The core of restorative practice is relationships.

Restorative Practice is the repairing and maintaining of relationships between people. We are developing the successful idea that bad behaviour does not reflect the person, just the mood or situation. The old ways of negative behaviour and punishment are being eliminated and replaced with understanding where the behaviour came from, why it happened and how we can improve behaviour as a team rather than as individuals.

Pupils crave fairness and they thrive when a situation is handled fair. As professionals, we need to be developing the idea in our pupils’ heads that not every situation is a win/lose result and that we can solve issues with a fair and positive process.

Individual Lesson Plan Format (Primary)

Class/Group: 2^nd level          Lesson: Cultural foods         Date: 25-01-19

Individual Lesson Plan Format (Primary)

Class/Group: Level 1/2         Lesson: Vegetable Adverts Date: 25-01-19

Individual Lesson Plan Format (Primary)

Class/Group: 1^st/2^nd Level    Lesson: Hygiene Books       Date: 25-01-19

In the video with Dr Suzanne Zeedyk, she talks about the connection between the development of babies brains and the relationships and environments they grow up in. Babies brains partially develop due to their genetic code, however they also develop on the relationships and interactions that they have with others.

Brains still continue to develop after the age of 3, another key developmental process for the brain is in adolesents whih continues to develop up until around the age of 20.

Due to evolution, human babies are born earlier in the developmental process because if they were to fully devleop, their heads would be too large for the vaginal canal and they would cause harm to themselves and the mothers. This also means that their brains are weaker but more flexible in their development. This leads to babies being able to cope with a lot of different environments because their brains are so flexible, which is why so much care and attention is given to early years.

For example, a child in a domestic violence environment would need a brain which can help them to cope and survive in a threatening environment. This means that their brains are always monitoring for a threat, which uses up a lot of energy as the brain is constantly analysing situations and predicting where the next threat is coming from. This leads to the child not being able to learn about other things as their brains are too concentrated on monitoring for the next threat. This also means that the brain will produce a constant stream of the hormone cortisol, which helps us deal with stress. A constant stream of cortisol however, will drown the brain in a stress hormone keeping the child on high alert and easily stressed. This leads to the fact that this child will now be wary and anxious about connecting with other people because they are constantly in a state of fear, of where the next threat comes from.

On the other hand, a child in a calm and sheltered environment will think that the entire world to be calm and they will find it difficult to deal with stress as their brains will have had to produce cortisol a lot less.

A lot of teaching is not about moulding childrens brains into the “ideal” brain, it’s about preparing them to deal with any situations that may arrise as they travel through the world.

The maths input with Tara Harper put things into perspective.

For me, maths in school was black or white. You either understood the work and had a great teacher who knew what they were doing and helped you to not only get the right answer but to understand how to get the right answer or you had no idea what was going on and you had a teacher who would get angry at you for correcting his mistakes.

In reflection, those amazing teachers were amazing because they helped you to UNDERSTAND maths rather than just pass the tests. My favourite maths teacher was also at the same time, the strictest teacher in the school. This helped because you wanted to impress her, you wanted to get the answer right and make her know you knew how you got there.

On the other hand, the teacher who gave me the worst maths experience was also the least experienced in maths. He had gone from teaching Nat4 life-skills to Higher Maths with no support or help. In a situation like this, the reason that it was a bad maths experience was that the teacher was inexperienced.  Reflecting on that, I aim to be experienced in any subject and aspect that my pupils will be learning so I can be able to challenge them to help them develop their knowledge.

In the maths input today, Tara brought up the fact that Maths is a language. Which made no sense, to begin with, however as she explained it, it made perfect sense. Maths is the only universal language in the world which every mathematician can communicate with each other with, no matter what country they are from or what language they don’t speak. This made me think that maths is even more important than I’d initially thought because, with a sound understanding of maths, children can communicate with the entire world.

I feel that the most important aspect of reflection is the attitude. The attitude to want to do better and the attitude to not take constructive criticism to heart. Hearing the criticism of a piece of work or a lesson plan that you take great pride in can be hard, however, the majority of the time it is given to benefit and help you grow and develop.

Criticism within placement will be challenging, however, I realise that all criticism that I receive is there to help me become a better teacher. I aim to take criticism head-on and use every ounce of help I can to strive to become the best teacher I can be.

There’s a line between being beneficially critical and being overly-critical. That line, as of this point is blurred for me and I find it difficult to not over-think mistakes. During placement and the next 4 years, I aim to clear that line and be able to beneficially criticise my work to help me develop.

In semester one, the working together module was a large reflection point for me. At the beginning of the module, I didn’t see the need for this module and was highly critical of the work and things we were learning. However, as the module continued, I was able to see the need for working together and how it benefits me as a practitioner and as a teacher. I reflected in my work from the module and managed to see a gradual improvement on my interaction and understanding of the theories and activities we were provided with. This has helped me to not be as critical of subjects and aspects of learning I don’t currently understand.

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