning aims and objectives and their assessment.

Wednesday, I observed my first textiles lesson. I was quite nervous, as I know I am going to have to teach them in a few weeks and I am really not confident in the subject, as I don’t know too much about it. I voiced these concerns with the teacher who talked me through all the schemes of work and said she can run through a lot of the things that are taught with me.  It is a year 8 class, they are making cushions and this lesson were getting on with decorating the front of them. The students are all pretty good on the sewing machines and have starting using a lot of different techniques. The theme of the cushions is cultural celebrations so the students decide on a country they are interested and their research and designs go from there. There were some really nice ideas in the group and some really talented students. This was the first real lesson I have been in where a few of the students had obvious Special Educational Needs so there was a Teaching Assistant in the classroom too. The TA spent most of the lesson with a boy with cerebral palsy who was in a wheelchair. The other students were very supportive of him and I quite often saw students go over to him and praise him on his work. One of the sewing machines was fitted with special equipment which meant he didn’t need to use the foot pedal he could use the machine just with his hands. Other students had issues which meant they needed constant reassurance of behaving well and doing their work well, they also got really angry and frustrated when their work went wrong. It was really lovely to see other students give them support and help them out. It also showed me how to effectively manage a class where there are students with all kinds of different needs. We had a professional studies session in the afternoon about how to deal with students who have suffered a loss whether it be a death in the family, divorce or even family members in prison. We were told effective ways to pick up on if a child is dealing with something and not talking about it and how to help them. School then closed early as there was an open evening for potential 6^th formers. I went back over to my department to help set their classroom up then went home.

Thursday School started a bit later than normal but I got in early for my weekly mentor meeting. We had a lot to talk about so I ended up have to come back after morning form. We discussed the classes I will be taking over and what lessons I need to plan. We also discussed my PARPA assignment as I had come up with some ideas of how I could incorporate it into the year 8 project. Chrissy seemed to think it was a great idea so I have started planning that. We also discussed how I had been getting on at Davenant, she gave me a glowing report so I definitely feel more confident now and am excited to start teaching whole lessons. It was then time to try my orthographic drawing demonstration with the other year 9 class of Yazzs. I felt it went much better this time, the fact that I came well prepared helped. I brought in the boat we had made a few weeks ago in the workshop and did the orthographic drawing of it in front of them so they could clearly relate the physical object with the drawing. They seemed to understand much more quickly so I let them get on with it for about 15 minutes before stopping them again to explain about cutting list. I felt really comfortable when teaching this class so left feeling confident and eager to teach some more.

Friday as always was spent back at Goldsmiths where I didn’t have the best days. First off I turned up at 10 as we usually do only to find that we were actually in at 9, there had been a forum set up and this information was on there but for some reason my Goldsmiths account has disabled emails from this forum I never knew existed so did not get the message the majority of the class seemed to. Anyway I headed off to the library with a small group for a session in 3D modelling using Prodesktop which is terrible but predominately used in schools and Rhino which is much better and similar to Maya which I used a lot at University so got the hang of quite quickly.

Week 7, half term...

After 2 weeks in a school I got a week off, the joys of being a teacher! I did have a lot to get on with however so after a really fun weekend in Lincoln saying goodbye so some great friends of mine who are moving to Australia it was time to get on with things. Once up from a much deserved lie in I got organising my folders and all the paperwork I have collected over the past few weeks.

Tuesday morning I was back at Goldsmiths for my first tutorial meeting, it was good to speak to someone about how the past few weeks have been going and we made sure I had been doing everything I should have been doing and flagged up any issues. I definitely felt a lot better after the meeting, I was feeling a bit lost and confused for a while thinking I was doing quite well but not really sure I was actually doing well, I at least now know I am on the right tracks and know what I have to do in the next few weeks.

During my week off, my boyfriend and I took a trip to the design museum; there was a couple of really good exhibitions on. ‘Kenneth Grange – Making Britain Modern’ was quite inspiring, he is one of Britain’s leading Product Designers and has been designing for over 50 years. He has designed such a vast variety of products from food processors and razors to London’s Black Cabs and trains. My favourite item from his exhibition was probably ‘The Really Useful Bookcase’ from his one of his personal projects as it really shows his fun side amongst all the clients, briefs and restrictions. The bookcase doubles up as a coffin with removable shelves and a lid stored at the back, he really has fun with the clarity of functionality. 

Another exhibition showing at the minute is ‘This is Design’ and is definitely worth a look. Some design classics are on show such as the anglepoise and the red phone box. I was easily pleased as there was a pretty big collection of chairs for me to gaze at, chairs by Charles and Ray Eames, Marcel Brueur and Ron Arad amongst many others. What I really loved about the exhibition though was the really overlooked design objects such as British road signs. The amount of work that goes into designing them down to spacing of the letters was pretty inspiring and with Design and Technology really struggling in the curriculum at the minute it really made me think all the politicians should come and see this exhibition to see how much Design effects everything we use everyday.

For the first time I really found myself looking at the exhibition and only really thinking about the students at my school. I kept taking pictures to show them for inspiration, thinking how things I had seen could really help with their projects and what they could learn from the exhibition I had a really nice moment of contentment that this is definitely a career I am going to love.

Pritt Stick...

 When I decided to go traveling I was given all sorts of information and lists of essential travel items, one item that kept popping up on these lists was a Pritt Stick. My boyfriend found this hilarious so bought me one for Christmas as a joke. I then decided that I would take the Pritt Stick with me and take photos of it where ever I went which I then put together in a book for him as a present. So the Pritt Stick did end up being quite essential.

Week 6, starters and alluminium...

 

Monday morning, back to school and back with the year 8s pop up book project. During their double lesson I had a meeting with my mentor, we discussed me doing a starter for one of Yazz’s year 7 classes this week and she showed me how to change the blades on some of the saws in the workshop. I spent Monday night putting together a worksheet for the year 7s as a starter. The worksheet is a picture of a workshop with lots of health and safety hazards going on, I want the students to circle the hazards. 

Tuesday, Miss Milne the form tutor of the form I am with at Davenant was not in first thing so I had the form on my own for the first time. It is assembly for year 7s on a Tuesday so you are supposed to get them sat down in the form room and take the register before they walk over to the hall for assembly. I got to the room where the students where noisily waiting outside, the door was locked and I don’t have a key so I had to improvise, gain control of the form and take the register in the hallway, this went surprisingly well and was quite proud of myself. Whilst the students were in assembly all the year 7 form tutors were brought back to the staff room for a meeting as there was a year 7 parents evening on the Thursday. We were given sheets with student’s names on outlining those students’ special educational needs. We were advised we might need to check up on these with the parents on the Thursday. 

Onto Yazz’s year 7 class. She told me to bring them in from outside and take the register, this way the students would see me as the teacher rather than her doing this then handing over to me. I explained what I wanted them to do for the first 10 minutes of the lesson before they got on with their practical. When handing out the sheers I had made I was explaining what I wanted them to do and told them they were welcome to discuss their answers as a group on their tables. I gave them 5 minutes to do this then asked students from each table to give me an example of a hazard they had circled and challenged them by asking why this was a hazard. The students did very well, Yazz and I both praised them then let them get on with making their boxes which they had started a few lesson ago. Yazz told them that after doing my worksheet there should be no excuses for poor health and safety in the workshop now.

Wednesday I decided to stay with Miss Milne, my form tutor, for first period so I could observe a Drama lesson as Drama was not a subject at my school and I was interested in how the subject is taught. Her first lesson this day however just happened to be our form group. Despite them already being in the classroom for form she made them go outside and line up as they would for any other lesson. They were quite disruptive for the start of the lesson and Miss Milne had to keep explaining that now she was no longer their form tutor she was their Drama teacher. The year 7s seems to have a hard time understanding this difference and acted very differently to how the would in any other lesson. They were working in groups on some drama pieces and had to perform short acts at the end of the lesson. They were very good, I was really impressed.

Thursday was spent in the conference room at the school as we had a day of SEN training. We covered Dyslexia, Autism and ADHD in great detail and were told about students in the school who are very high up on the scale of these and how to include them in lessons. Stemming from this we were given an in depth talk about Teachers Assistants, how vital they are to a classroom, how to make effective use of them and to make sure we include them in every part of a lesson. I know sometimes TA’s can be overlooked in classrooms; I have friends who have been TA’s so I know how hard they work for very little recognition. After school it was parents evening, after spending a couple of weeks with the year 7s in form in was really nice to meet their parents and let them know how well they were all settling into secondary school. 

 

Friday as always was spent back at Goldsmiths and I was very pleased to be back having a session in the workshop. After spending a couple of sessions working with wood we moved onto metal. I don’t know too much about metal so found this workshop really helpful. We were first asked to make a tea light holder out of aluminium sheets. We cut the sheets to size using the notcher which cuts small notches out of the metal meaning your sheet stay straight whereas the guillotine which you could also use tends to slightly bend the sheet. After watching everyone use the notcher and seeing all the tiny scraps of aluminium just being dropped to the floor I had to ask Richard, the guy who runs the workshops, what happened to all the little scraps? After he gave us a 6 hour-long lecture on sustainability I was pleased to hear that they get swept up and melted down to be used for aluminium casting. We used Arba files to cut a hole out of the sheet for the candle to sit it then added a slight curve with the sheet bender and finally added feet with the box bender. A lot of stuff I had never used or even heard of before. We also got to use pop rivets to hold the parts that the candle will sit in together, I knew about pop riveting but had never physically done it before and my lack of strength meant I still nearly hadn’t but with a bit of help it worked. Later that day we were shown how to silver weld, again something I was aware of but had never tried.

I feel much more confident in my knowledge about metal now, shame the school I am currently at does not really work with it due to lack of funding, maybe I can put my knowledge into practise in my next placement.

Week 5, paper mechanisms and PARPA...

This week I felt like I had started my placement at Davenant School properly. I have been given a year 7 tutor group to sit in on where eventually I will be able to take register and organise activities for their morning sessions. First lesson of the day I observed one of my mentors classes, a year 8 class doing a ‘pop-up book’ project. It is a mainly Graphic Design based project where they are asked to design and make between 6 to 8 pages and eventually the book cover. In previous lessons they had been shown how to make various mechanisms out of card which they could use in their books. My mentor told me that when the next year 8’s come  in after finishing with textiles in November I can take this class so I will be teaching them for this project. The next lesson I observed was my mentor’s year 10 class doing a tea light holder project. All of the students are using wood (pine), some added acrylic. Health and Safety was stressed a lot throughout the lesson which was useful to me, this was the first time I had seen students using the tools and machinery. I had a short meeting with my mentor after this where we discussed what I will be doing in the next 2 weeks, we came up with a timetable and talked about when I might start doing some teaching. Last lesson of the day was with the year 12 and Yazz, the department Head. Her students are designing and making drinks holders for festivals and for use at the Olympics. This session she was running a Dragons Den and asked me to be one of the dragons. The students took it in turns to present their projects whilst us the 3 Dragons (me, Yazz and an English teacher) ask questions, make notes and score points. I was really impressed with the work. When I got home I tried out some paper mechanisms in preparation for the year 8 class I will be taking.

Tuesday, I got to sit in my first assembly with my new tutor group, some 6^th formers gave a presentation about the Olympics with the overall message being about respect, it was quite interesting but mainly interesting to see how teachers control such a large amount of students in the hall. Chrissy, my mentor was off sick so I spent the day with Yazz, the first class I observed was year 7. They were making boxes out of plywood, using tenon saws and coping saws to make the joints and using files to get the edges straight. A great thing I got out of the lesson was being able to tell some of the students off, I have been worried about not being able to discipline a class and I was able to ask some of the students not to sit down on the stools while they are sawing and they listened and stood up, this felt great. Next lesson was the year 12 I had seen last week working on their drinks holders, Yazz introduced me and told the class I had a degree in Product Design so they were eager to talk to me about what I had learned at uni and were asking for advice about their uni and course choices. It was really interesting seeing the contrast in teaching and attitudes from the year 7s to the year 12s. In the afternoon I met the year 13s, their project can be whatever they want it to be so I took the opportunity to sit with a few of the students and talk through their projects with them. Last lesson of the day was a year 9 group working on a toy project, this lesson they were working in groups coming up with ideas. One group spent most of the lesson arguing but the arguments were about the design aspects of their project, they seemed to be getting frustrated with each other but for me and Yazz it was great to see as their arguments showed real knowledge and passion. At the end of the day I sat in on my first staff meeting where we were told about recent Ofsted changes and showed a video of some of the schools 6^th formers giving their opinion good and bad teaching practice which was really interesting.

Wednesday I observed a year 10 class taught by Yazz (Head of Department) they are also doing a tea light project, I got to talk to a few of the students about their ideas and how they had come up with them. In the afternoon we had our first professional studies session at the school, first topic; stress management. We were asked to voice what caused us stress, it was nice that we all seemed to be worried about similar things, I felt less alone. We were given advice on time management, organisation and relaxation methods.

Thursday, I shadowed a year 10 student for the day, this was really fascinating as I got to sit in a variety of lessons; Maths, English, Science, R.E. and French, until then I had only observed D and T lessons. Maths was interesting as the teacher had a meeting so there was a cover teacher, the students were asked just to do revision for an exam. It was good to see how students interact with a cover teacher. English was another interesting lesson as a huge wasp was flying around the classroom and obviously the students were freaking out and not really getting any work done. It was good to see how the teacher handled this and regained control of the classroom. The Science lesson I observed was good for me in a different way as I found the teacher to be well…pretty bad, I took from this lesson how not to do things. After lunch I sat in on R.E. the teacher is high up in the school and the students obviously knew this as the students who had been misbehaving earlier were now as good as gold. Last lesson of the day, (I was knackered and ready for a sleep by this point, I’m not sure know the kids do it) was French. The teacher was really fun and the students clearly learned a lot and were more willing to listen and be involved, she was the best teacher I had seen that day and have noted down some of her tactics to use when I start teaching.

Friday we were back at Goldsmiths where we had a really interesting presentation about ‘handling collections’. Her example of this was she asked us all to pick a clothes peg from a bag and first write about what we can learn from our peg and then as a group compare our pegs. I didn’t realise how many different pegs there are!  We were shown how using a collection like this can open up a student’s imagination and widen their design ideas. They can design a pill box by looking at how a cocktail umbrella opens. It is about taking inspiration from different places. Through this you also have to be careful not to put too many obvious solutions in as this may cause students to become fixated by something, copy it and then what has happened to their imaginative design ideas? In the afternoon we were told about how the presentation we had in the morning was part of our first assignment. We are to develop our own handling collection and test it out on some of our students, the whole report is in in January so for next week at least I am not going to look too much into and stay focused on my school experience.

Week 4, boats and first day of school...

I had a great start to this week as we got to spend Monday in the workshop making things. We first made a small boat using chisels, rasps, disc sanders, drills, we are able to set up and use the ban saw and pillar drills, things I hadn’t used in a very long time. In the afternoon we made a box using a desk router and a mitre guillotine, I had never used on of these before, it was quite a scary looking thing. I found pretty hard to use, fortunately they don’t really have these in schools.

After spending the day playing with wood we had a small workshop about dyslexia, what it is and how to spot it in students. The following morning we had our final GPS lecture of 2011 about behaviour and classroom management. We were given a few ideas and tips, making sure you know the students names is really important as when you need to discipline a certain student your words will sink in more if you call the student by their name, it shows respect. Permanent exclusion was also discussed and the affect this has on a student. From this I have been reading about how schools are starting to illegal exclude students who are preforming badly to keep their league tables up, terrible! There is so much I am learning about the politics revolving around schooling systems that are destroying my soul a little bit.

This week we started our first school placement, me school is Davenant Foundation School in Loughton, Essex. I had heard great things about this school and was pretty excited to go. It is a teacher training school so my first 2 days were spent with 4 other PGCE students in the training room where we met the Head, got to talk to a previous Goldsmiths PGCE student who is now dong his NQT year at Davenant and were given all sorts of information about the school and in the afternoon we were treated by 2 short plays from the year 13 drama students. They acted out 2 classroom scenarios where the teacher lost control of the classroom, it definitely showed us what not to do. I met my mentor on this first day too, she is brilliant, really nice, helpful and knows what she is talking about, I think I will learn a lot from year. Day 2 we met with the Deputy Head, her presentation was quite hard to sit through. She spoke to us about cases of child abuse and times when child protection has to be called, we had to discuss how we would handle these situations, what signs to look out for and who to tell. We then learned about our legal rights as teachers and what you can and can’t do in schools. As luck would have it, that day there was also a fire drill so we now know what the protocol is if a fire should occur. The school closed early that day as there was a parents evening that night. I went over to the Design and Technology department where I got to meet Yazz the Head of the department and John the technician, I helped them set up for the parents evening, asked some questions about my time here in the next 2 weeks and then headed home.

Friday was spent back at Goldsmiths where we all discussed our experiences in our new schools; it was great to hear how everyone had been getting on and how different all of our first 2 days had been. We had a lecture in the afternoon from Steve Keirl on Design Ethics, it was great. We spoke about the comparisons of right and wrong, morals and values, and how these are different to different people and cultures. We spoke about how species and technology and connected and what this means. He told us about how the design process comes into ethics and how problems only really come out when things are tested and there are consequences and the whole design process starts again to resolve this.

Information overload this week, relaxing weekend to be had!