Still awaiting to hear where my placement for P4-7 will be! Not the only one either. This morning I went into the P2/3 class and without any preparation led a lesson(!) The teacher briefed me on leading a class discussion around the reflective learning log and the topic of manners. One of the children had asked earlier that week if it was ever too late to say sorry. The classed watched the video:
I asked the children to talk in pairs initially, then as a group regarding
- When would we say sorry
- Why is it sometimes difficult to say sorry
- Is it ever too late to say sorry?
Feedback received
- Greater assertion required to get attention
- the discussion was not directed in the way I wanted it to go - I needed to adapt to what the children were saying and lead on from there.
- Need to affirm what children said - acknowledge their individual contribution which on two occasions I did not.
- Have a better plan of what the lesson will be - this was a spontaneous lesson, which I can see how an experienced teacher can easily do.
- Refer back to the video as an example of saying sorry.
- Use the interactive board to write down the children's thoughts. (Multi-task)
I was quite overwhelmed by this baptism of fire, with no planning at all it was difficult to gather my thoughts and help the children develop their ideas. These are all things to think about. Some higher learning was achieved - two children said that it was never too late to say sorry unless you kill someone. Other children also talked about how it is sometimes difficult to say sorry, the word 'shame' was mentioned and sometimes we don't always want to hear an apology, sometimes we are too upset to accept an apology.
Adapting myself to each child's level of ability and encouraging them to think further is challenging. I observed a spelling test which the teacher made fun by making up sentences with the words that needed to be spelt. Child B hit a child, ran out of the classroom several times.
An invaluable first experience.
