Daylight observations

Went back to school to observe a science lesson this afternoon. It was SO lovely to be back in the classroom!

The children were gorgeous and kept asking me if I was coming back and saying that I was the the best RE teacher!!!! They are so lovely! Honestly, I had the best afternoon catching up with workmates and saying hello to the children!

I went to observe a science lesson in Year 6. The topic was light sources and it was the first lesson of the unit. The children came in from lunchtime play and there was a pause at the start of the lesson for the children to fill up their water bottles (it was a very hot day!). SP spoke to them about doing this at lunchtime. Then the children was asked to read while they went up table by table to fill up their bottles. While it was better than them all going at the same time, i felt that the time could have been used in a better way. Maybe doing one of the science activities from Explorify which could double as a hook for the lesson light this one: https://explorify.uk/en/activities/odd-one-out/shine-a-light.

SP started with a recap of what topics they have already covered in y6. She also made the point that they should be able to draw on knowledge from previous learning in this lesson.

The lesson was about light sources and SP started off with a TPS about what is a light source?

Once the children had shared and established what a light source is, SP went straight into the ppt. No real hook and you could tell that most of the children weren't especially curious!

SP made it relevant quite quickly by talking about what your eyes and sight do when you are in a dark room.

There was a x-curricular link with maths when the children had to sort natural and man-made light sources and they used a venn-diagram.

There was a bit of time taken up with children handing out books and sticking in topic sheets. Again, something which could have been done at the start of the lesson maybe?

There was also no adapted teaching. A couple of children could have done with just sticking in the table, rather than having to draw it out themselves. Another couple of children could have benefitted from an extension to their learning as they finished the activity very fast.

Something I was surprised about was that there was no plenary at all! No mini ones and nothing at the end! SP just got them to pack up and then switched Newsround on!

I might sounds like I've been a bit harsh on SP, but much of this could have been because she was covering the class's normal class teacher.

There was quite a lot of low level disruption in the class and SP has to stop a number of times to make sure that the children weren't fiddling with things and were listening. SP used facial expressions to also enhance the behaviour for learning and used a calm voice throughout the class.