Week Five

Professional

 This week marked the start of my 4 month placement in a Dutch school. For the rest of my time here I will spend two days a week in a school to the south west of Nijmegen in a village called Cuijk. I think it is going to be such a wonderful and exciting experience, it will definitely be hard  but I know I will learn a great deal and take so much away from it.

Our new friend

Cycling to school

Myself and a girl from Austria named Silvia decided to try on Sunday   to find our school. The journey took us alongside the canal,  to my utter delight it brought us past an orchard with Shetland ponies,and finally  past a beach.  When we finally arrive at our destination an hour later, we were very tired but excited at what the next day would bring.

Monday morning arrived far too early as we set off at 7:00 , at 8:00 we arrived at  Obs 't Startblok (our school),  where we meet our mentor Koen and were then taken to the groep 7 class who are aged 10 to 11, very like our primary sevens back home. There are sixteen children in the class altogether, seven boys and nine girls. 
The first thing I noticed was the children's lack of uniform, for me it was strange to see their various outfits and to know that it wasn't just a non-uniform day. The teachers in the Netherlands are very laid back in the way they dress, I wore jeans to school and didn't feel out of place.

Our classroom

hallway in the school

The classroom itself was quite big, it was an open environment with large windows and had some of the children's work displayed upon the walls.The building has a very similar layout to some of the schools you would find at home, there are trophies displayed in the hallway and the children's work placed upon the walls, it is bright ,colourful and welcoming.

The language barrier is very difficult, I can understand some words and then get a feel of what is going on but most of the time I find myself completely lost, I now know how it feels for a lot of children coming to Northern Ireland without any English. However our mentor very kindly explains to us what is going on and the children will come and ask us questions in English, they can understand a lot of what I say even with an Irish accent and if not they translate to each other.

 A lot of the work the children do is independent, they are responsible for achieving a set amount of work each week, they will plan out on Monday what they will do each day and an hour is set aside each day for them to do this, they work at their own pace and speed. It is an idea which I hope I can use in my future teaching as the NI Curriculum(2007) pushes for self management and exploration of the child's own ideas.

Me and Silvia with our class

The atmosphere in the classroom is very relaxed the children are very settled and interact well with each other. The day is well organised and planned out in topics, although the Netherlands do not have a specific curriculum they have to follow, they have guidelines for what the children have to learn and this varies from school to school.

The children have a great deal of respect for their teacher and he has a wonderful relationship with the children, for example the teacher will cycle with the children to the gym and back, not one of them misbehaves.  He also gave one of the children in the class the opportunity to teach an art lesson, the pupil explained to the class how to make a mask and used his own skills in art to demonstrate. I think this is a wonderful idea as it builds on a child's confidence and self esteem, it's something which I will also try to use in my future teaching as this applies to children's thinking skills a personal capabilities, the children are learning to work with others, use their initiative,apply ideas ,create and design something new and monitor and evaluate their own progress. (CCEA, 2007) I have learnt so much from my mentor this week and know in the weeks to come I will continue to see new ideas and experience a different way of teaching.

Although it is very frustrating not to be able to communicate with the children and help them out with work, like I would when teaching back home, I am going to make more of an effort to ask them to tell me the names of things in Dutch, I am also going to try to find different ways to communicate without speaking as Jim Henderson once said “[Kids] don't remember what you try to teach them. They remember what you are.”  With this in mind I hope I can leave a lasting impression on such a brilliant class.

Part of our route to school

CCEA(2007) NI curriculum, CCEA,Belfast.