The Effect of Planning on Teachers and Learners an Introduction
Utilising effective planning is crucial in the educational sector as teacher preparedness often directly correlates to their learner's success.
The teacher needs to have a solid foundation from their academic and professional experiences this is fundamental to give them the understanding of the subject they are delivering. Now in areas such as primary and high schools where the subjects are broad sourcing graduates from across their academic discipline, this could have negative ramifications as learners will be specialised in some areas lacking skills in others. In Further Education and Higher Education, the teachers are more specialised, however, their areas which the teacher will not be well versed in due to the level of specialism resulting in areas that they won't have explored therefore lacking in some areas. Now whilst in cases of schools, they can purchase some of the preparation on behalf of their staff this allows for teachers to alter the resources for their preferred delivery but best ensures uniformity (Grichland, 2017). However, alongside the teacher's academic ability the school needs to have confidence in the teacher's ability to convey their experiences and act as a role model for the next generation. Teachers need to be able to encourage their learners and in Further Education centre's this is often embedding wider career skills into the content of the lessons. The learners often reflect the teacher's beliefs in them so the teacher must be able to convey a positive ethos for the learner and management needs to be able to records this. Grichland, (2017) suggests that the teacher will allow the learners who lack the motivation to be inspired if they can present a positive message. This is most likely to happen if the teacher can embed the skills that reflect individuals who they admire in society these industry leaders can push the next generation and push the countries needs for greater productivity. It is often seen that tasks can establish a feeling of motivation and success in the learner so by making differentiated tasks that set the learner up to achieve as well as to fail without the fear of failure. The Attribution Retraining provides students a better focus and makes them more successful instead of focusing on failure.
With the importance of policies nationally and internationally such as in the US where the "No Child Left Behind" whilst policies focus on learner attainment and holding individuals to account but a focus still needs to be on accountability. However, as with a lot of work carried out in the area, it focuses on accountability without specifically outlining what resources can be provided to the teacher (Fong-Yee and Normore, n.d.). Part of the problem in this area is how ongoing teacher training whilst it should be developmental often the grading systems emulate a more oppressive system that does not correctly identify the areas for improvement and staff competencies. In some areas, this needs to be enhanced as the systems which are currently available to management to provide resources to the likes of OFSTED result in greater pressure on staff whereas systems should be in a place that allows for a consistent approach to assessment (Burnell, 2016). This system should enable managers to track the content delivered by their staff and make meaningful steps. This, however, must be provided for the staff member in a way that enables their progress providing resources that assist the planning process whilst simultaneously being a tool for auditing progress. Research by Bailey and Colley, (2014) looked at areas in particular which addressed time constraints on new teachers. They found that often where centres tried to improve attainment by encouraging teachers to spend more time with particular cohorts to improve results from groups of learners this resulted in students from high achieving groups feeling like low achieving students were favoured. This type of preconception then added to the emotional pressure as well as physical pressures on the teacher. Greater use of systems to differentiate on behalf of the teacher for the learner is something necessary to safeguard staff members management of their time as this time is often drawn from their preparation time. This can and does affect their morale, as they can get disheartened that their progress is inherently linked to performance measures of the learner. This is both necessary as well as problematic.
Bailey, G., and Colley, H., 2014. ‘Learner-centred’ assessment policies in further education: putting teachers’ time under pressure. Journal of Vocational Education & Training, 67(2), pp.153-168.
Burnell, I., 2016. Teaching and learning in further education: The Ofsted factor. Journal of Further and Higher Education, 41(2), pp.227-237.
Fong-Yee, D., and Normore, A., n.d. The Impact Of Quality Teachers On Student Achievement. [online] Digitalcommons.fiu.edu. Available at: <https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=1054&context=sferc> [Accessed 22 August 2020].
Grichland, 2017. How Does Your Child's Teacher Influence Academic Performance?. [online] Structured Literacy | Pride Reading Program. Available at: <https://pridereadingprogram.com/how-does-a-teacher-affect-student-performance/> [Accessed 22 August 2020].
