A long post about school

I have not been very good at updating my blog as much as I said I would. I could give a string of excuses to do with work load or writers block, but really it's just down to laziness.

As I haven't mentioned very much about my placement I might as well start by saying that I'm with a year 1 class which is one of two in the school. Every year group is split in two in this way. My initial thoughts were that a school this size would be quite scary as I'm not used to such numbers but actually I've not found it too bad. One reason for this is the way the school is set out. Each key stage is in separate building and each classroom is behind closed doors, although it is possible to open a partition to link two adjacent rooms. This layout, coupled with staggered break times and lunch times means that I can spend all day without seeing anyone but those I work with and the children in my class. In fact I often forget about most of the other student teachers in the school and it comes as a surprise when I see them in a whole school assembly.

The area that the school is in is not the most affluent of areas so subsequently there is an above average number of pupils on free school meals and on the SEN register. Many of the children within the school and within my class have various  behaviour difficulties but this makes it a very interesting and exciting place to work. As stressful as lessons can be sometimes the children are all a joy to work with and incredibly resilient when you consider what some of their home lives are like. I have not been told in much detail about some of the things these children have to go through at home but I have already been involved in one safeguarding incident and have had a few talks on what provisions the school have concerning the welfare of pupils. On the first day our class teacher said they were there not just to teach the curriculum but to also provide welfare support for both pupils and parents.

From day one of being in class we have been heavily involved with the class. I do not blame the teachers for taking advantage of having an extra two people in the class as I have heard stories from times when they would often have to work without a TA. So far it has only been group work but by the end of this week we should have already taken a few planned sessions. One of the good things about being working in year one is how the group activities work. As there are four groups each one needs to the each activity. This means I can do the same activity several times. This might appear tedious at first but really its a perfect chance to improve on teaching skills and reflective practice. As we found on the first day being thrown straight into an activity you've never seen with children you don't know can be very difficult but when it comes to repeating it again the next day you already have a good idea of what can go wrong and what the children will do to try and mess up.

Hopefully this will be enough to keep you going until I find time to write my next insightful piece.

Sneak preview: I'm currently writing about all the fun ways year one have to spell a words.
 

Mr and Mrs

From what I remember from when I was in primary school we never called a male teacher sir. It was always Mr "so and so". Female teachers were usually called Mrs or Miss "so and so" but if we couldn't be bothered with the full name we would shorten it to miss. When ever I have gone into schools to do work experience I have always let the children use my first name to address me. This is mainly because I was quite uncomfortable being called Mr Corlett when I was still at school my self. Most of the children were happy to call me by my first name but I found some were not accustomed to the idea. I had this interesting conversation with a year 4:

Boy: Whats your name?

Me: Richard

Boy: No, your last name.

Me: Oh...Corlett

Boy: Ah, thanks Mr Corlett 

As you can imagine I found this quite odd but it is interesting to note that as a teacher you do loose your first name as both parents and children will call you Mr/Mrs in and out side of school. 

Now on my first university placement I've come across another interesting phenomena to do with names. I'm with a year 1 class and as yet only 3 or 4 of them have manage to remember and use my name. Thy do know who I am when the class teacher says "Mr Corlett" and it's not that I don't try to reminded them of my name but I have found that I am very often responding to being called "miss". This is something I've never come across before and I know it's not a joke as children I have never met before will still call me miss. I've thought about this and I think I know why.

As far as they're concerned the tag "miss" is applied to all "teachers". It is not gender specific. This is due to the way the school is structured; they have very little contact with male teachers until KS2. As all of their teachers are female up till then and they don't often see the male ones, "miss" becomes the generic term to use when speaking to a teacher.  

School experience coming up!

Very soon, next week in fact, I, along with everyone else in my year, will be starting our first school experience. I will be working with a year 1 class for three weeks. This will be great fun but I do have quite a few worries. Firstly this will be a massive primary school compared to what I'm used to back home. Interestingly OFSTED describe the school as medium sized!

I suppose the biggest worry is work load. Having three weeks in school doing lesson plans, observations and reflective diaries I also have various essays and assignments to write deadlined for the week after I get back from placement. This is probably good preparation for becoming a teacher and having a never ending pile of paperwork to do, but right now I'm getting worried.

Here's the plan: I am going to try to use this blog as reflective diary. At the end of every week I will pick a point and write about it, this could be anything that happened; an idea I tried, a problem that I had to solve or something that went completely wrong and I ant to know why. Hopefully if I get some feed back then this will be really useful.

Anyway, apart from all my worrying I can't wait to get into school!