Many teachers and lecturers will give you advice on how to start with a new group or class. When I was in ITT the phrase ‘Don’t smile until Christmas’ was repeated quite often; the only obvious problem at the time being that we were only in our first placement up until Christmas, so would appear to be miserable sods if we took up that advice. Although this is not a piece of advice I would now give to any new teacher there is a benefit in starting out as more strict than necessary to begin with. Firstly, it is much easier to relax rules you have already put in place if you find them unnecessary than to establish new rules if things start to feel a little shaky. Secondly it will give your students a clear boundary in your classes which they will like; everyone wants to know where they stand in new situations and school pupils are no different.
The best advice I
had was that you should be yourself- observing your mentor, or other teachers
in the school or department is a brilliant way of seeing different methods of
setting expectations with a class, however pupils will know immediately if you
are imitating someone else’s style if it does not sit with your own
personality.Make the most of the time you are given to observe other teachers
to gather ideas and then do what feels right for you. I am a 5ft 2 woman who
looks at least 10 years younger than I actually am- trying to emulate my 6ft
ex-professional rugby player Head of Department (HoD) is never going to work
for me! However there are 5 key things which you should definitely do when meeting a
new group for the first time:
1) Introduce yourself
Yes, you will
inevitably just get ‘Miiiiiiiisss’ or ‘Siiiiiiir’ called out at many intervals
(or, if you teach in my old school ‘Oh! Miss man!’ :S ) but it is important
that your students know who you are.
2) Learn names!
This is one of THE
most important pieces of advice for several reasons:
1) It immediately
builds a relationship between you and your students- this is vital if you want
to create a positive learning environment
2) You will be able
to ask students by name to answer your questions (e.g. if they have an
additional need and you want to check understanding, if they are more able and
you want to give them an additional challenge, or as a behaviour tool to engage
learners)
3) IF you do have
any problems with behaviour you will be able to deal with specific students
quickly and with minimal disruption to the rest of the group
3) Establish a
routine
In my last school
every year, the first lesson with the year 7 students was spent practicing
entering and exiting the changing rooms, and practicing changing into PE kit
and back again. This might sound ridiculous but it saved a HELL of a lot
of time further down the line. We were able to maximise our lesson time
as changing then took less than 5 minutes out of our (already reduced) lesson
time. It was much safer and meant teacher supervision was easier as all
of our students were in one place at one time. It also helped year 7’s in
their transition into secondary school; in many primary schools children will
change in their classroom, some will not have a set PE uniform and most will
all move together to the same place. In secondary school there will be
numerous lessons in different venues and people moving everywhere which can be
quite disconcerting for some children. Much research on transition
suggests it can take some children a considerable time to effectively settle
into secondary school having a clear changing and lesson routine will help
those who may take longer (or who may have an additional learning need) to feel
more safe and secure in your lessons.
4) Don’t
rush
Your first lesson
with a new group can be daunting- you want it to be a positive experience for
them and to get through all the lesson content to feel it has been a success.
However, just because your students have done all of the tasks does not mean it
has been a good starting point. Spend extra time making sure your
students know your rules and routines; wait those extra few seconds for
complete silence, get them to repeat a task if it wasn’t done well enough or
use questioning to check students have listened o your instructions to make
sure you instill good routines into your first lessons.
5) Decide
on your own groups and pairs
This is often a
situation where is can save a lot of time to ask students to get into their own
groups for an activity or task. The problem with doing this in your first
lesson is that is can undo any good work you have done establishing your rules
and routines with the group. This can also be a good opportunity to
practice learning your students names and work out who works well with
who. If you have pre-planned groups or pairs (if you have time to arrange
this!) you can identify which students may work well together (and those who
don’t!) for future lessons.
These guidelines
can be applied to both practical and theory lessons (although learning names
can be a little easier if you have a seating plan with your class’s names in
front of you). If possible, choosing to teach a topic or activity you are
comfortable or confident in is best with a new group as then you are able to
focus on developing your relationship with the group itself rather than
worrying about the lesson content and how you will transition from one activity
to the next.
It is important to remember that spending time on developing
this foundation will help your teaching considerably later on; During an
Ofsted observation in my second year of teaching (with a Year 7 group I had only met 3 weeks previously!) the
inspector stayed behind to watch me speak to a pair of boys who had been
disengaged during the lesson. In her feedback she spoke of how important
she had found that conversation as, although their behaviour during the lesson
wasn’t as I would have wanted, I was clearly putting the work in to ensure that
it was in future (my lesson was graded Outstanding overall). Above all don't forget that if something goes wrong you have the next lesson to put things right- as long as you spend some time reflecting on why things didn't go as expected and enact change next time you will get that class exactly where you want them to be!
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