Hello,

As I am writing this blog post I am currently in Week 1 of Semester 2 and beginning to prepare for my placement starting in March. The idea of placement for me is both equally exciting and nerve-wracking however I am aiming to work hard and get the most out of placement. In this post, I will be discussing my aims and goals for placement and hopefully, during/after placement I can reflect on this post to check if I have met my goals.

Firstly, I am looking forward to learning off of my mentor and gaining a leadership role within the classroom as I believe it will allow me to develop confidence. To do this, I aim to build a good relationship with all learners in the classroom to gain respect and make the children look forward to each lesson. I hope to further develop my organisation skills by creating lesson plans and stepping out of my comfort zone when asked to prepare and teach a class.

I also aim to build a good relationship with all members of staff within the school and take in any advice and expertise that they have to offer. I believe this is important as I learned the importance that collaborative working can have when it comes to self-development in the Working Together module. I hope to learn from all of the teachers as they will all be in different stages of their career and will have a large variety of experience and knowledge.

Throughout my placement, I aim to keep track of my own development by writing down what I thought I did well and what I think I need to work on. To do this I will use Brookfield’s Lenses to reflect back on how I think I am doing using my Autobiographical Lens but also using the Peer Lens to listen to the advice and constructive criticism given by my mentor.

As the weeks go on, I hope I can notice an improvement in my teaching and take on advice given by my tutor or mentor to show them that I can develop my skills and abilities. I also aim to become more critical and analytic when it comes to my work to question if the strategies I am using are the most effective.

Overall, I am really looking forward to my placement and I hope that I manage to achieve my own goals and learn a lot along the way.