Weekly reflective journal

Week Journal Entry

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1 20 -24 This week has been an interesting experience. I have experienced all classes in a
May combination of combined classes of 60, individual classes, classes with a relief teacher, and
classes with the science teacher. I have viewed and participated in their PE classes and
been able to teach some science. From this experience, I can definitively say I prefer
teaching a class of 30 opposed to the 60, but it was a good experience and a skill I will need
to have. This week we made and flew tumblewings around the hall. From this I learnt the
importance of testing experiments before posing them to the class, as my original design for
the tumblewing did not fly or spin correctly. Because of this, the classes were
understandably was off task the whole day. But through redesign and trial and error, I was
able to find a design that worked and could be used in the activities. Because they did not
originally work, behaviour management was a difficulty on my first day of teaching, and I
spent most of the lessons trying to control or change unacceptable behaviours. This was
generally unsuccessful for me as I have not earnt their respect or trust. Throughout the
week, I was getting more and more positive responses to my behaviour management, but I
still need practice. The school follows the play is the way behaviour education scheme, and
I find this interesting and I see the benefits, but I struggle to stick to it, and find myself just
saying ‘no’ or ‘don’t do that’ to the students instead of allowing them to choose the correct
action and fix their mistakes. Overall, this week has been interesting and has given me so
much to consider on the next week and future weeks on this placement.

2 27th-31st This week I was left to teach independently with Travis only stepping in for behaviour
May management and adding science concepts that I may have forgotten or left out. I have
found this interesting, as I teach the same lesson over and over, I can alter the lesson to
better suit the age group or change something that didn’t work well, and by the end of the
week I have a very good lesson that I can teach confidently. This has great benefits to me,
specifically that I can practice and alter the lesson until I get it right and perfect, but I am
also disadvantaged by this as I only get to teach 2 different lessons a week. I feel this
arrangement makes this placement less stressful while also putting me at a slight
disadvantage for next year. I can honestly say that this is the first placement I have enjoyed,
and am really trying to make the most of every opportunity and have as many experiences
as possible, positive or not. Hopefully this positivity and attitude will continue throughout the
placement and into next years.

3 3rd-7th This week we stayed together the whole NIT lesson, meaning that a maximum of 60
June students could be under my care at one time. This can be very daunting, especially since I
don’t enjoy talking loudly, but it was also a good experience and practice. The PE side of
aerodynamics is practically complete, so I do a majority of the talking and teaching
throughout the lessons, but Breanna takes charge of the Green and Yellow units which I am
thankful for. This week we have focused on making planes for purpose which included
looking at features, how to fold properly, throwing techniques, and different designs. I feel it
went successfully as a majority of the students understand what I plane needs to go far, and
what it needs to stay in the air. We also started discussing track planes which they struggled
with. This showed that they still did not understand completely how the air affects the paper
plane in different areas, and how you can control a plane by altering small things. The idea
of the paper plane contest was introduced to the students, and this boosted engagement
especially for the students who would usually by uninteresting in science, as well as
provided a reason to actively try in most lessons. What I wasn’t prepared for was the
amount of behaviour management I would need to control. But as this was a very free range
task, in a large area, with lots of people around, students were bound to be off task. Next
week will show similar results and I will try to mention and tackle them before they become a
big issue like they were this week.
4 11th-14th We are coming towards to end of the unit this week, and a majority of students feel they are
June being robbed of PE time. This caused us to have a look at our plans and try to fit more
traditional PE into it. This also helped with our behaviour management as they students
knew if they behaved and were on task during the science lesson, they would get to play a
game at the end on the lesson. The paper plane competition is next week, and we have
started recording names of people who should be competing. From this list I have started to
wonder if we should have boys and girls separate as they are not making the list as I hoped
they would. But this also seems unfair as the boys are just physically better than they are
and seems unfair to alter they stakes just to include them. This still needs consideration and
will have to be decided before the competition next Friday. The lesson intentions for this
week were mainly about perfecting your plane of choice, and ensuring that it is the best it
can be. We started administering tests this week, and so far, all of the blue unit have done
it, R3 and R6, as well as two yellow unit classes. By Wednesday next week all testing
should be concluded and we can get a gage of what the students understand. From marking
R6’s test I can safely say more then half understand what we have taught them, 40% have
an understanding but need further development, and only 1 students had no clue what was
happening.