Monthly Archives: January 2017

Reflecting on semester 1

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Being the first year to complete the ‘Values; self, society and the professions’ module I feel I have been put in a strong position to undertake my first professional placement in April. Previous to this I feel I was very naïve to the impact values had on education. Values are at the heart of every decision we make and therefore teachers must hold and demonstrate good values in order for the pupils to develop these too.

The module went on to highlight the relationship between your personal and your professional values suggesting within teaching they are both very similar. Professional values are at the heart of the SPR therefore I knew it would be vital for me to establish my values before my first placement. This was my first step towards becoming a reflective practitioner.

Finding your values involves deep reflection on many aspects of your life including your; upbringing, friends, religion and so on. To add to this your values are also constantly changing with every new experience.

After establishing my values I found reflection was going to be fundamental if I were to succeed as a teacher. Teachers must also become Life Long Learners who constantly reflect and evaluate their practice in order to improve. Teaching is not a practice you can simply master and be done with. It is ever changing and therefore you must also constantly strive to develop.

During my placement I will begin to experience a new form of reflection where others (my class teacher and tutor) will also be reflecting on and evaluating my practice. This will bring me many challenges and benefits such learning to cope with constructive criticism while ensuring I take every piece of advice on board. However, despite this, I can’t wait to get started!

Dance… love it or hate it?

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Friday mornings dance workshop gave me a whole new perspective on the subject I once did anything to avoid. I have no previous experience of dance and always thought it was not for me. This, combined with the fear of making a fool of myself left me ‘hating it’ throughout my childhood.

However, after Friday’s workshop I began to realise I can no longer be the child scared of making a fool of themselves. I need to be an adult; A teacher that inspires children with full confidence in the subject. The workshop highlighted to me the importance of this subject in the curriculum. I believe if dance had been part of the curriculum when I was in primary school this would have given me the chance to try it and learn some basics.  By the time it became part of the curriculum when I was in secondary school many children had thrived in outside school dance clubs and I still had no experience. This has motivated as a future teacher to give every child a chance to try out dancing and inspire them continue it into later life.

But why bother you may ask?

After doing some reading on the ‘Get Scotland Dancing’ campaign and the Curriculam For Excellence Subject outcomes and experiences I have found dance is a huge part of Scotlands culture and brings in many important aspects of a child’s development. First, it helps the child develop their creativity through choreographing and demonstrating their feelings and ideas through a different media. Second, it is a very good and fun activity that can help towards children reaching their 60 minutes of physical activity a day. Finally, dance is a very social activity that builds on teamwork, cooperation and friendship all of which are very important for good mental wellbeing.

This new information got me motivated and inspired to teach dance in a successful and exciting way to all children. However, I am obviously facing some challenges due to my lack of experience. Therefore I am going to make a professional commitment to improving my knowledge of dance and my ability to teach it.  I plan on doing this through more reading, watching dance performances and fully participating in the dance workshops. I thoroughly enjoy physical activity therefore I know I can do this in order to make me a better teacher in the future.