On this day the children were back at Charlemagne for sports week. I was very excited about today as the sun was shining and it was the perfect day to be on the water. When we arrived, the teacher informed me that we were also going to be rowing. This scared me a bit as I has never rowed before in my life, however, I was also very excited to be trying something new in France. The children were also excited to see myself and their teacher on the water.

I thought to myself as I was getting onto the small rowing boat that surely rowing would be an easy sport and wouldn’t take long to master. Oh, how I was wrong. I was very confused at the beginning and there was definitely no chance of me ever becoming a successful rower. However, as time went on I got into it and it was a lot of fun. Luckily the teacher was a rower herself and therefore was able to help me along the way. Realising in the middle of the lake that we didn’t have life jackets on was a worry. Although I am a good swimmer I did not fancy falling into that water at any point, even if it was a sunny day. As we rowed we stopped every so often to take photos of the children on the boats. The teacher was taking photos so that they could be sold at the end of the week to make money for their school trip at the end of term.

I have noticed that the school does a lot of fundraising when it comes to trips. Last week they had a bake sale, parents made various cakes and sold them at the end of the day. Hosting various fundraising events throughout the year is a successful way of funding school trips, meaning that the children don’t have to pay for it out of their own pocket. It is also great to see how involved the parents get. They help out at the various events. This is a similarity I have noticed between France and Scotland. In Scottish primary schools we have the PTA (Parent Teacher Association), this allows the parents of the children to get involved with the school and help out at the various events run throughout the course of the year. I think it is important for parents to get involved with school.

In the afternoon on Thursday, myself and the other Scottish students in Orléans had a meeting with our host Nina. This was a half-term meeting to see how we were getting on in our schools thus far. I couldn’t believe that it was already time for a half-term meeting. It seems like yesterday that it was my first day in the school, only having just arrived in France. It is scary how quickly the time is going. I am nearly at the end of my third week and it is hard to believe that there is only three weeks left after this. I expected the time to fly, but not as fast as it has. I am looking forward to the coming weeks and further developing my teaching skills. Teaching English as a foreign is very challenging but it is also rewarding seeing a child learn a new language. Knowing that I only have three more weeks of placement is surreal. Over my final few weeks I must be sure to embrace every opportunity and take on new challenges.

The class that I am in most often is CM2, that is my base classroom within the school. I had been observing this class for the first two weeks of my placement and the teacher is considered to be my host within the school. I have gotten to know the children in this class very well and I am beginning to form good relationships with them. Having spent Monday and Tuesday in various other classes within the school I was looking forward to going with the CM2 class to Charlemagne for their sports week. The children have been taking part in various outdoor activities throughout the week, with their main sport being rowing. It was very interesting to see the children thrive outside of the classroom and enjoy their sports week.

As it was half day Wednesday the children were only participating in the morning. Unfortunately for them the weather was not on their side and it was a very rainy, miserable day. Despite this, the children had a great time and the weather didn’t seem to bother them one bit. Each day they progress learning a new skill. On this day, all members of the class were given two ores. On previous days on one child would row whilst the other sat and watched. They would take turnabout. Myself and the teacher walked around the lake taking photos.

One thing I have noticed about French primary schools is that the utilise their surroundings. They do not hesitate to take the children to outdoor recreational facilities and local gym’s or centres. I think this is a very good thing as it allows the children to escape from the four walls of the classroom. Because the curriculum is so structured I believe that having the opportunity to leave the school to take part in activities is very important. It allows the children to enjoy and express themselves as there is not a lot of opportunity for this in the classroom. It is clear to see how enthusiastic the children are when taking part in outdoor activities.

Overall, Wednesday was a great chance for me to see the children enjoy themselves and take part in an activity that they wouldn’t usually do. Being in different surroundings, away from the school was very interesting and I enjoyed the change of scenery. I am looking forward to being with the CM2 class again tomorrow and seeing how they progress within this sport.

I can’t believe that I have reached the end of my penultimate week in the French primary school. Time has gone so quickly, and it is surreal that I only have one week left with my classes. I was looking forward to this day as I knew I would be kept very busy teaching various classes. I usually only have my three CP classes on a Friday, however, due to the disruptions yesterday, I had two extra lessons to teach today.

First thing this morning I went into the other CM2 class to teach them the topic of going shopping. I was very happy to see how enthusiastic they were about learning English. This was the first time I had ever taught this class, so I wasn’t sure how the lesson was going to go. There were a few members of the class that were not as engaged, however, on the whole the class listen and participated a lot within the lesson. I kept the lesson very much the same as I had done it before with my CM2 class because it seemed to work very well. I added one game in that I had tried before and I’m glad that I did because it was a success.

I started the lesson by going over the vocabulary using my flashcards. As I have mentioned in previous reflections, I have realised that using flashcards is very useful when teaching a foreign language. It is an aid that is easy to find and use in any level of the primary school. I would say that it took a little bit longer for the children in the second CM2 class to grasp the vocab, however, I ensured that I did not move on to the next part of the lesson until they were completely accurate with their vocab and pronunciation. After this I played various game using the flashcards, two of which I had already played with my CM2 class. They seemed to really enjoy the games and were very competitive which resulted in further development of vocabulary. They were very focused on learning the various types of shop in order to win against myself and their peers.

Before morning break I had the chance to talk about Scotland and share my PowerPoint presentation with my CM2 class. I was very excited about this lesson as it was a chance for me to share with the children where I come from and talk to them about what school is like in Scotland compared to France. There were very interested and asked lots of questions throughout. One thing that they were very surprised at was that in Scotland we only go to two schools as we do not have middle school. The way in which the Scottish education system works is very different from France. There were also very excited to find out where about in Scotland I come from, they asked many questions about the capital city Edinburgh and about various Scottish traditions. I discussed topics such as clothes, food and drink and school. I presented this lesson in French with a little help from the teacher. This was a great opportunity to show what I have learned over the past few weeks whilst being in the school. It was great to see that the children had so many questions to ask me and were genuinely interested in finding out about Scotland.

After break I was teaching my first CP class of the day. The class that I teach in the morning is always a lot more difficult than the other two classes. This is something I had previously mentioned to my class teacher. I found out after entering the CP class that my teacher had discussed this with the class teacher. The CP teacher spoke to the boys and girls and told them that the other classes listen and work very hard. I have noticed that a few of the children in that class misbehave and often have to be disciplined by standing outside of the classroom. I have no seen this type of discipline in the other CP classes are the children are always very well behaved when I am in the classroom.

I was moving onto a different topic in CP today as the children were now very confident with colours. Some of the CP teacher had expressed that fruits and vegetables would be a good topic to teach. I decided to focus purely on fruit today as I believe that add vegetables into the mix would be confusing for the children. I am glad that I did this as the children in the first CP class found it difficult remembering a few basic fruits. I started off the lesson optimistic that the children would be able to recall ten different fruits by the end of the lesson, however, I realised early on that this would not be the case. I decided to cut it down to five fruits to make it easier for the children to remember. I picked five of the most common fruits so that they were able to recognise the pictures on the flashcards. I am very glad that I had flashcard to do the lesson as I don’t believe that the children would have been able to learn this topic without using flashcards. The entire lesson consisted of the children repeating after me and then trying it on their own. I was not able to move on to the flashcard games that I had planned due to how difficult they were finding the vocabulary. As that class is usually the most difficult class of the day I was hopeful that the other CP classes would find the lesson less difficult.

I found out after lunch that the other CM2 teacher wanted me to go back into her class in the afternoon to do my Scotland presentation for her class. I was informed that the children had been so enthusiastic about my going shopping lesson that they wanted me to go back into their class to teach. This made my day as it is so rewarding finding out that the children enjoy your lessons. Having had the chance to practice my Scotland presentation in the morning I felt prepared going into the second CM2 class. However, the teacher does not speak English and therefore I was unsure if she would be able to translate my English into French for the children as I was unable to say absolutely everything in French. Despite the language barrier the lesson went very well and myself and the teacher were able to translate small amount of the lesson from English to French and vice versa. Again, it was great to see how interested the children were in learning about Scotland.

My last two CP classes of the day went a lot better than the class I had taught in the morning. They grasped the vocabulary very quickly which allowed me to move onto the flashcard games. I wish I had had the opportunity to do this with the first class, however, it wouldn’t have worked if the children weren’t able to recall the vocab. I played a memory game as well as a team game that involved the children going against each other in pairs to see who could point to the various fruits first. The children had a great time and were engaged throughout. They were clapping and cheering for each other whilst playing as well as learning new words. Overall, it was a very successful day of teaching and it felt very good to have accomplished so much in just one day.

Friday is one of my main teaching days of the week, therefore, I always look forward to this day. I love having lots to do and getting to spend time with different classes within the school. I begin each day in my CM2 class then throughout the day go to various areas of the school to teach. I really enjoy being in the CP classes as this has been my first experience of teaching children in the early years. I was anxious going into these classes in the beginning due to my lack of experience. However, I have found that that my confidence has grown each day and I now feel comfortable teaching this age group. I enjoy coming up with new lesson ideas. With the CP classes I have found that interactive lessons work best and allow the children to really engage. I have been teaching the topic of colours now for two weeks and I was looking forward to continuing this with the classes. They are all very enthusiastic about the topic and therefore work very hard when I am teaching.

In my fist CP class of the day I introduced my lesson idea of the colour wheel. The children were each given a circular piece of paper that had the colour names written on in segments. The idea of the lesson was that I put up the various coloured flashcards on the board along with the spelling and they had to colour in the corresponding word. Once this was completed they would get a second piece of paper with one segment cut up, after pinning this to their coloured in sheet they were able to spin the top piece of paper to reveal a colour. Creating the wheel took up most of the lesson, however, with the time we had at the end everyone used their colour wheel as a learning tool. I asked the children to show me various colours and they had to find it on their wheel and hold it up. This was very successful and allowed me to gage their level of understanding of this topic. Having taught all three classes for a few weeks now I have a good idea of the class level. I found that my first class of the day were very confident and did not struggle with the colour wheel. They proved that they were very competent in relation to the topic of colour. All of the children in the class were able to answer my questions and did not struggle to recite the colours.

I found that the other CP classes that I went to see after lunch struggled more than the first class. I don’t know the reason for this, however, this has been a trend over the previous weeks. When colouring in the wheel a lot of the children were getting mixed up with the colours, colouring words the wrong colour. I was very confused as to how this was a challenging task as I provided them with the colour and the name. I am curious as to whether these classes are younger that my first class and are therefore working at a lower level. Reflection on this, I believe that in future lessons I could simplify the lesson for those unable to recall information from previous weeks.

Differentiation is something that is not practiced in France. All children in all classes work on the same textbooks and complete the same tasks. This is something I have found very interesting as in Scotland, differentiation is a major aspect of teaching. We are taught about the importance of ensuring children are working at the level that is right for them. However, if children are forced to complete the same work from primary one level and are given the time and attention from the teacher, who is to say that not having differentiation doesn’t work? I have found that being in a French school for four weeks now has allowed me to see that all children seem to be coping with their work. They are all very capable at the level they are working at. This shows that the sue of differentiation is not essential. If children work at the same level from a young age, they can all work at the same level at the same time.

Overall, I had a successful day and week teaching. I challenged myself and thought of new and creative ideas for lessons. I am looking forward to going into next week as I am teaching even more lessons. I am excited to finally be teaching my CM2 class the topic of going shopping and I hope that I am successful with CM2 as I have been with CP.