Four minute walk through

This was my second four minute walk through and I felt I had a better idea of what I wanted to look at this time. I decided to focus on how teachers encourage students to self-manage in the classroom. I would like to move towards a modern learning environment where the children are responsible for deciding when they will do each task during the day. I saw lots of evidence of child-driven choice and self-management across the school in various different forms. The key thing that stood out for me was to ensure the children have lots of choice and activities to do. This ensures children are kept on-task and focused while the teacher is working with small groups. I would also like to provide a range of tasks – possibly built around the SMARTS or blooms taxonomy, to give children choices of different kinds of activities practicing the same skill.

Another key aspect I saw when visiting other rooms was the way in which making choices was explicitly taught. I will bear this in mind when I set up my own programme to make sure my children have the skills to make effective choices about their learning.