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August 11th, 2017 11:44 amIt's interesting, moving to a school which is much more free about how teachers run their classrooms because it gives me space to think not "what do I have to do" when I'm getting ready for next year, but "what do I want to do". It hit me again just now, thinking about morning work - I started off by thinking "what shall I do about morning work this year" and then moved on to "hang on, is that even a thing in my new school?" to *then* thinking "well, do I want it to be a thing? Was it useful?" It feels odd that should be the last thought rather than the first one, but that was rather how I got conditioned by the old place - we had a huge "must" list which I would never have had time to do all of, so it was about prioritising which things would be most visible and/or would take the least effort; what was most efficacious didn't really come into it. It's the same with displays - now I don't have a list of displays every classroom should have which is longer than the number of boards I have, I'm starting to actually think about what I want my displays to be for.
Then again, I'm leaning on the side of having morning work (tasks for them to do when they come in for registration) - it's a good opportunity for short burst practice of skills and it really helps get them settled and in a good headspace for learning - but that's because, having been doing it for about 6 years, I know how to make it work well. When I started, I found it of very little value and time consuming to prepare and I resented it, but that was because I had no real idea what it should be for, other than keeping the kids occupied, and so I couldn't properly select tasks for it. So the must list did have some value too - it pushed me to try something and work to get it right that I might not otherwise have done. On the third hand, surely that could have been achieved by better communication from the people on my SLT and leading my team about what the point was and what good morning work looked like rather than me groping towards it. I guess that's the whole point of me moving up to SLT myself now - can I help people to develop good/useful practice without descending to the must list?
Then again, I'm leaning on the side of having morning work (tasks for them to do when they come in for registration) - it's a good opportunity for short burst practice of skills and it really helps get them settled and in a good headspace for learning - but that's because, having been doing it for about 6 years, I know how to make it work well. When I started, I found it of very little value and time consuming to prepare and I resented it, but that was because I had no real idea what it should be for, other than keeping the kids occupied, and so I couldn't properly select tasks for it. So the must list did have some value too - it pushed me to try something and work to get it right that I might not otherwise have done. On the third hand, surely that could have been achieved by better communication from the people on my SLT and leading my team about what the point was and what good morning work looked like rather than me groping towards it. I guess that's the whole point of me moving up to SLT myself now - can I help people to develop good/useful practice without descending to the must list?
