Teachers - your thoughts on this? (Essay help!)

[badgermonkey]

I'm planning an essay for my Master's course, and I want to write about the barrage of new initiatives that teachers face and how we have to adapt every time. I'll be looking at the last 20 years or so, since the start of the National Curriculum, I think, and I want particularly to comment on ideas that have been brought in with great fanfare and dropped later on, especially if they've been disproven or shown not to work (ahem, Brain Gym...). I'll also be writing about new schemes that are coming into play at the moment, like APP and topic-based learning.

I've been teaching 7 years and I can think of quite a few things myself, like the Lit + Num Strategies, learning styles, peer assessment, and, obviously, SATs, but I would really welcome examples from other people. I'm a secondary English teacher so often 'experimented' on with new ideas but I don't really get to see what goes on at Primary level. Any examples or opinions gratefully accepted!

[rainbowinthesky]

Has peer assessment been dropped? Learning styles still pretty much alive and kicking in my experience - at least including a range of VAK stuff in lessons. What about g and t?

[badgermonkey]

Oh, just to make it clear, I'm not only looking at stuff that's been dropped, just anything new that's been brought in. For things like learning styles, I'd like to compare the idea behind it with how it has been implemented - for example, the lesson plan proforma at our school making it clear you need to use all the VAK stuff in any observed lesson, whether it's applicable or not Not what was intended in the first place, really.

G+T's a really good call, thanks.

[gherkinwithapurplemerkin]

Ofsted? [wink}
PMR "not linked to pay"

[BuzzingNoise]

How about IEPs/ILPs. YOu're supposed to tailor every lesson to suit every individual pupil.
And assessment for learning, as well as assessment of learning.

[scaryteacher]

AfL - has made a huge difference in some schools.

[mrz]

I'm not sure you can class Brain Gym and VAK as initiatives

[IWasThatEasterBunny]

QCA Schemes of work (incl subject 'hours')

APP

MFL primary

VLE

Raise Online

Target setting

Grammar for writing

Synthetic phonics / letters and sounds

Frameworks

Talk for writing

Outside Learning

Restructure of eyfs

eyfs goals (2x??)

SEF

SLT to make pay recommendations

Dealing with dyslexia

[SuSylvester]

when is tarted in 1992 it was all pupil centred learning ( impossible in large class)

DARTS

differentiation ( why not just stream the class fgs)

and hten was i left for mate leave in about 200 it was all coming back

[SuSylvester]

VAK
yes YAWN to that
trffic lights

plenaries
never do them
ROLE PLAY / hot seating
language labs

the dses were snet a card to log onto a YAGT website that they thought was crap

[SuSylvester]

oh we ahda bloke evangelisng about " going for five " or some such
till a very clever collague ( phd) told him he was shit

[SuSylvester]

SEAL?

[SuSylvester]

god htis is better than therapy.
when i do something odd in a lesson the kids hate it. cant we just write it?

although they did like my speed dating style revision session.

[badgermonkey]

How could I forget VLEs? I have an
allowance for managing our department's VLE content and after the first meeting with my line manager we decided our VLE software is useless and it's a waste to spend any time on it, so I'm getting paid to do literally nothing. What a good way to use resources!

[IWasThatEasterBunny]

PIPS ALS ELS FLS SPRINGBOARD

Ofsted judging teaching / now judging learning

caf

[SuSylvester]

what is VLE
you see i went back to teachign and had them in FITS when i didnt know the TLA for department development plans or somesuch
" you really DONT know what that is"?

I go to NO meetings after school adn still seem to manage

[TheFallenMadonna]

When I returned to teaching after 5 years out, the acronyms I had to have explained to me were:

APP
AfL
SEAL
ECM
PLTS

All are now on our SoW (sorry, SoL) templates,a nd have to be highlighted for every lesson

Along with the Enterprise 11 and literacy objectives.

Probably no help to you. Just my own little personal rant

[purepurple]

I'm not a teacher but with regards to primary schooling what about the introduction of the Foundation Stage and play-based play? You could look nat Wales and the introducation of their Foundation Phase which is up to the age of 7 or 8, based on the Swedish model. They had plans to have a 1-8 ratio which the couldn't fully implememt because of the costs involved.

[SuSylvester]

its all bollocks int it.
i said to my boss recently that i motivated kids and set them targets etc by

get ready

getting them up to my desk to talk about their books as i marked them, and

triple gasp

the rest of the class did some work

[IWasThatEasterBunny]

What VLE is that bm? I was told that ours was now being 'managed' and would never ever be improved as there is no development department.... it's so clunky you need a screwdriver to run it!!

[badgermonkey]

Our senior management consulted with the school council about teaching and learning (why?) and found out that kids didn't always realise when they were developing skills like teamwork or independent learning, so now if we do an activity that involves, say, team work, we have to have a special "team work" logo that we put on the board so they know that's what they're doing. Brilliant.

[SuSylvester]

OH

MY GOD to teamwork logo

[SuSylvester]

in my clasroom there are some laminated over sized speech bubbles saying " iam learning about" or something
god knwos what for

[SuSylvester]

oh what about havign to use game show techniques to make anything interesting?

[SuSylvester]

peer assessment

" yeah its great - i like your pink gel pen, now what are you wearing on friday"

how the FUCK to they know WILF

arf