Golden Teachers

^{A bi-weekly T&L post for staff at Community Schools Trust}

Every term, our students practise their attitude of gratitude by nominating the teacher they want to award the ‘Golden Teacher Award’ (GTA) and it is my absolute pleasure to be able to read through all the nominations and choose a GTA winner for the term.

It’s a lengthy task because I am reading through hundreds of nominations on a large spreadsheet and amidst the myriad of end of term things to do, it is perhaps one task I could delegate quite easily.

But I don’t want to! It is definitely one of my ‘red threads’ – that is, according to Buckingham and Goodhall in Nine Lies About Work, joy-giving activities that nourish you, build momentum and help you to succeed at work.

So in an attempt to weave this red thread into the week of our final week of the half term, here are some joyous examples of GTA teacher nominations at Forest Gate Community School this term. 

As I read through them, I noticed 3 common themes:

1. Our students recognise good teaching
2. Our students notice when we are deliberately upbeat
3. Our students know that following rules means we care

1 Our students recognise good teaching:

• Miss Chaudhary deserves this award because she practises great habits of attention during her lessons
• Miss Hardman deserves this award because the way she teaches helps me understand and analyse language much better. Also the way she speaks influences my language in the way that my vocabulary is constantly growing to the point that my friends have started saying I speak ‘posh’ which is hilarious to me.
• In my opinion, I believe Mr Wigington deserves my nomination for the golden teacher award. As seen just a few weeks ago when we did high jump for the lesson he explained how to complete the jump even doing it himself. I appreciate this as I could grasp the idea of how to complete the task correctly.
• Mr Villa deserves this award as he is always kind, forgiving and always makes the lesson fun especially when he says ‘I say you say’. He is a wonderful and nice teacher and always encourages us to speak in class and always try even if you get it wrong. Thank you sir for being a lovely teacher and always smiling. You’re the reason that I love Spanish.

2 Our students notice when we are deliberately upbeat:

• Ms Abbott deserves this award because she always puts students’ needs first…She is always coming to the class with a smile on her face which is very infectious. 
• Ms Humphreys deserves this reward because there is never a day where I don’t look forward to English. She always has an unmatched energy and expects nothing but the best from us. She explains everything clearly and always encourages us to go beyond what we are already doing. Also she owns cats which just automatically makes her an even more amazing person and teacher 🙂

3 Our students know that following rules means we care:

• Miss Goyan literally deserves this award – the Wednesday collab work we did legit saved my life in my exams even though everything I revised didn’t come up, she had prepared me so well and taught analysis so well that I remembered it all without any struggle. Thank you miss – the Reminders and everything was worth it because I came out the exam with a grin on my face, not even a smile.

Finally, a particular favourite: this one is straight talking, acknowledges the necessity of sanctions and ends with an ultimatum:

• There is no explanation needed. It’s pretty self explanatory like who else am I gonna nominate? Ms Henry is the best like she is so easy to talk to, she is understanding and even though she makes sure I’m in detention and behaviour improvement room she is still my favourite and if she goes so do I.

I could have chosen literally hundreds of more examples like these. They reminded me of Doug Lemov’s reflections on building relationships with students:

‘relational teaching – using the way you teach to build a trusting relationship.  What happens inside the classroom – inside the teaching within the classroom – is the first and foremost driver of relationships.’

So teach, really well. Use our teacher plays, be deliberately upbeat and consistently apply our rules. They work. 

Have a great week.

Thahmina