Monday, the year 8s had their rotation so I got a brand new class and I had been given the responsibility to take them from the start. I got their class list and there are quite a few SEN students and students with behavioural issues so I decided to make a seating plan. I started the lesson by going over health and safety in the workshop then spoke to them about mechanisms. I went through a powerpoint and put together a worksheet that we could all go through together as a class. I questioned the class throughout using formative assessment I tested their understanding. The students were then shown a how to make ‘the mouth’ paper mechanism and given a design brief to make a Christmas card using the mechanism. I left the lesson feeling really unsure as to how it went there were good points and pretty bad points, the thing I definitely took from the lesson however was that I really need to work on my behaviour management, I am struggling to keep their attention and really need to work on that.
Tuesday I had to take a day off school for a not so fun reason so I’ll skip straight onto Wednesday and the year 8 textiles, again because of the rotation there was a new class. Their teacher did the first part of the lesson by introducing their workbooks and telling them about their new project; making a cushion with surface designs inspired by cultural celebration. I took the second half and spoke to them about getting inspiration and about going from inspiration to design ideas. I told them about how obviously when thinking of countries people think of flags and we don’t want 22 cushions churned out with flags on. I explained to them how to draw inspiration from a flag by getting them to think about the colours, the shapes and the symbols and how they could make them into a new image. I found a great image off the internet that I think got the point across. It features stars and stripes and the colours red, white and blue however it is not the American flag but you can tell which country it is trying to portray.
That afternoon we had professional studies ran by the music teacher who was running a session on voice coaching. We had a similar session at Goldsmiths a while ago from a drama teacher. It was all about finding different ways of getting the students attention so you don’t have to shout and if you do need to shout we were taught techniques of how to shout from your stomach and not your throat as to preserve your voice. My throat has been killing recently I’m not sure whether it is from shouting or from the cold that seems to be sneaking up on me but either way I will be taking her advice.
Thursday I spent the day at a Primary School, we have to do this to see how the year 6 students are prepared for their transition into Secondary School. I visited a school in Hackney, it was a new building, only two years old and was really beautiful. The corridors and classrooms where so spacious and with big windows they were so light. The students at this school do not have to wear uniform and can call the teachers by their first name which I found a bit strange. The year 6 class I was sitting in on was being covered by the head teacher of the school and the students were even calling him by his first name. I asked one of the teachers about this at lunchtime and she explained to me that they see uniforms and calling teacher’s sir and miss or Mr and Mrs whoever… is too strict and too military and doesn’t provide a good atmosphere in the school. I’m not sure I agree with this and I definitely feel that the year 6 students from a school like this will struggle when moving into a secondary school with these rules and restrictions. I spent the afternoon with the year 3 students who were doing arts and crafts; this was really fun and good to see the difference in how creative studies are taught in Primary. I really liked one of the systems they had in place for behaviour management however. They had a big poster on the wall with little pockets on, on each of the pockets was the students names. All the students start with a green card in their pocket if they are rewarded throughout the day their cards go up from green to bronze to silver to gold and of course they can go down too. If students are behaving badly or are late their card goes down through the colours to red being the worst. I really enjoyed my day but left knowing that I am glad I went into Secondary teaching and not Primary, it’s definitely not for me.
Friday at Goldsmiths we were put in groups to talk about our PARPA projects. We were put into small groups who are to be our peer assessment groups now until January. We used this day to talk about what we have done so far and got advice on what we need to do and where we go from here. It was really helpful and I feel a bit more on track with it now, will be testing mine out on Monday so will see how that goes…
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