The End of The Lesson

I started this little series of blogs by considering transitions and the effect of these on teacher tiredness, beginning with the start of lessons, so it feels like I should end it by looking at the end of lessons.

Just before the end of a lesson, I'm alerted to the time by the silent alarm on my watch. I have this set to go off 3 minutes before the end of each lesson. 3 minutes might feel a little short, but it adds some urgency, and 5 minutes felt too long.

The first thing I do is quickly identify where we are in our learning episode and make a quick plan for how we continue in our next lesson.

Have learners engaged and been successful in a period of independent practise on the content of our lesson?

Have they engaged in mixed practice?

Can I move on to the 'next' maths using their current level of understanding as a starting point?

These questions, and more, decide where our journey takes us next.

But then there's a practical element to this. We have a transition between two classes to get underway.

We can quickly finish up where we are up to. We can provide answers, share thoughts, or discuss a problem. Then we start the transition.

Lately, I've been considering the best time for retrieval practice, and I think it might be the end of the lesson. Retrieval practice is so important, and if we put it at the beginning of lessons, latecomers miss out. I don't know about you, but in my experience, those kids are the ones who need it the most. Perhaps others have come from break or lunch to your lesson and aren't yet fully focused, but are more likely to be focused at the end of a lesson, having just done 45 minutes of maths.

So now I think I should add retrieval practice to the end of lessons. 

Finish up our activity, and I can go into practical mode. Learners close their books, and I can start collecting them following the route that I intend to give them out next lesson, being effective with time. I can start checking that the classroom and equipment haven't been disrespected and that they're ready for the next class to come into and use.

Whilst I do this, I can put 2-3 questions on the board that we have studied yesterday, last week, last month and three months ago, and I can select them based on what's appropriate at the end of a lesson for the time I plan to have left, as well as taking into account equipment requirements. Sometimes we can do this on whiteboards, others on sticky notes for collection and checking, and others on printed sheets where necessary, but this means I can be efficient with time, having learners do while I get organised between classes, and also ensure that attention is directed at specific topics in the most effective way possible to develop longer-term learning.

This may take longer than 3 minutes, and my alarms will need some adjusting, but this is a simple fix. Just typing this makes me think 5 minutes might be more appropriate, with more activities to complete than I previously did.

Then, after having collected the books for my current class and put them away, collected equipment that we've used and dismissed the class in an orderly manner, I can stand by the door collecting whiteboard pens in a box, so that they can be taken out again by another class of 30 learners. I can get to their books that were collected in following the same route that they're now going to be given out, before completing the register, all while moving between the character who teaches year 7 bottom set and year 10 top set one after the other! Feels like a chaotic 10 minutes - no wonder teachers are tired!