Setting Yourself up for Term 2 Success

It’s the start of Term 2. Sometimes it’s difficult to feel excited about this time of year as typically it marks the start of exam season; it’s the term where we’re slightly less refreshed than we were in September thanks to the busy December holidays; and in many places it’s still dark when we get to school and when we leave it…

BUT we’re also in a much more empowered position in Term 2 than we were in Term 1 and remembering this can make all the difference when trying to see the light through the trees on these dark mornings.

We know our students and colleagues so much more than we did at the start of Term 1. This means that we’re able to integrate what we’ve learnt to ensure that our actions gain more traction as these relationships continue to develop in Term 2.

We see the seeds we’ve planted in Term 1 start to grow shoots with the potential for amazing growth and progress as we continue into the second and third portions of the academic year.

Students and staff are more confident in their abilities and have started to believe that they’ll achieve their potential. As teachers, we know that there's time to have a HUGE impact on the young people in front of us.

The beauty of Term 2 is that we have much more knowledge now (plus hopefully some really useful experiences with students and assessment data to reinforce this!) and we can begin to get so much more strategic and focused on the outcomes that we’re aiming for.

So whether you're a leader or a classroom teacher (or both) I’d like to pose some important questions to you to help you get the most out of this “new year/start of term” freshness (that you may or may not be feeling already!)

1) What went better than you expected in Term 1? Where did you succeed despite the challenges that you faced? What does this success tell you about yourself as a practitioner?

For example: “My new Year 10 class went from strength to strength during Term 1 and engaged really well with the text we were studying. Despite finding their lower reading ages difficult to differentiate for initially, by the end of Term 1 I had learnt how to present learning to accommodate their individual needs moving forwards. This showed me that I have an excellent understanding of barriers to reading and how to address them, it highlighted my resilience and willingness to learn more about teaching reading."

2) What were the most useful nuggets of information that you learnt in Term 1 that will ensure you have a positive impact on progress in Term 2?

For example: “Year 8 Set 12 - mixed ability groupings when reading a new text and incorporating a lead reader created much greater independence and better comprehension in every group”.

3) Identify the most important action for each of your classes that you can take during the first week of Term 2 to ensure students in this class are on track to achieve their potential this term.

For example: “Year 7 - ensure students X, Y and Z receive all new texts sent home in advance to support with vocabulary acquisition, provide 5 keywords with widigts each week for all students”

If you are looking for some inspiration in terms of smaller actions that you can take to support the reading, writing, communication or general language acquisition of your students in Term 2, take a look at some of my example suggestions below.

1. Send keywords home for students to pre-learn.

2. Share keywords with form tutors, EAL teachers/ teaching assistants for reinforcing.

3. Using widgets (www.widgitonline.com) on your lesson resources to reduce the reading load.

4. Provide options for how students demonstrate their understanding, including one option that either doesn’t require writing in full sentences, or reduces the need for writing in sentences.

5. Provide opportunities for translanguaging, or at least planning or discussing ideas in home languages first.

6. Use concrete language, numbers, bullet points and boxes to ensure important information is clear and easily understood.

7. Give sentence starters, writing frames or substitution tables for every task in which students are expected to write, regardless of whether they are first or second language English learners.

8. Pair/group second language English students with good models of English, provide written and spoken models at different levels.

9. Scaffold to increase the challenge.

10. Use summarising, skimming and scanning, identifying keywords (including identifying words that students don’t know) and elaboration to develop secure comprehension of new texts.

So how are you going to chunk down your next steps to ensure you set yourself up for success this term and beyond?