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
Rebecca Chesher Music 