Reflection - Week 2 Term 1

Week 2 has flown by. I feel that I am starting to get the hang of most of the routines at Berkley.

Most of this week has been spent assessing the students (carrying out a Basic Facts Assessment, IKAN 2, GAP Spelling and also some Gloss Testing). After marking these assessments I am beginning to get a good picture as to where the students are at and can now begin to organise them into teaching groups. Following further assessments in Week 3 I should have a very clear picture and be able to begin planning more to individual student needs.

As far as my classroom environment is concerned I feel that this week I have been able to set clear boundaries for my class in terms of what sort of behaviour and the standard of work that is expected. This is an area that I think I will need to be quite tough on over the next few weeks. The physical environment in my classroom is starts to take shape also. I have now added a display for our UOI1 topic and for the Inquiry Cycle. I am hoping in the next week that I am able to put up the students completed tote-tray labels and writer's frames containing their first piece of published writing. I feel that these things will help the students feel more at home in the classroom as they would have each contributed to a part of it.

An issue that I have come up against is that some of the students are struggling to complete their work within the set time period whilst others are flying through the work so this is something that I need to think about. I need to come up with a strategy to help those who are slightly slower and also a way that students who finish their work early know what to do without having to come to me.

Now that all of the students have their stationery and all of their books are labelled and put into boxes  (to aid with organisation and marking) we will be able to get into some proper Literacy and Numeracy next week. I have arranged for each of the students to have their own Morning Book as in the first week they were hanging about in the morning and found it difficult to settle during roll time. Having a Morning Task for the students to record in their Morning Book each morning means that they have a purpose as soon as the get into the classroom and they know to settle and get on to the set task straight away. We will begin using these books next week and I will then reflect on how they are working.