Hello. I’m coming to the end of my 6 week placement. I am going to miss the kids. Transient. I don’t know how I feel about going back to my proper school. I’m scared they’ll all expect me to be wonderful now. Like, I’ve done my tour of duty and now I’m back; they assume I’ll have a whole new set of skills, a whole new mindset, a dark, brooding intensity to my practice, which speaks of things that I cannot, which alludes to things I have seen that they will never comprehend. But I’m pretty much exactly where I was 6 weeks ago. If anything, I feel I’ve regressed because I wasn’t 100% under the cosh at this school. There wasn’t as much pressure, expectation, responsibility. I was allowed to glide, to sit back. I think I work best when I’m operating at maximum capacity. That’s when I learn quickest, think smartest, plan efficient-est. Like when the steam train was invented, everyone was all like “oh no, 40mph. How will the train driver has fast enough reactions to deal with 40mph!?” But, of course, he did. And people now have reactions that enable them to drive at 60, 70, 80mph. Formula 1 drivers have reactions doing speeds of over two times that. The faster you go, the faster your reactions can be. Obviously, there’s a limit, but it’s not 40mph. I feel that at my host school, I’m expected to be a Formula 1 racing driver. There, my reactions were honed to perfection, lightning quick, I was top of my game, I was operating at the highest intensity. At this second school placement, I’m the languishing train driver, puffing along at 40mph. There’s no expectations of my reactions here. I have time to do whatever I please; sit back, feet up, cap tilted over my sooty brow to have a nap. I’m not testing myself, I’m not being pushed. And when I go back to the Formula 1 car, I think I’m just going to plough it straight into the tyre wall.

      Anyway, I was at my second school placement for 6 weeks of 4 days (Friday is always training), so here are 24 things I learnt from being on placement and other ideas that have shown themselves to be rather valuable to teaching, arranged in a nice, concise, orderly list:

1.       Use peer assessment as often as possible. Get kids to swap work with a partner and then list what they think is good about the piece of work and what they think needs improved. Use colour coded pens or colour coded post-its for this. Factor in DIRT time for improvement.

2.       Use self assessment as often as possible. Print the Success Criteria in a table and stick it in books, for children to tick off when they think they’ve achieved it. Have them write on post its one thing they feel they learned during the lesson and one thing they need help with. Do a progress arrow or tree where they stick up how confident they feel with a subject at the start of the lesson and then again at the end and see if there’s an improvement. Factor in DIRT time for improvement.

3.       Factor in DIRT time. I think it stands for Dedicated Improvement and Reflection time. Kids to complete comments left, challenges set or any of those peer/self assessment points.

4.       Either commit to a blog or don’t.

5.       Encourage all types of writing. We wrote African stories in English and there was such a wide range of interpretations. On the one hand, reading them, it’s like, these are the ramblings of the insane. There’s not a coherent thought here. On the other, it’s like, wow, bind this shit up and sell it because it’s offering a unique insight into the development and structure of the human psyche. One boy’s story started off with “Once upon a time, in the scorching African Savannah, in the long grasses, a lion and a zebra grew up. They were friends and then Gandalf said to Bilbo-” Oh, wait a minute, hold on. No Gandalf and Bilbo, remember, these are African stories. Use those scenes and characters we talked about. Ok, miss. “Once upon a time, in the scorching African Savannah, in the long grasses, a lion and a zebra grew up. And then Simba said to Mufasa, why can’t I go to the elephant graveyard, dad?” Another girl wrote an entire A4 page that was just one sentence. It was the most comprehensive example of stream of conscious writing since Virginia Woolf. It was a modernist text. It could have been studied on a second year English Literature university course. I photocopied it.

6.       Use games as much as possible in lessons. Games on the Interactive Whiteboard are an obvious one; something the whole class can get behind, but also just regular games. Have a basketball game in phonics where children can take a shot if they get the phoneme right. Use bowling pins in languages, where children get to bowl if they pronounce something right. Chinese Whispers, Slap (the running and hitting picture), Snap, Running Dictation, rock paper scissors, islands. Anything. Find a game and work it in.

7.       Don’t rely on worksheets. Personally, I like the idea of things being learnt my rote. I think it sticks. I learnt up to 12x12 by rote and I can still recall all those timetables now. But kids find it boring. Invent ways to do worksheets where there isn’t actually a worksheet involved: mazes, riddles, colour coded question cards, stations which groups revolve around every few minutes, completing different challenges.

8.       Listen to music in class. If the kids are good, have 5 minutes where they can work in silence, listening to music. Not a revolutionary idea, but one the kids welcome. I started it during wet play because they were being way to noisy but I didn’t think it was right to tell them to shut up during their playtime. So I put the music on and, hey presto, they immediately became quiet.

9.       Use the sanctions/ rewards policy. It makes you look like a good teacher and it reminds kids of their expectations. If a sanction/s rewards policy isn’t obvious, ask. If they don’t have one, invent one. Stickers for good behaviour, minutes lost for behaviour which needs to be improved. The traffic light system is a good one- everyone starts out at 9am with their names on amber. If they’re showing good behaviour, they move up to green. Those who need to improve are moved down to red.

10.   Not all schools have the same behavioural standards. At my second school, there was no expectation on the class to come in quietly and sit down ready for the lesson. I had to expend time and energy to make that happen, which was a shock after the clipped order of my host school. Think on your feet to accommodate this lack of cohesion.

11.   Transitions between lessons are important. The slicker these are, the better influence you have over the behaviour of your class. It also means more time for learning, less wasted on putting books away. Have a routine and a timetable so kids know who’s doing what and when. Make your classroom a slick, military operation.

12.   Maths starters: 42 is the answer. What’s the question? I’m thinking of a number. If I times it by 9 and add 5, I get 50. What was my number? How do you know a triangle is a triangle? Times table Bingo. Place Value bingo.

13.   Watch You Tube clips for Mini Plenaries and get the kids to use their whiteboards to record one interesting thing that they have learnt.

14.   Continually ask for critical feedback from your mentor.

15.   Progress grades and lesson grades are different things. I got a 3 for my lesson grade but a strong 2 for my progress grade. Chin up.

16.   Join in with other members of staff, even if you think they’re insane. You’re there for six weeks/ a term/ a year or whatever. A school is a community. Don’t alienate yourself from it because you don’t agree with how many sugars they have in their tea.

17.   Always do Dance in PE to music. If the internet doesn’t work on your laptop, use someone else’s. If the speakers don’t work in the hall. Find a stereo and CD. If the stereo or CD doesn’t work, get a drum from the percussion stand and beat out a tune. If there isn’t a percussion stand, clap.

18.   Don’t set yourself all of your planning to do in one hit. Do it in a series of short and manageable sessions. In the first, set a skeleton outline for your lessons. Then get up and go do something else. In your next session, fill in that plan a bit, bulk it out. In the next, organise IWB slides. In the next, fill out the plan even more, near 100% complete and make a list of resources needed. In the next session, gather those resources. In the last session, go through your plan and conduct a mental rehearsal of it. Bite size and manageable chunks.

19.   Organise all your PPA time like a timetable. First half hour, do this, then next half hour do that. Stick to the timetable. If something takes longer or you’re stuck on a point, don’t sit staring at the blinking cursor of a computer screen, waiting for inspiration to strike. It’s a waste of time. Make a note of what’s the problem and factor in time to return to it, then move on to the next job. By the time you return to the problem, your mind will be better placed to tease out a solution. Be a well organised, efficient machine. A slick operation.

20.   Keep a notebook/ scrap of paper handy for when interesting ideas strike you.
 I can’t think of the next 4 points and, in the spirit of point 19, I’m not going to sit here racking my brains for the answer. I’m going to go on to my next job, which is watching Batman Begins. There’s a lot of ideas here and I’ve got shelves and shelves of books that are filled cover to cover with even more ideas. They’re all good tips and tricks, and handy to have an understanding or a knowledge of, or a place in your repertoire. But I think being a teacher is more than that. I think being a teacher is having the ability to factor all these wonderful ideas and management tactics into their daily, nay, their hourly, working practice. When those theoretical ideas become practical actions without thought or effort, that’s when you know you’ve made it. It’s no use just sitting on a wealth of ideas. You have to utilise them. It’s not who I am underneath but what I do that defines me.