During my first week, I spent time observing various teachers in the English department, as well as meeting the groups I will be working with (one Year 7, one Year 8, two Year 9s, two periods with a Year 6 group and a Year 8 form group). I also spent a day shadowing a pupil in my form, going from lesson to lesson with her to see how the school day runs from a pupil's point of view. It was a really nice, interesting day. However I was taken aback by some of what I observed. This is a high achieving, well thought of school, rated 'good' by Ofsted at last inspection. In all the lessons I visited (five lessons), I did not see any differentiation for different ability levels, SEN or EAL needs, did not find out the learning objectives of any lesson, nor any starters, plenaries, or in fact any of the aspects of a good lesson we have been taught to include! The worst came during history - the teacher had very little control over the class and could not command silence. Students read from a textbook and then answered questions. The pupil I was shadowing told me they did the same every lesson. The girl in front of me was an EAL student who spoke Arabic. She appeared to have some level of English and she could clearly understand my questions, and answer them. But she could not access this work. Just one worksheet with sentence starters, or a cloze exercise would have meant she could progress during that lesson.
Seeing school through the eyes of pupils was really enlightening, and made me realise the impact of my planning and resources. It's easy to get lazy and ignore differentiation for just one lesson, but I will try and remember that sweet girl and the fact that she deserves to learn as much as anyone else in that room. Also, I will aim to never, ever make students work from a textbook for an hour!
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