4.1/4.2 Review and Analyse own Practice in Planning to Meet the Needs of Learners

4.1/4.2

As all learners learn in different ways, planning is key to ensure that the session plans can be adapted to meet the needs of all learners. Since researching and developing Page Turners as a family learning course, I have had the opportunity to change my strategies, methods and resources to suit the different learners.  This is the good thing about Community Learning in that it presents you with a different set of learning needs in different venues.  In planning to meet the needs of learners, I have highlighted some of my key teaching moments below:

Moss Park Infant School

- The rooming was often challenging as I had to use the school dining hall, so preparation and planning time was key to set up the room.

- There was wide range of learners including ESOL which gave me an opportunity to practise my differentiation techniques.  I started to do this through my methods and resources and questioning techniques, although this is an area I would like to continue to develop.

- The strategies, methods and resources in the IT Suite worked well.


Seymour Park Primary School

- This group was ESOL learners with varying levels of English. Collaborative learning techniques worked well.

- By week 3, I had a good understanding of learner needs generated by the group discussions and learner logs.

- One of the challenging areas with this group is the functional skill levels, so I need to think about appropiate extension activities for the more able learners.

- We have the opportunity to involve the children in week 4 of this course which is a great chance for the learners to put into practise what they have learnt and develop their functional English skills.

Partington Children's Centre

- This was a small group with varying ability levels.  I had the opportunity to bring all aspects of the Minimum Core into this course and tried to make full use of all the resources including the EWB.

- As it was a small group, I developed my questionning techniques and focused on learner-led strategies to make the sessions as inclusive as possible and offered opportunities for differentiation. 

Broadheath Children's Centre

- Again a small group, but with more able learners.  I was able to utilise the tools and techniques I had developed on the earlier sessions and incorporate previous observation and learner feedback.

- I was pleased with how I was able to adapt this course to incorporate phonics and also extended the creative activity with a reading journal (in addition to a bookmark).

I feel that my teaching practice on this course has given me a good insight into family learning and helped me to develop a course which interests parents.  Most of the learners have requested similiar follow-on courses (in maths) which can help them support their children's learning.