Reflective Approaches To Teaching And Learning

I bring a creative approach to teaching and planning, as creativity is an important part of who I am. I use a variety of resources and methods of delivery and learning to engage and motivate children. Whilst providing PPA, I had the confidence from teachers to alter plans and plan lessons using these approaches. These lessons received praise for my content and methods of delivery. I use first hand experiences to immerse and engage children throughout topics. My classroom reflects this and during my PGCE, using the topic of Space, I immersed the classroom with visual displays of knowledge and work, a questioning wall, well-resourced reading and research areas, and physical resources such as planets and stars. The children became engrossed, which was reflected in work brought in from time spent researching at home. Being a keen learner, I feel it is important to instil a love of learning within children, which these creative approaches promote.

Assessment is another of my strengths. I can judge what stage in their progress a child has realised, justifying this with evidence, identifying next steps and informing planning. I believe in meaningful, challenging targets, supporting children to meet or exceed them and reach their full potential, building on prior

I use self-assessment techniques such as traffic lights on work and success criteria grids, to involve children in their learning. These techniques, with consistent and relevant marking, promote strong and sustained progress, highlighting success and providing challenges to extend learning. This understanding of assessment was vital to one of my greatest achievements, where 9 out of 10 Year 2 children who did not pass the phonics screening in Year 1, passed it on their second attempt after my intervention