Thanks for your article, I got a lot out of it. You have helped with my planning for a lot of future department meetings, I am going to use this. I was once a first year teacher in a school where the maths program was very prescribed, and I appreciated it immensely. I did have a choice about which resources I used, but the content, and recommended resources were there, I would have been silly not to use them.
I've never understood why mini whiteboards are distributed at the start of a lesson and packed away at the end. They are permanently out on every table in all of my classes. Kids use 'em without being prompted to. I just need to keep a tray of new pens to exchange when they dry out.
Rulers and 360degree protractors also on every desk all the time. Why does any school use 180 degree protractors for reflex angles and bearings? Get them used to 369d for everything and bearings become a walk-in the park...
I think I'm an anomaly... I got into mainstream teaching after about 6 years of private tuition, when half of my students were from the same year of the same school. After a week of having to re-explain a topic so that they could do their homework, because their teacher had explained it wrong, these students said that a teacher like me was needed in school, where more students can benefit from my explanations.
So I did. But it meant I went into the school with methods that I already knew worked. I just had to adapt from a one-to-one environment to a class environment. With the tutoring, I didn't have formal assessments to mark, homework to mark, reports to write, lessons to plan... I would turn up, find out what the student was struggling with, and go from there. I knew the content very well and occasionally brought along a textbook for the more complex topics (where I couldn't make up a question on the spot). It meant I had time to look into other ways of teaching topics, other methods of calculating things, etc. I could watch youtube videos for hours for inspiration.
When I got into school teaching, some of the resources were very good, and some could do with some work. Like you mention in this article, the HOD was not very prescriptive, and I appreciated that. But then, what I viewed as a "good resource" was only based on my own experience and therefore quite biased.
Anyway, the point I want to make is that the most valuable thing for me from this article is the suggestion for more team meetings to be focused on actually teaching maths rather than admin stuff. Those meetings are always far more interesting and far more beneficial as a teacher: learning how other teachers teach things, how they question students, etc. There needs to be a lot more time for that (and one of the reasons I like reading your articles, because you discuss those things).
Thanks Craig; great suggestions and ideas. I’ve been teaching now for 20 years and even to this day it frustrates me immensely with how little time teachers are given to work collaboratively with colleagues on our teaching. In my experience, most dept meeting are hijacked by admin, squeezed in during break or lunch times, rushed with information overload and pedagogy always features last if at all (usually not at all). I’d love to work in a school where the meetings are as you envisage. Schools need to give better opportunities to allow this to happen. Dept meetings during the school week should be a mandatory period on the timetable with a focus on pedagogy. Surely a reasonable wish! The benefits are huge.
Hi Craig. I like this, and think you are beginning to show some insight into how organisations can change. However, you state that "simply telling colleagues that everyone must do the same thing" does not work. Are you not doing exactly this to all the Heads of Department?
I loved that interview with Femi and Matt on this topic!
Thanks for your article, I got a lot out of it. You have helped with my planning for a lot of future department meetings, I am going to use this. I was once a first year teacher in a school where the maths program was very prescribed, and I appreciated it immensely. I did have a choice about which resources I used, but the content, and recommended resources were there, I would have been silly not to use them.
I've never understood why mini whiteboards are distributed at the start of a lesson and packed away at the end. They are permanently out on every table in all of my classes. Kids use 'em without being prompted to. I just need to keep a tray of new pens to exchange when they dry out.
Rulers and 360degree protractors also on every desk all the time. Why does any school use 180 degree protractors for reflex angles and bearings? Get them used to 369d for everything and bearings become a walk-in the park...
I think I'm an anomaly... I got into mainstream teaching after about 6 years of private tuition, when half of my students were from the same year of the same school. After a week of having to re-explain a topic so that they could do their homework, because their teacher had explained it wrong, these students said that a teacher like me was needed in school, where more students can benefit from my explanations.
So I did. But it meant I went into the school with methods that I already knew worked. I just had to adapt from a one-to-one environment to a class environment. With the tutoring, I didn't have formal assessments to mark, homework to mark, reports to write, lessons to plan... I would turn up, find out what the student was struggling with, and go from there. I knew the content very well and occasionally brought along a textbook for the more complex topics (where I couldn't make up a question on the spot). It meant I had time to look into other ways of teaching topics, other methods of calculating things, etc. I could watch youtube videos for hours for inspiration.
When I got into school teaching, some of the resources were very good, and some could do with some work. Like you mention in this article, the HOD was not very prescriptive, and I appreciated that. But then, what I viewed as a "good resource" was only based on my own experience and therefore quite biased.
Anyway, the point I want to make is that the most valuable thing for me from this article is the suggestion for more team meetings to be focused on actually teaching maths rather than admin stuff. Those meetings are always far more interesting and far more beneficial as a teacher: learning how other teachers teach things, how they question students, etc. There needs to be a lot more time for that (and one of the reasons I like reading your articles, because you discuss those things).
Thanks Craig; great suggestions and ideas. I’ve been teaching now for 20 years and even to this day it frustrates me immensely with how little time teachers are given to work collaboratively with colleagues on our teaching. In my experience, most dept meeting are hijacked by admin, squeezed in during break or lunch times, rushed with information overload and pedagogy always features last if at all (usually not at all). I’d love to work in a school where the meetings are as you envisage. Schools need to give better opportunities to allow this to happen. Dept meetings during the school week should be a mandatory period on the timetable with a focus on pedagogy. Surely a reasonable wish! The benefits are huge.
Hi Craig. I like this, and think you are beginning to show some insight into how organisations can change. However, you state that "simply telling colleagues that everyone must do the same thing" does not work. Are you not doing exactly this to all the Heads of Department?