Setting up your classroom

For those of you who are about to start your NQT year in September, what should you be doing during the summer to prepare? If you can spend some time in your school one day over the holidays, then arranging your classroom will be a useful task.

You may have little flexibility in how the desks in your classroom are arranged, or you may not have your own teaching space to arrange, but it is still worth thinking about the advantages and disadvantages of different arrangements.  Basic rule, students will be encouraged to work with each other, but be more difficult to re-focus if they are sat in groups rather than rows.  Have a look at this discussion:

http://k6educators.about.com/od/classroomorganization/p/deskplacement.htm

Start off by thinking about how you want to organise the learning in your classroom, and then pick an arrangement that supports that, and remember, if it doesn't seem to work, change it!

And like with seating plans, you should plan this out when you're sat in your classroom as you can plan for things like awkward angles to the board or things that would stop you moving around the classroom.

How are you going to arrange your classroom for next year?

New Year's Resolutions

So, another academic year is over, and it's time to focus on enjoying the break and getting set up for next year. But before we completely stop thinking about 11/12 it's important to reflect on the successes we have had, and what we want to do differently next year.

I suggest that you get yourself a notebook to use to jot down your reflections on the activities here, and other CPD you are involved with this year.  Not only does it allow you to focus more on what you are thinking, but the act of writing something down makes you more likely to do what you have committed to. Also, having a separate notebook will make focussing on your CPD will become a bit more special and hopefully a bit more important.

So, be really honest with yourself - you don't have to tell anyone else!

1.  What are you most proud of this year? (These things don't have to be massive, and try and think of at least 5 things).
2. For each of the things you have identified in 1. What are the reasons you were successful here? What or who helped you? How are going to maintain these successes?
3. What is one thing that you would like to have done differently? (one thing only please - it's too easy to start focussing on all the negatives here!)
4. Why did this not go well? Who or what could have helped you? How will you tackle this in september?
5. What steps do you need to take to make next year even more sucessful?

Jot down your ideas and try and focus on what you will do in the future, rather than just what happened.

So now you have had a think about what went well this year and what you are less pleased with, what's your New Year's Resolution?