Author: rebeccacheshermusic

Current Head of Music at West Lakes Academy in Cumbria. Musician and private music teacher in my spare time

The Use of Knowledge Organisers

rebeccacheshermusic

I first stumbled across knowledge organisers around Easter time when I was looking for revision resources for my year 11 class. Since then I have been producing a knowledge organiser for every scheme of work I use from year 7 through to GCSE.

What is the purpose of a knowledge organiser?

A knowledge organiser is a foundation of knowledge for each of the schemes of work that I use. It is a bare minimum that should be learnt in that topic and can be a massive conversation starter. We all know our working memory is limited. So storing the information that is being learn in our long term memory frees up more space in our working memory capacity. Knowledge organisers also help to develop teachers knowledge with regular construction of the resource and application of the information.

What content should I include?

This changes depending on the subject that you are teaching but for music I stick with the same structure of key stage 3 knowledge organisers with more information being added for GCSE. Below is an example of a year 7 knowledge organiser that uses key features of the schemes of work, the composition task and pieces that we have listened to and analysed.

You need to make sure that you are not overloading the knowledge organiser with information that can be classed more as general knowledge over powerful knowledge. Powerful knowledge is more specialised to the topic that you are teaching and is the key features that you wanting your students to learn

How should I organise my knowledge organiser?

Your knowledge organisers should be simple and to the point including as much information that is necessary for the topic you are teaching. Too much information and it can be overwhelming for your students to learn. Structure your knowledge organisers clearly with spaces around the information to clearly seperate each section that the students are learning. This maximises the retrieval process for students if the information is set out clearly. Some teachers structure them in a list, some use pictures, and some include links in the form of arrows between information so that students understand how the knowledge links together.

There are plenty of knowledge organisers online to show you examples of what to use and how to structure your information. Make sure you do your research before you put the hours of work into making your knowledge organisers as there are many articles giving the positives and negatives on the use of them. In my curriculum they help massively, especially with GCSE students but you should always look into how it will help your students over the amount of work you will have to put in.

My Top 10 Tips for NQT’s

rebeccacheshermusic

Over the last 12 months I have definitely learnt a few lessons when it comes to teacher, some of which I wish I knew before I had started. I have listed my top ten below in hope that it will help those of you just starting your teaching career whether that is in music or another subject.

1. Don’t spend longer planning a lessons than you would teaching it. Even the best planned lessons can go wrong and thinking on your feet can create some of the most productive lessons.

2. Reuse what is available – Don’t be afraid to use resources that other people have made and shared on facebook sites or sold on TES. Most topics have been covered before and there is no need to reinvent the wheel. Just reuse and change it to make it appropriate to your style of teaching.

3.Be an early bird OR a night owl – Most people in my school either work before school for an hour or work after school for an hour. Don’t do both as there is no need to bog yourself down with work. I try not to take things home with me but plan my week wisely to use all of my PPE time to get  planning, marking and admin work done in school time.

4.Marking Shortcuts – Use stamps, codes or highlighters to make marking quicker for yourself.  Keep this consistent throughout the year so your students recognise what each colour/code means. My school has a system for marking books to see the different stages of marking. Green for teacher marking, blue for peer marking, red for self marking then re-working and black is for writing at all times.

5. Don’t stress about the evidence. At the start of the year set up seperate folders for each teaching standards and put you evidence in throughout the year.    If you are a good teacher then the evidence will come from what you are doing – seating plans, extra-curricular timetables, photos of concerts and rehearsals, your planner and photos of displays are all evidence of your work throughout the year.

6. Be firm but fair and set your expectations in the classroom. Line up outside of the classroom and enter in silence, equipment out on the table once seated, silence to answer the register. Do not continue with a task unless it is done the way you want it to happen. If the class enter talking when you have asked for silence then send the students back out to line up until it can be done in silence.

                “Pens down, eyes on me”

                “Headphones off, mouths closed, eyes on me”

                “This is your 5 minute performance warning, be ready to perform”

7. Insist on silence before you speak – Stop what you are saying until it is silent then restart. If students continue then follow the schools behaviour system.

8. Ask do you understand before you start a task giving students time to ask questions. This makes sure that every student understands the task and do not start asking questions as soon as you set them off on their task. If one student does not understand then chances are a number of students do not understand.

9.Plan your schemes of work well in advance then your day to day planning will be a breeze.

10. You are not invincible! You will have times where you struggle but you will learn from these and grow to be a better teacher. Ask for help if you need it

What a year it has been!

rebeccacheshermusic

After much deliberation I have finally decided to start my blog to help new teachers, trainee teachers or just teachers in general an insight into my career of being a music teacher. After studying music at The University of Huddersfield I went on to do my PGCE through Ripley SCITT in Lancaster. During this year I went back to the amazing music department at Ulverston Victoria High School before finding myself taking over a music department in need of some work.

“Without music, life would be a mistake”

― Friedrich Nietzsche.

As an NQT I worked my socks off to completely change the way that my students see much, now not just as a subject but as a career choice. Starting ensembles, running workshop days, getting outside companies to come and show the students how music can change peoples lives, and starting to put on school shows for students to show off there talents. For any teachers starting out, it will be hard work but the rewards massively out way the late nights and the massive work load so stick with it.

This blog is to show what I have been doing and am currently working on in hope that it will help other NQT’s in my position.

Stay tuned for more!