Spring week 5

Mentor materials

Meet the needs of individuals without creating unnecessary workload

Intended outcomes

The intended outcomes of this topic are for Early Career Teachers to:

Learn how to meet the needs of individuals without creating unnecessary workload by:

• Making use of well-designed resources (e.g. textbooks)
• Planning to connect new content with pupils’ existing knowledge or providing additional pre-teaching if pupils lack critical knowledge
• Building in additional practice or removing unnecessary expositions
• Considering carefully whether intervening within lessons with individuals and small groups would be more efficient and effective than planning different lessons for different groups of pupils.

Activities

Activating prior knowledge (5 minutes)

Guidance for mentors:

The themes in this topic build on ideas developed in module 3 around adapting teaching based upon understanding pupil difference. The mentor may find it useful to re-read module 3 to re-familiarise themselves with the content. ECTs should be encouraged to use what already exists to provide support to individuals. They should also be encouraged to respond to emerging needs and ‘adapt in the moment’.

Suggested dialogue for mentors:

In module 3, we looked at how to adapt your teaching. This was based on developing really good understanding of pupils, their differences and how to meet those differences so that pupils make progress.

Pose the question: What can you remember about adapting teaching and understanding your pupils needs?

Suggested dialogue for mentors:

We know that adaptive teaching is less likely to be valuable if it causes the teacher to artificially create distinct tasks for different groups of pupils or to set lower expectations for particular pupils. Beyond this not being useful, it is also time consuming and onerous – something we want to avoid because you are already extremely busy! We are going to look today at ways in which we can meet the needs of individuals without adding unnecessary workload.

Meeting the needs of individuals without creating unnecessary workload (35 mins – Parts A, B and C)

Guidance to mentors:

In the previous topic, the ECT was asked to bring a lesson or sequence of lessons along with the accompanying resources that they plan to teach in the following week.The rest of the topic will use this lesson or set of lessons as a base for learning.

Ask the ECT:

• To explain what lesson(s) they have brought along.
• Is this a lesson or lessons they developed or was it created by someone else, e.g. a member of the department?

Part A: Plan to connect new content with pupils’ existing knowledge or provide additional pre-teaching if pupils lack critical knowledge (15 minutes)

Read the following together with the ECT. We know from modules 2 and 8 (‘How pupils learn’) that it is really important to connect any new content we plan to teach pupils with the knowledge they already have. We know that pupils process new information in their working memory, which is limited, and are able to do this better if they can connect it to knowledge housed within their long-term memory (schemas).

When planning a lesson, we might realise that pupils’ schemas in the lesson content is weak, i.e. there is limited information within their long-term memory to connect the new learning to. In this instance, it would be beneficial to do some pre-teaching of the knowledge that will be critical to pupils’ success. It might be that you identify particular pupils who lack critical knowledge and you could support them by providing some pre-teaching through specific homework for example.

Ask the following questions:

1. Looking at the lesson/sequence of lessons, what is the existing knowledge that you are expecting your pupils to have and to need in order to be successful in the lesson?
2. What activities do you have (such as a starter or connect the learning) to specifically connect new knowledge to existing knowledge? (If the ECT does not have this kind of activity, time should be spent planning one in. If there is an activity that does this partially, the ECT should spend time improving it.)
3. Are there any pupils in your class that would benefit from some pre-teaching? Who? What pre-teaching would they benefit from, e.g. a specific homework task that could be done in advance?
4. Are there any existing resources that could be used to support any pre-teaching activity? Remember, we do not want to add significant amounts of time to planning.

Part B: Making use of well-designed resources (10 minutes)

Read the following to the ECT:

Well-designed resources can support your pupils. There are many well-designed resources that already exist – this may be a particularly good textbook or resources designed by experienced colleagues. It is important to seek these resources out and make use of them – not only are they tried and tested but it will save you on workload.

Ask the following questions:

1. Looking at your lesson/sequence of lessons, what resources do you have that will meet the needs of pupils?
2. What is the balance here between resources you have made yourself and high-quality resources you have located elsewhere?

If ECTs have made many of the resources themselves, identify colleagues they could speak to who could share their resources.

Part C: Build in additional practice or remove unnecessary exposition (10 mins)

Read the following to the ECT:

One way we can address pupils’ needs ‘in real time’, which means we are not adding to our workload is to:

1. Build in additional practice for pupils who might be struggling<
2. Remove unnecessary exposition for pupils who might need more challenge.

Suggested dialogue for mentors:

Let’s look again at the lesson(s) you brought with you today. For each activity, let’s think about how, when and what additional practice you could build in and where you might remove unnecessary exposition for pupils who need more challenge.

Guidance to mentors:

The ECT could use questioning to work out who understands and who doesn’t. The ECT then might pull the small group who don’t to one side for an additional explanation and more examples, but for those that do – set them off. In this way, the ECT is not having to do lots of additional planning – they are responding and adapting in the moment.

Intervening within lessons (15 mins)

Guidance to mentors

The key learning for this section of the topics to get ECTs to realise that ‘real-time’ or ‘in-the-moment’ intervention with individuals or small groups is much more time efficient and effective than planning different lessons for different pupils.

Consider the following two examples:

Teacher A

Teacher A has a mixed-attainment group of 30 pupils. The range of prior attainment between pupils is significant. Teacher A is going to be starting a new topic with the group next week. He has planned the first lesson for the week:

• He has grouped pupils into prior-attainment groups.
• Each group has a different worksheet that has been prepared to complete following the exposition and modelling phase.
• Each group has a different set of outcomes he is expecting by the end of lesson.

Teacher B

Teacher B has a mixed-attainment group of 30 pupils. The range of prior attainment between pupils is significant. Teacher B is going to be starting a new topic with the group next week. He has planned the first lesson for the week:

• He has grouped the pupils into mixed groups based on prior attainment.
• He has planned a quiz linked to prior knowledge that he will start with.
• He has planned an activity that he will ‘live mark’ following the exposition and modelling.
• He will use the live marking activity to make a quick assessment of which pupils need more input.
• He plans to use this information to change his seating plan for the following lesson where he will spend time with the group of pupils who require it.

Questions for discussion:

• Which teacher is spending more time on planning?
• Which lesson do you think will be more successful? Why?
• What implications does this have for your own practice?

Planning for action

Either:

• The mentor could agree with the ECT that they will come and observe the lesson discussed within today’s topic. The mentor will be looking at how the ECT can adapt teaching ‘in the moment’ to promote pupil progress. The mentor will also review what high-quality resources have been used. If the mentor is unable to plan a time to observe, the ECT could record a part of their lesson to share in the next mentor meeting.

• Alternatively, the ECT could keep a note of what they did and how it went to share in the next topic.