Today a colleague called in with a temperature - she had two triple lessons, first lot with Y8 and second lot Y7. We decided to bunch the classes together and teach 60 kids in the hall. I'm fairly confident this will happen again, so here is a short thread with things we learned:

1. This does not work if you don't have a strong curriculum (obviously). All our classes learn the same content in the same order so it was pretty easy to just jump straight in seamlessly

2. You must have miniwhiteboards at every seat. Students were distanced on exam desks, which means that the furthest students were far away from me and I didn't circulate. Only way to ensure they were thinking during questioning was to do the whole lot on MWBs

3. Name tags on a big piece of paper. Can't cold call to a class you don't know without name tags. Totally ruined the flow that I neglected to do this. Daft error, and I'm annoyed at myself over it.

4. I put the class I didn't know at the front and my class at the back. I *think* this was the best way to do it, as I know which members of my class I need to laser in on, but didn't know the other class. It's worth thinking about.

5. Make it mega clear to students why you are doing what you are doing.

6. MASSIVE projector screen is a big help.

7. If you don't know how to speak from your diaphragm, get your music teacher to show you how. If you use a normal voice for that long in that big an area you will really strain yourself. Not worth it.

8. Make the students project as well. Insist on it. Every student needs to be able to hear every other response, and tell students they *must* speak up, using scripts like "it isn't fair that Daniel at the back can't hear your brilliant point" etc

9. I think that's the lot. Hope it helps, sadly it will have to remain an option for us, and it may for you too. Saved 60 kids from having to stare at a textbook for 3 lessons straight.

Oh one final thing, I'm tired, but actually ok. I think that's a testament to our students who adapted brilliantly and to our leadership team who were in and out throughout the day to check all was good. /actual end

Nono one actual final thing. Bring spares of everything: books, booklets, pens, paper etc. You don't have time to have The Chat with students who don't have their stuff. Just throw things at them and get moving asap.