Over the past two weeks I have been on my first primary school placement, which has been such an amazing and rewarding experience. Although the were many challenges I loved the experience as it has helped develop many different communication skills and has also shown me different teaching practices in a classroom setting. This placement has helped highlight and develop many of my strengths and helped show my areas for development.
Strengths
A strength that was highlighted during my placement experience was when talking to or teaching children I was quite enthusiastic. For example when a child would get something right I would congratulate them or if they get something wrong I’d still be enthusiastic and make sure they knew it was okay that the answers were not right. This would then build children’s self esteem so that they are not scared to get something wrong. Another strength I felt I had in my two week placement was that I used good eye contact when explaining information to children. I made sure that anytime I was talking to a specific pupil I had good eye contact with them and wasn’t looking elsewhere and when explaining things to the whole group I made sure to maintain eye contact with the whole group.
Area of Most Progress
During my placement experience I developed many skills but one of the skills I made the most progress on was my confidence when talking to staff and pupils and trusting my professional judgement. At the start of my placement I was quite nervous and didn’t want to step on the teachers toes but as I got more comfortable I was able to start trusting my professional judgement and begin to become more confident with the children and staff. Although I still need to work on this I feel a lot more confident with this than I did before.
Ares Requiring Progress
Throughout my placement I became aware of areas I needed to work on such as my pace, I tend to speak quick fast so I need to work on slowing down when I’m talking so that its clear and easier for children to understand what I’m explaining. I also became aware that I use words such as “like,” and “um,” which is something I need to work on not saying as this will make me sound more confident in what I’m explaining which will in turn make sure the children trust my judgement.
Action Plan
Going forward I plan on continuing to work on my confidence and trusting my professional judgement as although I progressed a lot in this area I still feel it needs to be further developed. In everyday life im going to try and speak slower and to stop using words such as “like,” because if I do this normally I will be less likely to speak fast and use these words while teaching.
