Reflection Week 1 Term 1 2016

I survived week 1!

It was fantastic to finally meet and get to know my lovely year 7 and 8 students this week after so much preparation and time put into planning and organising my classroom. They seem like a kind and studious group of children so I think that we a going to have a wonderful year together.

This week has been quite a busy and overwhelming week for me. There has been a lot of information to take in and also lots of admin and many forms etc. to collect and give out within class. This has required me to rethink organisation of my classroom environment and also of my daily routine. I have allocated classroom monitors and made wall charts which will hopefully help to cut down on the time that I spend checking children's agenda books at the beginning and the end of each day. It has also been challenging with the children not having their stationery for this first week as it has made it difficult to begin any recorded work.

I have learnt this week that it is important to be flexible and that things can change at any moment. Things that you have planned may get pushed aside by a meeting or another lesson and you may have to teach your planned lesson at another point in time. On the other hand you may have thought that there was an assembly or team game planned and this may fall through at the last minute meaning that you need to have a lesson up your sleeve to be able to teach on the spot. This has shown me how I need to be organised but I also need to be able to be willing to let things carry over to the next day if need be.

I am still coming to grips with the PYP curriculum however I am looking forward to really getting into our first UOI when the children all have their stationery. My team has been very helpful and I have already gained so much knowledge from them in the area of inquiry so I am very thankful that they are there to help me understand this new way of teaching.

I am looking forward to having a more complete week next week and to have more to assess the students in my class so that I am able to establish reading, writing and numeracy groups for the coming weeks. I have already identified a few students within my class that will require some extra guidance (especially in literacy) so I am going to ask my colleagues about specific strategies I can use to best meet the needs of these children and help them to improve.