What’s the difference? by @primaryreflect

Last year I moved to Year 2. That was a difference, a few of my friends outside of teaching, and several parents thought I was a little bit mad.

This article was originally published by Adam Atkinson here

I am more than capable of coming across as a little mad, and I quite like change and a challenge. Put Key Stage responsibility, and a very important set of results for the end of the year (no one wants a falling trend do they…) into the mix and madness was certainly going to be an option.

I was, however, looking forward to the challenge. It had been several years since I had taught in Key Stage 1 full time, but hey this is the new curriculum; Year 2 is the old year 4 right?

The year has come and gone, and it went very quickly. I have written / rewritten / redrafted / deleted / forgotten about several blog posts this year. I haven’t been in a place to confidently and unashamedly press the publish button. This one had to be right and still isn’t. I’ve spent the year getting six and seven-year-olds to double check, redraft, peer check, and the final proof, and in truth, I wasn’t able to keep this plate spinning on top of what was needed to keep the classroom moving forward. If I don’t know whether this is going to sound right when I press publish, how have they (the six and seven-year-olds) felt all year?

The whole year has been about change:

We’ve changed the way that Maths was taught in Year 2, the CPA approach has been crucial, the learning sequences developed by White Rose were invaluable, but really can we stop calling them ‘manipulatives’, please!

We’ve changed the reading to whole class reading, a move that I had already undertaken in year 4, but now rolled out the whole school.

We’ve moved towards a plan, draft, redraft, publish cycle for writing. No more weekly/biweekly ‘big writes.’

We’ve used PUMA and PIRA assessments to support TA throughout the year, these assessments were extremely useful.

And there were many more. It was one of those years.

One highlight for me though was seeing how confident my children, who at times were more than a little bit quirky, became a visual representation. Coming down from the more formal approach that had been delivered historically at Year 4, to Year 2 was a mind shift. It was incredibly rewarding to see pupils independently calculate and support their reasoning through careful, but not always neat and tidy, visual representation and sketching.

Whilst on holiday the summer before starting in Year 2 one of my relatives asked if I would be teaching Year 4 again next year, I replied ‘No, I’m going to be teaching Year 2,’ they followed with the question: ‘What’s the difference?’

Being of a sarcastic nature, my answer at the time was ‘on average 2 years.’ My answer now though would be very different.

I had the pleasure to teach what was potentially one of the most challenging and demanding years of my career, but I loved it. I love working in Key Stage 1, sure some things take longer, but the little things matter so much more. To anyone who is in Key Stage 2 and not sure about trying Key Stage 1; give it a go, they can be truly amazing.

So after a year of change and movement how do I feel? Exhausted, excited, and invigorated, ready for a new challenge. Time to bring EYFS into the mix.