[Anne Piper]

We have an NQT this year whose specialism is RE. He is teaching some History to Year 7. Luckily we have lessons plans for every lesson with matching slide shows so he doesn't have to plan anything. That said these lessons are rather boring, but a real advantage in an emergency. I have told him not to bust a gut with History as the lessons are available for him to use, however, he has said that once he is settled he would like to plan his own lessons. And I think that is the key - once he is settled. I have walked past his classroom a couple of times and he is ruling the pupils with a rod of iron - as far as he is concerned establishing discipline is his priority especially as this is a subject he gave up before GCSE - and I agree with him.

Talk to the Hod of your non-specialist subjects. Get their lesson plans and teach from them. If there are none, then suggest that you have time where you can discuss with them exactly what is required and teach accordingly. If the lessons are dull and boring, so be it. Give yourself time tyo settle in and save the exciting lessons for History.

I think Andrew gives really good advice!

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We are still in the early days of term - some students will have only seen you twice. Keep sticking to the basics - your expectations in your classroom. Anyone who doesn't agree with that can leave your classroom. If you need to abandon a lesson to concentrate on behaviour issues and expectations do exactly that. Also ask for assistance - this is a sign of strength, not weakness. Take advantage of staff who have been at the school for a while - get hints and tips and arrange for them to be ready to babysit any students who cannot behave in your room.

Stick with it - it does get better

[Carl Fazackerley]

ahoney, on Sep 17 2006, 01:44 PM, said:

Well it has been 2 full weeks of 'proper teaching' and I have to admit I am slightly confused at just how negative I feel about it all. I never feel like I am top of anything.

I am starting to feel more than out of my depth panning the GCSE and A-Levle courses. I'm the only one teaching the GCSE and I just don't know if I am good enough - it's a lot of responsibility to be carying as an NQT. My boss says come to him if I need to, but I feel bad about that - is that admitting I'm in over my head?

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The pupils are constantly pushing the boundaries to test out the new teacher! God this cant be right? Surely that only after a short time I would feel this low about teaching.

The GCSE group started off really well and now they are really pushing the boundaries and they are perhaps my most behaviourally challenging class. I just seem to be driven into being really negative despite how hard I try to remain positive.

And then to top it all off I had a phone call on Saturday to tell me that one of my friends back home had passed away in his sleep on Friday night. It never rains but it poors!

This post has been edited by Carl Fazackerley: 17 September 2006 - 09:19 PM

[bobspeight]

So sorry to hear that Carl. My thoughts are with you.

Take it easy on yourself over the next few days.

Please let me know if I can help with anything - I am just round the corner and you have my number.

[Tom A]

What very sad news, it must make it even harder.

I am now at the other end of the NQT year, but have the opportunity to replay my mistakes in vivid terms, as I had to move schools over the summer. The difference it makes is extraordinary - the simple fact of having done these things before, met these situations and so on makes consistency so much easier.

There were two fantastic pieces of advice that I was given last year by colleagues in Guildford that it might be worth sharing.

The first is that the NQT year is ultimately about little more than survival. In other words, if you just survive, you have done a fantastic job. Of course, we all want to have achieved more than that - and you will find out how much more than that you HAVE achieved when you look back on everything at the end. But so many of the skills needed are about other things than planning super lessons. I found one of the hardest things the consistent management of pace, not just over a lesson but over a day or a week. With 300 solid minutes of teaching, including 200 minutes (say) with difficult classes, you have to learn to manage your own energy. When you're all in, you're bound to make poor decisions, especially in behaviour management. So rather than being in at 100% the whole time, I guess i learned to rev different lessons down to 70% so that I still had enough to make the last lesson of the day work.

The second is that achieving consistency, to a great extent, is about repetition. There are lots of lines we try out with kids - and as an NQT, some of them work but most of them fail. Even by now, I've got a much better 'hit rate' - a repertoire of sayings and guilt trips and behaviour reminders which I can pull out of the box and fit to order. There are some really obvious things in my box, some of which took an inordinately long time to work out. For example, I always used to insist on having a Bill Rogers-esque 'quiet word' with a bunch of misbehavers at the end of the lesson ("deal with the issue head on") until a more senior colleague commented how "brave" I was being in doing that. Since then... divide and rule! But I spent most of my NQT year exasperated while bunches of kids wound each other up while I was trying to have a serious word!

Good luck, Carl, especially with the next week.

Tom

[DaveStacey]

Carl / ahoney,

Hope you've both had a better day today. As someone who managed to survive their NQT with most of their hair still on their head, can I echo what Andrew, Anne and Tom have said. You have to remember that you cannot set the world alight with every lesson. If you try you will have burned out by half term. I've read enough of your posts to know that you're both good teachers. Some days you may not feel like it, but you are.

There will be days when the kids try to test you. It's not personal, maybe they had a few too many e numbers at lunch, it was wet break, or so and so got off with thingy last night, and frankly that's always going to be more interesting that what you're saying. Stick to your guns. Get the basics right now and you can ease up later on. The grumbling has already started about me, especially from those people I taught last year who remember the 'fun' Mr Stacey from the end of the year, rather than the 'take no c**p' version that comes out at the start of the year. But I know that in the long run I'm doing the right thing. And I;ll take the scowls and the grumbles for now cause I've got the longview in mind.

ahoney - Have you approached the Heads of these other departments to ask for lesson plans and resources you can use as a base line? If they don't have anything, is there anyone else in the department who has resources and/or lesson plans you can borrow? It's completely unacceptable that you have to come up with new lessons for all of this. If there is stuff, but you're worried about making everything all singing all dancing, can I suggest you don't! Someone, somewhere (it may have been on last years NQT thread) suggested 1 in 3 lessons is a good figure to aim at doing something 'special'. I still keep that at the back of my mind when we sometimes have 'textbook' lessons. Andrew's right when he says you need to give yourself a cut off time. Do what you can within that time, but don't go over it. (And I know that's a lot easier to say that do!)

Have you got a copy of Paul Ginnis's 'Teacher's Toolkit'? If not, I'd spend some of your NQT money on one. Some really good ideas for 'interesting' lessons that shouldn't take too long to prepare.

Carl - Firstly, my commisserations on your news. It's one of those situations when there's nothing really we can say, other than our thoughts are with you.
Secondly, on the problems of feeling out of your depth - You sound just like me 12 months ago! Go and see your HoD/Line Manager. Knowing your own weaknesses is a massive strength, not a weakness and he/she will see it like that. And even if they can't give you any solutions straight away, having someone to talk things over with always made feel a hell of a lot better. If you have specific questions about what you're doing, you know you can post them here. Can I also recommend you get on a good inset course early on (I'll fish out the details of the one I went on last year and PM it to you). That certainly helped me to know I was on the right track.

Good luck to you both. Stick with it. It IS worth it in the end

This post has been edited by DaveStacey: 18 September 2006 - 06:51 PM

[AdamCrawte]

It does amaze me when people say that the PGCE year is the hardest, when I found my NQT year a lot harder. It would seem that Carl's comments bear this out. When you become an NQT you are an almost full time member of staff, with lessons to plan coming thick and fast, plus a lot more marking than at PGCE. Throw in parents evenings, reports, meetings and the rest and your workload is considerably higher.

Take the advice of your boss and seek his help. You are not admitting you are in over your head, you are working smart.

Another few points of advice, don't try and reinvent the wheel (a massive teaching cliche) but ask others in your department what they are teaching/how they are teaching different lessons, it will save you time and make sure that your workload is not reflected in your lessons, meaning you have good lessons most of the time.

Concentrate on planning a few really good lessons which you can rely on for future years/trade with colleagues or plan as a department rather than individually.

Hopefully all of these things will mean that you feel on top of your workload, have good/exciting/interactive lessons to teach and allow you to focus on your difficult classes.

Finally, it is an up and down job. after a tough last few weeks of term last year, I was really pessimistic about the coming year. Now two weeks in I am loving my job and really enjoying all of my lessons (even the tougher classes). I know that there will be a point in the term when I may not feel so bubbly but I know now that there are always good moments.

PS Always try to plan lessons when you are on a high as they will be much more exciting for you and the kids, removing some classroom issues straight away

I also second the Teachers Toolkit (especially Quick on the Draw) and also Ian Dawson's site Thinking History for active lessons

This post has been edited by AdamCrawte: 18 September 2006 - 07:09 PM

[Carl Fazackerley]

bobspeight, on Sep 17 2006, 11:22 PM, said:

So sorry to hear that Carl. My thoughts are with you.

Take it easy on yourself over the next few days.

Please let me know if I can help with anything - I am just round the corner and you have my number.

Cheers Bob that means a lot!

Tom A, on Sep 18 2006, 07:30 PM, said:

The second is that achieving consistency, to a great extent, is about repetition. There are lots of lines we try out with kids - and as an NQT, some of them work but most of them fail. Even by now, I've got a much better 'hit rate' - a repertoire of sayings and guilt trips and behaviour reminders which I can pull out of the box and fit to order. There are some really obvious things in my box, some of which took an inordinately long time to work out. For example, I always used to insist on having a Bill Rogers-esque 'quiet word' with a bunch of misbehavers at the end of the lesson ("deal with the issue head on") until a more senior colleague commented how "brave" I was being in doing that. Since then... divide and rule! But I spent most of my NQT year exasperated while bunches of kids wound each other up while I was trying to have a serious word!

I try to be consistent but at the moment because I don't know the classes I seem to come up against the many-headed hydra that keeps pointing out that "you're not being fair". I find that I am constantly making my expectations clear and getting little or no improvement. I need to start knocking a few heads together and perhaps even scapegoating a few pupils in each class to make my point!

DaveStacey, on Sep 18 2006, 07:48 PM, said:

Secondly, on the problems of feeling out of your depth - You sound just like me 12 months ago! Go and see your HoD/Line Manager. Knowing your own weaknesses is a massive strength, not a weakness and he/she will see it like that. And even if they can't give you any solutions straight away, having someone to talk things over with always made feel a hell of a lot better. If you have specific questions about what you're doing, you know you can post them here. Can I also recommend you get on a good inset course early on (I'll fish out the details of the one I went on last year and PM it to you). That certainly helped me to know I was on the right track.

I have managed to arrange some 1:1 INSET with a very kind HofD at a school in Wales - I am going for a whole day very soon and will hopefully feel a bit better prepared then. I am also booked on the WJEC London event, but that isn't until March. I think the biggest shock to me is the behaviour of the GCSE group, it's really bad - lots of talking and pupils out of there seats, work avoidance, etc, with GCSE groups before I have not really experienced this.

AdamCrawte, on Sep 18 2006, 08:07 PM, said:

Take the advice of your boss and seek his help. You are not admitting you are in over your head, you are working smart.

Will definitely do this tomorrow.

Quote

Concentrate on planning a few really good lessons which you can rely on for future years/trade with colleagues or plan as a department rather than individually.

We do this for KS3 but for the AS and GCSE I'm planning solo - which is what worries me

Thanks for all the kind words - going to be long week this week I think!

This post has been edited by Carl Fazackerley: 18 September 2006 - 08:53 PM

[Carl Fazackerley]

Well this week is off to a rollercoasters start.

GCSE group seem to have taken well to some new strategies I have introduced. I am focussing my attentions very much on teaching those who are willing to learn and making a few scapegoats out of those who are disturbing the lesson; a few are very close to working at the back of the HoFs classroom for the next week on boring book tasks. Hopefully the message will get across - work with me and the lessons will be more interactive and enjoyable, work against me and boring fare will result!

Year 8 on the other hand! Still not quite getting a handle on these groups - but I'm hoping that a few well placed praise phone calls home and a few behaviour concerns ones as well, will have the trick - I'll wait and see!

I'd be interested to see if people can help me with a specific class problem that I am having; I have a year 9 group for both history and PSHE [I am not their form tutor] - in our history lessons I am developing a good relationship with the class and things are good, but in PSHE they are monsters and I struggle to do anything with them. The lessons are at similar times in the day, I adopt the same approach with class and operate the same discipline; why the difference - I know PSHE can be hard to sell, but I'm still the same person? I am concerned that the PSHE problems might start to damage the history lessons. Can anyone offer some help on this one?

This post has been edited by Carl Fazackerley: 26 September 2006 - 09:24 PM

[JohnDClare]

Carl Fazackerley, on Sep 26 2006, 10:23 PM, said:

Well this week is off to a rollercoasters start.

This is entreily typical of an NQT year, Carl! There's nothing you can do except hang in there, and keep going back for more!!!
My tip is - win or lose - strutt back in there next lesson as though you thought you won!

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GCSE group seem to have taken well to some new strategies I have introduced. I am focussing my attentions very much on teaching those who are willing to learn and making a few scapegoats out of those who are disturbing the lesson; a few are very close to working at the back of the HoFs classroom for the next week on boring book tasks. Hopefully the message will get across - work with me and the lessons will be more interactive and enjoyable, work against me and boring fare will result!

Spot on - and exactly the strategy I have advised Nicky to try with a very difficult group elsewhere! It will be hard with these older groups, simply because they are so much 'longer-standing' at the school than you - they regard YOU as the 'youngster'!

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Year 8 on the other hand! Still not quite getting a handle on these groups - but I'm hoping that a few well placed praise phone calls home and a few behaviour concerns ones as well, will have the trick - I'll wait and see!

Also, I would guess, the Year 7s as they begin to find their feet. At that age, they are just cheeky, and don't seem to react to discipline or annoyance in a rational way at all, do they! You are going about them the right way too; also strutt about a bit and be impressive.

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I'd be interested to see if people can help me with a specific class problem that I am having; I have a year 9 group for both history and PSHE [I am not their form tutor] - in our history lessons I am developing a good relationship with the class and things are good, but in PSHE they are monsters and I struggle to do anything with them. The lessons are at similar times in the day, I adopt the same approach with class and operate the same discipline; why the difference - I know PSHE can be hard to sell, but I'm still the same person? I am concerned that the PSHE problems might start to damage the history lessons. Can anyone offer some help on this one?

Wierd isn't it? I would guess that maybe the pupils simply don't regard PHSE as a proper subject. The other thing to look at is what/who they have the lesson before your PHSE lesson - is it PE, for example, or a teacher who gets them over-excited? Different room? (I have a Yr10 SM group who are a delight when they are in my room, but one lesson a week I have been timetabled in another room and, by golly, I have to work harder in that lesson!) Also look at seating plans - who's sitting next to whom in the PHSE lesson - any negative clumps?
And it may just be you! Are you more familiar/confident with the History than with the PHSE?
Think about the PHSE lessons - are they bad from the start, or is it that they start off OK and fall apart as the lesson goes on? Is it at a certain point in the lesson?
If they come in mad, then you need some good 'calm-down' strategies/starters.
If they get silly at a certain point, then you need to rethink the activity which 'loses them' - one obvious example would be, if they start getting out of control during the 'individual work' element of your lesson, it may be beause the tasks you are setting are too hard, or not well-enough explained, or simply too abstract.
Have a think about where and how the lesson is failing, and repost, and I'm sure readers will have loads of specific ideas for that specific problem.

But all said and done, it sounds as though you are going about things exactly the right way - well done. Stick in there!

[Carl Fazackerley]

Thanks for the tips John!

JohnDClare, on Sep 27 2006, 12:25 AM, said:

Wierd isn't it? I would guess that maybe the pupils simply don't regard PHSE as a proper subject.

Definitely part of the problem! Awful PSHE on Monday worked really well in history yesterday [focused writing for 40 mins on the middle passage].

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The other thing to look at is what/who they have the lesson before your PHSE lesson - is it PE, for example, or a teacher who gets them over-excited?

Double English one week and then Modern Languages in the other - so maybe they see my PSHE lesson as light relief.

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Different room? (I have a Yr10 SM group who are a delight when they are in my room, but one lesson a week I have been timetabled in another room and, by golly, I have to work harder in that lesson!)

Computer Room!

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Also look at seating plans - who's sitting next to whom in the PHSE lesson - any negative clumps?

Same roughly as the history lesson.

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And it may just be you! Are you more familiar/confident with the History than with the PHSE?

It will be next unit, but this one is about conflict so we are looking at Northern Ireland, Iraq, the Middle East and Vietnam, so all very "history"!

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Think about the PHSE lessons - are they bad from the start, or is it that they start off OK and fall apart as the lesson goes on? Is it at a certain point in the lesson?
If they come in mad, then you need some good 'calm-down' strategies/starters.

They are a bit mad when they arrive, any tips on good calm-down strategies I might use given the environment I have?

Quote

If they get silly at a certain point, then you need to rethink the activity which 'loses them' - one obvious example would be, if they start getting out of control during the 'individual work' element of your lesson, it may be beause the tasks you are setting are too hard, or not well-enough explained, or simply too abstract.

This is an issue; the tasks are progressively more difficult, so the initial ones are readily accessible to all - but the class just don't see why they should complete the tasks at all! I have collected in the books and marked them this week as a means of trying to assert some control over the work ethic, and intend to call some of the class back to see me about a lack of it!

I need to make better use of the computers I have available to me in that room and try to build them into the lesson activities, or failing that try and find out if there is another room available.

[Russel Tarr]

Quote

I am starting to feel more than out of my depth panning the GCSE and A-Levle courses. I'm the only one teaching the GCSE and I just don't know if I am good enough - it's a lot of responsibility to be carying as an NQT. My boss says come to him if I need to, but I feel bad about that - is that admitting I'm in over my head?

Absolutely not. In fact, from my experience they desire and expect you to ask for help: it demonstrates a bit of humility which reflects well on you and massages their egos.

It is absolutely natural to feel out of your depth in the situation you are in. I have now been teaching 9 years and it still scares me to death knowing I am fully responsible for a GCSE set. If they do well, I shrug my shoulders and say "they were a bright bunch". If they do badly, I automatically tear myself to shreds blaming myself.

So my advice: ask for advice, ask for help. You are just starting out, you are eager to learn, you are conscientious. If you try to operate in a self-contained bubble, you will end up popping very very quickly...

[Carl Fazackerley]

Russel Tarr, on Oct 1 2006, 06:57 PM, said:

So my advice: ask for advice, ask for help. You are just starting out, you are eager to learn, you are conscientious. If you try to operate in a self-contained bubble, you will end up popping very very quickly...

Great day in Wales today. I have been given a lot of guidance and materials from a very kind History department who hosted me for a days 1:1 INSET. I'm already feeling more confident about what I have done so far and have many new ideas about how to approach the Germany module.

This post has been edited by Carl Fazackerley: 03 October 2006 - 07:50 PM

[JohnDClare]

Carl Fazackerley, on Oct 2 2006, 08:29 PM, said:

Great day in Wales today. I have been given a lot of guidance and materials from a very kind History department who hosted my for a days 1:1 INSET. I'm already feeling more confident about what I have done so far and have many new ideas about how to approach the Germany module.

Great news, Carl - 90% of this game is self-confidence.

[Carl Fazackerley]

Had one of those nightmare lessons I dred happening today. Year 9 Period 1.

I had difficulty settling the class after they arrived late from year assembly. There are two girls in this group who are really confrontational who haven't been in lessons for two weeks. After I finally managed to settle most of the group these two continued to talk; I highlighted the problem and just got snide responses. I warned them and then had one of the two tell me I was picking on her. I decided to talk to her outside and calmed things down, allowing her to return. Well things didn't improve. I should have sent her out there and then but I didn't [a big mistake]; this girl started to try to undermine me at every moment and the lesson went downhill from there. I rode it out to the end just about but really made myself appear weak and ineffective at managing behaviour. I have no idea why I didn't send her out; I fear I've created a rod for my own back here.

How do I approach the next lesson to damage control what happened today? Any ideas muich appreciated. I only see that class once a week so its really important that I get a handle on this immediately.

[DAJ Belshaw]

Carl Fazackerley, on Oct 4 2006, 11:22 PM, said:

How do I approach the next lesson to damage control what happened today? Any ideas muich appreciated. I only see that class once a week so its really important that I get a handle on this immediately.

If I've learned anything about behaviour management over the last 3 years it's that students tend to forget the previous lesson unless you bring it up. Remember, if they only get you once per week, they'll have had over 20 lessons since their last one with you!

My advice would be to welcome everyone into the classroom with a smile on your face and make a point of welcoming the two girls by name. You might want to separate them immediately if they sit together (perhaps best done as part of a larger change of seating plan) or if not, then go through 'That's your first warning', 'That's a formal warning', etc.

All in all, don't let them rattle you - it's not worth it. If they're playing you up they'll be playing everyone up. Go through the sanctions line in an as emotionally-detached way as possible, get them out of your classroom, write up a report, get their parents in to see you (or Head of Dept./Year) and don't let them grind you down!

Doug

PS And John D is spot on - act as if you own the place and they'll respond accordingly. Your classroom is your domain, not theirs...