AfL; Lesson Planning; Great Learning Great Teaching Presentation and a TeachMeet; another jam-packed day!

We had a mini-lecture on AfL from a teacher at St. Nicholas' Primary school. This combined with my initial reading of the Black et al. (2003) made me feel that I am closer to understanding the underlying concepts of AfL. I hope this will allow me to use it in a way that is most beneficial for my learners. I now have a visual representation of AfL that I can keep as an aide-memoir. The teacher also gave us lots of other strategies that we can try in our classrooms; when (if!) we get one! The quote I noted was "good teachers always think about their own practice all the time." I need to remember and practice in this way.

A trip to the Great Learning Great Teaching presentation later in the day evidenced teachers who had used those strategies in their schools with success. It was lovely to see different examples of how AfL can be used to support and challenge learning. It was also reassuring to see experienced teachers rejoicing in the work of others, and still on a learning journey after however many years!

Our next challenge as learners was to work in groups to devise a lesson plan for Friday. In our group we chose RE as none of us had any experience of teaching RE. There were lengthy debates on what and how we approach the task. In true group-task spirit we negotiated a compromise- we will see what Friday brings!

My first TeachMeet...what to say...I was overwhelmed yet exhilarated by the speed of the presentations. The speed meant that the salient points were conveyed without any waffle, which meant I had a great time listening and learning from teachers who were keen to share what they found useful in their classrooms. I have yet to go through my notes and make some sense of what I learned.

I am going to teach maths in my placement school tomorrow, so I have spent the whole evening planning, preparing resources, getting excited, getting nervous. We will see what tomorrow brings in terms of my mentor's observation.

I have just scanned over what I have written and I can see that is turning into a recount instead of a reflection. I think that to reflect I need some head space and there is so much going on that I am not allowing myself to digest and make links that would aid reflection. If I have to specify a lesson from today I will struggle as I have not allowed my tortoise brain any time today! I will leave Lesson No.5 in Learning to Teach until tomorrow, after all tomorrow is another day...