During a Science session at university, various different hands-on approaches were discussed and demonstrated within the seminar. One explore how to create the digestive system using physical objects.
Many different everyday objects were used to show the process that helps a human body digest food. Bananas and weetabix were mixed together to show the food that was eaten. This was pushed through a series of objects, including a pair of tights. Finally the end product was produced to show the feces.
This activity allows pupils to visualise each stage of the digestive process within the human body. Activities such as these help to facilitate children’s learning and acquisition of children knowledge. This learning experience help to support my own personal understanding of how the human digestive system. Furthermore, it enabled me to discover the importance of planning lessons that promote curiosity within children, as this motivates children’s learning, supporting their knowledge development. Depending upon the year group my next practice will be based within, I will ensure I use this activity or a similar activity with the children I work with.
At the beginning of my final placement, the topic within the year group was based upon the Great Fire of London. Children had began to complete work related to this subject. I asked the class teacher if it would be possible to create a display for this topic they were completing.
I used a range of different pieces of children work that they had created within a literacy lesson and added these to the display. I added facts onto the display which were relevant to the history of the 1666 event. The display was bright and colourful, bringing life to the classroom. Children’s Art work was also added to the display to make a part of the picture; this added to a welcoming classroom environment for all pupils.
Below is an image of the display created.
Displaying the children’s work around the classroom stimulated a passion to work hard; it encourage children to try their best and gave the pupils who’s work was displayed, a sense of achievement. Having information about the Great Fire of London was effective; children often spent time in the classroom such as wet play times, where they would sit and look at the display. This meant children were reading the information and learning new facts without realising. For my NQT year I will ensure I incorporate bright, stimulating displays into my classroom.
Upon teaching within a mixed Key Stage 1 class, I devised a weekly plan for phonics with the class teacher. The plan involved a variety of different activities to support children knowledge and acquisition of graphemes and phonemes. Questioning is implemented into the lesson, to aid children’s understanding of the sounds they were learning.
The structure of the plan allowed children to recall prior knowledge and links to be made upon what they currently knew, and the information they were going to learn. Once this was completed, the activities supported the application of new sounds. Assessment opportunities were stated at the end of each session.
This planning was effective for the application of new sounds and supporting children’s knowledge of these phonics. The planning was structured well clearly setting out each stage of the process for acquiring new sounds, including the stages: revisit and review, teach, practise and apply. Furthermore, the assessment opportunities allowed for an understanding of pupil progression and attainment. Developing upon this, I would ensure that differentiation for different abilities was implemented. Also, I would adapt the assessment for each day, adjusting the different strategies to suit for the best possible assessment opportunity.
Whilst carrying out teaching practice, during my second year placement I taught a mathematics lesson based upon fractions. The children engaged with a starter activity, and returned to the carpet for the input of their main activity. Once we had discussed the approach as a class and identified the strategy they were to use, children returned to their tables to carry out their activity.
Through supporting the class, I wondered around the room working with different groups of pupils. I had noticed that the middle ability group had began to complete their task, however, had incorrectly used the strategy. I stopped the two groups for this ability for a mini plenary, asking them to explain to me how it was they should use the strategy. Once I was re-insured they knew what to do, I allowed the children to continue their work. Moving around the class again, and returning to this group, I identified that they had still not understand how the approach they were using, worked. I pulled this group of pupils back to the carpet, and used a different method to explain what they had to do.
In order to ensure they had all understood they strategy after the final explanation, I implemented it as their starter for the following day.
Demonstrating the ability to draw mini-plenaries and stop children to re-enforce learning is an essential skill. This showed that I had a secure understanding of the subject knowledge for the lesson I was teaching, in order to present the strategy to the children in a different way. Implementing this supported children learning and progression, as I was able to identify the children who had misunderstandings about this area of Maths. Drawing on this, I will ensure that I continue to pull children aside if they had developed misconceptions of certain areas, making sure I address misunderstandings as soon as possible. Moreover, this will be used to inform future planning.
During both my second and third professional practice placements I was able to participate within a school residential with a year four, year group.
The first trip took place at Wide Horizons Bryntysilio Centre, Wales; and the second was Mount Cook Adventure Centre, Derbyshire. During both trips I undertook a wide range of responsibility. I lead my own group of children alongside an instructor from the centre. We completed a range of team building activities, engaging and involving all children within the tasks. Responsibilities also involved building relationships with the pupils, however remaining professional throughout the trip. Alongside other members of staff from school, we had to ensure all children were settled and sleeping well.
The activities that the children engaged with supported their knowledge of various subjects. Children completed a diary entry each night about the activities they had taken part in throughout the day. This allowed children to continue literacy skills whilst on the school trip. This was then taken back to school and reflected upon through literacy lessons. Many children, who were low ability within many subjects at school, showed many other important skills during activities such as perseverance.
This experience enabled me to build strong relationships with children within this year group, as well as the members of staff from the school; an important aspect for TS8. I was able to get to know the children, building trust and relationships between myself and the pupils. Taking the lead of a group showed responsibility and allowed me to improve my confidence with the role of being the teacher. Learning was able to be carried out within the activities, and questioning from myself scaffolded the development of their knowledge. This opportunity brought out a different side to many pupils who were low attainers withing the core subjects at school; this provided ideas to be implemented into the classroom upon return to school.
Within my NQT year I would like to engage with further residential trips and will be willing to promote the idea within schools. Futhermore, as this experience has shown evidence of the importance for Learning Outside the Classroom (LOtC), i will ensure LOtC lesson are conducted within my practice.
One project we engaged with during my Computing module at university, we devised a long term plan for the subject within a primary school. We explored various different plans, which had been created in different ways. We identified the positive and negative points of a plan, analysing three different long term plans. This informed the things that I would include within my own plan.
Attached is my long term plans.
Computing Long Term Plan
As I was able to justify reasoning for applying certain elements into the plan, this shows I have a secure understanding and subject knowledge of the primary Computing curriculum for all year groups. Furthermore, it has enabled me to develop creative and engaging learning opportunities in order to support children’s development of the Computing curriculum. In relation to future practice, I will ensure I am confident with developing a long term plan for various subjects, and apply the knowledge I have learnt from this task to develop exciting curriculum for other areas of the National Curriculum.
As apart of one of our math modules within university, we were to create a parent booklet to support parents and guardians teaching their children at home.
The booklet I created was for a year two class, and included various different aspects of maths including:
- The National Curriculum
- Place Value
- Mathematical Strategies
- Problem Solving
- Maths in Children’s Lives
- Supporting Your Child at Home
Areas of the booklet which included topics of the math curriculum, including: place value, mathematical strategies, statistics and problem solving, all provided the strategies used within school supporting parents/guardians understanding. The idea of the booklet was to educate parents/guardians, and comparing this to TS8e, the booklet supports effective communication with parents and teachers with regard to a child’s well-being and achievement. The booklet also included insight for parents/guardians of the Maths curriculum, and how it supports their child in maths. Furthermore, ideas of how parents/guardians could help their child at home were presented within the booklet.
Attached is a copy of the Maths Parent Booklet.
Upon creating this booklet, my personal subject knowledge of various maths strategies was improved. Moreover, when developing the parent booklet, it allowed me to understand the importance of teachers communication with parents and guardians in order to support pupils achievement and progression. As teachers educate parents on how they can support their children with this new curriculum, increases in children’s learning may occur as parents are more confident in support them at home. This is a vital approach that I will ensure to promote and include within future practice; however as a target I would like to create a booklet at the beginning of the year for mathematics, science and literacy. I feel this would build a strong relationship with the parents and myself, alongside promoting work at home to help children progress. Maths Parent Booklet