I found that placement was very worthwhile and beneficial for myself. I found it very useful to see the different variations of methods that teachers use and how the theory of our lectures and workshops are put into practice and context.

I found that primary schools have changed a lot over the years as there is far more interactive learning an pupil involvement rather than copying and listening. It was great to see the way that children of different ages and abilities engaged with learning.

Overall, I enjoyed my placement, however I felt that one week was not enough to gain a lot of benefit from what we have been learning at university. I felt that this may have impacted on the ability to complete the eight placement tasks to a high standard as we had such a short time to gain and condense specific information relevant to the tasks. It was challenging as classes may not have been doing any lessons on what the literacy and mathematics tasks were referring to. It was also challenging, personally for me as teachers were asking me to work with groups within classes so it was difficult to observe a wider range of pupils.

I had a very positive experience as the school I was placed in made me feel extremely welcome and relaxed. I felt that the teachers wanted me there and so this boosted my confidence which impacted on my interaction with the children and staff. I also felt extremely comfortable asking questions in the school which was beneficial and useful on placement.

Strength –

I found that my main communication strength within the classroom was the way in engaged and interacted with children and teachers and the way that I was able to vary my vocabulary and different ways of engagement when speaking to different ages and different abilities of children. An example of this is when I was working with a reading group in P1 that were not as advanced with their phonic sounds and so I still included the action after saying the word that goes with the phonic in order to show them it physically written down in a word but did not need to with another group who were more advanced. I feel comfortable in engagement as I did previous work experience in a primary school. I also found that I took a bit of a back seat in my work experience and I was more of a peer to children rather than a teacher or authority figure. Evidence of this is that I was able to speak to children easily and confidently. I also found that children knew that I was a student teacher or an authority figure as they spoke to me respectfully and appropriately whilst still being able to talk about things outside of classwork. I feel that I have established the appropriate teacher-friend balance with children in the classroom setting.

Weakness –

I found that an area of development needing to be worked on is my tone and pitch. I found that teachers pointed out that I should vary my tone a bit more and be more dramatic when working with children to keep them more engaged and enthusiastic about their work. I also found that I need to avoid using ‘yip’ and ‘a’ instead of yes and I. I was not even aware that I overuse these errors in my language.

Area of most improvement-

The area I feel that I improved most upon was not using slang words when in the classroom. This was a huge challenge for me as I have been bought up using slang words my whole life. I also found that I was able to give more clear instructions to classes by avoiding using slang, especially in the infant classes. I slowed my pace down for the infants and seen a huge improvement of their interaction with me as they had a clearer understanding of what I was asking them to do.

Strategies-

I will form an actions plan to put in place from now onwards which will also help with my next placemen. As part of my action plan I will practice giving clear, paced instructions further and not use slang words to certain audiences and not as often in general. I will also practice varying my tone and dramatizing my actions in certain situations when working with children. I will also practice saying yes and I instead of ‘yip’ and ‘a’ when working with children. I could also ask my peers and teachers for advice of how to improve my weaknesses. Another way to improve my weaknesses is trying to imitate teachers tone of voice, expressions and reactions in certain situations.