What happened next?

Well a year after my last post I am still self-employed as a computer consultant.

This summer also saw me mark some exam papers for the first time. Tight time scales to get it all done but overall a good experience giving me a good insight in to what is expected of the candidates I tutor from time to time.

Self employment has allowed me to spend more time with my son and it is noticeable how much he has progressed. He has Down Syndrome and at nearly six years old he is just starting to talk coherently in phrases, in conjunction with some signing. Lets hear it for Mr. Tumble from Something Special.

What now

After completing my PGCE I tried to get a job but whether it was my age or what I was unsuccessful. So I decided to go back to what I was doing before but in a freelance capacity. So now I am doing computer support to home and small business in my area. Through this I also provide training to a local charity once a month at their walk in centre. The charity is newly formed and is going from strength to strength, have alook at their work here.

I have also been doing the odd bit of personal tuition.

I have to say not working for someone else is a liberating experience even if the money, as yet, is not flooding in. But I am a happier person for it and I get to see more of my family.

Nearly there

On friday I will be having my last observation with my visiting tutor with a top set Year 8 group. I am doing control using a program called Scratch. It not only is useful for control but is an ideal way to introduce programming concepts such as conditional statements(when, if), loops and variables.

It is a free program. To find it type scratch into google and it is usually the top find.

Just 2 weeks to go until I finish and I must admit to being ready for a break. Getting up at 5:30am because my son decides to wake up early is no fun when I am working late as well. Soon be there.

Best Lesson

Year 7 group; taught my best lesson to date. I had broken it down in to chunks so that I demo’d q&A followed by pupil tasks. This worked well as there were no behavioural issues. It also enabled me to monitor and assess pupils progress. This is the standard I should now take forward to all my lessons.

Assessment

Why am I finding it so difficult to do in class assessment?

Departmental Meeting

Today we had an emergency departmental meeting to discuss current position of Year 9+10 on their GCSEs. After some analysis by the head of dept it showed that the majority of students had either not done the work or not had it assessed the compulsory units that they need to complete to get any gcses. It was decided that effort must go in to getting the Y9+10 up to passes on the compulsory units. So that is what is happening from now on until it is complete. So my spreadsheet work with the Year 10′s is put on hold for the moment.

Fire Alarms

The 4th fire alarm since I arrived went off today. All have gone off when I have not been teaching which is a blessing. The latest one was actually a real incident. Someone had stuffed paper in to one of the heaters and it had caught fire. Fortunately the weather was good as we were stood outside for about 40 minutes in total.

Intervention

 

ICT department meeting on GCSE performance for Y9 & Y10

The recording system was currently showing that the majority of students had not achieved a pass in two of the units they should have completed. Discussions took place about what to do. It was decided to spend the next few lessons making sure all students had completed at least the pass criteria and that the JAS recording system was up to date.

 

Not enough equipment

I had planned a lesson for Y8 to use the dataloggers, but having collected them I found there were only 9 available for my class of 14. Talking to the teacher we decided to split the class in two and take them out seperately. I took them around school whilst the teacher stayed in the classroom with the other group. As there was an even split of boys and girls that is how we took them out. Both groups were well behaved as we walked around school however they behaved differently. The boys were talkative all the way round even when taking readings and were discussing what they had found. The girls were quieter all the way round ad when they were taking their readings they were absolutely silent. There was little discussion about what they were doing. A very interesting lesson in the differences between boys and girls when in seperate groups.

Personalised Learning

Personalised learning was discussed at a PM session. This forms an important part of the Schools philosophy on education since it was highlighted in their last Ofsted report. In my short experience this is quite a hard objective to achieve although as you get to know the students it becomes easier. However I found this especially hard with Year 7 classes because I was only teaching them once a fortnight. One of my Y7 classess only had 12 students and so I found this group easier to get to know compared to the top set group I had which had 24 pupils. This is linked to AFL and is one of the tools used. The ICT department uses an electronic marking and feedback tool called JAS. This enables pupils to upload their work electronically(saving the trees) and for teachers to mark and provide individual feedback. Using this tool the pupils also self assess their progress and can instantly see which level they are working at.