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Author Archives: Pei-Hsuan Lin
GCSE and A-level changes give pupils advance warning of exam content
Two years of replacement grades, after exams were cancelled, have had significantly higher results, for GCSEs and A-levels
Teenagers in England will be given advance warning of some exam content next year because of disruption caused by Covid, the government says.
New plans also say GCSE and A-level students should sit three sets of mock exams to help decide grades, if exams are cancelled.
Teacher-assessed grades have been used for the past two years.
The headteachers’ union said schools would be relieved – but that it placed “a great deal of pressure” on pupils.
Labour criticised the government for a “delay” in confirming a Covid backup plan.
Under plans confirmed by the Department for Education (DfE), AS and A-level students will be given some indication of the content exams will focus on, to help with revision.
There will be more changes to GCSEs – with formulae provided in maths exams, and equations in physics and combined science assessments.
In English literature, history and geography, schools will be advised to focus on a narrower range of content.
Advance warnings about content for both sets of exams will be issued by early February.
The DfE has also issued a back-up plan in the “unlikely” event that exams are cancelled.
It advises that, for subjects which are usually assessed with exams, schools assess pupils three times: in the second half of the autumn term, in the spring term and in the first half of the summer term.
It says these should be held “under exam-like conditions wherever possible” – meaning they should be timed, and without access to books and revision notes.
Julie McCulloch from the Association of School and College Leaders said having a contingency plan would mean a lot of extra work.
She said it would “probably” mean that students take both mock exams – which “may or may not count” towards their ‘ final grades – and formal exams.
“This is far from ideal and places them under a great deal of pressure,” she said.
“But not having a contingency plan would risk a repeat of the chaos of the past two years, and therefore, on balance, this seems like the right course of action, and the confirmed set of measures appears to be sensible enough.”
The cancellations mean that next summer more than 700,000 teenagers in England will sit high-stakes real exams for the first time in their lives.
The regulator Ofqual said overall grades would be moderated to be halfway between 2019 and 2021.
Jo Saxton, its chief regulator, said in a letter to students “exam boards will set the grade boundaries so that more students get higher grades in 2022 than before the pandemic”.
She said this would provide a “safety net” for students who may otherwise “just miss out” on a higher grade.
“We have taken this decision to reflect the disruption that you as a cohort have experienced already in your course,” she wrote.
Kate Green MP, Labour’s shadow education secretary, said that students and teachers had already “had weeks of unnecessary uncertainty waiting for confirmation of assessment and contingency plans for 2022”.
She said Labour had published a “plan B” for exams at the beginning of the academic year, adding: “The government’s dither and delay has left teachers with less time and capacity to gather the samples of work needed.”
Ministers have made clear they expect exams to go ahead in 2022, unless there are exceptional circumstances.
“The government believes that exams and other formal assessments are the best and fairest means of assessment, and the government’s firm intention is that students will take national exams in summer 2022, set and marked by the exam boards,” the DfE said.
Reference: https://www.bbc.com/news/education-59251962?fbclid=IwAR2Ea30nNYUo6hycU_TWwRySyuBEUcXsWobh9a5Jn9qsUZpbE1SSRh53Tm8
Dear Parents, Here’s What I Cannot Teach Your Child
Dear Parents – welcome to the next grade! This year we will be learning many new things, and hopefully, our class will be having a lot of fun together in the process. My job is to teach your child. In order for me to do that, there are a few things I hope you will be working on at home—things I cannot teach your child but that are crucial for making learning easier and school more pleasant for everyone.
Respect
Many of us were raised on John Hughes films or the Disney Channel, both of which flout respect for adults—particularly parents and teachers. Because of this, even as adults, our own grasp of proper respect can be a bit shaky. According to the Cambridge Dictionary, respect is defined as, politeness, honor, and care shown toward someone or something that is consideredimportant. The key phrase here, of course, is “considered important.” In order for learning to take place, you and your child must consider her education important and regard me as an important key to receiving an education.
Too often, however, we (even teachers) confuse grades with education. As a result children and parents often demand that teachers structure their lessons and expectations accordingly. If you think helping your child get a good grade is my primary job, then everything I do that hinders that—like sticking to due dates, enforcing difficult standards, or assigning challenging material—will feel to you like I’m not doing my job. And believe me, once you start to disrespect me and the job I’m doing, your child will too.
Please encourage your child to respect and honor their education. Please talk to your child about being polite and considerate to me and to other learners. Getting an education is truly an honor and a privilege, and so is being an educator. If we all keep that in mind, we can build a culture of true respect that will make learning possible.
Work Ethic
If your child develops a deep respect for education, they will be more likely to put in the work necessary to learn and grow. But the reverse is also true. A child who works hard will have greater respect and appreciation for the learning process, and they are more likely to value what they have achieved. Please encourage your child not to cut corners or to just get by. Teach them that there is value in struggling and working through difficult, frustrating, and even boring lessons.
By giving your child chores and responsibilities at home and insisting they do them completely and satisfactorily, you will be teaching them valuable lessons about powering through difficult or tedious tasks. A strong work ethic at home will not only translate to more success in school, but it will help your child develop the skill he needs for greater success in life.
Attention Span
Kids today have had information and entertainment at their fingertips since before they could walk. And while this might be useful for long road trips or finding out the capital of Wisconsin, instant access to knowledge and distraction does not always serve children well in the classroom. Please, please, read to your children or set aside time for them to read on their own. Tell them stories. Give them blocks and dress-up clothes and toys that actually require imagination rather than usurp it. And by all means, let them get bored—then let them figure out a not-digital way out of boredom. Doing these things, these once-common childhood activities is far more likely to prepare your child to focus and learn than any enrichment programs or educational games.
Kindness
No matter what else you teach your child about learning or how well prepared they are to learn, if our classroom is not a place where everyone feels safe and accepted, no one will be at their best. Of course, the best way to teach kindness is to model it, but that is rarely enough. Kindness must be explicitly and intentionally taught. Talk to your child about being inclusive. Tell them about the harm and hurt that comes from gossip and meanness. And give them specific tools for helping others feel seen, valued, and included. Teach your child to be the one who says, “Sit with us.” and “Come play with us.” And warn them that being kind isn’t always easy. It doesn’t even always feel good. But it is always the right thing to do.
Self-control
Children are struggling to sit still and even to have basic control over their bodies. They wiggle and fidget. They fall out of their desks. And they can’t seem to keep their hands to themselves. The sad reality is that some causes of this sort of behavior are out of your control or mine. The structure of the modern school day does not allow for adequate time for play and movement, and this is having a negative effect on student behavior. Still, there are things you can do at home. The most important thing is to limit screen time and insist your child play–preferably outside. Time spent being physically active isn’t just goofing off. It actually helps your child behave better at school and at home.
Attitude
I need your child to come to school with the expectation that some things we do will be difficult or even boring. And that’s okay. Learning can be fun and exciting, but it can also be hard and tedious. If you allow your child to continually gripe and complain about the things they don’t want to do (at home or at school), it only makes things harder for them and for me. Your child doesn’t have to love everything we do in class, but they do need to approach learning with a positive, can-do approach.
The truth is, I not only teach your child the education standards of this new grade, but I teach all these other life skills too. But if my students are going to learn the material for our class, my primary job cannot be teaching them how to work hard and behave well. They have to come to class already knowing these things, and that has to come first and foremost from home. It has to come from you.
I am looking forward to this school year. I am sure with your help and cooperation, it will be a great one!
Warmest regards,
Your child’s teacher
Reference: https://www.boredteachers.com/post/what-i-cannot-teach?fbclid=IwAR0-y82KPP5UMsysLn1Rp0-ZvYhCWAi_1pGWWNt7YaU_KVAox25MDRZ5wI8
Can fidget toys help pupils’ concentration?
As Pop-its beams popular, I got two from Internet. I enjoyed playing and it did release my stress.
Fidget spinners have dropped out of the headlines, but the trend for this type of toy continues, with pupils claiming that they help hone their attention. Kate Parker explores whether these toys can become classroom concentration tools
Look, Katie, look,” my three-year-old niece squeals as she waves a colourful, dinosaur-shaped toy at me during a FaceTime call.
“What is that?” I ask my sister, a primary school teacher, who is just off camera.
She sighs. “It’s called a Pop-it. They’re basically the new fidget spinners; I confiscated loads of them from my Year 5s last term.”
Fidget toys (small, tactile toys that can be moved, stretched or squeezed) often become playground trends. But unlike other trendy objects, these toys are designed with an educational purpose in mind. According to those who make and market them, they are not meant to be used in the playground, but in the classroom, where they can help pupils – particularly those with special educational needs – to concentrate.
Many teachers, however, are sceptical. “There is a very strong correlation between how trendy they are, and how many children suddenly need them,” says Amy Forrester, director of behaviour at Cockermouth School in Cumbria.
“You’ll know as soon as there is a trend for one of these toys because pupils who don’t have any learning needs start asking to use them in the classroom. In reality, they just want to play with something that’s cool and pretend that they need it. Schools are quite quick to shut those things down, and say, ‘No, you don’t need that.’”
But should schools think twice before banning these toys from their classrooms? Are the manufacturers right? Do they, in fact, support children to focus?
Much of the research in this area centres on children with attention deficit and hyperactivity disorders (ADHD) – generally accepted to be the learners who are most likely to benefit from the use of such toys.
For example, in 2015, behavioural science professor Julie Schweitzer published a small study that suggested children with ADHD who are supported to bounce, wriggle or otherwise move gently in place have better concentration levels than those who are not.
And more recently, in New Zealand, researchers at the Auckland Bioengineering Institute (ABI) and Mātai Medical Research Institute found that fidgeting may help those with ADHD to concentrate. Specifically, they found that fidgeting increased blood flow to the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain involved in concentration during decision-making tasks.
A tool for everyone
It is not only children with ADHD who may benefit from fidget toys, though. In 2006, Sheryl Stalvey and Heather Brasell investigated the effects of allowing 6th grade (Year 7) students in a school in rural Georgia to use stress balls during direct instruction and independent practice. They observed that “the frequency of distraction incidents decreased” when students used the stress balls.
In addition, writing skills improved, and the pair found that “based on journal entries, all types of learners thought that their attitude, attention, writing abilities and peer interaction improved due to stress ball use”.
So, fidget toys can help children to concentrate. But how? The answer lies in understanding exactly what fidgeting is and why it happens, suggests psychologist Carey Heller.
Broadly, fidgeting is defined as making small movements with your body, usually your hands and feet. Everyone fidgets, and there are lots of different reasons for this, Heller explains. For those with ADHD, it can be because they struggle to focus. However, for others, it can be because they are bored or anxious.
“The way you fidget can be different based on the reason the fidget is occurring. Some people just like that extra stimulation, and it could be that the task they are doing isn’t providing enough,” he explains.
“It’s like some people listen to music when they’re working, while others prefer absolute silence. For some people, if the task is not inherently motivating in itself, or not stimulating enough, they may want something extra to do alongside it.
“Essentially, fidgeting creates an external stimulation that, in turn, can make someone feel more interested in the task ahead, so they focus better.”
Fidgeting is a natural occurrence, but it’s an occurrence that has the potential to be disruptive in the classroom. If a pupil is constantly swinging back on their chair or tapping a pencil, this can be distracting to those around them.
Using a fidget toy, the thinking goes, can help to channel a pupil’s need to fidget into a less disruptive movement.
So, does that mean that teachers should always allow pupils to use fidget toys in lessons? According to Sydney Zentall, professor emerita of educational studies at Purdue University, Indiana, confiscating the toys can be unhelpful.
“It’s not useful for teachers to remove them,” she says. “I know that they help a significant number of children, and not just those who have specific disorders. There’s a huge range of children who need additional stimulation: often they don’t stand up or move around the classroom for large periods of time, and that can result in sensory deprivation. Fidget toys can provide that sensory experience.”
However, Zentall says there are some types of task where a fidget toy is more likely to help students than others. “The best type of tasks to use these toys [in] are listening tasks or mental computation tasks,” she explains. “If you need to write down answers, the toy, obviously, won’t be effective. But if you can hold it in your hand, without it interfering with listening and mental computation, then it can reduce fidgeting activity and improve test completion.”
Fidget toys could also be useful for intervention groups. At Broadlands Academy in Bath, fidget toys have been introduced for a small group of children who were taken out of mainstream provision as part of an intervention to re-engage them with learning.
Initially, children were given a range of fidget toys to try out, but a wooden seesaw that sits under the desk, and on which students balance their feet, proved to be most popular. Vice-principal Chris Jackson says that he has seen a noticeable difference in concentration levels since the toys were introduced.
“We removed the need for fidgeting with their hands, with their pencils and pens, and allowed them to fidget with their feet. The students really liked it, and at the start of each lesson, they’d come in, find the equilibrium on the seesaw – and those couple of minutes really helped to settle them and sustain concentration throughout the day,” he says.
Jackson says the school is excited to roll the seesaws out to mainstream lessons but isn’t oblivious to the problems that might cause in terms of demand.
“A few years ago, we had all the fidget spinners and other toys come through the classroom – and there may have been a legitimate need for one or two children, but no plan was put in place on how to manage the desire for them in the classroom, which meant that everyone wanted one,” he says.
Everything in moderation
When every child has one, Jackson says, fidget toys can become incredibly distracting in the classroom. Often, when there is an abundance of the toys, it’s because children have brought them into school from home – this, in turn, can fuel competition about who has got the newest or biggest one.
The solution here would be for schools to buy them directly, but when resources are tight, departments won’t be able to stretch to buying hundreds of fidget toys.
“With the seesaw, we’d need to ensure it was included in a SEND plan, and make it clear that the only pupils who can have it are the ones identified,” says Jackson.
However, Zentall points out that fidget toys do not need to be expensive – or even trendy – in order to be effective. She suggests that pipe cleaners can be great tools to provide subtle stimulation for pupils. Not only are pipe cleaners low cost, they don’t spin or make a noise, meaning they’re less likely to disrupt other learners.
Heller agrees that when choosing fidget toys, schools should look for something that will cause minimal disruption, adding that fidget toys need to be something pupils can use “mindlessly”.
Jackson is certain that’s why the seesaws have worked at his school: they are out of sight, under the desk, and they aren’t particularly flashy.
“I had a go of it, and yes, it’s fun for 10 seconds, but you quickly realise that actually, there’s nothing to it – it’s boring for those who don’t need it,” he says. “Whereas, for some of these students who can’t sit still, it really supports them.”
Indeed, even Forrester, who is sceptical about the value of fidget toys, says that when toys are low attention and low disruption, they don’t cause an issue.
“I’ve seen pupils use stress balls, and it’s literally just something they have under their table. If it’s so subtle you can’t even notice a child using it, then that’s absolutely fine. Whereas if a child has a huge pop-it toy or fidget spinner, it can cause a lot of disruption, and I’m hard pushed to believe anyone really needs one of those in the lesson,” she says.
So rather than banning fidget toys outright, perhaps it would be more helpful for schools to stress that these objects should be treated as fidget “tools” – and that, if used, they must be small, simple and kept out of sight.
Kate Parker is schools and colleges content producer at Tes
This article originally appeared in the 19 November 2021 issue under the headline “Tes focus on…Fidget toys”
Can fidget toys be lesson tools?
- The producers of fidget toys say they have an educational purpose, and can help children – specifically those with attention disorders – to focus.
- Some research does support this: in 2015, behavioural science professor Julie Schweitzer found that children with ADHD who are supported to bounce, wriggle or otherwise move gently in place have better concentration levels than those who are not.
- But many teachers find that the more fidget toys are used in the classroom, the more children request them, when they don’t need them. And toys that make a noise or flash are extremely disruptive in lessons.
- To get the most out of fidget toys in the classroom, they should be treated as tools, be kept out of sight and, crucially, be simple and inexpensive.
Reference: https://www.tes.com/magazine/article/can-fidget-toys-help-pupils-concentration?fbclid=IwAR3xBnreRdmx_oh9rTVsuKQ9BRuePjGZduIlKirthY5bbCNbCCzjSLqsUM8
I’m a Teacher and Wish More Parents Would Focus on These 5 Skills at Home
Raising kids is a huge undertaking. So is teaching them. Teachers see every behavior under the sun. Nothing surprises us. And we care about all of our students. However, some of the basic skills really belongs to parenting and some of my students in G1 and even G3 couldn’t not handle these issues independently.
(Note: This isn’t to say I’m going to dislike your child if they don’t have these skills! We’ll work on it together. I’m always happy to meet students where they are.)
Key skills for raising kids that are well-equipped for school:
1. Basic self-care
At my daughter’s kindergarten parent info night, someone asked what skills kids needed to have before starting school. The parents were all expecting things related to reading, writing, counting, and scissor skills. The teacher said kindergartners need to be able to:
- Put on their own shoes (tied or Velcro does not matter)
- Put on their own coats
- Use the bathroom independently.
That’s it!
Teachers simply don’t have time to attend to the individual needs of 30 students all day long. There would be no time to teach! Raising kids who can confidently handle their own bathroom business and open their own Gogurt allows teachers to focus on actually teaching.
* Obviously, there are exceptions and some children will need more help with self-care skills. However, working with your child to help them be as independent as possible benefits everyone.
2. Mindfulness
Mindfulness means being able to keep your cool in high-stress situations. School is frequently full of high-stress situations. Teach your kids some basic mindfulness strategies such as how to listen to their bodies to notice they’re getting stressed, and how to take deep, restorative breaths to calm down. Encourage kids to take breaks when they’re getting frustrated and to communicate when they need help. Students who are able to self-regulate instead of adding to (or inciting) classroom chaos are a breath of fresh air to those around them.
3. Empathy
Empathy can be taught, modeled, and practiced from a young age. Teach your kids to think about how others are feeling. Then work on helping them consider how their behaviors make other people feel. Model empathy yourself. Show empathy for the driver who cut you off in traffic instead of honking and cursing. “He’s in a big hurry. He must have something very important to get to. That must be stressful for him to be in such a rush.” Daniel Tiger can help you with this. Empathetic students understand other people have hard days, that not everything revolves around them, and that their actions can help or hurt their friends. It makes for a more peaceful classroom.
4. Resilience
Yes, it’s okay to cry, but it’s also okay to get back up again. You can be disappointed when you fail a test, but you can also try harder on the next test. You can ask for help from the teacher or the peer tutoring center. So many students give up when they don’t succeed right away. Encourage your kids to be resilient, have a growth mindset instead of a fixed one, and to focus on the process of hard work instead of just the results. This will help them more in the long run than rewarding them only when they get an A or land first place. And it will save the teacher from dealing with constant meltdowns from students who haven’t developed resiliency.
5. Teamwork
Any activity your child can participate in that involves them working with others as part of a team will benefit them. For a team to really succeed, all players need to work together. It isn’t necessary to force team sports on your kid, especially if they’re introverted or sensitive, but find something that your child is passionate about. Musical groups, plays, martial arts, art classes, chess clubs, etc. all have opportunities to teach your child the value of working together. There will come a time at school when your kid is paired with someone they don’t mesh with. If your child is skilled at being a team player, they’ll work it out.
Classrooms are communities and teachers can’t balance it all on their own. If a student comes to class equipped with self-care, mindfulness, empathy, reliance, and the ability to work well on a team, the classroom will be a more harmonious community. This allows the teacher more time, peace, and calmness to teach the academic skills.
Reference: https://www.boredteachers.com/post/raising-kids?fbclid=IwAR3wxECwovKbO91aytrgMr-biqHdp7CMUXGNvGEwu_Y2vnnyFek0pPs1HBI