Hot Tips for Relief Teaching

Teaching is tough

Lets face it! 

Whether you are teaching in the classroom full time or you are relief teaching now and then, teaching is tough.

But there are a couple of teaching tips to help make your role as a teacher just a little bit easier. If you are relief teaching, these teaching tips will put you in the "I am value adding to your day" league.

Quotation Marks

Punctuation Marks - Quotation Marks

When I was a kid (oh good grief - did I just say that?), punctuation was a regular feature of my day.

Relief Teaching and Word Games

Relief Teaching pay is good. But you can't go and purchase hundreds of resources for your job.

I am very selective about where I spend my money. Some would call my a tight-wad (or worse).

Fishing gear - YES.
Relief teaching resources - NO.

Relief Teaching & the Curriculum

Relief Teaching and the Curriculum

Honestly, how on earth can relief teachers know the curriculum for every year level?

Simple answer is you can't.

However it is vitally important that relief teachers have an GENERAL understanding of what each year should know. 

This way they can cover activities relevant to the skill level of each year level.

Why Construction suits Relief Teaching.

This is a great lesson to help kids master the intricacies of construction. It is manual rather than an academic activity so it caters for all learners.

This is great for relief teachers as quite often a relief teacher may not know kid’s abilities when they arrive.

It's not really a game.

A thousand years ago (well it feels like that)  learning centres were all the rage in schools and then like all things education, the pendulum swung away from this classroom approach. We used various activities and kids rotated through them. They WEREN'T GAMES.

So I revisited this teaching approach the other day while relief teaching in a senior primary class and used just ONE activity to see how it would pan out.

WOW!

It was brilliant. Kids were focussed, engaged with each other AND the strategy of the activity. (I avoided calling it a game - because we don't play games in school) It actually blew me away how successful this activity was.

Like all things relief teaching - if you love it - they will

I was doing a relief teaching stint working with a year 7 class yesterday and my timing must have been a bit out because I had about 15 minutes left before the morning tea break.

DRATS!

5 Killer Tips for Peer Tutoring

I was relief teaching with a group of year 6 & 7 students and I had 2 hours to teach them how to find the discount price of an item on sale. Too easy I thought - but after 30 minutes I found my very straight forward lesson wasn't so straight forward. Some kids were struggling and some kids were flying through it.

As a relief teacher - Don't you HATE that!

How Relief Teachers get access to Learning Place

The Learning Place is available to employees of the Department of Education and Training (DET) but is not meant to provide services to the teaching profession in general.

How to teach an investigation - Step One

Measuring the drop height

I  am lucky enough to be working with a group of 11 and 12 year old students for a couple of hours per day over a couple of weeks. I have been tasked with extending their learning. The ultimate goal is to improving their performance on NAPLAN tests later in the year.

A Resource worth Checking.

I generally only do relief in the older classes but I am doing two x 3-day gigs in a small multi-age country school in a few weeks time. So I was looking for reading resource to use while there.

That's when I found this series called Tim the Tree Limb.

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One Complete Day of Relief.

This is one complete day of relief teaching including lesson plans, notes, access to files, Powerpoints and tips for the day. CLICK HERE

NAPLAN for Relief Teachers

There are few teachers who would hold NAPLAN in high regard - but it is a necessary systemic imperative. This is a small one-page pretest that could be used as a teaching tool.

How to Teach - Number Facts

This is a speed template for number facts. Students complete self timed number facts progressing from an easy 5 seconds per sum to a blistering 1 seconds per sum.

Top Math/Language worksheet

This is a great worksheet (even if I do say so myself). It is based on a word search grid. The only difference is, to find which words are in the grid, students must do a math operation.

A Learning Investigation into Probability

An introduction to probability. A multi-media PowerPoint. Click the image for the file. (NB It is quite a large file so make a cup of coffee while it downloads)

How to Develop Cooperative Learning Skills

There are some strategies that support cooperative learning. If you are new to this game, take baby steps first.

Another 10 Ways to Use a Shopping Catalogue

Following on from this site's MOST POPULAR POST.

Shopping catalogues are fabulous resources for relief teachers because they are free, easily available and provide inspiration for a range of lessons.

A simple teaching strategy

This used to be such a common teaching practice but I don't see it much any more. It certainly is a NOISY activity but if you value sharing and discussing of ideas, this is the strategy to use.