We have now begun the teacher-directed projects (see 'Projects' page) which seem to be going well. Based on our experience with this group last term, and also on the Maths and English testing undertaken at the start of the year, we agreed that these projects would share a focus on Time Management, and Mathematics.
The projects were introduced to students, and they then graded them in
order of their preference. Luckily for us, the numbers opting for each
project were quite even so everyone got their first choice. Hopefully
this also means that we selected a suitable range of topics for this
group. In addition there were students who wished to continue with projects from last term - without exception they were good self-managers and have been allowed to continue. We simply asked them to outline where they intended heading with their projects, before giving our approval.
These projects are all designed to be completed in four weeks, at which time we hope some will be ready to undertake individual work again, and others will be offered a further selection of teacher-directed projects.
Unfortunately our environment isn't working as well for this type of work, where a teacher needs to interact with a group of students rather than individuals. We desperately need better 'break-out' areas - although we can move furniture around, we don't have any sound-proofing. As most teachers do, we'll just have to do our best with what we have.
