It turned out all right in the end

 One problem with tweets and blogs is you only see the shiny successful fancy stuff. Never the lesson that went wrong. Probably less because people don't want to talk about it or won't admit that it happens. More because we're wary of portraying our schools and our pupils in a negative light.

Anyway, we all know it happens. Here's what happened to me last week with a lesson that just flopped and how it turned out alright in the end, because it's not about one activity, one lesson. It's about progress and moving forward together.

I was planning on doing Ready Steady French with my Year 8 middle set. I know Ready Steady Cook is from before they were born, although it has been revived recently. So I briefly explained that it was a cooking programme where people brought along ingredients and had to make something tasty out of them.

The metaphor of "ingredients" is particularly powerful. Through this lesson, I wanted to get across the idea that you use the French ingredients you have. To make something tasty. And it's not about learning more and more French. It's about getting better at using the ingredients you have. And using them in the right proportions. Lots of cake, a bit of icing, and a couple of smarties. And not sitting there making nothing because you've decided to make something that requires ingredients you don't have. 

And for the Ready Steady French format, the distinction between store cupboard ingredients and the specific ingredients you've brought in or been given.

I had borrowed the Red Tomatoes, Green Peppers logo to shine on the board and I'd set up three rounds. Round One was an individual round, working with one ingredient plus our store cupboard ingredients. How many things can you make out of "nager"? Making single sentences and exploring all the things in our store cupboard we can always use. Things like opinions, verb + infinitive, conjunctions, people and places.

Round Two was going to be a pairs round about combining ingredients. So with "nager", "jouer", "faire les magasins" and "aller", could you use the store cupboard ingredients to make a mini paragraph along the lines of "I love to swim in the pool but if I go to the beach I don't like to swim because I prefer to play football on the beach..."

Round Three was going to involve them making a bag of "ingredients" picked from the unit vocabulary list to give to another pair to make something nice out of in French. This did not happen.

They just were not buying it. I don't know if they were thrown by the format? Or didn't take it seriously. Or if I was too focused on the activity and not enough on taking them with me. Or if one of them was confused by the metaphor and thought we were really cooking. Or if the set changes made by the head of year had changed the group dynamic and they'd already had a bad lesson in history. Or if the fact we were working on paper instead of exercise books changed their attitude. I thought the paper was so they could try things out and have a go. Did they think it was a test? Anyway, we struggled through Round One. And then did Round Two together rather than as a challenge.

Then I abandoned Round Three. Instead I gave them a "recipe" on the board to follow and made them do a bit of writing following it. Basically the recipe was:

positive opinion        because I can...        especially if...

but     negative opinion    because I have to...    I prefer...

I also did list the ingredients on the board so they had everything they needed.

It kept to the ingredients/cooking metaphor but got rid of the format. And they did it very well. It could be that the TV show format had unsettled them. And they worked better just being told to work in silence on their piece of paper. Or it could be that this class often have ups and downs, not necessarily linked to what I am asking them to do. I know their history teacher says the same thing.

So what happened next? The next lesson I told them I still wanted to see how good they were at using their ingredients. I stressed it wasn't a test. And that I was going to give them a series of opportunities with different levels of support. But that first I wanted to see what they could do just with the French they carry around in their head.

This is the sort of thing that I got. Or this:

Confident writing, from the store cupboard ingredients they use for all topics. Plus topic specific vocabulary for Free Time which is what we are working on. All unprepared and written with French they know.

My comments on their work aren't about the French at all. They are all about what we can do in our next piece of work to make it a better piece of writing. Better organised, more personal, less repetitive. And that's what we will do after half term. I told them this was just me looking at what they could do and that they would have the chance to improve it. We'll see what they come up with!