Vesper's Voice

This has been my first year in the team leader role and I've really enjoyed it. It helps of course to have a great team which I am lucky enough to have.  At first I thought that having a release day every second week to get team tasks completed would be more than I needed yet I have found that I've used every second of that time over the course of the year.  I thought I'd summarise for myself some of the types of things that I've done as team leader as a record of what this role involves. Making outlines of long term plans which we then flesh out in team meetings. Working with the team to identify target children for the year. Setting up team agendas before meetings and then making sure we stick to timeframes.  Organising resources and making plan outlines in advance to work on during collaborative team planning sessions. Discussing priority learners in meetings. Discussing what does and doesn't work for our learners in class during team meetings. Doing all

I attended a Sharp reading workshop run by Hilton Avery and found a lot of his approach interesting and in-line with my own thinking. I think the main learning I took from the session was that the teacher does too much of the 'work' during a standard reading session and that we need to avoid the 'teachable moment' when a great discussion starts which is interesting but is not keeping the focus on reading. In Sharp reading, there is a specific routine to follow. The aim of this is to habitualise this routine in the students' minds in order to raise their reading ability. Here is a useful summary of some key considerations when running this programme: Introduce your students to this new way of processing information by providing clear explanations for all the pieces.  Get comfortable with the routine, put in the mileage so that it doesn’t feel clunky any more.  Focus on students “Having a Go” and getting your responses sharp for “Clearing the Roadblocks” and