Lessons

Debbie Robertson: Doing Clocks


Debbie was born in Bradford in 1965. She attended local primary and secondary special schools and then went to her local college.

Here Debbie talks to Ursula about learning to tell the time.

  • Debbie Robertson
  • Debbie Robertson
https://howwasschool.allfie.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Doing-Clocks.mp3

Transcript

Did you do like reading and writing there, or maths?
No.
You didn’t do numbers?
I did clocks.
Clocks, so what about –
Did clocks.
Okay, so you learnt to tell the time?
Yeah, tell that, yeah.
Okay.
Yeah, clocks.
How did you learn your numbers ‘cause you know your numbers, how did you learn that?
Just teach us actually what that number is, what that number is.
So she’d ask you what the numbers were?
Yeah.
And you had to tell her?
Yeah.
Okay, so would she put like a two and then say what’s that?
Two.
Okay, how did the teacher learn you the clock?
Pointed to the wall, like that.
So she did it on the wall and she showed you the half past?
Yeah.
How could she have done it better do you think, what could she have done so that you know how to tell the time better? What could she have done?
I don’t know, explain more about the clock.
So she’d tell everybody at the same time?
Yeah.
About the clock, would she come over to you and show you and explain it to you or would she just stand at the top of the class?
Top of the class.
Top of the class and explain it, she wouldn’t come around and –
No no.
Okay, would that have helped if she did that, if she came and – did you have a clock in front of you?
We have, yeah.
Right, so you had a clock at the front of you and you had a clock at the front of the class where the teacher was, have I got it right?
Got it, yeah.
But you’re saying the teacher never came to explain the clock to you?
No.
No, would that have helped do you think, if the teacher came up to you and had the clock and said, ‘What time is that, what time,’ would that have helped?
Yeah.

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