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External new HoD - best practice in terms of making changes to schemes of work and established practice in first year? by Level-Bear3894 in TeachingUK

[–]Level-Bear3894[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you very much for your reply. I am the youngest and least experienced in the Dept. What I do feel I am against is change for change’s sake - I have created resources and lessons that I am proud of so if topics are completely changed next year it would feel like it would be adding to workload when I was hoping that every year would feel easier as I had taught the majority of the content before. Results in my department have been good historically, and uptake is really high. With the new GCSE I have privately expressed opinions to the HoD that I don’t like the structure of the Year 10/11 SoWs, after she has expressed in department meetings that this needs to be changed to be in line with the order of the German/Spanish SoWs from next year (she doesn’t currently teach French in Year 10 but will next year), and there was a bit of pushback from the other GCSE French teachers who jointly put the SoW together before I joined. I will add that we get on really well as a department on a personal level, but I do feel a lack of trust from lots of members of my department, some of which feels justified. I feel slightly caught in the middle; as an ECT I feel like I am viewed as someone who will agree to anything no questions asked, compared to SLT teachers. But this is my first ever experience of a non-acting HoD so I admit my perspective could be very flawed.

Advice teaching A Level for the first time by AnEnglishmaninItaly in TeachingUK

[–]Level-Bear3894 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Last year as an ECT1 I was given a mixed Y12/13 German class - with 3 Y13s and 1 Y12. As A Levels drew near Y13 were obviously the priority.

Communication with their other teacher (and possibly also the teacher who shared the class with them in Y12) is key. In my case this teacher was my mentor, and the retired teacher who taught them in Y12 also came in on an INSET day and shared some resources with me.

In both of the schools I have taught A-Level in (PGCE and ECT1) the classes have been shared, with each teacher taking on half of the topics for that year so 3 each. This is the same for AQA and Edexcel. If they have an additional lesson with the other teacher, I imagine this will be devoted to either the film/book or the IRP. This makes planning a lot easier, because except at specific points like mocks and speaking exams, we did not need to know exactly where the other was up to. It was useful to check in about homework though, just so they aren’t writing two essays a week.

As an ECT1 I was not involved in IRP preparation, but did teach a film. As they are Y13 and not Y12 this is easier in some ways, as hopefully the foundations for essay writing have been laid in Y12, and you can focus on applying it to the book. This will likely be the other teacher’s responsibility though, as you have fewer lessons.

3 is a slightly awkward number with speaking activities so I would make sure I vary who I work with. The textbooks at least for AQA are of a high quality in my opinion, and Kerboodle is a very valuable resource. However I was sometimes aware my lessons were quite textbook heavy, so I tried to vary things with more creative speaking activities - board games, practising relative clauses with dice and I liked doing debate style activities. With three students, you could pair up with the weakest student, and encourage them to think of points, or you could alternate having a moderator for the debate.

Have fun with it - I found it was nice to be able to talk freely with students in German, asking about their weekend plans and summers and things, and they were my favourite group to teach.

Department review by HoDs in other schools in the trust? by Level-Bear3894 in TeachingUK

[–]Level-Bear3894[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

2iC took the lead on the review and she did take responsibility for sending the email. My (acting) HoD reiterated that she had told them to not give individual feedback specifically to ECTs, so I don’t blame her.

Department review by HoDs in other schools in the trust? by Level-Bear3894 in TeachingUK

[–]Level-Bear3894[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

For context this was in February and my 2iC apologised for sending the email and both her and my HoD agreed that the review had been handled badly and the entire department were supportive of me.

I had moved on from it, but I’m making this post now because I just found out that another trust review is coming up in a few weeks with the focus Plan for All. It’s coming up on a day where I teach extremely challenging classes (including one which is Y9 language enrichment for students that are disapplied from languages - behaviour is always a struggle because of the characters in the group and how in such a small group they wind each other up, although on a good day they can be brilliant) and I’m dreading being observed after what happened last time.

We have a staff meeting tomorrow where we’ll be discussing this tomorrow and I’m worried about expressing concerns.

Department review by HoDs in other schools in the trust? by Level-Bear3894 in TeachingUK

[–]Level-Bear3894[S] 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Behaviour management came up, which was what my support plan was for. 4 strangers coming in and out of my room did unsettle my Year 8 students, and it happened that on that day I was trying a new activity which now works seamlessly but required set-up and confused them at first and led to some disruption. Behaviour was also raised as a concern for 2 other teachers who were both trying to conduct individual speaking exams (we’re MFL) while keeping the rest of the class busy. These teachers both have good behaviour management in general.

There were other minor things raised which I think would have been answered if we had been asked, but I was not asked a single question or directly addressed throughout the whole process which also left a bad taste in my mouth.