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 6th 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.
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