During my first placement, I taught my Y7 class how to balance equations. As I was working my way through the lesson I realised that the pupils were not understanding the content after I had asked some questions to check understanding. I was met with a sea of blank faces. As a result I moved away from my lesson plan and had the confidence to include live adaptations, drawing demonstrations on the whiteboard. I incorporated lots of questions to help pupils understand the process. By the end of the lesson, about 90% of the pupils were able to answer questions successfully. It was a fantastic feeling, seeing pupils have the ‘lightbulb’ moment and seeing their faces light us as they started to understand. This also showed the relationship I had built with the pupils due to how determined they were to understand this difficult concept and how hard they worked throughout.
