Reflective Account For Primary Teaching

I am a qualified Childcare Practitioner with 12 years’ experience, who would love the opportunity to embark on a career as a Primary Teacher. I am currently employed in a local authority pre-five nursery class within a Primary School. I aspire to become a teacher as I feel it will offer me new challenges and a chance to further develop my love of teaching. I am a dedicated worker and continually strive to provide high standards. I also promote confidence, respect and compassion to ensure all members of the nursery and school are respected.

This portfolio seeks to critically reflect on my engagement with the Teach First Leadership Development Program (TFLDP) and how the Continuous Professional Development (CPD) offered as part of the program has influenced my current and future classroom practice. The TFLDP is the official title given to the training program that all Teach First participants are expected to complete. The program is two years in duration, throughout which, participants are offered various forms CPD, all of which falls under three broad headings; Leading Self, Leading People and Leading Learning. In this assignment, I will focus on how, in conjunction with Teach First support staff and CPD opportunities, I have addressed two of the three key strands; Leading Learning and Leading people. The first strand I will focus on is Leading Learning. I will describe how I worked with my Leadership Development Officer and Educational Consultant to engage passive learners by introducing cooperative learning into the classroom, I will critically reflect on the progress we made towards the vision I created. Secondly, I will focus on how a session forced me to address the wider issues facing my students outside of the classroom and the work that I have done with the East Midlands Action Network (EMAN) to make progress towards providing Socio-economically disadvantaged children with enriching experiences.

Working with children and supporting their learning is my passion. I have always been inspired by the opportunity teaching offers each child to reach their full potential; which understandably plays a crucial part in children achieving lifelong learning.

I have taught students ranging from five years old to nineteen years of age. Hence, being an educator, I have learned that learning is always shifting, therefore I must keep improving with the incessant changes. As a little girl, I have always dreamt of being a teacher and I have carried out that dream. My career journey started as a substitute teacher, a floater between classrooms, an assistant teacher, a teacher, a center supervisor, and an educational supervisor. I presently work as an Educational consultant for Danya International LLC. As an Educational Consultant, I able to review and aid with the learning environment of teachers and educational management in a school

Teaching demands a lot of creativity and being able to adapt to different situations and environments. However, in order to experience lasting success, more than pot luck, charisma and spontaneity are required. Planning is essential. Planning and preparation gives a certain level of confidence. Whether it is a single lesson or a whole course, planning allows you to design the learning journey you wish to take your students on. In designing, you can make sure that you are catering for all your learners’ needs. This includes sufficient differentiation; for SEN needs as well as your gifted and talented students. In planning you can ensure that your lessons have a definite beginning, middle and end and have clear aims and targets. At this stage you will also prepare and plan resources. Also, you must plan your assessments. How will you know when the students have learned what you set out to teach? How will they know? How are you going to prove that learning has taken place at the end of the course? All these points will be addressed in the planning stage of the teacher training cycle.

I now have a clearer understanding of the UK levels of education. This course has also opened my eyes to the underpinning theory of

Reflection on practice has different meanings, in my view it means constructive criticism: being honest with myself, becoming aware of and understanding my own strengths, and being able to review activities and constantly test assumptions related to our work. These have been my approach to critical reflection throughout the year. This is supported by Brookfield, he says that "Critically reflective teaching happens when we identify and scrutinise the assumptions that undergird how we work” (Brookfield, 1995, pg. 11-13). This is further supported by Ghaye, T & Ghaye, k (Ghaye, 1998); he argued that many teachers have benefited from learning through reflection. Their teaching and understanding of what is possible and less possible, impacts of activities on children’s learning and its boundaries have risen as a result of reflection.

In summary, this course has really educated my view of being a teacher as well as being able to interact with today’s diverse and fluctuating educational setting. Therefore, the discussions were very good ways in understanding how

This assignment will critically reflect and analyse a microteaching session I presented to my peers in a clinical placement regarding Nursing management of chest drains. I will define reflection; teaching, learning and the rationale for choosing this topic will be clearly outlined in this paper. The preparation, planning, implementation and evaluation will also be incorporated. This assignment will be structured using Gibbs (1988) reflective model cited in Modular Training Course, 2003 because of its simplicity. Analysis will permeate through each stage of the Gibbs reflective model. Finally I will conclude by reflecting on my role as a joint practitioner outlining areas of personal, professional growth, identifying my strength, weakness

This movie, The Classroom, which was very interesting to watch, discusses all that goes on in the school system, the good and the bad. But it also shows how things at home can affect the way the student acts during the school day. This movie definitely makes you look at students that act out differently, instead of punishing them maybe we should all look deeper into the issue and find a way for the student to thrive and use school as an outlet.

I first became interested in teaching in my sophomore year in high school. My inspiration came from three amazing teachers who showed passion for their subject matter as well as a love for teaching. My desire to become a teacher was amplified by the many leadership and teaching roles that I took on while I was in Boy Scouts. While teaching in Boy Scouts I learned that teaching was what mattered most to me. Under my leadership, I helped advance many scouts to the rank of Eagle Scout as well as winning multiple awards at every summer camp that we attended. This was my jumping point into enrolling in Old Dominion University’s education program.

When I first began teaching over twenty years ago, I do not believe I had a clear idea of what my vision of education was. I was hungry for knowledge myself and took every opportunity I could to attend professional development and implement new curriculum and instructional strategies. During the early part of my career as a teacher, I developed a

In my 24 years of experience employed with the Department of Education I have found that working with children watching as they grow is inspiring as much as it is rewarding. Teaching helps one to sharpen their skills on all levels for the curriculum is forever changing. Being an educator has its challenging moments but its something I want to accomplish. To be successful at educating others I must continue to grow, increase and improve within.

I am a hardworking, confident and trustworthy person with a keen desire to become a primary school teacher. Having spent two full terms independently managing a class, I have gained excellent first-hand experience and an increased confidence in my own abilities. I consider myself to be a very well organized, reliable and enthusiastic individual who can not only work extremely well as part of a team but also remain professional under stressful circumstances.

Professional knowledge is no longer viewed as just consisting of a standardised, explicit and fixed knowledge base. It is now seen as knowledge which exists in use, is ethical in its use and is changed by experience.