Sundry Reflections on Vicarage Placement - Essay Example

Sundry Reflections on My Vicarage Placement When I was younger, I thought the school was a punishment. I though of it as the only thing hindering me from spending the entire day basking under the sun and wasting all my energy to a much worthier cause - playing. I have often voiced my opinion about this matter to my elders but sadly, all three feet of me, though adamant, did not count for much at that time. As I result, I ended up treading the way to school every day of my life convincing myself that every morning should be taken to mean as nothing more than another day subtracted from my so-called punishment. However, as I got older, I began to see school on a different perspective, a more matured outlook. School started to matter as I got immersed in classes, met new friends, inundated with examinations and peppered with research works. During this time, I got involved in my studies and never realized that my perception of schooling has also changed. That is, I saw the school as the better part of my day, a reason for being. As I progressed from level to level, I started looking at school as a way of life - my way of life. Mornings left me feeling hopeful and energized to face the dawning of a new class and afternoons left me anxious for the following session. My days became identified with the activities in school and my hours were marked by my performance in class. At that time, I was nothing more than a student amongst a million in the world and I was ultimately defined by the role I play in school and I was fine with it. However, even with the apparent positive attitude that I have taken on, misgivings and hesitations make up a large portion of my outlook regarding the school in its entirety. Feelings of nervousness, apprehension and doubts still clam my palms and make my stomach heave with anticipation. But then again, these are all normal human responses which have been deeply ingrained in all of us. After all, the school is an institution established to measure our capabilities and brand us as either worthy or wanting. As a principled and boastful lot, nobody is too keen of that. First Entry This essay will explain my field work placement at a school located in East London area that is called Vicarage Primary School.  In this piece of work I will focus on my first three days of my placement and analyse these three journals entire days.  The Vicarage Primary School is a learning institution located in the London Borough of Newham. Most of the students attending Vicarage Primary belong to the vastly diverse culture bisecting the East London community and as such, other languages such as Bengali, Urdu and Somali are being spoken aside from English (OFSTED Report, 2010). Likewise, Vicarage Primary School enjoys a relatively higher percentage of students eligible for free school meals as it averages to almost 40% OFSTED Report, 2010). At present, the school is the recipient of the Basic Skills Mark award and boasts of the Investors in People and Healthy School awards (OFSTED Report, 2010).   In the first day of my placement at Vicarage Primary school it was very good for me as I know most of the member of staffs that work there because I done voluntary work there since 2002 in this school and this gives me more confidence, than as if a student started placement for first time, but in the first day of my placement I was thinking what class and years the children I am working are because every year I work there I worked in different classes and year. The first thing that worried me in the first day of my placement was that I wondered would the children welcome me to work and support them, but that day was very good as most of the children remembered me since last year when I was out side with children of my class in their play time and they told me we know you miss. Also in the first day of my placement the teacher and support teacher in years 3 were very good to me as they welcome me and communicate with me about what we are going to do in that day and in which table I am working with.   In the class there are 29 children and also there are 5 tables in the class, as these children are in the table are seated on what level of studies they are on because children that are in the higher level of study are in same table and also children that are in the low level of study are in same table. In the class there is a teacher and three support teachers that are there to support children that are in low level of study and children with learning difficulties. In the first day of my placement, the first lesson in the morning children were sitting down in the carpet and listened to the teacher as she was teaching them what they are going to do in the first lessen, she shows different shapes in the white board and asked the children what were the name of these shapes, after that she told the children to go to their table and to draw the shapes in their book and the name of the shapes. The teacher told me to go to give support to child A that are in low table as he need support on spelling  the shapes name.   According to (OFSTED Report, 2010) the first issue presented is that there is a need for Vicarage Primary School to strengthen its English department considering that a large majority of the student body is from different ethnic backgrounds (OFSTED Report, 2010). As a result, a great number of students experience difficulty in coping with the lessons as they lack the Basic English communication skill (Sparkes, J. 1999). From my observation in the first day of my placement at Vicarage Primary School I saw that the teacher and support teacher have good communication skills with the children because the teacher and the support teacher are there any time to communicate and support the children and also in all the other classes as well because all the classes there have a teacher and a support teachers that are able to support the children that are in a low level of study and children that have a learning difficulties because the school policy, Children Act 2004 and every child Matters (DfES b) are clear that every child has the right to enjoy and achieve good learning skills and all children should have access and benefits from opportunities and developing important life skills. Second Entry My second day in class is technically similar to the first one, yet it is also an entirely different thing. Having successfully hurdled my initiation, the second time I stood in front of my class gave me a new set of perspective of my students. I saw them as distinct individuals and not as the collective group I was supposed to teach. I noticed that there were five tables in class and the pupils were seated according to their learning ability. This means that the advance students were made to sit together, the average performers formed another group and those lesser-abled made up the next set. The said seating arrangement is undertaken to allow the teacher to better assess the abilities of the students. That is, the coping ability of the students will be highly taken into consideration and that the tasks given to them will be made to match their respective capabilities. In that way, there is no uniform set of school activity made applicable to all the students. The activities are modified according to the strength of the pupils and as such, the advance students are given more work than the rest of the class.  This set up in class seem to be advantageous as those pupils needing more assistance in doing their seatwork were given the proper help by the teacher aids. In this manner, these students were made to finish the assigned tasks but without the pressure of having to compete with their more advanced classmates. In effect, the lesser-abled pupils were assisted in coping with the demands of class and that their knowledge of the learning at hand was afforded at a more suitable pace. In effect, the second day of class allowed me to see the students as a divergent lot where learning abilities, culture and upbringing divides them into smaller and more workable units. Racial ethnicity and culture are considered as key determinants that help shape the perception and general behavior of a person (Sparkes, J. 1999). As a student, his racial origin and pivotal customs define who he is. As such, in a school where the population is made up of a mixture of a varying assortment of cultures, it is important to raise commonalities as this would aid the teacher in conveying the lessons properly (Allen, 2008). Vicarage Primary School undertakes and affords the children with a respect to their cultural heritage. The mode of instruction is made suitable to the childrens diverse backgrounds and the teachers make certain that no student is alienated. Third Entry For my third day, the class had an activity wherein they were to identify objects found in the classroom and they were instructed to write down the words in their notebooks. As soon as I have finished giving the instructions, the students immediately picked out their writing materials and began to scour the classroom. As fast as their fingers would allow, the pupils hurriedly took note of the objects in their surroundings and listed them in their pads. The advanced students were asked to write as many as they can whereas the pupils in the lower levels were asked to take note of only ten (10) words. In this activity, the teacher aids made certain that each of the students was properly assisted.  The class also enjoyed a Physical Education session during my third day in class. This undertaking allowed me to see the students as distinct individuals possessing of differing needs and exhibiting varied perception and response action. That is, I saw each pupil as individual persons and no longer a part of a smaller unit defined by his culture or upbringing. My students became as real as they could possibly get and I realized the wide variety of personalities present inside the walls of the classroom.  In reality, the fact is that the state and the society is one in saying that education is the main key in bringing about the fundamental changes in the country. Be it economic, societal or political, education is the likely answer that would cause for the needed advancement (Halsey et al., 1997). True to this notion, the educational system in the Vicarage Primary School has been carefully designed and applied so as to effectuate the most effective manner of instruction. Several legislative enactments have been implemented in the state placing education among the priorities of the government and this would greatly help the school in the attainment of their objectives (Green, 1998).  The fact that the school is already looking into the individual propensities is a big accomplishment already as other schools on London are still struggling to address this problem (Green, 1998). There is a need for the school to conduct teaching with a conscious appreciation of the students as individual creations with divergent needs and capacities (Rikowski, 2006). A conscious regard of the pupils uniqueness will cause a change in the way the educational system is run from its collective applicability to a cognizant practice that is keen on individualism and independence.  This means that the individual eccentricities of the person must be regarded for as determining factors that affect their learning (Halsey, Lauder, Brown and Wells, 1997). As such, this calls for a more concentric differentiation in the school mandate. The altruistic nature of the schools in London would be better served after assuming a more concentric approach to education. In this regard, I am proud to say that the Vicarage Primary School is a pioneer in that aspect. Realization From the three days that I have spent in class, I have been both surprised and anxious to learn that having the best teaching technique and utilizing the most cutting edge technology as an educational tool does not define the efficiency of the professor. That is, a person may possess the greatest skills and have the best knowledge yet he may still be inept as a teacher. This is due to the fact that certain things must be taken into account before one may be adjudged as an effective teacher. My first three days in class have taught me the importance of having the right attitude and the correct motivation when teaching. Likewise, my first days made me see the vitality of looking at the class in three levels: collective, smaller units, and the individual.  In the collective sense, the class in its entirety must be considered as a collective term. That is, the class must be considered as one unit so that the teacher may be able to determine the most suitable teaching technique based on the general propensities and group perception exhibited by the group in its entirety.  Secondly, the section must be dissected to set apart class differentiation. This means that the teacher must be able to determine how the class divides itself into groups. The teacher must note how the pupils associate themselves, whether by race, learning ability, association or others.  Finally, and probably the most important task, the teacher must be able to look at his students as unique personalities with diverse needs and different skills. This would enable the teacher to properly assist his students and make certain that the lessons are being learned and that nobody is left behind. The student body, being a heterogeneous amalgamation of cultures additionally forces the regard that teaching is not of a universal in application (Machin and Vignoles, 2006). With the apparent disparity in capacities, the teacher must take measures to assess the performance of students from a personal standpoint. In my three days, I saw my students as a group broken down into little circles and further broken down into individual human beings. I was given the opportunity to appreciate each one as a unique personality possessing of different needs and varying degrees of capabilities. With the few days that I have been privileged to teach my class, I am slowly getting know each one better. The initial reticence felt by the students of me being a new teacher is slowly melting away as they are exhibiting their individual propensities, attitude and general outlook. I am now more able to appreciate the reality of a students differentiation from the rest of his classmates. I believe that this would allow me to conduct better classes and teach beyond the books and delve deeper into life lessons as the days will pass. As I am given the chance look deeper into a childs personality more as the days pass by, I am able to adapt my attitude towards the specific need of a particular pupil. In this regard, I firmly believe that the more days I spend teaching them is equivalent to more opportunities of me getting to know them and me evolving into a more effective teacher.  Conclusion When I was student, I thought of my teachers as speakers. I saw them as orators who stand in the mount and speak sermons day in, day out. But now that I am a teacher myself, I realized that I was dead wrong. Teaching is all about speaking as much as it is about listening. Teaching is all about leading as much as it is about following. Teaching is all about giving answers as much as it is about asking questions. That is, teaching is the primordial profession necessitating the conduct of a holistic approach in imparting lessons. It requires the full commitment of the teachers and there is no other way to go about it. The more days I spend in school, the more convinced I am that there is a whole different universe in teaching. After all, the pupils seated in the classroom are more than just mere students tasked to take on the lessons of the day. They are human beings undergoing all the same emotions, travails and struggles that adults in the real world experience. As such, they must be regarded as little universes in their own. Each student must be served in a tailor-fit manner suitable to their individual capacities. All it requires is to have a better and a deeper understanding of their individualities and a little more effort in personalizing the teaching style to each of them. This then is a task that I am too keen and too excited to perform. References Allen, K. 2008. Primary school teachers and the problems faced with teaching the English language: An analysis of the obstacles in the way of effective pupil-centered teaching and learning of the English language in Tanzanian government primary school with recommendations. [online] Available at: http://www.kiliproject.org/newsletters-and-documents/Katy-Allen-Paper-Oxfam-Conference-Aug-08.pdf Green, F., Ashton, D., Burchell, B., Bryn, D. and Felstead, A. 1998. Are British Workers getting more skilled?: Exclusion, employment, and opportunity. Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion CASE paper 4. London: London School of Economics. Halsey, A., Lauder, H., Brown, P., and Wells A. 1997. Education, culture, economy and society. Oxford: Oxford University Press Leblanc, R. Good teaching: the top ten requirements. [online] Available at: http://www2.honolulu.hawaii.edu/facdev/guidebk/teachtip/topten.htm Read More