The Perfect Further Education Lesson

Jackie Rossa, Jackie Beere

• Publisher: Independent Thinking Press
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781781351734
• Topic: Bildung
• Subtopic: Bildung Allgemein

The Perfect (Ofsted) Further Education Lesson will help teachers, trainers, tutors and assessors provide consistently outstanding learning experiences that make a real difference to their learners. It removes the mystery surrounding outstanding learning, and enables staff to make the 'Great ESCAPE'- setting them free to do what really matters for their learners. It identifies key factors that make learning outstanding and provides practical advice and strategies to achieve this. This book links directly to the Common Inspection Framework (CIF) 102 criteria for further education and skills providers.

Chapter 1

Planning a Brilliant FE Lesson

Brilliant learning rarely happens by accident. It is usually the result of careful planning based on a thorough understanding of your learners. Lesson planning should be an exciting, creative and enjoyable process which ensures that you are well prepared, organised and confident. Good planning also means your learners develop the knowledge and skills that will effectively equip them for life and work.

Before you plan your lesson, however, you need to know exactly what it is that makes learning outstanding in your setting. What are the magic ingredients that will make your lesson brilliant for your learners (and, incidentally, outstanding in the eyes of an observer)? In the same way that you would not expect your learners to successfully complete a task or assignment without knowing what success looks like, you need to know exactly what an outstanding lesson looks like.

The most significant feature of outstanding learning is the progress that learners make. Some of the other essential ingredients that will make your FE lesson outstanding include:

Learners developing their skills and understanding exceptionally well.

Demonstrating consistently high expectations for all learners.

Generating high levels of enthusiasm for participation in and commitment to learning.

Actively involving and engaging learners in a wide range of activities.

Fostering resilient, confident and independent learners.

Learners developing the critical skills needed to achieve qualifications.

Demonstrating excellent subject and/or industry experience and using this to motivate and engage learners.

Using assessment as an integral part of the learning process.

Challenging all learners to exceed their expectations.

Closely matching support and intervention to individual needs.

Differentiating tasks and activities for various groups of learners.

Using collaborative peer learning and assessment.

Utilising technology to contribute to learner progress and success.

Making strong links between learning and the world
of work.

Teaching outstanding lessons is not easy and every teacher will do it slightly differently. However, the only way you can make sure that you are able to demonstrate the features listed above is to constantly experiment and practice, to take risks and do things differently. To achieve consistently great learning, you need to regularly adapt and tweak your practice. This means that you will probably make mistakes and things will go wrong. But that is the joy of learning, and learning from your mistakes and your achievements will help you to improve.

This may feel difficult at first but, over time, you and your learners will develop the habits of outstanding learning. This means that when the inspector does arrive, they will just see you doing what you usually do – teaching a highly effective lesson.

One factor to bear in mind: planning a brilliant lesson does not mean writing a long, detailed lesson plan. Lesson plans are useful in that they set out what you want your learners to learn and how you intend to achieve this. You need to set clear objectives and assess whether these have been achieved, but keep it smart and simple. Remember also that the lesson needs to deliver progress for all – and that takes planning. As all teachers know, very few lesson plans survive the reality of the learners, so you should regard your plan as a flexible framework for learning, rather than something to be slavishly followed. When it comes to observations, inspectors are looking for well-planned lessons rather than extensive lesson plans – they will make judgements on what they observe rather than what they read.

The rest of this chapter will give you information on how to effectively plan your outstanding lesson, and the remaining chapters will provide you with more detail to explore when you need it.

It is essential to bear in mind that there is no set formula for any lesson or learning. The only thing that really matters is the learning that is taking place and the progress each individual learner is making.

Planning for success

So where do you start when planning your lesson? Many teachers say that they begin with the curriculum co...