In this episode, Claire talks over the internet to four members of the Classroom Secrets team about the varied (and sometimes quite confusing) terminology that schools and teachers use or need to know.

As a result of the coronavirus ‘lockdown’, many parents are trying to provide some form of education for their children at home. Many schools have provided wonderful ranges of resources to help with this, but, sometimes, these materials do contain words or phrases which class teachers would regularly use or would quickly explain in class.

In this week’s podcast, each of our guests is an experienced practitioner in a particular age-range of primary education, and, with Claire, they talk about the vocabulary and potentially confusing terms which appear most often in their phase of school.

First, Claire talks to Victoria Clay – the early years team manager – about the first phase of education that children experience. Victoria initially trained as teacher for the general primary age-range rather than specifically on the early years phase but, after covering a maternity leave in a reception class for several weeks, she knew that this particular area of school was where she wanted to work. In her teaching career, Victoria worked in three very different settings, including in a nursery, but made the difficult decision to leave teaching after having her own children.

Claire then talks with Katie Cockroft, a key stage one proofreader, about the terms children will hear and use in years 1 and 2 at primary school. Although her degree specialism was in the early years, Katie has worked mainly in key stage 1 and has been a leader of English in the school where she worked.

Lindsay Grix – our year 3 team manager – discusses some of the key learning children in lower key stage 2 will experience. Lindsay has 12 years’ experience of working across all primary ages from early years to year 6. Lindsay talks about the changes and challenges that children in years 3 and 4 experience as they quickly build on their learning in key stage 1.

Lastly, Claire talks with Betty Powdrill – the year 6 team manager – about upper key stage 2, where children, in normal circumstances, would be working towards the statutory assessments. Betty shares how, apart from a brief desire to become a dentist, she knew that she always wanted to be a teacher from a young age. After volunteering in schools and completing the Graduate Teacher Programme, she realised that she felt most comfortable teaching in year 6 and spent the majority of her career teaching in this year-group. Betty has also moderated writing for the local authority and co-ordinated maths across the school where she worked.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Learning can happen anywhere
  It can be easy to feel ‘lost’ sometimes with how much children are expected to cover, but don’t overthink it. A lot of learning that children do – especially at the younger ages – can be unplanned and happen anywhere at any time. There is a lot that children can learn through doing things that don’t need to be organised or planned out ahead of time.
• For early-years children, play is vital
  Play is incredibly important for nursery and reception aged children and developments at this stage are crucial to achievements later in their academic journey. Within this, it is also important to remember that children will learn at their own pace and developments will happen slightly differently between different children. Don’t worry too much if something other children can do isn’t yet evident for your child as they will, undoubtedly, catch up.
• The importance of routines that work for you
  Whatever your routine looks like, it will almost certainly be fine. While we are still unsure about when schools will be reopening, having some form of routine in place is important. However, it is also useful to have flexibility in the routine and, as long as it works for you, it will help children to thrive and will allow some form of transition back to the school day when ‘normal life’ resumes.
• The importance of talk
  One of the most important things to do with children, at any age, is just to talk with them as conversation and discussion can prompt a whole wealth of learning opportunities. As well as this, talking increases and expands children’s vocabulary, allows development of ideas and can allow you to explore and develop your child’s interests alongside them sparking more focus and willingness to work.
  
  

PODCAST CHAPTERS

Within this podcast, you can find out about the following aspects of teaching terminology that is used within primary education.

0:30          Introduction

1:48          Early years education – Nursery and reception

• Early Learning Goals (ELG).
• Prime and specific areas.
• Phonics, including the phases of phonics, phonemes, graphemes, digraphs and trigraphs.
• Tricky and nonsense words.
• Number bonds.

34:10        Key stage 1 – Years 1 and 2

37:02        Maths

• 3D shapes
• Venn diagrams
• Related subtraction and exchanging
• Pictograms
• Fractions
• Digits
• Mathematical symbols
• Multiples
• Place value and place value counters

47:24        English

• Nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs
• Noun phrases
• Conjunctions
• Consonants
• Clauses
• Ascenders and descenders
• Question marks and exclamation marks
• Commas and apostrophes
• Contractions
• Command words
• Prefixes and suffixes
• Extending sentences

59:56        Lower key stage 2 – Years 3 and 4

1:06:37     Maths

• Non-unit fractions
• Single-digit denominators
• Fractions of quantities
• Part-whole models

1:12:40     English

• Main clauses, subordinate clauses and relative clauses
• Pronouns
• Abstract nouns
• Prepositions
• Adverbials
• Synonyms and antonyms
• Subordinating and co-ordinating conjunctions
• Alliteration

1:29:14     Upper key stage 2 – Years 5 and 6

1:32:47     Maths

• Translation
• Decimals
• Ones and units
• Percentages
• Improper fractions and mixed numbers

1:36:55     English

• Subjects and objects
• Active and passive verbs
• Personal pronouns
• Subjunctive form and present perfect form
• Present progressive tense
• Idioms
• Acronyms
  
  

VALUABLE RESOURCES

Classroom Secrets Kids: https://kids.classroomsecrets.co.uk/
Coronavirus Home Learning Support for Teachers and Parents: https://www.facebook.com/groups/coronavirushomelearning/
Classroom Secrets website: https://classroomsecrets.co.uk/
The Teachers’ Podcast: https://www.facebook.com/groups/TheTeachersPodcast/
Classroom Secrets Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ClassroomSecretsLimited/
LIFE/work balance campaign: https://classroomsecrets.co.uk/lifeworkbalance-and-wellbeing-in-education-campaign-2019/

ABOUT THE HOST
Claire Riley

Claire, alongside her husband Ed, is one of the directors of Classroom Secrets, a company she founded in 2013 and which provides outstanding differentiated resources for teachers, schools, parents and tutors worldwide.

Having worked for a number of years as a teacher in both Primary and Secondary education, and experiencing first-hand the difficulties teachers were facing finding appropriate high-quality resources for their lessons, Claire created Classroom Secrets with the aim of helping reduce the workload for all school staff.

Claire is a passionate believer in a LIFE/work balance for those who work in education citing the high percentage of teachers who leave or plan to leave their jobs each year. Since February 2019, Classroom Secrets has been running their LIFE/work balance campaign to highlight this concerning trend.

The Teachers’ Podcast is a series of interviews where Claire meets with a wide range of guests involved in the field of education. These podcasts provide exciting discussions and different perspectives and thoughts on a variety of themes which are both engaging and informative for anyone involved in education.