Achieving Outstanding on your Teaching Placement

Early Years and Primary School-based Training

Jonathan Glazzard, Jane Stokoe

• Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd
• Year: 2011
• ISBN:
  9781446292198
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Elementary Education

Making a success of your teaching placement is a vital part of achieving qualified teacher status (QTS). With a focus on practical strategies and closely referenced to OfSTED, this book provides essential guidance on how to translate the ?outstanding? criteria into practice.

The authors break down the OfSTED criteria so that you can easily identify the skills and knowledge you need to make the most of your placements.

Packed with case studies, practical tasks and links to the QTS standards, the book is structured around:

"developing professional knowledge

"planning

"how to be an outstanding teacher

"classroom management

"teamwork

"assessment

"Continuing Professional Development (CPD)

This book will help trainees make the difficult jump from ?good? to achieving a Grade 1 ?outstanding? on their placements.

Jonathan Glazzard is Course Leader BA (Hons) in Early Primary Education at the University of Huddersfield. Jane Stokoe is Foundation Stage and KS1 leader, SENCO and Assistant Headteacher at Hoyland Springwood Primary School, Barnsley.

1

Professional attributes

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This chapter covers

Ofsted (2009) has identified several noticeable characteristics of ‘outstanding’ trainee teachers. This chapter examines each of these characteristics in turn. Each characteristic is exemplified to enable trainee teachers to identify whether they are demonstrating them during periods of school-based placement. The chapter focuses heavily on how trainees can develop creative, innovative approaches in teaching. It addresses the notion of being a risk taker and it stresses the importance of a flexible approach.

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According to Ofsted outstanding trainees:

• take risks when trying to make teaching interesting, are able to deal with the unexpected and ‘grab the moment’;
• inspire and communicate their enthusiasm to learners;
• have an intrinsic passion for learning;
• show innovation and creative thinking – lateral thinkers;
• have the ability to reflect critically and rigorously on their own practice to inform their professional development, and to take and evaluate appropriate actions – they are able to learn from their mistakes;
• take full responsibility for their own professional development;
• are highly respected by learners and colleagues and, where appropriate, parents/carers and employers;
• have the clear capacity to become outstanding teachers;
• demonstrate, or show the capacity to develop, leadership and management skills (2009: 36).

These characteristics will now be examined in turn to enable you to evaluate whether you are demonstrating them fully during your periods of school-based training.

Taking risks

According to Ofsted outstanding trainees ‘take risks when trying to make teaching interesting, are able to deal with the unexpected and ‘‘grab the moment’’’ (2009: 36). However, the notion of risk is subjective and one person’s perception of risk may differ radically from that of another. Consequently you may feel that you have taken a risk in your teaching but your mentor may not share this view. An example of this is illustrated through the following case study.

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Case study

A trainee teacher with a Year 4 class supported the children in applying their mathematical understanding of area by engaging the children in an outdoor lesson. The children were asked to calculate the area of the football pitch. The trainee felt that the lesson was an example of risk taking and evidence of creative practice. In the post-lesson feedback tutorial the class mentor explained to the trainee that there is an expectation that children should work both inside and outside the classroom. Working outside was also common practice for this group of learners. For these reasons the mentor felt that no risks in teaching had been taken.

Reflection

• Can you think of ways in which the trainee could have genuinely taken risks to teach this aspect of mathematics?
• Reflect on lessons you have taught where you have ‘played it safe’. How would you change these lessons to become a risk taker?

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Being a risk taker is potentially problematic and trainees may be tempted to ‘play it safe’ when planning and teaching lessons. Trainees (and teachers) often mentally rehearse worst case scenarios at the planning stage and this may prevent them from taking a risk. Such scenarios include:

• learning outcomes not being met;
• the children becoming over-excited resulting in a noisy learning environment and loss of focus;
• other teachers in school not liking your teaching style.

These potential pitfalls may prevent you from taking risks in your teaching. Additionally the context you are working in will ultimately determine whether you are able to take risks in your lessons. If you are working with creative, energetic teachers who also take risks in their teaching then you will ultimately be more inclined to do the same. Unfortunately if you are placed in a school with teachers who ‘play it safe’ and expect you to teach in a similar way then the opportunities to take risks will be more limited. Your class mentor will play a pivotal role in this respect. If your class mentor is open to fresh ideas and approaches and regularly experiments in teaching, you are likely to model this approach.

However, we emphasise that you should be willing to experiment with teaching styles and approaches regardless of the context in which you are placed. Your ITT provider does not expect you to be a carbon copy of your class teacher. The aim of teacher training is to empower you to develop your own professional identity as a beginning teacher. By the end of your training it is important that you have formulated your own set of principles about education in general and children’s learning specifically. Trainees should consequently take every opportunity to learn from experimentation, try out new ideas and evaluate their actions during periods of school-based training. Research has suggested that creative teachers frequently take risks in both their private and professional lives (Boden, 2001; Craft, 2001) so it appears that creativity and risk taking go hand in hand.

Before taking risks you need to think through carefully how you will manage the lesson if things do not go according to plan. Risk taking, by its very nature, means that children’s responses and outcomes cannot always be predicted. Sometimes it is too easy to adopt a predictable structure that you know will work because you have used it many times before. Being a risk taker assumes a degree of flexibility to deviate from tried and tested structures.

Sometimes risk taking demands the flexibility to deviate from prescribed lesson planning both within and between lessons in response to what children say and do. It is not always necessary or even desirable to have each day precisely mapped out to five-minute intervals. Children come to school with new experiences each day. They bring in objects which they have either found or been given. Risk takers are able to ‘grab the moment’ and seize the opportunity to embrace children’s interests or experiences and build these into learning experiences. Consequently risk takers are able to think on their feet.

During centre-based training you will have been introduced to specific ways of structuring lessons, particularly in literacy and mathematics. You may also have been introduced to some of the materials produced by the National Strategies. Trainees often find it helpful to follow this non-statutory guidance as it provides them with a structure upon which to base their teaching. However, there is a danger that over-prescription can stifle imagination within teaching. Trainees who take risks are willing to try out new approaches that they have never used before. They are keen to experiment with creative approaches and deviate from common approaches to structuring lessons. These trainees realise the potential benefits of varying their teaching styles in order to maximise learner participation. Cremin (2009) argues that creative teachers take ownership of planning, teaching and assessment and exert a strong sense of professional autonomy in the classroom.

Lesson stimuli

A creative stimulus for a lesson will engage and excite your learners. Think carefully about the use of the following as resources to stimulate learning:

• music;
• a piece of art work;
• a poster;
• objects from the natural work, for example bird’s nest;
• a ‘magic’ mobile telephone;
• a rusty key;
• a letter in a bottle;
• an old boot;
• an old diary;
• a sealed box;
• a feely bag.

Consider the ways in which you may use these resources to support learning across the curriculum. Also reflect on what additional resources can support creative practices.

Trainees may be empowered by discovering that specific lessons do not have to follow specific formats. It is not necessary to start every mathematics lesson with a mental/oral starter, followed by whole-class input, focused group work and a plenary. Literacy lessons do not necessarily have to begin with a big book or a shared writing activity. Phonics lessons do not always have to follow a four-part structure. These approaches may work some of the time but if they are over-used there is a danger that the predictable structure may cause children to disengage. Varying your approach adds interest for both you and your learners.

You might decide to teach children about mathematical concepts though a series of outdoor games. A lesson of fractions can be brought to life by asking the children to make sandwiches and find different ways of cutting them into halves or quarters. A treasure hunt around the school can be an exciting way of teaching the children about logical thinking and can focus on specific areas of the curriculum. History lessons can be brought to life through the use of drama strategies. The National Strategies provide a comprehensive overview of a range of drama and speaking and listening strategies. The use of drama and talk across the whole curriculum can be a powerful and engaging way of teaching children subject-specific skills or aspects of knowledge. Trainees who take risks exploit such possibilities and use the broader curriculum as a context for applying children’s literacy, numeracy and ICT skills. This approach ensures that these fundamental skills are applied and practised in context.

In all of these approaches the key point is that you firstly need to establish the intended learning outcomes. Once you are clear about what you want the children to learn you can then plan imaginative activities which address these. The intended learning outcomes should be derived from your assessments of children’s prior learning. You should avoid the temptation to think of exciting activities first then match learning outcomes to fit the activity. This approach may be detrimental to children’s learning, as an accurate understanding of children’s misconceptions and next steps in learning should drive planning and teaching. You should therefore make sure that teaching is driven by an accurate identification of children’s needs rather than being activity driven.

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Practical task

You are teaching a lesson on position in mathematics to a Year 1 class. The learning objective is:

• To visualise and use everyday language to describe the position of objects.

Think of creative ways of teaching this objective. Try to make the learning active and fun.

Then take other objectives from the National Curriculum or the EYFS framework and think of innovative approaches to teach them.

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Trainees who take risks recognise the value of enquiry-based learning. Fundamentally children need to be independent learners. They need to discover new learning for themselves and develop the skills needed to become lifelong learners. Passive learning and didactic approaches (imparting knowledge) have little value in today’s schools. Children will quickly forget what they have been told but will remember what they have discovered for themselves. Trainees who take risks will therefore provide opportunities for their learners to practise being scientists, historians, mathematicians and so on....

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• About the authors
• Table of acronyms
• Glossary of key terms
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 Professional attributes
• Chapter 2 Professional knowledge and understanding
• Chapter 3 Planning for teaching and learning
• Chapter 4 Outstanding teaching
• Chapter 5 Assessment for learning
• Chapter 6 Team work
• Chapter 7 Classroom management
• Chapter 8 Pursuing your own professional development
• Chapter 9 Organising your files
• Chapter 10 Going beyond the standards
• Chapter 11 Developing your own professional identity
• Appendix – List of QTS standards by chapter
• References
• Index