My second week has been busy as well as a little worrisome. As I had to leave my placement at the Brae last week I was worried what would happen and if I would be able to progress into third year. Susan got in touch with me quickly and told me that she had found me another placement. I was relieved! She sent me the organisation details and the contact details of the CEO of the organisation. I got in contact with her and she was happy for me to come in for a meeting the next day to meet everyone and find out more about the organisation. She also sent me some information on the organisation so that evening I did some research on PAMIS as I had never heard of them.

Meeting Jenny and everyone at PAMIS on the Wednesday was great and I found out more about the organisation as well as all of the different tasks that I would be taking part in. PAMIS is an organisation that works with children and adults with profound and multiple disabilities which meant that I could still achieve my goal of working with disabled children as well as let me complete tasks that I had never had experience of before. I also found out that someone else in my course was at PAMIS.

All the different tasks and meeting done at PAMIS sounded fascinating to me as well as great for my development as a teacher. After my meeting, Jenny had asked me if I had wanted to join in a meeting that the other teaching student had. I decided that it would be best to jump into this placement straight away and decided to join the meeting even though I had no idea what the meeting was about and all I knew that it was with other students on placement. When we walked into an empty room I was a little perplexed and then I noticed that it was a video meeting. The students were in the Glasgow office!

Walking into a meeting blind was scary when I was only just learning about the organisation. Luckily, the meeting was with four occupational therapist students so it did not feel so scary. Straight away I was experiencing new things which was scary and nerve-wracking but also very interesting. A first I did not know what the meeting was fully about but I very quickly worked it out. The Great Day Out had been mentioned in my initial meeting but only briefly as Jenny was telling me all about the different projects that PAMIS has running. PAMIS are currently trying to create a website so that parents of children with profound and multiple disabilities can know which activity places that have certain facilities and activities that are suitable for disabled children and their siblings so that the siblings do not get bored doing the same thing all the time. The meeting with the occupational therapist students was to share ideas for this website that they had come up with and what we (the other student more so as I had just started but I contributed what I could) had thought of too. The organisation is hoping to plan a Great Day Out at one of the places that would be on the website so that different activities at one of these places can be organised. This website may have things like a symbol to show certain facilities at different places, for example, a gold star to show which locations have a changing place
s toilet. It was also discussed that the website should have a filter type feature so that families can filter all of the places to what they need. For example, if they need a changing places toilet and wheelchair access they can click those two features and the website will bring up all the places
that have these facilities. As well as what facilities each place has the website could also show teaching activities for each place so that schools can use the website when planning school trips. This was particularly interesting to me from a teaching point of view as its showing what can be learned from each place. For example, what activities could a disabled child and her non-disabled sister do at Blair Drummond so that it is enjoyable for them both and they both learn something.

When I had my initial meeting with Jenny she had mentioned that Max had a meeting the next day at a close town’s high school as he was putting together a Multi-Sensory Story to help with a child’s transition from primary to secondary school. Jenny thought it a good idea for us to work on this together. The next day we went to the high school to meet with the teachers the child would be in contact with the most as well as speak about what is best for the child when they visit the school for transitions visits and what signifiers she uses to signify different rooms and places as the child is registered blind. On the way to the school I had made sure that i knew who we were going to meet, about the child and about the transition. This meant that when we got to the high school I knew what was going on and could contribute to the meeting, even though I had only started at PAMIS the day before.

The meeting can be linked to the Standards for Provision Registration as meeting with an ASN teacher and a visual impairment teacher I needed to be professional and confident in what we were discussing. this meeting can be linked to several of the GTC Scotland’s’ standards for professionalism but I feel like it inks best to this one develop an understanding of the sector and schools in which they are working, including: the role of education authorities, the organisation and management of schools and resources, improvement planning, professional review and development and how these connect to teachers’ professional practice. This is important as by having this meeting and helping with this transition has also let me see what facilities there is within my local community in which I will be teaching within one day.