A day in the life of a home-based teacher…

6:30am: Got up, grabbed iPad and Apple pen out of the make-shift home office and headed downstairs for a few cups of coffee. Spent an hour and a half checking through work that has been submitted overnight (some of my students are becoming nocturnal!). Left some audio messages on Firefly for students who needed a little clarification and marked some random work. Sent a few “Just checking you’re ok because I didn’t recieve any work from you yesterday” kind of emails. Responded to a few emails that had come in overnight; mainly from parents arranging to collect some of my form’s books that I’d picked up from school for them yesterday, a reference request for one of my sixth form students, and a bunch of whole-school and departmental admin to read. Breakfast provided by the chef (husband).

8:00: Headed up to the spare bedroom which is my day-time home. Got everything ready for my Y7 science lesson first thing. Got Zoom set up and the breakout rooms pre-labelled for ease.

8:45: Zoom registration with my form! We chatted about end of year assessments and a few bits of admin. They’re getting really good using Zoom now.

9:10: Lesson 1 and 2 – double Year 7 Science. We had a Zoom lesson looking at 26 different taxonomic groups as part of their Classification topics. They worked in groups in their breakout rooms and I popped into rooms that needed help. Rosie the rabbit popped upstairs for a scamper and kept me company.

10:25 – Said goodbye to Y7 and headed to break in the staffroom (kitchen). Yesterday I got myself dehydrated so I’m trying to drink lots today. Topped up the Vimto. Grabbed a cheeky chocolate biscuit.

10:45 – I have a double free now (we’re sticking to timetable). I got my email inbox down to zero, prepped my Year 7 lesson for tomorrow and recorded a video for my Year 12 Psychology class about their end of year assessment. Scheduled Zoom sessions ready for tomorrow.

12:00 – Lunchtime! Fish finger sandwich, slice of plastic cheese and tartar sauce on a white roll. Food of champions. A few times last week we went out for a walk at lunchtime. Did about 5k in 50 mins so just fits in nicely. Would never feel able to do that if I was in school – too much going on at lunchtime. Sat downstairs, browsed Twitter and the news. Mr M came back from his day on the duty rota supervising the children of Key Workers in school. Put all of his clothes in a hot wash and made sure everything he’d take into school was disinfected. That’s another 10 days of mild anxiety ahead…

1:15 – Double Year 9. I’d pre-recorded their lesson the day before as they’re doing lots of practical work and I can’t really Zoom from the garden – it doesn’t make sense to do it live and I don’t have WiFi out there. They were doing the second half of the mark, release, recapture practical they started yesterday. I sat and marked their work as it came into me, checking their calculations. Oscar asked a great question about his snails being eaten so I checked something with my friend who is an ecologist. They had a drop-in Zoom session scheduled in case anyone was struggling, but no one dropped in today (I wasn’t surprised – I tried to make my videos crystal clear). One of them emailed me to ask for help with the equation.

2:30 – Double Year 12. I saw them on Tuesday for a live lesson but today they were learning about Succession and conservation, so I’d build a little sand pit in the garden represent the beach and found little plants to represent pioneer species etc and I’d pre-filmed it for them to watch. They then needed to answer some past paper questions. I had a Zoom drop in. One student popped on at about 4pm for 10 mins to query a word she didn’t know in the markscheme and to check a couple of marking points. Spent the lesson checking their work, and marking some odd bits of Y9 work that had come in.

4:30 – Sat downstairs and carried on marking the odd piece of work that were coming in. Added some celebratory photos to our departmental Twitter feed. Replied to a few more parental emails that had come in during the afternoon. Tesco delivery! Whoop! Food! Had a think about the best way of checking the progress of my Year 12 Psychologists in a few weeks. It’s not their Alevel course, so it’s not high on their priority list, but I want to keep their memory ticking over. I think I’m going to set them multiple choice questions because I can cover more topics and it relies on less revision, plus they have a little bit of recognition recall going on to help them. I have plenty of time to work on evaluation skills next year.

6:00 – Ate dinner. Ridiculously hot penang curry cooked by Mr M. I’m sounding like I do no cooking here but he just fancied cooking. Plus I stuck some fish fingers in the oven for him at lunchtime. Watched an episode of House of Games. Love that show.

6:30 – Did some multi-tasking. A bit of email, a bit of marking. Made sure tomorrow’s tasks are all online ready for students. I pre-set the date so they should pop up on their tasks list after midnight tonight. Tried to faff around with my laptop trying to get a microphone (purchased with my own money) to work to give my Zoom calls and videos better sound quality. No luck. Popped on Twitter to ask for tech help. Muted and blocked a few journalists who kindly suggest teachers are doing no work.

7:40 ish – The biologists had a kind of department meeting via email and Whatsapp trying to plan for the next few weeks. Checked in with some other colleagues to figure out how they’re approaching effort grades next week.

8:30 – Started writing this while multitasking with the final few bits of Y9 work coming and replying to emails. Had a check of some work some Y11 students have done on an optional Psychology course I’ve been recording for them.

9:30 – I’m going to call it a day. I’ve had a good day. I’m not feeling too stressed. One low period after a bit of a ‘forceful’ email but I’m ok now. It’s been a 15 hour day (minus 2 hours for food and chilling). I’m not moaning, but please can we stop with the headlines about teachers not working. Also, how the heck do you do this with little kids of your own at home?!

 

SLOP: Practise, practise, practise!

At this time of year, with Year 11 and Year 13 students have finished the taught element of the course and are busy preparing for their public exams. Whilst there are a lot of ‘fun’ activities they could do to prepare, in my opinion there is nothing more useful than practising exam questions. I think we need to send the message to our students that there is no magic revision pill, and that learning requires hard work. Making and playing board games etc could well take an hour of useless messing about for a ten minute gain.

Developing exam technique from the start of the course:

I don’t just confine this type of practice to exam classes; year 9, 10 and 12 have many of their homework’s based around practising past paper questions. With Year 9 and 10 especially I try not to mention exams too often during lesson time and just enjoy learning about the content, but I do introduce GCSE skills from Year 9 (we have a three year GCSE). My current year 9 class have tried out quite a few GCSE questions now and are getting too grips with their requirements for precise language. A few weeks ago I was looking at a respiration question with 9AG and we talked about including “magic words”! We looked at a 3 mark question and I asked how do I know how many magic words to put down. Joe replied “4” which is what I’ve been training them to do. We discussed the “magic words” to include (oxygen, energy, anaerobic, lactic acid, fatigue) and then they put them into sentences.

Year 10s get past paper questions for each topic so they can see them kinds of things that get asked. They’re currently working on Required Practical 10 and can see that the same points crop up over and over again in the mark schemes, and are making a careful note of these.

Year 12 (and 13) have chapter by chapter past paper question booklets which they generally do for homework. I try and include pretty much every past paper question I’ve found on the topic by going through past papers and having millions of tabs of Word open. I make markscheme booklets too. They’re due for an update as I need to include more some new specification questions. Because they’re topic specific they tend to be AO1 and AO2 questions. I actually love it when the students start to moan: “Argh not that question again! I’ve written that same answer out 3 times now! Mutation changes the DNA sequence, thus the primary structure of the protein. Hydrogen bonds form in different places. Tertiary structure changes. Active site changes shape. Enzyme substrate complex can no longer form” I know my Year 12s could answer that question with their eyes shut now, so if they get it in their Alevel they can zoom through it and spend more time on the more taxing AO3 questions.

An example of an Alevel past paper question booklet

Once a topic is complete we make a Common Exam Questions sheet (affectionately known as a yellow sheet to the students because I have them printed on yellow paper to make them stand out). The aim of this is to check wording against the markscheme and make a note of the points accepted year after year. Here’s an example of a “yellow sheet” for one of the Alevel topics.

Preparing for the GCSE examination

 

Although much of the leg work is done throughout the course with the ideas mentioned above and frequent retrieval practise, the remaining term in Year 11 and Year 13 is dedicated to practice. Each student in our department is given a stack of topic by topic past paper questions with markschemes and is expected to work through them in lesson time and at home. I have sticker charts to monitor progress and harness the power of peer pressure for good! My Year 11s have a few taught sessions about skills, but then crack on independently. I do not re-teach content and I do not run extra revision sessions outside the lesson; in my opinion this sends the message that it was not important to pay attention the first time around. Having said this, I will always spend time with students who have tried to help themselves but have hit a brick wall.

In my current year 11 lessons I circulate around the room, offering help where needed. Some work on their own, and some prefer to sit in pairs and talk through the question together. We work hard for 30 minutes, then stretch our legs for 5 minutes then crack on again for the rest of the lesson. I encourage them to “work hard and play hard” – in class they need 100% focus and when relaxing they need to completely switch off.

They quickly spot how to answer questions by using the markschemes and get faster and faster at answering. When it comes to their exam, their cognitive load will be greatly reduced, allowing them to dedicate more of their memory to new questions. Year 11 students have 22 topic question packs, but together by my HoD, and the 10 required practicals with associated questions as you can find on my blog. They also have a booklet of maths questions and a booklet of “how science works” questions to work through. I strongly dissuade them from making pretty notes – notes and flash cards etc have been made throughout the course for end of year exams and mocks; now is the time to practise.

Preparing for the Alevel examination

In much the same way, my Year 13 students are spending their time looking at past paper questions, as well as some taught sessions on skills. They too have their own sticker chart (because you’re never too old for stickers). Again, this harnesses the positive power of peer pressure and drags along some of the less motivated students. It amazing to see how excited 18 year olds get at the start of the lesson, putting their stickers up!

Their chart has sections for topic-by-topic question packs which I have told them are their responsibility to do at home, maths and stats practise, something I call “How Science Works” (a term from an old spec – concepts like experimental design, placebo effect, sample size etc), required practical questions, full past papers and old spec synoptic papers. A colleague is working on the synoptic essay with them. We have managed to sit down and talk through four required practicals per lesson for the last three lessons, and they’ve completed some past paper questions at home. I hope to be able to upload some of this material this weekend if I have time.

 

Apologies if I’ve misused practise / practice in this post; I tried!

Monitoring Independent Exam Preparation

Each year we give our Y11 and Y13 chapter by chapter (or topic by topic) revision packs of past paper questions. They also have their 10 or 12 required practicals to review and complete past paper questions on. I find having a tick off list with the Y11 students useful to allow me to monitor where they are up to at home, and as they work on these packs in lesson time after half term.

It uses peer pressure as a force for good and allows me to see how might need a bit more of a nudge (or a chat about chilling out!). I allow students to put their own sticker up as, despite them being big kids, they still love shiny stickers.

This year I’m also going to monitor the Y13 students in the same way – they will really love the old-school cheesy sticker chart, and it will allow those less independent workers to see the pace that some of the others are working at. I’ve sectioned the Alevel one off into coloured sections for maths skills, practical skills, synoptic questions, topic-by-topic questions and essay practice.

Resources:

Alevel Revision Sticker Chart

GCSE Revision Sticker Chart

Using Firefly as a Form Tutor

Using Firefly as a Y7 Form Tutor

I have really enjoyed having Firefly in school for the past 6 months. It’s made a great difference to communication and work flow management, and has great applications as a form tutor. Here are three main ways I use it as a Y7 tutor:

• Sending messages to parents and to tutees together helps parents to stay involved in what is going on in school and aids organisation

• Setting tasks for things like bringing in harvest donations, reply slips etc. Adding grades like ‘done’ or ‘late’ or using emoticons. Makes keeping records easier without paper and easier to remind students

• Firefly organisation checks (to replace planner checks). I do these monthly with the whole form and then can do them more regularly with the small number that struggle to organise themselves. I set them “Firefly Check” as a task and give them a few days notice. I find it takes about 30 mins max to go through the whole form. I have a couple of windows of Firefly open which I find makes flicking from the task and the student much easier.

I know this doesn’t prove that students have done the work; it’s just checking organisation.

How to do ‘Firefly checks’

1. Use the search box to search for a student.
2. Then scroll down until you see “View All Tasks for XXXX”

In this example, “Student A” has only one task on his to-do-list which is great

“Student B” has 6 tasks on the go, so I need to keep and eye him to check he’s coping ok as he does a lot of sport outside school

“Student C” has 12 tasks on the go at the moment which have run on to two pages. At this point I know he is struggling to organise himself. I send a message to him and his parents asking her to sit down and check off all the tasks he has completed. I then re-check this the next day to look for an improvement.

• I then add a grade to each student in the form of an emoticon (I find this easier if I either do this on my iPad or have a word doc open with these icons on to copy and paste over). This makes it easy for me to scroll across and spot patterns and see who needs my help, and it is also an easy way for students to see if they’re on track or not.

😊😐 ☹

 

Feedback from Parents:

“We’ve found firefly invaluable as an organisational tool to help understand what X is doing, needs to be doing and as a communication tool. “

PDF Handout:

Using Firefly as a Form Tutor External

 

 

 

The Ideal Teacher?

I saw a recent Tweet by @Lousiateacher, retweeted by Pete Sanderson @LessonToolbox about characteristics of the ideal student and teacher (although termed ‘learner’ and ‘tutor’). She posted two pictures with features around the outside which got me to thinking what my students would consider to be the make-up of ideal teacher.

I decided to have a look at this with my first year (y7) form this morning. I had a quick think about features my ideal student would have and read some out as examples.

We then spent form time having a think; a little bit of individual time, then some pair chat then some whole-class feedback and discussion.
My form loved it! They were very keen to have their opinions heard.There were so many similarities on their sheets. Their answers were quite predictable

I looked through my form’s responses and tried to summarise them into different sections.

Personality

• Not easily made angry
• Good sense of humour
• Nice to talk to
• Friendly, but fair
• Deals with problems calmly
• KNOWS ME
• Excited to teach the subject!
• Never ill!
• Brings out the best in me because I like them

Academic

• Pushes me to do my best (keen to make me understand they didn’t mean literally ‘push’!)
• Marks work on time
• Helps me if I’m struggling
• Always goes through homework
• Knows what they’re talking about
• Explains things clearly and doesn’t make me feel bad if I don’t understand
• Makes lessons exciting
• Covers everything on the syllabus so I’m prepared for my exam
• Someone who uses our opinions
• Doesn’t criticize
• Always makes time for you
• Doesn’t just give me the answer if I’m stuck
• Has new and exciting ideas

Classroom Management

• Makes the shy people speak up in class
• Doesn’t allow much noise
• Knows when someone is being distracting and affecting concentration
• Doesn’t pick favourites
• Someone who cares about people handing work in on time
• Explains things before we copy off the board
• No shouting
• Not a cover teacher / supply teacher
• Not disparaging
• Tidy classroom

Pastoral

• Stops fights between friends
• Doesn’t forget your name
• Calms my worries

So…. what can I learn from this?

It was clear how much my form valued a consistent relationship between themselves and their teachers.

The key thing was they really appreciate being known…. someone who knows their name, their strengths, their weaknesses and treats them as an individual.

One of the things that was interesting was in the whole group feedback, one person said “we really like being asked things like this – our opinions about things”

Using the iPad camera

My school is currently running an iPad trial with a Year 8 class and I have been loaned an iPad 3 to use in lessons.  All rooms have been set up with Reflector software to allow us to Airplay from the iPad. We also have a set of 15 iPads which we an book out for use in lessons. I’ve had an iPad 2 for some time and still use it at home, but love the enhanced camera in the iPad 3, especially indoors. The images are super sharp and open up a whole world of uses in the classroom. Whilst there are many applications of the iPad in lessons, I chose to focus on the use of its camera in a recent staff training session. Most of these suggestions could be done with any camera or smart phone, but the ease of use with the iPad has been fantastic in adding fluidity to lessons.

One thing I’ve used it a lot for is allowing students to catch up missed work. We have a lot of students in and out of lessons for music lessons and sports fixtures and getting them to catch up can be a pain if they need to borrow someone else’s book. I’ve used the iPad to take a quick snap of board work or another student’s book. The image can then be posted online (I use Edmodo – more on that in another post) or emailed to the student. We’ve even used Facetime to allow an absent student to join in the lesson from home.

    

I’ve also used the camera to take photos of student work as a way of praising them or highlighting great work to other students. I have taken the shot and then airplayed it straight onto the board, allowing the chance for stud nets to see exemplar work. They love being the ‘chosen one’ and it encourages high standards of presentation. You can also use it to ask students how they would improve a piece of work. I’ve also shared the best work with the rest of the year group online.

I am fortunate enough to have a Visualizer in my main teaching room which is great, as I have many different books and prefer different books for different topics. If you only have one copy of a book, your options are to either photocopy it or project it. I found this image online of someone using the iPad as a Visualizer. Your other option is to use the camera as away of quickly scanning pages and projecting them. There’s a great app called Skitch which you can use to annotate images, either with your handwriting or typed text.

    

I’ve also managed to use the iPad to take pictures through the microscope eye piece. I’ve let the kids share the iPad between them to collect images. They have had more success than me and recommend that two pairs of hands are better than one! I’ve posted the best ones online and it’s promoted discussion at home. I’ve posted lots of pictures of them doing experiments which they’ve shared with parents and spent time following up online in their own time.

The camera has been good for documenting the results of short, medium and long term practical work. We’ve had some nice before and after shots of petri dishes, shown the growth and development of our class Sea Monkeys and captured some flashy propanone burning.

    

My next mission is to try and use Skype or Facetime to set up some links with ‘real life’ people and see some of the theory I teach in action.