Beyond a Blackboard

I have done so much learning this term and can already think of so much I would change or do differently when I enter the first term next year. However, it has been a pretty successful first term and I have really enjoyed my time with the children. I have found that our inquiry lessons have been pretty successful this term. The children were interested in the topic of global warming and the environment and we covered a lot of content by integrating reading, writing, health and social studies. We also created  and shared art that illustrated our view on environmental issues and I was impressed by the ideas that the students had and their creativity. I have seen a lot of success in reading in particular, as my students have been able to meet the learning intention and create some wonderful DLOs in response to the text that they have read. I can tell that the students have been engaged, as they have consistently met deadlines, completed reading tasks at home and have f...

Teaching maths has been the largest challenge I have faced this term. I attempted to follow the problem solving approach, teaching half class mixed ability problem solving lessons 4 times a week, with one workshop. This had been an approach that we were taught through professional development last year and my school sought to continue. After struggling with this for the first seven weeks, I sent out a survey to determine what the students thought of our maths lessons. It was clear from the responses that the majority of students were unhappy. Some said that the problems were too easy, while others said that they were really struggling. I was having more behavioural problems in maths than in any other subject because of these emotional responses.  I then tried to offer more materials to my learners who were struggling and to run a longer warm up at the start of the session to explain the concept to them. This helped them a little but they lost engagement by the end of the maths...