"Miss you look like Harry Potter... but a girl."

I was actually told this by a pupil today. When I said "What?!" He said "Yeah Miss, coz of your glasses and that, you look like Harry Potter but a girl."

... I need to get some new glasses.

In case you're wondering what I was doing talking to a pupil, a group of us spent the day at Langdon Park School in Poplar, observing lessons and talking to pupils and teachers, eventually getting onto leading a couple of activities in the afternoon (although I don't know what they were expecting from children at 3pm on a Thursday afternoon). The school is situated within a large Bangladeshi community; as a result about 80% of the pupils were Bangladeshi, many with English as a second language.

It was definitely an eye-opener for me - I've only ever had experience of grammar education, and I'm not saying that grammar kids are all 'cleverer', or 'posher' or whatever (because it's not true!) but you can definitely tell the difference in terms of their motivation for working, and their attitudes to learning. We were told that a very high proportion (they even went as far to say all) the pupils had some sort of issue at home, or issues which they were dealing with, and you can tell it greatly affects their learning.

The activities we were given to lead were exceptionally dull. I mean, really dull, so no wonder they couldn't really be bothered. Also we only had a fifteen minute slot, and all six of us were talking the activity in the same classroom. I think this is why the pupils felt they could mess around; they behaved just fine for their normal class teacher but saw our time with them as an opportunity to push the boundaries. And to ask really personal, stupid questions.

I worked with one particular student of self-proclaimed 'disadvantaged' Bangladeshi background, who took particular relish in asking me lots and lots and lots of these rapid-fire awkward questions. It was very amusing actually so I'd like to attempt to reconstruct the conversation as follows:

Pupil: "Miss are you English? Are you rich? Why are you here? Are you at University? If I go Uni will you help me wiv my tuition fees coz I'm like really poor innit. We don't get any food because we're really disadvantaged. I, like, live in a bin, and my friend lives in the bin next door, and we only get given rubbish and litter coz we don't get proper food. Have you ever played Call of Duty? Miss did you know there's a new Wii coming out? Have you got a son Miss? Are you married? When you get a husband and a son you should buy a Wii so that they can play Call of Duty on it. Miss I CAN'T DO THIS QUESTION. It's ruining my self-esteem. Do you support the Tory party? Or is it Labour? I know it's not Lib Dem coz you're at Uni and Nick Clegg sang that song about being really sorry for making you pay loads of money and that. Miss your glasses make you look like Harry Potter. But a girl. You look like a girl version of Harry Potter. Miss my friend's being racist because he's saying my mum works at Asda but actually she works at Sainsbury's. Miss I don't see the point of this can I go home now?"

Me: "..."

ALL of these things were said. I remember because 1) it was only about 3 hours ago and 2) I had to try so hard not to crack up. I can't wait to start my placement at Norbury Girls next week.

"So has everybody understood?" "...Yeah." "So what's the answer?" "... I don't know."

Every Wednesday at the IoE, we're given the chance to attend lectures from illustrious guest-speakers on areas of teaching which are relevant to all teachers, regardless of which subject you choose to teach. So far we've covered Teachers' Legal Obligations, Classroom Discipline, Voice Care, Special Educational Needs (SEN) and English as an Additional Language (EAL), the last two of which we have been told firmly are not related in any way. It's not surprising children with EAL struggle to learn and develop at the same rate as their English companions - have you ever been given part of a History lesson in rapid French and been expected to understand what was going on? 

We have. Even though I have a little grasp of French, I was so busy trying to translate what I'd just heard that I missed the next part of the lesson. That was a great way to help us empathise with EAL pupils, who are regularly considered slow learners and not very bright, and we received some very valuable information about how to help such pupils. 

So that was last week. Today we were given some incredibly helpful tips on assessing pupils' progress, from a man who you might recognise from BBC2's 'The Classroom Experiment', and is Deputy Director and Emeritus Professor of Educational Assessment at the IoE... *phew that was a mouthful*. Here is a picture.

Dr. Dylan William. He was actually pretty terrifying. Especially stalking the lecture hall rows with a big red microphone getting people to answer questions. Fortunately I had some kind of sixth sense today, which told me to sit in the middle of the row.

But there was plenty to think about, safe with twenty trainee teachers to the left and right of me. The importance of good questioning was touched on, where you plan your questions beforehand to ensure you get pupils thinking and also, curious! There was a really good example, more science/geography than maths but I loved it anyway.

Ask your pupils "why is it colder at the top of a mountain, when it's closer to the sun?" and watch them rack their brains coming up with an answer!

Even better, there followed a great maths question.

"Can you have a triangle with two 90 degree angles?"

This elicited some very intriguing answers.

1) "The triangle would have to be infinitely tall. Because parallel lines meet at infinity..."

Clearly this teacher had put some very strange ideas into this pupil's head. At this point you'd probably try and explain that parallel lines never meet. Not in 3 dimensions anyway... 

2) "Well, angles in a triangle add up to 180 degrees. So there's 90 + 90 already. Can you have an angle of 0 degrees?"

This went on to a discussion about a 0 degree angle, and plain straight lines and so on.

The final answer... quite simply, I hope I get a pupil as bright as this.

3) "Yes you can. What if you start at the North Pole, and put the other two points somewhere on the Equator?"

... To have a pupil naturally refer to non-Euclidean geometry, without prior knowledge of the subject, I believe is quite something. This is why I can't wait to get into the classroom; pupils will always surprise you with completely unique ways of thinking! I now just need to get the skills to help pupils from all walks of life, with different brains, different ways of thinking, develop their understanding. Without just doing it my way.