Looking at the learning through the eyes of the child with Cara Carter

Cara Carter has just qualified and starts her NQT/ECT year in September in a school in North Essex. Her first career was as a garment technologist (and the shimmering drape behind her in her picture shows she intends to use this talent to the full to brighten her classroom!). In this podcast Cara shares with us her light bulb moment, the turning point in her training year, when she came to realise the importance of looking at the learning through the eyes of the child. 

During our conversation we discussed ...

• The fact that teaching is such a challenge and that is what makes it so enjoyable.
• How working with 1 teacher makes you think 'That's how I am going to do it' before seeing another and thinking 'Oooh that's good', then realising that you can learn useful things from every teacher you observe before deciding on your own unique approach. 
• How devastated she felt when she taught a lesson and introduced all sorts of relevant ideas, only to realise the key learning in the lesson was not secure because she wasn't seeing the learning through the eyes of the children. This was the turning point in her training year.
• The importance of having the extra ideas to introduce in lessons, but only teaching them to the children who need them, not to everybody.
• The value of asking the right question at the right time.
• How essential it is to find out what children have been taught and more importantly what they have learnt and retained before moving them on.
• How knowing where the children are in their learning makes it much easier to take them forwards step by step in manageable chunks. This is what it means to look through the eyes of the child to understand what they need to learn next.