Back in September my thoughts were on all the exciting stuff like getting the classroom and corridor sorted and today I sat back and reflected on how much it’s changed. In the “after” photo you may be able to spot the efforts of some tweeps who I’d like to thank (Thank you each and every one of you!!):

  • The “propaganda” posters dotted all around the top of the display boards are courtesy of Graham Walton (@mr_g_walton) and you can find them HERE
  • Above the board I have a “washing line – number line” and above the windows (and in every maths room!) is some maths bunting. It turns out that Jessica Hocking (@tweetinghock) had tweeted the idea back in May and Hannah (@missradders) has blogged about making a similar thing. I blogged about it more -> ON THIS POST
  • Another thing that is based on a tweet picture I saw, and which is in each room is the phrase around the clock “Time will pass … will you? “
  • At the back of the room is my “maths periodic table” based on an idea from Paul Sutherland (@paulsuvs) and James Theobald (@JamesTheo). You can find all the files on THIS POST
  • On the right hand wall, I have a “vowel-less” display which was inspired by Clarissa Grandi (@c0mplexnumber) , a “four-fours” challenge board using material put together by Emma Bell (@El_Timbre) and a hand drawn poster saying “If you’re making mistakes, it means you’re out there doing something”
  • On the desks you may be able to see the “motivational desk quotes” that I taped to each one; courtesy of Mrs Martin (@MrsMartinMaths) these have gone down a storm with the students. It was lovely to see some of my students staying behind after a lesson to read them all!

BEFORE & AFTERSince we returned to school this half term however, thoughts have moved onto more mundane every-day things like classpacks, homework, planning lessons, assessments, performance management, meetings, one to ones, intervention and of course the new “big thing” … marking! However for me the over-arching theme in terms of my “day job”, and I cannot emphasise this enough, has been managing behaviour. It is “up there” and you’ll note that my tables are set out as single desks in rows which I’ve found conducive to being able to manage large groups better. My personal favourite layout is conference style but I’ve had to move away from that for a while and as the year progresses I’m sure I’ll get back to my favourite.

Of course managing behaviour and all the other things on my list can be “packaged up” as part of what is called “teaching” but I genuinely believe that what we do every day can’t be broken down into a simple list of “things” that get done. If you haven’t yet read the Sutton Report which was published at the end of October (which you can find here)  … do it, do it, do it!! It attempts to summarise what makes good teaching .. now if only it was so simple as being able to teach someone all the elements of our job in nice little discrete “chunks” we’d be laughing. A good read though.

Another thing that caught my eye last week is that David Laws announced as part of an announcement about primary school  funding that the literacy and numeracy catch-up premium for year 7 pupils will continue. A maximum of £500 per pupil is payable for pupils from all backgrounds who do not reach the expected level 4 in reading or mathematics at key stage 2 (this will be based on the number of eligible pupils listed in autumn 2014 census returns and the 2014 key stage 2 assessments and paid early in 2015). The press release mentions that it is expected to make similar allocations next year too! So we’ve started to put together a list of ideas of things we can do to support this when the new member of our team joins us in January, so if you have any ideas I’d love to hear what you’ve done in your own school (and don’t forget you need to have a statement on your website about how the money is spent too!)

Next week we’re doing our Autumn 2 assessments with all year groups (apart from year 11) so I’m putting together a couple of mark schemes this weekend for our non-subject specialists to help speed up the process for them. This means I may be off “radar” for a few days as we want the results pretty quickly to add to the “picture” of the students that we are slowly building up … you will find me under a pile of circa 220 exam papers … send chocolate!