Observation 9 - 21/12/21

Subject (Practical or Theory): Practical - Home Economics

Class Profile & Details: Two year groups in one class - 3rd years (3 students) + 1st years (2 students, SEN, 2 SNAs).

Duration of Lesson: Single (1 hour)

Professional teaching skills and ability

• Able to use skills to help students out at any stage of their cooking - giving advice on how to do each step correctly

• Helped students with difficult tasks (decorating with icing sugar)

• Conversed with students as they cooked - great rapport with all students - involving all students in discussions (key skill communicating)

• Motivated students with a positive + energetic attitude

Classroom management

• Able to maintain complete control over 5 students from different year groups all with different recipes and needs

• Moved around room to help students with different tasks

• Instructed students to get equipment - giving responsibility for them to find equipment in labelled drawers / cupboards

• Asked student who wanted to stay behind to help clean up - responsibility + task to focus on

• Instructed students to work together “while they do ____, you do ____” - cooperation

• Multitasking with different recipes

• Maintained a relaxed and positive working environment in the classroom

• SNAs also doing difficult / dangerous tasks (melting chocolate over hob) - considering Health & Safety

• SNAs asking students to help them out by getting equipment (eg. tea towels) + thanking them for their help

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Presentation of learning content

• H&S - instructed hands to be washed + aprons to be put on as soon as students enter class

• Explained to students what they are doing in this class + what steps they will carry out in this lesson - important to tell students why they are doing certain activities to motivate them with an end goal in sight

• Demonstrated tasks + explained verbally what they are doing + why

• During demo, explained reasons why things need to be done in a specific way - what will happen if it isn’t done this way (will fall apart)

• Recipe on whiteboard with images of ingredients needed

• Called out ingredients from recipe + held them up at top table

Effectiveness of planning

• Delivery was well paced + timed out well - as all students finished + cleaned up within class time

• Teacher was confident + well versed with learning content + delivered effortlessly to students

• Brought finished baked goods to the staff room as a gift to the teachers - reflection of how well students did with their cooking - sense of achievement + pride in their abilities.

Assessment and evaluation of pupils work in class

• Demonstrated correct way to do different tasks if students were struggling

• If students were unable to do tasks, they took over for a short period to get them back to a stage where they are able to continue on themselves - not letting them fail as it would discourage them from moving on to next step in making their recipe

• Gave very positive praise + feedback to students doing well

Any additional comments on what you learned from the observation class?

• Impressed to see how this teacher managed a class with 2 different year groups, with students of mixed abilities (half of them being from An Cuan - SNU) - integrated students well to be able to work alongside each other

• Ability to multitask was also very impressive to see how they could help students out at any stage of their recipes without creating any kind of stress in the classroom - level headed + positive behaviour really reflected in the overall class environment.