The Teachers' Playground

My main aim in setting up this blog is to open up discussions between teachers about the most important thing we do: teach.  I have been teaching for over 20 years now and absolutely love it but, like so many others, get frustrated that too many things get in the way of just teaching.  To me, the most important work any teacher should do, outside the classroom, is plan.  I still plan all of my lessons.  Whilst I have had the occassional good unplanned lesson - all of my disasters have been partly caused by my lack of planning.  Yet how often do we as teachers ever get INSET or meeting time to plan?
On this blog I intend to put some of my planning and lesson ideas.  They are for anyone to have and use.  Ideally other teachers will offer some ideas of their own.  Teachers are constantly being told what must go in a lesson and what we must cover.  Just this week Michael Gove informs us that we must teach more facts!  This is probably the scariest thing I have heard in a very long time.  Surely in a fast-moving and constantly changing world, cold facts are the last things our students need.  Now more than ever they should be learning and developing skills which they can adapt to the new workplaces and problems they will have to face.  I hope that this blog can be a playground for teachers - somewhere we can experiment with teaching ideas and strategies.  A place where we can try something without it being part of performance management or a new intervention to raise grades by 2 sub-levels.  A place where teachers can try something just because they have a hunch it might make a difference.
This is an activity I use as as starter or a plenary and which I call - Hello, did you know?  Give each student a scrap of paper and ask them to write down 3 things they can remember from last lesson - it can be anything at  all and can be done as they enter, unpack bags etc.  When done, ask each student to read their points silently to themselves twice, stand up, fold their piece of paper into 4 parts and put into their sock or shoe.  They now must talk to at least 10 people.  There is a strict script to follow which I demonstrate with 1 volunteer.  Say "Hello" to each other.  Person 1 says, "Did you know...(and gives 1 piece of info from their sheet).  Person 2 says, "Thank you.  Did you know...(and gives another piece of info from their sheet).  Both say "Thank you " and move - I usually ask them to shake hands.  After a few minutes - and play yourself- ask all students to sit down, take out their peice of paper and add any info they have just been told to their sheet.  Follow up with verbal feedback asking students to tell them something someone told them.  If you do this as a plenary allow students to leave at end of shake hands stage.  They will still have the piece of paper in their sock - which guarantees they will think about your lesson once more today (hopefully!)
Hope this is of some use.

What's it all about?

This blog is about the stuff that interests, fascinates and amuses me.  I am, first and foremost, a teacher and I am fascinated by how we all learn and new ways of helping students learn.  On this page I hope to throw down all the ideas I come across for new teaching ideas and would invite anyone to come and steal them and use them.  If you do steal them - add to the blog and tell me how you used them.
Today I had the privilege of watching an old friend and inspiration teach.  Dr Alan Jones did a session with my Yr11 History group on the origins of Victorian spiritualism.  It was superb to watch him hold an audience of 23 kids mesmerised for 2 hours with a mixture of history, magic and theatre.  What I noticed from a teaching view point was the use of a quiet voice to draw an audience in and fascinate them.  Great stuff and made me realise that I need to listen closely to my own use of voice