Category Archives: 3. Prof. Skills & Abilities

Twisted Tales in Time

In learning about social studies, I felt it was important to go out and ‘do’ it. Our Tutor recommended the Dark Dundee walking tour company, so Kim, Katy and I headed out to see what we could learn. Dark Dundee are a local company which specialises in walking tours in and around Dundee. They run lots of aptly-named tours, such as : ‘Crimes of Passion’, ‘A Dark History’, and ‘Dead Centre’, all of which sounded exciting, but we went for ‘Twisted in Time’. This was to explore the “truth to Dundee’s darkest myths and legends”, look at the facts behind what people believe today, and the truth to the stories that we hear in Dundee. I can assure you, we were not disappointed!

Another motivation for going on this tour was that it was specifically related to Dundee. I’m from edinburgh myself, and I have very little local knowledge. If i were in Edinburgh, I know lots of stories and local legends, which I think would be nice to share with a class of. So far, this has not been a problem, however, with probation year looming, I know that I need to act fast. Having recently had a talk from the GTCS on where I will choose to go next year to work, I have decided that I would like to stay in Dundee. This throws up the issue of what do I do if I am to cover a topic based on local history? Being honest, I would not know where to start! I thought this tour could be the much needed start in exploring my adopted home!

The tour promised “Dragons, cannibals, plenty more real monsters and tales of savage punishment and ancient feuds, this twisted tour just might keep you up at night…”, so we were excited when we approached the dragon statue in the city centre to begin the tour…

At the dragon, we learned about the story behind it. The story of the Nine Maidens of Pitempten. The legend goes that there was a farmer, who had nine daughters, and sent one down to fetch water from the well, and when she did not return, he sent another to find her, until eventually they were all gone and he had to go out to look for them himself. When he reached the well, he was met with the horror of the nine girls bodies strewn around a large dragon, which had killed them all. The farmer escaped and raised the alarm in the town and Martin, the supposed lover of one of the girls lead the charge to slay the dragon. He was egged on by cries of “Strike, Martin!”, and he eventually killed the dragon and saved the town. Nowadays this is why there is an area of Dundee called ‘Strathmartine’, named after this hero of local legend. Our tour guides, at this point, started to unpick the legend. Firstly the legend actually speaks of a serpent, not a dragon, so why the dragon statue? And if the hero of the legend is Martin, why is the statue of the villain? Well the answer is very simple, because a statue of a dragon is far more impressive! The dragon looks ‘cooler’ than a statue of an ordinary-looking man, plus there is no way of knowing what Martin even looked like!

The story is certainly unlikely to be true. I did a search of the story to gain a little insight into the story! According to some of research, the monster was a dragon, a serpent, and two intertwined snakes. One respondent to Dark Dundee’s explanation of the story suggested an alternative, which said that ‘Nine Maidens’ are referred to throughout Scottish folklore, dating to Pictish times, where there were nine maidens who were the daughters of a St Donevald, and upon his death they lived near a large oak tree, where they were eventually buried upon their deaths, and the site became a pilgrimage location. According to this respondent, a cult of these nine maidens was created and the church forbade pilgrimage to this site. It could perhaps be that this story was used to deter people from making the pilgrimage. This could be very plausible, as our Dark Dundee tour guides noted that the story could have been a fictional cautionary tale, and that the girls were eaten for the terrible crime of dancing on a Sunday…

We also stopped at this plaque on the Murraygate. It is to commemorate Grissell Jaffray, the final woman in Dundee to be executed as a witch. She was killed in 1669, however the records of her trial conveniently were destroyed in a fire, so only limited information is known. Because if what is known of witch trials at the time, it is very likely that a confession was extracted through some means of torture, such as the removal of fingernails. In this case, after her death, three presbyterian ministers were held responsible for her horrific death, where she was eventually burned at the stake.

Supposedly the day she burned, her son was captaining a ship arriving into Dundee port, and the pyre’s smoke was high and visible from the ship. The son turned to a fellow sailor and asked what was happening. He was told that it was his mother’s execution for witchcraft. Upon hearing this, the son turned the ship around and sailed out of Dundee, not wanting to be associated with his mother. Also, there is a gravestone in the Howff cemetery in Dundee, which is the final resting place of her remains

This was all very interesting, we lent in further to find out more… only to be told that this is not even true! Well, Grissell Jaffray was real, and she really was executed for witchcraft in 1669. However, for a convicted witch to have been buried on consecrated ground is just not possible! Our tour guides also told us that the story about her son is just a tad implausible! Surely if one’s mother was burning on a stake and you heard about it you would want to rush there quickly? And how could the other sailor have known about it, but not the woman’s own son? And to cement this doubt, our tour guides offered us one more piece of evidence to disprove this part of the story: there is no record of Grissell Jaffray having any children!

So what did I learn? Well there were a lot more stories and tales told, with various levels of authenticity, and as one might expect, more is known of the more recent stories. I have not referred to them specifically, as I wouldn’t wish to reveal too much of the tour, but there were many different things I learned. I think that as a learner I found out a little more about Dundee as a city, and as a local resident I think it is good to know little things like this, as it makes me feel more of a part of the local community, and this is something I think could be pertinent to children in classes I will work with. I think as a teacher, if I ever move to work in a new city, I will try to find out about local folklore and history, as I think it would be nice to share with children.

I think that children could benefit from a tour like this, where they could see the things they were learning about. I think that the tour offered a different approach to the stories we learned, one where the walking element itself could be underestimated, as this kept me interested and wondering what was coming next throughout! I asked one of our guides if they ever did tours with school groups, and he told me that they didn’t, but that is wasn’t out of the question. I think I wouldn’t take children on this tour specifically, as it was perhaps a little too gory and grim for the age groups I would be working with, however i think a tour like this has potential to be a fantastic teaching resource.

We really enjoyed our 90 minutes walking around the city centre, this is the link to go to if you’d like to take the tour, I can assure you you won’t regret it!

https://www.darkdundee.co.uk/#the-tours

After the tour, I stopped the other two and filmed a short video of each of us saying what we thought of the experience!

http://angusfolklore.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/martins-stone-and-nine-maidens-and.html

http://www.dundeemessenger.co.uk/myths-and-legends/the-dundee-dragon/

Oh to be a Pilgrim

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The RME elective is definitely been interesting, and I can already say that I’ve learned a lot! As a TDT task, we were set to visit a ‘special’ place, and as a group, we decided to investigate a pilgrimage. We found one which was first ‘done’ by the Picts, who were alive around 1500 years ago. While we do not know any details of this journey, not even its purpose. The route was long and involved many stops:

Dundee
Coupar Angus
Meigle
Alyth
Glamis
Kirriemuir
Glenprosen
Kirriemuir (again)
Forfar
Brechin
Edzell
Fettercairn
Glensaugh
Auchenblae
Stonehaven
Letham
Arbroath
Carnoustie
Dundee

We decided to go out and try it for ourselves. We changed our minds pretty quickly. It turns out that walking to all 19 of these places would be quite hard going, so we changed the plans a little and decided to try the route in the car.

The Route

Arriving at the car, all I could really think about was the fact that I had called shotgun on the front seat and that I wanted to keep it; that and the fact that we had to get snacks for the journey. Not the most profound of thoughts, but nonetheless, all that was really in my mind. The trip took us just over 6 hours in total. It consisted of driving from location to location and singing along to the playlist along the way.

Before we started…

By the end we were all tired, hungry and uncomfortable. I began to think about what the journey was like for the original Pictish pilgrims. I did a little research and discovered that the journey would have taken us 55 hours to walk! This wasn’t the end of it,we should remember that that’s without a rest! Also, we have roads and paths etc. which would now make the walk a lot easier, my estimation is that the journey would have taken us 4 or 5 days back when the pilgrims made the original journey.

I wondered if perhaps we missed the point from the beginning? I thought that we hadn’t really considered the point of a pilgrimage. I sat in the car with the others, and been to Stonehaven before; and we did not really talk about the journey very much while we were on it. I have done a little research on what exactly a pilgrimage is, and The Scots Magazine says:

“It’s been described as a journey or search for moral or spiritual significance, in many cases a journey to a location of some importance to the person making the pilgrimage.”

This made a lot of sense to me, as it explains that a pilgrimage is more than a journey, its about some kind of spiritual, or enlightening moment. Now our journey was only to simulate a special journey, and we were unlikely to have any kind of epiphany, but I did wonder if we should have taken it a little more seriously. Our main mistake was not researching the pilgrimage enough before we started. I think that we could have stopped throughout and thought about what the original pilgrims were thinking and feeling throughout their journey.

Having said this, I think that perhaps I did learn something important. While writing this post, I have started to think, and I have realised that by the end of the day we all felt tired, hungry and uncomfortable; just like I thought the Picts probably did. Also, as a group we set aside the whole day to do this task, which was a significant time out of our reading week. We all felt a sense of accomplishment for lasting the whole time. I wonder at this point, was it really so different from the Picts? Naturally we had not spent the whole week doing this journey, but the feeling that we had upon completion felt very similar. I also think that I learned from some our mistakes, specifically that pilgrimages are not meant to be easy or taken on lightly, and that they have to be significant to be considered a meaningful experience.

From a teaching perspective, I think that I learned that when teaching about pilgrimages. I think that I would not take a class outside without fully learning about it beforehand. I would want to teach them about pilgrimages in general and then take them out to mimic one and consider their feelings. I would take them out on a walking mini pilgrimage and have them consider how it would make them feel to be walking like that for several days, how hard it would be and the physical and mental strength it would require to complete. I would then like to work with the pupils to discuss these feelings and think about what a pilgrimage would mean to them, and consider what their personal journey would be.

I think that I have learned to appreciate the concept of a pilgrimage a little more. I even began to consider what a pilgrimage would mean to me. I feel that a non-theist, a pilgrimage would be difficult for me, because it is hard to determine what would be a significant personal experience. I think that for me it’s about going somewhere I have always wanted to go, and will have to work hard to get there. In recent years I have thought about New Zealand a lot. I would love to go there one day, and perhaps move there to work. I know that I’ll have to work really hard to get there, as it’ll require a lot of saving up, but also a lot of work to get my degree to be allowed to go over and work there. I believe that, should it happen, this will be my pilgrimage. Now that I understand what it means to me, I believe that I am in a better position to teach the concept to the children that I will work with.

We made it to the end!

: Setting out…

: Stopping for a break in Kirriemuir

: Glamis

: Alyth

: Alyth

: Edzell

: Fettercairn

: Alyth

: Meigle

: Meigle

: Edzelll

: Brechin

: Meigle

On the Pilgrims’ Trail

Mosque Visit Reflection

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Beginning the RME module, it was suggested that we go as a group on a trip to the Dundee Mosque to the Open Doors day. I was very curious going in, as I had never been in a Mosque before. I would have been the first to admit to knowing only a little about Islam, so I had absolutely no idea what to expect. What first struck me when we went in was how welcoming and pleasant all of the volunteers were. Of course I was not expecting anything different, but I felt that it was great how open they were, and how willing they were to share their own thoughts and experiences of their religion. I felt very welcome, and it was very interesting to see the religion! I feel more confident teaching Islam in a class, and I would definitely take a class there on a trip, as it was a great experience which I would like to share with any children I work with.

Our group trying on scarves in the women’s prayer hall

To learn more about Islam, I watched the following video. It follows the lives of two young Muslims: Sara and Kaisan, and gives them the opportunity to explain and demonstrate what their religion means to them and their families. I felt that it was a great way of showing children what it mean to be a muslim in the UK. I believe this it is a great resource to use with children as it explains Islam in practice, and from the point of view of a child, which is very important.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L45T4Q7dxV0

It is quite different to what some children may have seen in the media about the religion and its practices. A simple google search of “BBC News Islam” had the following top two results:

“Islamic State conflict – BBC News”

“Islamic State group: The full story – BBC News”

And other versions of this search all brought up similar results, pages and pages about extremism, conflict, and many other negative images. On a personal level I struggled with this, as I saw no similarities at all to the real Muslims I met at the Mosque. The people were so pleasant, kind and open to us, that I found it uncomfortable to read the pages that my web search brought up. It seems wrong to me that these are portrayals of the religion that children can see. I considered the representations of Islam I have seen myself recently and came up with two very different ones which portray it in very different ways.

One was a recent television drama called ‘Our Girl’, set in Kenya, where a young female army medic is kidnapped by an extremist group and then rescued by her friends. I do not feel I can say whether or not the storyline was realistic, however it did make me think about the way that Islam can be shown in a negative and even scary light. Alternatively, the second was ‘My Jihad’, a series of ‘shorts’ – four 15 minute episodes of a drama about Nazir and Fahmida, two young British muslims, who meet by chance and decide to marry. The story follows them as they attempt to navigate their way though their relationship while maintaining a strong devotion to their religion. To me, this show was a far more realistic and fair representation of Islam. While I accept that the two shows are very different – being set within two very situations; in different countries; and of course with very different characters, I believe that they evoke different reactions in the audiences, and the portrayal of Islam in a negative light has contributed to there being a sense of unease around the religion, which my own trip to the Mosque simply proved was completely wrong.

Want to watch these two shows for yourself?

My Jihad: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p01ssrp2/my-jihad-1-a-bus-a-burka

Our Girl: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0452t2n

: Practicing writing in Arabic

: Showing off their Arabic writing

: Showing off their henna

: On the way in…

It’s All Relative

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Having just had a lecture about families, I feel that at this point it would be worthwhile reflecting upon my own family experiences, and considering what that means to my teaching career.

To look at my immediate family, it is a clear example of a nuclear family. My parents were married 2 years before I was born and my sister three years later; I have all four grandparents around, all of whom were heavily involved in my life throughout my childhood… the list goes on.

My family seems very ‘normal’, and in the most practical sense it is. However growing up, other people often said that my family was different to theirs. My friends would come around and speak to my parents, seeming to like them more than they liked me! For a long time, I didn’t understand why people seemed to like being around my family so much, but now that I look at it from a more detached perspective, I do. My house was a happy house growing up, we laughed a lot and we were, and still are very close. My house was fun and relaxed and my friends felt comfortable being there and interactions with my family were always similarly lighthearted, and this was not always the feeling I had when visiting the homes of some of my friends.

Unusually, I also grew up for most of my childhood without a television. It seems like a much bigger deal than it really was, people – often adult friends of my parents – would visit and look around for one, ask us questions about how we ‘survived’ without one. People still ask me that now when it come up that I grew up without one, and it’s a tricky question to answer – we spoke to each other and enjoyed time together, such as meal times, perhaps slightly more often than other families seemed to do.

At 20 years old most of my friends seem to keep most things to themselves, but I am still very close to my family and tell them almost everything. It took me a long time to realise that this was unusual, and I was surprised to see how many others rely on friends before family for support. To me, the most important function of a family is to provide support to one and other, especially in times of difficulty. My family has proven on numerous occasions that they will do this, dropping everything to come to each others’ aid. I feel 100% secure in the knowledge that I could phone up any member of my family, including my grandparents with a problem, and they would solve it for me. It is a great feeling to have.

I think that there are two major points I would like to consider. Even now, despite my experiences with many different children, I struggle to understand households and backgrounds different to my own. I cannot get my head around parents who do things differently to the way that mine do or did. I understand that this is definitely a weakness for me, as it means that my thinking can often be very one-dimensional. Another point I noticed was the reactions of other people during discussions on the topic of family during the lecture. I noticed that not everyone was as open to discussing their families or backgrounds as I was, and this made me realise again, that not everybody has the same kind of family experiences that I have. In conclusion, I believe that I need to read a little on this topic, as I feel I have some knowledge gaps. I think that doing this will help me to gain a new level of empathy when discussing families and similar topics with people in the future, as I will have a better understanding of where other people are coming from in their beliefs, values and thought processes.

While looking up some ideas on this topic, I discovered an online quiz which made me further consider my own standpoint. The quiz was on the CBBC website and was entitled “Is my family normal?” it asked fairly simple questions about family, such as “How do you settle an argument?” and “What winds you up the most about your family?” and it came back as 6/6 normal. I re-took the quiz, putting in different answers, and got the same result – 6/6 normal. To me, this quiz was very significant, as it reminded that that any family is normal, even if it is completely different from my own. I think that this is a key point for me to remember, and always consider during any interaction with families throughout my career.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbbc/quizzes/normal-family-quiz

http://www.quibblo.com/quiz/2GuchYm/Is-Your-Family-Normal

My Family

Fragile X – What is it and How do We Support Those who Have it?

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What is Fragile X?

In basic terms, Fragile X is a genetic condition which is the cause of most common inherited learning disabilities. Fragile X is also more common in men than in women, affecting 1 in 4000 and 1 in 6000 respectively.

Fragile X has many associated traits, and not everyone who has it will have all of those characteristics.

There are many potential effects associated with Fragile X, and each individual will only have some of them, in some cases almost none. The effects of fragile X appear to manifest differently in males and females, with females generally being less affected.

Some people with Fragile X will suffer from Epilepsy. This is around 15% of boys and 6-8% of girls.

What are the effects of fragile X on the individual?

Strengths of Fragile X
Good imitation skills
Good visual learning skills
Good long term memory
Sensitivity to others’ emotions
Likeable personalities
Good sense of humour

Different Effects by Gender

Males

More significant intellectual disability
Moderate to more severe learning disabilities
ADD
ADHD
Autism & Autistic Behaviours
Social Anxiety
Hand-Biting
Hand-Flapping
Poor Eye Contact
Sensory Disorders
Aggression

Females

milder intellectual disability
Moderate to mild learning disabilities, if at all
Emotional Health Issues
Mental Health Issues
Social Anxiety
General Anxiety

How Can We Support These Individuals?

One of the most obvious is to notice and encourage the use of some of the previously mentioned, or other, strengths.
Give them plenty of warning before transitions, like 5 or 10 minute prompts before moving between classrooms.
From this, it is also a good idea to have a consistent routine so they know what to expect and when.
Don’t try to force eye-contact, some individuals with Fragile X find this uncomfortable.
Allow them frequent breaks to keep their attention focused on learning, this should include the opportunity to move around the room a little.
Provide visual cues to assist them in following instructions and sequential activities.
Some people with Fragile X are prone to hyper-arousal (high nervous system activation), so it is worth knowing what environmental factors cause it in an individual and to try to minimise this. Examples include sound, light, textures, taste, and smell.
Try not to put too much pressure on them to perform, i.e. not giving a strict time limit for tasks, as it can be difficult for them to cope with.

For More Information

The Fragile X Society

Website: http://www.fragilex.org.uk
Helpline: 01371 87510Email: info@fragilex.org.uk
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thefragilexsociety
National Fragile X Foundation Website: https://fragilex.org/fragile-x/fragile-x-syndrome/

NHS National Genetics and genomics Education Centre

Website: http://www.geneticseducation.nhs.uk/genetic-conditions-54/655-fragile-x-syndrome-new

SQA? SQWhy?

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These pictures are of my 17 year old sister, who is in fifth year of secondary school, all taken this afternoon in the space of around 4 minutes. She sitting Higher History at 9am tomorrow morning. I sat this afternoon trying to help her to revise the materials she needs for tomorrow and I was struck by just how irrelevant most of the questions were. I accept that history is about things that have happened in the past, but I simply do not understand why the questions ask students to simply remember past events. One example of the 2015 exam is as follows:

How effective were the Liberal reforms of 1906 to 1914 in dealing with the problem of poverty? 20 Marks

What is the point in this question? What does it really test? I genuinely do not know the answer! I know that my qualification is primary teaching, but I believe that this is still pertinent, as it refers to where the children I will work with will end up at the end of their school education. I do not mean to say that we cannot have exams, but I believe that we do not use them in the right way. For example, the history exam now consists of two papers, one which asks pupils to answer questions like the one above; the other asks them to answer source questions.

I believe that the source questions are a far better test of history. The exam asks pupils to use historical sources to draw conclusions from it. To me, this is better, because it is ‘using’ history, as opposed to knowing and regurgitating it; then forgetting it straight after sitting the exam.

I find it a little depressing, that we are told that primary education is all about learning experiences and opportunities, yet by the end of their education they are expected to sit formal examinations and remember facts they have learned at school. I feel that it goes against everything that we do in the primary years. This is why I am against the introduction of standardised testing in primary schools, I feel that it sits in direct contrast to the aims of the Curriculum for Excellence, for children to have experiences and to learn freely.

Not sure? See for yourself: http://www.sqa.org.uk/pastpapers/papers/papers/2015/H_History_all_2015.pdf

Reflection on Experiences to Date

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I believe that my main experience to date has been 1PP1. This was my first placement as a student teacher. I worked with a primary 4 class and taught a variety of lessons on various topics, such as: road safety, football skills, the writing of formal letters, and multiplication in maths. I spent a lot of time on this placement, as I had to research the area, the school, and the children I was working with to be able to work sensitively with the children, something I have come to believe is really important in education. I think that to be sensitive in the way that we work with children and parents is one of the best qualities a teacher can have, I think that it can make them feel at ease and comfortable speaking to us, and therefore more effective work can be done – be that educational, pastoral or something completely different.

Another important element of this placement was the lesson planning. I found that it was a huge amount of work to produce just one lesson. Each required me to begin by considering what I wanted to teach, then how I was going to teach it, how long it would take and what I would need to complete the lesson. After this, however, it was essential to consider my most recent lesson, how it went – what worked and what did not, and more importantly why this was and how I would do it differently. At this point I believe that I learned to reflect. It was something I had been told about during a lecture, but it is a skill I had to really build up in practice, as it was necessary to be able to teach well, and as I realised on this first placement – the children deserved me to deliver the best possible lessons. Being able to reflect can be difficult, as it requires a high level of self-criticality, which can be difficult to do in the beginning. For me, it’s in my nature to only focus on the positive elements what I do, and I really learned that I had to go further. Of course we should feel good about our successes and remember them to recreate them, but I now know that I have to look past this and try to pinpoint where things have gone wrong, or even just where things are not as good as I hope they will be, and try to change this the next time around, all the while trying not to be too negative about oneself.

While, 1PP1 has been the most significant experience to date, I have a few others. Before I left school, I was a Rainbow Leader with Girlguiding and worked with girls aged 5-7 to create, organise and then run crafts, games and other activities for the girls to enjoy. On reflection, I think I built up a huge amount of personal confidence at this time. I learned that I could stand up in public, and work with the girls and really did not need to be conscious of people looking at me, and more concerned about what I was doing. I believe that this has been beneficial throughout the past few years, as it began to make me more confident in more areas of my life, so by 1PP1, I did not struggle as many people would have at the prospect of starting to teach, because I had had to put myself out there before and was able to do so again to begin teaching.

I was also a peer mentor while I was at school. For this, we were paired up with a child of primary school age who was considered vulnerable in some way, who we would then work with, there were five pairs in a group and we did a mixture of one on one activities and ones with the whole group. On reflection, the biggest learning experience for me was simply how incredibly lucky I was throughout my own childhood. Some of the stories I would hear about where some of them came from were truly saddening to know, often making me think back on myself at their age – I went to a large Edinburgh independent school and had grown up with the benefit of private tuition where I needed it and was involved in many extra-curricular activities. I think that this links back to sensitivity. For me at this point, I learned not to assume anything, not to take anything at face value and that it was really important to have a strong ability to consider different people and their points of view. I believe that I developed a more empathetic personality, which I think that I still maintain, and will always be useful to me as a teacher.

The Meeting

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On Friday, my group and I were asked to role play a meeting, each of us received a piece of paper with our character and some extra information on it. We were role playing a meeting about a child called Jack who has various issues and we had to try to find a solution to. The characters were:

Jack’s Mum
Jack’s Dad
The Head Teacher
The Class Teacher
The Health Visitor
Jack’s Mum’s Social Worker

It was really interesting to watch the scene play out. I was Jack’s Dad and I knew that Jack was not receiving enough care from the mother, that the mother had lost her job and that this was for stealing.

Among all the other discussions I found myself focussing in my head that the mother was clearly not capable of looking after Jack and, as one of Jack’s issues was stealing at school, I thought this behaviour had been learned from the mother. In the end it turned out that the mother had not been stealing but had lost her job due to too many absences because she was not coping. This really got me thinking, and what I realised is that nobody in that group had all of the information. Because of this, there was not an easy way of making the necessary decisions.

If this was a real-life meeting, I would imagine that the mother would feel ganged-up on by the father and all of the various professionals. Our group decided that Jack should go to stay with his dad to allow his mum to get back on her feet, but I know that in reality this would not have been so easy a decision and the mother would not have let this happen so easily.

What I have learned from this activity is that there are always two sides to every story and we need to be able to put ourselves in other people’s shoes. Another observation I made was that Jack was not included in any decisions we made, and it seemed that none of the adults had even asked him his opinion. This shows that there is a real need for childrens’ voices to be heard by those who hold the power to make huge changes in childrens’ lives. I will keep this in mind when it comes to my own practice, and in the classroom while teaching.

Interagency Working, This is Just the Beginning…

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Since today was our third day back after the Christmas holidays, I thought it could do with a post about the beginning of the new module. The module is about Interagency or Multiagency working. This, as you can imagine, is highly important for teachers. In the most basic terms, it means professionals in the lives of the children: teachers, police, social work, healthcare workers, community learning officers… The list goes on but those are some of the main ones.

We have been split into groups of 7 or 8. We are to do group activities and go on community visits together. Having met and discussed this with the rest of my group, I am feeling really confident in our ability to work collaboratively with this group. This is a massive benefit, as we have been told that this is not always the case. Clearly, as professionals, we have to simply work with the other professionals in the childrens’ lives – obviously, we cannot allow children to be put in danger just because we do not particularly like their social worker. I believe that the same logic applies here, as we cannot just decide not to work with each other because we do not like each other. I think that it is essential to remember this throughout the module with the group and to reflect on any issues arising.

I think that the main goal for the module is to keep up with the lectures and tutor directed tasks. Of course it is always good to keep up with these things, but for this module there are 6 other people who will be relying on my to do my share of the work in order to be able to do do their own or to learn their own materials. I also would like to set the goal of building a relationship with the remainder if the group, as I have identified the need to be able to speak to each other openly and honestly, especially if any problems arise between us. Towards the end of the module, I will update this post to see if I have managed this.

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The End is Near…

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At the beginning of this module, I tested myself for maths anxiety and the results suggested that I was ‘fearful’ about maths but that I didn’t have maths anxiety. As this is the end of the module, I have tested myself again and came out as ‘on the fence’, the level below the one I was a before. This is great, because it means that my feelings around mathematics have changed. It means that I am more positive and have become comfortable doing mathematics after having completed this module. Now though, I have to wonder what that means and why my feelings have changed.

The lecturer, Richard Holme, has been great. He is very enthusiastic and I thought that he was really good at keeping us interested and engaged. I also thought that he made us feel that we could ask questions and email with questions or queries to ensure that we really understood the content. This is something I am specifically going to take away from the module as I think that a lot of the feelings children will have about mathematics will come from the teacher. When teaching maths as a teacher, I would like to make the children feel that they can come to me and ask questions. I also would like for them to feel engaged and included in my lessons.

Additionally, I think that the content of the workshops we did were great because they were especially engaging. My most favourite was the ‘Demand Planning and Logistics’ workshop, especially the game we did to learn it. I thought it was a great activity to engage all of us and in response, I decided to us it as an example in my assignment. I think that other activities, such as the Fibonacci in art workshop or the using boardgames, were the same – active, engaging, and fun. I hope to do this for myself when I’m teaching.

Of course, if I am being honest, I have not enjoyed absolutely everything in this module. I found my biggest weakness came in the ‘Maths in the Outdoors’ input. I knew I couldn’t read maps before the input, but to be honest I never really thought it was that important as I don’t like the outdoors and was almost certain that I was not about to take up hillwalking. That was before I took part in the workshop and when I realised that everyone around me seemed to know a lot more than I did, knew exactly how to complete the activities we were being asked to do. I hated that floundering feeling of just not being able to access these activities and I now realise that that is exactly how any children in my class will feel when activities are simply too obscure to them. This is something that I will always keep with me and try to use to help me be the best teacher I can be. I also realise that I need to look at my map reading skills, something my friend Kim has assured me that she will help me to do this very soon!