2.1 Curriculum /
3.1 Teaching and Learning
Target: 2.1.3 Have knowledge and understanding of planning coherent and progressive teaching programmes.
Target: 3.1.1 Plan coherent, progressive and stimulating teaching programmes which match learners’ needs and abilities.
Rationale:
“Recognition of the powerful active nature of our selective attention makes it very clear why it is vital that activities intended to help young children must first and foremost interest them, intrigue them and be personally relevant for them” (Whitebread, 2002, pp.123—124).
“How do I divide time, resources, and myself so that I am an effective catalyst for maximising talent in all my students?” (Tomlinson, 2014, p.2)
To be an effective teacher, lessons must be relevant and accessible to all learners. During this placement I would like to enhance my skills in providing this experience.
Professional Actions:
- 2.1.3:
- Know how to plan for effective teaching and learning across different contexts and experiences;
- Know and understand how to justify what is taught within the curricular areas in relation to the curriculum and the relevance to the needs of all learners.
- 3.1.1:
- Plan appropriately for effective teaching and in order to meet the needs of all learners, including learning in literacy, numeracy, health and wellbeing and skills for learning, life and work.
Action Plan
Week 1 – Planning
- Revisit lesson planning inputs from class;
- Seek class teacher’s feedback on my lesson planning.
Week 2 – Planning
- Reflect on peer’s feedback on my lesson planning.
Week 3 – Relevant Planning
- Engage in wider reading around contextualisation;
- Seek to apply context to a lesson planned for this week.
Week 4 – Relevant Planning
- Engage in wider reading around progression;
- Reflect on my Week 1-2 Maths lessons and consider how progression could have been improved;
Week 5 – Relevant Planning for All Learners
- Engage in wider reading around differentiation;
- Differentiate a lesson this week, pitched correctly for all leaners’ abilities.
Week 6 — Relevant Planning for All Learners
- Research life skills development appropriate to P4;
- Embed at least one life skill development into a lesson this week.
Reflections
Week 1
- I referred to all of the lesson planning inputs before writing my own plans. This was particularly helpful in establishing rationale.
- The class teacher provided very positive verbal feedback on the plan I shared with her. She considered it to be comprehensive, clear and well thought out. The learning intentions, success criteria and assessment were considered to be appropriate.
Week 2
- The feedback from my peer suggested including more detail in the Rationale/Context areas. I will work with the Class Teacher to develop this during Week 3 and gain a sound understanding of context and prior learning that I can demonstrate in this section.
- My peer also suggested that my introduction was focussed on recap and could be more exciting. I will take this on board.
- I will work towards making my Success Criteria as specific as possible in response to my peer’s feedback.
