Teach First Summer Institute: Week 1 highlights

So Week 1 of the Teach First Summer Institute is coming to an end, and I am en route back home to the West Midlands for a family wedding this weekend. Tired, but very impressed and happy with the way this week has gone, here are my personal highlights of the last 5 days…

A Really excellent History Subject Studies day

On Wednesday we began our subject specific studies – which proved to be a real highlight of the week. A nice mix of information, small group and whole group discussion, and plenty of individual reflection worked really well for me, and I got a lot out of the day. We started by looking at the value and purpose of school history and how to communicate this to our students – this inevitably led to a quite animated discussion and healthy disagreement about what the fundamental aims of teaching history should be. Our tutor introduced us to the state of the debate around history education (well education more generally), which after a few months on Twitter I am obviously not new to, but I found it useful and easier to think about it in a subject specific way. It was (quite rightly) difficult to tell what our tutor thought himself, but he left us with lots to think about, with a wealth of reading suggestions ranging from SHP inspired views of teaching history, to Toby Young’s ‘Gove vs the Blob’ pamphlet and Daisy Christidolou’s Seven Myths. I don’t fully know what I think,  but I will be interested to see how our small groups’ thoughts and views progress over the next 5 weeks.

We also did some rather more practical studies, looking at how to get the most of observing others, and having a very careful look at the development and changes of the National Curriculum and future GCSE changes. Next week, we are looking at planning for progression and going into a London school, different from our employing school, to plan and team teach some Year 8 lessons on the Mughals. I think the Subject Studies strand of SI is going to be a consistebt highlight.

Induction to my new school

I have spent the last two days at my placement school. We’ve started a very practical and useful induction – doing all the admin, timetable, IT stuff, but also much more. On Thursday, we (the other TF-er and a group of NQTs)  concentrated on Inclusion and then behaviour management, observing parts of several lessons and then coming together to feedback and discuss with the two ‘Lead Practioners for Behaviour’. It was really great to be able to see some things I’ve been reading about/been told about in action, and to get a feel for the atmosphere and challenges of my school. I still feel nervous about this aspect, but I really feel like we are going to be well supported in this aspect.

Today, we had a session on Child Protection, before spending much of the day doing whole school observations on ‘excellent pedagogy’. A real highlight was the two hours after our observations where we had a session from another ‘lead practitioner’, who was really excellent in the way he guided us through ‘wading through the mire’ of our first year of practice. Amongst other things, we did an activity to identify the things that really matter when it comes to planning and evaluatinf our lessons.

We decided that:
Are they engaged?  Are they learning and making progress? And, how can you tell? were the 3 key questions to bear in mind.

We then went through the process of planning a PSHCE lesson, which I found a really useful exercise,  guided by the LP throughout.

In summary, I’ve been really impressed with my school so far. We are the first Teach First teachers there, but I think it is a really special school, with a great atmosphere and my first impressions are that we are going to be really well supported.

So, there go my particular highlights of this first week – along with this, I have to say I have met some very interesting and lovely people. I am tired, but I am happy, and very much fired up for the rest of the Institute and especially excited to join my school properly in September.

Thanks
Miss Nell

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