TP-14.4

Planning a sequence of activities for all children to work through at their own pace means that you won’t be planning and preparing five days’ worth of three or more lots of differentiated tasks – it’ll just be around five tasks that you will support everyone to access, perhaps with an extra one on top to stretch children who need a challenge. That’s a lot less work to plan and prepare. By asking yourself the above questions as you plan, the activities you prepare within a sequence should be simple. This means that you can spend far less time decorating and laminating your resources. Simple can be beautiful, and it can give you your life back. Teaching lessons flexibly shouldmean that you begin to use lesson time more effectively, particularly for giving feedback. In doing this, you remove the need for somuch time to be spent on marking outside of lessons. Any assessment information you do gather will simply inform you which task in the pre-planned sequence each child needs to work on next, rather than causing you to plan another new activity in response. TP F EATURES P LANN I NG www.teachwire.net | 51 intrinsic: the act of learning is enjoyable and engaging, providing that you are actually learning. A simple sequence almost guarantees that learningwill take place and the childrenwill feel good about it. Theywon’tmiss the flashy teaching techniques you’ve used in the past as theywill just be enjoying the feel-good factor that comeswith mastering something new. Flexible lessons That’s the planning phase sorted, then. But trying to use the activities produced when planning a learning sequence can prove difficult. One group of children could end up working on step one, another on step two while yet another moves on to step three. How do you keep a handle on this in the classroom? Flexible lesson design is the answer here. For example, if on day two of teaching your planned learning sequence you have several groups of children all working at different steps in the sequence you will need to work out how to use that hour in the classroom to the best effect for all. Start working with one group while others begin the next task – clearly written or visual instructions will help with this. Once this is done, set a task for the group you were working with then check the work done by other groups. Then, based on your assessment, give an input to another group while others continue with the initial task. The ‘lesson’ (although no longer a lesson in the traditional, three-part sense) can continue this way until all children are working, at which point you can begin to give one-to-one feedback. Reduce the burden At any point a childmight be ready tomove on to the next step in the sequence. And they can, because the tasks have all already been prepared at the beginning of the week. If you’ve also taken the time to provide answer sheets children can even self- or peer-mark to reduce the burden on you and ensure that pupils aren’t waiting around for their work to be seen. “The trueway to simplify teaching begins at the planning stage” Learning sequences in practice... SCENARIO: Your Y3 class needs to learn how to add common prefixes to words and use them in their work. Note that the national curriculummentions four: ‘in’, ‘un’, ‘dis’ and ‘mis’. ACTIVITY 1 Pupils will have covered ‘un’ in their spellings already so this makes a good starting point. l Add the prefix to selected words (this will remind children that it changes the meaning of a word to its opposite and that the spelling of the root word remains intact) l Add root words to the prefix l Give a definition for a selection of words beginning with the prefix These three tasks will give you an opportunity to assess what children remember of previous learning. Some will need more teaching on the prefix ‘un’ at this point, whereas others will be ready to move on. ACTIVITIES 2 + 3 Rather than mixing things up to make themmore interesting, repeat the above sequence with the prefixes ‘dis’ and ‘mis’. One meaning of the ‘in’ prefix departs from the ‘not’ definition the pupils have found in the other prefixes, so leave this one for another learning sequence. ACTIVITY 4 Contextualise the words pupils have learnt by: l Choosing the correct prefix to complete a sentence l Writing a sentence including one of the new words The idea is to make each task as simple as possible so that the sole focus of the sequence is on exactly what the children need to learn. thatboycanteach.co.uk @thatboycanteach Aidan Severs is primary deputy head at an all-through academy in Bradford.