We did an end of chapter review test. After I went through the answers, I asked the pupils to write on their test what they did well and what they needed to improve.
I will use this information to plan the next lesson so that we can work on areas we need.to improve.

Next steps: make a spreadsheet to record pupil strengths and weaknesses

I am disappointed at myself here. I am relying far too heavily on getting the pupils to solve problems from the text-book. WHile this suits a few of them (the top fliers) others become distracted quickly and their pace of work falls. So I end up with a few pupils finishing whole exercises from the book and others barely starting.

Solutions? More active learning. Discuss with other teachers strategies for teaching individual topics. Remember that you are a probationer and other people will know how to do this better than you.

S3 – Review quiz on graphs

I forgot that last week because of an assembly, we did not cover the mean mode and median. So the pupils had no idea what to do on those questions.

I think that there must be a load of fun things I could do with the mode mean and median – lies with statistics etc. Hmm… thinking caps need digging out.

Unfortunately, my computer requires a Smart notebook update, and I cannot read her work. I have requested an update. However, I began yesterday with naming angles: acute, reflex etc. I noticed clear distintions between pupils who had attended different primary schools. The lesson centred on learning the names and then cutting out a sheet and matching the correct description to the correct angle. Pupils were engaged throughout. Must check they retained the knowledge.

My S3 class were working on stem and leaf diagrams (I must say, these seem usless to me, but they are on the course, so…) They liked using data about themselves  – we measured their heights and from that developed our own stem and leaf diagram. Next we will re-enforce it through examples from the text book.

Teaching how to use a protractor to measure angles.

I found a worksheet on the intertubes (which I have now lost) and was able to get the pupils started on it right away. That lead to a smooth start to the lesson where everyone knew what to do and what was expected of them.

It was at the right level and most of the class could do the work with no assistance, leaving me to help the one or two who were a little less confident.

Then I stepped it up and wrote some more demanding problems for the class on the board. The level was just beyond what we had done and so the pupils were stretched, but not to breaking point. One remarked that it was a good lesson because it was “hard, and you had to think”

I find teaching mathematics very different from what I have been doing for the past few years. With the Physics curriculum, I am sure what is in it, what the exam is like and what are the important areas to focus on and what areas can receive less coverage. Not so in maths. I have no feel for who can do what and what questions to ask to ensure that I become aware of who is coping and who is falling behind.

Yesterday, I gave my S2 class the “twenty minute challenge” – 150 multiplication problems in 20 minutes. The range of abilities was quite marked – some finishing all the problems in half the alloted time, some not even coming close to covering half of them.

Today, we did a little work on our times tables – the 11s and 12s. They wrote them on either side of a show me board, then I quizzed them and then they made up the questions for each other. I need to find other fun ways of testing their knowledge of their tables – games on the smartboard?

1. Discussed the development of the new higher.
2. Investigated using wireless motion sensors.
3. Learnt to use the Tracker piece of software.
4. Visited the forth Road Bridge

1. Attended City of Edinburgh numeracy coordinators meeting.
2. Created an Audit of numeracy across the curriculum
3. Analysed the results of the Audit
4. Reported on the results to the Head Teacher in a written report
5. Arranged a meeting with the Head Teacher, Depute Head Teacher with Responsibility for whole school learning and teaching, the HEad of Mathematics and me to discuss the schools plan on implementing numeracy across the curriculum.

Anyway, to literacy. I found a short article about ants, that is intended for use when teaching english as a foreign language. It has a lot of facts and information in it. Another useful feature of it is that each paragraph is numbered. That will be important later.

Each pupil was given a copy of the text and a pen. I then asked them to go through the text and underline any facts that:

1. Interested them.
2. They thought I might ask them in a test.

I was astonished at how well they took to this task. Each of them worked quietly and on their own. There was some “what are you putting down?…oh, I hadn’t thought of that” chatter, but nothing disruptive. I had boys who normally tear around the class farting at the girls and hitting the other boys in a painful area hunched over some pretty dense text, focusing on it and being interested in it.

Then, I issued each pupil with 7 post it notes, one for each paragraph of the text, and asked them to write down what they thought was the most interesting fact in each paragraph. And once again, they went back over the whole text and deliberated about what was the most interesting fact. I was astonished.

Then, on the smart board, we grouped the classes ideas for each paragraph (they very much enjoy sticking their post its to the smart board) then we gathered round and talked about it. The level of recall from this exercise was staggering. They remembered a huge number of facts.

Post it note responses

Now I have collated their responses and we are going to investigate further what the class thought the most interesting fact from each paragraph was.

The classes have just been streamed and I appear to have the most challenged class of S1s. It is still astonishing for me to encounter numerous pupils who cannot perform very simple calculations (like 4 + 3, or 7 – 5)without counting on their fingers.

This leads to a number of challenges:

1. How do you actually teach children these things?
2. What do you do with the ones who can add up while you are explaining the basics to half the class
3. there will inevitably come times when the lack of focused attention on these (mainly) boys will lead to a deterioration in behaviour

And it begs the question – what has been happening in primary for the past 7 years?

So, action points:

• meet marja and decide on the action points – she is the expert in these matters.

S2 Science

I must think of a quicker way of starting lessons. The old model of pupils copying learning intentions from the board is taking too long and so eating into learning time.

Maybe if I stood at the door and issued pencils and things, but bloody hell, these children are not idiots, they should be able to carry a pencil on their person.

Hmmm… ruminations will have to be had.

When the class arrived, one boy insisted that they didn’t work on Fridays and that we should be going to the computers. I had a different view on the matter and could not convince him to come round to by point of view. How does one motivate a difficult child to learn his times tables on a Friday morning when he expects to be on Youtube all day?

In the end I failed and asked him to leave. He was not the only one though….

Another girl arrived late and I asked her not to sit beside the person she wants to sit beside, she demands to sit there, I ask her to move to the front, she refuses. As a compromise, I allow her to sit in front of her friend. Once there she refuses to do what I am asking her to do. She keeps saying “ah’ve done tha’!” and wondering around the room in search of the book where she has done tha’. I grow tired of her refusing to do anything and I ask her to leave.

Is that the right thing to do? I mean I could yell, and that often just ends up in them yelling back. Today I did the “look, I have asked you politely three times to do this, and I will ask you once more, if you still refuse I willask you to leave”.

In the past this has quite often worked, but this morning it didn’t. And what do you do if the pupils says “maybe” when you ask them if they are going to do the work? In the past I have always assumed that maybe is not the same as yes, and not yes is no, so they are refusing to work.

I suppose that I need to follow Mr Lowe around and see how he does things.