Durham Display :D

The Ancient Egypt display came down this week [or, rather, was reduced in size and moved to another display board] - that was the class topic for spring term. As we are 6 weeks into summer term now, and with Ofsted looming, it was time for a change. :)

For summer term, the topic is Durham - the history and geography of the place. So, we've looked at lots of maps, photographs and paintings from as early as 1500, as well as the story of St Cuthbert and the story of John Duck [the Durham Dick Whittington, I'll have you know]. Our class trip obviously tied into this topic and we've since examined the 1851 census to produce bar and pie charts about professions at the time, as well as examining life as a Victorian miner and as a Victorian domestic servant. The latter things are get to go on display. We also have our gold [thanks to my spray-painting antics in the playground this afternoon] frames to go on the table - we are going to link our DT and use the frames to display some extra pictures from our trip. :)

Anyway, I think the display looks pretty darn good so far. The TAs are fantastic when it comes to displays [as well as in general!] and managed to put it up in just a couple of hours - from start [pulling down and moving the old one] to finish. The classroom is starting to fully reflect the work I've been doing with the class, so that feels great and the children have had a little boost from having new pieces on display. For example, the 'writing wall' is now full of work on The Twits, from character descriptions to playscripts - all from the last few weeks. The vocabulary wall features lots of great adjectives for our class topics - The Twits, Durham and 'growing things' [for science]. We have a small Hindu display with a puja tray that the children have examined - they are drawn to it each morning, which is lovely. And, we now have this large Durham display to show off some of our history/geography work. Things are really coming together and I feel like I have made an actual mark on the classroom now. :)

St Cuthbert Display

This display has now increased in size, but I think even here the picture of St Cuthbert is very powerful. As part of one of our lessons last week, the children thought of questions they had about the photo - we ended up with around 50 to choose from! Some were fantastic, some were very cute. Eg, 'Did he have bunk beds?'. Awwww! But, we've picked a few [some more might go up yet] to add to our picture and we have done some work to answer the questions the children had. The little posters were part of our work on the journey his body took to reach Durham - simplified to exclude the years spent in Chester-le-Street and the fact the monks travelled south and then back up again. But, we have got some stuff on that up now and these posters were just a way of the children sharing their knowledge. It is quite sweet and links well to our main Durham display with the collages I posted previously. :)

Class Trip = Success!

This week saw our class trip finally arrive. When we planned it for week 5 of term, it felt like it would be ages away, so it is a little odd now that it is done. I am not saying the time has flown by - it has been damned hard work - but it still feels strange to be over with this aspect of it.

All the children came, which had hung in the balance for quite a while, due to a sad incident a few weeks back when a young boy drown in the river we were going to travel along. Thankfully, we managed to persuade all the parents that we would keep their children safe - and, of course, we did. :)

The children really seemed to enjoy it. Our Big Write task was to write a letter about it, telling a friend what you liked/disliked and the vast majority were incredibly positive. A couple of the children had been scared by the boat at first, as they had never been on one before, but even they enjoyed it in the end.

The children got to dress up as Victorians and have a maths lesson, Victorian-style. They also got to do some Victorian laundry lol, dress up as miners and create some brass rubbings [another thing going on our display]. The Heritage Centre was quite small, but they seemed to think it rather big lol and their letters revealed that they had taken a lot in. Especially the features of the C19th prison cell and the punishments dished out lol. We had a wander up to the Cathedral and then along the river to the boat. The boat was definitely a highlight, as the boat driver was incredibly good with the children. Even when one, in particular, kept shouting 'Mr Boat Man....' as he had so many questions. Lol. He ran a little competition for them and said the reward would be ice-cream for everyone, if they all took part. Some of the children didn't believe him, so they were especially chuffed when we got off the boat and went to an ice-cream kiosk. We ate Mr Whippy cones with monkey's blood by the river! It so nice. And, for the first time in weeks, it was dry and quite sunny. [It has rained every day since!] It was nice to be away from school and everything went without a hitch. Yay!

My first school trip, as the lead teacher [apparently lol], was a success! :D

Display Pieces

We have really upped our topic based work this week, for our topic [Durham]. We had a lesson on St Cuthbert and the journey his body made, carried by the monks, to escape the invading Vikings. One aspect of the lesson was to create A3 collages of the key parts of our story. Below are some. 

The latter cow was the first one created. The girls involved started off well, with brown tissue paper for the dun cow. I went to help another group and they did that lol! I think it is quite pretty actually. It reminds me of the painted 3D sculptures of cows that were dotted all around Manchester a few years back. And, it reminds me of the story of the patchwork elephant. But, for our history/geography display, it doesn't really work. 

So, I had to get strict and give them only a few colours - rather than letting them collect their own from a table of resources - and now the result is a little more accurate lol. It is a little sad, definitely - so much brown! But, we have coloured land maps the children have done, posters, photographs and these great binocular pictures - where the children drew what they could see looking through binoculars towards Durham lol. So, there will be lots of colour. And, we've got some captions - the children wrote them and typed them up - to explain these collages, to ensure they make sense lol.

The display should end up pretty good. We already have a huge painting of St Cuthbert on one wall, with questions all around it that the children have asked/want to find out. Some of their questions were quite intellectual lol - 'why did he believe in God?'; 'why did the monks want to save his body from the Vikings?' etc. Some were just really funny lol - 'did he sleep in bunk beds?' lol... We also have a huge photograph of Durham Cathedral and some of the surrounding buildings. It must be 7 foot long! The TA - who is amazing when it comes to display pieces - has three copies, each smaller than the last. She is going to decoupage it, so that it has a 3D effort/looks like it is coming out of the wall. It should be really high impact. Exciting times! :D

Final Placement: Week Four

So, I am now officially half way through my placement. They always say the latter half goes much quicker than the first, so that can only be a positive! :D I've been at my placement school now for six weeks, four of which have been teaching 80%. Another four weeks teaching 80% to go and then two weeks of enhancement - still keeping my fingers crossed that my STCC lets me go into class one [EYFS] for those weeks. :)

The mid-way point also brought the interim report. I am very, very happy with mine. I got a good. My teacher suggested that there was room to move up to outstanding by the end of the placement but I don't think that myself lol. I am happy with a good. Good is, well, good. :D

This week felt very routine. I managed to shave 15 minutes off my Big Write marking time, which is great. And I was even praised by my STCC - never thought I would see the day lol. The children have engaged quite well with our topics this week - they especially liked examining two samples of soil [random, but they loved it], sitting around a puja tray and being able to handle the different objects on it whilst we learnt about Hindu worship, updating our chart of plant observations [for our plants experiment], using an angle-eater to hunt for right-angles and writing playscripts to go on the wall. :)

Regarding the plants, we have four lots. Three that are involved in our light experiment and one lot of 30 that are for the children. They planted their own and they each have their name on a pot. These are doing very well and we think that we might replant them outside in the vegetable patch this coming week. That would be a lovely activity, although I am not quite sure when I can fit that in lol. Anyway, we have put stakes in them for the time being, as we were ending up with something of a jungle on the windowsill. I wasn't keen on the plants topic [or the rocks/soils topic, to be fair] when I started, but part of me loves having a classroom with lots of plants in it. Plus, we planted them on our first day back after Easter - watching them grow almost feels symbolic of my own development. I think I have grown in confidence and there are a lot of things I am doing now, as a matter of routine, that perhaps I didn't think I could. There is no question about it - this placement has been 100 times better than my first. :D

[Cupboard]  

[Corner]      
[Windowsill] 

Quasar!

Not strictly a positive about my pgce. But, if I was not on the pgce, I wouldn't have known the people involved or have been living here, so it kind of is. :D

Today, to celebrate a friend's birthday, we decided to spend the Bank Holiday wisely. By visiting South Shields, having a meal in a cave and playing Quasar!

 I've never played before and was a little unsure of what to expect. Our team of 7 [should have been 9 but 1 was stuck in traffic and another thought it might bring on a panic attack] was up against a team of 9 children/teenagers. One in our group told the kids that we are all teachers and that definitely kicked things off lol. It was teachers vs the kids lol.

I really enjoyed it! I think it must be pretty good for you too - lots of running around, ducking and diving. You literally don't stop moving for an hour. Our team were pretty strategic - working in pairs or even threes to take down the other team lol. They were a little more random - although a couple could definitely grow up to be snipers lol! Worrying I suppose.

Anyway, outside, after an hour in the dark, we got the scores. Blue team [the kids] had -16!!! Red team [the teachers] had 1424!!! Get in lol. The kids were gutted lol. 

My own record wasn't great, although I came third on my team. The two guys in front of me were incredible - 80% accuracy rate. Using a laser gun is very different from using a shot gun lol - I don't think I aimed properly at all, but I didn't too bad - especially not as it was my first go. It has definitely recharged my batteries to help with the next four weeks. An afternoon of fun with friends is a must on a course like this. :)

Final Placement: Week 3

I have made it through week three of my final placement. Yay! 

It has been quite a good week. Obviously, there are lots of areas to work on and to improve, but I am getting into the routine now. Even if that routine does involve getting to school just after 7am, often leaving at 5pm and then spending a good 3 hours working at home before bed lol! 

Whilst the class teacher is always going to be 'the teacher', the children now see me as their proper teacher too. This afternoon, a few came to me with some playtime-related issues even though the class teacher was in the room. In a way, that felt quite good. I don't think the children ever really saw me as their proper teacher on the first placement, probably because it was a short placement. :)

The lessons went reasonably well this week and - thankfully - our plant experiment is really taking off. It looked, at first, like nothing was growing but they've taken off now. The photos below are from the start of the week - by today, they were all considerably bigger. The children have been noting observations - on a class chart - and we have been measuring them as well. It is a nice thing to have accompanying our science work and the children enjoy taking it in turns to water them all. As there are 12 plants for our experiments plus 31 extra [1 for each child and the teacher], there is a lot of watering to do lol. The larger 'in the cupboard' plant below had grown 21cm in just 7 days. I wish I could grow so fast lol! :)

 

[In the cupboard - three broad bean and one cress.]

  

[In the corner of the classroom - three broad bean and one cress.] 

  

[On the windowsill - three broad bean and one cress.]  

[Some of the 31 extra plants for our class vegetable patch.] 

I think I am going to survive this course after all and I really do like my class. There are lots of quirky characters and it can be a challenge, due to the vast variety of attainment levels, but they are all great children. I also love how random things really catch their imagination - for example, I use a timer when they change for PE, which is a set of cartoon track racers. A different racer seems to win each time - I suppose it is randomly generated. The children love it! They start cheering on for the racer of their choice and it actually works in getting them to change quickly, so they can sit on the carpet and see the end of the race lol. A little success but quite a nice one!

Four more weeks and then it is half term. It is going to be hard work, no doubt about that, [especially as Ofsted have as good as promised a "no notice" visit before June] but hopefully it will remain good fun. :)