Ideas while supervising

dobman88

I recently started supervising in a secondary school. A lot of staff are out due to covid and other reasons so I usually get 8 or 9 classes a day. I'm not a qualified teacher, I'm only a "covid supervisor" covering sick teachers.

Not all teachers send in work to pass on to students and the novelty of keeping them entertained for a "free" class by playing Geoguesser, wordle etc is starting to wear off some classes.

Does anyone have any idea what I could do to entertain them instead of having 25 bored teenagers looking at me for 40mins.

I have a school laptop, access to internet and a projector and screen in almost every room I go to.

Any tips appreciated.

Bananaleaf

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058239891/ideas-while-supervising

Hi there

First off, thank you for taking on the job. You are keeping schools open and you are taking pressure of qualified teachers such as myself because if it wasn't for you guys, we would be more swamped than we already are.

Students today lack two very important things - basic grammar and general knowledge. Either of those things would be worthwhile. You could replay the 9 o'clock news from the night before (obviously watch it first yourself just in case) and discuss it with year groups such as TY and 5th year. 3rd year and 6th year should be working on exam papers at this stage. If subject teacher doesn't leave work, print off part of a past paper in that subject area and pretend the subject teacher did send it into them. The old "Finish what you don't get done in class for homework" line keeps them working for the 40mins.

For 1st and second year, do basic spellings or grammar with them. There is a lot they don't know. Google 'homophones' for example. Show them a list and get them to explain the different meanings by using each in a sentence. Also the Cambridge 'English as a Foreign language' exam papers for the level "First Certificate" are about the level of our 1st and 2nd years (well, they should be anyway) If you Google that, along with 'past papers' you will get some free sample papers - multiple choice comprehension readings, fill in the gap grammar exercises.

Another handy exercise for a 40min class is to watch an age-appropriate short film (good starting point is the Irish Film Board short films) and then get them to write a summary of it.

Send me a PM if you need anything or have any more questions. Not on boards every day as I am very busy but I will get back to you eventually

dobman88

Wow! That's a very comprehensive reply and thank you very much.

Everything you say makes perfect sense and now I've seen it written down like that, it's so simple. I've got plenty to go on there.

rainbowtrout

If you are looking to show them something educational, the entire David Attenborough Netflix series Our Planet is on YouTube. I show small pieces of it in science class where relevant, but it wouldn't be a bad pick. If you can find similar for English novels/plays that JC/LC classes are studying it might be useful.

dobman88

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118882569#Comment_118882569

That's a great suggestion, tyvm. I was covering an engineering double this morning so we watched the engineering of the 787 followed by the GEnX, which they seemed to enjoy more than I expected.

Suppose it's just about finding something to do with the subject I am covering and making sure its connected in some way and also educational/beneficial

dobman88

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118882569#Comment_118882569

I feel I could now go on mastermind with that Attenborough series as my specialist subject. Thanks for the tip. It's working out a treat.

Dickie10

i know your not qualified teacher but if you could ask in school library for old workbooks in different subjects that would be good if you have the heads up on some classes you have to cover you could photocopy out some exercises from them. For Maths class without work left online countdown is great too.

AJG

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119012427#Comment_119012427

For maths worksheets this site is great: https://corbettmaths.com/contents/

There's worksheets and answers for most topics. It's GCSE based but the topics covered correlate to a lot of what's in the Irish system. They also have videos explaining how to solve most maths problems.