Reflection - Week 3 Term 1

This week has been a challenging first full five day week at school.

During this week I feel that my class have been pushing the boundaries a lot more than they did in the first two weeks of the term. I have found myself having to be very firm and stick to the routines and management systems that I have put in place.

It was fantastic to get the opportunity to observe both Gail Loane (Literacy Expert) and my tutor teacher Matthew Cameron (PYP Expert) earlier this week. I gained a great deal from these observations in terms of the way to structure a lesson and on how to set the students up for success. I am looking forward to having Gail observe me teach a Literacy lesson to my class next week.

The Meet The Teacher Evening was on Thursday this week (which I was very nervous about as it was my first one in the Berkley style) however I managed to make it through the evening in one piece! We had to do a presentation in front of the parents from Te Aroha team. In this presentation we addressed mostly admin with the parents (I was required to speak about Teaming, Promotions, Room 13/Learning Centre time and Uniforms). Once back in my own classroom I delivered a short presentation to the parents about who I am and the way that I work. I managed to answer some questions on the spot to do with BYOD @ Berkley, IB PYP, Assessments and Groupings. It was fantastic to meet the parents and get their feedback on how their children were feeling about the start of the year and also to gain some extra information from them about their children that was not passed on through the folders of information from their previous schools. Overall I feel that it was a very successful evening!

This week was also a first for me in terms of teaching Teaming - Transdisciplinary Skills. It was really great to take all four of the groups at some point during the week and start to get to know some of the other students in Te Aroha team. The lesson that we have collaboratively planned for this area are quite substantial so I have found this week that one of the session may stretch out to two sessions and that I need to be prepared for this.

We also had our first Science Lab sessions this week which the students and I really enjoyed. It was great to see specialist teacher Greta Dromgool in action. She is so knowledgable in her field and I know I am going to learn a great deal from her this year.