Teamwork Step 2

Teamwork: Working cooperatively with others towards achieving a shared goal.

Step 2: I work well with others by being on time and reliable

Outcomes

To achieve Step 2, learners will show that they can be on time and reliable.

In earlier steps, the focus was on how to work positively with other people, and recognising appropriate behaviour in different settings. These are crucial foundations for effective teamwork – as is this next step of being on time and reliable.

Learners need to be able to:

Understand why being on time matters
Understand why reliability matters
Demonstrate how to get better at being reliable

Introduction

Timings tend to be important because getting tasks done relies on things happening in the right order and at the right points. Pieces of work often need to be finished by a particular time, called a deadline.
Reliability is about being consistently good at something, so other people can trust in you. That might mean completing tasks you said you would do and working to a good standard. It also means getting tasks done by deadlines.

Skill Starter

Man the Lifeboats

Outline a large rectangle with cones and name the sides port (left), starboard (right), bow (front), Stern (back).

Learners run to each side as you call out it's name, making sure to pay attention to other learners.

When you shout "Man the Lifeboats in groups of..." learners must get into a group of that many people and sit one behind each other on the floor, pretending to row. These could be groups of 2, 3 or 4.

After the activity discuss how learners got into their teams and how they ensured everyone did the right action.

10 mins

Group activity

Active

Teach & Apply

If you are reliable, you will find that you get greater freedom to manage your work because people trust that you can get it done. You might also get more opportunities or new challenges.
There are a few things that you can do to become more reliable:
- Make the commitment that you think it is important to be reliable and that you will focus on improving.
- Get advice from your coach, teacher or manager about how you could become more reliable.
- Think about what stops you being reliable at the moment and work on it.
- Make sure you are clear on what people expect you to do to complete the task. Ask if you are unsure.
- Work hard to try to meet those expectations.
- Keep getting feedback.

Optional Activity

Space Battle

Groups of 5 - 6 form a circle holding hands, their spaceship. One person is chosen to stand in the middle and be the commander.

The commander has 2 sponge balls and will try to hit the other teams’ commanders with them. Each team starts with set number of lives. The team members holding hands will have to protect and defend their commander from being hit, by moving and rotating.

Before the game begins, discretely identify one participant from each team to be purposely late and unreliable, such as:

Getting distracted and talking to someone whilst the ‘spaceship’ is being attacked
Moving in the opposite direction from their team, failing to protect the commander

Every time the commander gets hit, the team loses a life. Once a team has lost all their lives, they are out.

At the end, discuss what went well and what didn’t and encourage learners to identify how they can improve their reliability.

15 mins

Group activity

Active

Reflection & Assessment

Embed these strategies across your teaching and coaching to help learners apply what they’ve learnt.

Use the language of being on time and reliability as a way to support learners to develop positive attitudes towards these.

Use these ideas for ways of assessing this skill step to help you check learners’ understanding and confidence.

This step is best assessed through sustained observation of learners, and whether they are on time and reliable over a sustained period.
Ask these reflective questions:
- What does it mean to be reliable?
- Why does it matter to be on time?
- What is the effect if someone is not reliable, or not on time?