The experience was fantastic and obviously teachers at the Intermediate heard about it and its success and a few weeks ago I have been asked by a teacher if my Year 10 could teach his class.
When I spoke about it with my students they were over the moon!! they will teach in total 4 lessons (once a week). Our first task was to plan what we were going to teach and then how to teach it. I let the kids decide everything, only giving them advice when asked.
After our first lesson, we came back to our class and we reflected on our performances. The students were brilliant at that, they could actually be very critical of what they had done and they came up alone with alternatives for next time. One group of students was concerned with a Year 8 child they taught. They had 3 kids in their group, 2 were very fast and one was a bit slower and did not manage as well in remembering the lesson. My Year 10 are talented students who are, for most of them, in the accelerated class. Thus, they know the feeling of being a faster learner who is pulled back most of the time by other students. It was very good for them I think to experience for once what it feels like not to understand something very fast.
Hence as a class we discussed means of differentiation and I pointed out to them that I think that this is the hardest part of my job.
Today we had our second lesson and the Year 10 had a much better time as they had learned from their mistakes.
