31 observations and I am inspiration less

[LittleEsmeWeatherwax]

...and this doesn't include my PGCE year.
I was fortunate to get a job straight away but it was in a failing school. The new SLT tore through the school like whirlwinds and changed how everything was done. Been coaching and inspections and my NQT year, I have been watched a huge amount of times. I am spent.

I have another obs coming up but cannot think of how to plan my lesson. I teach a language. I have followed a very prescriptive way of doing an obs but my manager wants something different. I need to teach another aspect of a theme Ive been following but have to have very obvious differentiation too. I've been staring at the screen fo hours now and not got into it at all.

You'd have thought I'd be an expert by now, but if anything, I am the opposite.

And Ive looked on TES and I cannot seem to find anything relevant.

I feel your pain

I could say a lot about your situation, which is crap, but I'll try to be practical instead.

Could you do a Tarsia? You will need to download the software, but it is easy to do and free and it is 'different'.

What's the theme and age group?

DoctorLawn, I'll have a look at Tarsia, but obs is on Monday and my old laptop here has a lower IQ than me weak attempt at humour.

The topic is School. Have done subjects, opinions, adjectives etc to death. Usually my obs have landed on consolidation/extended writing task lessons but the pupils done have enough for a writing lesson. Need to introduce "when do you have...." " I have on, after, before" etc.

I'll be drilling days of the week, I have mini whiteboards that can be used, I just don't know the format or richness of my lesson. Thick and miserable is me today.

Actually, I could cry. I should be spending time with my DC but I'm at my desk while they amuse themselves....again.

Sounds like your observer is more interested in edutainment if what they are looking for is 'something different' rather than 'effective learning'.

Stop trying to think of jazzy tasks. What is it you want the kids to know and be able to do by the end of the lesson? What are the most effective ways of achieving this? How will you be able to demonstrate that they have achieved this?
Once you've got this, then you can think about jazzing it up.

Noblegiraffe is right - sort out your objective, then your success criteria, then think about how you would normally teach that subject. Love the word 'edutainment' - perfectly descriptive of a certain school of thought.

I'm not an MFL specialist, so of limited help to you (sorry). Pinterest can be useful for visual ideas.

Know what you mean about the laptop - mine is about as effective as me after I've spent the night on the gin!

How about Chatterboxes/Fortune tellers (folded up paper thingies) - teach the children the question stems, use something they know as the options on outside (colours, numbers etc) then the 'reveal' is the question.

No laptop required, just some therapeutic folding and writing in lovely gel pen!

Good luck whatever you go with. The constant nit-picking, inconsistent and utterly subjective scrutiny is just awful isn't it? The phrase 'What if they held a war and nobody came?' keeps coming to mind... What if they had an Ofsted and nobody turned up?

It's wearing. I love teaching and my results have been excellent since joining this school. I focus lots on immersion (the language I'm teaching is my mother-tongue, English is my second language). I am VERY passionate about my subject.

The standards needed to be seen in an inspection/performance management lesson is so unsustainable in every day teaching, so I don't know why on earth we are expected to do this, but we all do it.

What language? I got loads for German.

Also, for days of the week, there are some fab songs on youtube to jazz it up.

My pupils still sing this song months on!

There is bound to be French ones too but too lazy to look now

7 hrs later and I'm almost finished with the PowerPoint.

I've still yet to do my lesson plan and the worksheet.

7 fucking hours. This is ridiculous.
I agonise over every detail.
God.

I'm really pleased with how it went - my boss (Head of Dept) told me it was one of the nicest lessons she'd seen. obvious learning, responsive pupils (georgeous class of Year 7's), everyone on task and lots of global checking. I'm so pleased.

It was last lesson and my dept had to go straight into a SLT meeting only to be told that there's a strong likelihood of one of us being made redundant this year. Gutted isnt the word. I adore my dept. We trust one anoth implicitly and work as a team.

Stunned tonight.

Glad it went well. Sadly I think lots of schools are having to go down the redundancy route.