WOW! Lots of information...

Our first task this morning was technological and involved setting up email and Google Drive, which we will use as a portfolio to attain our QTS. Colour-coding my folders gave me a sense of purpose as I tried to comprehend how on earth I will manage to show at least three outstanding pieces of evidence for each standard... 

The rest of the day centered around our guest speaker, Roy Blatchford. I had looked forward to this as a friend (you know who you are!) had found him quite interesting when he had visited her school. I was, and still am, blown away. I think it will take a while for my brain to assimilate all that he related, I am relying on my tortoise mind to sort out my hare brain. 

The purpose of Roy's visit was to prepare us for the lesson observations we will do over the next two days in our placement schools. He gave us advice which was really useful because it was jargon-free and politic-free, and focuses solely on the learning which is happening in the classroom. But through the course of the day, and which must be is style, Roy treated us to intellectual digressions (!); these provided us with interesting information like the fact that geography is under-taught as a primary subject (Can I make sure to remediate this in my classroom?)...

My favourite piece of advice concerned the "richness of the environment". Roy advised that we look closely at the classroom environment; layout, displays, evidence of the personalities in the classroom. I would have noticed the displays but now I will look beyond how pleasing to the eye they are and try to ascertain what they say about the learning that takes place in this room; the motivation behind the choice of work, poster etc; the relevance to the children's learning- does it mean something to them/ do they own it? What does it say about the teacher and is it matched in the teaching and learning? My aim is to integrate this approach into my observations over the next few days. Hopefully this will help me to "focus on the learning and not on the teaching."

Roy used Jim Collins' "Hedgehog Concept" as a way of explaining where richness can be found: 

 Image courtesy of: http://www.belhawary.com/2011/09/hedgehog-concept.html

Roy described it as the passion of the teacher (academic knowledge/learning) combined with the skills of the teacher combined with the best use of the resources available (objects and people) lead to the best results. I can see this being developed as a pre-lesson plan tool to help me guarantee that I am pushing myself to find the best ways of doing things as opposed to ways I have used before or seen done before, or that are just a bit safe. 

I would like to think that today's lesson, lesson no.2 in learning to teach was take the risk if you think you have the confidence, skill and passion to take the children to new places in their learning.