I’ve seen loads of great ideas on here, and I’m sure I’ll use lots of them eventually, but I reckon GO EASY ON THE HOME LEARNING THIS WEEK:
-lots of families with adults working from home and one computer/tablet to share
-internet capacity hard to gauge, so low-data options 1/
- new routines for everyone to establish
- new interface/software that students and staff are finding their way around
- I’m for the longer haul: let’s not frighten the horses. Achievability matters.
Also worth remembering that we are ONE of 10-16 subjects. If pupils have access to a shared device for ~2hrs a day, expecting 30 mins of your subject on the screen per WEEK might be fair. So lots of videos/live broadcasts at lesson times possibly won’t work that well.
Lastly, who is ‘disadvantaged’ may be more difficult to spot here. If you come from a family where both parents are professionals who can work electronically, you may have LESS access than a family where the adults work in, say, manufacturing or retail and can’t work from home.
HoD🧵: If you’re new to HoD role, one of the trickiest but most critical things to get right is the timetable.
However, it can have a huge influence on
A) Day-to-day teaching experience of your team.
B) Quality of teaching in dept.
C) Workload.
A few ideas for (new?) HoDs:
Caveat 1: please note this is just my experience- in different schools HoDs have very varied levels of influence over the TT.
Tip for new HoDs: before process starts, find out the formal and informal processes other HoDs at your school use to get best Dept TT they can.
Caveat 2: you won’t achieve all of the following - it’s always a series of trade-offs and compromises. In my experience at least one of my team of seven finds something frustrating about their TT each year.
That’s how it goes- you won’t be able to win them all.
🧵I’ve had a couple people ask about this, so here are some things that might help HoDs right now:
1. Anticipate some pandemic-related disruption and remember you’re just one person. The pressures and stresses this term might bring aren’t your fault, or yours to fix alone.
2. Think about your sources of support: line manager, experienced team members (and energetic, fresh-faced team members!) other HoDs in school, subject associations, Twitter communities. Also: friends, family, pets, takeaways. You won’t get a pay rise for quiet martyrdom.
3. Acknowledge that the “aggregation of marginal setbacks” is *still very much a thing* for you and your team.
Extra formal assessments, setting work for isolators, other individually small, but cumulatively big, covid-caused tasks increase day-to-day workload. Bear in mind.
🧵
Helpful time investments for HoDs at this time of year: 1. Make an at-a-glance sheet of which teachers teach which groups, including split classes.
2. Print the timetable for the department: 1 copy for the office wall and 1 for the back of your planner. It's *really* helpful
3. Beg, borrow or steal a whiteboard for the office. A3 paper on wall will do at a push. Put a list of key dates for the term on it. Parent's evenings, meetings, data entries, deadlines. Wipe them away as you get them done. It will quickly become a touchstone, so get it right!
4. Write your own version of that list, for when things need to be done across the year. Do the electronically so you can easily update it next year. @GarryLittlewood is the genius behind our one, so take a close look at this:
'GIVE IT A NAME' - a useful little idea to help students remember feedback. A short thread, with pictures!
The idea: give the error a name and, ideally, a visual metaphor.
The effect: they remember it, identify it accurately in their work and even remember it next time! 1/
The Q here asks Y13 students to offer a synthesized, thematic overview of 130 years of change. One common problem is that they use evidence from too narrow a period. We start by looking at knowledge they could include in the paragraph, expressed as a timeline. 2/
Now. Here's the trick. GIVE THE PROBLEM A NAME. make it a 'thing.' I've called it 'spotlighting.' Many students paragraphs included just the Pill and Roe v Wade, sometimes radical feminism too. They are shining a sharp light on a narrow slice of the story. 3/