Reflecting on my summer placement...

Okay, so I know that this is a bit of a late reflection but since we split up from uni I have been off holidaying and visiting family out in Turkey, so haven't really had a chance to reflect properly on here yet :)

I had my placement at an amazing school which was in a federation... 

And to be honest I didn't know what a federation was until this placement! It is where two or more schools are linked together with the same executive head teacher, they then have the same set up as any other school; so a head teacher, deputy heads etc. But what makes these schools special is that they do the same topics at the same time so you should be able to look at two year 4 children's books and find that they have done the same work that week; even though they're in different schools and classes.

The classroom!

I had an amazing experience at the school, and enjoyed being in year 4 which surprised me as I've only been in with lower KS1/ EYFS really before so this was a completely new age group with their own set of unique challenges. 

Roman Day Costume!

Some highlights of this experience were Roman Day where we all dressed up as Romans in makeshift togas (you can find some really good instructions on youtube of how to make a toga from a bed sheet!) and had roman activities all day such as creating a turtle formation with the children, then checking it was strong enough by running around with the plastic swords hitting the children's shields (they had made in art).

We also had a class assembly which we had to create in a week for the whole school and our children's parents to watch! So we had the class all on stage with guitars, unicorn heads (more on this in a sec) singing the song never ending storyyyyyy (which I didn't get out of my head for weeks afterwards!) and chorally speaking the storm unicorn non chronological text. 

My little project was creating these unicorn heads with the class. On the first day we got there (this was a paired placement) the class teacher told us that the topic they were doing this term was unicorns, and any ideas were welcome, to which I said "I know how to make unicorn heads! We could do that..." Easily said, but much harder to carry out, with a placement partner who was slightly skeptical that it would work. But by the end of the second week we had the base for our amazing unicorn heads complete and only had to paper mache them to make them magical ;) 

Unicorns in progress, bases made from newspaper and tape!

Worked much better than I had anticipated but I was glad at the end we didn't go for every child having one, instead we created one per group.

Finally finished :) All unique unicorns

We also had things like sports days for both key stages, went into the ICAN unit (speech and language for nursery aged children), went into the nursery for an afternoon, and assisted in reception class for a couple of days.

Another surprise was the staff inset meetings I attended, over the course of the 5 week school experience I attended insets in school on ICT, Art, Talk 4 writing, and a maths moderation with approx 5 schools in attendance. These were all valuable experiences to have in my opinion as it shows you what teachers get in terms of training in new schemes e.g. art express or talk 4 writing. Felt strange though being in a class of teachers!

Staff Inset

One of our tasks from the uni was to create an interactive display for science, ours was on forces as this was the topic which the class were covering whilst we were there. Here is our attempt:

Before children attacked :P

After! :)

There were ups and downs, one of which was safeguarding as it really weighed on you what they dealt with in their lives or outside of school, but overall it was a lovely school experience and met some great committed people, especially my class teacher who did everything! From being art, and gifted & talented coordinator to going above and beyond for the children in her class.

Hope the next placement is just as good!