In my maths department we are starting on a journey of building a new curriculum based on the principles of mastery. To find out what mastery is, read Mark McCourt. Implementing something different comes with all sorts of challenges but, if it’s a good thing to do, it brings benefits too. One of the benefits I am finding this year is the liberation from the compulsion to produce a three- (or four- or five-) part lesson with objectives and mini-plenaries and some kind of forced activity to (falsely) demonstrate the “progress” my students have made over the course of an hour. By having a curriculum with clear aims and (hopefully) coherent thinking underpinning every aspect I feel more confident to teach the way I feel will be most effective rather than making my lessons a conflation of lots of “best practice” techniques in order to satisfy a checklist. Continue reading “Adventures in Mastery 4: Lesson Sequences”
Over the last [insert large number here] years, the lesson observation and associated lesson plan have been the status symbol of the excellent teacher. Schools living in dread of the next Ofsted inspection elevated them to their position at the top of the individual’s evidence pile. For any observation, objectives were set out, detailing what ALL must learn, what MOST should learn and what SOME were lucky enough to learn, the minutiae of every activity and its purpose were described, every instance of cross-curricular/social/moral/cultural learning was noted and, in all probability, everything was colour-coded (ok, I made that last bit up, but it wouldn’t surprise me).
The thing is, this doesn’t really help anybody: Continue reading “A Plague On Both Your Houses! (Or ‘Why I Don’t Like Observations and Lesson Plans’)”
