By George Suddaby
Over the course of last year, I had the delight of joining the ASA TEEP WhatsApp group. I
was a little reluctant about this at first purely from a confidence side of things. As a relatively inexperienced teacher, what could I bring to the table that I could teach more experienced teachers about?
Fortunately, my anxiety proved to be completely wrong - colleagues loved hearing ideas, and some may have even adapted/used what I have shared! Not only this, but as a result of being in the group I have been able to receive a plethora of ideas. I think this is one area that we all struggle with, particularly in the times that we are in now where we are all spaced out all over the Academy instead of in teams. The TEEP group gives us all an outlet to discuss what does, and maybe doesn’t, work within our lessons. I am the first to admit that I get “stuck” in the department - I’m comfortable talking to all of Team English, observing them, and seeing what good practice looks like. But, that’s it really. I never get the chance to go out across the Academy and pick ideas up from other subjects (maybe this is something I should force myself to do in the future!).
One of the first things I shared came at the start of the year, I tried something new with my Y9 class when teaching the context of “Of Mice and Men” that I found whilst searching the internet for ideas. I gave a newspaper article from the start of the “Wall Street Crash” and I asked students to analyse the language in this to inform their understanding of the context.
What happened? How could this have affected society? How could the language imply these? Students took to this task really well. I didn’t think much about it after the lesson, other than how well it appeared to go. Yet, I was asked to share this with the group. It gave me a newfound confidence with teaching context in “Of Mice and Men”, and it’s something that I am taking forward this year. Numerous colleagues came to me to say how great they thought the idea was. Without being in the group, I would not have been able to inspire these colleagues to maybe attempt something like this in their lessons.
Aside from sharing resources, the group has discussions on a weekly basis. These discussions have been a fantastic platform for my own self-reflection. Yes, it’s something that we do every day, but having chance to discuss key ideas/topics with colleagues really helps to round my thinking on a range of topics.
As a result of being in the TEEP group, I was able to join the Teaching and Learning group that meets every week. Unfortunately, due to COVID I only got the opportunity to attend two meeting. However, through being a member of this group I had the opportunity to lead a discussion on a subject that intrigued me: is it productive to explicitly discuss world matters in lessons? As an English teacher, I could see the benefits in terms of analysing the language of texts. But, what else could be gained? By leading this discussion, I was able to pinpoint other ways in which discussing world matters can be a positive thing to do in the classroom. For example, they could help in teaching students what the difference is between real news and fake news. In addition, teaching current world matter in a less direct way could allow students to be free to discuss these issues.
From all of this came further new opportunities, such as training on leading CPD sessions on Effective use of Formative Assessment. I will have the chance to lead in CPD sessions, something I wouldn’t have believed I’d ever be able to do purely down to my own lack of confidence that I discussed at the start of this post. I am unbelievably excited to have this opportunity, and it is one that I have grabbed with both hands! Again, these training sessions gave me plenty to reflect on in my own practice. For example, one point was raised about the use of WAGOLLs and WABOLLs. I rarely use WABOLLs in my teaching, but one staff member discussed how effective these can be in their teaching. Likewise, I reflected on how I approach teaching Year 7 groups. The idea was raised that we really don’t need to go back to basics and start again; students have learnt some of this stuff before in primary school, and we should not presume that they have simply “not done it well in primary”. Furthermore, we discussed the importance of “being our quirky selves”. We have all tried to use ideas and techniques from other teachers, but we really need to manipulate them for our own teaching style. This allowed me to understand better why I am maybe sometimes reluctant to incorporate ideas from other subjects into my English lessons - I must consider how best to implement these in my lessons to get the greatest benefit from them.
All in all, being part of the TEEP WhatsApp group has allowed me to grow in confidence, learn new techniques to enhance my teaching, and it has given me the opportunity to further my own CPD. It’s a truly fantastic opportunity, and one you shouldn’t miss!