In my first teaching role, I worked part time, co-teaching five lines including a Year 11 Business class of 29 students. One of the challenges with this class was a group of 5 or 6 boys who found creative ways to disrupt the class.
The assessment we were working towards was an exam. I decided once a week to convert the activities students would normally do in their books, to written tasks with feedback opportunities for students in the lead up to the exam. Sometimes, we would begin the activities as a class and at other times, where the material was conducive to doing so, the entire activity would be carried out under open book exam conditions in the last 30 minutes or so of the lesson.
While providing written feedback, I kept a record of student effort and accuracy and my co teacher and I used the evidence gathered to reach out to parents to provide feedback and evidence of student effort to support student preparation for the exam.
After three weeks of this, the disruptions started to reduce and all students in the class were able to benefit from the feedback provided.
https://deborahcranston.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/Yr-11-feedback-for-exam.pdf
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