Classroom Practice

Comment from my mentor regarding how pupils learn, classroom practice and adaptive teaching on my developmental placement:

Rachel uses a range of strategies in her practice to engage the pupils. She uses talk partners well and takes responses from children in a variety of ways to ensure that they stay focused. She plans carefully to address children’s misconceptions and there are clear steps of progress during her lessons – particularly in English. She has worked hard on her use of modelling to ensure children fully understand the task and she refers back to prior learning throughout her lessons. Rachel has planned a series of successful lessons which she has shared across the year group. During this she adapted her teaching to meet the needs of all learners. She showed an awareness of how she could improve her practice based on previous lessons and changed the tasks for subsequent lessons. Pupils are challenged at many stages of Rachel’s lessons through her questioning, discussions and independent tasks. Her lessons are well paced and she is always aware of when she needs to move children on.

Comment from my mentor regarding how pupils learn, classroom practice and adaptive teaching on my consolidation placement:

During Rachel’s lessons, pupils effectively consolidate prior learning and progress to the next step. This has been evident in successful lesson observations throughout placement and in workbooks. Rachel is very reflective on her teaching practice and will ask for help and support when she needs to. Rachel has worked with other adults in class and has maintained a very professional manner throughout. Rachel has used of modelling and scaffolding during her lessons, allowing pupils to progress confidently.

Consolidation and extending the knowledge and understanding pupils have acquired through out-of-class activities:

During my initial placement, I took part in a school trip to Moss Farm Fisheries which formed part of the children's Science and Geography topics. I was responsible for making sure the children got to and from the destination safely, as well as helping them to complete the challenge whilst we were there. Year 2 were learning about Salford (Our City) and we had just began to look at local area learning all about Chat Moss. They had to complete a challenge looking for geese, deer, mallard ducks, frogs, barn owls and other signs of animals and habitats. We had a good talk with Lorna and Alan (our hosts) who explained how the fish were hibernating for winter as well as exploring the land that we were on.

Promoting a love of learning and encouraging pupil curiosity through hands-on learning experiences:

Use of concrete representation of abstract ideas:

During my consolidation placement, I made sure to include practical elements into my lessons by letting the children explore the properties of 2-D and 3-D shapes through multiple mediums. First, I used visual aids on the SmartBoard to build on the children’s understanding of abstract concepts. Then. using manipulatives, they were tasked with using the physical shapes to reason mathematically about their names and properties. After these experiences, the children answered questions in their books about their learning from the lesson. The CPA approach enables children to be actively involved in the construction of knowledge, creating links and using multiple representations to develop abstract concepts and consolidate their overall knowledge. Visual and physical representations of both 2-D and 3-D shapes can be used to create a tangible experience that guides children from concrete conceptions to abstraction. These foundations must be laid early in children’s learning to prevent misconceptions from cropping up in the future. If children are unable to identify the properties of shapes, then they are unable to correctly identify shapes and are therefore not meeting the objectives in the National Curriculum.