Placement Day Two

After enquiring about an opportunity to volunteer at the primary school, Abbey CofE Infant School were very welcoming and offered me a placement. Before I could start, it was needed for me to have a DBS check. When this was done, the school invited me into start at 8:30, just before the school day starts.

Upon arriving at the school, it was required for me to sign in at the reception. Whilst there, I was also given a visitor badge and shown the essentials such as the toilets and staff room where I would store my coat and lunch for the day.

I was then escorted to the classroom that I would be working in for the week. Here I was able to meet the teacher and get a real feel foe the classroom. Miss Boulstridge was the Year 2 teacher that I would be helping. She happily welcomed me in and ran through the plan for the week. She explained that with SATs being in two weeks, the children were being prepared for their Literacy and Numeracy papers.

For today, I would just be observing the class and seeing how they plan the day and then when I was needed, I would just help with reading one to one. 

The class came in between 8:50 and 9:00 and there was a great bustle with all the children chatting before settling down on the mat at the front of the class to have the register taken. This time was also taken to go through the hot school meals available to the children today and for them to give their choices back to the teacher.

Once this was all done, I was introduced to the class as Miss Barr and the day of learning started. I was put straight to work with a one to one reading session. It was explained to me that each student had a book diary which I would have to write the title of the book the child was reading and how they managed with the book, whether they struggled or found it hard to read. We only read for 5 minutes before the children were split and moved to different classes to work on their maths for the SATs test.

For the next part of the day, I just observed maths lesson. The teacher worked through a online presentation of maths questions related to simple subtraction, addition, multiplication and division. The children were told to sit on the mat and given a whiteboard and pen to work out the questions presented to them.

The children then split into three groups to complete a practice mock test. I was there to help of they needed it but only until they needed it, I was informed to let them try every way they could.My help would be a last resort.

The children did really well. When they needed my help I needed to clarify how the children had been taught their current maths so I didn't confuse them further when trying to help them with the problems.

It was time for break then, the children lined up at the door and were escorted to the playground. This also gave me a chance to reflect on the day so far. 

Back from their break, the class was agin split into three groups and I was put worth a group of five who were all told to write a review on Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the current book that Miss Boulstridge was reading to the children. All of the children were very good when it came to writing their reviews and only needed slight reassurance with some spellings and with some of the children, they just needed to be reminded to remember to start their sentences with a capital letter.

This task only went on for 15 minutes because the children were all told to make their way back to the mat so that the teacher could carry on reading Charlie and the chocolate Factory to them. Again i just sat back and observed. It seemed that the book was one that everyone was enjoying as the class seemed very attentive. 

Finally in the classroom I helped with some more one to one reading before lunch time. like break before, the children are told to line up by the door so that they can be escorted to the dinner hall.

For me this was the end of day where I simply collected my things and signed out.

My first day was a lot more tiring than I expected but I think that was more due to the fact that I was just sitting down a lot and not really moving around with the children. I also need to be more aware that these children are only 6 or 7 years old and so when explaining maths problems or helping them spell a word, I need to be more simple with my instructions and use the phonetics alphabet. Apart from this, I have thoroughly enjoyed my first day at the primary school.