QTS Q21b – Timothy West

Year 8 Tutoring

By adminPGCE, POT 3No Comments

Over the last year I have been placed with a year tutor group. I have been heavily involved with these tutors as they progress throughout the year. As already mentioned in earlier post I have been involved in academic review days to give them targets for school. I have also been able to attend a forest of dean trip with them that really helped me get to know the pupils better.

The main areas that I have been helping with over the last term have been taking tutorial times over the lunchtime period. 3 Times a week we have a session where we have to organize activities and tasks for them to do for 20 minutes.

Part of the rewards system in the house that this tutor group is in awards them with stars for various things. These stars can then be cashed in for various prizes. For example 40 stars will get you a new DVD

The various things we do with them are as follows.

Check and sign their contact books to see how they are progressing throughout the week. We award stars for contact books that are organized and set up for the following week.
Give out notices that are specific to them
Do equipment checks – stars are awarded having all the correct equipment in place
Do silent reading and homework
Run quizzes
Run healthy living and exercise sessions
Do personal one to one mentoring

Part of my duty was to organize tutor activities such as quizzes. So each week for the last week I have been compiling current affair quizzes for the tutees. Each table plays against each other. I then read out the questions and then ask them to swap tables to mark. They do enjoy this however more recently they have been so noisy whilst delivering the questions and answers I have had to warn them that I will not be doing them and they shall do silent reading instead.

Please see here for latest quiz >>

Picture of Quiz Results below.

Doing this tutoring has been vital experience for my professional development especially as I will be taking a tutor group in my next school.

21/05/2011

Year 11 Tutoring

By adminPGCE, POT 2One Comment

This term I have been helping out with tutoring year 11 pupils. Initially I was quite apprehensive about this as I was concerned about the attitude and behaviour that they might have. I was also warned to go in quite firm and tough and not to be a walk over. It was an interesting start as they were quite loud and boisterous but once asked to be quiet they did respond. I was impressed with how they were when asked co-operative and there was not a large amount of back chat.

My main duties where to take the register on the Sims system. I had to make sure that if anyone was late could not mark them in. I was also advised to ask them to wait by the door if they arrived after I had started the register.

My other duties where to take some PSHE sessions on some of sort of personal social or health related theme. I took three of these one was to working on team building and in this one we did lots of team related games such as making letters with human bodies and also the one where you have to all stand up by linking arms and pushing together the final one was to all sit on each other’s laps in a circle. They really enjoyed these games and it was a good chance to include everyone and help build the pupils that where less confident. I also told some bible related stories on Daniel in the lion’s den and and the parable of the good samriton and used the morals of these stories to try and encourage the pupils to do the same. My main message was a Christian message but i was aware that there were multiple faiths present which I had to be sensitive to.

There were a few sessions on sex educations that I sat in on and it was interesting to see how the govermant are pushing for more and more “safe sex” and to make young people aware of all of the STI’s and D’s out there. I thought that the no sex before marriage was a point that was not included or promoted enough as ultimately that is the safest way to ensure that these things don’t happen.

During tutors we had to make sure their journals where signed and passed off and that they were not defacing them.

We also had to issue warnings and checks for pupils that where miss behaving according to the school policy of red referrals those pupils can receive.

There where few issues with social problems that the pupils where having and these we had to deal with in to most appropriate manner and refer what ever we needed to onto child protection oficers this including a few personal circumstance issues.

I was also able to reprimand and tell them to correct their uniform. This was to maintain the high standards and expectations in the pupils of the school.

It was great to get alongside the pupils and build a good appropriate relationship and I feel I was able to add a fresh, fun and creative approach to the form. The pupils where able to develop in the time i was with them and it was a good opportunity to see how they progressed in other areas not just the academic side of their life.

Please email hburton@kesbath.co.uk for confirmation.

05/04/2011

Academic Review Day

By adminPGCE, ReflectionNo Comments

Academic Review day Reflection

Today was Academic review day and it was brilliant. The whole purpose of the day was to have 15 minutes personal contact time with the tutees so that we could; review and look at their mid term progress report and set some targets for them to achieve higher both academically and in the wider context of school. The main focus is for the pupils and how they are doing and parents where their to support them with this it was not really meant for a chat with the parents directly but to incorporate the parents and have them their to support the targets set.

We started of with asking the pupils to right down the areas that they have good or bad feedback from their teachers and to express how they are getting on in each subject this was done in a simple fill out a form fashion. They had to then come up with some of their own targets on how they feel they can improve.

So with the background set we then on the next week handed out their progress report for them to view and take home to their parents. We then went through each of the reports highlighting the excellent reports in green and the needs improving in pink. The main layout was four columns with Behaviour, Effort, Homework and Equipment. We focused on the first three. If any pupil had 3 or more excellent then they received a mention and gold star for their great work. The third attainment level was good.

Then once we had scheduled in each 15 minute appointment we had the day itself.

To start with I observed how this was done and the various points that I needed to include.

First was to ask them how they feel they have done with the progress report.
Then to show them the highlighted areas and maybe compare to last years report. Praise where needed and visa versa.
Then to go through the areas of concern and come up with some targets that they could do to rectify the needs improving sections.

This worked really well and particularly if you started and finished on a positive note and really took the time to praise and glorify hard work.

After I had made a few inputs to the sessions and started some off asked to take some pupils on their own and run their the whole review on my own.

This was the fun bit as I was really able to be myself and to put across my own thoughts and have the freedom to speak directly into each target.

I found that it was important to meet and greet the parents and pupils early and to start it of well with plenty of positive notes. It was interesting how some parents took more of an forceful role and others that were quite happy to just sit and listen. It was really great when the pupil and parents both came up with some targets that would be realistic to fulfil and carry out.

Some of the targets were

Setting aside at least one hour of homework time after school. This was if homework was needing improvement
Reading for at least 20 minutes each evening. If things were good but English was needing improving
Asking at least one question each lesson to show the teacher that they were making the effort if effort needed improvement.

There were others such as behaviour reports for those that needed to be kept on tabs with this. This is a form that they take each lesson with a target like uniform and talking and if they achieve it the teacher at the end of the lesson marks it on the form. The purpose of this is to have some accountability on their behaviour. My tutor took and interesting twist on it rather than it being a punishment but actually something to stop them getting in trouble. In all of these targets they were there to be positive and do something constructive rather than just bashing them over the head saying you must not for example.

In some cases the issues were due to home environments and issues that needed to be address by the parent for example staying up to late playing x-box was a classic example of one of the cases I came across. These issues I had to escalate and pass onto my lead tutor and the head of house via a slip that could be reviewed later on. It was really interesting how the home issues were obviously affecting their school life. One needs to be careful on how they approach this as we are not really in a place to pass advice on parenting but as I learned in our child protection training its just our duty to pass on information that could be affecting the health and wellbeing of children to ensure that they are being correctly safeguarded.

So all in all it was great to invest some time in the pupils one to one and to have the chance to meet their parents and to interact with both on a higher level.

Please email amabey@nortonhillschool.com for more reference if needed.

26/11/2010