Summer Placement Week 5

Final week!

Monday was spent reflecting on their trip to London and the others presented their topics. Throughout the rest of the week the children we're doing self- portraits, thank- you letters to the people involved with the trip and their tennis coaching sessions. This week went incredibly fast!

Didn't do a massive amount of teaching this week as they didn't have English or maths but was still kept busy supporting groups and individuals with other work. Also got a look at the schools new radio equipment and had a little play with one of the schools Digital Leader children.


The school has a great communal spirit, children all behave beautifully and everyone is extremely friendly. I've had loads of great opportunities at this school that I probably wouldn't have got at others. I feel that other the past five weeks I've grown in confidence in my abilities as a teacher and already can't wait to get back into the classroom!

Thank-you Cockwood, I hope to visit soon!

Summer Placement 2015 Week 4

This week the majority of the class have gone off to London for the week as a treat for the Y6's finishing their SATS. They will be visiting various attractions including the Cutty Sark, Royal Albert Hall, Madam Tussards, Parliament and even Lego Land!

I've been left with the five children who for whatever reason couldn't make the trip. At the beginning of the week the children each choose a topic of their interest. We had pop stars, JK Rowling, Isle of Wight, off- roaders and football picked. Then we decided on ways they could present their chosen topic to the rest of the class we had a poster, a booklet, diagrams and PowerPoint presentations. The children did join up with class 2 for PE lessons and we used the Pop Kits again to help break down the week.

Overall a very relaxed week (even let the children listen to the radio for most the time as a treat). It was nice to be given full responsibility of these children for the week and was great to get to know them better.

Daily Mile

A few days back on the morning news I learnt about a school up country implementing a "daily mile" to their school day. The story behind this being that someone accused the students at the school of being unfit so the staff decided to get the students to run around the field for a mile. They couldn't so the school decided to carry this on each day to get improve fitness levels.

The school I'm currently on placement at (Cockwood) today had their first "daily mile". The whole school (foundation- Year 6) had 15 minutes to move how ever they wanted around the school green at the end of the day. They also had to think about why their best friend was their best friend as they went (implementing PSHE) and feedback at the end.

The children could move around the edge of the field how ever they wanted with some walking, others jogging and most running trying to get the most laps. It was a great experience to be part of with the staff at the school even joining in with the kids. Some children we having mini races with each other and some were jogging a little bit and then slowing down to have a chat with their friends. I thought this is a great way for children to improve their fitness levels as well as blowing off some steam at the end of the school day.

However, this was the first one, it would be interesting to see if the school manages to keep this going over a period of time and to see if the children will still be enjoying it. The other issue being that it took in just over half an hour for this to be completed as the teachers had to get the children down to the school field (which is down the road) and back up after the mile. The time it takes for the children to get there and back should improve with time and I hope it does because the children seemed to really enjoy it!  

Summer Placement 2015 Week 3

The class teacher I've been working with this week has been ill so consequently I've been given much more teaching responsibility. Tuesday- Thursday I've taught English and mathematics following the teachers lesson plans.

One lesson in particular that did go well was Wednesdays maths lesson where I introduced algebra to most of the children. I felt by the end of the lesson the most of the children had a basic understanding on what algebra is and hopefully when the teacher goes through it again in 2 weeks time they'll prove me right! The only issue was with the lesson was that because it's a Year 4/5/6 class the year 6's already had a good understanding of algebra so they were instructed to sit with the younger children and reinforce what I was teaching. Some of these year 6's seemed to get bored of this quickly and I was under the impression that others were just giving the answers to the younger kids. This is one clear issue with having a class with such a range of ages.

In the English lessons we were looking at adjectives and used them to describe characters in Charlie & the Chocolate Factory, underline adjectives in an extract from the book and finally we made fathers day cards with adjectives that describes their dad's on a word cloud on the front (where we had major problems with the kids laptops!)

At times I'm still struggling to get the children listening when I want an input after I've set them off with a task but it has definitely improved with practice from last week.

Summer Placement 2015 Week 2

This week I've finally got involved with some whole class teaching. On Thursday my placement partner and myself took a computing lesson. The aim of the lesson was to learn some basic programming skills with the help from a new piece of tech called "Pop Kits". Pop Kits look similar on the iPad to Scratch but instead of programming a game to program physical components like making a light with a switch. The lesson went fairly well with the children meeting the objective which was for them to create a code to make a door bell. However, at times I found it difficult to bring the class back together when I wanted them to give feedback and because the school only had 4 of  the "Pop Kits" some children said they didn't get much of a go.

The day after I repeated this lesson on my own with the 7 children who missed the lesson the day before. This went much better as it was easier to get their attention and they had enough Pop Kits around so everyone got a go.

I've learnt that I need to practice getting a classes attention faster and the it is important to have enough of a resource to go around (although this wasn't my fault in this case!)

Summer Placement 2015 Week 1

For my summer placement I've been placed in a tiny tiny school in Dawlish called Cockwood. The school only has just over 90 children in 3 classes  which are Foundation and Year 1, Years 2,3 and lower ability Year 4 and the class I'm working in higher Year 4, 5 and 6.

This week I've mainly been making observations of the children and their teacher but I have taken some responsibility in the class by taking the register and taking individual children for reading. I want to take more responsibilities in week 2 and I think that me and my partner are going to take a computing lesson using "Pop Kit".

Out of the normal school day I have also attended a staff meeting and was surprised how much this small school has going on. I have also gone with a teacher and the schools "Digital Leaders" to a showcase where they presented their K'NEX London Tower Bridge project which they had programmed to move up and down. There were some other cool projects here which included a school showing off their school radio show, I even got interviewed by a couple of children on air! On Friday I went with the class to their first tennis coaching session which the kids and myself really enjoyed.

Thoroughly looking forward to the next 4 weeks!

Year 1 Swimming Lessons

On the Thursday (last day at St Francis) I went up with Year 1 to take each class for a swimming lesson. We took a coach to the local leisure center and when the children were changed sat them down to wait for the teachers the center were providing. There was some kind of mix up and some paper work went missing so no-one had any idea about which children should be in which ability group. This caused chaos and the other teachers and myself had to quickly assess each child and put them into three groups. When this was finally sorted I took the lowest ability group in the shallow end. I have taught swimming for several years and expected this to be a doddle. However, this was not the case as the children I had taught in out of school lessons usually had some kind of experience in the water. These children had none. The lesson did not go well as I expected the children to be able to do more than they could. Also, I didn't know any of the children's names which made organising and behavior management difficult.  

The second coach brought the second Year 1 class who were slightly better organised and has a better idea of who was supposed to be in which group. In this class I had about 14 children (double what I had in the first) so I expected this lesson to go even worse. However, this was not the case and the children were far better behaved. I also had a better idea of their abilities, so I was able to give them better suited activities. Instead of trying to get them doing anything that involved them taking their feet off the floor I just did water confidence games. This lesson went fantastically!   

This has taught me how it is important to be aware of children's abilities before trying to get them to do something that will prove to be too difficult for them. 

Last couple of days

Spent Tuesday afternoon in with year 5 who were making paper mache masks as part of their Mayan topic work, I don't think I've done paper mache since I was at the school as a pupil myself!

Thursday afternoon I asked if I could observe year 3 (one year group that I have had very little to do with so far) and with a teacher who actually taught me when I was in year 5 at this school. The class had PE where they were doing tennis. I particularly enjoyed watching the warm up which the children also really enjoyed. All the cones were spread out in an area of the playground. One team had to turn them into volcanoes (up side) and the other craters (filliped up-side-down) this linked to their topic work. The children then had to run around the court and when a color was shouted they had to quickly find their own cone of that color. Lastly, the cones were spread out a little more and the children had to run through as many "gates" as they could in 30 seconds. This was repeated where the children had to beat their score but had to hop then crawl.

Tomorrow I'm taking a year 1 swimming lesson...

MADD

This week I've decided to come home to do a weeks work experience at St Francis, the school I helped out during my time at 6th form and also my own primary school. 

MADD is music, art, dance and drama combined into one and the school uses this to create a musical every other year where each class is involved. The teacher is devoted to just teaching MADD across the whole school and unfortunately told me she fears it may be scrapped in the future due to lack of money.

This years production will be Disney's "The Little Mermaid". The teacher started the lesson by getting the children to play "Just Dance" on the Wii as a warm up. This was done in a similar way to what I saw at St Johns but with year 6 children instead of KS1. I was a little surprised that every child joined in as I was expected the boys to just cower in the corner. I was told that they have been brought up through school doing things like this so that they are used to it which I think is great as it helps to develop their confidence, I don't think I would have joined in when I was in year 6. 

Next the children were given verbs such as "crumble", "creep" and "float" for them to move around the room to their interpretation of the word. This was followed by watching YouTube videos of other peoples production of the musical which the children compared and discussed. They then split off into their groups to create a sequence of dance moves to the music. The teacher explained to me that the art comes in when they make props and costumes, some of the children will be fish while others will be jellyfish and turtles. 

This lesson was great to watch and all the children seemed to be enjoying it! I will certainly be looking to compare with lessons like this done in other schools and to do some more of my own research into MADD.

My plans for the coming months

All my assignments this year have been handed in and I only have to go into uni for a few more things before my five week placement in June. This leaves me with a lot of spare time until then!

In this time I've organised to go back home to do a weeks work experience at one of my local primary schools. This I feel is important as as good as my seminars at university are, I still feel the best way in learning how to be a good teacher is by getting stuck in and gaining experience in schools. 

I have also signed up for a TESOL (teachers of English to speakers of other languages) course which should help with my communication with EAL children. 

I am also looking at improving my own subject knowledge, currently, I am reading about ancient Egypt.

Should languages be taught in primary school?

I was never taught languages at primary and I have bad memories of learning French and German in my time at secondary. I've had two language seminars now and found myself wondering if having languages in the curriculum is worth while. Don't get me wrong these seminars have been fun and they have given me some good teaching ideas but should it be in the curriculum?

My opinion is that to learn a language you need to be motivated and willing to put in a lot of time. If not enough time is being put in then you will fail in learning and there is not enough time in the primary school day to do languages daily (which I think is needed to properly learn a language). If it is not being taught enough then it will be forgotten. I can't remember any French and German and I now feel it was it was a waste of my time in learning. If the language you're learning is not going to be used then is it worth learning anyway?

For this reason I feel it should be optional like an after school club so the children that want to learn a language and are willing to put in the time then they can. I understand that to learn a language it is going to be much easier to start at a young age but if it is not being taught enough and the children don't see the benefit of learning then surely it's a waste of time? 

First music seminar

 

Today I kicked off the new term by handing in my last assignment for the year and by having my first music seminar. Before today I was never much of a fan of music lessons with my experiences of them being dull, purposeless and chaotic. However, after this seminar I have now changed my opinion on this. 

We started the lesson with various musical instruments in the centre of the room with us students sat around. A modern piece of music was played and we had to join in with the track. 

Another game involves the teacher hiding an object in the room from one child and the rest of the class have to make noise with the instruments in a kind of hot or cold kind of game. 

My group invented a game named "mystory 3" where one child is blindfolded and 3 children have to play their instrument all at the same time. The blindfolded child then has to work out which three instruments were played. 

Turns out music lessons don't have to be boring!

Kane Chronicles- Rick Riordan

I have just finished reading the first installment of Rick Riordan's The Kane Chronicles and thought I'd quickly note down my thoughts for future reference.

A fair few years back I read Rick's Percy Jackson series and have always regarded them as one of my favorite book series'. Because of this and because I wanted to start reading regularly again I thought I'd give his new series a read.

The Kane Chronicles: The Red Pyramid follows siblings Sadie and Carter Kane in their adventure of saving their dad and the world from the evil Egyptian god Set. The story is told retrospectively and each chapter either Sadie or Carter takes the lead, so we get both characters views of the story. Throughout the story we are introduced to both major and minor Egyptian gods as well as various monsters.

What I particularly liked about this book is that the Egyptian mythology in the book is all accurate so the reader is learning about the Egyptian's and their beliefs in an engaging and subliminal way. I've come away from reading the book with a good understanding of the story of the Egyptian gods (which I've found very interesting and I've even done some of my own research in order to gain a deeper understanding). I believe this book could even be used in upper KS2 when learning about Egypt in a cross curricular approach with English.

Though not as good as the Percy Jackson books, The first installment of The Kane Chronicles is still a good read and I look forward to getting stuck into the other books in the series.

 

St Johns, Totnes. Saturation Week Part 3

Friday: Final day and absolutely exhausted! We didn't go into another class to observe this morning, instead we got straight into our jobs. With the year 6's we finished off putting wood chippings over the path and around the pond and moved this sticky mud like substance out of sight. After the children went for lunch, another student teacher and I got into waders and cleared the stream.

After all the equipment was put away we went into the whole school assembly where we were presented with certificates for our work over the week.

All in all a fantastic week! I have learnt a lot about taking children into outdoor settings and the importance of doing this as well as the importance of developing mutual respect between child and teacher. I also take away from this placement many ideas to use in my own future practice. I am also going to do some more research into other forest schools like St Johns.

   

St Johns, Totnes. Saturation Week Part 2

Wednesday: Morning was spent with year 5 who were acting out stories from the book 1001 Arabian nights. This is an interesting and fun way to develop story recalling skills. After a discussion with the class teacher I learnt that the children will be writing their own stories based on the stories in 1001 Arabian nights but from a different culture. I found this cross curricular link with geography interesting.

In the afternoon me and my partner took 10 of the year 6 children to do our lesson. The lesson was on how sound travels. The main part of the lesson was a game where one child sits blindfolded with various metal objects around them- the other children had to steal these without the blindfolded child noticing- I thought that this lesson went pretty well.

There was also an incident where two girls had to be rescued from sinking mud by a few of us student teachers. This was during a hide-and-seek game and the girls were told not to go into the bog. The girls were completely covered in mud. Instead of shouting at the girls the teachers calmly dealt with it and explained that the girls were not naughty girls but had just made the wrong decision for not listening to them.

For the rest of the afternoon we carried on using up the wood chippings to cover muddy areas of the school ground.

Thursday: Spent the morning in year 4 again who were having a maths lesson on fractions. The class teacher had some interesting methods such as "ping-pong" where she called a number and the children would have to double it. She also used a reward scheme where if a child answered a question out loud without any child they would get 2 points for their group, if they asked for teacher support they would get 1 and they could phone a friend and get 1 point.

Afternoon with year 6 was spent taking various bits and pieces to the skip and taking soil from the car park to a dumpy bag in the school groups. We were given a S.P.A.G of the day which was to encourage the children to take note when they said a preposition as they worked.

St Johns, Totnes. Saturation Week Part 1

This week I have been on placement at St John's Primary in Totnes working with year 6. Throughout the week the university students and the year 6 class has been working together in order to achieve the John Muir award. The award is based on conservation and is split into four sections discover, explore, conserve and share and the children learn about the nature around their school and the importance of conserving it.

Each day we spend the morning observing a different class in the school and in the afternoon we return to year 6 to work on the award.

Monday: Spent the morning with year 4 where they were making shoe box worlds based on stories they wrote before half term (these were inspired by the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe).

At lunch the KS1 children were kept in for wet play. Instead of the usual manic I've found at every-other placement I've been on, at St Johns they put the children in the hall and played Just Dance. Obviously it was not played with everyone having a controller instead the children just spread out and tried to copy the dance moves on the screen, very entertaining to watch and allowed them to get some exercise even though they couldn't go outside.

In the afternoon we met the year 6's that we'd been spending the week with and went out to explore the surrounding woods with them and to see what jobs need to be done by the end of the week.

Tuesday: Morning was spent in year 2. I was surprised as to how well behaved these children are, in the hour I was there, there was not one problem with behavior.

The school has DPA (Designated Physical Activity) where the children go out into the playground between lessons to have a 2 minute run around. This I think is a great idea as it helps to get their blood flowing which helps them to concentrate in their next lesson.

In the afternoon we gathered branches which we used to create hurdles and my group started on our main job which was to put wood chippings down over a boggy area. The hurdle fence making was very interesting to learn and was something a bit different.

More to come...

Algorithms Teaching Day

Today my specialism group and I spent the day in a local primary school to put our lesson plans we made in our ICT seminars into practice.

The lesson plans were all based on algorithms and we used Bee-Bots in order to teach this. In pairs we taught our lesson to groups of 6-8 year 1 children. We taught the same lesson three times throughout the day and I found that with every lesson taught I felt more confident in my own teaching and after every one I felt the lesson went slightly better than the previous.

The first lesson started off really well but didn't end quite so well with the children losing interest. I believe this was at first the lesson was not engaging enough to fill the time we had. This did get better with each lesson as we came up with more engaging twists to keep them interested. When I teach Bee-Bots again I will definitely look at creating a grid for the Bee-Bots to travel on instead of just having physical objects in the way. From observing other groups, the children seemed more engaged with having a grid/map on the table. This may have also made it easier to record their algorithms.

As part of our lesson we got the children to name their Bee-Bots in the hope that this would mean they would treat the robots with more respect (links to the curriculum). One group with had the names Elsa, Bob and Ibrahimovic! (The Swedish footballer) which was amusing!

At the end of the first lesson the class teacher asked them what an algorithm was. A child that was part of my group put their hand up and gave a correct answer which was not only a reliving moment but a proud one as well.

I also got a first in my very first assignment at University!