1st Teaching Placement - Parkwood E-ACT Academy
My first placement school was at Parkwood E-ACT Academy in Sheffield . It is a smaller than average, inner city secondary school with above average SEND, EAL and pupil premium. It also has a large number of 'mobile' students joining and leaving the academy.
My first placement gave me valuable experience teaching students with a variety of educational needs. I was fortunate to acquire experience working with Teaching Assistants, nurture groups and EAL support staff to inform and plan appropriate strategies to make learning more accessible to these students. It enabled me to understand the importance differentiation within my planning and being able to adapt to student's needs.
I thoroughly enjoyed the first hand experience of working with EAL students. The school has taken great steps to promote an inclusive environment and set up interventions to help necessitate the needs of its students by adapting lessons and curriculum where necessary. I was able to observe, assist and teach classes with EAL students both in and outside my subject area of Design and Technology and feel this was a great learning opportunity. I believe my own experience of living abroad in a non English speaking country, has given me a real insight of what it's like to be a child in a classroom learning a topic or subject in a foreign language, and on reflection, feel I can relate to the students and perhaps this is why it is in an area that interests me.
During this placement I successfully developed my behaviour management skills with some challenging groups of students, using school policies to promote a safe and stable environment in my classroom. I implemented strategies such as setting expectations at the beginning of lessons, establishing routines, allocating seating plans, using school sanctions and rewards, using pace in lessons to promote engagement, waiting for silence and enforcing high expectations. I worked hard at establishing relationships with the students, learning their names as quickly as possible and making an effort to say hello and making conversation with them outside of the classroom. I feel this contributed to the success of my lessons and to students achievements in my classroom.
I was also given the task of mentoring to year 11 fashion students. I was able to work with them on a one to one basis, giving advice on areas of their portfolios that needed expand on, giving ideas of what they could look at in order to develop their designs and highlighting any areas they needed to expand on and consider. I found the experience very rewarding.
This placement also gave me the opportunity to trial different forms of formative assessment, a tool which I think has huge value to students learning, as highlighted by Black and William (1998). Methods such as self and peer assessment sheets, using progress sheets as a form of tracking document, 'What Went Well' (WWW), 'Even Better Ideas' (EBI), were given to students, while also allowing 'Dedicated Improvement and Reflection Time (DIRT) in order to allow them to act on feedback given and increase the level they were working to.
My first placement gave me valuable experience teaching students with a variety of educational needs. I was fortunate to acquire experience working with Teaching Assistants, nurture groups and EAL support staff to inform and plan appropriate strategies to make learning more accessible to these students. It enabled me to understand the importance differentiation within my planning and being able to adapt to student's needs.
I thoroughly enjoyed the first hand experience of working with EAL students. The school has taken great steps to promote an inclusive environment and set up interventions to help necessitate the needs of its students by adapting lessons and curriculum where necessary. I was able to observe, assist and teach classes with EAL students both in and outside my subject area of Design and Technology and feel this was a great learning opportunity. I believe my own experience of living abroad in a non English speaking country, has given me a real insight of what it's like to be a child in a classroom learning a topic or subject in a foreign language, and on reflection, feel I can relate to the students and perhaps this is why it is in an area that interests me.
During this placement I successfully developed my behaviour management skills with some challenging groups of students, using school policies to promote a safe and stable environment in my classroom. I implemented strategies such as setting expectations at the beginning of lessons, establishing routines, allocating seating plans, using school sanctions and rewards, using pace in lessons to promote engagement, waiting for silence and enforcing high expectations. I worked hard at establishing relationships with the students, learning their names as quickly as possible and making an effort to say hello and making conversation with them outside of the classroom. I feel this contributed to the success of my lessons and to students achievements in my classroom.
I was also given the task of mentoring to year 11 fashion students. I was able to work with them on a one to one basis, giving advice on areas of their portfolios that needed expand on, giving ideas of what they could look at in order to develop their designs and highlighting any areas they needed to expand on and consider. I found the experience very rewarding.
This placement also gave me the opportunity to trial different forms of formative assessment, a tool which I think has huge value to students learning, as highlighted by Black and William (1998). Methods such as self and peer assessment sheets, using progress sheets as a form of tracking document, 'What Went Well' (WWW), 'Even Better Ideas' (EBI), were given to students, while also allowing 'Dedicated Improvement and Reflection Time (DIRT) in order to allow them to act on feedback given and increase the level they were working to.
Placement Projects
Y10 Food
During my first placement I was given the opportunity to teach and support in Food lessons at KS4 with an EAL class. The lessons were adapted to support the ability levels and learning requirements of the students. As with all my Design and Technology lessons, key words were a focus, using verbal repetition, imagery and written skills to enhance literacy. Following demonstrations, students were encouraged to explain what they had to do verbally as well annotating and listing instructions in their workbooks to further increase literacy skills. In order to promote relationships and engagement, some lessons were catered towards the styles of food the students might eat at home and students were asked to talk about the food they liked and give suggestions on what they could make. There was also the element of fun, in the form of making cakes in a mug and decorating them using the Halloween theme.
The experience was invaluable and helped to make me aware of ways you can tailor your lessons and its content to suit your students needs.
The experience was invaluable and helped to make me aware of ways you can tailor your lessons and its content to suit your students needs.
Y7 Ugly Dolls Project - Textiles |
The Ugly dolls textiles project was one that I had the opportunity to teach to two separate classes. It allowed me the opportunity to apply and adapt different strategies to my planning, depending on if there was something I felt worked or hadn't work well in lesson. This process has been useful for all my lessons where the topic or project I'm teaching is repeated over different classes.
The aims of this project are to give students an introduction to textiles, whereby they design and make a soft toy using paper patterns, hand sewing, applique and fabric dying techniques, while also introducing them to design briefs and product specifications. Textiles is one of my specialist areas but most of my experience is within garment construction. This project enabled me to hone in and develop my hand stitching and tie-dye techniques. Although there were still areas for me to develop my subject knowledge I felt at ease teaching these lessons and I was able to mainly focus on my teaching methods within the classroom. I was able to integrate peer and self assessment sheets into this project, allowing students to reflect on their work and use the sheets to guide them on ways to improve their Ugly dolls in the following lessons. Allowing time to evaluate their own work during a project, I believe is something that worked well and an element I will continue to use going forward. |
Y9 Recycled Teddies - Textiles |
The Recycled Teddies project encourages sustainability by asking students to use find fabric from old clothes and furnishings (or even the school scrap box!) to recycle in order to create a Teddy. The project aims to develop students understanding of construction by using more complex prefabricated patterns and sewing machine skills.
I was able to utilise my knowledge of garment construction for this project. It allowed me concentrate on ways to explain things clearly, trying to look at it from a students point of view and give explanation for the reason behind the more technical elements of the pattern such as darts. I found students were constantly getting stuck with this project and it proved quite a challenge for many of them. Although students worked in pairs to aid each other, I discovered many weaker students needed one to one support. As a way of incorporating stretch and challenge for the more able students, promote independent learning and give me time to work with others on a one to one basis, I utilised my CAD skills and created a step by step guide for students to use. In order to test it, I asked a TA who had never made a teddy before to construct one solely following the guide I had made. After a successful test I found I was able to utilise it with even the less able students to encourage them to work independently. |
GCSE Textiles
I was given the opportunity to team teach GCSE Textiles to both Y10 and Y11 students, I found being able to teach both year groups extremely beneficial as it permitted me to see the progression through the two GCSE years.
In Y10 students design and make a child's dress. The project is ongoing throughout the year and the first part of the year is spent developing their knowledge of practical and technical skills such as different seams and finishes for garments. They create and collate samples to evidence their progress, building a sketchbook of information that they could utilise to refer back to, and aid them with their project. Students also research into 4 different designers and utilise the information to influence and inspire their children's dress designs. The project gives students a good grounding, preparing them as they approach their final GCSE year in Y11.
For both year groups I was able to utilise my industry and degree knowledge to support learning. I demonstrated construction techniques and gave relevance to why we were doing them, getting student to consider where you would find that technique on clothes and giving them examples. I also created various mood and inspiration boards depicting print, dye, applique and embellishment techniques. They proved very beneficial as I discovered students were able to see first hand the different techniques available to them and the boards helped to assist them with their design decisions.
The Y11 students worked on their final projects which were a mix of home furnishings and fashion (ladies' dresses). Students created development portfolios which displayed and analysed the different stages of the project. Due to my fashion background my mentor was keen utilise my skills and experience and organised for the students to have 2 full days off timetable, concentrating solely on the construction of their products. The two days were a huge success and most students made remarkable progress having the continuity the full days afforded. It was a great experience being able to spend that amount of time on one project with the same students. The experience gave me a huge insight to the challenges I will face going forward, facilitating so many different types of personal projects for KS4 and highlighted how days that can really help.
In Y10 students design and make a child's dress. The project is ongoing throughout the year and the first part of the year is spent developing their knowledge of practical and technical skills such as different seams and finishes for garments. They create and collate samples to evidence their progress, building a sketchbook of information that they could utilise to refer back to, and aid them with their project. Students also research into 4 different designers and utilise the information to influence and inspire their children's dress designs. The project gives students a good grounding, preparing them as they approach their final GCSE year in Y11.
For both year groups I was able to utilise my industry and degree knowledge to support learning. I demonstrated construction techniques and gave relevance to why we were doing them, getting student to consider where you would find that technique on clothes and giving them examples. I also created various mood and inspiration boards depicting print, dye, applique and embellishment techniques. They proved very beneficial as I discovered students were able to see first hand the different techniques available to them and the boards helped to assist them with their design decisions.
The Y11 students worked on their final projects which were a mix of home furnishings and fashion (ladies' dresses). Students created development portfolios which displayed and analysed the different stages of the project. Due to my fashion background my mentor was keen utilise my skills and experience and organised for the students to have 2 full days off timetable, concentrating solely on the construction of their products. The two days were a huge success and most students made remarkable progress having the continuity the full days afforded. It was a great experience being able to spend that amount of time on one project with the same students. The experience gave me a huge insight to the challenges I will face going forward, facilitating so many different types of personal projects for KS4 and highlighted how days that can really help.
Y7 Glow Bugs - Electronics |
The year 7 Glow Bugs project is designed to introduce students to electronics. Students have to put together a circuit following step by step instructions from a PowerPoint. The aim of this is to promote independent learning and team work, while getting students to decipher the information correctly. Students learn soldering techniques, basic electronics, such as values of resistors and keywords.
Having only been introduced to electronics in the first year of my PGCE I was keen to get more experience in this area. I taught this lesson to a low ability year 7 class, consisting solely of EAL students. I learned how to utilise the techniques I had observed and used during my EAL food lessons and encouraged student to repeat keywords back to me when undertaking a demonstration. I found keeping pace in these lessons was essential in keeping students engaged. I had to ensure lessons were broken down into manageable chunks so students were not overwhelmed with information. I introduced starter tasks that followed on from previous lessons as a way of assessing students knowledge and I tried to make them fun using imagery such a word/image card match games - often utilising the space in the room so students were not constantly sat. Team work was a requirement in these lessons. Students had to work together to follow the PowerPoint and check each others work. I adopted a system from my class teacher whereby the teams consist of a 'Boss', 'QC', 'Expert' and a 'Motivator'. At certain stages I would call over the Expert (only) to highlight and go through elements of the circuit board where components needed to be facing a certain direction or to demonstrate techniques to make soldering them in easier. It was then their job to relay the information back to their team. Students had to have their soldering and placement of their component checked by the QC before being able to continue to the next one. The boss was in charge of making sure their team was working efficiently and the motivator's job was to help encourage any member of the team who was struggling and keep their team engaged. I had noticed from other lessons how well stickers are received and decided to enforce these roles further utilising stickers to highlight each persons role with much success. |
Year 8 Inspirational Sounds - Electronics
This electronics project aims to build on the Y7 project by teaching elements of basic electronic theory. Student design and create an MP3 player using a baked bean tin to highlight sustainability studies. Students have to base their speaker cover angrill designs on a famous quote that inspires them. They build on their 2D Design skills to create and laser cut their speaker grills and use Autodesk inventor to produce a 3D assembly drawing of their finished product.
I taught a higher ability class for these lessons and I learned techniques for teaching both electronics theory and practical.
I taught a higher ability class for these lessons and I learned techniques for teaching both electronics theory and practical.
References
Black, P. and William, D. (1998) Inside the Black Box: Raising Standards through Classroom Assessment