Are lesson objectives a waste of time? Question Time!

This one's a bit of a rollercoaster, okay? It's a, it's a, it's a nerdy rollercoaster, okay? So, "Hi, uh, hi Amy." [laughs] I...

So ironically, this is, like, the one week someone's gone really hard on s- it, it literally says, "Hi Amy," and then in brackets, "and Adam." [laughs] So, and it's, it's a shame that Amy's not here to see that.

Maybe I should just flip it, and then that never happens.

Uh, and we will never know.

So anyway, um, "I'm a secondary design and technology teacher.

I teach food in a large secondary comp.

There are five of us teaching food, two specialists and three non-specialists." That must be a big school if you have five food specialists.

To have any food specialists makes it a big school.

Uh, yes, I'd say so.

Um, "We teach our lessons from a huge PowerPoint.

Prior to our department meeting yesterday, I'd had a conversation with the subject leader about best practice, being that we could aim to have lesson plans for each lesson, although I realize that's slightly ambitious.

But I did ask if we could have some quite focused lesson objectives and tighten up the curriculum for key stage three.

We see the students once a fortnight in year seven and eight, and once a week in year nine, and do split class practicals.

Open brackets, absolute nightmare, to be honest, close brackets, but it's a fantastic school other than the timetable." Okay, so they've got these big PowerPoints, which presumably is an entire, like, unit, and what this person has asked for is lesson plans or at the very least a focused lesson objective, okay.

"Yesterday we were told that our line manager had been consulted and that we absolutely do not need lesson plans or objectives.

Instead, we have a focus for the lesson.

As an example, one lesson's focus is bread making techniques, another nutrition function sources.

Am I wrong to expect lesson objectives for each lesson? I've been tasked with looking over the year nine PowerPoint, so I'm currently adding keywords to the document so I can plan a more focused lesson and know what questions to ask, what vocabulary to hone in on, et cetera.

Would love to hear your opinions on this.

I've really enjoyed your podcast since discovering you about four months ago.

Thanks for indulging my teacher geek and giving great listening each week." Cool question, right?

What a great question.

What a great thing to share.

I'm sure that it's something that speaks to, um, what some other, what some other teachers and leaders are, are, are kind of experiencing.

Mm.