Sharon Williams Educational

• Talking and chatting; calling out
• Students not getting on with work
• Students fidgeting or fiddling with equipment
• Students purposely making noises to gain attention
• Students answering back or questioning instructions
• Students swinging on chairs

 
These are demonstrations of low level behaviour issues, and in many ways these can be harder to deal with than the bigger displays of poor behaviour.

The danger is that we allow it to continue as we may think the students are mainly on task. However when there are any kind of distractions in the classroom, then your students will not be able to make progress. Therefore we need to address low level behaviour issues as soon as they arise.

Below I have listed ten areas you could address to make the difference – it may be that you are already doing many of these – but if you are still experiencing any of the behavioural problems listed earlier, then read on and see if there is something extra you could try.

Keep the following information in mind when you are planning. If students are not learning, then they may switch off and lose interest. 

10% of what they read
20% of what they hear
30% of what they see
50% of what they see & hear
70% of what they say
90% of what they say & do

Effective lesson planning is one of the most important things you can do to prevent behaviour problems from arising!

​Use your voice wisely – adjust the volume according to the situation. As the adult in the situation, it is down to you to avoid the event becoming a confrontation.

A confrontation can only gather momentum if it involves you; without your input it is only a child behaving badly. Lowering the volume of your response has a far better effect as it will ultimately have the effect of pouring water on a flame. The flame may continue to try to survive, but without oxygen will fade away to nothing!

• Avoid raising your voice.
• Lowering your voice can be much more effective.  

​There is a balance between moving around the classroom too much, and just standing at the front of the class.  Speaking from different places in the room will keep the students’ brains alert in the same way as a new activity will revitalise them.

When they are working, be sure to wander around the space and check on their contributions. This keeps them on task, allows them to quietly ask you questions about things they didn’t understand, and means you are working with them to achieve their learning aims.

NB - If you start doing something else while they are working, like checking your notes or reading emails from your laptop, it has the effect of telling the students you aren’t interested in what they are doing! Not a good way of gaining and maintaining their respect.
​

• Your presence is extremely powerful.
• Don't stay still at the front of your class.
• Move around and keep students on task. 

​Just like toddlers who need to be distracted from putting an object into a plug socket (but take no notice of the word ‘No!’) you need to distract your students from negative behaviour. This means attracting them to something else – ultimately the work! Sometimes asking them a question about the topic is far better than a reprimand.

This is especially true if they have other things on their mind. Sometimes they have brought baggage in with them which they are finding it difficult to leave at the door. Focusing on that baggage is not always the best solution. Rather, draw their attention to something else if you can. Otherwise a quiet word asking if they could try to focus on the lesson and save the issue to be resolved for later. If this is not possible, there will be processes in your school to deal with an immediate well-being issue such as removing the student to have a chat with their pastoral team.

• Don't allow negativity to enter your classroom.
• Find the alternative solution

I have spoken before about how a well-prepared lesson can prevent most difficulties. The times things can go wrong will be when the students are bored waiting for you to find a resource, or to get a video clip to play.

Equally, carefully differentiated resources mean all students will be challenged and supported to learn. Have another look at the blog post on differentiation. 
​

• Prepare your resources before you start teaching.

Look back at the blog post on behaviour management tips. Keep remembering that it is your classroom, you are the adult – and remain calm and quiet to maintain an excellent learning atmosphere. If you allow any students to get under your skin, you have effectively handed the control to them.
​

• Control your space. You are the decisive element in your classroom.
• Stand at the door as they enter.
• Say hello.
• Always say goodbye.

Sometimes it is harder to keep calm than others. These are the occasions you need to draw on all your emotional intelligence and pretend! If you don’t feel in control – pretend you are.

If the situation feels like it is getting out of control, calmly ask the perpetrator to leave. Tell them you are not prepared to accept their silliness as you need the rest of the class to continue learning. You will find your way with this.

Most importantly – don’t let previous situations stay in your mind and flavour the next lesson. Learn and move on!
​

• Have a calm outlook.
• Find strategies to avoid getting cross.
• This doesn’t mean don’t be firm!

All the previous tips have referred to this – you have had more experience at controlling your emotions than the children; you have more to draw on to bring any situation to a good outcome.

Remember we are looking at low level disruption here – not the bigger incidents which may require a slightly different approach. But any low-level disruption stops the learning of the students – and this is the main aim of them being in the classroom!
​

• There is no need for an excessive response to low-level disruption.
• Don't interrupt your teaching to deal with it. 

Try to use positive and reinforcing words as this has a better effect.

Sentence starters could be – ‘I noticed that …’; or ‘when you are working well you show a real ability…’; or ‘when you sit quietly and focus you are behaving safely in this lab which is what we need…’
​

• Deal with low-level disruptions by using positive language. 

In the earlier blog post about learning intentions and success criteria, we talk about making sure the students understand what their role is in the lesson, and how they will recognise success. Similarly the students need to understand what your behaviour expectations are.
​

• Don't assume your class understand what your version of acceptable is.
• They need to have reinforcement of your expectations. 

​See the previous posts on routines for you and for the students. This makes a huge difference to the way the lessons start and finish. If the students know what you expect with regard to behaviour, then they are more likely to respond appropriately.

In your observations, look at those lessons where the learning environment is calm – the students know what to do when they arrive, know how to give books out, know the level of noise that is acceptable and when they have pushed the boundaries too much!
​

• Have clear routines in your classroom for classroom management.
• This sets out the boundaries and expectations and should remain consistent.
• Have clear routines for behaviour management – so it is not a surprise when you remind them to settle to work and stop chatting

Remember you are also teaching students how to behave.

​Can you have a good lesson without questioning? I think the answer is no. Let's examine this further.

The real learning takes place when students talk to each other. High level questioning and collaborative learning activities are a must for a good lesson.
​
There are several ways that students will learn – and make progress – in your lesson. 

This is a big question which educationalists have researched, analysed and debated for years. Consequently, there is no one answer – but in essence it is

• making sense of something and understanding how it connects with existing knowledge or experiences
• gaining an insight into new knowledge, behaviours, skills
• how we make sense of our world
• an active engagement in new experiences which lead in some way to changed behaviours, knowledge or skills

Most importantly for teachers is how do we ensure learning takes place?

Learning for progress has to be information which is embedded. That is, it becomes something which remains in our memory either in the short term or the long term. We need to make sure that new knowledge finds its way into students' long term memory so it can be recalled at a later date for examination purposes!

When it comes to planning lessons then, our choice of activity is vital. So how do we plan effectively? Some of this has already been examined in three earlier lesson planning blogs (Learning outcomes; Starters and Plenaries; Differentiation). Here we will look at the impact of certain types of activities on learning.

In the chart below I have plotted certain types of activities against the potential for learning of each. Note the role played by the teacher in both lesson preparation and lesson delivery.

We need to carefully balance teacher-led activities with those where the students can contribute more fully.

Here's a question for you - if an activity does not lead directly to learning – how long should you spend on it? What percentage of the lesson can afford to be teacher led, if the students are not actually able to make progress during this time? If you only have an hour – should you spend 30 minutes of that hour talking to the class when there is too little learning potential from this alone? ​

Here's another way of looking at it. Ultimately we want students to have the opportunities to make connections between new information and existing knowledge or experiences. This is what helps us to learn.

When you are planning your lessons therefore, consider the amount of teacher input compared to the amount of student input and its relationship to learning potential. 

The chart below looks at both teacher and student input in relation to learning. ​
​

Examine each of the boxes below - remember the aim is to get a balance between teacher and student input - with the aim of ensuring high learning potential. 

Suggested tasks for your evidence portfolio:

1. When observing others next week, try to examine the percentage of teacher and student input, the types of activity and the learning potential of each.

2. Take a look at one of your earlier planned lessons and see if you can adapt it to enable a greater potential for learning and student input.

​Students like routine. That is not to say that there is no place for exciting lesson plans with surprises and discovery. It just means that having basic routines in place lets students know what you expect.

This leads to a safe, calm environment where the focus is on learning and nothing else.

​When students arrive – lining up

Your school may have a process in place for this. Whether they do or not, the students are not allowed in the classroom without you (health and safety) so it makes sense for a calm beginning with them lining up outside your room.

Before they go in, you have a chance to ensure they are quiet, to check their uniform and to make sure any excitement and chatter has finished before they walk into your ‘learning zone’!

Have a seating plan – and stick to it

It is good practice to have a seating plan, and many schools insist upon it.

Don't feel restricted by this - you can occasionally alter your seating to support learning and behaviour – but having a plan in place, means that the students will come in and know where to sit at all times. It puts the control in your hands, which is a good behaviour strategy. 

Seating plans work when you are flexible - you may decide that two students don’t work well together and change the plan for the following lesson – and from then on. And if a student tells you they can’t work with someone on their table – listen to them. Check with their tutor later, but giving them the benefit of the doubt at the time will lead to a better lesson than debating it!

As a behaviour strategy it works because it doesn't open up an opportunity for debate - it is like a silent strategy! Once in place, you can focus on the learning. If someone is not happy, ask to speak to them after the lesson and discuss the issues then.

Seating for learning - You may decide that depending on the style of the tasks, there would be a different seating plan. For instance, you may have a plan for independent working; for group working (sometimes teachers call this working in home groups), for differentiated group working (a one-off where you may sit based on ability) … and so on.

NB - If you teach a practical lesson, there are other ways to make sure students can come in ready to work. In my drama lessons for example. the students were used to coming in, putting their bags and coats against one wall, and sitting on chairs in a circle.
 

When students come in have a task laid out as a starter

You may have an image or question on the board, or an activity on their desks for example.

This allows them to engage with the learning as soon as they are in the door. There won’t be any messing about, carrying on conversations, or asking what they will be doing today.

Students bags and books

Students should always get their books and necessary equipment out of their bags and on the table, placing their bags under their chairs. This is a health and safety requirement and could cause problems if not part of a clear routine. Check out policies at your school and watch how other teachers do this. (Needs referencing as evidence for your portfolio)

Handing in homework

How do you collect in their homework? You could:

1. Call the register and as they answer their names, they bring their work to you. If they haven’t done it, they could bring their homework diary or equivalent The books are then in alphabetical order (great for marking) and you can address lack of work later without disturbing the learning.
2. Set the lesson going and then call their names for them to bring work up.
3. Ask them to put their books in a pile in the middle of the table groups, or send their books down the line to the front - and one person could bring them up to you. Checking missing work is harder this way.

Find your own way – but

1. Try to avoid it taking time out of the lesson for this admin task
2. Make sure you know who has and who hasn’t completed the work

 
Giving homework and tests back

Students will want feedback on their homework. So not only must you mark it, but you need to allocate time for them to see their comments and respond to them. Your school will have a marking policy which will include a process for ‘students’ response to feedback’. Make sure you plan time for this in your lesson!

Exiting the room

How do your lessons end? This is usually a target for trainee teachers while you are getting used to accurate timing of your lessons!

Try to avoid rushing the last task as you run out of time, overlapping the bell and then letting the class go all together – leaving a mess of books and paper on the tables and floor for you to clear up!

Planning for how you dismiss the class is as important as the beginning.

A good routine may be:

Students clear their tables totally and stand / sit behind them so you can see if any aren’t packed away.
Then dismiss them a row at a time – usually those who are silent can go first, and those who are chatting go last!
 
Routines make the world of difference both to you and to the students. 
During your lesson observations, look out for other routines you could benefit from putting in place.
​

If you missed the latest post - check out Routines for you - keeping yourself sane!

​Having routines in our work removes some of the pressures and stresses of the ‘not knowing’ what comes next. Although in our everyday lives we may enjoy spontaneity, and there is a lot to be said for the excitement of a new adventure and a surprise evening out, this is not the same in the life of the teacher!

No two days in the teacher’s life are the same, and we are often faced with 'crisis management' when something unexpected occurs. So for the rest of the time we need to be sure that clear routines are established - these will keep us sane!

The next two posts explore routines for you and for your students. Both are important for different reasons.

Today's post - Routines for you.

What time do you arrive to school?

You need to ensure you get to school in plenty of time. I always arrive early, make myself a cup of tea, check everything is ready for my day, greet people (and have time for a chat!) and then calmly go to the staff briefing, or my first lesson. People who rush in at the last minute are not setting themselves up for a calm start - and if you are calm and in control, the students respond positively.

When do you plan your lessons?

Life is very busy as a teacher. In addition to planning and teaching, there is so much more to fill our days. But you know that lessons are a constant. They are always at the same time each week, with the same students and – usually – in the same room. So you can plot on your calendar when you can plan them.

I would advise planning in plenty of time for your mentor to look at them first. That way you can make any changes that are recommended. I have worked with some trainees who thought they didn’t need to show their mentor their plans. Suffice to say, the lessons were not as good as they should be – and it took a long time for their practice to improve.

When do you plan your resources?

Once you have planned your lesson, you will know what resources you need to either create or find. It is advisable to do these early – sometimes your ideas won’t always translate in practice. It is far better to know this early enough to be able to address it!

Equally with video extracts or internet clips – make sure you watch them ALL the way through. Also listen to music ALL the way through. Don’t let bad language or inappropriate content surprise you in front of the students! There are likely to be repercussions if you do make this mistake.

How do you spend your lunchtimes?

Do you support any lunchtime clubs? Do you work with struggling students doing their homework? Perhaps you spend lunchtimes with the football team. Whatever you do, remember to

1. Make time for lunch. Eating sensibly and drinking plenty of water is vital to keep you healthy! I have seen too many trainees (indeed established teachers) forget to eat and then find they are off ill for a period of time.
2. Be back early from the club, so you can set up your classroom ready for learning. If you arrive at the same time as the students, it will not be a calm start to the lesson. After lunch is notoriously difficult for some students to settle - they (and you) need an ordered, calm start to give you all the best chance.

What do you do straight after school?

Do you rush off home? Or do you stay until the site manager kicks you out?

I would advise somewhere in between. Often there will be meetings after school, and you will probably have your training sessions at least one day after the students have gone home. You may also decide to support one or more of the extra-curricular clubs that the school run. This is excellent practice – as long as you plan for it, and make sure you leave enough time for the rest of your planning and preparation.

After school is usually the time where staff can find each other to discuss things. If you have rushed off you will miss this informal planning and learning time. 
 
When do you do your reflections and assignments?

It is really important to plan time to complete tasks, to make time for yourself, and to catch up with yourself before the next week.

This means you have a fall-back position for whenever events occur which may surprise you or knock your scheduling for a while. Use the horizontal planning blog as a possible way forward to help you plan your time effectively.

Imagine the following:

1. You arrive at school and discover that your mentor is stuck in traffic and is going to be late.
2. The photocopier is broken.
3. The internet is down.

These may have the potential to spoil your day – but not if you have planned carefully and have routines to support you. 

Is this you?

1. You have planned your lesson carefully, and because you have arrived in school with plenty of time to spare, there is time to seek out your head of department to check your lesson with him/her and ask if there is someone in the department who can come in and support you.

2. You copied your resources yesterday.

3. You were planning to show a you-tube clip, but as you have time (due to your early arrival at school) you can change this part of your lesson by extending the writing task.

Or is this you?

1. You rush in with 5 minutes to spare. No time to see what the alternative arrangements may be, so when a teacher you don’t really know is sent to ‘cover’ you, you are thrown and make some silly mistakes – this doesn’t help your confidence!

2. You only planned your lesson last night, so were hoping to copy the resources during the 5 minutes before the lesson starts

3. You only discover the internet is down when you try to load the clip – in front of the whole class. Of course they are all calling out their suggestions to make it work – ‘have you turned it on, sir?’… 
​
​I know which I prefer!

Sometimes it is not possible - or appropriate - to write briefly about a topic. Indeed many of the aspects of pedagogy that we need to explore are complex and multi-faceted. 

Occasionally though I will post a 'quick-read' blog! These may be in the form of a summary or a set of top tips - and can highlight topics you may want to spend longer evaluating at a later date.

Good for busy teachers!

This quick-read looks at How to keep on top of:

• this term
• lesson planning
• behaviour
• managing your time
• your work life balance

1. Give yourself some clear routines (both in and out of the classroom). It is important for the students to know what to expect when they come into your classroom. For example do you expect them to get out their equipment and put it onto the desk as soon as they arrive, so they are ready to learn?

Similarly, you should have your own routines - for example, do you arrive 30 minutes early to school so you can set up your classroom in advance of the students arriving? 

2. Know the students’ names. By this stage you should know most of the names of students in your class. This helps to develop a good working atmosphere in the room and makes life much easier!

3. Praise and acknowledgement go a long way. Try not to find yourself constantly telling students off for some misdemeanour or other. Remember those who are waiting patiently to learn, and those who are always attentive and willing. Let them know you have seen how hard they are working!

4. Maintain your expectations. Once you have shared these with the students, keep a robust stance. Don't give in because it may seem easier at this stage. In the long term, it will make things much harder to get back!

5. Keep asking questions - your mentor and head of department are the experts, and can advise you on most things! 

Ask yourself 3 questions:

• What do you want them to learn?
• How are you going to help them learn it?
• How will you know they have learnt it?
  

1. Define clear learning outcomes – and share them with the students

2. Share your success criteria – what do they have to do to achieve?

3. How will you know what they’ve learnt? Have some good AfL strategies in place.

4. Keep a learning 'menu' of tasks next to you, so you can refer to it during the lesson, and make sure you cover everything you had planned.

5. Keep time at the end to check their learning - a good plenary helps to embed their learning

1. Plan for positive behaviour for learning.

2. Have clearly defined expectations – and follow up on sanctions where necessary.

3. Stick to your guns – if they are not behaving as you expect, do something about it.

4. Ask for help from your mentor and head of department when needed!

5. Always acknowledge good behaviour. I know that this is what is expected, but we all like someone to tell us we are doing it right!

1. Keep lists – plan horizontally where possible

2. Start a diary if you do not already have one!

3. Put in all the meetings and deadlines (such as reports and exams) across the year - don’t let anything be a surprise

4. Keep notes every time you are given a task – put it in your diary/on your list

5. Plan catch-up times – once a week set aside an hour for catching up on your lists and re-writing where needed

1. Learn to say no.

2. Structure your time carefully - use your diary!

3. Choose one day of the week / weekend which is for you. This could be time spent watching TV, or being with your partner or friends – but keep it clear of other things.

4. Be honest with yourself – if you are struggling to keep up, then be prepared to miss out on an evening out if you have to. It does happen unfortunately!

5. Eat and sleep properly! Don’t allow your new work behaviours take over from common sense! 

There are so many new elements to becoming a teacher. When you envisaged your new responsibility how many of you thought beyond planning and delivering lessons?

Suddenly your whole life revolves around bells and your day is divided into hourly slots.

You are expected to be present at meetings, reflective during observations, inspirational during lesson delivery and creative during lesson planning!

Alongside this, you need to mark work, write assignments, evaluate lessons and gather evidence for your portfolios!

Some of you may find this water off a duck’s back; but some of you may be the proverbial swan – gliding on the surface, but frantically paddling for survival under the water.

​If you fit into the latter category, you need to develop a new skill which you may not have considered as being as important as all the others you are learning – how to be organised.

When I first started teaching, I remember someone coming in to deliver a session on time management. He gave me probably the two most important tips of my career. And I still use them to this day.

1. Plan horizontally.
2. Only carry what you can do!

You will probably be adding to this list several times each day, making it longer and longer! As more things are added, you may find you can't complete some of the smaller items - and you may miss deadlines or forget to go somewhere important! 

Motivationally and emotionally this is not a good place to be. You need to manage your lists so that you are not constantly feeling like you are failing to achieve!

This is where the horizontal planning comes in.

There are many ways to do this, and you need to find your own style, but I will explain the ethos behind horizontal planning and you can take it from there.

​Firstly you need to be able to prioritise each task, which you can only do by noting deadlines.

Look at the example below which has taken the original list and added two additional columns.

One of my colleagues used to write her list on an A4 page which she had divided into days of the week. 

​This was not just for the deadlines but more importantly for the tasks themselves.  See the example below.
 
In red are those personal arrangements you have that stop you being able to work on certain evenings. So in the example below, anything needed to be completed by Wednesday will need to be done on Monday! This will help you maintain a work-life balance for most of the time.

The blue comments are those which remind you when you have longer periods to work – Wednesday looks like a good day for getting meaty tasks done. (Although be prepared for other things to crop up so don’t leave things to the last minute!)

In the example, Thursday is not a good day to complete tasks – so accept that and don’t fret about what you can't do! ​

​Once you have plotted your week, you can then add when you will do certain tasks on your list. As each task arises, put it into the diary on a day when you are more likely to be able to achieve it!

​If you find you have no time in a given week - see if you can negotiate completing the task the following week instead. 

Scaffolding is a way to ensure the tasks are suitable for all abilities. Whereas many higher ability students may be able to makes sense of an instruction, and instinctively understand what they need to do, there are also students who may not have this natural aptitude. 
​
I have taken two examples of poorly described tasks, and shown how you can make them more accessible for all students by scaffolding them. This post is mainly about the less able - there will be a future post on stretching the more able. 
 
For some students the moment they read instructions they begin to feel anxious. So you need to make sure all the expectations are clear. I cannot begin to tell you the number of frustrated parents who complain about homework because their child could not remember the detail given in the lesson, and the written instructions were too vague!
 
The suggested scaffolds below help the students through their visual structure.
 
Once you have understood the processes outlined below, you should be able to plan your own resources with this support in mind.

The words…
For homework I want you to keep a diary of all you eat for two days. Bring your homework to the next lesson and we can discuss whether your choice of food is healthy of not.

The problem...
What are you expecting from the students? To include main meals only? Snacks? Supper? Do you want this in a list? A paragraph? An extended prose? 

With this instruction, you may find that your students all do something different, so when you get the homework in, they may not all have met your success criteria! It is not clear what you actually want.

Here is an example of how you could scaffold this task to ensure they really understand what is expected. The writing frame contains an example, which means that less able students know what it should look like.

So you have three different ways of presenting this task: words only; writing frame without example; writing frame with example.

The words…
You have to plan and write a report on ‘healthy living’ and I want you to include sections on diet, exercise, drugs and lifestyle.

The problem…
What information are you expecting them to include? How can they best organise this information before writing it as a report?

A possible scaffold here would be a chart for them to complete to ensure they have all the information they need before starting the report.

The lower ability students would find this chart useful. For the more able students you may give them a bullet point list instead of a structured frame.
 
Be mindful that on its own the scaffold below would not be enough for the task described: the expectation of completing a report has its own issues - do they know what a good report should look like? 

​However you can see how the structure becomes much clearer to the students than the original instruction suggested.

The intention of this post is to help your awareness of how you can change tasks to provide more or less support depending on the class you are teaching. 

As I mentioned in the earlier post on differentiation, you need to know your students well, so you can adapt your materials to suit.

1. You can start by analysing some of the materials / resources you or your mentor have created and try to adapt these for the less or more able student. Include them in your portfolio with a reflective commentary to link them to the relevant standards.

2. If you are in a position to deliver the materials as part of a lesson, then your evidence could include:

Resources (annotated to explain how you have adapted them)
Lesson plan
Observation notes from your mentor
Your own reflection and possible improvements

You do not need to plan a different lesson for 30 students! But you do need to be aware of what the differences are, so that you can ensure ‘progress for all’ (Ofsted ‘speak’!)
​

1. Scaffold their learning. This means exactly how it sounds – like a scaffold tower supports the building, your learners may need additional support. They can get this through
   1. a writing frame
   2. a list of key terms they could use, with their spellings
   3. another person – peer support
   4. a set of questions to answer to enable a more extended writing activity

Your mentor will have many more suggestions of scaffolding learning that you could use - and there will be a further post detailing some of these.

2. ​You may differentiate through task. This means setting slightly different tasks, based on ability. You could do this through

3. Target your questioning so you are stretching, challenging and supporting depending on who you ask your questions to. Questioning is one of the most successful ways to ensure all students are stretched. (Later blog posts on questioning).

​Consider the different types of learner you may have (even in ‘sets’!):

• Intellectual
• Emotional
• Physical
• Social

And how may this be seen:

• Speed of mastery
• Confidence levels
• Willingness to participate
• Outcomes of learning 

​Additional activities to support the lower ability students may include:  

• Display words plus images
• Card games to practice key words
• Question and answer cards – find the pair
• Link cards
• Loop cards

This doesn’t mean that the students will be learning different things – but that they will be achieving different levels of expertise.

Take one of your lesson plans, and re-think your learning outcomes with this in mind.

Reflect on this for portfolio evidence!

• ​Should it start off the next topic?
• Should it recap the learning from last lesson?
• Should it be a chance to check learning before moving on?
• Should it set the context of the new unit of work?
• Should it embed the learning of the last topic before moving on?
• Should it test learning?
• Should it be totally unconnected with the topic, and simply be there to get the brain working?

 
The answer is – any and all of the above!

Questions - ask the class some questions about a new topic to gauge their understanding and existing knowledge.
Students are invited to ask questions which could be answered through the lesson (or through the unit of work) 

Three things they want to learn about a particular topic

Three things they learnt last lesson

Present information they have prepared for homework to a partner / another group / the class

​Equally as important as starters are the plenaries.

The aim of the plenary is to determine the level of learning that has taken place. This should not be confused with the completion of the tasks. Just because a student has finished the work, it does not follow that they have learnt the information. 

Also don’t be fooled into thinking plenaries can only come at the end of the lesson! If you remember my post about AfL (assessment for learning) we talked about the need to check learning intermittently throughout the lesson. If you wait until the end it may be too late to discover that several students didn’t learn as much as you hoped!

Wherever they are placed in the lesson, plenaries – or mid-lesson mini plenaries – are designed to check and reinforce learning.

They work best when the students have a chance to articulate their learning. They are not as successful if you tell the students what they should have learnt, and ask them to agree they have learnt it!

The act of articulating something you have learnt has the dual role of reinforcing that learning.

Think about the times you have discussed a new idea with someone: the more you explore a topic, the more it makes sense to you as it makes stronger connections in your brain. Additionally, it will be more likely to move into your long-term memory though repeated examination. (This will be covered in a later post on Recall and Revision)

Plenaries – like starters – are for ALL students. They will not be successful if you only engage with a handful of students. 

So although many plenaries take the form of question and answer – make sure you are involving ALL students in answering. 

Use mini-whiteboards – students all write down the answer / idea / draw the diagram… and all show you at the same time by holding the mini-whiteboards up.

Traffic lights – students tell you how confident they feel in their newly acquired knowledge by holding up red (not confident); amber (quite happy but would like to go over it again) and green (got it!). You will need coloured cards for this, but it is worth making a set that you can use again and again.

Write down three things you learnt.

Write down three questions you still have about the topic.

Complete a crossword on the topic. You could create this yourself, or set a task for the students to make one for homework - and use it as the starter next lesson by swapping with a partner!

​Plenaries should be given the time they deserve – they are part of the learning process! Articulating learning helps to embed knowledge. Consequently, anything less than 15 minutes is not sufficient.
​
As a new trainee, you will undoubtedly miscalculate the time your tasks will take – time management will be a target for many of you, for some time! And as a result the plenary is often the thing which gets left off. Obviously you cannot jump ahead to the plenary if you haven’t given the chance for the students to learn the topics, but perhaps you could have some speedy progress checks in hand that you can finish the lesson off with.

​This will help you to reflect with your mentor about the success of the lesson in terms of the progress made by the students.

Progress line – students mark where they are on the line at the start of the lesson, and again at the end...
​
Progress checklist – you give the students a checklist of elements they will be learning in the lesson. They grade themselves red, amber or green at the start – and again at the end...
 
Get the idea?

Perhaps you can share some of your progress checking ideas with me through the comments box, and I will post them on a future blog.

Depending on what course you are following to achieve your QTS, you will all be at slightly different starting points. Don't worry - you will catch up very soon!

Some of you will have had the opportunity to observe plenty of lessons and will have seen examples of how a good lesson should be planned. 

Some of you may have been studying the theory of lesson planning and how this should look in the classroom.
​
Some of you may have even started to deliver part of a lesson, or even a whole lesson.

Certainly by Christmas, you will all be planning lessons and delivering them to one or more year groups in at least one key stage!

Outcomes, intentions, objectives...

There is a subtle but important difference in the terminology.

1. Lesson outcomes- what will the students be doing?
   
2. Learning intentions - what will the students be learning? 
3. Lesson objectives are a specific statement of what the aim of the lesson will be 

Although in reality it is all just semantics, I believe that the way in which you view these lesson goals is important in relation to how you deliver!

We are basically looking at the goals for the lesson – and there is a difference in the goal being learning related or task related.

Learning related – the intentions or outcomes of the lesson in terms of what the students will have learnt by the end of the lesson.

Task related – the lesson objectives in terms of what tasks the students will have completed.

​The move now is towards learning related outcomes, so whatever you call them, try to think about what you want the students to have learnt by the end of the lesson. The tasks are simply the methods by which they will assimilate the information and embed the knowledge. 

​We learn best when we

1. Know what we are going to be learning
2. Know what success looks like
3. Understand what we are going to be doing to be successful!

​So you need to share these outcomes with the students. ​

• You may want to have them listed on the board when the students arrive,

[Please note that it is not acceptable for the students to copy these into their books. Ofsted view it - and I agree - as being a waste of learning time!]

• You may want to do the starter activity first, and then discuss what they will be learning

• You may want to set a question as a starter and tell them they will be finding out the answers during the lesson...

​How you do it is up to you - and variety is important too, so don't do the same thing every lesson! The key though is how you will know if the students have met the outcomes you set: what is the success criteria?

The students will know they have been successful if:

1. They can share their knowledge in a presentation to the class
2. They can successfully compete in a quiz at the end of the lesson
3. They can complete a chart which asks for certain elements that they will be learning about
4. They can show their knowledge in a piece of independent work - possibly something you set for homework.

Once you have shared the outcomes, and the success criteria - you should explain what they will be doing in the lesson to be able to reach that stage. 

We can relax into the learning when we know the route we will be taking to get there. Sometimes you may want to surprise them - this is exciting too - but you always need to think about what will help them to remember what they will be learning.

Think about the plan in terms of how the learning builds. Below is a possible lesson structure based on Greaney and Rodd (2003) who researched and wrote about the Accelerated Learning and Learning-to-Learn models. (Well worth reading!)

You may explain that in the lesson they will be doing the following...

1. A group task to find out information, followed by some independent learning and then presenting their information to the class.

2. A task based on source material in the book which they will complete with a partner, followed by a group activity to find out more information, finishing with a quiz – where they set the questions for the other groups

​Working in this way, where the student is aware of how they will be learning and what success looks like, means they will be able to take more responsibility for their own learning – a position that you should work hard to achieve as a teacher. 

Note how in each of these examples it explains what the students will be expected to do to show they have met the outcomes.

​I find it useful to consider how I learn best. I did not enjoy being set an assignment, for example, without knowing - before I started - what I needed to do to get a good grade!

And still, when I go on courses, I like knowing how long we have for each task and what it will lead on to. Then I can make the most of each minute!

Observation tasks 

Look at 

1. How the lesson structure fits into the model outlined above. In your reflections consider how successful this was, and if there are occasions it does not work.

2. How the starter connects to either the previous lesson, or to the current lesson. Examine different types of starter and which engage the students the best.

3. How does the teacher share the success criteria? How to students make sense of this? 

EVIDENCE: Each of these will be good evidence for your portfolio when you link what you have observed with lessons you plan yourself.