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. :)