St. Andrew's Visit 1: The School's Ethos

For those of you who don't know, I'm working one day a week in a classroom while I'm in Bath. I'm working with the Year 4 students in St. Andrew's Primary School. We're required to keep a journal of our experiences each week, and I thought I would upload mine here. I'll also be submitting guest posts to my friend Alesa's blog, so you should check those out as well.

Our journals each week have a specific focus that we should consider while looking back on our visit, and this week's was ethos. For the purpose of the assignment, ethos was defined as "the characteristic spirit of a culture, era, community, institution etc, as manifested in its attitudes, aspirations, customs, etc"

My first visit to the school was really relieving. After the little snafu during orientation week, when my teacher was out sick, I wasn't really sure what to expect. I had gotten a glimpse of the school, but I had only met the receptionist, who walked me past the classroom so I could see where it was located.  What I found on Tuesday couldn't have been more welcoming.

When I first arrived, Mr. Barry (my teacher) gave me a tour of the school. He explained where each of the other classrooms were, introducing me to teachers and teaching assistants and pointing out Year 4's work along the walls. As he predicted, I quickly learned my way around the square.

When we got back to the Year 4 classroom, I was introduced to Laura and Connor, two student teachers from Bath Spa University who had been working with the students since October. They provided some wonderful insight on the diversity in the classroom as well as cluing me into the daily customs and routines, for which I was certainly grateful. I will admit that I was a bit disappointed when I learned that they would be finishing their placements on Friday, which meant that this was the only week that we would overlap.

The students piled into the school dressed in their adorable little uniforms. Because of the rain, a few of the girls slipped off their shoes while sitting at their desks. Mr. Barry had no problem as long as they slipped them back on when they walked around the classroom, but a woman to whom I was never introduced stopped in and argued that the students needed to wear shoes at all times. It was an interesting moment.

While this discussion happened, the students started their day with micro-writing. They were presented with a picture and asked to write one line of description, one of action, and one of dialogue. Connor called the roll, and instead of "here," they responded with "good morning," which I thought was very interesting. It felt much more polite and respectful, and having a set response also eliminated the various silly comments I recall from my early schooling, which always dragged the process on longer than it needed to be.

I spent the morning listening to individual students read while the majority of the class took reading and writing assessments. During lunch, I ate and chatted with Laura, Connor, and the other student teachers. It was nice to be able to hear what was going on in their classrooms, especially since they were more my peers than Mr. Barry or any of the other teachers. Laura led the afternoon lesson, PSHE (Personal, Social and Health Education), and Mr. Barry joked that he had become spoiled; with two student teachers, he hadn't had to teach all that much in the previous few weeks. He pulled a student out to work individually, trusting Laura to run the lesson on her own. After she introduced the lesson and started the discussion, the students broke off into small groups. Laura, Connor and I moved from group to group, answering questions and making sure the students stayed on task. I asked one student to sit in his chair, and all of a sudden, 8 heads turned to me. One student exclaimed, "you're American!"

The day ended with assembly, where the students behaved impressively well. They sat, still and attentive, for a presentation before singing as they exited. They all participated in the singing, which felt like a very important part of the day for them. Even the teachers sang along, filling the space with music. Finally, we walked the students back to the classrooms to collect their things. We walked them outside to their parents, who waited in the playground area. Mr. Barry spoke to many of them, making a point to talk to the ones whose children had acted out or struggled that day as well as those whose children had done especially well in class. After they were released, I stayed after for a few minutes to debrief the day with Mr. Barry, Laura and Connor. It was interesting to see how they analyzed Laura's lesson, and it gave me a better understanding of what will be expected when it's my turn to lead a lesson. We also spoke about what Mr. Barry hopes to have me doing with the students, which will combine their curriculum with my dance training and should be very fun. At last, I was free to go, and my first day was complete!