Observation: Dot Young: Crafts Seminar 4 June, 11am-1pm.

Board Room: Big Table arrangement. Almost square. DY has a separate table all the way at the front of the room, a flipchart with markers, and all of her documents she needs laid out in order of when she should need them. She has a roll of masking tape.

Start: DY asks for feedback about the past two terms. How do you feel about them? High points, low points. Asks in ways to try to elicit emotions--what was great? What was super great? What was grr? What kinda made you, oof, rrr, you know, grr, that wasn't so great? Using strong facial expressions, hand gestures. Hand gestures are almost mime or BSL: very expressive and visually engaging.

"We didn't bother filling in the survey because even if you address it in the survey, we've heard that nothing changes." "That is flatly untrue! We had a brand new Unit 1 this year, actually." Student tried to touch a nerve, but DY was all smiles and polite explanations. I woulda punched the student, but DY played it cool. What this did bring up was that the gossip was making its way around faster and better than the information the school was trying to provide. Interestingly, Scenic Art and Props knew that Unit 1 was new, but Costumes did not. Poor communication? How did this get missed?

Feedback request period: taking all comments seriously, and genuinely seeking constructive feedback. Though when the students did start to open up, most of their comments were referred back to Course Committee. Suggestions that they should speak to their representatives and ensure those points are raised.

Joyful, playful, good eye contact. Respectful of the students while still distinctly the authority figure.

Snap Skills. Cute.

How DY deals with disruptive influences: one student is verbose and really wants to take over the conversation. Not sure why, but she's angry, and most of the things she's saying she clearly believes in firmly but DY would argue are not true. DY let her talk for a while, but found a key point to interject on and then introduce a conversation-ending change. Student wanted opportunities to learn other classes' skills, when can we do that? "That's what other schools do, but not us. We stand out in the field as a place where we specialise from the outset. Rose Bruford, Mountview--these places have the carousel system where you do a little bit of everything, and that's great if you want that, but our reputation is for producing specialists, so we specialise all the way through." Remember: this is why you picked us. This is why you're here.

"Have you completed your practice assessment?" one hand goes up. "Yay." Adorable sarcasm. Laughter.

Content-related question on my part--time management is clearly a very important skill to DY, and she wants to make it very clear that evidence of effective use of time is crucial to your learning and marks. How crucial is time management to academic achievement? How does that impact students diagnosed with SpLD's who may struggle far more than neurotypical students with time management?

"I drew a diagram. It's not the best diagram you've ever seen but it's a diagram." Managing expectations in a gentle and self-deprecating way. At the end of class she asked a few students if they thought the diagram was useful. It was new and she wanted feedback, so she introduced it as a work in progress. It felt natural to ask for useful feedback on it later.

Reminders to all students that they're not all doing the same thing now, and that's good. We're focussing on different learning and objectives, not more or less advanced.

Your practice is assessed, through the reflective submission. Opportunity to remind them of the different types/formats for submission, including .pdf, oral recording, etc. To what extent is this supportive system useful for students? To what extent are they taking it up?

Indicating, reminding through diagram that each student already has hours, if not days of data to call upon. You've got mountains of research, journal entries, etc that you now need to filter through--it's not that you have nothing, the work ahead is paring it down into the word or time count. There is no room in her narrative for an argument of "I don't have anything, there's too much work to produce before the end of term, this is getting in the way of my project." or what might have you.

Energy levels are dropping. Distraction sets in.

Is this a seminar or an informative session? It doesn't feel like there's a whole lot of learning happening, just preparation for submissions later. No, it is not a teaching session. It is a prep session and a summary following on from a previous session on readying writing and other material for assessed projects. It feels like she's readying the students to finish the term.

Text analysis: yes, you should have read the play. Yes, you should have had a look at the socio-political context of the piece, the genre, how it's being presented, what the director wants to do with it. You're not immune from the theatre work just because you're not performing. Your work must be relevant to the piece.

Separate relevance of this from BATP students vs actors or theatre studies students. Yes read the play, but you've analysed the concept, or concept, or type of event that your work is supporting in the context of what you want to do with it. A way of making it relevant to these students who may be reluctant readers (or dyslexic). The reading (or watching) is in the context of the make, not analysis for analysis's sake.

Energy level drop expected, a break is planned in. Just a couple of minutes but she does encourage everyone to go move around, get some water. Smart.

Students writing on the flipchart. "Don't worry about the spelling, People can Google it later, just like I did." Reassuring, pressure's off, you're not performing, you're just helping me. This is also in keeping with Central's SpLD friendly policies.

"You don't need to copy all this down, just take a photo of the list when we're done." Neat. Modern, high tech. Fancy. Is the rationale to be lexia-friendly?

Chatter silenced with an eyeballing. Do props students feel like they get a special allowance, or feel detached from the seminar and the other students because the tutor is their tutor?

"I have my masking tape ready!" DY takes delight in her preparations paying off. She is very prepared. Her students are less so. Some came with no notebook, or borrowed a leaf of paper from someone else. I believe this is the 4th seminar of the school year--have they needed to be more prepared before? Or less?

Putting colourful documents around the room to brighten it up for the end of the session? Didn't offer a whole lot of course content but it looks nice.

Reminder again of the school's reputation, becoming the students' reputation: The door is already half-open for you from students who've taken placements here before. Every business we list is a place where a student has had a placement or has gone on to get a job.

Setting background tasks: reasons to not have "free time"--if you're playing video games, there is something else towards your learning you could be doing, and this is it. You can start to explore, this is something you should do, this is a good use of your time, this is fun--all implying you should want to do this for yourself, this isn't work infringing on your pleasure, it is pleasure! (I don't know if they bought it.)

Break out last 10 minutes for discreet questions, photographs of work, etc. This time was used by some students, others were finished and left. Several students took a photo and said they'd email it to their classmates, or snapchat it. Handy.

We're in a very high-tech time now, where the technology is just a given. Some students only showed up with a phone, or nothing, because they were confident the information would make its way to them in a digital format soon and easily, with no extra effort on anyone's part.