Teaching and Learning Blog - Mr Parkinson

It is vital that you are creating learning opportunities for your pupils away from the classroom. Using a homework tracker (seen below) is a great way to organise when homework is set and handed in, a great use of motivation through rewards and an easy tool to highlight to parents when and how many pieces have been completed or missed. I have found a homework tracker creates consistency and also keeps you honest as students will highlight missed weeks if you "forget" to set a homework (it works both ways). I would recommend introducing the homework tracker as a reward system and make the reward system very clear with different levels (as seen below). I have seen some other creative ways to share parts of the tracker with students to be used as a form of motivation and competition with the most popular I have seen made by "Twitter" this snapchat streak (seen below). I enjoy this "snapchat streak" as it concentrates on completed homework as it just shows &qu

In my previous blog I analysed the effectiveness of 4 week activity rotation blocks and now I am going to discuss another popular current topic - "Should PE be mixed gender?" It is difficult today to name a sport that isn't gender specific without appearing as if you have little imagination or a sexist disbelief in either gender. It is 2018 and we should all know by now that this girl can and the ever changing gender neutral world we live in. For example, you may have taught an excellent group of boys Netball or likewise taught a successful rugby union girls team. Furthermore, it is widely reported that until the age of 13 males & females do have very equal strength, stamina and speed. So if both genders can access any sport and having equal fitness components why was my recent poll taken using twitter (seen below) so divided?  In my own experience, I have always taught at schools that teach single gender PE classes but for the first time I have had a glimpse i

There are many ways to start a lesson and it is important to remember not one style fits all and there should be variation on classroom "starters" but having a "good" start to a lesson is crucial to the whole lesson. I am going to describe one possible way to start your classroom-based lessons, the reasons behind this method and suggest one way you can use chanting for your pupils to remember key content. From your own teaching experiences, observing others and reading advice from experienced teachers on social media you will have many great ideas how to start of a lesson and learning in your classroom. Think back to your last 3 classroom based lessons. Did they all start in the same way? Did the beginning of the lesson activate learning or did it allow for coasting? Creating a "stress" free learning environment for your student is very important. Stress in the classroom has many triggers, for example, stress can be caused by asking a student a q

During my teacher training I had always had an interest in time management. If you did not find learning about padagogy, lesson planning and behaviour management techniques difficult then discovering you need to be excellently efficient with time definitely was. The effectiveness of time management by a teacher in attempt to be as efficient as possible fascinated me (and still does). "How long should a lesson be? How long should you stay on a task for? How long should I question for? How long should a SoW be?" , were questions I kept asking myself. This curiosity continued throughout my degree and led to my dissertation title, " What impact does the duration of a lesson have on Year 8 & 9 Boys' achievement in P.E ". I observed and took data from five schools who taught different lessons times (1x50mins, 2x60mins, 1x90mins & 1x100mins) and compared which was the most effective. I mention this because I believe the findings from this research project

Successfully completing your teacher training no matter which path you took is an incredible feeling but it is topped by securing your first teaching post.  At this point the excitement of starting your career and having your own class and pupils far outweighs any possible negative thoughts that your NQT year in reality is going to be tough one (but a great one). You have taught great lessons before whilst training and you are 100% confident this will be the same in your new job (for the 0.001% of people that have a stress free & easy NQT year you can stop reading now). So what could possible go wrong? The answer: not everything. My first piece of advice is to stay positive throughout try and keep a log where you write down at least one thing a day that went well to help you focus on the positives (Tip 1) . It is very natural to focus on the negatives but no matter what you are experience remember not everything is bad. I personally completed my NQT year from January to Janu