Boxing Clever with year 2

As a school we have recently invested in some 'Alan Peat' training in a bid to improve our writing scores. Unfortunately I was unable to attend the training but was fortunate to have feedback from the rest of the KS1 staff in a recent meeting.

One of the things that stood out to them and me was Boxing Clever, which for those of you who haven't come across Alan Peat before is outlined below in the words of the man himself as explained on his website:

In an Early Years context, and throughout the Infants, a great deal of the fundamental understanding of what a story is, is gained through hearing a broad range of stories read. Many of these will be formulaic and will assist in introducing book-language and structure. A range of activities can be used to augment the central role of story reading in developing narrative awareness. The approaches outlined in this article are helpful in easing the transition from reading to writing. One method of helping Infant aged pupils to grasp the linear nature of a typical story is 'The Story From Boxes' game. In order to play this narrative game with pupils seven boxes are needed. These are labelled as follows:

1. Who?
2. Where?
3. Where next?
4. Things that go wrong (problems)
5. Who helps?
6. Where last?
7. Feelings. 

As our topic this half term is Katie Morag and we have read four Katie Morag books so far, this I felt lent itself beautifully to Boxing Clever.

I began by putting pictures, kindly photocopied by my T.A., from Katie Morag and the Two Grandmothers into each box, discussing the choices as we went along. This served as an ideal introduction to story structure which the children enjoyed.

For the next book, Katie Morag and the Tiresome Ted, I asked the children to suggest which pictures they wanted to go into each box which resulted in lots of interesting discussion and enabled the children to be actively involved in the process.

Finally I put a Katie Morag book onto each table, with the pupils roughly sorted into reading groups, and gave them 7 post it notes with the headings from the boxes on. They were then set the task of putting the post it notes onto the pages they felt matched each heading best. Obviously this led initially to a bit of fussing but once they settled it actually resulted in some great discussion.
Each group then shared and justified their choices with the rest of the class. 

The top reading group were extended further by having the challenge of a book we hadn't read together. This meant they had to read it as a group and then place the post it notes themselves. It was quite a challenge so I decided to give them a chance to revisit the story tomorrow before presenting their ideas to the class. I will also read the book to the class afterwards to see if the rest of the class agree with or can predict their choices.

I am pleased with the results so far and do feel it is helping the children get to grips with story structure. The final proof of their understanding will come with their final task, which is over the rest of the week, to rewrite their favourite Katie Morag story containing all of the key story structure elements. Their story will be made into a mini book with their own illustrations.

I will let you know how it goes.

The success of Friday books

In September 2014 I began a new challenge, teaching in year 2. This was a first for me as these were the youngest children I had ever taught. 

Thankfully I had, the previous academic year, discovered the joys of Pinterest. Pinterest provided me with no end of ideas and inspiration ranging from reading buddies to Friday books. 

I have blogged about Friday books before but really felt they needed a mention again as now we are almost mid way through the year and I am even more impressed with the idea. 

Every Friday my pupils write a letter home to their adult telling them about all of the things they have done in school that week.  It helps keep the parents informed and provides the children with the opportunity to do a piece of independent writing each week. 

The writing the children complete in their Friday books is always the same format, a letter, which I believe then allows them to concentrate on the content, their handwriting and spellings etc. 

The only input they get from me is a recap of lessons taught, some tricky spellings on the board and a focus which links in with a 'word, sentence level or phonics' activity that we have completed that week. This weeks focus was singular pronouns which they had just learned about. 

The letters are not marked at all but myself or my T.A. read through what they have written as they finish. This is more in a proof reading capacity, looking for missing words etc. 

This week I decided to ask some volunteers to let us all look at what they had written on the class Visualiser. We compared what they had written this week with what they had written at the beginning of the year and I was absolutely blown away! I had chosen children of a range of writing ability yet they had all, without exception made huge progress. 

Most of them began in September, with short sentences without any conjunctions. They were basically just writing a list of what we had done. 

Now, they are writing full sentences joined with because, but, so. They are also adding thoughts and feelings and even writing in paragraphs!

I am so proud of them and genuinely think they would not have made as much progress without the Friday books. 

I think Friday books would work for any age group so why not give them a go?

The Ups and Downs of a Large Class

The title of my blog today was going to be the pros and cons of my large class but I have to say that although it is challenging I couldn't really use the word cons to describe any child in my class or indeed the class as a whole. I genuinely enjoy teaching my pupils but as it does say in the title having lots of children in a year 2 class really does have its ups and downs.

Lets start with the beginning of the day - the children line up outside and myself and my long suffering T.A. go out to collect them. This, more often than not, results in us having to 'run the gauntlet' of parents who are wanting to have a 'quick word'. Next the children go and hang up their coats and bags, putting their lunch box into the relevant cupboard and their reading book and journal into a box in class. Sounds simple? Oh no, not with 34 children all vying for a place at their peg. This along with the four instructions and actions to complete resulted at the beginning of the year in chaos. Since then we have put in lots of work to try to avoid the chaos, from standing guard in the cloakroom and shepherding them along to standing by the relevant box and guiding them where they need to go next and what they need to do. All of this and it is still only 9.05!

Once in class we begin the register but even this I would liken to 'puppies in a basket' because just as one child sits another jumps up because they have forgotten something! Fridays register time is the most fun because we sing our Candy Man by Sammy Davies Junior and all of the children really look forward to it. In fact it is the one day of the week when the 'puppies' are all in the basket.

So after register the day begins, usually with Literacy or Numeracy and that is where the next problem can begin. Obviously in any class there is a wide range of ability but as you can imagine trying to support a wide range of abilities within a class of 34 is not easy. Add into this the photocopying and any marking which has to be done and you can see the potential for more chaos. My T.A. and myself manage this very well between
us, relying heavily on the three stars and a wish stamp, stickers and the addition of a wonderful volunteer who is studying for her NVQ 2 and comes into our class all day on a Wednesday and all day Friday.

Going to assembly and lunch can also be problematic as moving 34 relatively boisterous children around requires military precision which is why I often feel more like a sergeant major than a teacher. We manage this by having 'line up chants' which the children love:

Big Hug

I give myself a great big hug,

I'm standing straight and tall,

I'm looking right in front of me,

I'm ready for the hall.

P.E is a challenge beginning with finding 34 P.E. kits and getting them changed. It is great fun once we get to the hall and I am always glad to have my whistle around my neck because I have to manage them carefully. This time I would liken it to being a shepherdess herding sheep around the hall in an attempt to keep them safe and give them the space they need to do their gymnastics sequences or The Gay Gordons dance. 

The end of the day is I think even more hectic than the beginning. Picture all of the morning routine in reverse with the addition of newsletters to hand out and parents to spot out of the window before we can release our little chickens (the human variety) back into the wild!

I'm even exhausted just thinking about it! No wonder I'm exhausted but you know what it is also great fun!

Due to the amount of the children we have lots and lots of  funny moments and no two days are ever the same.  

Scottish Country Dancing

As part of our Katie Morag topic I decided to teach the children a traditional Scottish dance. Never having taught a Scottish dance before I started where most teachers would with a Google search for 'Scottish country dancing KS1' and came up with the following link, which was very useful: Hints and Tips for Scottish Country Dancing.

Following the recommendations I decided to try teaching The Gay Gordons dance, probably because it is one of the dances I had at least heard of before. Again I searched for 'Gay Gordons dance' to show me the steps, thus enabling me to teach it to the children. Below is the video I discovered and have now used with the children.

When I first told the children we would be learning a Scottish country dance in P.E. their reaction was a loud and resounding cheer! This surprised me because having only taught country dancing in KS2 before I was expecting the usual groan from most of the class. Then when I went on to say the dance was called 'The Gay Gordons' I expected at least a titter but no, not even one. This was so refreshing, eager children and a fun dance to teach, I couldn't wait to get started!

On Tuesday we had our first lesson and it was great fun. We began by watching the video in the hall, then I put the children into pairs depending on height and of course boy/girl where possible which wasn't as easy as it seems as I have 22 boys and only 12 girls in my class. This resulted in some boys being partnered with boys but again being KS1 this was again not a problem at all.

By the end of the first lesson we got as far as getting the correct hold, walking forward for four beats and backwards for four beats, which they have managed remarkably well. The same cannot be said however of the 'pirouette' part which resulted in lots of tangled hands and arms and a good deal of laughter, most of which was mine.

I am really looking forward to the second lesson next week and I know they are too! I will let you know how it goes.

Katie Morag part 3

Today we finally finished the work for our Katie Morag display! We began with the art work, the children were placed into groups and made either a house or character from the story using collage materials.

Next we moved onto the writing. The preparation for this was two fold:

Step one  the characters from the story: we looked at a selection of character descriptions, we discussed the meaning of the word 'character' and together came up with a list of elements we would put into our descriptions of the Katie Morag characters.

Step two: the directions for getting to each of the buildings. In our maths lesson we have been learning about the language of direction, left, right, turn, angle degrees, North, South, East and West. We used what we had learned to give directions to each of the buildings on the Isle of Struay. 

The work was drafted, marked and finally written up in neat for the display. All 34 children have a piece of written work on the display. 

After the writing the children each coloured in a Map of the island and used a key to identify the main parts of the island. 

The results were amazing and the children are so delighted with the end results. 

Repetition, Repetition, Repetition

When I was teaching year 3 two years ago I was very fortunate to have a wonderful German language specialist come into my class once a week for the whole year to teach German. As the children were year 3s with little or no previous experience of German they started with the basics, colours, numbers to 10, days of the week and animal names. This suited me as I too was a novice German speaker. The lessons were taught in a fun way using a variety of methods from stories to songs, both the children and I looked forward to the sessions.

The following year I went solo, teaching German myself. Now as at that stage languages was not timetabled it was usually done during register time and I have to be honest was not given the emphasis it was the year before. As a result my confidence levels dropped.

This year I am teaching year 2 and as MFL has, under the new curriculum, got more of a focus in Primary School we had a full inset day on teaching German (mentioned in a previous blog.) What shocked me during this inset day was how little German knowledge I had retained, however, as I warmed up things did start to come back to me and I began to feel more confident. What this really highlights to me is the need for repetition when learning a new skill.

I thought about how often we expect children to retain things from times tables to spellings. In fact we are always shocked at how much they appear to have forgotten over the Summer holidays. In my own class I know the children were taught number bonds to 10 and 20 thoroughly yet in a recent mental maths session it was clear that well over half of them were not confident with them at all. As with all classes there is a breadth of knowledge and levels so of those that new number bonds I thought I would check knowledge of counting in 2s, 5s and 10s. Again a mixed result and whilst they could count in 2s, 5s, 10s they were completely unsure what was meant by 2 times 2 etc.

As a result of our findings we have just given every child in the class a maths probes book. Probes books have been used in our school for as long as I can remember and are quite effective when practised daily both in and out of school and it only takes 5 minutes to complete. which makes this realistic.Each sheet comes with two parts, a question sheet and an answer sheet. The question sheet is glued into the child's book and the answer sheet is placed into an envelope at the back of the book. The child then buddies up with someone and calls out the answers to the questions on the question sheet, the other child has the answer sheet tells their partner if they have got it wrong or gives them an answer if they do not know it.

The reason it works for most but not all children is that it provides an opportunity for repetition, repetition, repetition. The child is only competing with themselves and will be moved onto another probe once they are secure on the one they have.

Perhaps I need to do this for myself with German days of the week, numbers etc!

What is standard English?

Since writing my blog 'The Nuts and Bolts of the English curriculum' I have been doing a lot of discussing, reading and observing of spoken English in order to try to give myself an idea of what standard English actually is. There are lots of definitions but actually I have found this definition most useful it says not what it is but what it is not:

What Standard English Is Not . . .

• (i) It is not an arbitrary, a priori description of English, or of a form of English, devised by reference to standards of moral value, or literary merit, or supposed linguistic purity, or any other metaphysical yardstick--in short, 'Standard English' cannot be defined or described in terms such as 'the best English,' or 'literary English,' or 'Oxford English,' or 'BBC English.
• (ii) It is not defined by reference to the usage of any particular group of English-users, and especially not by reference to a social class--'Standard English' is not 'upper class English' and it is encountered across the whole social spectrum, though not necessarily in equivalent use by all members of all classes.
• (iii) It is not statistically the most frequently occurring form of English, so that 'standard' here does not mean 'most often heard.'
  (iv) It is not imposed upon those who use it. True, its use by an individual may be largely the result of a long process of education; but Standard English is neither the product of linguistic planning or philosophy (for example as exists for French in the deliberations of the Academie Francaise, or policies devised in similar terms for Hebrew, Irish, Welsh, Bahasa Malaysia, etc); nor is it a closely-defined norm whose use and maintenance is monitored by some quasi-official body, with penalties imposed for non-use or mis-use. Standard English evolved: it was not produced by conscious design.
  (Peter Strevens, "What Is 'Standard English'?"RELC Journal, Singapore, 1981)

What stands out for me is  'nor is it a closely-defined norm whose use and maintenance is monitored by some quasi-official body'. Yet according to our recent staff training on 'The Nuts and Bolts of the New English Curriculum' Ofsted will do just that. In fact they will, we are told, judge schools on their use of, not just teaching of 'Standard English.'

My husband and I were on the bus going into Liverpool for the day yesterday. We enjoy getting the bus as its a rare opportunity to leave the car behind and we get to 'people watch' a pass time we both enjoy. Yesterday's trip proved a fascinating insight into the English language, well the spoken part at least.

On the journey to Liverpool we were sat close to two young girls of about 16. Their accents were hard to detect but were mainly 'Wirral' accents. My first impression was how loud they were talking about all manner of things and without any shyness whatsoever. The next striking thing was the over use of the word 'like' at first we tried to count but we lost count very quickly because every sentence spoken contained the word. The use of 'like' is quite widespread, even the young children that I teach use it regularly yet I would guess less than 5 years ago it would not have been used in its current context at all. This got me thinking again about how the English Language and indeed any language both spoken and written evolves constantly. Below are some of the new words added to the Oxford Dictionary:

November’s quarterly update sees a wide range of words enter Oxford Dictionaries Online. Whether you are about to spend silly money to go on a vacay, or have spent up on merch and will be at home listening to a slow jam. From the world of technology high definition, live-stream, and iOS are now featured, as well as terms refollow, resubscribe, and hackable. Also added are words from the world of food and drink, such as house-made, in addition to environmental and genetic developments including frack and gene doping.

How then can we define Standard English? Language is beautiful, it changes, the world changes. If the argument for the New English curriculums obsession with  Standard English is that it will prepare our children and young adults to communicate in the global community using a common language I would argue that 'tech speak'is the new global language and that in fact beyond that people will always find ways to communicate. Our young people communicate daily with people from within their own community and with people from around the world via social media and they are doing it far more competently than we give them credit for.

So Mr Gove and Mr and Mrs Ofsted perhaps you need to listen to our young people and stop patronising them.