Having completed a two week placement at a primary school, I have reflected and highlighted areas i have made the most progress and areas that require development. I was fortunate enough to observe each year group in the primary school and was given informal feedback from the teachers, which has allowed me to really highlight areas requirng development. It has  also given me more knowledge and insight into the different stages throughout the primary school i attended. In return this has afforded me with the luxury of experiencing the different problems and struggles for children at different stages of the curriculum.

Strength

Throughout the two weeks it was highlight by many of the teachers and my peer observation that i was confident working with the children on a one to one basis and it groups. An example of this was taking a group of children for a reading task in which i had to get the children individually to read to the group. After this i asked the children questions about the book to ensure they had a good understanding of what they were reading, I did this with ease, in which the kids felt relaxed, open and trusted me to talk openly. Ensuring all children were involved, engaged and learning successfully.

Area of most progress

It was highlighted at the beginning of the placement that i should show more confidence in utilising behaviour management strategies. I felt at the beginning of the two weeks placement i was worried about stepping on the teachers toes, so i tried to take a step back approach to work out how the teachers used their behaviour management strategies throughout the day in the class. However the children soon picked up on the fact that their misbehaviour was going unnoticed and ended up misbehaving even more. I would say this has been my area of most progress as i effectively by the end of week one was dealing with varying misbehaviour from children such as aggressive, verbally abusive and even physical abuse behaviour. An example of this was when two children were physically fighting in the classroom and i managed to calm the situation down and spoke to the two individuals seperately and then had the two children apologising to each other and getting them focused back on their work again. The children in this particular class were known for continually fighting with each other and it was a massive eye opener on how to deal with this sort of behaviour calmly and effectively. Im not sure i would have handled this situation the way i did at the beginning of the placement so i was very pleased with my progress on behaviour management strategies.

Area Requiring Progress

I require progress on my positioning when talking individually or as a group to children. This was highlighted on more that one occasion and it was a suggestion for improvement on my peer observation. I need to “ensure that you are facing all of the children as often as possible”. As soon as my back was turned from the class to talk to children the rest of the children weren’t doing their work and started to act up. I found this difficult as i tried to give the pupil or pupils i was talking too my undivided attention but then i faltered on my class control as i didn’t have visual on what the rest of the children were doing. I need to learn to multi task a little better in the classroom.

Action Plan

On reflection of my placement, i plan on researching more into behaviour management strategies. I plan on working on my positioning when talking to people and to get into a continuous habit of making sure i have a visual view of all surrounding people. This will ensure when i am back on placement that i a view of everyone in the classroom when talking to individuals or groups of children.