I attended Stanley Primary School in Ardrossan for my week placement in BA1. The school has 444 pupils and I was lucky enough to be able to work with a range of ages and pupils from various backgrounds. The school has four main aims: respect, commitment, caring and courage. This was shown to me through the communication of teachers and pupils. The school used more active learning with the junior stages to keep them engaged and to keep the lesson in context, whereas the senior stages were using more textbooks and worksheets which still worked effectively in learning.

Throughout the week, I interacted with colleagues in the classroom and the staffroom. I learned how much planning actually goes into teaching as usually in the staffroom, teachers would discuss their lessons plans or new ways to keep a lesson in context. I was fortunate enough to be allowed to take small groups of pupils from P1, P3 and P7, and work with them, This showed me that as a teacher you need to change your wording with different ages and how to keep pupils focused on their task. In my self-evaluation, I have identified my areas in which I need to work on, such as eye contact.

I believe I had some strengths which I have identified in my self-evaluation. I kept the attention of the pupils by speaking with a loud, clear voice and also having an open body language, whilst making myself seen to all the pupils in the group. For example, whilst I was helping a group of Primary 1 pupils, I had to speak clearly and articulate my words as we were practising phonics and writing the letters. I got the pupils to repeat what I said, to ensure they were listening to me and understanding the work correctly. I also think another strength of mine was being enthusiastic with the younger pupils. I would praise those who answered, for example, my maths questions correctly. If the answer was wrong, I would still keep a positive tone and ask them to rethink their answer. I think this kept the younger pupils motivated, rather than bluntly telling them their answer was wrong.

I identified many areas of improvement throughout my placement.  I need to keep all pupils involved, rather than one pupil answering the question each time. I could do so by having the pupils names on sticks and picking them out. This would also keep the pupils listening and engaged as they would always have the chance to answer the questions given. In my peer-assessment, it’s been highlighted that I need to avoid using small ‘filler’ words such as ‘ehm’, ‘like’ etc. This could be distracting to the pupils and make them less focused on the statement that i’m trying to get across. I also have realised that I need to work on eye-contact when I’m teaching pupils. This will also keep them focused on what you’re saying and give them the sense of being more involved.

Overall, I had a great experience being out on placement and learned a lot of new techniques and ways of teaching from staff. Also, I have identified my weaknesses and my strengths. I need to learn to keep all the pupils involved by asking a variety of questions, making sure that everyone is getting the chance to answer questions and share their opinions. I also need to be more authoritative as some of the Primary 7 pupils were quite chatty with me at times, which they would not have been like with their class teacher. I also realised that I can keep the attention of the pupils by having an open body language and speaking with the correct volume.