Teaching primary school students throughout key stage one and key stage two can be an extremely rewarding experience.
- Keep activities short, focused and relevant
When teaching primary school students, it is vital that you keep the learning activities focused and well-matched to their level. If tasks aren’t appropriate for their current abilities or are long and tedious, then pupils are likely to give up easily and become distracted.
When setting tasks, try to give them enough to be able to check their work and to see how they are doing in that subject, but not so much that they will feel bogged down. Explain what you expect them to do and what they are expected to learn to keep the teaching focused.
To keep lessons fun and focused, Teachit Primary have got a range of teaching packs and resources for all topics. They are perfect for giving some structure to lessons without them being boring and long-winded.
- Offer different ways to learn
Naturally, different minds will work in different ways and even adults all have a different approach to learning and working.
Some children will learn better visually, whilst some will learn better through listening or practical activities. Giving children a choice of learning method will help them learn more as you are working to their strengths.
For example, if learning spellings, visual learners may want to write the spellings out on paper, auditory learners may respond better to repeating the spellings vocally and practical learners may benefit from having different letter cubes in front of them that they can move around to spell a word with.
- Breaks and movement are key
It has been proven that taking regular breaks from learning is good for the brain. Giving pupils a short break of around 2 minutes after 10-15 minutes of work can help give the brain a rest and improve concentration when returning to their work.
A break could be a quick walk around the classroom, doing some jumping jacks or even singing a rhyme or song together. Whilst you may feel that pupils are more distracted on the first few tries of this, once it becomes a regular occurrence you will notice a difference in their concentration and energy.