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Board of Brilliance

Having always tried to use positive ways to engage and encourage students in my lessons, I honestly didn’t feel the need for a board of recognition. I read the chapter in “When the adult changes everything changes” and still thought, no I do that effectively, no reason to change. I then had a conversation with Emma Tate who had a board in her room and said it was really effective. At that point I thought I would just give it a try for a couple of days. I used a small part of my white board and wrote Board of Brilliance on it. I started adding names and mentioning the reason for being on it…amazing vocabulary, using the text for evidence, always explaining what the student had done to be brilliant. I kept the names on all day so all the students from all year groups get to see who was on it. THEY LOVED IT! So now, after a week it’s staying! The students are telling me when someone needs to go on the board of brilliance and why! I can see them trying to tell me or show me somethi

‘Boys Will Be Boys?’

When I became a mother of two boys, I was keen to dispel the myths that boys and girls learn differently. However, the older my sons become the more differences I seem to notice between them and their female peers. Do parents of girls have conversations with their daughter’s teacher about having food fights in the school canteen, or is it just boy’s parents – or just my son? If boys do switch off from traditional classroom learning at an early age - my eldest son already says: ‘School is just sitting and writing, and then you get to play.’ - is his view on learning and his behaviours something parents can affect, schools, society, or is it something that that is genetically built into them? It made me think about at what point we need to support boys in their learning and if it was ever too late? Can we really have an impact when boys get to secondary school if some of their views of primary have been so negative? I started doing some research and read the books ‘Bring the Best Out

Re-Writing the Music Curriculum

Last term I had a breakthrough lesson observation. It was described as a “lovely experience” and really impressed the observer. It was clear to me that I had come a long way since my previous drop-in (which really didn’t go according to plan) but at first it was difficult for me to recognise where I had made an improvement on lessons taught in the past. By reflecting upon the last few months, pinpointing how I had altered my teaching style in lessons became easier. Since he joined the school last January, JAH and I have used our line meetings to really get to the heart of what Music teaching is about; drop-ins and lesson observations have generally led to interesting discussions about the reasons behind Music tasks and whether or not they really have value. These discussions led to my re-writing of the curriculum and a merciless approach to cutting weaker schemes of work that did not inspire students to the level that I really wanted. I thought long and hard about what the real

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