KS2 Case Study

We are given half a day each week to plan and assess, so weekly overviews get planned during that time.

I always make sure that my lesson objectives are set out and clear during this time, even if the 'prettiness' of my interactive flipchart isn't finished. The resourcing and 'tarting-up' of lessons gets done the night before I am due to teach them.

Medium term plans (maps to show roughly what is being covered throughout the term) tend to get produced at the start of each term, or in the holiday/half term break leading up to the start of term, if I'm organised.

Due to the lack of a rigid national curriculum at the moment, most schools currently have their own standards in place. So bearing this in mind, I think of interesting tasks and finishing products which I think my children would like to achieve by the end of term.

For maths and literacy, I tend to still look at the old national strategies (which have now been archived) to ensure I am covering all genres of the subject for my year group. The same goes for my topic lessons. I decide a final product for my children and then work backwards to decide the skills I need them to acquire along the learning journey.

I stick fairly closely to the lesson plans in Maths and Literacy, although there may be a few small 'tweaks,' depending on the understanding of the children and whether a concept is working well or not.

Topic subjects such as science, history, geography, art, DT, French and ICT are a little more flexible. As long as you stick to the lesson objective you've planned, how you achieve it is often irrelevant. Children can sometimes be stubborn creatures and if they aren't enjoying something 100%, you have to think on your feet to ensure learning still takes place.

I use video clips. My school has just 'released' YouTube, which I have personally found to be a fantastic teaching tool.

I also take a step back and refer back to previous learning, and then slowly build on from that in order to explain the next step.

I also like to stick with what is working. I have never known a subject where the whole of my lesson has been inaccessible to everyone in class.

Even if the main activity of the lesson isn't working, I refer back to the starter, which was successful, and extend the learning that took place from there. If the starter isn't accessible, then I will scrap it and move on to the main lesson focus.

At the end of the day, all learning is good learning, but you know your class, you know their needs and you know what they should be able to achieve within a lesson whilst you're planning it.

We have access to 16 notebook laptops every morning and 32 laptops every afternoon. I ensure at least one group of children (with eight children per group) are using them at any time.

I also have a visualizer in my room and use this to display good examples of work and/or work that could be improved upon in some way.

In maths, I may start with an interactive game (Mathletics or Topic box are good for this), or I might quickly recap a concept covered in the previous lesson.

In Literacy, my school tends to start with a 20-minute reading or SPAG (Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar) session, before getting on to the main focus of the lesson.

In art or topic lessons, it is often a group-based activity which allows me to assess prior knowledge. For example, I may give the class five minutes to write down as much as they can about the subject of space.

On a day-to-day basis, my students don't get a lot of choice. But at the start of each term I tend to ask the children what they would like to find out about our topic and try to build that into the medium plan as much as I can.

At the end of the day, standards of maths and literacy are the key focus of OFSTED, so they have to be taught in ways in which I can ensure good progress for all of the children in my class.

I try to empower the children in their learning when it comes to homework. However, at the start of each term I send home a letter explaining what we are doing in class and what our topics are. The children are then set a term project, but there are always a large number of suggestions or ideas.

In term one this year, my topic was space. Projects completed by the children in my class included: models of the solar system, a space dictionary, a creative story about someone being lost in space, poetry, posters, video clips, PowerPoint presentations, junk models and even cakes, which were baked and iced to look like a specific planet.

I feel that allowing the children to direct some of their homework will not only help to get parents involved in supporting their child's learning, but also encourage the pupils to explore areas which are of interest to them, ideas which we simply don't have time to cover in class.

Primary Resources and TES are both really useful websites if you are struggling with ideas or want a specific resource for a lesson. Teachers and others within education can submit plans and resources for others to access. Math-aids is also a recent find of mine. You select a mathematical area you want to cover (for example, addition) and it generates a number of question sheets for your class, all of which have differentiated ability in them. A real time saver!