Yesterday I was asked in the staff room what my dream job would be and to the surprise of everyone I said I was in my dream job. Yes I know that is a bit cringe but it is honestly how I feel. I decided to go into teaching after spending a couple of years in industry and being very unhappy. It was the best decision I ever made! I enjoy coming to work everyday (yes I have my bad days still like anyone else) but teaching excites me. I love bringing new resources into my lessons and I love making my students love to learn Chemistry. One of my students recently said that my passion for my subject was making her love Chemistry for the first time ever.
Spring break starts tomorrow and I wanted to make sure my Year 11 students used their holiday time effectively to revise for their upcoming GCSE exams. I am constantly telling my students about the ‘Six Effective Strategies for Learning’ (see previous post) and to revise in short bursts regularly rather than doing 2/3 hours at a time. I decided I wanted to encourage them to revise so made them Chemistry revision ‘Survival Kits’.
Inside the bags I put a selection of revision resources for them to use including two past papers, a 2-page mind-map of the whole course and a revision links QR code sheet for them to scan to go to useful websites and YouTube videos to watch. All of their lessons resources are already uploaded onto their OneNote class books for them to go back over.
As a final treat I put some goodies into the bag with little notes written alongside them to remind them how smart they are, and how we all make mistakes etc.
My students were absolutely delighted with the ‘Survival Kit’ bags. I am a big believer that if you make your students feel loved and care about them then you will get much harder work and better results from them. I had a couple of parents email me the very next day after I gave the bags out to say thank you for my hard work and that it was extremely thoughtful. I also had one or two smart remarks from colleagues saying I was doing too much for my students but I will not let that discourage me from what I love doing. Feel free to download any of the resources I have attached to this post to adapt for your own classes and let me know how you got on @coffeychemistry on twitter.
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