World Class PE
at Toot Hill
Issue 1: Great Lessons (Part 1)
Welcome to the fortnightly publication of top tips from the global staffroom. For the first few editions of 'World Class PE' I am going to focus on what makes a lesson great.
Tom Sherrington (@headguruteacher) is a head teacher in Essex and in January 2013 he started a blog series called 'Great Lessons' where he focused on 10 'habits of excellent practice'.
"This series of posts is about the habits of excellent practice; the things we do every day in the classroom; the attitudes and dispositions we need to have in order to embed excellent practice into our routines – our default mode."
Tom Sherrington, Essex
Great Lessons: Probing
In all the talk of improving teaching and learning, sometimes – no often – there is too much talk about the model OfSTED lesson. Too often this leads teachers into thinking of idealised lessons than can only be turned out in special circumstances or that Outstanding lessons require us to devise an elaborate box of tricks to show off with. However, as I have said elsewhere,it is the 99% of lessons that are never observed that really matter. So, we need to focus on things that we do every day.
Continue reading the post here.
Great Lessons: Journeys
This post is about journeys. In terms of learning, students are continually on the move – at least they should be. No learning episode stands alone; it is always part of bigger picture – a small step on a long journey. In Great Lessons, this is always very clear and explicit, forming an integral part of the discourse between teachers and students – automatically, without too much thought. For each individual and for the class as whole, any one particular lesson builds on what has gone before and sets up what is to follow. Where lessons are less successful, these links are less obvious; a lesson seems isolated, the learning is disjointed and students are left to wonder “what am I doing here?”
Read the rest of the post here.
@MrWickensPE
Edited by Ross Wickens (@MrWickensPE), Teacher of PE at Toot Hill
Email: mrwickenspe@gmail.com
Website: www.mrwickenspe.wordpress.com
Twitter: @MrWickensPE