Repeated explanation in year 1 about everything again and again

[queenceleste]

Are there any primary teachers who could help explain this style of teaching to me?

I often help out in school and am interested in the way the teachers seem to describe what the task is, what the aim of the task is, what the learning objectives are. Then they seem to do it again and again. It feels a bit deadening and the children don't seem to take that much of it in always.

There is a really miserable part of an activity that just goes round and round slowly saying: we are going to do this, then we are going to do that and then you will ask this and then you will do that. And there is so much talk from the teacher and I sometimes wonder how much is being taken in?

I understand the nonsense of endless record keeping about attainment but has all this justification led to an occasionally joyless kind of automated teaching.
Of course you need LOs etc but it's the length of explanations and repetitions that slightly make me want to throw myself under a bus, it seems such a turn off. I wonder why things can't just be massively speeded. Let's get to it! Sort of thing.

And I say that as a non educator and with the greatest respect to the professionals who do a skilled and difficult job, i just want to understand the slowness of style.

Because it's drummed into us that children must know what they are learning, what they are supposed to be doing and what they hope to achieve by the end of the lesson. Not only that, but they would be expected to explain all of this to an OFSTED inspector/SMT during a lesson observation.

:(

You're totally right though and this is one of the many things that makes teaching such an unenjoyable (at times) treadmill at the moment.

Thanks sugar, it feels deeply counterintuitive with 30 kids in a small classroom.... I am sure it comes from government ignorance of what happens in the classroom on a day to day basis. And also what WORKS.

I had a mate who's young cousin was straight from Oxbridge to advising on Education policy in a previous administration with no work experience at all except for long vacc playing PPS somewhere in Westminster and maybe two weeks on the sports desk at the Telegraph. This lad was pontificating about education and my mate (a working teacher) just wanted to kill him with her bare hands. She said his arrogance was impervious to arguments from life experience. It's all about policy and our public world is run by management consultants most of whom seem not to have done anything else.

I know what you mean but it may depend on the teacher. It shouldn't be too much teacher talk - the emphasis should be on what the children are doing/learning. They should be active the majority of the time, I am always being told around 80/20 split of children doing/ teacher doing. So for example my class come into the room and start an activity straight away before I have said anything. Then I will interperse what I say with some short activities followed by longer independent work. Lessons are expected to have pace. It can be a difficult thing to balance!

ooo fruitpastille I like the cut of your jib!

I guess it takes confidence, experience and a feeling of support from the LT to work that way as well.

I just find with any task with my dd that there is a natural rhythm to her patience for explanation before her desire to act reaches a peak and then sort of dies and leads to a loss of interest. I am used to getting really quickly to the point while always saying how long before she can get stuck in. Aiming for moments not minutes. In the classes I've helped in I often sense a feeling of slightly explosive boredom as the hoard of kids wait and wait and wait for the Talk to end. They seem to have to suppress themselves and their natural energy into a dormant state and then drag it up again when they are permitted to move/speak/act.

Again, I'm not a pro, I'm just a witness thinking how uphill it looks. Also the kids who are hardest to manage are the ones who find it hardest to wait..... I'm always thinking "yup, they've got that, yup you've said that twice now, yup, that angel child does sit nicely because she is a very quiet good girl (it isn't hard for her to do that!), yup - OH PLEASE DON'T REPEAT THE WHOLE SEQUENCE!"

I like the sound of your pace!

My five year old has the same experience and she complains it bl**dy boring and frustrating when her classmates get the task wrong inspite of having instructions 20 times.

A teaching assistant should be used to repeat the instructions 20 million times to the thick kids and the more able children should be allowed to get on with the task after the first explanation.

I have had a morning just like yours queen celeste but with a much smaller group of year 1, s. I am learning that if they have a helper they will ask you everything. I am trying to employ a lighter touch as they boys in particular think that they cant do the task. Its hard. You can feel like you are being torn all the time.

Oh dear. I think when Ofsted come in, OP, this style of teaching will not go down well! Are the children given different work according to ability? Is prior learning taken into account when the activity/lesson is planned? Does the teacher drone on to the whole calss all the time? If the lesson has no pace and there is too much talk, this will be a real problem because, as you rightly say, it is a turn off and little learning takes place. Do you think you are being used productively? It is difficult for you to criticise, but does the Head ever monitor the quality of the lessons? It is not Ofsted policy to keep going over instructions again and again. This is not learning. Why don't you read the narrative on lesson observations contained in Outstading Ofsted reports or familiarising yourself on what Ofsted look for in a good lesson and you can see for yourself what is good practice. It has nothing to do with young people from Oxbridge. It has all to do with producing outstanding lessons and what a good experience a lesson should be for the children.

I teach university students and find myself repeating things over and over. I didn't used to when I started, but it is amazing how many students don't ask if they don't understand, and don't seem to get it. Although I wonder if we'd find that the ones who attend sessions are the ones who do 'get it'.

It is like we have just assumed that people either can't pay attention the first time, or don't know how to ask if they don't understand. It would be more helpful to teach people to ask if they need help - although if I had a class of 5-6 year olds I certainly wouldn't know how to get the shy children to ask me questions. But thankfully for them I'm not a primary teacher.