Communicating with your TAs (#TMEpsom)

Last Monday (25/11/13) I attended the 2nd #TeachMeet held @glynschoolepsom (my previous school). After hosting #TMSurrey last year, I was able to relax this year and enjoy #TMEpsom that was hosted by Guy Jones @questionbeggar.

As part of the event, I decided to present on how we go about communicating with our TAs/HLTAs. I only presented for about 2 minutes and so I hope by writing in more detail about this here that some unanswered questions will be answered.

My presentation at #TMEpsom was really simple and revolved around the purple folders we use for each of our classes where we have TA/HLTA support.

I have one of these folders for each of 4 of my classes where I receive regular support for the students in my class.

The folders are managed by my TAs and they update the folders if/when we run out of daily sheets, when IEPs are updated and class details change. As a teacher, all we have to update in the folders are our seating plans and our schemes of work for that module/topic etc.


Each of my purple folders contain the following information:

Class List with all SEN details highlighted
Students Photos
Seating Plans
Schemes of Work
Current Levels/Grades for students on the Code of Practice
A Daily Tracker for teachers/TAs to fill in
IEPs
Reading Levels and other relevant data on the students

Before each lesson I have with the class, and when TA/HLTA support is given, I fill in the teacher part of the daily tracker sheets. The daily tracker sheet is a simple table with 3 columns, 1 for the date, 1 for the teachers' instructions for the TA and 1 for the TA's feedback. All I write in the table is the date/period of that lesson and then how I wish my TA/HLTA to support me with the class in that particular lesson. This consists of a few sentences explaining what we're doing that lesson, with whom I wish them to work (or withdraw from the lesson to work with in a small group) plus other details as necessary.

At the start of each lesson the idea is that my TAs pick up the folder for that class from my desk and look at what I have written on the daily sheets for that lesson. Then, at the end of the lesson, they fill their part of the daily tracker sheet in by commenting on how the students they worked with progressed that lesson and comment on any other things they picked up on in the lesson. This could be that certain students did/didn't complete certain activities, whether they noticed students struggle on a particular concept or had a common misconception etc.

The great thing about the purple folders is that it allows me to communicate with my TAs without having to find those 5-10 minutes in between lessons or after lessons to catch up on what you'll be doing or how things went; too often in the past I have tried to have these conversations at the start/end of lessons and rarely had the time to really let my TAs know what it is I'd like them to do or how the students they were working with got on.

By using the purple folders I now see, prior to each lesson, the comments from previous lessons and the progress of those students my TAs/HLTAs were working closely with. This then feeds into my planning for subsequent lessons and it may be that I ask my TA to work with other students they noticed didn't do so well in previous lessons, or take certain students out to catch them up on work they may have missed out on or need further support with. It also means my TAs can see what it is I want them to support me with before the lesson rather than having a couple of minutes notice of what they're expected to do. And, when there is a class where I am supported by 2 or 3 different TAs/HLTAs, they can be informed of how those students they are to work with have progressed in previous lessons.
Another thing I like about the folders is that I have all the class' IEPs and details of their particular SENs to hand. Usually these details are kept on the school's shared drives and finding such information can take a while. This way, the details are there when planning each lesson and they can easily be referred to when planning new activities and ensuring I am using particular overlays on ppts, grouping certain students together, changing seating plans and making sure those students that need to be sat in particular places can be etc etc.

The purple folders are something my school have been trialling since the end of last year, I believe, and so they are something I have been introduced to this year. As such, getting used to these have taken some time and remembering to fill them in as soon as possible for my TAs to access has taken time to get in the routine of doing. We have found some problems with them based around the fact that my TAs still don't always get enough notice prior to lessons as to what they need to be doing with the class, especially if they are asked to take a small group out. The prior warning needed for doing these 'withdrawls' means the TAs need time to prepare resources perhaps, or just find a room/space they can go with the students they are being asked to take out and work with. So, in addition to the folders, if I know I'd like my TAs to take certain students out I try to e-mail them the day before the lesson (at least) so they have time to prepare.

The folders are working to improve the communication between my TAs and I and they provide great evidence of the support and provision we are giving to certain students and my classes in general. If anyone whats any further information about our purple folders then get in touch by commenting below or contact me on Twitter @mrprcollins

#TMSurrey

On Thursday 9th May I hosted #TMSurrey at Glyn School, Ewell, Surrey. It was a fantastic evening made possible by the people that attended and presented on the night. It was also only made possible due to the support I received from my school and through the advertisement of the event via Twitter etc.

 

This post aims to...share the organisational process of planning your own TeachMeet, share the presentations that were given on the night, and suggest ways in which the event may have been improved for future purposes.

Organising a TeachMeet was something I was hoping to do ever since I attended my first one at the Haywards Heath TM earlier in the year. It was something a few others at my school were keen to do/make happen too and so I started to plan the evening. Before I sent round an e-mail to the relevant people seeing if the TM could even go ahead, I did a bit of groundwork myself. I first looked at the school's calendar, the GCSE examination timetable, the meetings/INSET schedule etc to find a suitable day that was available and wouldn't coincide with anything else. I luckily managed to find 9th May as being free and so the date (at least in my head) was set. Next, I created a Google Doc to use for the signing up for the TeachMeet and advertising of all the information attendees/presenters would need. This document can be accessed here --> http://goo.gl/0YT6U. I also created a 'Logo' for the event (see above) so that when I would e-mail round to the heads of the school etc they would already see what I had been doing and would get an idea for what the event would start to look like and appear to others. I feel this part of the planning process was key, as without it, an e-mail merely asking if could run a TeachMeet on a given day would not have seemed as appealing, perhaps.

So, after I had created the documents and logo I began to think about what I would need from my school. Permission was the main thing - to give it the all needed 'go ahead', a venue was the next, closely followed by IT support and crucially attendees/presenters. So, I e-mailed round to the headteacher for their permission, the facilities manager to ensure I could book the school hall for that evening, the IT department to get the required tech set up in the hall on the day of the event and then the CPD manager for their support and guidance with the event.

I quickly received replies and my headteacher was more than happy for the event to take place. The facilities manager checked the diary and added the event to the list of scheduled events. The IT department confirmed that they could get the projectors/sound etc set up in the hall and the CPD manager arranged to meet so we could talk through the evening and what I'd need. So, with the all needed 'go ahead' from the school I started about getting the TeachMeet advertised via Twitter.

I first put the Logo, with a link to the sign up Google Doc, on the official TeachMeet website - http://teachmeet.pbworks.com/w/page/19975349/FrontPage and then started to tweet out the link to my Twitter followers. I made sure I tweeted this a few times and tried to plan this around the popular #ukedchat and #SLTchat. This way I was able to get a few RTs and more people were able to see the tweet and the event.
This all happened about 3 weeks before the event itself, which I think gave enough time for people to figure out if they'd be free, but not too far ahead that people'd ignore it initially and then forget about it!
In addition to tweeting out the details of the event, I advertised the event internally at my school via e-mail and our staff briefings. My Mathematics department were fantastic and all of them pretty much signed up straight away to attend and the majority of them were there on the night and some presented.
Soon, I had other people from the Twitter sphere signed up to present and attend. There was a great mix of people signed up and the presentations were nicely varied too.

The next thing to do was to try and get some 'sponsors' for the event that would provide some prizes for the raffle I had planned on the night. I was overwhelmed that of all the people I contacted, all of them kindly offered me a prize to give out on the night. The raffle was something that naturally drew a few other people to the event and the prizes on offer were amazing - ranging from books from Jim Smith and Caroline Bentley-Davies to products from the www.magicwhiteboard.co.uk and PTS Stickers http://www.primaryteaching.co.uk/. These prizes cost a lot of money and I am still extremely grateful to those that provided them. In addition Chris Green at Manga High was able to attend and present as well as provide a year's subscription to www.mangahigh.com - a website I have used since teaching Mathematics and one that I would recommend to any Mathematics teachers!

Whilst all the attendees/presenters were signing up and word was getting out about #TMSurrey through tweets etc I was busy filling in external booking forms for the school hall, meeting with our CPD manager to organise refreshments from our caterers (Cucina) and meeting with the IT technicians to arrange for additional projectors/laptops for the 'tweets' etc. All of these 'meetings' were important in getting everything I needed for the night and the evening wouldn't have gone ahead without their support.
Nearer the event, I had to get all the 'admin' type tasks done like getting a register for all external attendees (important for safeguarding and fire & safety regulations etc), getting prefects to help out on the night to show external attendees to the reception, showing them where to park etc, putting up signs around the school directing people to the school hall, and then putting together handouts for all attendees of the event.
Here's how the handouts looked...

Each person had one of these. They included a raffle ticket, a handout I created with details of the event and the Twitter handles for all the presenters, and the 10% off voucher from PTS Stickers - they made these flyers especially for #TMSurrey.













The week of the event was met with a few apologies of people being unable to attend and I was starting to worry that we'd not get enough people there in attendance. The good thing was that with those that were presenting that were unable to attend they still managed to take the time to record a video of their presentations that we could show on the night. I really liked this as it enabled some fantastic teachers to still share their ideas to those that attended. It also had a more #TeachTweet feel about it whereby Twitter users watch certain pre-recorded videos at certain times during the event 'as live'.
So, with a few people now not able to attend we ended up having around 25 people in attendance on the night - not as many as I had hoped, but if I learnt anything from the Hayward's Heath TM (where there were only about 10-12 of us) it was definitely more about quality and not quantity.

On the day of the event I got more and more anxious up until the 5:30pm starting time. I spent the time I could after school making sure everything was set up and ready to go. I still ran my Year 10 revision session from 3-4pm as this was still as important as ever for them. So, this left me with just over an hour before attendees started arriving.

Some presenters got there a bit earlier, which allowed me to ensure everything they needed for their presentations was unblocked by the school's WiFi and that I could access their presentation. I made sure all presentations were loaded and ready to go on the central computer linked to the main projector, we also had a separate outlet for those bringing personal laptops to connect to the main projector. We had some issues with getting the school's WiFi to allow Twitter and so had to use www.visibletweets.com to show the #TMSurrey tweets on the night. I made a 'random presentation generator' for the night which can easily be made using ppt - see here.

The night itself went really well and I honestly think all attendees enjoyed the evening and went away with more than a couple of ideas to use in their lessons/teaching. You can see all of the presentations (I still have copies of) by following the links in the Google Doc mentioned above, also here for your convenience. Just bear in mind that for some of them 'you had to be there'!


Improvements & suggestions for future TeachMeets I may organise...

The main improvement that I feel could have been made to the night was the advertising of the TeachMeet and getting the numbers of people through the door that I was hoping for.

I was slightly disappointed by the lack of people who attended from my school as other than the Mathematics department there were only about another 5-6 members of staff from my school. I feel I could have perhaps advertised it a bit better internally, maybe because I am a NQT and only started at the school in September I didn't have as much scope as others might have to get people to attend? Equally, the schools that we are linked to, our primaries and other local schools etc could have been contacted personally by me to advertise the event to them.

I think I relied too heavily on being able to get my Twitter followers (most of which probably do not live anywhere near Surrey) and staff from my school involved. If I learnt anything from the experience it is that there is a massive minority of teachers on Twitter. If you look at @ICTmagic's Twitter map, there are not many people on Twitter in the South-East region of the UK --> http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/PLN+Map and so this already limits the number of people I was able to contact within the area I was targeting the TeachMeet. It then begs the question as to why more teachers aren't already getting involved with Twitter and the benefits it has on their teaching - perhaps they just have no idea as to how beneficial it actual can be? Perhaps it is a time constraint, an ICT constraint for some?
If/when I am to organise another TeachMeet in Surrey I will ensure I contact all local schools within the Surrey area, get them to advertise it to their staff and hopefully that way there will be more people there? Also, I don't think there are that many people, possibly linked to the fact that there a very few people 'on' Twitter, that actually know what a TeachMeet is or how to get involved in one - there are probably an equal amount of people that have never used a Google Doc?

This is something that perhaps we need to look at from a school's CPD point of view. Perhaps 'TeachMeet' type events should become the new model for a school's INSET session? To start with, just once a year (either at the start or end of the school year) to give staff a way of sharing their ideas and presenting to their school communities? Perhaps those people who have already organised and hosted TeachMeets could meet with school CPD managers to inform them of the process, the benefits of it and how to set one up at their schools?

All of these questions I'm not sure I have the answers to, or the capacity to do something about, but I will nonetheless continue to look at hosting another #TMSurrey next year, I will continue to tell my colleagues about Twitter, TeachMeets and all other manner of things I find out about via my PLN and will continue to share with others the ideas and strategies these sorts of events provide teachers with.

Together we are stronger!

Quality not Quantity #Teachmeet Haywards Heath

On Wednesday evening this week I went to my very first #teachmeet - #teachmeet Haywards Heath. Now, I had been well aware of the teachmeets that had been set up around the country for teachers to share their ideas/resources/thoughts etc, but until now hadn't had one in my area or been able to attend any.

Luckily, I was free Wednesday evening and so signed up to the Haywards Heath #teachmeet, which is less than 30 mins from where I live.

I wasn't sure what to expect from the evening, other than the evening would be more than worth while based on tweets I had seen from other teachers who had attended other #teachmeets. When I arrived I was greeted by Pauline Gaston (@PaulineMGaston) who had arranged the event. I was told at this point that there weren't as many people as was expected but none the less all the original presentations where still taking place.

We all met briefly before the presentations took place and I soon found I was in good company with teachers from across the county, both Primary and Secondary and even lecturers from Sussex Uni.

The first presentation was by Kevin Cunningham (@bt2bn) on 'Storytelling in Maths'. This, of all the presentations was the one that was, on first glance of the evening's schedule, the most relevant to me. Kevin's presentation was fantastic and involved thinking of your Mathematics lessons as a story whereby you 'hook' the learners in, set up the challenges and obstacles to overcome and then resolve them. Kevin spoke highly of, and gave me a needed reminder of, Dan Meyer's blog and the ideas available on here http://blog.mrmeyer.com. Kevin showed us an example of a video he had used to 'hook' his students into the volume of cylinders. He used this video to get students to think of all possible questions you could ask based on the short clip. There was then the main part of the lesson where the students worked through solving the problems/questions they had posed in the starter and then a final video was shown to review the learning. The videos can be seen here.

Next up was Darren Harte, a teacher in a Primary BESD school. This presentation was fantastic in terms of the 'eye opener' it provided in terms of what goes on in a BESD school. The presentation was titled 'They do what?'. The main thing I took away from this is that practical learning/engagement is key for these learners and that they adopt a thematic approach to their curriculum. Another interesting idea was to grade classes on their behaviour each lesson. Starting each lesson with a '5', the highest level and then seeing where the class ends up at the end of the lesson with '0' being the lowest score for their behaviour. This emphasises the need to start each lesson 'fresh'. The students in that class would then be rewarded with a 'class of the week' trophy based on their scores, they would be given 'golden time' for 20 mins at the end of the day, given small (cheap) rewards at the end of lessons etc.

After Darren, Brian Dickinson, creator of www.takethemout.co.uk (@takethemoutcouk) presented about the website. The website is a site where teachers can share reviews of places/events they have been to on school trips. This was seen as a great idea for teachers as there is now a place you can go to search for particular venues for particular subjects/key stages/ages etc and all of these will be reviewed by other teachers who have previously attended the places/visits/events.

Pauline then gave her presentation on 'Verbal and Non-Verbal Language Use for Successful Behaviour Management'. This was a great reminder of the key things we need to do as teachers to manage behaviour including pausing, giving time limits for tasks, giving take up time etc etc. The few things I took away from this was the '1 min detention', odd time limits for tasks - i.e. 7 mins, 8mins, 10mins 23 secs and standing to the side of students when talking to them about their behaviour.

Finally, Andy Chadler-Grevatt gave an inspiring presentation about the 'Summative and formative Classroom Culture' and had to be seen to understand the content of the presentation. The presentation was based on research Andy had conducted as part of his doctorate. There were loads of things to think about here and especially for me as a teacher in terms of whether my classroom culture is one of formative, summative or a mix of the two assessments. I found that depending on the set I teach that this changed.

Right at the end of the #teachmeet I was invited to attend an upcoming session at Sussex Uni by Karen Gladwin and this is something that I am already very excited by (more on this to come).

So, as the post title suggests this was a fairly intimate #teachmeet, which, if anything, allowed us to discuss in greater detail the topics presented. We weren't restricted by time and presenters were able to speak in greater depth about their chosen topics. Not having a form of comparison it is difficult to say whether this is better than say a #teachmeet where you have 100+ teachers but I took A LOT away from the evening and am grateful to those that gave up their time to share their ideas. Thank you to all involved!