One Week Down

It's the Sunday after my first week of my block placement, and I'm so happy to say that I absolutely adore this school! 

My last post was a little down in the dumps, but I'm fine, really. I've got a focus for my assignment now, and I think all I really needed was to just get me into school to remind me of why I'm doing all of this! 

The last school I was at wasn't particularly welcoming, so I was a little wary that this might be the same, but my mentor, headteacher, staff, and the children are all so incredibly lovely, it already feels like I'm a part of the school! 

I've been involved in a lot of group work in this first week - I've never taught an entire class before, so this is a good way of easing myself in - particularly focusing on Maths and English. They started column addition this week, and it was interesting to see the different ways that I would have taught it compared to how my mentor did. We spoke about it afterwards and decided that both methods were completely fine, so if a child didn't understand her way of doing it, we could try my way. This proved to work quite well in the remaining lessons for the week! 

My class have swimming lessons every week, and also visit the local care home fortnightly, which was so lovely to see! The children read stories to the residents, and you could see just how much the residents enjoyed the company of a child, if only for half an hour. This gave me an idea for an English lesson involving the new John Lewis advert, The Man on the Moon. The children could acknowledge how the man would be feeling lonely, and then link it to the residents that they have read to. They could then write a letter in the form of a Christmas card to a resident, and give them to them in the last week of term. I've already discussed this with my tutor, and with a little work, she thinks it has the potential for a great lesson that the children - and residents! - would really enjoy!

It looks as if this week I'll be easing myself into teaching by doing some starter activities, which I'm nervously excited for, so watch this space!