Colours and chains

Today, with Year 11:

"Miss, how long does it take you to prepare our lessons?"

"It depends on the lesson, really. For example, today didn't need much planning, because it doesn't need many resources, because you're doing the all work. What takes the time is thinking of new things to do."

 "We always do something different with you, you always give us something different to do. Not like some teachers. With some teachers we do the same thing all the time."

"I want you to walk in, not knowing what task you'll be doing."

"So do we, Miss. It's a good thing."

There is never better feedback than words from the mouths of babes. Let them be our judgers.

This was the conversation as I hovered from group to group this morning, as they made paper chains. And hereby follows the way they went about it:

Students have now covered the topic of The World of Work. They are starting their CA tomorrow. Time to reinforce!

So first they played Jenga, using all the work they have done so far as support. On the board was what they had to include in their spoken responses, by number, (ignore the colours at this stage!). This speaking task lasted for 20mins, as I moved from pair to pair, listening to their structures.


The next task was pair work again. The students pulled 8 Jenga bricks out at random, to select sentence type. Using strips of paper (you can make the perfect 1cm wide strips by folding a piece of A4 4 times and then opening it up again) the students had to write a sentence on each strip, using the appropriate colour pen - now you can use the colours on the slide! (The first group used biros and then underlined word/sentence type with the relevant colour.)

Once both students in the pair have done their 8 sentences, they then work together to see if they can create paragraphs with their strips. They then use yellow strips to link the ideas together - they soon worked out that they can use connectives, a phrase, or a whole sentence to link two ideas. They also used blank yellow strips to indicate new paragraphs. And then you have the creation of the paper chains. 

This is the last piece of coursework that the cohort will be writing, so I want them to have fun with the phrases, and be confident with how they can continually improve their work. 

We should all strive to not be the "not like some teachers" that the students speak of. Always be THAT teacher. 

Choonage? Chains, of course.