Wednesday 4th November

Today Marga and I were attached to Pippa Morton, a year 7 student who belongs to the Otter house. We followed her throughout an ordinary day, and we enjoyed the opportunity to observe how a student perceives the way lessons are taught. But before that, we took part in the daily briefing directed by the headmaster. I have the impression that at Bishop Luffa morning briefings, regular meetings and structured coordination help to create a sense of community, so all teachers feel involved in the great goals that the school is trying to achieve. There is a feeling of team work and shared perspectives among the teachers, even though there might be different opinions and approaches in specific points. Teachers like to compare their school community to a big family, and shared values seem to be essential in order to promote cohesion.

MEETING WITH THE TUTOR

During the first twenty minutes of every school day the students meet their tutor in a quick but quite intense session, that is devoted to different topics depending on the day. Today the tutor presented her students some forthcoming events and competitions. In the following weeks the school will take part in a sport competition and two captains (one male, one female) are needed. Candidates that volunteer are encouraged to present publicly the reasons that will make them the best captains for the class. This is a great way to practise how to speak before a public audience and it also develops social and communicative skills in the pupils. The same was done to choose a charity captain, who was nominated after listening to different kids who presented the reasons to be elected by their mates.

FIRST PERIOD – DANCE CLASS

As Pippa's class was practising sport under the rain we were invited to witness a dance class, given by a young woman who is in her second training year to become a teacher. She is learning how to teach in a real environment inside the classroom, and her lesson is being supervised by the reference teacher, who will give her feedback after the class. Taking into account that she is only a student I was impressed by her management of the class and the way she engaged the students in many active and dynamic activities.

SECOND PERIOD – FRENCH

The starter activity in the French class was a revision of what students had previously learnt. The teacher showed them a list of words and asked them to identify odd one out. It is interesting to note that the difference between male and female nouns was taught using different colours to write the words, so students could easily identify in red and blue the masculine and feminine words. The soft ball is used for a recap of what was done in the previous lesson. The teacher asks a student, and then another one until the previous contents have been thoroughly revised.

The main objective of today's lesson was to teach the conjugation of the verb 'avoir' in French. The teacher showed the French form of this verb, and the students were invited to write the English translation of these words on the whiteboard.
In order to explain the difference between 'tu as' and 'vous avez' the teacher asked the students about the reason for having two different French expressions for saying 'you have'. Why should we have these two different ways to say it? Anyone has a guess?
The teacher distributed folders with whiteboards and markers in order to do a dictation. After checking what they wrote, the teacher presented the correct answer on the IWB. When the teacher uses difficult sentences, including colours which need to have a correct concordance with the noun, she asks them to check their charts, which include all the different ways in different colours. She keeps them engaged with continuous eye contact and praise. I was impressed by the fast and dynamic pace of this class. This keeps the kids active, but it must be a bit exhausting, because the students have little time to reflect, think calmly and relax.

THIRD PERIOD – P4C – Philosophy for Citizenship

The class begins with a video, showing a short clip from a film, showing a friendship relationship.
This gives way to the starter activity, focussed on a single question:  What is the definition of a friend? The students write a definition in their board and show it to the teacher, and he reads the definition aloud before giving his own definition, and explaining the difficult words that might appear here.
The second question is: What makes a good friend? In order to answer the teacher present some quotes and asks the students to decide which is their favourite one, explaining why.
Another video is shown, trying to identify what makes a good friend. Students write these characteristics, and after that the teacher reads them aloud and makes comments about them.
Using the coloured cards that the students have in their planner (which will mean true, false, maybe) they have to show their agreement of disagreement with the following statements about what a good friend could be:
What is a good friend?
Someone my friends like
Someone who I am proud to be with
Someone who does not show off to friends
Someone who is a good laugh to be with
Someone I can trust
Someone who has the same interests as me
Someone who listens to me
Someone who is not afraid to show me how they feel
Someone who is good looking
Someone who does not talk behind my back

After showing another video, the teacher asks the students to create a friendship network, including the different types of friends that they have. These can be:
Best friends
Social media friendship
Family friendship
Class friends
Old friends
Can you think of any other types of friendships that could be included in this network?

After that, the teacher delivers a sheet and asks the students to read it aloud. While they read they are invited to highlight or underline the passages they find more interesting or remarkable. He stops the reading whenever there is a difficult expression that needs to be explained.
From time to time the teacher asks the students to give him examples of situations or groups as mentioned in the text. He often refers to TV series and popular characters the students are familiar with.

The final activity is a plenary – How much do you agree with the following statements? Could you come up with your own friendship quote?
Friends are the bacon bits in the salad bowl of life (from a pizza sign)
My best friend is one that brings out the best in me (Henry Ford)
The best mirror is an old friend (George Herbert)

It is amazing the way the teacher controls time. He gives the students the opportunity to talk and participate, but whenever he finds it necessary he stops the discussion and goes on with the class.

FOURTH PERIOD – MATHS

In maths, students are divided into 5 different sets according to how able they are. Set 1 is formed by the most able students and set 5 by the ones who have more difficulties with their maths. But students can be changed in they make quick progress or if they fall behind what was expected. There are 3 different kinds of tests – one for steps 1,2, another for stepls 3,4, another for step 5. One of the problems of this grouping system is that students in step 1 could feel superior and look over the rest of the students. On the other hand, students in level 5 might feel uncomfortable and inferior, but at the same time are looked after in a more individual and specific way, and they receive the extra support that they need.
The starter activity is a recap exercise. Students have to copy and complete some addition grids (including positive and negative numbers) For those who finish quickly there is another one. Volunteers are invited to complete the grid on the board. The rest of the pupils can show their agreement or disagreement. Finally, the teacher reminds the class how to add positive and negative numbers, and corrects the mistakes made by the students on the board.
The second grid is completed by the teacher, but asking the students in order to get the numbers that should be included in each position. She reminds them that they can always use a number line, as a visual approach to this lesson might be very helpful for some of them (the visual learners).
The teacher writes more examples and gives the students 2 minutes to solve them. She explains how to calculate these additions and later she gives the students some examples in order to check if they have correctly understood the procedure. There is also a recap activity that implies multiplying and dividing with negatives. The students fill in the gaps in a multiplying grid. Then the teacher corrects.
I loved to know that this year all students are encouraged to use a green pen for self-correction and marking. This helps the students to know what they did right and wrong, making sure that the green colour is not confused with the black or blue pen that is generally used to do the exercises.

FIFTH PERIOD – SCIENCE

The teacher gives the student a small piece of paper with the learning objectives. Each student sticks it on the notebook and they indicate on it how confident they feel about it. At the end of the class they will go back to the same objectives and mark them in green to check what they learnt. This is an excellent way to promote self-assessment of the students' progress, to build self-confidence and to develop meta-cognitive strategies in the pupils!
Today's class is focussed on friction. The teacher shows some statements about friction and asks the students whether they are true or false. Later, the students' opinions are checked on the whiteboard.
In order to explain what friction is, the teacher uses a slideshow, but there is a lot of interaction and questioning during the class. For example, she asks: What can friction do? How can friction be reduced? Which parts of a bike increase friction and which ones reduce it?
The students are given some time to answer. I was impressed to hear the teacher say that they were free to find the best way to answer: they could write the answer, draw a mindmap, fill in a table… so all learning styles are respected and taken into account.
The teacher also asked the students to show her with their thumbs if they agreed or not with certain statements.
The central part of the lesson is an experiment to measure friction, that has to be done in groups. The activity is clearly structured, and begins asking the students to write a prediction before taking measurements. Later they will have the opportunity to check if their prediction is correct or not.

I was also surprised by the way students mark their own exercises in the notebook with a green pen, ticking their correct answers and completing or correcting the wrong ones. The teacher also checks the notebook every 3 weeks, giving each student a specific feedback including what was well (WWW) and what can be improved (EBI: even better if...)
When time is out the teacher claps her hands and asks them to do the same. She does this a couple of times, to show the students the end of the activity. During the final part of the lesson students are invited to show what they found in the experiment using a graph.
Finally, the teacher gives the students some homework bus she reminds the students that they shouldn't spend more than 20 minutes doing these activities. If they haven't finished, their parents can write a note on the planner so the teacher will know that they have spent the right time trying to do these activities.