The Twenty-Sixth Republic -Half Term Horror?

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Good grief, that lesson plan!! There's no way that would work with any of my classes. Mine need short sharp explanations/examples, then a 10 minute task where they answer maths questions, rinse and repeat. I have a format, which worked really well over lockdown. It was: a) 10 question revision starter that they did independently and answered on MS forms. B) short video explaining the maths they are about to practice. C) exercise/worksheet practising the skills I've just explained/modelled. D) 5 question plenary demonstrating that they have understood (they send me photos of their main work, and the plenary is generally on MS forms so they get instant feedback)

It worked, it engaged the majority of the kids I teach, I could manage the workload. Sixth form generally needed longer videos and they sent me photos of the work they were doing so I could give more personalized feedback. We had lots of lovely email chains where they sent me a photo of a question they needed help with and I replied telling them where they'd give wrong and/or the next steps.

I WILL NOT be writing 12 page lesson plans for each lesson! I will not be getting them to waffle about how they thought like a mathematician. I will be carrying on as I did over lockdown, but possibly attempting to do it in real time using MS teams for being able to answer questions asap.

But, MrsAD, how will you know to point with your finger if you don't write it down? 🤦🏼‍♀️

It's Ok but it is very 'dry' and definitely on the knowledge curriculum ideological bent.

Weird, because the maths one is definitely on the progressive side of things - the type who think you can get kids to 'discover' Pythagoras' Theorem despite them not being Pythagoras and only having 30 minutes.

Written by someone who severely needs Craig Barton's How I wish I'd taught maths in their life.

I'm a bit horrified at the thought that NQTs might see that and think it's the way to go.

I didn't read the whole english lesson but it did seem to be a bit daft on pace given that you could have 30kids trying to, 'type their answers into chat' as instructed and the teacher being bombarded and presumably trying to read some and correct common misconceptions etc but it reads like a 2 minute task followed by now do this and now do this at a fast pace.

That could work in a very focused classroom but even then wouldn't be ideal because only 'volunteers' who wanted to answer would answer so it would tell you nothing meaningful about progress or retention of the class as a whole.

Perhaps it's that it would 'look' ok to a parent of an engaged enthusiastic child looking over their shoulder and that's what the real goal is? Slightly less useful for a child trying to type on a touchscreen phone with the lesson zooming on without them or a child who has no intention of being laughed at by putting something stupid into chat.

This is what concerns me about the 'live' lesson business because there are ways of better engaging kids and having work to look at and give meaningful feedback on than a live pseudo classroom but the latter is being favoured.

Oh to the maths teachers who remember my lockdown saga with my then y8 set 2 ds where we were finding ourselves being asked to do non linear simultaneous equations and the like - I had a chat with the maths teacher the other day and he confirmed he had set Dr Frost to autogenerate because he didn't really understand the platform I let him know the hell he'd put me through.

The other benefit of the not live live lessons is that you can say, for example, if you are confident you understand this process you can skip to the task, for those of you still getting to grips with this (I'm thinking of maths here) let's go through a few worked examples.

There are actual benefits available for differentiation and the like that could be used but just can't be in a live lesson.

Where in a real class you might have a stage where some would be getting on with the task and others you'd be running round the room helping and supporting, you can't actually do that in a 'live lesson' and you can't do it in anyway discretely or in an individualised way. Nor can you seat the kids you know are going to struggle at the front right of the room so you can help several at once etc. You can emulate that with non live lessons by getting some to skip ahead or having them directed to differentiated tasks but you can't emulate in a live lesson with a chat box.

We used ppts for differentiation which worked well for us in Maths. Sharing it in presenter mode (I think it is called) where you can make it only show the slide you’re sharing but then later on the independent work we allowed the option where they could go back through the slides from earlier in lesson and could then choose from three slides which included some challenging tasks eg if you need a bit more Practise start on this slide, when you’re confident you can move on to the next slide and if you really want to challenge yourself go to the third one. Answers then all on another slide so they could check as they went along - mimicked what we would do in classroom in ‘normal’ times a bit!

Just a thought about the calling out scores comments. My own ds gets really upset when teachers do this. In my classes the children are allowed to either call out their score of say later. About 2/3 just call out. The 1/3 I just quickly grab at the end of the lesson and get it quietly. Of the 1/3 some of them are ones that always get 10/10 and don't want others noticing, some are ones that often get a lower score and some just randomly don't feel in the mood to share their score some weeks. This mixed approach saves me the time of asking each child individually but equally gives them privacy should they want it.

Squashedfly - thanks for that but it won't really work with the set up we currently have (it's sort of what I used to do) as us teachers have to fly out the door to the next lesson and I can't go down rows or get close to any apart from the first row. I've managed to source mini whiteboards for my year 7s to hold up scores, but not the other years.

Hmmm wonder why they are going to this effort.

Had a look at the Chemistry one guess it ok. I would love to see a Physics one though.

Yes. I've been extremely glad that our kids seem to have no issues with saying what flight path they're on or they got on an assessment. Being stuck at the front means I need to be able to say, 'which task are you doing?' which requires them to say which flightpath so I can explain and support or likewise when going over an assessment and helping them understand their 'next steps' they don't mind saying what they got which helps me understand why they have the feedback they have.

I remember when this kind of upfront differentiation style came in I thought it was a bit awful that kids would be so visibly differentiated according to their level but thankfully, I guess because it's just normal for them, it seems to be fine.

@RigaBalsam

Hmmm wonder why they are going to this effort.

Had a look at the Chemistry one guess it ok. I would love to see a Physics one though.

You will need a timer, a meter rule, a selection of different weight objects and a spare pair of hands. Or if dfe was writing it they'd probably assume the kids all had their own light gates too

You will need a timer, a meter rule, a selection of different weight objects and a spare pair of hands. Or if dfe was writing it they'd probably assume the kids all had their own light gates too

Made me laugh. So true with accompanying data logger and clamp stands.

@whynotme40 secondary really is a nightmare at the moment. At least in primary we can stay in one place.

True story:

DH has just met his (maths teacher) friend for golf. When DH got there , his friend was looking a bit odd, a bit furtive and it took a while for DH to find him at the driving range.

Turns out he had been waiting for an hour. It is Monday and he hadn't realised yet that the clocks had changed...

I've done that before piggy. Luckily it was a Sunday, so I was at church an hour early rather than attempting to drop dd off at the childminder at 7am instead of 8. I could sheepishly wander around the local park for an hour and never admit it to anyone.

But it's MONDAY! How did he not realise for the whole of yesterday and all morning today??

Are school children legally required to self isolate www.mumsnet.com/Talk/coronavirus/4060811-Are-school-children-legally-required-to-self-isolate

• a very interesting thread about whether children's parents can be fined for not isolating them when told to do so by school. Useful links to the legislation, legal advice video (which I haven't watched but it sounds wrong to me?) and Bolton doing things differently from the initial approach (maybe the origins of PHE changing their approach in schools??)

That thread was driving me mad : so many posters indignant and trying to think of ways of circumventing the rules.

Maybe I’m utterly inept but that English lesson seemed like a week’s worth to me. Or maybe I prefer to actually explore stuff rather than rattle through a bunch of sentence starters telling them what to say...it also didn’t seem terribly helpful. It was long and there was a lot of stuff in it, but a newish teacher would struggle with getting the most out of some parts and an experienced teacher would just write “stage directions opening” in their planner and take it from there. So many painstaking chunks! But then I’m devoted to my method which would be: talk a bit, read a bit, ask a bit, get them to write a bit. Pack up.

@GravityFalls are you me? That's how my lessons go!

I can also attest that with a small amount of tweaking to the “read a bit” section it also works for Media and Film Studies!

Yes, it does apart form not being able to effing stream any films...

You really need Clickview at your school. I can even add the films as tabs in Teams so they’re all to hand (although they don’t work on phones annoyingly).

talk a bit, read a bit, ask a bit, get them to write a bit. Pack up

Haaaa. This is my lesson planning. Except I add “silently do recall task” at the start.

Bolton’s way of doing it is the way DS’s school have been doing it from the beginning. Apart from 6th form, where the classes are much smaller so you can pull up the seating plans and make the decision there and then about who goes and who stays.

Primary seems to be “EVERYBODY OUT! “ from Yr4 downwards, reflecting the impostor keeping those age groups socially distanced in any meaningful way within the class itself. As demonstrated by the 6 positives in one KS1 class, with a couple of those children being really quite ill with it.