Olympics in the Classroom: Part Two

Continuing her blog series Bringing Olympics to the Classroom, Primary Teacher Caitlin has some more great ideas!  

Rounding

Display the times from an Olympic event or if possible give each student a copy of them. The results from the 2008 400m sprint can be found at http://trackandfield.about.com/od/sprintsandrelays/a/olym400results.htm

Ask students to complete the following questions:

• Round each time to the nearest .5
• Who got silver?
• Who took the bronze?
• How much did first place beat second place by?
• What was the time difference between first and last place?
• How much faster would 4th place have needed to be to get the bronze medal?
• Which runner was closest to 45 seconds and what was the difference?
• How much faster was the male gold medallist than the female gold medallist?

Graphing the Chariot Races

Have students find a partner and give each pair two straws, a timer and a cotton wool ball. Each student must blow their cotton ball from a starting point to a finish line while their partner times how long this takes. Bring the class together as a group and record each score on the whiteboard.

Ask the students-

·         Who wins, silver and bronze medals?

·         How many people blew the ball faster than (name a child)

·         How could we display this information to another class so that it would be easy to interpret?

·         Have the students choose six people and create a graph display their results in their maths book or on a blank sheet of paper. Ask early finishers to write some facts about the graph. Eg. Simon blew the ball 2.2 seconds faster than Claire.

Symmetry

Print out a range of countries flags and display them on the white board. Ask students if there anything they notice about these flags?

Anything that links them?

How are they the same or different?

Explain that they are the flags which represent some of the countries competing in the Olympic Games.

Give the students a sheet which displays the flags you have talked about.

Cut and paste the flags into categories of ‘symmetrical’ and ‘non symmetrical’. If you have access to hand mirrors this may help some of the children.

Problem solving

The original Olympic Games began in Greece in the year 776. The modern Olympics started in 1896 and have occurred every four years since. How many years ago were the first Olympic Games? How many games has there been since 1896?

~ by Caitlin, a Primary Teacher working in Manchester schools through Protocol Education. Click here to read more by Caitlin.

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Olympics in the Classroom: Part One

Caitlin is a Primary School Teacher working through Protocol Education, and you can read her previous blogs here.

Bringing the Olympics to the Classroom

 As the London Olympic Games approach supply teachers can be thankful, we can engage children in learning by using a current event and we can create those personal connections to learning and give the students a sense of ownership, the Olympic Games are taking place in our own backyard (Having lived in Britain for a year today I am granting myself the right to call it my backyard too).  

In the next few months students will be immersed in the events and celebrations surrounding the games. The Olympic Torch relay will come within 10miles of 95% of people living in the UK, giving all residents a chance to be involved and soak up the Olympic spirit. To help students to get the most out of the Olympic Games I am hoping to implement some Olympic themed activities into my supply teaching. A Google search will give you loads of ideas, and below are some numeracy activities which I have adapted and made my own. Keep an eye out over the next few months I am intending to create and share Olympic activities to cover other areas of the curriculum.

Measurement-The Javelin Toss

You will need tape measures for this activity.

Talk about the technique of the javelin toss, show images of a javelin event if you have an IWB. Explain that the students are going to be involved in a javelin toss of their own. Have students each make a paper aeroplane, create some space in the classroom or use the hall if possible. Have students stand along a line and throw their plane. Ask them to measure the distance of their throw and record it. Repeat this twice more. You could have finals if time permits. If you only have a couple of tape measures you could send small groups a time outside do complete the activity with a teaching assistant, or send them into the corridor and leave the classroom door open.

Back in the classroom record the results on the white board. Who receives bronze, silver and gold?

Look at the distances of your three throws, did you improve? How much by?

Ask students to convert their measurements into meters, centimetres and millimetres.

Olympic relay

Prepare a set of questions which focus on your current maths unit, or just use the operations.

Divide the class into groups of four or five. Have the groups choose a country competing in the games as their team name. Provide one student from each group with a question and let them work out their answer on the whiteboard. When they have completed the problem correctly the next student from their group comes to the board to answer a question. The first group to finish all of the problems accurately wins the race.

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Golden Time: Creative Play in the Classroom!

Gareth is a Secondary Teacher from Australia currently teaching in West London schools through Protocol Education.  

 There is nothing more enjoyable than playing with a cardboard box. It is the blank canvas of the third dimension. You can use it to make a boat, fort, car or house – mind you the latter should not be encouraged too heavily.

The advent of Internet games and You Tube has changed the landscape of play. Children will spend a lot more time pressing buttons and being entertained by screens. But sitting at the front of a Year One class during ‘Golden (Free) Time’, it becomes evident the art of play is not lost.
One group of boys are completing a Ben 10 Alien Force jigsaw puzzle. Sure they wouldn’t know who Ben 10 was if it weren’t for television. But Ben has successfully led them back into their own reality where they are now completing a challenge that will improve their cognitive skills. They also, heaven forbid, will have to talk to each other if their puzzle is to be a success. The image on the puzzle reminds me of some humorous animated shorts I saw on You Tube. I contemplate playing these to the class now, but am distracted by a student requesting glue sticks.

“What do you need a glue stick for?” I respond sharply, fearing the inevitable sticky situation this could lead to.

“I’m doing some art in my book.”

“But this isn’t art time. It’s Golden Time.”

“Sir,” she says. “Miss always lets us use glue during…”

I cave and hand her a glue stick.

Sometimes it seems the You Tube generation struggle with the art of creation because they’re too busy with the art of consumption. Sitting by their computers they watch clip after clip, feeding their short attention spans with high impact moments of entertainment. Too often a student will claim, “I don’t know what to write” during a creative writing exercise.

Write anything! Planting even the smallest seed can lead students on a fantastic tangent. I’ve had Year 8s writing about golf obsessed mermaids, exploding fast food chains, melodramatic vampires and promiscuous princesses. Encourage a fusion of the modern with the past. One pair of Year 11’s wrote a rather graphic story about a prostitute. While some of the content was questionable they had allowed their over-consumption of British gangster movies to inspire a rather cohesive piece of writing. And these were students in a remedial English class – in Australia, which demonstrates a certain global awareness of cultures.

Looking over to the home corner, there are students hurriedly preparing a three course meal of plastic broccoli and rubber steak. A mild domestic fight breaks out with one student claiming another has put too much food in the microwave, not before being reminded that they forgot to bring the milk home. Clearly there is no need to watch American sitcoms when we can create them ourselves in the home corner.
I interrupt, what could potentially become a drawn out AVO in the family court, and demand a plate of food be prepared for me. Everyone is now on side again in an attempt to impress their illustrious leader. A co-operative scramble is made for the oven and fridge, with everything placed in a giant kettle for my devouring – not a scrap is left for the meagre peasants, but they are happy in the knowledge they have appeased my appetite.

Returning to the chair at the front of the room I am approached by glue stick girl.

“Look what I’ve made.”

She holds up a piece of paper with pencil sharpenings glued to it. Cleverly she has drawn a picture of a cat with the glue, so the sharpenings are now stuck to the page as such, revealing a rather crusty looking cat.

Sure we would have used beach sand for the same activity back in Australia, but I acknowledge her resourcefulness to find a use for the sharpenings. She is rewarded by being told to fold the sheet up carefully and not spill any loose sharpenings on the carpet.

It is reassuring these students can play without the art of technology. Children should be able to make fun with nothing more than cardboard boxes and art supplies. Children still are. Don’t drown them with You Tube. Reignite teenager’s imaginations with a simple, yet absurd, suggestion of fantasy. Trigger an adult’s inner child by placing a stuffed giraffe toy between their arms.

There’s nothing on TV this afternoon, kids. It’s time to go home and build a space station out of that empty refrigerator box.

~ Gareth is a Secondary Trained Teacher from Australia who is currently working in London schools through Protocol Education. Click here to read more by Gareth.

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Classroom Games: Banana Monkey!

Megan is a Primary Teacher working in Manchester Schools through Protocol Education. Click here to read more by Megan.

In my last post I wrote about the Game Cloud that I use to reward good behaviour. Here are a couple of the games that I use, depending on the age group, as the end of day game reward.

MY favourite: Banana Monkey   

Banana Monkey is my all-time favourite game. It's sort of like the game 'Taboo' for you board game enthusiasts. First of all, you need to choose two students to start off the game. I often choose the two who "have demonstrated excellent behaviour all day" and then have two chairs facing the class for them to sit in. Behind them should be a white board or smart board of some kind for writing on. The object of the game is to guess the word that is written on the board behind them.

For the Younger Children

For younger kids, obviously you need to keep in mind that all or most of the children should know how to read the words that you write. I often have kids that are so excited that they can read the word on the board that they end up shouting it out before the chosen students get a chance to guess! If, for example, I had the word "BANANA" written on the board, one of the words that a student in the class might use as a hint would be "MONKEY"! As the teacher you should choose students who have their hands up to give these ONE-WORD ONLY HINTS. You really need to try and stick to this rule about one-word hints only or you'll get kids who will go "Okay so it's the same size as a cucumber but yellow" ... which will obviously just not work as well!

For the Older Children

For older children I choose harder words that they really have to think about what the meaning is, and what synonyms could be for the word... an example might be "MAGNIFICENT" to which they could use "amazing," "wonderful," "glorious," etc. I also try to use things from their current curriculum, so if they're studying the Vikings, they use "VIKING" as a word. The two students at the front are the only two students who can guess the word (obviously), and the first to shout out the right answer gets to stay in their spot and you get to choose another brilliantly behaved child to come and take his/her place. 

Around the World

If I don't have as much time left this is quick but fun game to play with a few minutes left in the morning or afternoon. Many of you have likely heard of this one, but I like to use countries in particular for this game. This one is usually only used with Key Stage 2 students for countries. You have one student standing behind another student's chair and you offer up a letter. The first person who says the name of a country beginning with that letter gets to continue on. The person who gets it wrong sits or stays sat at that chair. The object is to be the student who can get furthest "around the world." Depending on the competitiveness of the class I may or may not keep track of who gets the furthest. If it's going to cause any messing about, then I won't. You can use this in Key Stage 1 as well and use the names of fruit or vegetables or things to do with Christmas or Easter, or Summer etc. This is a great, quick game that the kids love to play!

These are my two go-to games at the end of the day. I'd love to hear some of yours.

Happy Teaching!

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Introducing Talk NQT

Kiran is author of “Let’s Take This Outside: Teaching Mathematics Away from the Classroom” as well as creator and owner of TalkNQT.co.uk. Kiran is a Maths NQT in a Buckinghamshire school.

Even though you interact with upwards of 200 people a day, are constantly in meetings and have millions more people to talk to, it’s surprising how lonely being a new teacher can be.

It’s hard. Your timetable has increased from 50% to around 80% in the blink of eye, and that person at the back of the classroom judging you has gone along with that safety net. These are your students now, you are solely responsible for their education. You could be the difference between them donating millions to homeless charities or needing someone to give them money in the street. You’re surrounded by people who have so much to say every other thing that comes out of their mouth is an acronym… APP, APC, PLD, PLTS… OMG!

What if you don’t understand these phrases? Can you ask someone what they mean? Who can you ask? Is it too stupid a question to ask? Will it tarnish my reputation? Will they laugh at me in front of the staff room? Will they realise I’m incompetent and cut my contract?

At the end of January, half way through my first year, I wanted to quit, and I talked to my mentor about it. Although he was very supportive, I still didn’t feel happy. I then spoke to one of my friends who was on my PGCE course. Turns out he went through the same time a couple of weeks beforehand. I can’t fully remember what we said, but I do know I felt a lot better about school and life afterwards. After speaking to a few other teachers I knew, I discovered that there are a lot of schools where there is only one PGCE, NQT, GTP etc. That’s when the idea of TalkNQT.co.uk was born.

My hope is that it will be become a community where new teachers can log on to ask questions, give support and share ideas, resources and successes with other new teachers. We may be at different stages in our lives, teaching different subjects and ages, and be at different schools, but we’re all going through this journey of highs and lows together.

Whether you’d like to ask a question, get support, share ideas and resources, or recount a success story, TalkNQT.co.uk is the place for you!

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My Teaching Profession: Keeping Positive

Cathryn is an Australian-Trained Teacher living and teaching in London through Protocol Education.
 
My Saving Grace

Half-term has finally finished, and – just like at home – the last two weeks of term mean ratty kids.  If you’re anything like me, you’re going to start wondering why you made the decision to take on a long term placement, let alone teach in the first place – marking is piling up, you’ve handed out more detentions in a week than you have in the last four, and you’ve got heaps of cover work because other teachers are sick. 

Yeah, so am I.  Sick of the place.

I say this all tongue in cheek of course, because even my worst day teaching is better than my best day anywhere else, but some days are harder than others.  There’s only so many lessons you can teach before your patience runs out and you have to put on your scary face.  So I’ve created a “haven” around my desk – I’m fortunate enough to have my own room, which is only used by other teachers four periods a week, but the ideas could be put into a diary or a little book small enough to carry around.

My haven includes cards and letters given to me by students that are more than the generic “Thanks for teaching me” – they’ve got a special message.  One of them is a card cut into the shape of an apple, with a touching message written inside.  I’ve also got the names of kids written on a list that have made a special mark on my teaching career, like the girl who decided to concentrate on school rather than her drugs because she realised she had a choice to be more than she was; or the girl who stopped cutting because she felt like she could trust me enough to talk to when she had a bad day, and know that I would point her in the right direction. I’ve also got a photo that was given to me by the group of kids I worked with before I got into Education, and were the reason I went into it in the first place, and every time I look at it, I can’t help but smile and say a little thank you.   It’s because of them that I’ve finally found my place in the world.

We’re in the business of more than education – we’re here to change lives.  I know that sounds a little cliché, but for me, and most of my friends, that’s the reason we got into teaching; because we know the power of wisdom, and we know the influence we have on the future.  And every day, as the song goes, “I thank God for choosing me… for I have the privilege to teach.”

So if you’re having a bad week, or you feel like you’re drowning in your marking (as I write this, I’m looking at a pile of 70 stories to read and about 150 books to mark in a week.  And no, I’m not exaggerating.), take an hour and create your own safe-haven.  Make your own reminder of why you’re a teacher.  It doesn’t need to be much – it might even be a business card size slip that you keep in your wallet.  All it needs to be is something that helps you remember the reason you’re here.  Why are you teaching?  Why are you doing it in London?  Why is this actually the best thing you’ll ever do with your life?

One image that might help you to do it – Imagine this.  You’re in a class full of rioting teenagers.  You’re there, pulling your hair out, on the verge of tears, and all of a sudden you stop.  In a moment of calm, you reach into your bag, and pull out a little book or card, and all of a sudden you laugh really loud.  One kid sees you, and asks you what you’re laughing at, and you don’t respond, but merely keep smiling and looking at the card.

Then they all ask.  Peace and quiet ensues.  All because of a little bit of card.

~ by Cathryn, an Australian Teacher working in London schools through Protocol Education. Click here to read more by Cathryn.
 
Related Blogs and Pages

An Australian Teacher's guide to UK Teaching
The Australian Teacher Blog: Lessons Learned in London
The Behaviour Management Guide

The Protocol Education Australia Website

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Drama Role Play in the Primary Classroom

Caitlin is a Primary School Teacher working in Manchester through Protocol Education, and you can read her previous blogs here.

Drama Role Play Scenarios

I have completed this drama activity twice while supply teaching. Once with year 3-4 and the second time was with year 6 who had previously mentioned they were worried about beginning high school and being bullied. If you have a particularly difficult class whilst on supply then I wouldn’t recommend it as students can be difficult to manage when they are involved in drama. It can be tricky to control the noise level and of course children can get carried away with ridiculous story lines and props and all go a bit nuts! However if you do have a somewhat sensible class it is a lot of fun and it’s a good, inclusive way to spend an hour at the end of the day.
 
How to Begin...

 

For an introduction ask the students to share an issue at school they have had in the past. Eg. Not being included in a game, a friend constantly copying your class work.

 

Explain to the students that you are going to divide them into groups of four. Each group will be given a scenario, see below. They must write a three minute script and perform the scenario with a positive solution. You could go one step further and ask them to perform both a positive and negative solution.

 

Divide the students into groups, try to ensure an even number of boys and girls and give them the paper explaining their scenario. While they are working move some of the tables so there is plenty of room for a stage. It usually takes the students about 20 minutes for the students to write their script and rehearse their play and 30 minutes for performances including reflection questions. Before the performances begin discuss the qualities of a ‘good audience’ eg. Facing the front, not fiddling, listening and clapping at the end.

 

Scenarios

1. Chloe and Ella decided to do their project together. Chloe took it home on the weekend to complete but left it at home on Monday and did not complete her part of it as promised.
2. No matter how many times he asks, the boys won’t let Anthony join in the lunchtime football game.
3. It is Amanda’s birthday party this weekend. You expect to get an invitation but you don’t. All your friends are invited.
4. Your best friend continually tells you what you should wear, how you should look and what you should do to be ‘cool’. You are happy they way you are.
5. Jake and Sam decide to walk home from school the long way. They see two classmates damaging a telephone box.
6. You plan to see a movie with friends during the school holidays, but no one can agree on what to see. Your best friend becomes upset and says she won’t go if she doesn’t get her pick.
7. You bring your CD collection to school. Antonio tells the class that you listen to ‘baby stuff’.
8. Marianna has lots to tell her friends but no one is listening to her. Every time she speaks someone interrupts and speaks over her.
9. Dimitri pays for Ivan’s lunch and bus fare because Ivan left his money at home. Ivan promised to pay the money back to Dimitri as soon as he got home.
10. Emma tells her friend a secret. She trusted her friend not to tell anyone, but when she returned to the class two other girls knew.

 

Reflection Questions

 

At the end of each performance ask some of the following questions

• Who can identify what the problem was?
• What did you like about the group’s performance?
• Do you think the group resolved the problem effectively?
• Is this something that could happen to you?
• Have you ever been in a situation similar to this? What did you do?
• Why do you think I chose your groups instead of letting you choose your own?

 

If you have some scenarios that haven’t been used yet and some time left you could choose some of more outgoing students to be involved in an impromptu play.

 

Related Blogs and Pages

 

Behaviour Management: Is Traditional Teaching Best?

How Technology Enhances Teaching

Teaching Jobs in Manchester

 

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Teaching RE in London: Secondary Teacher Gareth

This is a debut blog from Gareth, a Secondary Teacher from Australia who is currently working in West London through Protocol Education. 

Teaching RE

“Excuse me sir, my mother says I’m not allowed to write about Islam.”

Another opportunity for students to avoid work has reared its ugly head. The main issue with this statement is simply the students’ (or perhaps even parents’) inability to distinguish between learning about religions and practising religions.

Teaching religion in a mixed school, which does not follow one religion in preference to another is surely a difficult task. On the one hand, students who are not religious will feel compromised by having to discuss or learn such subject matter, whilst on the other hand the religious will be equally strong in their view that they be taught only their own.

A Year 5 class I taught last week were taking notes on Islamic artefacts. One of the tasks was to write Allah’s name on their page in Arabic. A few students brought it to my attention that it was disrespectful to have anything else underneath Allah’s name on the page. So we all turned the page, wasting the remaining three quarters of the page and continuing on the following side.

The next issue came when we had to copy down symbols from other religions. Some students were reluctant to include these because their parents had told them that writing anything about another religion would promote that religion, when they should only be promoting their own.

Perhaps these are all simply work avoidance tactics by the students. But equally, it is fair concern to not tread too harshly on the toes of each person’s set of beliefs and morals.

At no point were the students asked to pray to a God. The students were not asked to fast over Lent. They were not told that the meat between their sandwich must be Kosher. No one was taken outside for a good stoning because they cheated on their wife.

Simply we were having a lesson. Perhaps it would be better if the content of the lessons was just included in History or Citizenship classes. Then it could be presented in a matter of fact way without including the students’ emotional and subjective attachments to a particular religion.

A slightly more encompassing approach in one school was to teach on a theme, where students comment on the theme based upon what their belief system was. However this too can be limiting if the students don’t know terribly much about their religion; or alternatively if they have no religion at all.

Back in Australia’s New South Wales, part of this problem was dealt with by introducing ethics classes for students not wanting to sit in on religious classes. The introduction of the classes last year was met with a mix of support and backlash, with one politician claiming ethics classes were similar to Nazi and communist philosophies. Whether they are right or wrong with such a forthright claim is by the by. The concern is the complex arguments and conflicts students, parents, teachers and politicians continue to have over teaching religion in a secular classroom.

Perhaps as the old adage goes, “don’t speak about politics or religion”, is the best policy. In the meantime, we as teachers must approach these classes in the most diplomatic way, especially when the classroom is filled with a cohort of differing belief structures.

~ by Gareth, a Secondary Teacher working in London schools through Protocol Education. This is Gareth's first blog, so why not comment below?

Related Blogs and Pages

Supply Teaching in East London: The Schools
London Secondary Teachers: Try SEN!
Secondary Teaching Jobs in London

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Desperately Seeking... Teachers! The Latest Vacancies

These are the latest vacancies from Protocol Education. To apply for any of these roles please email your CV to cro@protocol-education.com quoting the reference for the vacancy.

We are looking for the following...

Teachers and Teaching Assistants of all levels for supply work in Colchester and Clacton. Ref: Colchester

A Year Two Teacher for a part-time role in Southall, Ealing, West London. The days would be all-day Monday, all-day Wednesday and half days on Tuesday and Thursday. The focus for this role is on improving attainment, and is quite a demanding position. QTS preferred. Ref: Southall Year Two


A Year One Teacher for a part-time role in Southall, Ealing. The days would be Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. British trained or QTS preferred. Ref: Southall Year One

Teachers and Teaching Assistants of all levels for supply work in Norfolk, Suffolk and Peterborough. Ref: Norfolk

To find teaching and other school-based roles in your area please use our Teaching Jobs Search.

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Teaching in Manchester: The Game Cloud

Here is a post by supply teacher Megan, who works in Manchester schools through Protocol Education.

The Game Cloud

Well, I've been away from it since last July... teaching that is, and with work likely for this week, it's got me thinking about my "start of the day" routine that I begin each supply day with. I began supply teaching through Protocol two years ago, and after reading a fun article before I started about various ways to engage the children and gain their interest right away I decided to utilize "The Game Cloud" as my fun little "game" for the day, also known as my sneaky classroom management technique!

Quiet Down, Class!

I start off by drawing a big cloud on the board and ask the kids if they know what that might be, and unless they've had me before, they usually don't know. I say that this is no ordinary cloud, and explain that I want to have a great day with them and one of my favourite things to do is share with my new classes the best game in the world... BUT we can only play it at the end of the day, and only if they earn it. I ask the children what sort of things I would be looking for to earn the game, and kids are usually great at saying things like "putting your hand up before speaking," and "doing your work." If they're putting their hands up and not shouting out at this point, I usually go to the Game Cloud and put the number 10 in right away and say "look, that's how easy it is! You're all listening really well, you're raising your hand and giving me your full attention, so I've put 10 minutes in the game cloud for your game at the end of the day!" And they're all chuffed to bits at this point. Then I explain how you can also lose minutes that you earn as well, and then hear their thoughts on what sort of things might cause this to happen.

Give Them an Incentive

I then end on a happy note and give them a bit of a challenge; I usually say something like "I had one class earn 30 minutes for a game at the end of the day! That's the most any other class has ever earned! Do you think you all can beat that record?" And usually the class erupts in unison that yes of course they can! I refer back to the game cloud constantly, and often I don't even have to use my words to express disappointment with behaviour, all I would have to do is change the minutes and they get themselves and their peers back in line when they see this.

Plan a Great Game

I also never tell them what game they'll be playing, which keeps up the excitement and mystery throughout the day, I just assure them it's "the best game ever" and that it's very unlikely they've ever played it before! Feel free to use the Game Cloud for your supply teaching, and I'd be happy to hear if anyone has a different idea they use to start off the day! Perhaps in my next blog I'll tell you all about my "best games ever" that I use, depending on the age level.

~by Megan, a primary teacher working in Manchester schools through Protocol Education. Click here to read more by Megan.

Register for Teaching Jobs here.
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Teaching in East London Schools: The Classes

 Bev is a Primary and Secondary Trained Canadian Teacher, who has made the move to East London UK through Protocol Education. This is her second blog entry, her first was about East London Schools!

I have been supply teaching in London for the past 4 months so I think it’s safe to say that I’ve had a range of experiences when it comes to schools, classes, hectic mornings, smooth mornings and overall good days and bad days- thankfully majority have been good! I started with Schools, now let's move on to Classes...

Classes

First things first, I was told that I would cry on my first day of supply teaching in London…..well guess what I didn’t!!  And to this day I still haven’t cried! People kept telling me that the kids over here are so poorly behaved and that they would drive me to tears. I think supply teaching anywhere (whether in Canada or the UK) requires a different kind of behaviour management than if you were the regular teacher.

Kids will be kids and most times they will try to take advantage of a supply teacher and they are obviously going to misbehave a bit. Yes, you will need to be quite strict at times and obviously utilize your behaviour management techniques some days more than others, but supply teaching in the UK is definitely not as bad as people made it out to be. I find most classrooms I enter have a behaviour policy set in place so my advice is to find out what that behaviour policy is and use it.

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Finding A Place To Stay... in London!

The Big Move

Your bags are packed, and you have left Mum and Dad at the airport and you’re on your way.  London is waiting for you in just a few …. hours.   

London is a fantastic place to visit for a week or two, to take in the sights, sounds, and odd smells of the oldest food markets or the history that awaits you around every corner.

London is even better if you’re looking to stay for longer to get the most out of Europe using London as a hub to visits all the places you have dreamed and read about.

For any adventure you need a good base to start from, somewhere that is well located that offers you the flexibility to explore. Short term affordable dorms, private rooms or studios are always a great place to start; paying weekly gives you flexibility and the ability to really get a feel for London and find your feet while you explore or look for UK teaching work.

If you are looking for more of a permanent base for getting started, a long term room or studio will allow you to form great relationships, develop new friends and still explore all that London and Europe has to offer and return to your own place, to plan your next exciting trip.

Accommodation London offers a wide selection of accommodation options for both Short term and Long term to suit a wide range of budgets.  So if you’re in London or looking to be in London soon or even just looking for a place between trips.  Look us up and we will be happy to go over any of our accommodation options in more depth and help you hit the ground running for your next big adventure.


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Teaching in East London Schools: Part One

This blog is by Bev, a Primary and Secondary Trained Canadian Teacher working in East London schools through Protocol Education. This is her first blog!

I have been supply teaching in London for the past 4 months so I think it’s safe to say that I’ve had a range of experiences when it comes to schools, classes, hectic mornings, smooth mornings and overall good days and bad days- thankfully majority have been good! Let’s start with schools. 

Part One: The Schools

I live and work in East London and I would say I’ve supplied at about 15-20 different schools in my surrounding area. As I’m sure you’ve guessed, each school is different and offers a different experience for teaching. There’s that old saying- don’t judge a book by it’s cover. I think this saying applies well to my supply teaching thus far. I have learned that you can’t walk into a school and judge how the students will be based on the area the school is located or whether the school has funding or not. I have walked into some beautiful schools in some well-off neighbourhoods and have actually found some of those kids to pose more behavioural challenges than at schools that are located in rougher neighbourhoods.

I’ve learned to enter each school with no presumptions. I really had no expectations of what the schools would be like in East London when I first arrived and overall I’m very pleased with the schools I’ve supplied at. I can sum up the 15-20 schools I’ve supplied at in the following very boring but honest way: students-great, staff- great, overall experience- great. There is not one school that I’ve supplied at that I wouldn’t go back to.

~ by Bev, a Canadian Trained Teacher working in East London schools through Protocol Education. Click here to read more about working in East London schools.

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Working in SEN: A Secondary Teacher in London

Krissy is a Secondary-Trained Canadian Teacher currently working through Protocol Education, and this is her first entry to the Protocol Blog!

Have You Tried Working in SEN?

I spent Saturday night at home with my two flatmates (who also happen to be teachers) sharing a bottle of wine and catching up on each other’s lives (read: we’re broke like teachers normally are at the start of the year!). As we were talking about how the past week had been, it was my turn to share a few stories about my experience at the secondary school at which I am currently doing cover as a Year 3 Special Needs teacher. Before I could really say anything though, one flatmate said, “I could never do what you do!” The other quickly agreed, adding, “It takes a really special person to do that job.” 

I beg to differ. I mean, yes, I agree that I’m pretty darn special (ha ha), but being a Special Needs teacher requires the same qualities that any mainstream teacher has. You have to be a patient person to deal with the various issues that are bound to come up throughout the day. You have to like working with children. You have to implement behavioural management strategies on a daily basis. You have to facilitate student learning through planned lessons and then track that learning through completed work and student progress. After school clubs, lunch time duty and other school events that arise will require your support. You have to be organized and as efficient as possible. I could go on, but hopefully you get where I am going with this.

If you are a mainstream teacher, don’t allow yourself to think that you cannot work in a special needs school. Why not call up your agency and ask them to give you an opportunity to work in a special needs school for a week? I say one week because this will allow you the chance to not only develop a relationship with the children but also give you time to see the advantages and disadvantages of the entire experience. Some of you may leave with the knowledge that at least you tried it and it just wasn’t for you. But the ones who are left surprised  by how great the experience was will hopefully endeavour to seek special needs qualifications (like I am currently working towards) and enter into this very rewarding career that is crying out for more trained teachers! So please, give special needs schools a try! What have you got to lose?

~ by Krissy, a Canadian Teacher working in London Secondary Schools through Protocol Education.

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Meeting the Ofsted Inspector: Supply Teaching

Steve is a Primary Teacher working in Manchester schools through Protocol Education. Here is his latest entry to the ProtoBlog! 

Manchester Teacher Steve

Supply Meets Ofsted

Now that I'm doing a PhD in Ofsted, I expect to read about it in books and interview people about it. What I didn't expect was to get Ofsteded whilst doing a day's supply.

It is a highly surreal experience having an Ofsted inspector in your classroom as a daily supply. On the one hand, all the old memories come back of previous inspections; the Ghost of Inspectors Past, whose arrival (generally in the least well-prepared class of the inspection week) was met with fatigue-soaked dread. I had normally been up till the wee hours filling in massive lesson plans in minute detail, and cutting out bits of card which I hoped would produce fantastically productive pair work. Predictably enough, on the day, I would be too stressed and tired to remember the plan, or use the cards well.
As I worked my way up the ladder, there would be the additional stress of 'the interview', in which I would be expected to show that I had the correct systems in place (it's always about systems with Ofsted, isn't it?).

Here, though, none of that applied. I didn't know the pupils, and couldn't be expected to know them. I hadn't set the work, and in fact, if the inspector had come in a few minutes earlier, he would have seen the head of faculty and I working out what to do as the class came in the room.

And yet, pupils have the right to expect that they will learn something even when their regular teacher is away and the work is a bit ad hoc. And I agree with that. That's why I try to make sure that happens in all my supply lessons. It's also why the inspector was in my class in the first place; because Ofsted thinks so too.

In the event, it was a year 7 class reading their novel together for English; I allocated roles and we treated it like a read-through for a play. Not my idea; it's what their usual teacher had been doing. But it was fun and engaging for most of them, though I'm sure the inspector managed to pounce on the two or three who were staring out of the window.

I must admit though; I was dying to grab him and quiz him on why he thought his judgments were valid and reliable. (That's one for the sociologists out there!)

~ by Steve, a Primary Teacher working in Manchester schools through Protocol Education. Click here to read more by Steve. 

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