Having just completed my 2-week school placement, there was lots of areas I was able to highlight as strengths and development needs. Due to being in the same class for the full 2 weeks I was able to identify my own strengths and weaknesses and become more confident with working with the same children and teacher. I was able to gain a good bank of knowledge about the curriculum and learn about the different learning and teaching methods used in today’s classroom.

Strengths
One strength that was highlighted for me by the class teacher was that I was always using my initiative. For example, if a pupil had their hand up or asked me for help, I would go over and help them and she felt I used my initiative quickly to assist the child as was most beneficial to their individual needs rather than always consulting the teacher. This was anything from going to get concrete materials to assist in maths, writing a word on a whiteboard for spelling or simply working one to one with the child and going back to the beginning and explaining the task from the start if they had not quite grasped it.

Area of Most Progress
The area I feel that I progressed the most in was my confidence when speaking to a group of people, adults or children. Although I never had the class to myself for anytime, I did have the opportunity to work with 8 or 9 pupils on reading tasks. In the beginning I was unsure of how the children might respond to having me in their class and if they would listen and take my seriously. However, as my time in the class progressed, I felt that I built up good relationships with the pupils and I was able to take a group outside and they would focus and listen to me. I felt more confident in being able to speak to them as a group without getting nervous as I was self-assured that I knew what I was doing. In doing so I had to make sure that I spoke with a loud, clear voice so that everyone in the group could hear and understand me. I was able to closely observe a wide range of abilities and make myself available to assist everyone.

Area Requiring Progress
An area that I identified as a development need was trying to avoid the use of sentence fillers such as “em”, “um” and “like”. This is just purely a nervous thing and I always find myself very aware that I am saying them. This is something I know I will have to work on in the future however I feel as though as I progress and get more confident in myself this will slowly fade away. Another thing I am going to work on is speaking out to a large group. I need to be more confident in myself that I know what I am doing, and I feel as though this will eventually come with practice.

Action Plan
In order to develop my weaknesses, I plan to get more practice at speaking to a group in a more formal way, whether this be presenting a presentation rather than just a causal chat. I know this is an essential skill for me to develop throughout my time on the course and in working towards becoming a teacher. While working on this I will also try to reduce using sentence fillers to fill silences and instead try to be more confident in what I am talking about.

Overall my time on placement was an amazing experience and I learned so much in a short space of time that I will be able to carry with me on my journey to becoming a teacher.