As a teacher it is very important to reflect on what went well and what didn't go so well continually so that you are continually offering your students optimum teaching and opportunities. Often we ask the children to reflect also on what worked well for them, and where they think their next steps are. One thing that I know that I don't do as often is reflect with the students on a big picture scale, so I made sure that I did this at the end of the term so that we were on the same page going into next term.
It was interesting to see what worked, what didn't work and what we could change from a student's perspective and I was surprised to see so much about the changes between my teaching style and the teaching style of their previous teachers coming through - especially since it took a number of the students a while to adjust to the changes. What this tells me though is that the students value having the extra clarity about their learning, having the ability to direct their own learning paths and having more defined structure within their lessons, even though it means more work for them.
In regards to what didn't work - not enough PE and more rewards - unfortunately for the students, they will not be getting more 'rewards' as such but I do wonder if this was there as we have just started a rewards system within the class where the students earn whole class rewards. PE is changing this term and more PE will be occurring as a result of not having swimming in our PE session time. It was great to see that the students wanted more writing experience opportunities. The majority of the students that I am working with are still developing an understanding of what the basics are and how these need to be included in their writing and it was clear that this style of writing allowed the students to achieve and recognise what success looks like to them.
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