The Paragon - NWET&D - Improving Performance

What should children be doing?
It is important that any attempts to standardise teaching methods and to achieve a sense of a consistent approach to learning doesn’t totally inhibit the creativity of individual teachers. There needs to be room for flexibility and this is really part of that old cliché: if at first you don’t succeed try, try again. Perseverance can mean carrying on in a specific way but it can also mean trying something different to achieve the same ends. Some interesting training sessions can be built around the idea of what children should actually be doing and what is expected of them. Why not ask your teachers the question, ‘What would you do to help your children achieve the following?’
Acquire new knowledge and skills.
Meet appropriate targets.
Reach appropriate levels in both internal and external tests, assessments and examinations.
Develop ideas.

And of course - what we shouldn’t be doing
It would be ridiculous to expect perfection all the time. This is much more of a neurosis than a realistic expectation. But each child in each class should expect excellence most of the time. It is relatively easy to find out what it is that makes teaching effective and successful. By doing this we can make sure that we know what to improve and in many cases how to make all the necessary improvements. But do we know what ineffective, poor teaching is - in fact the kind of teaching that should not happen and which, by its very nature, has to be improved. Let’s end with a final list and suggest that all teachers should recognise that learning is less effective and teaching unsuccessful when children are:

- unsure about what work they are doing
- doing purposeless activities
- finding work too hard or too easy
- not knowing how to improve
- being made to work at too fast or slow a pace
- poorly motivated.

So, there it is - in a nutshell and perhaps it is the key to another ‘Improving Teaching and learning’ training session. Use the bullet points to ask teachers another question, ‘How can I prevent this happening in my classroom?’