placement1 – Page 2 – UWS BA ePDPs

Placement Reflection

I found it extremely difficult during placement to find my place in the classroom. The last thing I wanted to do was to step on the teachers toes. I wasn’t keen on disciplining pupils in her class, as it felt like I would be undermining her authority. Eventually – with the teachers help – I quickly found … Continue reading Placement Reflection →

Eventually – with the teachers help – I quickly found my voice in the classroom and found myself at ease. One of the main things I have come to realise is that teaching is most definitely my comfort zone.

One of my communication strengths is the ability to connect with the pupils and to convey my instructions effectively. Whilst on placement I was often asked to take reading groups, and one day I was asked to run a learning activity about addresses on envelopes. It was my responsibility to engage the pupils and to assist them in learning how to write an address. In order to do this, I had to make sure that my instructions and my explanations were crystal clear. During this activity, my mentor assessed me against the mentor evaluation checklist. She was very impressed and highlighted that my instructions were good.

Also highlighted in the evaluation is my good use of questioning the children, but the teacher highlighted that this could be developed further by providing more in depth questions to the children and really making them think. I feel I can develop in this area by questioning myself all the time – really understanding why things happen. Also with some practice; I’m new to teaching so of course I’m not going to be ‘the best teacher ever’.

During my time on placement, I learned more than I can say I imagined to. I was given so many ideas about how to engage learners in mathematics, literacy and how to engage them in the world around them. One of the main ideas that I was intrigued in was the use of video to engage in number songs and literacy rhymes.

Overall I would have to say that placement was an amazing and overwhelming experience. I am now telling myself more than I ever did – “This is the job for me.”

Sean

Reflections on Placement

I carried out a one week placement in a primary school which gave me great insight into the environment of a primary teacher. This definitely increased my confidence and has really inspired me and confirmed in my mind that this is what I want to do in life. I spent my week observing from primary … Continue reading “Reflections on Placement”

Reflections on Placement

During the week beginning the 31st of October I worked with seven class teachers, a Principle Teacher, a Head Teacher, class room assistants, cleaning staff, and a janitor, as well as pupils from primary one to primary seven of a primary school. I completed eight placement tasks which were based on mathematics and literacy. These tasks allowed me to observe and analyse … Continue reading Reflections on Placement

Reflections on placement.

I attended Stanley Primary School in Ardrossan for my week placement in BA1. The school has 444 pupils and I was lucky enough to be able to work with a range of ages and pupils from various backgrounds. The school has four main aims: respect, commitment, caring and courage. This was shown to me through the … Continue reading Reflections on placement. →

Reflections on Placement

The one week placement has really gave me insight on what it is like to be a Primary school teacher. It has definitely made me feel confident that this is the occupation for me. Being in a primary 2 class for the whole week was challenging, but overall a great experience. The teachers were all … Continue reading Reflections on Placement →

Strength

I would say that my biggest strength was that I always spoke in a loud voice when speaking in front of the class. This allowed everyone to hear me when I was reading a story to the children and carrying out their morning meeting. Speaking at an adequate volume allowed the children to understand my instructions and also made me feel confident in my teaching.

Area of most Progress

I think that I have improved my non-verbal communication the most on the placement. I always made sure that my body language was positive by sitting up straight or standing in a wide stance. Before placement, I would tend to cross my arms and legs. Now, I am always thinking about my positive body language, and it really does made you feel more confident!!

Area Requiring Progress

For me, I have to really focus on my pace when speaking. When nervous, I have the tendency to speed up my pace of speech, which leaves me stuttering and using a lot of words like ‘ehm’ and ‘ah’. I have always had a issue with this and would love to tackle this problem.

Action plan

In order to become more successful, my action plan is to read about improving verbal communication and ways to calm nerves, as I feel that this would really help me to slow down my pace of speech. Another thing that I am going to do is record myself speaking so that I can listen to my voice and point out any errors that I could be making.

Reflections on Placement

B00303588 I thoroughly enjoyed my BA1 placement as it gave me an insight on how a school works from the prospective of a teacher. I feel my experience was made even more rewarding and interesting by the fact I was placed in a P4 class where ability and development varied extremely between the pupils and … Continue reading Reflections on Placement →

Reflections on Placement

Placement definitely allowed me to gain a deeper understanding of how a school is run and what goes into a teachers daily routine. Starting on the Monday I was nervous about the new experience I was going to participate in. … Continue reading →

Reflections on Placement

Reflecting back on my university placement, the week went by extremely quick. From the first day of university finding out the date that placement would begin, did not seem to long ago either. Fast forward seven weeks I had discovered my placement school and was fretting over printing out the required eight placement task and … Continue reading Reflections on Placement →

Reflecting back on my university placement, the week went by extremely quick. From the first day of university finding out the date that placement would begin, did not seem to long ago either.

Fast forward seven weeks I had discovered my placement school and was fretting over printing out the required eight placement task and hoping I had printed enough placement handbooks for staff who required it at the school.

Monday morning came I was immensely apprehensive as my placement school was dissimilar to the primary school that I attended and also where I gained my work experience at. But I was eager to get started and to embrace this new challenge… and the placement tasks.

As the week evolved I observed in many classes and also introduced to interesting teaching methods that contributed to completing the placement task. I was engaged in self/peer evaluations and school assessment that helped me to discover strengths and areas for improvement in my communication.

Strength

My most notable strength was the way in which I used voice to speak loudly, clearly and variation of tone when carrying out group work activities. This allowed the pupils’ to understand the task and also show my enthusiasm when explaining the task.

Area of Most Progress

My area of most progress during the placement was my engagement with staff. Initially during the first couple of days while in the staffroom I was rather quite, but as the week progressed I felt more comfortable in this setting and began to interact with staff more while in the staffroom.

Area Requiring Progress

It was evident after evaluations that my area that I need to improve is my overall non-verbal communication. When explaining tasks to groups I would use limited amount of body language and often would hide my hands.

Action Plan

This placement highlight to me that I need to become more confident with teaching staff and to improve my non-verbal communication. My next steps for next placement is get more involved with staffroom discussion. In terms of my non-verbal communication my next steps is to use more hand gesture when speaking to friends and family so I become more adjusted to this method of communication.

Reflections on Placement

Strengths During my placement, I came to realise that I am very good at positioning myself so that everyone in the group can clearly hear me and can see me most of the time. As well as this, I ensure that when I am talking to the group, I talk loud enough and clear enough … Continue reading Reflections on Placement →

Strengths

During my placement, I came to realise that I am very good at positioning myself so that everyone in the group can clearly hear me and can see me most of the time. As well as this, I ensure that when I am talking to the group, I talk loud enough and clear enough for everyone to hear me and understand me.

When working with a small group of children, my body language was very positive and I stood with an open posture at all times to ensure that the children knew that they could talk to me if they had any problems or if they needed help with their work. When helping the children work out an answer during a maths lesson, I used hand gestures to represent the numbers on a number line moving from one number to another. This helped the children to further understand what I was talking about and picture the number line in their heads.

Area of Most Progress

At the start of my placement, I used the words “like” and “ah” very often however by the end I had managed to completely avoid using it when talking to the children. I feel that this was my area of most progress as I use the word “like” all the time so being able to avoid using it made me feel as though I was making some progress towards being a proper primary teacher.

Area Requiring Progress

When taking a small group of children, I need to encourage everyone to take part and not allow certain individuals in the group to dominate the discussion. I must ensure that every child has a chance to speak and that when the children do give me responses, I encourage them to extend them.

I must also build the confidence to give children into trouble when they are misbehaving and not paying attention to the class teacher. When I was on placement, I felt as though I could not do this as I felt that it was not my place. Even though I was a student teacher, I felt that it was the actual class teacher to give the children into trouble for disrupting them. However, this is not the case and when I am in a classroom it is just as much my responsibility as the class teacher’s.

Action Plan

I must start to think positively about my experience on placement and learn from the criticisms that I picked up both from my self evaluations and from my peer observation feedback. By doing so, I will begin to build confidence in myself both as a teacher and as a student. This will help for the next time I go on placement and I will know what to do differently this time.

As well as this, I plan to do research on way that I can build my confidence and put these into action. Through this, I hope to become more confident in front of small or large groups of adults or children.

Reflections on Placement

As part of my first year placement at university, I undertook one week placement at a primary school. This experience has made me certain that teaching children is what I would definitely like to do in future. Throughout the week, I have … Continue reading →