Time Traveller January 12, 2012

I have started my back to the 50s topic where the class are looking back over the last 60 years. I decided it was best to look at how things have changed over the last 60 years. I am setting up our role play area as a time travel with a silver tent as my time travel machine. I was speaking with the P1 teacher and she has suggested leaving notes from a time traveller to stimulate some informal writing by the children. I have drafted the first letter -

Hello there

I have lost my time travelling machine and need to get back to where I come from. I spotted your machine. It looks like a model 768 sidrat. Have you had it long? Does it work?? I am not sure I can show my face as it might change events in your and my future and past. So if you need my help leave me a note.

 John Smith

Time Traveller 

I am looking for feedback on this. Any suggestions? The class are P2/Y1.

Thanks

Thoughts on this term’s topic January 2, 2012

With the new term only a week a way my thoughts turn to the topic for this term – In Granny’s time / fifties. This blog post will be on some of the thoughts/ideas I have had on this topic, any thoughts, advice etc most welcome.
My starting point for this topic is the children. I thought of having the role play area as a child’s bedroom starting with it as a modern bedroom then moving it back gradually to 1950s. For example the first part of the term is 5 weeks so each week could be a different decade week 1 – 00s , week 2 – 90s, week 3 – 80s, week 4 – 70s week 5 – 60s so that after half term the bedroom would be in 1950s. Is this too much work for myself? How could I change it for each decade? I thought the things that could change are toys, posters, bedding – but how can I source these?
With each week being a different decade as a class we could investigate changes that happen in that decade – looking at how it would be to be a child in that decade.
My other thought for my role play area is to make a time machine so we could all travel back in time – any suggestions on this?
After half term the theme would be the fifties looking at childhood in that decade.
My other thoughts on this topic are -
- children give a talk on their favourite teddy before asking their grandparents about their favourite teddy/toy
- write about their grandparents favourite things they like to do with them
- make a present for their grandparent
- inviting grandparents into class
- visit to the local childhood museum or old school room

This has been a bit of a brain dump of my ideas but I thought I would share them to get help or maybe even help others.

McCormac – Recommendations 1 and 3 September 13, 2011

Recommendation 1 – replacing Appendix B with set of standards from GTCS.

Despite 64% of people who responded to McCormac say that Appendix B suitable for implementing Curriculum for excellence the report recommends the replacing the prescribed duties with a set of standards. How was these standards to be measured? Will there be a standardisation across schools, local authorities? If teacher’s are to be measured against standards are we moving towards performance related pay? More questions that answers.

Recommendation 3 – scrapping of Appendix E.

Appendix E lists the duties that teachers are not expected to routinely perform. Again there was an over 50 % (54%) of those who responded who felt that appendix E should not change. There are tasks on the list that teachers do routinely do – photocopying, money for lunches – but how can be balance doing non-teaching tasks with teaching? Should McCormac have acknowledged that some these tasks are routinely done by teachers and accept it but still have some of these tasks that teachers do not do on a regular basis.

Further Thoughts on McCormac September 13, 2011

I read with interest the EIS response to McCormac and found myself agreeing with Ronnie Smith

“The McCormac Report, like the Curate’s egg, is good only in parts.”

I agree that

• all teacher need to engage in revitalising the review and development process.
• CPD should be linked to the revitalised PRPD system.
• 35 hours maximum of CPD should not be seen as a time limit
• CPD available to all teachers including supply and that it should be rigorous and relevant.
• No change to contracted week or teaching hours.

Although I find some of the McCormac report good there are parts of the report I don’t agree with or have my doubts over.

• Re-accreditation of teachers – will this turn into a witch hunt to remove unpopular teachers?
• Greater mobility of teachers including headteachers – I’m sure we have all been to schools where there are teachers who have been there for a long time so moving them on may be a good idea but with the lack of teaching jobs for those coming into the profession how do you persuade teachers to move?
• The Chartered Teacher Scheme to be discontinued – is this to be replaced by something else? what about those teachers who have started this process?
• Level of pay acceptable – the latest pay agreement which came into force in August has made some teachers worse off.

What do you think? Are there other good and not so good things in the McCormac report?

McCormac Report – Initial view September 13, 2011

The McCormac report was published at 10am this morning so these are my initial thoughts after a read of the recommendations.

Recommendation 1: Annex B of the Teachers’ Agreement should be removed and teachers should work to a set of standards developed by the GTCS as the basis for their professional practice.

So the outline of the teacher’s duties are to be replaced by set of standards – are these to be the current professional standards?

Recommendation 8: The 35 hours of contractual time per year that was allocated for CPD should remain but this should not be viewed as a time limit on CPD.

Glad to see this recommendation but should there not be a minimum amount of CPD rather than a maximum?

Recommendation 10: A rigorous and relevant programme of CPD should be made available to all teachers; spanning initial teacher education to masters level.

Recommendation 14: Supply teachers should have access to high quality CPD and should be entitled to engage in a PRPD process.

I have grouped these two recommendations together – I am pleased to see the recognition of supply teachers and their need for high quality CPD and being able to take part in PRPD process. As a supply teacher I actively seek CPD opportunities and I am member of CPDStepin. Supply teachers and those on short term contracts are valuable members of the teaching community. Although McCormac has acknowledged our need for CPD and PRPD, COSLA cut our pay from the start of this term.

These are my initial thoughts / rant on some of the McCormac Report recommendations. Will post again later.

 

Thoughts on McCrone prior to McCormac September 13, 2011

As I await the publication of the McCormac report later this morning, I read with interest the following on the BBC website -

‘The report is also expected to recommend scrapping the list of tasks teachers should not do, such as photocopying or other non-teaching tasks.’

I had come across this part of McCrone when I completed the survey for the McCormac report. At the time I asked fellow teachers if they were aware of this – they weren’t and knew in practice this was not feasible.

I do not think I am alone in having done many non-teaching tasks even in my short of teaching. Here are an example of a few -

- photocopying

- taking trip and lunch money

- asking the children what they want from the days lunch menu

- putting up displays

I am sure this list is just minimal. There are plenty of other things that teachers are asked to do that are done anyway.

Learning assistants are there to help the teachers with the children – many do these tasks as well often in hours they are not paid for.

I hope that when the report is published that the news reporting focusses on the important points not the things that as teachers we already do.

Blog or Wiki August 27, 2011

Until Christmas I am teaching ICT once a week to two primary 4 classes and two primary 3 classes I hope to introduce blogging or use wikis in the time I am with them. I have tweeted about this and I have had lots of good advised but I felt I needed to go back to beginning and work out why I wanted to introduce these to the classes.

Looking at the ICT plans for previous years the children had been producing documents in Word which when I spoke to the class teachers I was told they were just sent home. This got me thinking that instead of producing Word documents the children could produce the work online in a blog or a wiki. So what to choose?

I only have the children once a week and want them to use the blog or wiki during my lesson. For example in the next few weeks the P4 classes are starting a topic on Vikings instead of them producing word documents on a Viking I thought this could be stored on line. They could do Vokis or write and format information or if they have produced art work it could be photographed and included on a post.

So what to do? Do I set up a class blog where it is updated by different children every week? Do I set up individual blogs where the children can update their own blogs? Or do I use a wiki? As I teach in Scotland should I do this within Glow or not – currently the children don’t have access to Glow. If I started it outside of Glow could I then import it into Glow?

Please help – post a comment.

Thanks

Next Steps November 13, 2010

A couple of months ago I wrote three posts regarding my journey in teaching. This week saw me reach a further milestone – I became a fully registered teacher! The school I worked at for four months last session were able to give me a recommendation for fully registration.

Eighteen months ago when I withdrew from the teacher induction scheme I didn’t think I would ever reach my full registration. After some reflection I moved forward and was determined to get there.

So what next. For the mean time it is continuing with the supply work and applying for jobs – just keep swimming!

A big thanks goes to my husband and kids who have supported me through the last few years. Thank you also to my followers on twitter who have supported me in my journey in the last 18 months with there advice and believing in me.

Teacher Employment September 26, 2010

This post in response to an article I read this morning on the BBC website - Each teaching post ‘chased by 17 applicants’ .

This month I have applied for 31 jobs with four different councils. Out of these applications 25 have passed their closing date, I have had responses from 12 applications – 11 rejections and 1 interview. Not very good odds.

The article stated -

In total, 75,579 applications were made for 4,520 vacancies in 2009-10 – an average of about 17 for each position.

The average number of applications per job included 14 in Aberdeenshire, 21 in Dundee, 27 in Edinburgh and six in Glasgow.

Aberdeen City Council said it did not hold the details.

Higher numbers included 47 in Midlothian, 37 in East Renfrewshire and 33 in North Lanarkshire.

Before the summer I applied for a job in a school I had worked in for four months on long term supply. There were 5 jobs available. I didn’t get an interview. When I asked why I was told that there had been over 200 applicants.

The numbers reported seem low – maybe next years figures will reflect a truer situation. Until then I’ll continue to apply for every teaching job I can and hopefully I’ll have a job soon.

Assessment and The Curriculum for Excellence September 3, 2010

As I mentioned in my previous post I attended a talk at the Edinburgh Book Festival this week on Assessment and Curriculum for Excellence give by Terry Lanagan, Executive Director of Educational Services at West Dunbartonshire Council.

My reason for attending was to find out more about assessment and Cfe. From the event I gained a deeper understanding of the Curriculum for Excellence. I had been seeing it as a replacement as 5-14 – another set of guidelines to what to teach but I now understand that it is a change to how I teach rather than what I teach. Curriculum for Excellence is a change to teaching and learning which is not content lead but it is there to broaden and widen the learning of the children. The challenge is to now work with the children to give them the skills to deal with the modern way of living.

So where does assessment fit into this? I think that assessment should be part of the planning. I feel this is being done already with the WALT/Learning Intention and WILF/Success Criteria. With these the children can see what they learning and why.

In Building the Curriculum 5 three questions are posed.

What are we assessing?

How we assess?

When do we assess?

Teachers have been empowered to answer these questions for themselves. Curriculum for excellence is a bottom up approach to teaching and learning. This is an opportunity for teachers to work together to build the new curriculum not just within individual schools – clusters, local authorities even across Scotland. There is a lot of great practice. I look forward to seeing some of this for myself.

The national assessment resource (NAR) is launched later this month. It will be bank of shared practice on what schools have done so far on assessment and Curriculum for excellence. My hope is that from these examples others go on to find their way of assessing their teaching and learning.

What do you think?