Strengths and Weaknesses

Whilst I have been completing my hours on work placement at Dronfield Junior School, there are a few points that I have picked up on that could be improved on.

The first thing I have noticed is that the teachers are very grateful when I go into their lesson to help out. With one teacher for 30 children, it is nearly impossible for the teacher to get to each individual pupil to give them help, but with a TA (Teaching Assistant) present, this allows the teacher to share the workload with someone, or the teacher could then sit with the table that need the most help. This allowed the children that are least academically clever to get more help and attention.

Another problem that I picked up on was the corridors being wet and becoming very slippy when it was raining or wet outside. This could have been helped by putting more mats down for the children to dry their feet on so that they don’t bring the wet inside or alternatively put more ‘wet floor’ signs down. During my second week a pupil slipped on the wet floor and hurt their arm, this could have been avoided.

During the dinner when it rains heavily outside, the bell rings 3 times and it becomes ‘wet play’. This means that all the pupils come inside and have to play games in the classroom. I noticed that the pupils were limited in the games that they could play, and a lot of the board games had pieces missing. This was because the children shoved the games back in a cupboard any old how so the pieces went everywhere. I suggested that there should be a person from the class that checks that the equipment is put back properly, so from now on there are 2 pupils that have to put the games back neatly at the end to avoid more pieces being lost. 

All of the above points that I have picked up on are the weaknesses of my organisation, so I will now look at some of the strengths which I believe makes the organisation a very good and fun place to be.

The first strength is that the teachers have excellent communication with each other. During break and lunchtime, the teachers discuss what activities worked well in the lesson and what didn’t work so well. This then allows the other teachers to learn from their mistakes and make sure that they don’t use a teaching technique that didn’t work very well in another class.  

Another positive was that the lessons were always made very fun and gave every child the opportunity to have their input. Good answers by the pupils were rewarded by the teacher which encourages the pupils to put their hands up and get involved.

Each year, every class does a class assembly which is performed in front of the rest of the school. This is where one class talks about one of the topics that they have been learning about. This helps the children to gain confidence and they all have lots of fun, as well as learning, which is the mission statement for the school.

 The school has very good links with local businesses and charities, and during my time there I witnessed plenty of fund raising events that took place and managed to raise a considerable amount of money.