Primary CRT - Primary Schools

[SHAKESPEARE]

The new teaching agency I am currently with have been offering me lots of primary school work that at this stage I have managed to avoid accepting due to my other job.

What should a primary school CRT expect? I am a secondary trained teacher and have lots of experience with CRT work at the higher levels, and have only had primary experience at an elite private school that was so ridiculously easy it wasn't funny. Now the schools this new agency have on their CRT register are your average, run of the mill primary schools, and I am a bit worried about the content their teachers will leave and how to engage the students.

What sort of lessons/work should I keep in the kitbag?

I miss the high school CRT work where the work is just there and the kids give you so much grief that you just need to focus on your classroom management and behavioural policies

 

[Coconut_twirl]

Here is another interesting question:

How often do CRT specialist arrive at a primary classroom and find that there has been no work left by the regular teacher? How did you cope?

 

[raskolnikov]

The new teaching agency I am currently with have been offering me lots of primary school work that at this stage I have managed to avoid accepting due to my other job.

What should a primary school CRT expect? I am a secondary trained teacher and have lots of experience with CRT work at the higher levels, and have only had primary experience at an elite private school that was so ridiculously easy it wasn't funny. Now the schools this new agency have on their CRT register are your average, run of the mill primary schools, and I am a bit worried about the content their teachers will leave and how to engage the students.

What sort of lessons/work should I keep in the kitbag?

I miss the high school CRT work where the work is just there and the kids give you so much grief that you just need to focus on your classroom management and behavioural policies

I am a primary school teacher, though currently teaching special ed at a high school. I did quite a bit of CRT work in Melbourne. Very rarely did teachers leave work. You really need a bag of tricks, as our lecturer at uni used to say. A few ideas:

- For literacy choose a book and read it to the students. Get them do a reading response to the book(e.g. story map, design a new book cover, write an alternative ending etc).

- For Maths do mental maths drills and quizzes. Games like buzz, mastermind and bingo(get them to make their own bingo cards) work well

In terms of behaviour management most primary students love rewards. I used to take bags of lollies and stickers and reward good behaviour and good work.

 

[borgsta2006]

I am a primary school teacher, though currently teaching special ed at a high school. I did quite a bit of CRT work in Melbourne. Very rarely did teachers leave work. You really need a bag of tricks, as our lecturer at uni used to say. A few ideas:

- For literacy choose a book and read it to the students. Get them do a reading response to the book(e.g. story map, design a new book cover, write an alternative ending etc).

- For Maths do mental maths drills and quizzes. Games like buzz, mastermind and bingo(get them to make their own bingo cards) work well

In terms of behaviour management most primary students love rewards. I used to take bags of lollies and stickers and reward good behaviour and good work.

WOW! Teachers very rarely left work for you? It is a bit of a catch 22. Up here in NSW, CRT's get $385 per day pre tax. Our school's expectation is that the teachers leave work and the CRT's mark and teach what is left.
Some schools don't expect teachers to leave work because the casuals get paid to do a job, they might as well do it all, however, doing that doesn't keep the program for students free flowing, often leaving the plan and programme to the CRT's discretion, which might not be consistent with the original plan.

You have some great tricks there and I am very sure it works!

 

[BomberJack]

I am a Primary teacher who is currently in his third year of teaching.

Most teachers should leave work set out for any CRT with their weekly lesson plans for you to follow, however if they weren't able to do it due to being sick overnight that's ok. I aim to have all my work ready for the week by the Friday before.

as I was a CRT in my first 3 months, I hated it when work wasn't left for me.

 

[borgsta2006]

But isn't the whole premise of being a CRT that you are a fully trained teacher, capable of creating lesson plans and work for a class "on the fly"? It is a catch 22 really but I understand.

 

[SHAKESPEARE]

But isn't the whole premise of being a CRT that you are a fully trained teacher, capable of creating lesson plans and work for a class "on the fly"? It is a catch 22 really but I understand.

Yes but for continuity and consistency, it's great when a teacher has that work readily accessible to keep the kids on track.

That said, I will happily wing a few classes if needed. My bag of tricks is currently small, but I am working on it.

In response to my OP, I have been getting calls for CRT work in Primary and have been taking it. Have been to two primary schools this week (3 Days) and am absolutely loving it compared to secondary school relief teaching. Reading with the kids is so good it's not funny. I love the look on their faces when they do things so well.

Hopefully I can get a full term and get in the good books of a school or two. Only problem is that I have joined another agency and now one of the is going to be upset when I knock work back from them

 

[bresker]

Here is another interesting question:

How often do CRT specialist arrive at a primary classroom and find that there has been no work left by the regular teacher? How did you cope?

In the old days, a lot. There was a work program if you were lucky with one sentence written on it like 'SPELLING' or 'MATHS: FRACTIONS.'

These days, teachers mostly plan as a team and well in advance. Just arrive early and ask the teacher next door, you are highly unlikely to be in a school which only has one class of the year level you are teaching.

Thanks to the magic of email, most teachers send through a work planner when they're sick - just be warned the planner is sometimes basic and s**t. It's best if you try to stick to it, but if it's crap ask the other teachers 'Do you think Teacher X will mind if I don't do exactly what they left for me?' Some teachers are easygoing, some are anal. One squealed on me to the AP the other week because I deviated from their shithouse one-sentence work planner.

Always ask a sensible kid how the day usually runs. Kids like routine and most prefer doing the stuff their teacher usually does.

Be a magpie - whenever you cover a class and find a good lesson, photocopy a few worksheets for yourself or keep a diary and write down a brief precis of what you did.

If there is no work planner and you are stuck here are my emergency lessons:

1.) Write a story based on this image. What happened before? What happened after?

2.) Handwriting

3.) Silent reading

4.) Outside for a game

5.) Show and tell

6.) Centimetre square paper - draw the first letter of their names in blocks. Then the second. Then the third. Younger kids can count the blocks. Older can measure the area and circumference.

7.) Make the Eiffel tower out of matchsticks and plasticine

8.) Write hard sums on the board.

9.) Write a nine letter word on the board and get them to find as many 2, 3 and 4 letter words as they can

10.) 21s, pac-man, my special boys vs girls dictionary games and other assorted classroom games

 

[SHAKESPEARE]

Silent reading. A godsend.

Primary kids love reading, and it gets them settled very quickly.