The last six weeks I have had to go back to basics in terms of my lesson planning and behaviour management … let’s just say that at times it feels like doing my PGCE all over again. Of course I’ve had the data on my groups (I’ve had that for months!!) but this only tells part of the story. There are so many variables at play that I have had to take a step back and really think about every tiny aspect of what happens in my lessons.

If someone had asked me to describe my lessons six months ago I would have said that they are “risky”. I was never afraid to push the boundaries and try new ideas out, but I now know how important that student-teacher relationship is, and that takes time to build. I have in the past and it will happen again, had amazing groups that are prepared to try new “stuff” but I have realised that this was a privilege that happens with time where both parties learn to trust each other.

I already feel this happening with some of the students and yesterday I had an epiphany: two of my students came running in about 15 seconds late (I know!!) for the lesson saying “Miss don’t start without us” as they were scrabbling in their bags to get their pens out. Don’t be thinking I’m doing “all-singing all-dancing” starters … I’m not! With my years 7, 8 and 9 we are doing the paper version of TimesTables Rockstars (minus any music – just working in silence for 3 minutes) and years 10 and 11 are doing “Bread and Butter” sheets every lesson (all groups are having their scores recorded on a spreadsheet on the screen so that they can see their progress).

I realised how key having a routine is for them – they know what to expect EVERY SINGLE LESSON and for them this must be comforting.

Much of the “maths bit” of the teaching has been very “pacey”. Think: Here’s how to do it, now do some, mark it, here’s another one a bit more difficult, now do some … mark it and repeat till the end of the lesson; Again I make no apologies but I need to ensure that I train my students into my way of working, and also learn the way that they work the best. I am not from the “school of thought” that thinks if the activity is interesting/engaging/exciting enough that good behaviour will follow. What a load of rollocks! (as always, just my opinion and you are entitled to your own!) Setting out expectations in terms of behaviour, work ethic and presentation of work has been really high on my priority list and today I decided to start introducing other type of activities that I would usually use occasionally and wanted to start nice and easy so we used our first tarsia.

Not revolutionary I know, but I didn’t want to just give them a big puzzle and then have them go “off task” when they couldn’t find the next card etc, so I gave them a smaller dominoes style puzzle with “start” and “finish” card and then we moved onto the traditional tarsia. Before the bigger puzzle we discussed strategies they could use to solve a bigger one, and how to approach it if they weren’t given a start point and off they went. I am so pleased I did the little preamble activity as they flew through the main puzzle – they converted soooooo many numbers to standard form and vice versa (that was the topic we were doing by the way!) and the fact that I felt that I could relax (just a little) and let them sit on the classroom floor (their idea! some of them felt they needed more room to spread out the cards) and work on the puzzle was just amazing!

I am sure that hidden in that twaddle is a tip for you if you are going to try a new “thing” … good luck with trying to find it!