DandTblog

So, we're three weeks into our projects from the start of the year, already your seeing a gap permeating in all your classes between the most able and less able. Your top ability students are flying through and your struggling to keep up with them and your less able are hanging onto your apron stings, this could be literal in some cases. We think back to the first lesson when each student was at the same starting point, you did your demo and each student knew exactly what they needed to do. What went wrong? Why have you now got students competing for your attention all lesson, with the incessant chorus of Sir, Sir, Sir of Miss, Miss Miss. In a nutshell, it's because your differentiation it's up to spec. Now we all know what differentiation is so I'm not going to bore you with the pedagogy of it all but what I will try to do is share with you some effective techniques that I use. But before we start just a little note on my two bugbears when it comes to differentiation.

So it's that time of the year again, lesson plan printed off, in full colour, seating plan, class data, copies of hand outs and PowerPoint slides all in a neat pile ready for your date with destiny. You're already on your third cup of coffee this morning due to the lack of sleep last night and the early start this morning to get yourself set up. You're on edge as the class file in and find their seats all under the watchful eye of the person whom will decide how you will be labelled for the rest of the term. It's showtime. This will be a common scene played out in schools up and down the country over the coming weeks and its one of the single most detrimental mechanisms in teacher development. Ironic to think that this system designed to attempt to improve teaching and learning often actually stints whole school improvement. So why have I got such a negative opinion on lesson observations? Well actually I don't. I genuinely welcome lesson observations and I belie

This week will have seen many fellow teachers embark on a start in a new school whether this be as an NQT or like myself moving onto a new role. Having taught at my last school for seven years it was like being an NQT again. A nervous nights sleep before my first day, having to work out where to go, the names of the people in my department and most importantly where I go for a cup of coffee. Having navigated the internal politics of which mugs were fair game and which were off limits I was ready to start my first INSET day at my new school. This first thing I noticed about changing schools was the change in terminology, essentially everything is the same but everything is called something different. There were endless acronyms that had me nudging my colleague throughout asking for clarity. I found myself converting these back into the terminology of my old school In my head so I could keep up. This is all well and good until you start talking in this old foreign language which leaves