I feel that reflection plays a huge role in teaching. It enables us to progress and possibly change our ways of teaching. Reflecting after lessons is a great way in order to see what you may do differently and what you think is a good way for the pupils of your class to learn. It is also a great way of learning yourself and making changes to the way you learn things.

If there are issues you have had in class, reflection is a good way in order to move on from this. It can help you develop more skills and think about certain things that you need to work on as a teacher and how you can progress and make lessons more interesting and fun for the children in your class.

I reflect on what I have done each day even if it’s just something which isn’t really important. I drove a certain route to university today and it took me longer, maybe there is another route I can take tomorrow in order to avoid traffic and that will get me there quicker. I know that it’s a menial thing but that’s reflection and it is a part of everyday thinking.

I feel that when I start my placements in primary schools I will reflect on what I have learnt and achieved that day and how I can make it better in order for the children to learn more efficiently and to the best of my ability.

Patience – Patience is extremely important as a teacher. They must have the ability to be patient when children may not grasp a concept as quickly as others. They need to understand that all children learn at different paces and that some children may become frustrated if they don’t understand. Being patient is key as the teacher may need to explain something in a slightly different way in order for a child to understand what they mean.

Kindness – A teacher needs to be kind towards all the pupils in the school, even the ones that may not be in their class. This makes a teacher more approachable and respected. It is important that they are kind as there may be children who are having a difficult time inside/outside of school and if a teacher is kind towards them the children are more likely to be able to speak to them about issues that they are having. Similar to being patient, a teacher has to be kind as some children may not grasp things as quickly as others and being kind about that and helping those in a kind way may boost a child’s confidence.

Fairness – Being fair as a teacher is huge. You need to be able to speak to all children in the same manner and not favourite children as this may result in some children feeling excluded. This could also result in the children not performing to their best abilities as they do not feel as if they will get the same response from the teacher as others do.

Empathy – This is highly important to in being a teacher as different children may be going through difficult situations outside of school and they must make sure that they are understanding towards this.

Self-control – Self-control may be a hard thing for a teacher as they may be going through difficult personal situations but need to keep that to themselves and not take out any emotions that they are feeling on their pupils. Also when it comes to parents’ nights the teacher must have self-control in order to speak calmly to parents who may become agitated and angry towards them as they may be unhappy with something. Keeping your personal life and work life separate is extremely important.

How did my gender affect me as a child? That’s a difficult question to answer because it feels like a lifetime ago. The more that I think about it, gender didn’t affect me at all at school as far as I can remember. The only thing that I remember about gender roles was when we did sports day. The girls would be separated from the boys and the boys did different races from the girls. I remember quite clearly a boy in my class saying to me “it’s because the boys are faster than the girls!” when I had questioned it to my teacher. I also can remember the teacher explaining to me that it would be fairer if the girls did separate races from the boys. I couldn’t understand this because I knew that I was just as fast as the boys in these races and that I could beat them fair and square. In the playground at break and lunch time, the girls would play with the girls and the boys would play with the boys. Which, at the time, I didn’t question because that’s just what we did. I would now question as to why we did that. Working in a primary school for two years I can now see a change in all of these things. Girls and boys play together and the sports days are mixed with boys and girls races. It seems that since I was at school things are progressing with gender and how it shouldn’t affect a child’s learning and opportunities

I was given the opportunity to work in a Primary school office in 2013. It was probably the best thing that ever happened to me and I couldn’t believe how quickly I fitted in and started to feel as I was “part of the family.” When I was working in the office I was also at college studying accounting, which I soon discovered wasn’t for me. In fact, I hated it. After a year of working in the school I was asked if I would help out in the classroom working with children with additional support needs. I’d never thought about doing this before but I thought that it would be a good opportunity to work more closely with the children. I would take small groups of children to do writing and numbers and I thought that this was going to be challenging and I was definitely right but it was more challenging than I thought. Once I got to know the group of children more, I could start to see their strengths and weaknesses. They worked hard as they wanted to achieve their best and when they would understand a concept or get an answer right you could see their faces light up. This was extremely rewarding for me as I felt that I was actually helping them to learn something new every day.

I was then asked if I would like to take over some after school clubs within the school and now that I had the experience working with the children I jumped at the opportunity. So I took on a girls Boxing Club and a P2 Science Club. This experience was brilliant as I got to take children for different subjects rather than just numeracy and literacy. In the Boxing club we began each session with a circuit and each week the children would take part in the circuit and it helped me to see how much they progressing with their fitness as every time they would be able to do more than the previous week. Which again was really rewarding as you could see that they were achieving.

These are the main reasons as to why I want to be a teacher as I want to be able to help children learn as it is extremely rewarding. When the teachers at the school found out I was leaving to become a teacher they all had the same response, “are you mad?” and I think I must be. But I can’t wait to get started.

So now the question is, what kind of teacher do I want to be? Which I feel is an extremely difficult question to answer. As I have worked with many different teachers who all have completely different teaching styles. I want to be able to different elements of their teaching styles and work them into what I will be doing. However, I think over the course of the 4 years at university I think I will discover what kind of teacher I want to be and that I will become.