Week Eleven

Professional

This week I got to spend a morning with the first class, the children were aged four to six, just like the foundation stage back home. The interesting thing is children start school the day after their fourth birthday and stay in the first class until they are six, if they are born before January it counts as one year if they are born after it isn't until September that their first year starts.

Task board

They spend the first 15 minutes of the day playing board games with some of the parents and after that they bring their chair into a circle to begin the day. Each child has their own chair with their name on it. They sing the good morning song and place the day of the week onto the calendar after that they say good morning to one person in the class and the whole class says good morning to them. They use a very similar system to home when choosing tasks for the children to do, they have their own freedom to pick a station to go to by placing a magnet under the task on the chart, they have to use self management skills and also problem solving skills to judge were they can go. There is a visual timetable and everything is labelled in the classroom it helps with the children’s vocabulary and also to tidy up. At the end of the day the children come back into the circle and discuss what they did that day, they also complete self evaluation by colouring in a happy face, normal face or a sad face. The NI Curriculum (2007) suggests that children should be actively involved in planning, reviewing and reflecting what they have done.

Animal table

As they were learning about animals and their babies we had the opportunity to teach them a little bit of English by naming the different animals. It was heartbreaking not to be able to speak to the children and not being able to answer them when they asked me a question, I found it very hard but it was wonderful when they talked to me about what they were doing with such innocence and enthusiasm and using hand gestures so I understood what they wanted to say.

Clock

The three things I will take away and apply to my own teaching is the shoelace diploma which the teacher had, showing the date the child learnt to tie their laces, also the teacher had a big sign which the children turned around when they went to the toilet, so that she could see who was out of the room and others could see when it was okay to go; it encourages children to have choice and exercise autonomy and independence (NI Curriculum 2007).  The last thing I found very interesting was the clock, it showed intervals of time with colours rather than the actual time, I thought this was a wonderful way of introducing children to the concept of time at a young age, judging by the colour they know what time of the day it is and can correspond it to the visual timetable. This will tie in with competence 20 and 21 of the GTCNI professional competences which state that teachers should use a range of effective strategies to motivate and aid pupils in their learning including those with SEN and not learning in their first language.

 

Shoelace diplomas

CCEA (2007) Northern Ireland Curriculum, Belfast, CCEA.
General Teaching Council for Northern Ireland (GTCNI) Teaching: the Reflective Profession, Belfast, GTCNI. (Available through www.gtcni.org.uk)