On Monday this week I started my work experience placement. As I had been in before to meet my mentor and the people I’d be working with, I wasn’t nervous. We spent the first period of the school day going over what classes I wanted to work in throughout the week, and I wrote them all in a timetable so I didn’t forget. This got me excited for the week, as I knew what I would be involved in and what levels everyone would be at.
When the bell rang, I went into the studio and helped take the 1/2nd year ASN class. The class teacher and I set up 7 different stations for circuits. I then got asked to take the warm up while the last few stations were set up, which resulted in me bonding with the pupils and obtaining a sense of responsibility which I have not had in a situation like this before. This bond with the pupils meant they asked me for help throughout the class and I managed to give them more confidence in these skills.
The next few of the classes I was in were a bit disjointed due to the weather stopping them from going outside. This meant that the teachers had to improvise and think of a new lesson that could be done in the smallest indoor hall. By watching these 2 lessons be carried out, along with the help that I inputted into the lesson, gave me an insight into how hard it will be to become a teacher. I will need to be able to think up unplanned things on the spot, as you never know what could happen from day to do.
The last period of the day involved a 5th year class playing dodgeball. Due to this lesson not requiring a teacher to give help and doing any sort of teaching, only supervising, the teacher trusted me to watch over the game while he sat and marked. This again gave me a sense of responsibility as I was trusted to control a class. Even though if I needed him to, the teacher would have stepped in and helped, it allowed me to get a better sense of what it would be like to be a teacher.
I really enjoyed my first day and I couldn’t wait to get back and experience the next few days.
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