Don Ledingham’s Learning Log

I was in Cockenzie Primary School this week and watched a P7 Maths class.  The class was a top set but was made up of three differentiated groups. Each of the groups knew the level that they were working towards and understood what they had to do to make progress.

I was very impressed by the effective use of assistant teachers in the class.  Education has often used pupils within class to assist the teaching process through what used to be called pupil teachers or monitors.

In Cockenzie, when the teacher was working with one specific group the other groups had a nominated “assistant teacher” - it was this person’s job to help the others in the goup who might be having difficulty.  The assistant teacher role was rotated on a daily basis.  When I asked pupils what they thought of this they all said they really enjoyed being the “teacher” - it didn’t seem to matter that they might not be the best in the group - as one of them said:

“Two brains are always better than one” - now that’s what I call teaching!