I started my second day of placement today, Monday 10th February. I was in Raploch Primary School for 3 and a half hours, and it was thoroughly enjoyable and I learned a lot once again. As I went in, I joined up with my supervisor Natalie who was taking a Primary 4 student in activities. Today I helped to assist with teaching how to play bowls, along with progressing the skill set by making the game harder. This helped to teach different skills and tactics within a game.
I then moved on to help with a lunchtime football session where all students from primary 5, 6 or 7 were welcome to join. We set out two teams and I refereed the game where 7 a side took part. More students then appeared and wanted to join in, this required me and Natalie to rethink the structure of the game where there would be too many for one game. The teams were split into 3 teams and a mini tournament of 2 minute games were played out. This helped me to realise that you may need to adapt or change in order to make the activities more safe for the students.
After lunchtime, I helped out and shadowed the new PE teacher of the school who’s first day was today. I sat in for two different PE sessions from two different classes. I learnt a lot from this, as I have gained lots of current experience within a Primary School setting I had only done so in a classroom setting. This opened my eyes that a PE session is much different than this. During the sessions it proved difficult to keep the students’ attention and keep them on task to what they had been asked to do. Upon reflection and conversation with the new PE teacher in the school afterwards, it was good to see how she had already started thinking on how to improve for the next session. This involved being able to challenge the pupils who found the skills too easy but also being able to work with any individual that needed help with the more basic skills.
Overall I thoroughly enjoyed my second day of this work experience and look forward to the next. I had a brief conversation with Natalie about possibly coming in more than one day a week which I was keen on, and will be helping out with the holiday scheme at the Peak next week as the school is off for half term. The holiday scheme will give me another diverse aspect of experience and is helpful to do so.
Well done – Looks like you had a busy day which allowed you to learn. The holiday scheme seems like a good idea!
It looks like a very busy day! Happy to hear you will be involved in new similar opportunities-Sara
Great work Chris – lots of good opportunities to learn new skills. I look forward to keeping up with your progress – Keir