The Thirty-First Republic - oh the joy of on-line parents evenings

[StaffAssociationRepresentative]

You are most welcome to this school staff support thread to get us through stressful times. It is meant for school staff only – a sort of room of requirement. Baiters, haters, goaders, and bashers can jog on somewhere else.

If you are NOT staff and just have a general education query please start your own thread.

You can play here if you are a member of one the following groups-

-ABBA - anti bashers and baiting association
-SWAB - school workers against bashers
-SWOT - school workers opposing teacherbashers
-STARS - schoolworkers together against ranting + slurs

Do not give the staffroom password just in case it attracts the wrong sort

Other requirements for staff room entry include the ability to find the staff room, the ability to find a clean mug in the staff room, knowledge of the photocopier codes, and the ability to sniff out where the booze is stashed - Thirsty Tuesdays, Fizz Fridays now in operation.

If you come with a stick to goad us then that is not allowed in the staffroom and you will receive a detention

I'm teaching mixed ability maths and I've never felt so shit as a teacher. I feel like an NQT. For the middle 70% it's ok. But the top and bottom are being failed.

I can't get my head round people who say they can teach mixed ability maths to GCSE. Foundation and Higher maths are two different courses.

The NQT budget story is ace. Our trainee has come from a V high power job as a career change. Let's just say their eyes have been opened to public sector cuts!

I'm finding mixed ability hard too WhenShe.

With my year 7 class one kid had finished the booklet before I'd finished reading the intro and first question to the front row (reading ages 5, 8, 6, and 5). I had extension tasks but I did have a bit of a scramble as I didn't expect them to be needed so quickly.

The really engaged kids ask me questions to which the current answer is 'I'll tell you in two lessons time, write a letter to a year 6 to explain what we learned today, I have to help these guys count the squares on the graph paper right now', when it should be so much more.

I have mixed year groups and obviously, mixed ability.

I'm teaching two different maths lessons in 90 minutes.

Input to 3s
4s do a holding task (or mostly just fuck about)
3s go off to do independent work, completely independently
Input to 4s
4s go off to to independent task
Spend next 5 minutes dealing with higher 3s who are finished
Next 5 minutes dealing with low 3s who haven't really started
Next 5 minutes dealing with higher 4s who are finished
Deal with everyone fucking about because I don't have another adult to support in any way
Say 'oh oops, finish the one you're on, books on the pile, it's 1 minute to wash hands/get snack/line up for break'.

(I'm a crap teacher this year - coverage yes, consolidate no)

Ooooh, our foot-in-mouth-NQT asked our HT today if she would be given a budget for Christmas decorations. It was gruesome. Like watching a car crash in action.

Brilliant!

Reminds me of the PGCE student at my previous school who on the first day, after being asked if she wanted tea/coffee or a glass of water, asked if she could have a hot chocolate!

We have been using those number codes on Sims for quite a few weeks now, mostly the registers are precoded with the 7s and 8s and I was using that for a guide for who to send the teams invites to ( using a different method now for the isolators)

Reminds me of the PGCE student at my previous school who on the first day, after being asked if she wanted tea/coffee or a glass of water, asked if she could have a hot chocolate!

Oh my

I want to know what the head said about the Christmas decoration budget. 😬

@Loshad

We have been using those number codes on Sims for quite a few weeks now, mostly the registers are precoded with the 7s and 8s and I was using that for a guide for who to send the teams invites to ( using a different method now for the isolators)

That’s useful to know, thank you!

Before becoming a year 6 teacher I was secondary for a decade. Now over a decade in year 6. I mostly had sets but one school was mixed ability even at secondary. Good practice for year 6 - I teach to a majority year 6 class with a few year 5's. My ability ranges from year 1 to year 8 in maths.

I do a dual input for the upper and lower core while getting the LA to recap and reinforce from the prior lessons while the HA and Extension do a pre-learn task. Then once the core are off and running I set the LA off with a short input and short task. I afl for the highers and teach an input accordingly (I have to have about 3 levels ready). I return to the lowers while the cores peer assess and set them another short task then back to the cores for another input and task. The highers then complete challenges while the others complete evaluation tasks.

Do not be afraid to spend a long time on a topic. 4 operations this year took forever and I am fully expecting to go on doing long multiplication and division as arithmetic starters until the bloody sats. Use your start tasks to reinforce and diagnose. I have a bank of extension tasks in pockets on my wall that my most able help themselves to. NRICH, 3rd space, Gareth Metcalfe, maths4everyone have some good stuff I just print off, number and sort by topic and laminate and they work through them.

It is exhausting both to teach and to plan and mark so don't feel bad! A set class now would feel so easy!

It's like spinning plates and it's knackering. I don't have a TA and the preparation is stupid.

Hope you recover quickly @starrynight19

Friend who teaches mixed attainment recommended this site if any use... I’ve not really looked at it closely... www.mixedattainmentmaths.com/#

God I am so totally the type who would ask for both Christmas decorations and hot chocolate! Although I can just about remember real wine being drunk at departmental Christmas lunches in school.

@noblegiraffe

I want to know what the head said about the Christmas decoration budget. 😬

Me too!

Mixed ability is vile. None of our classes are set by ability and our KS3 struggle to make progress not helped by the constant awful supply teachers

Morning everyone

Going to bed early last night has helped me. I don't feel quite so tired this morning. Busy day ahead though.

We are teaching mixed ability at the moment in KS3 and it's hard going. In my Y9 class, I've got kids who are GCSE level and some barely able to write a sentence! It takes a heck of a lot of planning.

Hope everyone has a good day today. I technically have 2 frees but have meetings in both and then a faculty meeting to lead after school.

We set from the start for core subjects which is great, and other teaching groups are loosely streamed.

However, Y7 sets this year are a bit of a mess as we have no proper data on them - I teach 2 groups, one which is nominally top set, with kids getting from a 9-3 and one second from bottom, with kids getting from an 8-3.

And our head of subject is really against redoing the sets rather than individual group moves so we are stuck with this until Y8 I think.

I am a fan of mixed ability .

All my classes are mixed ability, I imagine it depends on each subject how well it works. Might be easier set but it's never going to happen!
Good morning to you all

Mocks start tomorrow for Year 11 so penny has now dropped that these might be important. Everything on Teams wrt revision guide, theme guide, example papers and example answers.

Spent a good part of yesterday explaining to a few parents what support has been in place sitting on Teams since Year 10. And of course that other thing I have done - can’t put my finger on it - ah yes I have delivered the syllabus in lessons.

Our mocks started yesterday. I attempted to mark some last night, but gave up halfway through as I was too tired to carry on. I'll try to finish that paper tonight. My year 11 asked when I was going to do revision clubs with them, and I have replied that I will do revision clubs once everyone is reliably doing their homework every week and everybody is fully focused in my lessons rather than talking. I'm safe. That will never, ever happen.

The main improvement for me in MA was behaviour. Our kids had really got poisonously ghettoised and the impact on boys' learning was huge. I am always happier when behaviour is better. As an ancient crone, I don't really lose much sleep over differentiation etc. I do accept maths is different but have never been convinced that rigid setting helps the least able in English.

Noble would be interested/fangirling to hear that DS's school had Tom Bennett in for their recent training say ( I assume virtually)

Noble would be interested/fangirling to hear that DS's school had Tom Bennett in for their recent training say ( I assume virtually)

My old school had him in for training, I think hearing him in person would cure any fangirl of their crush Patronising, and irrelevant were the main things I took away from the session.

I like mixed ability in KS3 up to a point. If they can't read more than "see spot run" then they need to be in a different set, otherwise, great
At KS4 they need sets though as I would just turn the lower ability massively off science if I even exposed them to what I expect higher ability students to do. It would just confuse them.

Warning!

V long but data types may enjoy this . Dennis Sherwood himself sent it to me, talking of fangirling:

video.wixstatic.com/video/7c5491_9c240c7911fa4b0fb86be2b50c1c782c/720p/mp4/file.mp4?fbclid=IwAR08Tq3sixhCn2Av7hpA9ce4dg7rdgo3uSBKF0M7gYxGflCTzE9uYJfjBXE

Oh dear carrie. More so than Paul Dix ?

I'm used to mixed ability. I used to do things like differentiate resources so that eg the able were free writing their answer and the least able or even just very slow writers had a word fill exercise and then stagger tasks knowing which are likely to only cover a few but they'd be quick questions to the higher ability that were scaffolding the way to more complex and open questions/tasks.

The department I'm at now already has tasks differentiated by flight path on slides within PowerPoints. I do a lot of modelling verbally and we use a lot of of sentence starters and suggested structuring.

My struggle though is with the couple of kids I teach who are literally 2 key stages behind. Them i do feel like I'm failing being tucked away at the front but I can't do a lot about it in a tiny classroom.

One I have in a space where I can have him part of the main lesson then he can move to a quieter space where he can eg watch a video I've set and answers some questions through his dictation software. I can then put my mask on and go to him and check his comprehension verbally and give an extension task if it's appropriate. That wouldn't be possible in any other space in the school but his form group got lucky and got the library this year as their zone room.