In September, a timetabling quirk saw me teaching two Year 7 classes for the first time in several years.
As a department, we knew these students would have gaps in knowledge but we didn’t anticipate how underdeveloped their non-curriculum skills would be. Pupils are struggling with things like reading an analogue clock, tying their shoelaces and retaining stamina throughout the school day.
These sorts of skills, clearly, need to be encouraged and developed at home. But how can we, as teachers, help to plug these gaps?
Reading an analogue clock
Many pupils are used to reading digital time on a screen and can’t read an analogue clock. This is a concern: it’s a skill taught in the early years of primary school and, during exam season, it’s a crucial one.
Most exam halls will have analogue clocks, from which pupils need to be able to extrapolate how much time should be spent on a question. Even if digital clocks are provided, pupils still have to perform mental somersaults to work out how much time they have left.
The solution: in school, we use retrieval clocks as a form of revision, allowing pupils to revisit the skill, and also provide chunked timeframes on a clock face to show how long should be spent on specific questions.
However, if pupils need to go back to basics, tutor time should be the starting point. Here, a quick-fire quiz can highlight gaps before practising different times. At home, parents can discuss timeframes around dinner, homework, screen time and bed using an analogue clock face.
More teaching and learning:
Tying shoelaces and ties
There aren’t any situations in which pupils are required to remove their shoes. But how often have pupils arrived late to your lesson only for you to discover they’ve been spending a long time getting changed after PE or dance?
The cause is often a combination of dawdling, and simply not having the skills and dexterity to perform the intricate knot required for a tie or a shoelace.
For the average Year 7, there has been little need for a school tie or formal shoes in the past two years - realistically since they were in Year 4, at which time they would undoubtedly have needed help.
The solution: parents need to lead on this: pupils need to be presenting to school with their uniform worn to the school’s standard. Often, a quick phone call from the tutor or pastoral team will suffice - but if there are persistent issues, these can be addressed at the start of the day. Teach pupils the “shortcuts”, such as loosening a previously tied tie to slip their head through without the need for re-tying, or using the “bunny-ears” method for laces.
Online etiquette
Most schools have continued to use online and blended learning when pupils or staff are isolating or submitting homework online.
And yet little thought appears to have been given to how we teach pupils to formulate an email with an attachment. Empty subject lines, randomly named attachments and brusque one-line emails are commonplace among some of the pupils I teach.
Pupils appear to be adept at complex online tasks but need to be explicitly shown how to file their work and communicate formally.
The solution: we are all teachers of communication and everyone should make it clear to pupils that the manner in which they send their work really matters.
Make it so they can’t fail: part of the homework should involve reading the instructions on how to label the file and format the email, including a salutation and appropriate subject line. Include expectations around response time, and explain that you will not be responding immediately when they send it at 11pm on a Saturday evening.
Stamina in the school day
By period 5, our pupils are exhausted and fractious, which inevitably leads to a drop in concentration levels and a rise in behaviour incidents.
The solution: we have tackled this through carefully planning low-stress, high-utility activities for those lessons: the weekly spelling test, silent reading time and use of class rewards have helped to maintain the momentum needed to get through our curriculum.
Consistency is key here - while we can’t and shouldn’t write off all lessons after lunch because the pupils are shattered, activities that are useful but require less structure provide a meaningful experience and a routine.
Managing relationships
More than anything else, school closures have impacted pupils’ ability to form and maintain relationships with their peers. Much of what might have been resolved in a lunch time spilled over into group chats online during lockdown, and the reduced face-to-face time pupils have had in the past two years has left many struggling to regulate their emotions and relationships with peers.
The solution: building emotional resilience is not easily resolved by class teachers alone but carefully planned seating plans and structured discussion activities in the classroom allow for meaningful communication and bond-building between pupils.
A silly “Shakespearean insults” lesson, which I promised as a reward, paid dividends in making pupils laugh with, instead of at, each other, as well as helping them to realise the importance of working collectively to receive that reward.
When there are deeper issues, it’s time for the pastoral team to join forces with the special educational needs and disability team to create focus groups for developing resilience and emotional literacy.
Laura May Rowlands is head of English in a secondary school in Hampshire
