As a teacher it is your responsibility to be able to cater the work for all levels of abilities within the class. If you have a range of ages then you may especially find that there is a vast range of abilities too. You need to be able to create one lesson that allows children to interact at different levels. If the work is too easy then the children will get bored and start to play up, if the work is too hard they may give up trying.  Teaching mixed abilities can make lesson planning a little bit more difficult... Read More »

Reading is a very important skill for adults and children and is something that we all use daily within our lives. If your child attends a nursery, they will start to be taught the basics of reading often by helping them to recognise certain letters and the sounds they make. This is sometimes done using “jolly phonics” which is a fun song all about letters and the sounds they make. When your child starts school they will very quickly progress to starting to be able to put these sounds together to read words. Often the first books they are given... Read More »

Research has shown that lessons which engage children are often more effective and allowing children to get involved in a task can help aid their learning. Obviously it is not possible to get children actively involved in everything you teach them, but most lessons can include a certain amount of practical time. When it comes to teaching maths, some children can find it quite boring and can easily get distracted. Try setting them work where they work in groups or pairs to solve a problem and try and make it fun. Often by using items for them to count with... Read More »

As a teacher, your time is probably very limited and the smallest thing can knock your whole day or even week out of sync. All teachers have to plan lessons and mark work along with other task such as organise trips, carry out progress checks and hold parents evenings etc and fitting this all in to your day can be hard work. Far too many teachers are leaving the profession due to stress and are reporting time constraints as one of the biggest issues. Many teachers are suddenly expected to do extra work but are not given any time to... Read More »

When my child first started school I was surprised at how many picture books she was given as reading material with very little or no words in. I felt that my child had started to grasp reading a little and was able to recognise and start to spell out certain words and wondered if using only picture books may set her back. After speaking to a number of teachers I realised the importance of picture books in learning and that they too have a great advantage to teaching. Picture books can be a great way to start a conversation with... Read More »