Although I began my teaching career having trained in Religious Education, I have spent an extensive amount of time upskilling my knowledge and pedagogy to include the English Language and Literature British National Curriculum. I have spent an extensive amount of time teaching in the form of independent tutoring, both KS3 and GCSE for English Language and Literature. To improve my CPD knowledge, I have spent time studying the National Curriculum and requirements of both GCSE and A-Level Language and Literature, completing exam papers, and reviewing study guides. I have also done this for the IGCSE too, in order to prepare myself for teaching overseas. I am also in the midst of completing a 140 hour TEFL course which is near completion, so I am qualified to teach English as a foreign language. To aid with my teaching practice, I have also volunteered within a local secondary school environment, observing lessons and pedagogy to understand successful ways of teaching English, as well as having the opportunity to teach my own lessons.
Having also completed a Masters in Creative Writing, I have had extensive practice in the techniques needed to teach English successfully. As part of my Masters course, I was required to study the works of other authors, picking out techniques that draw their audiences in and analysing these in essays and commentaries, as well as creating original works myself that will aid me in teaching English. There was also an opportunity to study the works of my peers, providing essential feedback on their original work which provided me with excellent experience in being able to provide this for my own students within an educational setting.
The key aspect of my teaching pedagogy is to build positive relationships with my students and to foster a learning environment that is able to meet the needs of each of my students, as well as building relationships where students feel comfortable to be themselves too. During my time teaching, I have worked with students with various learning needs such as Autism, ADHD, selective muteness and a range of learning difficulties such as dyslexia. I have also taught students with whom English was not their first language, ensuring they were fully supported with tailored resources within my classroom. My approach is to ensure the student’s learning environment is as comfortable for them as possible and to understand how they learn best, so I am able to employ these techniques into my classroom and resources. During my time at Rochdale, I had a student with ADHD who struggled to break down large chunks of text for analysis. I designed resources that I knew would play to his strengths such as match-up activities, card sorts and other resources where he could be more practical with his learning. To aid his revision, I created memory games that he was able to play with his TA during study periods to foster that idea that there are fun elements to learning and revision. This proved to be such a success that his parents adopted similar strategies with him outside of college.
Whilst teaching a student with selective muteness, I would encourage different strategies within my classroom to aid discussion and ensure the student could get involved comfortably. Whilst generating ideas for discussion about texts or theories, I would use a ‘word cloud’ whereby students could submit ideas through their phones and it would appear on screen. I also encouraged the idea of ‘silent debates’ whereby I would put questions on the tables and students would walk round and write down their ideas and responses to questions and to one another. This alternative way of encouraging debate really helped to include all of my students within the classroom and created a positive learning environment. I was commended during my NQT year and training year for designing a lesson such as this one by my mentor and PGCE observer, and they sent a letter to the headteacher praising the way the students were able to hold such a mature debate for their ideas.
During my NQT year at Rochdale, because I was the only Philosophy and Religious Studies teacher, I had to run the department, attending meetings with senior stakeholders, taking part in several ‘data drops’ and organising the departments several Open Evenings and Open Day. Due to a curriculum change, I also had to design a complete new set of resources for my Year 12 and Year 13 classes which included booklets for each topic and unit, lessons plans and revision guides to aid students with their studies. I also had to create model answers and a scaffolded structure for completing practice essays which I had students embed into their practice to improve their critical analysis and debate. I would also mark work based on the exam specification and gave clear and thorough feedback to my students so they understand firstly, what they had done well and the points at which they could improve their analysis. I was commended for my ALPs scores for my Year 13 classes and they ended up getting fantastic results for their A-Levels, for which I was immensely proud of them for. I was also involved in extra-curricular activities and ran a debate club and ‘think tank’ and organised an ‘open mic’ session over a lunchtime where students were able to perform their talents in front of their peers.
I enjoy creating lessons that are interactive for students and employ an element of creativity to inspire students and foster that love of learning. To challenge my students during my time at Rochdale, I would debate with students, providing them with thought experiments to test their critical thinking. During my time tutoring independently, I would create games to help student’s learning. For the creative writing element, I designed a dice game to help them to structure their stories. Whilst teaching Plato’s Cave at Rochdale, I designed a tour of the college with elements of the allegory told throughout the college, to provide students with an interactive element. This ended up being a success for the student’s learning and provided them with a different environment with which to understand the story.
As part of my volunteering, I have taken small groups of students out of lessons to support with their learning and provide extra help where necessary. I have also had the opportunity to teach lessons to KS3 and KS4 classes. I have taught lessons in both English Language and Literature and created an interactive lesson on Shakespeare’s ‘Macbeth’ which included elements of drama to help students analyse the themes prevalent within the play, we then used this to write up part of a model exam question. The interactive nature of the lesson helped students to illustrate their arguments for analysis and also provided a fun element to their learning.
During my time at Rochdale, I had to design the majority of the resources myself based on the specification. I created booklets with different activities, which included model answers and exam-style questions that students could mark in line with the specification. I would also set students challenges based on their learning objectives for that lesson. I would run the challenges in line with the scheme of work, ensuring they ticked off the assessment objectives. I also made sure to incorporate IT into my lessons and to engage with students further. I created ‘Kahoots’ which is an interactive quiz game, to summarise learning with a competitive element and split students into teams and had a weekly leaderboard with prizes as a way to tie up the lesson. This was something I also employed in my English lessons most recently. I believe IT can be an excellent way of bringing students together in a competitive environment and also brings an element of fun to their learning which I always encourage within my classroom.
As part of my teaching experience, I have had extensive experience in pastoral care within a sixth form setting and this has aided my teaching practice. I learnt much from my colleagues in this role, having enjoyed being a part of a team and learning from my peers. Part of my role of being a Pastoral Mentor included a teaching element alongside my pastoral care. With my experience in pastoral, I feel able to support students with their emotional and social needs due to my experience within this setting. As part of this role, I was the primary contact for students and parents, creating excellent rapport with my students and strong relationships with parents. I also had to work with colleagues across departments within the college that included the safeguarding and wellbeing team, the careers team, and the learning support team.
