GCSEPod offers pupils access to over 500 hours of free content during NEU strikes
One of the UK’s leading education software providers, GCSEPod, will offer 525 hours of free content to students on 1 February, and all future strike days, to support teachers and help ensure learning is uninterrupted while members of the NEU union go on strike. The content being made available has been hand-picked to align with the knowledge and confidence gaps highlighted in a recent survey of 80,000 GCSE students answering over 1 million assessment questions. To view all the content available visit: https://www.theaccessgroup.com/en-gb/education/resources/free-curriculum-content/ Described as the ‘Netflix’ of education, GCSEPod is used by 1,659 schools across the UK, both in the classroom and to assist with at-home learning and revision. The free content will be available to all schools and learners, regardless of whether they currently use GCSEPod. With many schools expected to close to the majority of students on the planned strike days, GCSEPod hopes to minimise the pressure on teachers and ensure that learning can continue. Original, English Language, GCSE style exam papers will also be made available to English and Welsh exam boards. These can be easily downloaded and printed off for pupils without access to technology on strike days. Emma Slater, Head of Education at GCSEPod, said: “We appreciate that the decision to strike is by no means an easy one for teachers and understand that the last thing they want to see is pupils falling behind at a crucial point in the academic year. By offering free access to content that aligns with the knowledge and confidence gaps including video content from across the core and options subjects, we believe that pupils and teachers at all schools taking advantage of the offer will benefit. “Studying Shakespeare, revising the topic of energy, stretching yourself with statistics or geographical skills. With over 100 videos being made available online across all areas of the curriculum teachers and SLT can rest assured that we have their learners covered over the coming month.” Rosie Tucker, a science teacher based in Devon, said: “The situation for teachers is becoming almost untenable and forcing many, like myself, to consider leaving the profession altogether. While we’ve had a small pay rise, this hasn’t come from extra government funding, it’s come from the schools themselves – things urgently need to change. “While we are not required to set work on the days of the strikes, many of us will be working extra hours over the next few days to ensure that pupils have work to complete and that learning can continue from home. By offering GCSEPod to students we are confident that pupils will access engaging and useful content that they are familiar with. At the end of the day, no one wants to see pupils losing out.” Covering 30 GCSE/ IGCSE subjects, users of the GCSEPod learning and revision tools are proven to achieve one grade higher, on average, than non-users. The GCSEPod content and assessments are accessible both in the classroom and at home, providing learners more flexibility and freedom when it comes to managing their progress and revision. To find out more visit: GCSEPod curriculum content and assessment
Tackling low-level disruption
According to the teachers’ union, NASUWT, the main concern for staff in schools in all areas, is the growing pressure from ‘low-level disruption’, which is recognised as the most common form of poor behaviour. Therefore, in order for teachers to encourage productivity and boost attainment, in-class disruption must be kept to a minimum. Allie Palmer, ex-teacher and training and support manager at MINTclass, discusses the importance of creating pupil seating plans and the role they play in significantly reducing the impact of pupil disruption, making teachers’ lives easier and creating an effective learning environment. In Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector (HMCI) Annual Report 2012/13, concerns were raised about low-level disruption in schools. As a consequence, inspector guidance was tightened to place greater emphasis on the issue in routine inspections. In addition, HMCI commissioned a survey to ascertain the nature and extent of low-level disruptive behaviour in primary and secondary schools in England. The findings from this survey showed that teachers, parents and carers are rightly concerned about the frequent loss of learning time through low-level, but persistent, disruptive behaviour. Low-level disruptive behaviour includes talking to friends off-topic or passing notes between one another, which tends to only last a couple of minutes, but can significantly impact the flow of a lesson. As a teacher, if you are faced with low-level disruption in your class, there are some simple steps you can take to make your life easier. From my experience, it usually occurs when there’s inconsistency in school processes being applied, for example, not always sticking to a strict behaviour policy. The responsibility ultimately falls to senior leaders to enforce consistency when it comes to behaviour, which in turn, makes classroom teaching much easier and more productive. Praising the positive behaviour is also a good tactic. By focusing on the disruption, you can trigger more negativity and commotion in the classroom. Therefore, it’s important to concentrate on rewarding those students who are delivering. If those who behave are rewarded by being allowed to sit next to a friend one lesson, then disruptive students may take note and follow suit. Allie Palmer However, I’ve found that one of the easiest, yet arguably most powerful steps, is to create a seating plan! In order to avoid disruption in a class, you need to be in control of your students, right from the beginning. It’s important to set expectations; line them up outside and tell them where they need to sit as they enter. Doing this avoids any confusion and also focuses them on finding their name on the seating plan, rather than talking to, or messing around with friends. It also ensures that your students know how every lesson will start, so they’ll begin to accept the routine. Historically, teachers would have to manually create their own seating plans on Word or Excel, which means endless copying and pasting, for it to all change and be out of date after a few weeks, when the whole process would have to be created again from scratch. What may work for one subject, may not necessarily work in another, and the typical alphabetical or boy, girl, boy plans aren’t always the most effective. Thankfully, there are now digital seating plans available that make this process much easier. Once you get to know your pupils, their behaviour and friendships within the class, you can easily and quickly move them around, using the data collected to assess who they will work best with. This can be done regularly, every half-term for example, or on an ad-hoc basis, whenever a child’s behaviour suggests that they may benefit from being moved away from potential disruption. Every teacher will take a different approach when it comes to classroom organisation, but the important thing is to ensure that you have a process in place, which is enforced and integrated consistently into the routine of the lesson. It’s likely that the students will challenge your decision as they will want to sit with their friends, but remember, you have arranged the seating plan to maximise their attainment, so it’s vital to stick with it. The layout of your classroom may seem unimportant in comparison to everything else that a teacher has to deal with, but being in control of this means you can also manage disruption whenever it occurs, encouraging a productive learning environment and maintaining the highest levels of attainment.