KS2 teachers please step this way!!! : )

[StitchingMoss]

I have an interview on Friday, am trying to return to teaching after a few years away from the classroom. Used to mainly teach Y6 but doing a 20 min sessions with Y4s!

Please can you advise whether these questions are too difficult/too easy/just right and whether they provide appropriate differentiation?

Thank you

• Santa has 8 reindeer to feed and they will eat two apples each. How many apples will he need?

• The reindeer also need some milk to drink. Santa has 24 litres of milk, if he divides it equally how much will each reindeer have to drink?

• Santa has 20kg of grain ? if he feeds them each 1kg of grain how much will he have left?

• If the reindeer are going to take 15 minutes to eat their grain and Santa needs to leave Lapland by 11.30pm, what is the latest time he can feed them?

• If Santa has to visit 192 countries in 6 hours, how long will he have to complete his deliveries in each country?

The last one would only be a challenge question and I'm aware could be too hard! I'm then planning to let them have some time to think up a couple of their own questions - we used to do this a bit when I was teaching before. Would this still be an acceptable use of time/differentiation?

Can you tell I'm a bit nervous?!

Yes to 'think of your own question'. Most of the questions would be on the lower end of y4 ability - my top group would just give the answer straight off, no thinking. (year 4) Last question would make them think, but they would need some support how to approach it. Least able group would need some concrete aids - picture of eight reindeer/mini white boards to draw problem? Think you need to think about how you are going to differentiate.

Thank you .

I'm going to use mini whiteboards and have visual aids on the IWB, but maybe need to make some of my questions harder. This is quite a high performing school!

They are easy questions to work out (especially if it's a high performing school) but the fact that they are word problems may throw some of them - it would confuse my class and did today with multiplication and division. I would do the same questions but use different numbers, asking the children to select which ones they did.

TBH stitch - I'd give my Y2 class the first three questions.

Thank you, I really appreciate your feedback. I had a feeling they'd be far too easy but being a Y6 teacher in the main I'm always wary of setting things that are too hard! Have to find a happy medium .

Back to the drawing board!

I don't want to be met by a sea of confused faces, but similarly I don't want them bored stupid because I'm doing something too easy.

Make sure you have some kind of shared activity - work with partners is a biggie! Peer assessment also very popular!
Just a thought - what about giving each pair an envelope (addressed to Santa, N POle) with an amount written on a piece of paper inside. Give them a toy list and they have to find 3/4/5 items to make that amount... or something like that. Would be dead easy to differentiate (amount, price list or number of items)

(Blimey, strike days are obviously bad for my brain! )

Thank you, you're a star Fraidy!