Reflective Blogs by Asma Khanom Differentiation Differentiation was something I initially really struggled with and found challenging, as I had no extra adult support in the classroom and my students had a dramatic range in ability. Due to limited funding and resources, there was no way of splitting the group into two separate classes, and so, I knew my differentiation had to be accurate as this was going to play a major part in ensuring my students were learning. ‘ Differentiation is not about individualising learning or providing a different learning ex perience for every student. It is about making adjustments that personalise learning to reflect the needs, strengths and interests of students ’ (DepartmentofEducation,2014). In order to be able to personalise learning, I would have to know my students well enough to be able to address their needs. I had built a positive teacher - student relationship with my classes allowing me to understand my students well enough to make better judgement on what they needed. In my class, I had a student who had missed a lot of school due to personal circumstances. On her return to school, she initially sat next to her friend, as she was settling back in and this was a step to make her feel comfortable. Unfortunately, when marking her book, I noticed that student X was a lot further behind in her learning than her peers, due to the lack of prior learning. Although, student X felt comfortable in her seat, her partner on the table was also a low attainer, and therefore not necessarily a help to student X. I realised quickly that I need to address this issue to promote and secure the progress of this pupil. My first decision was to alter the seating plan and place student X next to a higher attaining student, so that she could ask for help if needed and use her learning partner as a positive influence. I explored other differentiation methods to ensure that student X was able to catch up and meet the same objectives as her peers. I experimented with more than one method, allowing me to discover that differentiation methods can be a malgamated to achieve the best outcome. ‘ Differentiation strategies can be applied to any aspect of learning such as the content, process, product and environment ’ (DepartmentofEducation,2014). One of the key theories I refer to when planning my lessons is Blooms ’ Taxonomy. When I have chosen a topic, I look at what it is I want my students to achieve and from there I derive my lesson aims and objectives, using Blooms. Bloom ’ s taxonomy allows me to ‘ split learning into a ‘ spectrum ’ of tasks or skills ’ (Pett y,2009). In my lesson on Macbeth Act 3 Scene 4, students were asked to go from ‘ assembling and discussing images ’ , to ‘ explaining ’ and ‘ analysing ’ Macbeth ’ s thoughts through the language that is used by Shakespeare. The taxonomy provides measurable words f or learning objectives, to develop critical thinking. As a teacher I know ‘ learning is only complete for a given topic when all the skills in the taxonomy are attained ’ (Petty, 2009). Student X found this particularly helpful as she was able to work throug h the different levels of learning, without feeling like she did not achieve anything. Although some of her higher attaining peers focused on the more complex objectives, student X knew that some of the objectives were definitely achievable whilst other pa rts of the lesson were more challenging for her. 1 Motivation Within my school environment, one of the toughest challenges I face, is the aspect of motivating students. They tend to see English as a ‘ boring ’ subject which requires ‘ lots of writing ’ . My students can appear apathetic in their studies as they overlook the essential skills of communication that are acquired through the years. Moreover, the love and passion for reading and writing fades, as students do not always connect with the texts that are being taught. In particular, my GCSE students sometimes find content repetitive and disengage as they are on a two - year rotational cycle of learning (in KS4). For my first lesson observation, conducted by my tutor, I had delivered a lesson in which I t aught students how to plan for creative writing. I gave students pictures as prompts, to inspire their stories, which they then transferred to a large worksheet with Freytag ’ s pyramid to complete their planning. Whilst students had some freedom to sequence the events in their narratives, I noticed they could have been given more opportunities to explore ideas independently and rely less on the resources I issued. Upon reflection, students also needed to be given more time to assess their own learning and de velopment. My tutor ’ s feedback correlated with this as I was set the target to: ‘ encourage autonomy towards [ ... ] (students ’ ) learning ’ , relating to professional standard (PS) 17. Being in a secondary school environment, with a scheme of work to follow and tight teaching timetables; I thought this was something which would be impossible to do. I was also aware of the limitations I had with motivation because students had just come out of the covid19 restrictions. This meant some students were further struggl ing to readjust to the school environment and expectations, as well as the high demand of concentration leading up to GCSE's. To address this, I sat with the head of department and we discussed some possibilities. I came across Petty ’ s ‘ virtuous circle ’ mo del and found that increasing the experience of success and encouraging self - belief, resulted in further motivation. (Petty,2009) Going forward, I gave students the opportunity to choose what they would like to study (or revise) as they approached their initial mock exams for this academic year. To build momentum and increase engagement within my lessons, I completed a questionnaire, to gather feedback to inform my planning and sequencing of lessons. The students believed they needed most work in English Language Section B, the writing of an article, aligning with my marking of previous assessments. I found ‘ when students learn from interest, they tend to devote more attention to the topic ’ (Seifert and Sutton, 2022). My aim was to use a student - led approa ch allowing the pupils to ‘ choose what knowledge and skills they want to learn ’ (Petty,2009). I facilitated the learning by giving students a basic outline of what needs to be included in an article, so that they can meet the GCSE criteria. However, instea d of making the lesson exam - based, I used a debating structure to allow students to form ideas, before writing a constructive article. Students were given a motion, where they could choose if they were for or against the statement. They then had sticky not es to jot down their initial responses. By doing this, students were immediately engaged and also recognised the importance of forming a foundation before elaborating on ideas to form extended pieces of writing. As I was aware that students were more confi dent expressing ideas verbally, I facilitated a full debate showing students their potential of forming an argument before writing. My aim was to facilitate the debate, in order for the students to construct their own learning whilst experiencing a taste o f success. The task of agreeing or disagreeing was ‘ straightforward, and quickly achievable ’ (Petty, 2009), therefore all students felt motivated and involved instantly. Through the sharing of ideas, out loud, I was able to support my ‘ students ’ motivation by recognizing their achievements ’ (Seifert and Sutton, 2022) and praising their responses, before they had even written their articles. Working off the back of this success, students felt more confident when composing their articles, using the features f rom a success criterion to guide them. After, what I considered a successful lesson, I noticed engagement levels were high and this correlated with the standard of written work. It was clear, from the changes that I made, students wanted an active role i n what they were revising or studying. By feeling that they have ‘ control over their own learning [ ... ] ’ (Petty, 2009), with the additional elements of praise and success, students were able to produce a larger quantity of work, which was of a higher quality . Although, I am aware students will not always be able to have complete autonomy over the content they study, giving them more creative freedom and more time to think, results in a higher level of engagement and motivation from students to achieve well. ( PS1, PS3, PS4, PS7, PS9, PS10, PS13, PS14, PS16, PS17) Encouraging Pupils to read more Working in a school where most of the children are from disadvantaged backgrounds, we faced a large problem with reading ages, impacting the literacy levels across th e school. This in turn impacted the English attainment across, both, key stage 3 and 4. The average reading age for most of the students coming into year 7, was age 8. Many of the students were also home - schooled or EAL students, adding further obstacles t o their learning when they tried to access texts from the English curriculum. In one of my year 7 classes, student X was struggling to access the text ‘ The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas ’ . Although majority of the language was age appropriate, student X coul d not enjoy the story due to the difficulties she had whilst reading. Student X expressed that her dislike for English was primarily because she did not like reading. As a way to overcome the barrier, I decided to summarise the key events of the story with in lessons, before reading the actual text. Student X seemed immediately engaged with the text, as she could now follow what was happening, and by the end of the unit she was really excited to share the story with others in her year group. My experience with student X was eye - opening as I realised that many of the students within the school struggled to access texts because they had so little access to books at home. Their access to books was further limited due to covid restrictions, and th us, many of the students filtering through the school in the current years had less exposure to reading than their older counterparts. As a way to overcome this whole school barrier, I worked with the English department to address the reading and literacy issues across the school. There are many reasons why pupils should be encouraged to do lots of reading, some of the reasons being ‘ reading improves vocabulary, develops critical thinking skills, builds confidence, improves writing skills and broadens horiz ons ’ (Young Readers foundation, 2021). Integrating more opportunities for reading in my school is an ongoing journey and as a department we faced many challenges to encourage the pupils to read for pleasure, instead of see it as a punishment. The first ste p towards increasing the amount of reading carried out in school was to restructure the syllabus. During the week, there is now one assigned lesson for reading and SPAG across both key stages. The idea of this lesson was to complete a weekly spelling test and then collectively read a book for the remainder of the lesson. After they finish reading the book, students were to complete a short book review. The aim of this was to get the pupils to engage more deeply with what they are reading through conversat ion with their classmates; explore different authors and genres; and develop a passion for reading. Over the duration of a couple of months, I began noticing how some pupils were starting to feel more confident with reading aloud and the vocabulary in thei r own writing started to improve too. The pupil ’ s seemed to be enjoying reading lessons but majority of them still shared their disappointment with the variety of books available. The school I am working in is an independent school and the library is still in the beginning stages of being formed. I decided to make a call to the local library and asked if we could take our pupil ’ s there on a monthly basis to choose books. This was a huge turning point for myself and the pupil ’ s as they now had access to a ra nge of books and they were so enthusiastic about visiting an actual library. Where, at the beginning of the year, student X was achieving a grade 3 in her English Language and Literature exams, she had achieved a grade 5 by the end of the Summer 1 term. The data shows that student X ’ s attainment correlated with her increase in reading, as she started to become more comfortable and confident with deciphering texts she was reading. This is supported by the reading agency who state that children who read ‘ mo re than once a week at age 16, gain higher results in maths, vocabulary and spelling tests at age 16 than those who read less regularly ’ (TheReadingAgency,2022). I was pleased to see that the increase in reading, not only impacted reading ages, but allowe d students to pick up comprehension and analytical skills that they were able to transfer and apply to exams. This was evident in the end of term results: attainment of grade 4+ in year 7 increased by 14% from Autumn 1 to Summer 1; in year 9, attainment of grade 4+ had also increased by a significant 22% following the reading and literacy intervention. From this I could see that reading played a huge role in understanding and attainment across all subjects. Focusing on the development of literacy encouraged students to build transferable skills and this is an area that I will definitely continue to develop with my team. (PS1, PS2, PS3, PS5, PS6, PS8, PS9, PS10, PS13, PS14, PS17, PS18) Managing workload and stress Working in a school environment for the las t 9 years, I am familiar with the pressures and workload of teaching. However, returning to school amidst the covid lockdown was a difficult journey, where I found myself struggling to cope with the changes and build - up of work. Prior to the lockdown I had been on maternity leave, and therefore, I had already been re - adjusting and playing catch - up with changes that had been implemented whilst I was away. A major change was also occurring at the school, with a new headteacher starting. My biggest struggle wa s the workload which had increased, as there was a strong focus on closing the gap in learning for all of the students who fell drastically behind during lockdown. Majority of the students had failed to complete the work set during lockdown due to missing worksheets or limited access to online lessons. The school, therefore, decided the best way to support students was through after school/lunchtime intervention and catch - up clubs. Whilst the gap in knowledge was evident, I felt overwhelmed by the amount of paperwork and planning that this had added to my workload. Unfortunately, I found that very little support was being provided by the school and this was taking a toll on my mental health. There were several times where I found myself considering other o ccupations as I found that I did not have a work - life balance, in addition to being a new mum. Although I loved teaching, I felt that I was doing my students a disservice because I was not performing at my best; being one of two English teachers in the sch ool, I was taking on a large number of classes, whilst also running sessions for year 11s and completing other school roles and duties. I had fallen into a cycle of working over 12 hours a day on most weekdays, before going home in an exhausted manner. Fro m conversations with my mentor and family, I knew I had to take action and address how I was feeling. ‘ The three environmental factors which had the most influence on teacher wellbeing, job satisfaction, and risk of burnout were support from management, wo rkload and school culture ’ (Ainsworth,2013). When looking further into how I was feeling, I found that a large community of teachers were feeling underwhelmed by their jobs and it was only by being proactive people had overcome their issues. ‘ 74% of teache rs in 2020 said they experienced behavioural, psychological or physical symptoms due to work, with 53% considering leaving the teaching sector because of the pressures it has on mental health and well - being (Scanlan, D and Savill - Smith, C, 2021). I was uns ure as to whether I felt reassured by the idea I was not alone, or if this made me feel like there was a bigger problem in the teaching world. My first method of addressing these issues, was to ‘ overcome powerlessness with action ’ (Race,2007) by discussing my concerns with the senior leadership team (SLT) and my head of department (HoD). Whilst I didn ’ t necessarily get the desired reaction from SLT, my HoD was very empathetic and worked with me to ensure we were both managing the high workload through a tho rough process of organisation. We sat and delegated tasks well in advance and looked at which items needed prioritising. My HoD was also able to extend and postpone some deadlines for curriculum work for the upcoming year. These conversations also allowed me to make use of the administrative support in school; I was able to delegate photocopying, printing, cutting and display work to them. My outlook had changed with this little bit of support; I wanted to make ‘ self - care a priority ’ (Ainsworth,2013). I sta rted making lists of my tasks and prioritising my work. I found that having a physical list and ticking things off as I complete them, was satisfying and motivated me to continue working. Doing this made my workload seem manageable again. I assigned some t ime to sit and plan a week ’ s worth of lessons in advance, I asked other colleagues for some resources and tweaked them, which saved a lot of time. At the end of the day when I went home, I proactively spent time with my family and away from work - related ac tivities, in order to create boundaries for myself, re - creating a healthy work - life balance. Going through this difficult period made me realise ‘ If things don ’ t work out ’ , you try harder, and if this doesn ’ t work, you change your strategy ’ (Petty,2009). Although there were many positive changes, I still find myself in a difficult environment, as I am in a school with limited funding. The school has had to make many cuts to staff due to budgeting and SLT are often reluctant to address probl ems because of such limitations. I believe ‘ some common threats to teachers ’ self - esteem [ ... ] (such as) difficult parents, school inspections, lack of positive feedback ’ (Ainsworth,2013) can impede the productivity of teachers and in turn students, however I have learnt that being proactive in challenging obstacles is the only way to encourage positive changes. (PS6, Ps8, PS9, PS10, PS12, PS19, PS20) Student Wellbeing I have found that, over the years, one of my strengths has been building relationships w ith my students. My pastoral role of being a form tutor has allowed me to form strong relationships whilst setting clear expectations for learning and behaviour around the school. As a form tutor, I am often tasked with teaching the PSHE curriculum, which has allowed me to have more in - depth conversations about my students ’ thoughts and opinions on society and the areas they live in. I found that this was a great time to bond with my students as I was able to discuss stigmatised topics. I created a safe spa ce for my students and ensured that students were well informed of their rights. I wanted to ensure that all of my students felt comfortable with exploring different opinions and questions that they had, as many of the students were from a South - Asian back ground, in which many topics were considered to be taboo. ‘ In England and Wales, nearly one in five of us come from a BAME (Black, Asian and minority ethnic) background. Challenges such as racism, stigma and inequalities can affect the mental health of p eople from BAME communities ’ (MentalHealthFoundation,2021). Through conversation, I found that many of my students faced further prejudice and difficulties outside of school because they attend a single - sex faith school. I did not want to see my students s truggle with being confident and comfortable in themselves. Therefore, I took part in an initiative where we held meetings and workshops for parents, to help educate parents in safeguarding and well - being topics. As well as this, I have had training in matters such as mental health, grooming, self - harm and FGM. Whilst these issues are part of standardised safeguarding training, I felt that it was really important to have a refresher course on this, as I found the t raining very informative. Throughout the year, I found myself referring to this training several times as it was vital to follow safeguarding procedure and report issues with confidentiality. Coming from a minority ethnic background myself, I was able to r elate to the difficulties, both, the parents and their daughters had when trying to share concerns or safeguarding issues. I realised the importance of normalising the reporting of issues or discussing any emotional or psychological needs the students had. Following Covid19, the need for discussing mental health was even more necessary than before. On our full - time return to school, post - lockdown, I had put a box in my room so that students could post questions anonymously on any topic. These would be focus points in our PSHE lessons. I found that this was really beneficial for many of the students as I addressed many questions relating to stress and anxiety around the GCSE exam period, as well as other generic well - being questions. I was glad to be able to help students with thinking about coping mechanisms and techniques for dealing with workload and stress, because ‘ In some communities, mental health problems are rarely recognised or spoken about. They may be seen as shameful or embarrassing. ’ (MentalHealth Foundation,2021) A really big concern, many of my students had, were stereotypes. ‘ Society can have stereotyped views about mental ill health. Some people believe people with mental health problems are dangerous, when in fact they are at a higher risk of b eing attacked or harming themselves than hurting other people. ’ (MentalHealthFoundation,2021). I feel that having these open discussions in PSHE sessions has allowed us to break through some stereotypes, and I intend to continue battling these. Maslow ’ s Hie rarchy, suggests that ‘ physiological, security, social, and esteem needs are deficiency needs, which arise due to deprivation. Satisfying these lower - level needs is important to avoid unpleasant feelings or consequences ’ (Cherry,2022). Thus, I feel that if students do not have their basic needs and questions met, then they cannot focus and learn. Due to this, I want to ensure that I continue to work with the school to break the social barriers that my students face, to enable them to access help and advice a s they develop through school. A big step at the moment, which helps the students, is the use of the ‘ calm app ’ for breathing exercises and breaks in between lessons. Challenges of online learning Due to the Covid19 lockdown, schools across the country had to find alternative methods of teaching. My school decided that we would complete teaching online via Microsoft Teams. This was a new world for, both, myself and the students in which we were attempting to juggle our professional world within our pers onal environments. As a new mum, returning from maternity leave, into a virtual world of teaching, I found this to be an exciting but challenging task. I had not yet been in contact with any of my colleagues, other than my direct line manager, and I was ex pected to pick up from where the cover teacher had left off with my students. I quickly found that the lack of training in Microsoft Teams and online teaching made it difficult for me to connect with my students. In addition to this, many of my students often missed work or lessons due to limited access to IT or missing worksheets through the post. Many lessons seemed to be wasted as ‘ prior learning ’ was often having to be retaught, or students simply did not have enough time to complete work after resolv ing technical issues. I struggled to really connect with the students as it was not face to face teaching, thus managing expectations and compliance was also a challenge. I found I was ‘ limited in using least invasive methods of intervention ’ (Lemov,2015) as I could not use methods such as non - verbals during my live teach to correct any interruptions. The government guidelines for remote education stated, ‘ The remote education curriculum needs to be aligned to the classroom curriculum as much as possible. ’ (Ofsted,2021). However, despite our intentions, I found this to be unsuccessful as the inconsistency in attendance and catching - up made it too difficult for students to work at an even pace with their peers. One student in my form class had really struggle d during the lockdown as she shared her computer with siblings, meaning only one sibling could be online at a time. It was difficult to know that many of my students, who came from disadvantaged backgrounds, would be massively impacted by the pandemic be cause of access issues. In cases like this, it was unsustainable for students to constantly try to catch up with work they had missed, usually with limited or no support from teachers. My workaround for this, was to create workbooks that had detailed instr uctions for each lesson: I had to create the workbooks, arrange for them to be printed and posted out or collected from school. I then checked in with students via phone calls. This in itself was a time - consuming task, so students still had to wait a while before receiving the resources. Whilst the government relayed further advice, such as, ‘ it ’ s harder for pupils to concentrate when being taught remotely, it ’ s often a good idea to divide content into smaller chunks ’ (Ofsted,2021), I found that this was st ill impractical. I felt that the school could not take on all of the Ofsted advice because of its limited funding and resources, including IT equipment and number of teachers. Attempting to remain in good spirits and approach this new situation optimistica lly, I continued to teach online at the best of my ability. I had to find a solution to keep students engaged and motivated, and so I experimented with the function of ‘ Break out rooms ’ where students can be put into groups and work together. This was work ed really well as this gave them the opportunity to communicate with their peers and feel a little relaxed when completing tasks, as I was in and out of different break - out rooms. I would assign topics to students in their groups and they would follow crit eria to put together presentations. This allowed me to be a facilitator and let them take onus of their learning. I incorporated small breaks in between tasks, as this gave them some time to move away from their screens, get a drink/snack and sit down to l earn, feeling refreshed. This also allowed me some time to move away from the screen and do the same. I realised quickly that ‘ breaks are an essential part of learning. But the benefits extend beyond the psychological well - being of students. Particularly f or younger students, regular breaks throughout the school day can be an effective way to reduce disruptive behaviour ’ (Terada,2018). Maintaining social skills amongst the students was also a priority for me as lots of them had difficult home lives and sch ool was the only place, they were able to see their friends. Some students were expressing how they missed seeing their friends and just wanted some time where they can all talk and share what their life in lockdown has been like. Therefore, during registr ation every morning, I allowed my students to spend 10 - 15 minutes speaking to each other and they really looked forward to this time every day. I noticed a more positive attitude in them. I suggested this idea to all form tutors and once we all started doi ng this attendance started to improve. According to Maslow ’ s Hierarchy ‘ basic needs must be met [ ... ] In order to achieve ultimate goals ’ (Cherry, 2022). I felt that having contact with others was a basic need for my students and allowing them the opportunit y to socialise in a structured environment boosted their interaction and engagement in lessons. Upon my students ’ return to school in March 2021, following the final lockdown, my team and I had to construct a ‘ bridge the gap ’ unit in order to ensure we r etaught topics that built the foundations for upcoming units. We continued to focus on closing the gap in learning for the remainder of the academic year. However, unfortunately, in September 2021, the school had seen its worst results in Autumn 1 data, wh ereby KS3 had an average grade 4+ of 25 - 33% across all year groups. Key stage 4 had a grade 4+ rate of 39 - 45%. It is clear that the pandemic resulted in lots of suffering within the educational field and ‘ the loss was more pronounced for children from disa dvantaged socio - economic backgrounds than for other children ’ (Ofsted,2021). This has urged me to do more for the students within my school, whilst also accepting that some situations cannot be controlled, but we as teachers must do our best to encourage o ur students to succeed, both, academically and socially. (PS1, PS2, PS3, PS4, PS5, PS6, PS7, PS8, PS9, PS10, PS11, PS12, PS13, PS14, PS15, PS16, PS18, PS19) References Ainsworth, S. (2013). What is resilience for a teacher? Available at: https://www.futurelearn.com/info/courses/succeed - as - a - new - teacher/0/steps/147289 [Accessed 18th May 2022]. Cherry, K., (2022) . How Maslow's Famous Hierarchy of Needs Expl ains Human Motivation . Verywell Mind. Available at: https://www.verywellmind.com/what - is - maslows - hierarchy - of - needs - 4136760 [Accessed 25th May 2022]. 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