I wrote a number of blog posts while I was in England teaching as a way to reflect and process what was happening in my school. After being back in Canada for around a month, I have been able to look back more objectively on my time teaching in the UK and what my most important learnings are. I have decided to go with posting those key learnings instead of the blogs I wrote while I was still there. I went to England after having been to teach in Belize and assumed that the transition to England would be a breeze because I thought it would be similar to how we do things in Canada. I was really disappointed in my experience there, but now feel that I have a better understanding of my values in education and at least I can say that I have learned a lot through the experience. 

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KEY LEARNINGS

1. Different Ways to Assess: In England, every math and literacy lesson starts with a date and big question, and then students must have a product in their book so that the school has something to show for what their students are doing. Each week at my school, 5 ways of marking must be done. The first two are self and peer-assessment, which usually involved a rubric and then a star and step they came up with or chose from a list generated as a class. The next form of assessment was a star and step from the teacher to challenge students to push their learning forward. The fourth type is a try bubble, which also aims to give the student another chance at something they were confused on, or or to push their learning forward. The last type was called tickled pink, where the teacher ticked off which questions the student got right, and then the student had to add up the ticks into a pink bubble. It was interesting to use these different types of assessment (including colour coordinated pens) on a regular basis, but it was really frustrating because there is so much more to school and learning than writing down a product and marking it. 

2. Think, Pair, Share: Although this is not unique to the UK, I found it to be a necessary tool every day in England. Students in England were very used to just copying the process for doing something, so asking students questions hardly ever got any answers from more than a couple of students. Using this tool helped to get more students engaged in the lessons.

3. Differentiation by Chilli: Students almost always got to choose what level of work they wanted to do. There was Chilli 1, which was a more simple worksheet or task where students would do simplified or easier work based on the lesson. Chilli 2 was where the work was on par with the lesson or with an extra step or challenge to it. Chilli 3 was a step further, usually requiring more work or more difficult questions. I found that this was an interesting way to differentiate because usually I differentiate expectations for students with IEPs and allow all students to choose the format in which they want to show what they've learned (picture, poster, lego, letter, poem, etc.). I came to appreciate differentiating difficulty of task and letting the students choose, but would definitely prefer to allow the format to be their choice as well, instead of always having to produce the work on a piece of paper in Q&A format.

4. Group Work for Brainstorming: While this may seem like a no-brainer, and something used frequently in most class rooms it was a really handy way to get students thinking outside the box, to hear all of their ideas, and to keep them engaged within the parameters of how the school system wants students to be taught.

5. Teaching Different Abilities: The students I taught were streamed by ability, and switched teacher each term. The first term I taught the higher ability students, who were all mostly working at grade level, with the exception of two who were approaching mastery of grade level. The second term I taught the lower ability, where I had at least 11 who were or should have been on IEPs for reasons including being on the autism spectrum, learning English as a second language, ADHD, and for many un-diagnosed conditions. All the students in this class were behind at least two grade levels. Going from teaching the higher ability where I needed to differentiate to challenge the higher attaining students to the lower ability where I had to set up those that were more capable of working on their own, and then be my own TA for the remaining 11 students meant that my methods and strategies were far different with the two classes, and really helped me to grow as a teacher. 

6. Learning Interventions: I had parts of my schedule where I was not assigned to do anything specific, so during these blocks of time, I took small groups of students to do learning interventions with them. I absolutely loved this! And it was a huge piece of learning to realize how much I enjoyed these opportunities. I ran a Fine Motor group, a Reading Comprehension group, a Phonics group, a Challenge Math group, and a Target group for other learning objectives. This was the part of my day where I could teach the way I wanted, and wasn't confined by many methods set out by the school.

7. Classroom Management: Though I am usually great at classroom management, my strategies were just not suitable for the UK. Everything was so fluid there, things changed all the time in regard to schedules and location, therefore there was no consistency for the kids, making it difficult to make up for that consistency as their teacher. In addition, the students are from a different culture there from Canada, and respond to adults differently as well. I had to be very creative and extremely patient when managing my students there. 

8. Talk for Writing: This is a literacy program used in many schools in the UK. The teacher along with the class will draw a story map of a book or other text out on chart paper in pictures, and the class will practice telling the story together with actions.. It is then used for a term or half-term to explore the learning objectives for literacy. It is an interesting concept, through I think I would implement it differently in Canada

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