lesson starters etc for non-specialists, cover or supply

Lesson starters and fillers for non-specialist, cover and supply lessons


Rationale

You have been left with a class and the work for them to do is lost or has not arrived yet. It is not your subject area or perhaps you are a cover supervisor. You know that these first few minutes are when the behaviour might deteriorate into something that is hard to put right. Now what?

If you can have a few ideas up your sleeve to give you breathing space it really does help so you need some things that will work in any subject area. The ideas that follow are aimed at the 11 to 16 age range but might easily be adapted. Some things will work better with older or younger students and may depend on how well you know the students. The ideas have been gleaned from many sources, some lost in the mists of time so please forgive any unintentional plagiarism.

Resources to have in your bag of tricks

• A set of thirty mini-whiteboards with dry markers and dusters

• Spare pens and pencil – it is worth expressing disappointment about lack of equipment but probably not worth holding up the whole lesson

• A few colouring pens and pencils

• Glue, sticky tape, scissors (get a few left hand ones too), some rulers, erasers and so on

• Some prepared worksheets/jigsaws,/card loops that will work in many situations (see step four below)

• Some simple puzzles – ones from Christmas crackers are great and can double up as little prizes for good work

• Plain, lined, squared and coloured paper and card, also scrap paper

• A set of large sugar paper shapes such as speech bubbles, think bubbles, hand prints, foot prints

• Blu tack

• Your name and your basic expectations clearly written on a piece of sugar paper

• Playing card – not whole sets

• Ping pong balls



First steps

Some of these will depend on what you have been told or already know about the school rules, mores and ethos:

• Have your name clearly written on a piece of sugar paper that you blu tack up in a clearly visible place – a few simple rules of your classroom are a good idea as well

• If possible, put some puzzles or quiz sheets out on the desks before students arrive

• Always try to greet them at the door and ask them to stand and get equipment out until you ask them to sit

• Once sitting, ask them to start the puzzle whilst you do the register

• Now write homework in their planners if appropriate – check this again at the end of the lesson

Step two

You have given yourself that breathing space and established some ground rules without actually saying too much at all. If you need to, you can pause the lesson at any time and point to your rules saying something like remember. Better still, you can quietly go over to a student and quietly ask them to look at the rules, checking that they understand.

Whilst the students are engaged with the starter activity, read the work set or (if there is none) ascertain what they did last time and what they usually write on and if they know where texts or other resources are kept. Only ask one or two students quietly. Get them to give things out if appropriate. If necessary send a student with a note to the appropriate person to get work. Never leave the class.

Step Three

This may be based on what you know they did last time or on the work set. It is important that you ‘own’ the lesson and the classroom and do not make it seem as though you are just passing on a message or child minding.

Ask the students to draw a mind map or do just three to five bullet points about the topic they are on. This gives you an opportunity to gauge the level and so on. Set a very short time scale – say three minutes, or five at the most, working in silence. Now ask them to share this with the person next to them in a voice so quiet that no one else can hear. Next ask each pair to share with another pair. Now ask for just three or four people to feedback to the class. Add any knowledge that you may happen to have of the subject matter in at this stage. This will also enable you to make up a lesson objective and title that they should copy down, and any key words that they should copy and try to explain in their own word – think bubbles are good for this.

Step Four

Help! You still do not have any work set! Here are a few ideas that will each last ten or fifteen minutes (you could mix them up within the lesson and set up a carousel of activities):

• Drawing a storyboard is good for almost every subject from Maths to Science to History to English and more .... ask students to draw no less than six and no more than ten pictures in a cartoon strip – stick men are fine – to sum up what they know about a topic and that would explain it to someone else

• Give out speech bubbles or think bubbles and ask them to work in pairs to tackle a problem solution or to summarise just one key word or aspect of the topic; try to give each pair a different one and remind them only the person they are working with should be able to hear what they are saying. Stick them up on the board and get everyone to walk around and look at each other’s.

• Have some prepared ‘jigsaws’ in envelopes on a variety of subjects, for example Maths number patterns or shape patterns, poems, spelling or vocabulary lists in English or another language, key words in different subjects, lists of Kings and Queens or Capital Cities. Students have to put the jigsaws together and then copy out and add their own annotations.

• Have some A5 word searches with clues rather than just words to find – e.g. ‘what is the Capital of France?’, ‘who was Henry VIIIth’s first wife?’, ‘what is a square number between 40 and 50?’

• Have some general knowledge quiz sheets and scrap paper for answers

• Have some card lops in envelopes – a set of say en cards that have to be put in order to form a complete loop, e.g. ‘Henry married Catherine, Catherine was divorced, Henry married Anne...’ or ‘1/2 = 0.5, 0.5 x ½ = ¼, ¼ = 0.25 ...’ They can then copy them out and annotate.

It’s a double lesson and they need a breather

It can be a good idea to break for five minutes but only if you are sure you can get them re-focused. Don’t let anyone leave the room or play with their phone or just have a chat though. This has to be directed time off! Here are a few of ideas:

• Give out about a dozen playing cards each and see who can build the tallest tower

• Not for the faint hearted – give out a ping pong ball between who and see who can get longest rally patting with hands

• Who can balance the most ping pong balls on the back of one hand? Does team work help?

• Give out prepared jigsaws or card loops (see step four above)

Finishing off

Remember to leave plenty of time for checking homework has been written down correctly and always try to relate the end of the lesson back to the learning objective. Here are a few ideas for that:

• Play hang man on the board or in pairs with the key words

• Play twenty questions re the key words – you write a word up that the main player cannot see and then s/he can ask the class yes/no questions (also works for things like prime numbers, multiples and so on)

• Get everyone to go back to their mind map or first few bullet points and try to improve it- ask just a few to feed back to class

• Give out think bubbles and ask pairs to come up with a summary of the lesson – leave it for the usual class teacher

• Play ‘make me say’ – you have a word or number in your head and they have to try to make you say it b giving you prompts

• You, or a volunteer, sits in the ‘hot seat’ and answers questions about the lesson

vision activity for CPD

I have been thinking a lot about communicating a shared vision - and also ensuring that ths is not a one way process. I'd be grateful for comments on this CPD idea: first few minutes, work alone and circle the ten things most important in the wordcloud (see below). Then in small groups, dicuss your reasons and come up with a collaborative version on a new copy. Finally feedback to whole group ..

and what words have I left out that should be in it?

Thanks for any help.

more CPD ideas

At our Heads of Department meeting today I asked how we could improve the in house CPD prgramme - the following came up either at or just after the meeting ... please comment
The main point on the school overall SEF that is on my own performance management (hey, I can use this as evidence for that as well) is developing effective classrooms through CPD. Was very grateful for ideas during and after the meeting today - will also get some feedback from the pastoral meeting that was taking place at the same time.

I am wondering if the draft revised CPD timetable could be revised yet again with something like the following:-

1. A subject based conference - probably would have to be just one hour but that might work if we go straight into groups. This would most probably have to be on one of the Thursday sessions (i.e. not a twilight CPD, see below for ideas about that). We could open up to all our partner schools. I don't think there would be much funding for this one - maybe everyone could bring a plate of food! I would suggest that for this we just host it in each department and see who turns up and play it by ear? Any other ideas?
2. Use the twilight CPD session to run workshops which staff sign up for before the event.

Suggestions: Philosphy for Children, Behaviour, Interactive whiteboard for beginners and advanced, Community Cohesion , Using Fronter, Restorative Justice , Teaching Outside Your Subject Area, Using publisher and excel, I would provide simple refreshents for this one from the CPD budget.

3. Leadership Conference for middle and senior leaders, including aspiring leaders and open to partner schools as for number 1 above
Suggestions:

Workshops – delegates select from:  working with partners in Higher Education;  maximising student potential; the importance of CPD; other?


Please, please comment .........