Lesson Plan – Linking music with modern languages 

Class/Group: P4    Lesson: French         Date: 21/9/18

In primary seven I was in a class of P.5-7 pupils as my school was very small, with just nine of us in my class of P.7!

We completed many different topics and projects over my time at primary school – some being whole school topics and some just class based. One topic in particular stands out for me and has stuck with me and that is a topic about movies and actors/actresses. We researched different movie types and eras as well as looking at famous actors and their biographies and learned about the Oscars. The name of the topic was The V.I.B (Very Important Bear) instead of VIP (Very Important Person). The bear – which the teacher brought in to class and named Buddy – was the main object of the topic. Each pupil took it in turns to take him home for a night and was asked to do different activities with him and take photos for evidence. Thinking back to this now, I think it would have been a more suitable activity for early year pupils as when I was in P.7 I felt as though it was rather childish. However, it was still a nice idea.

The main aim and outcome of the topic was to be able to make our own movie. The class teacher divided us into random groups so that we were working with peers that we wouldn’t necessarily choose to be grouped with. Even though at the time I wasn’t completely happy with my group, by the end of the topic my confidence in working with people out with my friendship group had increased as well as my ability to work well in a team. I was given the role as team leader and so my job was to ensure that each group member had their own job after we had written the script for our mini movie. There was a range of different jobs – set design, costume design, music director, camera man etc.

The rule of our films was that us as pupils were not to be in the film – it had to star Buddy the bear as the main character alongside different toys which we all had to bring from home including other teddy bears, dolls and barbies.

After yesterday’s introduction to Developing Effectiveness in Learning and Teaching and looking at Interdisciplinary Learning, I can see now that the concept of IDL was brought into this topic as we had to use and link a lot of different skills together to be able to produce the end result – computing skills, art and design and literacy skills were included alongside others.

To finish off our topic, we had an Oscar’s event in the school where our family came to watch our films and we were asked to dress for the part in fancy dresses and suits. By doing this we felt the part and experienced a glimpse of what is involved in the Oscars and what it might be like. This is why this learning experience was memorable for me as we got to act it out for ourselves instead of solely being taught the information. Also, being able to make our own films let us experience and appreciate all the work that goes into film making, all the different people involved and all the types of jobs undertaken as well as being very enjoyable!

When one is scientifically literate, they will realise and understand the scientific ideas and methods required to take part in everyday life. Throughout our lifetimes we regularly hear stories about many different issues around the world, such as global warming and new medicines and drugs that have been invented to apparently improve the quality of life. As a scientifically literate person, one must be able to answer things that they question by investigating the answer. These questions come from our inquisitiveness in everyday life.

Scientific literacy suggests that a person can recognise scientific concerns underlying local and national choices and express positions that are scientifically and technologically informed. One who is scientifically literate can display positions that are scientifically and technologically well-versed. They are also able to look at scientific statements and evaluate them by studying their source and procedures, and use this in such a way that they can then put forward arguments to reach a conclusion.

Being science literate means not believing the first thing you hear before you have surrounding evidence to the fact. In 2002, BBC news reported that German scientists had found out that blonde hair would become extinct within the next 200 years as it is a recessive trait. It stated that for “a child to have blonde hair, it must have the gene on both sides of the family in the grandparent’s generation” (BBC News, 2002)

The New York Times, found out later that year that no actual study had been done. Despite this revelation, the study continued to be cited in publications right up until 2006.

This sparked a panic and instantly everyone knew about this, though it was only one study, which turns out to not have even happened. Therefore, you should not trust any fact unless you find more than one reliable study to support the evidence presented in the fact.

I believe that it is important to teach children how scientific experiments can sometimes be “fixed” to derive a preferred outcome. This, is often to fool people into believing something that isn’t true. For example, on the 1st April 1957 the BBC aired a ‘Panorama’ programme which hoaxed thousands of viewers to believing that spaghetti was grown on trees in Switzerland which, anyone who is scientifically illiterate would testify isn’t scientifically possible. For children to develop the knowledge and understanding of scientific concepts so that they are able to challenge facts they believe aren’t correct then we, as teachers, must teach fair testing throughout the scientific curriculum. I believe that it’s important to enforce to children that they cannot just take the conclusion from their first experiment which they only carry out once. For reliable results they must repeat the experiment several times to ensure that their conclusions are correct. Thus, building their scientific literacy.

BBC NEWS (2002) Blondes ‘to die out in 200 years’ Available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/2284783.stm (accessed 26/01/16)

BBC NEWS (1957) BBC Fools the Nation Available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/april/1/newsid_2819000/2819261.stm (Accessed: 8/02/16)

After reading some examples of other ePortfolios, I have been encouraged to expand and improve on my own. From reading these posts, I particularly like the fact that they are written about topics they enjoy or based on subjects they have seen or read in other resources. For example Lauren Duncan’s post “567…DANCE!” was written on a subject that she is extremely passionate about but she could then link a lesson plan to the SPR requirements.

Another example is Layla Dawson’s post on Fear of Feedback and she talks about a topic that most of us are afraid of but don’t always talk about. I completely agree with her and understand her opinions on giving feedback and she managed to link this into teaching by talking about how we, as teachers, need to give children constructive feedback and also encourage them to overcome the fear they may have and help them give positive and constructive feedback to their peers.

So overall, all the example posts that I have read clearly show the student sharing their professional thoughts and I feel that others will benefit form reading their work as it may give them ideas of what maybe to write on their own blogs but also I feel that reading these blogs has helped me realise that many people have the same opinions and worries as me about certain aspects of the teaching profession, for example maths and giving feedback. And reading them has encouraged me to write and post more than I do on my ePortfolio and share my thoughts with rest of the course.

Ollerton (2003) says “Mathematics is beautiful, intriguing, elegant, logical, amazing and mind-blowing; a language and a set of systems and structures used to make sense of and describe the physical and natural world”. On the other hand, “Mathematics is frightening,
boring, debilitating and can appear illogical; a thing many people made, or make, little sense of at school”. I believe that most children would agree with the latter.

To me, maths is one of the subjects that many pupils at primary and secondary school really struggle with. I definitely used to dread when it was time for mental maths or working from the Heinemann textbooks. I think that children are insecure about maths for a number of reasons and children’s confidence is dropped when they think other children are better than maths than others. Young children think that if you are good at maths and science, it means you are more clever than those who are more interested in the creative subjects. I believed this for many years, and probably right up to being in a higher maths class in fifth year, where I felt that everyone in the class chose maths because they wanted to be there as they were applying for courses in Maths, architecture and engineering, whereas I my knowledge was stronger in subjects like art and music. I never used to think I would need maths and everything I was learning was pointless, but recently I’ve been thinking and realising that maths is a very important aspect of everyday life and just as important as reading and writing.

Keogh and Naylor (2004) argue “If we want children to “think out loud”, to be creative and critical in their thinking and to argue about alternative possibilities, then we need to provide the kind of learning environment in which they feel comfortable to do that.  They need to know that they can make mistakes or give wrong answers and still feel good about themselves”. I feel we as teachers need to encourage those children who are less confident with maths to become more enthusiastic by supporting them to learn form their mistakes and find different ways of approaching it. Discussing the subject is a way to get pupils more engaged in their learning and find out different strategies and for them to realise that maybe they aren’t the only ones who find maths challenging.

Menter et al (2011) defines practitioner enquiry as a “‘finding out’ or an investigation with a rationale and approach that can be explained or defended.” It is the process of constantly continuing research and building on your knowledge. This is then shared through collaborative enquiry where a group shares they’re findings from their research with each other.

Working together collaboratively is very useful as it enhancing teachers knowledge for themselves and learning about different ways of working that they might not have thought about and then to pass onto pupils. However, there are some disadvantages. For example, not everyone might enjoy working in groups and sharing ideas and therefore may not participate as fully as expected, some members may be put of by other confident members of the group and therefore become less motivated.

In becoming a teacher, I understand that I will need to engage in practitioner enquiry and be prepared to work in groups and share my ideas . This seems as though it could be challenging at times but I think it is a very useful way of learning.

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