Teach Together English at Ricards Lodge High School
Wimbledon High School have partnered with Ricards Lodge High School for the Teach Together English programme. The programme gives our students the unique opportunity to initially, be taught how to teach by Wimbledon High staff, before heading out to one of our partner schools, in this case, Ricards Lodge. It will follow the very successful model the science department have delivered over the last two years called ISSP, however, the range of subjects is much more diverse.The Teach Together programme benefits not only our state partner schools, but also WHS students. We have seen a growth in confidence in personal delivery and a more thorough understanding of students from different backgrounds.
Aims
- Supporting classroom teacher at Ricards
- Leading classroom teaching
- Helping Ricards pupils attain highly in English and enjoy English
- Developing confidence in WHS pupils to take leadership roles
- Social awareness of pupils from different social backgrounds
Background
The Teach Together project as a whole commenced in September 2017 at Wimbledon High School whereby we reached out to a number of schools to invite them to collaborate with us. Our goal is to ensure our students here at Wimbledon High learn valuable new skills for their own personal development as well as the partnering schools benefiting from having our students teach them subjects in a fun and innovative way.
Impact
Wimbledon High pupils have found it fascinating to see another secondary school environment. They have been mature in helping in lessons and have been very patient in their interaction with Ricards pupils, helping them read and understand texts.
Recently, we have been planning and delivering lessons, creating our own resources to tie in with Ricards’ Yr 8 Scheme of Work which links non-fiction texts to Alice in Wonderland. This has given our pupils a lot of responsibility and leadership skills.
Pupils at Ricards have benefitted from working in small groups with our pupils analysing the way writers use language in non-fiction texts. They get close attention and we have witnessed some excellent quality written work coming from the lessons we taught and planned. Ricards pupils were confidently using a wide range of technical terms in their analysis.
Frequency
The Teach Together project runs for a total of 20 weeks from September through to Easter. This opportunity will be on offer every school year for the forseeable future.