Observations

Like most teachers I would imagine, I get in a real flap when I know I'm being observed. I think it is because so much is riding on such a small part of your practice. Anyone can have an off lesson as we all know, even the best of teachers, plus there are bits of lessons that just have to happen sometimes, that can't be made 'whizzy', that don't demonstrate 'rapid and sustained progress', that are teacher dominated etc. I am not saying that this is ok all the time, but we can all think of examples! I was having an interesting chat with a colleague today and we decided that in some ways it would be better to be observed all the time, like you are as an NQT, as at least then the overall picture would be properly reflective. Rest assured I won't be suggesting that to SLT however!

This week at work is the MFL departmental review, where SLT drop in on and observe 2 lessons over the week per teacher, and also look at books/marking/assessment, progress trends, SoW etc. All a bit stressful! I was really chuffed today as my AS lesson was given an outstanding grade, in no small part thanks to all the ideas I have picked up from twitter / people's blogs / ililc3 over the last few months.

The Prezi for the lesson is here, and I will upload it and the other texts used to the MFL twitterati dropbox asap. Things that went down really well with the people observing were the focus on skills rather than content (in this case independent listening skills, as introduced by Isabelle Jones' fab 'escalator failure' clip, the links between the tasks (sounds focus in starter leading to listening gap fill etc), differentiation afforded by the Tarsia puzzle among other things, the group work 'donut task' for the reading on bacs and the students' reflection on the strategies used in an attempt to bring a bit of metacognition into the equation! They also liked the plenary puzzle for which I used Triptico flip selector to present a random series of questions checking their understanding of the content of the lesson, and the activity reflecting on progress towards objectives. Finally the feedback forms I have designed for essays and speaking cards were highlighted, I will add these to the dropbox too in case anyone is interested. They are WJEC specific but could be very easily adapted.

THANK YOU to everyone on twitter who shares things... I am feeling really inspired about work at the moment, and although this week (and half term) have been completely manic and exhausting, it is always a good feeling when your hard work pays off! Now roll on Friday and LARGE glass of wine!!!!