A warm welcome back

This week marked the first time back at St Mary’s and for the next few months I will be working in Year 5 alongside a shared classroom. My aim is to improve on the targets set by my Second Placement mentor and build up to a Good if not Outstanding teacher by the end of July.

The first 4 days I spent getting to know the class and was fortunate enough to have taught many of the students during Maths from September to January, and coached both boys and girls in the school football teams. I've been given the progress ladders and mid-term planning overviews to look into and I made it a top priority.

In English, biographies is the unit choice and the students have been asked to research various well-known people, in order to create their own biography of them. It was very interesting to see obvious choices such as football players and TV or Music celebrities but what did strike me was the quality of note taking and after hearing 'ooo I didn't know that about this person' was great because it showed the students there is more to a person than meets the eye.

I am also excited for English because from the April 27th it will use the General Election as the stimulus and I am planning to teach the class how to write a persuasive speech based on the 7 political parties manifestos. By using the BBC Newsround site, it will enable the children to access politics on a low level but give them a chance to have a 'theoretical' say in how they want the country ran. This unit will include videos featuring children interviewing the party candidates, asking why a TV debate matters, what a General Election actually is, and the power of using persuasive language. 

In Science the teacher asked the students what they knew about the life-cycle of animals and reproduction cycle. This will inform us when planning future lessons to ensure the national curriculum is adhered to but taught according to the what the children already know. I already have some ideas about how to facilitate this and am thinking to split the class into research groups and feedback to their peers with written presentations.  It will be used as a Speaking and Listening assessment.

The Music unit is exciting because it's based around Holst's 'The Planets'. Due to Earth not being used as one of the planets (because at the time of composing, everyone thought the planets revolved around the Earth), their task will be to compose their own idea of what Earth sounds like. I am envisaging solo pieces at first then leading to a group ensemble for their peers to evaluate. This will help with marking and using Success Criteria to show progress.

 Next week will be spent team teaching and getting prepared for the big step up to 80% teaching. I am nervous especially as it's getting closer to the final assessment plus I now have a position at the school as a full-time teacher next year so don't want to make too many mistakes. A good piece of advice I was given is - use this time to make mistakes, as there won't be a lot of room for them once in charge of class by myself.

Half term review Spring 2

To say that this term has been busy would be an understatement. I could not wait to start planning for my new class and boy was I given the chance to do just that.  I was given the responsibility for planning: 3 weeks of English, 4 weeks of Maths, 5 weeks of PE, 1 PSHE, 3 Science, and 2 Topic (History) lessons, and I thrived at this opportunity.

Marking also played a huge part in this term and I have begun to appreciate the power of peer marking. I agree that children need to be training into doing this properly and efficiently but given the right time and focus it will help those same children to become better at analysing others work and gaining proofreading skills that they will transfer to their own work.

One of my next targets was to be able to differentiate work. I was told that some of the children are performing above national average (especially in Maths) and I had to ensure work was pitched at their level. I did this and during my planning ensured everyone was catered for and scoured online for resources and asked teachers in the years above for advice. At parents evening during the 3^rd week of 5, a few parents commented on the great work the mentor and I had been doing in pushing their children rather than allowing them to complete easy tasks without any effort.

My mentor was very good at giving feedback and I certainly learnt a lot from him. Being a young teacher himself, he was able to impart the wisdom of what to look out for and how to make my planning, training and teaching easier. 

At the school I was made to feel extremely welcome. The head teacher’s daughter is also on the Schools Direct course so she knew what was expected of me. I am local to the school and a few parents whose children were in a year above and below knew me from my running club and it was soon apparent that some money I helped to raise and donate from my club was given to the PTA, in which most of the member’s children were being taught by myself. I spent most of my break outside with the various cohorts and the loyalty and respect from the children I gained was spread across the school. ‘You coming to play football sir?’ ‘Here sir let me get that for you’ ‘When will you be teaching us?’ Were all comments regularly heard and it filled me with immense pride that I had both an academic and sociable sense of respect from them.

During World Book Day I took 12 children from KS2 and taught them how to interview their peers and teachers about the costumes they had worn, then showed them how to put it all together into their own newsletters. I created one master newsletter which went out to all the parents. Print outs of all are displayed in one of the main corridors with pictures of the group dressed up for the day.

Am I ready for 80%? I think the answer is yes. Will I achieve Outstanding in my QTS? I hope so. After being one of the lucky few to attend the talk by Andrew Pollard, I can see how interesting the life of a teacher can be. I do need to fine tune my classroom behaviour management and in doing so will stick close to my philosophy which is to be fair, fun and firm.

I reflect on almost anything in life from the choices I make in my wedding plans, to why did I set off too quickly in a race, to why on earth did I place those children together in a project. This is why I enjoy teaching because I can build on my mistakes and improve them day on day, week on week, month on month etc. I will continue to make mistakes but as long as I can see how to rectify them and do so properly, I will strive to be the very best I can be. I do have aspirations for the future as we all should do but for now my immediate aim is to knuckle down plan for the remainder of my training year and look forward to taking on my own class in September (which I can gleefully confirm is going to be at my main placement).