Having finished my placement last week, I have spent this past week reflecting on my experience. I 100% had such a great time learning about the career I am considering going into. Especially in my last week, I was able to make my own lesson plan and take a first year class. This gave me a great amount of pride and I was ecstatic when at the end the entire class voted to have me take their class again. I’ve taken everything I’ve learned over my 30 hours and  an implemented it into anything I’ve done for classes at wallace high. I cannot thank the school enough for everything I’ve learned, allowing me to teach, participate and feel apart of the department. I am so glad I’ve been able to take this opportunity up.

Blog week 2

This week I spent 2 full days at Wallace High with my mentor (forgetting how long the school day was), trying to keep up was slightly difficult. However, going from being in classes from First to sixth year was fun and interesting as it was great to see the difference in sporting ability and tempo. Over the two days, I was able to follow around and shadow a variety of teachers, this really helped me to see different types of teaching styles, a very important aspect that I wanted to learn.

I was able to take warm ups for sports including; football, basketball and dance. It was great to be able to use what I know, games and warm up wise, and implement it on a class. However, with taking a warm up for a dance class, this was one I found rather difficult and worrying. Although I personally danced for 12 years (2-14), I have not thought of what I learned since I quit, this forced me to go speak to teachers who take either the school or dance or dance teams for inspiration. This however, has proved to be a good thing, it got me out of my comfort zone and has allowed me to learn new skills that i can take forward in life. (217)

As I was able to complete another 14 hours this week, I have managed to learn a lot and I’m excited to do the same next week. I have been tasked with writing a lesson plan for an S2 basketball class which I am very excited and nervous about. (266) With a good background of basketball I have already managed to plan the vast majority of the lesson, taking all the tips and tricks my mentor has mentioned to me and implementing them into my plan. I hope they love it as much as I have enjoyed creating it!

Today was my first day of work experience shadowing my mentor at Wallace High School within their Physical education department. As today was International Womens day I feel like my first day was a very productive one as I was used as an example of a female athlete and was able to discuss with some Girls School of Football kids, experiences as a women in football. This was obviously a rather daunting idea when I was first asked however, once meeting the girls and seeing how interested they were in what I had to say and then show them what I could do made the entire experience extremely rewarding.  

Later in the day I was watching a S2 class play basketball in which they were learning the basics of passing and dribbling. As I went to Wallace High and my mentor was one of my Physical education teachers and knowing I have played basketball since a young age, he let me teach the class the techniques needed to perform the skills. I felt very included in the lesson and was glad I was able to use the skills I already have to then teach others.  

One skill my mentor and myself have already identified is I need to learn to project my voice better as with having a large group of children with basketballs in a large hall, without having a loud voice it is difficult to convey instructions and to get their attention. I plan on working on this by building my confidence and learning the best way to project my voice from my mentor and other Physical education teachers.  

Overall, I think my first day shadowing my mentor went extremely well. I have already been able to show what I have to offer and what skills I have, but I was also able to identify what I need to work on. I am very excited to go back for a few days next week to start expanding my skill set.