New school year

I think I am very lucky to be completing my prac from Day 1 of a new school year.

On Tuesday we had Orientation Day where the parents and kids came into see their new classroom, meet their new teacher (and student teacher), find out who was in their class and see what has changed around the school.  The kids were a little disappointed, as due to a rearrangement the classrooms which were Year 5 last year are Year 6 this year.

The formalities of the day started with the Primary Headteacher giving a welcome address in the main hall. His voice was pretty hoarse as by the time he had welcomed us, he had already welcomed each year level from Nursery to Year 5, but his speech was well polished!  He then introduced each Year 6 teacher, the EAL teacher and me!  We then took our kids and parents back to our classroom, and my mentor discussed the expectations of the year, distributed timetables, homework guidelines and a welcome letter.  She then asked all the parents who were there to introduce themselves and their kids... I thought that was a clever way to get to know them early on...

Wednesday was D-Day - the first official day of the school year!  We had a Year 6 meeting, and the Yr6 Co-ordinator welcomed everyone, and congratulated them for getting to the top of the primary school, and explained while they now had increased privileges, and with that expectations of behaviour, participation and responsibility levels also increased.  By not living up to their end of the deal, privileges can be removed.

The tasks for the day were all fun things - like designing personalised library cards, cover pages for workbooks and 'getting to know' you games.  I took all the kids photos (one smiling and one silly) and we printed them out in various sizes for a range of other tasks for during the week.  We have one clown in the class who put on the straightest face and said it was his smile, and then kept the exact same expression for a silly face.  He's actually a pretty funny kid, I think he's likely to be quite bright too.

The school sets for Literacy and Numeracy from Year 1, and today we had a Reading Comprehension SAT which is part of defining the Literacy sets.  It took a bit over an hour, so a lot of concentration was required.  There is another literacy test tomorrow and Monday, and two Numeracy tests next week.

I taught my first lesson of this prac today - an overview of Science for the year.  Listed all general topics that will be covered, and a teeny-tiny bit about each.  Then the kids designed the cover page for their Science Workbooks.  I am going to be teaching Science over the next 4 weeks - the topic I'm covering is Forces (friction, gravity, buoyancy, thrust, magnetism, balance, etc.) so it was nice to teach science from the beginning!  My Smartboard presentation skills need a bit of work.  Although I'm sure they'll be on track by the end of prac!

I'm enjoying prac thus far - am a bit concerned about all I have to do... lesson plans, plus learning the content, 2 assignments, keep up with my readings and coursework and, of course, continue to be wife and mum!  Keep on top of it all, stay organised and hopefully everything will stay on track.

Three days down, 22 to go!  But I'm having fun, and not really counting down!