What are your 10 best teaching tips?

1. Great subject knowledge

It may seem obvious but sometimes a lack of preparation can lead to forgetting techniques, methods or pieces of information needed to teach. As teachers or parents willing to teach, it is important to do some revision yourself in order to brush up on the ideas you are explaining. Giving incorrect knowledge can have a real significant impact on a student’s development.

2. Quality of explanation

One of the best skills in life is the ability to articulate, whether that be in teaching, to give directions or to give your point of view. When teaching, key stage 1 students, all steps to the problem should be broken down and simplified as much as possible. This way students can absorb the information without becoming too overwhelmed with the volume of information.

3. Building relationships with students

One of our top tips is to build a trustworthy learning space for students work in. There should be no fear of judgment and children should be encouraged to fully participate where appropriate. This will help to build confidence and self-esteem, not only needed in the classroom but also in later life.

4. Providing feedback

We recommend using the ‘What Went Well’ and ‘Even Better If’ method, written in several of our learning booklets. By stating the positive points first, students will recognise their progress and feel encouraged to keep working hard. Then, giving them some feedback on what they could improve on is necessary to identify weaknesses and what we will do to improve them in the long run.

5. Discussion-based lesson

Learning should be fun! Allow students to deliver parts of the lesson, whether that be in discussion format or demonstrating how to approach a question on their own. This will keep the lesson exciting and refreshing, avoiding bad behaviour due to boredom.

6. Lesson Objective Transparency

At LearnEnglishMaths.com, we ensure every single learning booklet has clear objectives at the very beginning. This is a very important strategy for students to not only know what they will have achieved by the end of the lesson but perhaps also to identify where they need a little more support. This acts as a progress checklist.

7. Implement enquiry-based learning

Encourage questions! Every student is unique in their way of thinking and asking questions is a very healthy sign of thinking. Perhaps a student is showing real interest on the topic which is great but they may be asking because they do not understand the work set. This will allow you to gage their progress and alter your explanation to suit their needs.

8. Manage behaviour

Whether you are a parent or teacher, sometimes managing behaviour can be very difficult on your own. Ensure you allow students to have a break after completing a lengthy tasks, give them some water or reward them with a treat in order to maintain concentration. Every child is different so a good teacher will familiarise themselves with the techniques that work for that particular individual.

9. Use assessments to inform

At LearnEnglishMaths.com, we have three types of assessments – initial dynamic assessment, monthly assessments and assessments per unit. The scores for each three types of assessment will be recorded in order to develop a better picture of the child’s progress.

There are two signs of achievement. Both are super important to assign the relevant activities to consolidate understanding:

1. Improvement

Increasing scores over time represents improvement. A child may become more comfortable with assessments or develop a better revision technique and score higher over time.

2. Consistently high scores

A child continuously scoring high signals that they have perfected their revision technique and assessment performance. This may show it is time for this student to move up to the next level.

10. Encourage regular practice

We believe that the benefits of revision and practice are unquantifiable! At LearnEnglishMaths.com, we believe no student should ever be restricted in their learning as gaining knowledge opens doors for opportunities and later achievements. Here are just a few examples of how the practice questions on our platform support progress:

• Help you to remember facts, figures, topics and methodologies that you have covered some time ago

• Enables our students to enhance their knowledge and skills

• Ability to adapt to an ever-changing environment as the questions differ

• Will help increase your confidence and reduce anxiety during exams.