Lesson Reflections 22 April

Numeracy

23 - 26 April - Division

This week I taught a series of division lessons. This started at basic division using grouping and worked towards division with remainders and looking at the inverse of division (multiplication). What was most interesting was that the LA group caught up with the HA group, as they consolidated their basic knowledge and so were able to grasp the harder concepts more easily than the HA group, who had less confidence answering questions independently. In the future I ideally need to think of a way to make the LA a little more challenging for the HA group, giving them the chance to consolidate their knowledge, whilst still being challenged in their maths. However, this is tricky as neither group has fully moved from the concrete to the abstract, so simply making questions harder by increasing the numbers is not feasible (As drawing lots of dots on a page would reduce the focus on numeracy). 

This week I have really focused on the pace of my lessons, using quick mental oral starters to kick-start the lesson. I have found that as long as the starters pace is quick, the rest of the lesson also has pace. However when the pace of the starter slows so does the rest of the lesson. I feel this is in part due to my relaxed teaching methods, but also how well the children engage in the first fifteen minutes, and how successful they feel they are after the starter. For example two boys regularly call themselves "stupid" within the lessons. By providing them with lots of success and confidence during the starter, this occurs less often than if the starter is tricky, or we dive straight in to a starter related to the main lesson.