This year is quite exciting in school because after our OfSTED inspection just before the summer hols (which went rather well, by the way!) we are trying to get teaching across the school from 'Good' to 'Outstanding'.
Every member of staff is completing a learning walk this half term with a focus on looking for outstanding practice in the classroom.
Today I did my first one - I spent about 15/20 minutes watching a BTEC art class, which was lovely. The pupils were all fully engaged the whole time and the pupils were working in a very calm and focussed atmospehere. Progression was obvious - the pupils were making prints in a William Morris style and pressing them over a watercolour backgroud - the work they were producing was stunning. The other things that struck me was that the pupils seemed quite confident in what they were doing. Pupils that perhaps struggle elsewhere in the school and lack confidence to 'have a go' were really going for it and were proud of their work. The teacher had a really nice relationship with the group as well, she had them doing exactly where she wanted them and yet it still felt like they were working with her, not for her.
So how could I incorportae these things into my language teaching? Next week I am going to set one of my lower ability, less motivated groups off on an art project to help them with their German learning and I am now even more confident that this may work well. If I can get the pupils to be proud of their work in the way that this art teacher could, then I reckon they may well start to enjoy their language learning a bit more and grow in confidence. It also taught me that should learn to not feel the need to have every child under my full control all the time. I am not very good at letting pupils 'just get on with it' and promoting independant learning is not a strength of mine!
It was a very positive experience and I can't wait to visit the next class!
I love that comment about not feeling the need to have every child under your control all the time! There was some fab tweeting going on today from a conference in Barcelona, and at that point was made very strongly: teachers often get in the way of learning because they are desperate to 'control'. In terms of my own practice I think the point at which I felt I made most progress was the moment I was confident enough to give up 'control'.
ReplyDeleteIt is definitely something I need to look at in more depth. It is hard though - I think my fear is that if I give them an inch, they'll take a mile and then I won't be able to get them back again. But you are totally right when you say that that actually gets in the way of learning and therefore progress, which is essential in outstanding teaching and learning. Do you have any tips for non-scary ways of giving more freedom in the classroom?
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