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  • Support for early career teachers
  • UCL
  • Year 1: Second half-term: engaging pupils in learning

    • Self-Study Activities

    Review: 10 mins

    Read the Research and Practice Summary on this week’s topic, including the examples from Helen and Rachel. As you read, reflect on:

    1. the practices that you are already doing well
    2. the practices you are doing some of the time but could do more of/more consistently
    3. the practices you don’t use in your teaching yet

    Plan: 10 mins

    Reflect

    Think about your own values: Why did you want to be a teacher? What difference to society are you hoping to make by being a teacher? Now think how these values might influence the way you transform the national and school curricula in your classroom. Remember how Rachel taught the 3Cs values in her PE lesson.

    • write one sentence outlining your values for education: what is education for?
    • add below your sentence 3 examples of how you enact your values in your classroom
    • below that add 3 more examples of wider activities in your school which you would say are consistent with your own values

    Theory to Practice: 20 mins

    As mentioned in the Early Career Framework, secure subject knowledge helps teachers to motivate pupils and teach effectively (3.2). There is therefore a need for teachers to maintain and extend their subject and curriculum knowledge throughout their careers. Over this week and next, we suggest practical activities which aim at framing this knowledge and relating it to what you have already seen around misconceptions and progression.

    1. Independent planning

    Now, bring together your appreciation of the values inherent in education with the way that you might organize learning. Do this through planning your approach to a topic that you will be teaching soon, ideally a topic that you are less comfortable with, so that you can develop your own understanding further. You can focus on a sequence of lessons, an individual lesson or even one part of a lesson, as best suits your context. Consider the following questions as you do so:

    1. what core knowledge and skills should be conveyed within this topic?
    2. what opportunities are there to support your educational values in this topic?
    3. draw on your understanding of your pupils’ prior knowledge to sequence the content within the lesson(s) (and any home learning)
    4. you do not need to go as far as developing your planning in detail, but at this point, you may have ideas for engaging activities which will support pupil learning, so jot these down

    2. Independent planning

    With this outline of a teaching sequence in place, now add to your sequence at least one opportunity for pupils to use their learning to think critically. This could be a discussion about a real-world problem, in which they outline their reasoning, or it could be a creative process involving their knowledge. As an extension activity for your pupils, you could ask them to identify how that might apply – transfer – their learning from this to other contexts.

    To support your planning, Rachel’s lesson plan might give you a model to follow.

    Next Steps: 5 mins

    Be ready to share your planning notes and your other learning from this session with your mentor in your next meeting with them. You may find it helpful to make a few notes on your planning explaining why you have included particular aspects and the reasoning behind how they are sequenced.

    In activity 1(c), you may have identified some subject content that you are not yet fully confident in teaching. Make a note of the topics you identified and set yourself a target date by which you will complete some further study in relation to these topics.