The new term

Two weeks into the new term, 13 children the same (my new P2s and 3s) and 6 new P1s this year. The new P1s are settling in well, no tears at all! And the P2s and 3s seem to have grown up a little over the summer (I wasn't sure that they would!) so that is a good thing. :)

The last two weeks in writing we have written personal reports, which is something we did a lot of last term. When I started the lesson with my flip chart and list of talking partners at the ready (with P2 and3), asking for the success criteria we would need to make a good personal report, I worried for a moment as I seemed to have a sea of blank faces in front of me. But after talking to their partners for a few moments, it all seemed to come flooding back, and interestingly, the children I suspected wouldn't remember most of it were the the ones who were desperate to answer. Anyway, that had gone well, and the work they produced, while not as prolific as the pages they were coming up with before the holidays, seemed to be of a better quality, with a few more full stops and a distinct lack of the 'and...and...and...and' syndrome we were still seeing before. The next thing was to tackle the content...

In week two I told them that half way through their writing time I would be stopping them and asking them to look for something in their work they thought was very good, and something they thought they could improve. I gave an example of this sentence " I went to the park" and asked how they thought I could improve it, and, while there were several ideas given, the one we settled on was "I cycled quickly along the road to the park". They all seemed to get the idea that by using different, or extra, words, they could make their story more interesting for the reader. (Interesting and exciting is always in our success criteria, but most of them have no idea how to achieve this, I'm sure they think everything they write about is interesting and exciting no matter how they say it! - well, up till now :) )

So we stopped half way through and read our own work. I chose a sentence from someones work to write on the board, and we changed that to make it more interesting. Some of the P3s were able to find something to change with minimal help, and some needed a lot of help. Some children, because they had been thinking about what we had discussed as they wrote, felt they couldn't really make any of those sorts of changes, but were able to make technical changes to full stops and capital letters, or spelling.

I was concerned that it would be too much for the new P2s to deal with this self assessment aspect of their work, however, after discussion with the auxiliary who was sitting with them (she's new this year, and absolutely great :) ) decided that they were able to do it as long as they continue to have support. At the moment we have a setting system in school, with groups for those working towards level A, B, C and D, and within those working towards A, our classroom assistant works with the new P1s under my direction, as they are obviously at a different stage than anyone else, and the Auxiliary sits with P2, who need a little extra support than P3 who are 'my group'. So hopefully we can maintain that, so that everyone gets the support they can benefit most from.

Next week, when we do the self assessment, I'll include peer assessment, where they read their work to a partner at their table, and find something to improve in each others work together. I have found since we began the formative assessment (and in fact generally) that it seems to work better if it's 'drip-fed' to them - so the self assessment last week was quite a challenge, coming up with the improvement ideas themselves, so next week, when they are allowed to have help from a friend, they will likely to a lot better. We'll see.

As for formative assessment in other areas of the curriculum - we are working on the Enterprising Infants box at the moment, in preparation for next terms technology/enterprise topic on 'toys', and the talking partners, envoying, and questioning techniques have worked very well for that. Quite often when we do a lesson which involves no sitting at your table not talking to anyone and writing something down, I'm asked 'when are we going to do some work'. But an hour and a half into the first enterprise lesson, no one had asked that, and no one seemed to be bored. (Mind you, P1 had been to the toilet about 42 times and some of them were looking a bit droopy - but it was 12.15 on Friday morning on only their second week of school! Heaven knows what they will be like next week after a week of full days...)

In ES our topic is Myself, My family, My school. At the beginning I shared the unit coverage with P2 and 3, and they remembered how we had looked at that before and liked to know what was coming up. We did it out in the sunshine though with the flip chart, and I'm sure some of them would rather have been sunbathing. But we'll refer to it throughout as we did last time and that is when we will see the benefit of it. Because the topic is about themselves, the talking partners have been great, especially pairing up the new children (P1s and a new girl in P2) with people who don't know them. In our school, everyone knows each other inside out, there aren't many opportunities to get together with someone you don't know very well!

Next week, we are getting together with Anne to make some decisions about the Day 3 with Shirley, and the exhibition, or whatever it's called, which happens in a couple of weeks. It will be interesting to see how other people are getting on - especially those that have brand new classes, obviously it's very different for me, as I'm continuing with mostly the same children, and the new ones are just following their lead.