Observing others teaching
This unit looks at the knowledge you need to have and the processes that can help you to support colleagues in improving their teaching practice to ensure better outcomes for pupils with SLCN.
The unit includes:
- Research on key areas of inclusive classroom practice
- An exploration of formative assessment and how it is used
- How to use feedback from assessment to improve practice
Levels of attention
- End product
- Motivation
- Success factor
- Task
- Organisation
- Understanding
- Environment
- Comfort
- Focus
- Distractions
- Troubles
SLCN: an intervention
Reception class teacher Rachel Drinkwater uses a bag game, focusing on ECAT, to teach two pupils: one with cerebral palsy, physical development delay, and speech and language delay; and one with speech and language delay. She explains how such approaches can help develop and progress the communication of children with SLCN.
This video clip relates to the task in your PDF of unit 17.
Show transcriptRachel Drinkwater – Reception Teacher
My name is Rachel Drinkwater. I’m a Reception Class Teacher at Bankside Primary School in Leeds.
Teacher-pupil interaction
Rachel: Are you ready then Owais? Ready…
Owais: Steady… go,
Rachel: go, go, go, go!!!! What is it Owais?
Sahill and Owais: A spider, a spider.
Rachel: It’s a spider!
Sahill: I know, I know.
Rachel
This morning I did a bag game which is a speech and language focus, focussing on “Every Child a Talker”, and I taught that with Sahill and Owais. Owais is a little boy with cerebral palsy, who has physical development delay, and speech and language delay. And Sahill is a little boy who’s got speech and language delay as well.
Teacher-pupil interaction
Rachel: Good boy. And what’s the giraffe got?
Sahill: Polka dots
Rachel: Polka dots?
Sahill: Yes
Rachel
I chose to focus on using the bag game, and using animals today, vocabulary and language being the main focus.
Teacher-pupil interaction
Sahill: Walking
Rachel: Walking giraffe.
Sahill: Walking giraffe.
Rachel
I change the objects every other day, so they might have household objects in, or school objects in. But today it was animals.
Teacher-pupil interaction
Rachel: Oh, Owais’s turn.
Owais: It’s a shark
Rachel: It’s a shark
Sahill: I know
Rachel: Go on
Sahill: It’s got sharp teeth
Rachel: It’s got sharp teeth, good boy
Rachel
It’s about the social development, so they take it in turns and they say, “ready, steady, go”. It’s about the repetition, the rhyme, they’re joining in, they know whose turn it is.
Teacher-pupil interaction
All: Ready, steady, go, go, go, go, go.
Rachel
They look at the animal, and they say the name of the animal. So this morning, Owais was taking it out of the bag, and he was saying, at one point actually he said, “big grey elephant”.
Teacher-pupil interaction
Owais: Big grey elephant.
Rachel: A big grey elephant
Sahill: I know
Rachel
Sahill was like, yes, yes, my turn, my turn, elephant, elephant.
Teach-pupil interaction
Sahill: Got a trunk
Rachel: He’s got a trunk. Can you have a trunk like this? Where’s your trunk? Brilliant. It’s a big grey elephant and it’s got a trunk.
Rachel
And I repeat. So even if the child doesn’t say it perfectly correctly. Like today, Sahil said, it’s a giraffe, and it was a horse.
Teacher-pupil interaction
Sahill: A giraffe
Rachel: oh what’s that one?
Sahill: A giraffe
Rachel: Is it a giraffe? What’s that one Owais?
Sahill: A giraffe. A horse
Owais: A horse
Rachel: Good boy you corrected yourself, excellent, it’s a horse. Well done.
Rachel
So I know he wasn’t naming them correctly all the time, but I encourage him and it’s all about praise. And he’s having a go, he’s using his voice. He’s actually saying, “it’s a giraffe”. “Well done, it’s a horse”. Then I say, “it’s a brown horse”. So the first part of the game is about their speech, and getting them to use the words I want them to use. Getting them to describe the animals. The second part of the game when they’re putting the animals back into the bag, it’s about their understanding and their listening.
Teacher-pupil interaction
Rachel: Sahill, can you find me the red shark?
Sahill: Teeth!
Rachel
I don’t look at the animal I want them to get, I look straight at them. Can you find me the animal that flies?
Teacher-pupil interaction
Rachel: Can you find me the animal that flies?
Sahill: Bat, bat, bat, bat.
Rachel: Bat. It does fly, excellent.
Rachel
And it’s up to them to think flies, which animals was it that flies? Pick it up and put it back in the bag, so that’s checking their understanding.
Teacher-pupil interaction
Rachel: Can you find me the animal with a trunk?
Rachel
I know they’re working at 2-word level, so I’m pushing them on to a 3-word level, and I encourage them to repeat and to join in, so this morning they were joining in with: “scary teeth”, “sharp teeth”. That’s brilliant. They’re using describing words, that’s 3-word level, “the bat that flies with sharp teeth”, that’s fantastic. They were so involved.
Teacher-pupil interaction
Rachel: Does a horse fly?
Owais and Sahill: No
Rachel: What does a horse do?
Sahill: Walking!
Rachel: A walking horse. Well done.
Rachel
From that I know now, that we need to start forming sentences, and to use those words that they had this morning; “sharp teeth” - to put it into a sentence: “a bat has sharp teeth”- would be my next. So I’d work on repetition and getting them to copy me - consolidation. I think they did very well this morning and I was very proud of how involved they were.
Teacher-pupil interaction
High five! High five!
Post-observation discussion
- Note down what you have observed. Pay particular attention to strengths in the teacher’s approach to the pupil in the class.
- Making notes on areas covered in the discussion will help your colleague reflect on their practice.
- Reflect jointly with the teacher on the objectives of the observation/self-audit. Consider if the objectives have been achieved.
- Put together an action plan that will help the teacher improve the pupil’s learning and participation in class.