Educational fads of the moment

[FuckYouDailyMail]

Ex-teacher here and the changes to assessment and streaming at DD's school 'to ensure the school is following the latest research' have brought back memories of the numerous new initiatives I had to adapt to using over the years.

AIBU to ask you to tell me about your favourite and least favourite teaching fads? Which ones were a waste of time and which have proved their worth.

Carol Dweck- Growth mindset and the 100000 hours. Even after that singing I would not rival Jedward let alone Whitney!

Three part lesson/ 4 part lesson/ 10 part lesson!

Magenta principles

Intervention just the word aghhh

Let’s think/CASE

The lesson study process

Resilience but they do seriously lack it to be fair.

Target grades aghhhh

Yes to the mastery too. Why does it all need a name!

Forgot the DIRT time. Awful

Lots of kids don’t even read it!

@noblegiraffe

I don't think there are many children who benefit from labeling dependent, subordinate, complex, compound clauses / phrases / sentences etc.

I don't think that knowing the terminology helps at the time.

I'm no longer a classroom teacher but covered a Year 2 class today. We were writing dependent clauses and the children absolutely benefitted from knowing what coordinating conjunctions and compound sentences were.

2 subjects blah, blah ... there was some fantastic work from them. They wrote in full sentences and because of excellent literacy in Year 1, each and every child had finger spaces, full stops and capitals. With most having nailed phase 6 phonics, a little grammar was extremely beneficial.

I can't do phonics. I'm 36 and was an advanced reader (learned before starting school and often used to read in class as an example). I really struggle to help dd. I just cannot work out what words are phonetic and which are tricky/learned words. As far as I can see I just learn the words. I'm pretty sure she does too. Whereas ds did well with phonics. Although his spelling isn't great because of it.

DIRT Time = Do it right this time - isn't it?

15, 15, 20, 10.

Plenaries, mini-Plenaries and Woven Plenaries. I do quite like a good ornamental (oral-mental) starter though.

WILF, WALT, LOs, WAGOLL

Unfortunately, I am now so old that most fads have come and gone. I was berated for declaring, "Don't worry, this will go away again" when Singapore Maths was introduced. It didn't even last a fortnight...

Oh and disadvantaged now instead of pupil premium. It just doesn’t sound nice.

Stickers on their books too!

Thought we stopped brandishing people!

I contest forest school.

I push my year 2 class so, so hard to get them to expected. They already have no continuous provision or afternoon play. Forest school is of enormous worth to them and me. They look forward to it and so do I. So far this half term we have investigated properties or material, looked at habitats, found parallel and perpendicular lines, made Goldsworthy sculptures and had a times table orienteering exercise.

What's more valuable is that I've actually seen them be children. And I've seen the huge impact being outside has had on the behaviour of many. It's so much better. One boy is a different character entirely. Engaged, focused.

The classroom is not an ideal environment for many children. My own ds is on the spectrum and his forest school days are the only days he wants to go in.

I do bloody hate the Peat sentences though. And Singapore maths. Its BORING!

Cross-curriculum teaching - Why, as a French teacher, should I have to teach English grammar (which many children seem not to understand yet)?

Flight paths - With NC levels you could actually see progress. Now I have two students who have the same flight path grade but have very different abilities. One is a native French speaker and the other is just someone who does very well, but wouldn't be able to go to France and have an everyday conversation.

Complicated learning objectives - There is no point in having "All students will...", "Most students will..." etc type objectives. If you just write "LO: to be able to..." then you know what the lesson was about, but you don't have to waste ten minutes at the beginning.

phlebasconsidered

Yet Singaporeans are smashing maths targets.

Why is that?

Perhaps because they are teaching to the style set by the pisa tests? Doesn't mean they are necessarily better at maths as a concept.

"wave all this shit around ostentatiously in observed lessons"

Teaching in a nutshell there!

Our latest fad is getting pupils to Think Hard and wedging a Thinking Skills task into every lesson. I 'did' thinking skills 12 years ago as an NQT when 'learning to learn' was the latest big bollocks, amazed it's still hanging around.

You know what my class loves best? Copying.
They arrived high as kites today after a windy lunchtime, contraband Lucozade flowing through their veins, shoving their way through the door, sending my neatly distributed gluesticks, rulers and starter activities flying. I was so cross I made them copy out in silence for half an hour instead of the interactive learning I'd planned.
They loved it. 'Can we just do it like that next lesson, Miss?'

Give me strength. Quitting at Christmas too. Phew.

I think forest school is brilliant! 🌲 no idea about Singapore Maths yet!! Lots to come

phlebasconsidered

Yet Singaporeans are smashing maths targets.

Why is that?

Discipline, respect, no answering back, not whispering or chatting when the teacher is talking. A want to learn. Listening skills!

Sadly a lot of our kids lack all of the above. Even the nice kids.

Curriculum for excellence actually came in really useful for my autistic DS in mainstream primary. In England! Finally an assessment grid that broke early learning areas down into sufficiently small increments that progress could be recorded because it took him bloody years to even make a dent in p-scales.

What is with naming classes? Instead of numbering them? Our school has just gone over to this. But even staff still refer to them by number, and that’s despite another class being added which technically should be class 1 under the old system of numbering from reception up.

I struggle with the concept of not pushing a child to their own potential and instead have them being held back to what their target says they should be at. There will always be children who want to fly. There will always be children who find the work a harder. To fail to acknowledge this will turn children off learning.

Resilience
Growth mindset
Learning styles

All WUBBISH

Tomorrow exactly. This is why DD's now doing maths on a Saturday morning at a prep school.

I don't know if it's just my experience with DS, but I'm finding handwriting is a hideous clash of print/ cursive

And also noble's comment re handwriting upthread.

I was taught cursive ("joined up") writing at primary school - 60 years ago. The instant I started secondary school - and no longer had to write like that - I reverted to what I subsequently discovered was called "infant script", i.e. printing letters individually. (I expect it's called something else now.)
I found this both easier and quicker to write, and much easier to read.

Many years later, my children were taught the same thing, and also gave up with cursive at the earliest opportunity.

When I was teaching, about half my pupils used non cursive writing for their homework (while the other half word-processed their work).

I mark for CIE. Most candidates don't use cursive. Of those who do, I have sometimes been unable to award a mark because I really couldn't read it (despite spending an inordinate amount of time trying).

Books are not printed in cursive.

So why on earth spend time teaching it at all? In art lessons, perhaps.

But I know there are people who will completely disagree with me.

My kids are in a rights respecting school. Doesn't stop the rest of the fuckers bullying my older son. After three years they still wanted him to sit down with the boys who had physically attacked him for them to do the whole restorative justice thing for about it the 100th time. Cos it clearly is working....

Year 6 now. I have told the school he wont be paticipating again, and next time he comes home with a bruise i am reporting to the police.

Group work means the most diligent child ends up carrying the others through the exercise.
Why can't children in theBritish system skip grades?

I've been having babies so I'm hoping its past by the time I head back to school but the ridiculous notion that there is no such thing as a one to one child. That makes my blood boil.

I have never heard of Singapore Maths but it sounds like they've stuck a random name of a country that does well under PISA in front of any old bollocks maths concept, and expected success to flow from there.

I have taught kids from hugely successful SE Asian schools, those of the rote learning and pass everything with flying colours style.

The kids who aren't gifted in maths, who in fact are struggling, are completely and utterly ignored and failed. I'd rather work in a system that takes everyone with it than one which only teaches the top kids.

Ferriswheel, what's a one to one child?