First day at school, who wants to know how it went!!?!?! :)

As title really ... had my first work experience day at a primary school yesterday ...

Come on then? Spot any hot teachers? Get glued to your seat?

come on then - spill the beans

Originally Posted by rigor

Come on then? Spot any hot teachers? Get glued to your seat?

Only one of you ... EDIT: two now!!

I am not going to write a full tome then ...

But here is the gist ...

• Turned up
• got changed in the worlds smallest bog
• entered the class
• pupils turned up, ~30 in the class.
• Teacher started doing her thing - taking register and then started reading a book to them.
• Kids seemed entranced and remarkably well behaved throughout.
• Teacher then started teaching maths, simple fractions. Like 1/4 and methods of calculating quarters of something.
• There then was a class exercise to answer some questions on fractions like had just been covered.
• I was asked if I could go around and help if they needed it.
• I helped making sure they used the processes just described by teacher and understood that sometimes one method is more appropriate/quicker/easier than another and the first ting they need to do is look at the numbers and work out what they already know about those umbers .. and that they should show their workings.
• I then went to another class with another teacher. He was teaching younger kids English.
• Lunch time ... and a walk round the block to get a bit of air and reflect on the morning ...
• Back after lunch, and back to my original class, the kids seemed to be hovering around me now and trying to attract my attention.
• Whilst I was in the other class doing English, they had been doing geography ... basically picking up litter from around the school in pairs, and then making a chart of types/quantities of litter found. I then said to the kids that were showing me this that I can see they all picked up different amounts of litter in different categories. Could they tell me how much of each litter type was collected by the class as a whole? i.e. the total amount of litter found by category. I then introduced the concept of average/mean and asked them to calculate the average number of sweet wrappers found. Once the concept was understood, they got on with the maths. I actually only used numbers from 4 groups from the class. the idea being that they would then need to find 1/4 of the total to find the average (they had been doing 1/4s in the morning ).
• teacher settled the class ready for more teaching. It was another passage from the book.
• We then had assembly ... I tried my hardest not to giggle during this .. .
• We then made displays of some book reviews and stuff they had done in groups. I was to help cut things and give a general hand. There was limited room on their large bit of card, so we had to work out what we wanted on there. There was a tendency for the kids to try and put photocopies of the book covers etc on there as they looked good. I said to them that I wanted to see something that each of them had actually made (pics) or written (review card) on there and each kid should pick their favourite bit of review or pic and we will make sure that has a place on there. They were only then to fill any left over space with cut-outs of the authors face and book covers.
• Whilst this was going on, teacher marked the maths questions from earlier. She seemed really surprised that one lad had answered all the questions, shown his working and got them all right ... she asked me if I had given him the answers!! .. I hadn't but I said I had guided/helped him as I had all the others I'd spoken too (that is what I was there to do right?? ), but the answers themselves came out of his own head, she was surprised at him and told him well done!!
• We then went to go see our 'buddies' in 'reception calss' (they get the older kids to go visit the younger kids and do a little presentation/dance/singsong ... to promote integration and responsibility I guess?). I again had to stop myself from laughing as they did little bunny ears and other actions!!
• Back to class and another passage from the book.
• Home time!

Aww that brings back memories, I loved primary school! (Well two out of the three I went too )

Sounds like you settled right in Blue

Originally Posted by missyorkie_chris

Aww that brings back memories, I loved primary school! (Well two out of the three I went too )

Sounds like you settled right in Blue

I had to sit on tiny chairs ... I can't believe they didn't have man size chairs at ALL, that and leaning down at the tables, I ended up with a bit of a bad back*!!



*I double fractured my back a few years ago in a motorbike racing accident, so I have to be careful with it now, it doesn't take much before it starts to give me gyp!

Originally Posted by Blue_SV650S

I had to sit on tiny chairs ... I can't believe they didn't have man size chairs at ALL, that and leaning down at the tables, I ended up with a bit of a bad back*!!

*I double fractured my back a few years ago in a motorbike racing accident, so I have to be careful with it now!

oh dear, that's not very good, I'm sure the grownups got big chairs at my schools, you'd think they'd cater, but then I guess it's not like secondary where the teachers just sit at their desks all day

Originally Posted by missyorkie_chris

oh dear, that's not very good, I'm sure the grownups got big chairs at my schools, you'd think they'd cater, but then I guess it's not like secondary where the teachers just sit at their desks all day

Main teacher had a larger chair, but none for assistants ... she was about 5'4" ish so not that tall anyway, I am no giant at ~5'10"-5'11", but I did either need to sit, kneel or bend over to work with the kids as the tables are kid size too ..

Seemed like a full tome...

Glad you had fun! When are you teaching them how to ride a motorbike?

Originally Posted by Blue_SV650S

Main teacher had a larger chair, but none for assistants ... she was about 5'4" ish so not that tall anyway, I am no giant at ~5'10"-5'11", but I did either need to sit, kneel or bend over to work with the kids as the tables are kid size too ..

Reminds me of when I was in year 5/6 and we had to buddy up with the little kiddies in Reception, little cartons of milk at breaktime and everything

Such fun!