Dear Christine, You sound so frustrated over the whole situation.
By the sounds of it, you do have a session plan - it just isn't what Ofsted expect to see. You provide your students with a basic framework to develop the skills they need, as well as the opportunity to make something of their own choice within their capabilities. Your session plan is to meet the individual needs of the lacemakers in the class. Your course planning for learning is in the long term, and this is where you plan their learning. The session content is dependant on the students' aptitude and opportunity to work between classes. You have to be flexible in order to meet needs, but you know that at some point you will teach student A how to join lace for example, but when it will be is outside your control, as it depends on when she has got to that point in the course. It is actually much harder than running a session where you are teaching everyone the same thing. The benefits are that students can pick up skills at a rate which is right for them, and do not have to try and take in information which is either not yet relevant to them, or they already know. One of the problems with education is that it seems to apply the idea that you need to teach everyone exactly the same thing, in the same sort of way, preferably at the same time. There is no allowance for flexibility. You have found a method of running a class, which suits the students, and they are doing well. Why change what does not need fixing? If Ofsted are not careful, it won't be long before colleges are unable to offer courses of unusual skills, and all that will be left are things like card making - where everyone is making exactly the same thing at the same time. I was talking yesterday to a young girl who had recently been taken out of school, at a get together for home educating families. The activity was junk modelling. I was told that she was really enjoying it, though she had hated the activity at school. The difference was that at school, she had to follow the teachers plan to make her model. Yesterday she had the opportunity to use a range of resources in whatever way she liked, having been given a brief idea of possibilities with the resources available. Karen In Coventry, England Who has found home educated girls are interested in making lace. -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.308 / Virus Database: 266.7.1 - Release Date: 09/03/2005 - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
