I shudder, thinking back to my differentiation for EAL students at the start. I Google translated the whole PowerPoint, brimming with pride at my achievement. It was sadly, as the kids would say, an epic fail. It didn't make sense. The students were…
ALL teaching is very demanding & time consuming, but the challenges of a primary teacher and a secondary teacher very different. This tongue-in-cheek article celebrating the different cultures of primary and secondary schools, and celebrates the dif…
It is essential that children in today's 'technology focused world' get real, hands-on experiences. The only things that some of my children have in their hands, once at home, are games console controls! By making learning fun and interactive we can engage children in finding out about the world around them and their past, instilling a love of learning and giving them some practical skills to use in the real world...
I'm rubbish at Maths' are words that regularly come out of mouth during my adult life. This fixed mindset is deep rooted. When faced with a Maths challenge I have immediate flashbacks to those bottom set Maths lessons where everyone else were given more complicated problems with bigger numbers to solve. I may have a fixed mindset in terms of my own capabilities, but I believe every child has the capacity to be a fantastic Mathematician, if they are given the opportunity and are encouraged to have the belief in the 'power of yet'.
"The start of a new term and in walks little Johnny! It's his first day in a SEN school. He doesn't bite his nails though but he fidgets, fiddles and drifts off into early morning daydreams. Our quest as teacher and TA then begins. How do we reel him in? How do we get him to be here… with us?"
Few people enter the teaching profession because they are passionate about controlling behaviour or disciplining prospective pupils. Most become educators because they want to make a positive difference in students' lives. However, countless well-intentioned yet potentially ill-prepared teachers find themselves in situations during the school year where they feel compelled to use forms of intimidation, manipulation, bribery, yelling, scolding, or even false praise to make students behave. These archaic classroom management techniques often backfire- as they did for me early in my teaching career-and result in students losing respect for and disliking the teacher.