During this week at my second school placement, I have planned and taught a series of English lessons to introduce our new termly topic. I began the week showing the first part of the film ‘Up’ to my year 1 class. This was effective in ‘contributing to the design and provision of an engaging curriculum’ (TS 4) as the children were enthusiastic to share their existing knowledge of the film and engage in a structured discussion about the theme of adventures. Furthermore, I used the film to inspire the weekly objective to ‘plan and write a magical adventure story’. The weekly objective was to be achieved through a series of success steps; this has been effective in helping me ‘reflect systematically on the effectiveness of lessons and approaches to teaching’ (TS4) through my ability to alter my teaching input throughout the week, in correlation to my formative assessment to promote further progress. The step by step approach to teaching this week has ‘demonstrated knowledge and understanding of how pupils learn’ (TS 2) as I was able to show my understanding for how children of this age need structured guidance for larger writing tasks, as they would otherwise be overwhelmed by the expectations of the lesson objective and would make less progress. This approach to teaching has ensured that progress was made with most children, as demonstrated in their books and through my lesson observation. In order to ensure I make further progress, I could begin to differentiate children into small writing groups to ensure that those in need of extra support are guided by another adult to achieve maximum progress, as due to my limited knowledge of my new class’ individual needs and abilities this week, I was unable to differentiate appropriately, hindering the progress they would otherwise have made. The impact of this week’s lesson sequence on myself as a practitioner has been positive in ensuring that I look to plan differentiation strategies prior to lessons to maximise progress. My next steps for further improvement will be to become familiar with the children in my new class’ abilities and plan differentiated lesson expectations appropriate to their specific needs and abilities. All Stories