I went into school today prepared to teach a lesson on Scotland as well as the going shopping topic with the other CM2 class. I was very excited to have the opportunity to have the chance to tell the children all about Scotland and Scottish culture. Having been in France for nearly five weeks now I am starting to miss home a bit. This is the longest I have ever been away from home for. This is another reason I was really looking forward to talking about Scotland. Having the opportunity to tell the children about my hometown and various Scottish traditions was very exciting.

The teacher had expressed to me that she wanted me to teach the lesson in French meaning that I required an English and French translation. I spent the morning adding the finishing touches to my PowerPoint presentation in preparation for the afternoons lesson. I didn’t realise how long it would take me to translate everything I wanted to say into French. For most of the presentation I was able to translate without having to search for the translation. However, when explaining very aspects of Scottish culture I had to use my iTranslate app to ensure I had the correct translation. I then showed the teacher to make sure I had used the correct French. I was very happy to find out that there was only a couple of minor mistakes. However, in the morning there was a power cut which meant that the school would be without electricity for the remainder of the day. As I had prepared a PowerPoint presentation I would be unable to project it onto the board for the children to see. I was very disappointed as I was looking forward to talking about Scotland. I am hoping that the electricity will be up and running by tomorrow, so I will be able to present.

I was looking forward to teaching the going shopping lesson to the second CM2 class. Since my lesson went well the other day and received a good response from the children, I was interested to see how the other class would engage. I really enjoy repeating lessons for other classes because it allows me to improve each time, taking the positives and negatives from the lesson and further developing my teaching strategies. Luckily the power cut did not affect my plan for this lesson as all I required was flashcards.

I was interested to see how the children in the other CM2 class would behave. Having observed their class teacher teaching geography to my CM2 class I have noticed that she is very strict She doesn’t stand for any misbehaviour and is also very hands on with the children. I don’t know if this is because her class is challenging or that is just her preferred teaching style. Unfortunately, when it came to the time that I was supposed to be teaching the CM2 class I was informed that because of the construction noise no teaching would be taking place. I was disappointed as that was the second lesson of the day that I was unable to teach. This meant that I didn’t have the chance to teach at all throughout the course of the day. I understand that sometimes things cannot be helped but it was a bit annoying having spent so much time planning each lesson.

I did not have the day I had expected; however, I am hoping that tomorrow will be better as the power should be back on and I will get to teach the lessons I missed today, over and above my usual Friday routine.