‘Success occurs when opportunity meets preparation’

LouiseMace,AssistantHeadteacherCCS

When a student comes into our classroom we expect them to be prepared, both physically and mentally. They should have their equipment, complete any homework and be ready to develop their understanding. Why would we expect any less from the teachers? The simple answer is we should. Teachers should ensure that when they enter the classroom, they have made every effort to ensure they are ready to deliver the best possible lesson. To do that, they need to prepare for success.

How planning has helped me

When you have been teaching for over a decade it’s easy to get complacent about your ability to teach a lesson you know well. However when you start completing intellectual preparation (IP) for your lessons it becomes easy to see how much better your lessons can be. When you are intellectually preparing, it gives you the opportunity to not just think about the content that you are about to teach, but the students that you are about to teach. Whether you are an ‘experienced’ or ‘novice’ teacher, intellectual preparation gives you the opportunity to reflect on how exactly you will teach the lesson.

Getting buy in

The next step as with any implementation is ensuring that you get buyin from the staff to ensure that it is done effectively across the team. When delivering IP CPD I was able to talk about my own experiences and this helped ensure that the staff understood that this isn’t something that just needs to happen if you are an inexperienced teacher, we all should be doing it, because we can all get better..

In the meeting one thing was clear, history teachers love talking about their subject which enabled us to effectively consider lesson content from a student perspective. Through this we were able to share our experiences; teachers who had taught the topic before were able to share their experiences over what students have struggled with in the past, whilst teachers who had not taught the topic before are able to look at the lesson content with fresh eyes. Through the multiple gazes, we have been able to work together to ensure we have a good understanding of both the core knowledge and skills the students need to understand a topic, and the misconceptions over skills and knowledge that students might experience.

The results

These sessions have a clear impact which can be seen in both my own classes as I have carefully thought about not what I will teach but how I will teach it, making me more prepared and ready for the students. When visiting other lessons, it is easy to see when staff have spent effort completing their IP they are able to support students better and there is less teacher talk that isn’t necessary.

Additionally students appreciate this; when you appear to be prepared and know the lesson well, they can see it. Likewise when the opposite happens, they can also see it; if a student knows you are prepared for them they are more prepared to put in 100% for you.

What’s next for IP?

The next steps is to ensure the consistency of our IP both across the department and the school. Ensuring that IP is never a tick box, it is always something that is always done and always done with our students in mind. To achieve this IP needs to include the following:

• Who your students are

• What you need to ensure they understand

• How you are going to check for understanding

• The misconception that might occur

We must all remember ‘success occurs where preparation and opportunity meet’. We have the opportunity to to give our students incredible outcomes and we must prepare ourselves for this.