Week five – (12/03/12 - 18/03/12) Professional

I cannot describe how happy I was to walk into my Kindergarten class on Wednesday morning. I always look forward to starting placement and having to wait patiently for a month to begin was not easy. However, we have to be up at 5:30am to arrive in our classroom for 7:45am, but I personally think it is worth it!

Our placement school is called the International School of Poznan, with a population of 350 pupils, aging from 4 to 18 years old. I work with the Kindergarten class (4-5 year olds) which is similar to our Primary One class in Northern Ireland. An immediate difference is that every class has two teachers who share the teaching responsibilities, acting as one another's classroom assistant. Both my teachers are called Kasia (or Miss Kate and Miss Kasia) and have been extremely welcoming.

Although it is an English speaking school, my Kindergarten class are still learning the basics, meaning I have to try and translate what they are telling me through their actions or by reading the current situation. I was surprised at how frustrating I found not being able to communicate with them. It makes me feel helpless when they come to me with a problem. During the lessons my teachers only speak in English (and translate the children’s Polish answers into English and get them to repeat it) therefore, it will be easy for me to teach, with some help for translation at times. It also means I will be learning Polish at a greater rate, as I want to communicate with them!

My class are currently learning about life cycles; fish, butterflies, frogs, elephants and turtles. I found this topic rather advanced for 5 year olds; however the whole school has a strategy towards teaching I have never seen before. Each month all teachers come together and chose a key concept (shown in the picture) which they all base their lessons upon. For example: This month it is surrounding the concept of change, so the Kindergarten class is being taught life cycles, Grade 1 are learning about seasonal changes whilst Grade 2 are learning about how the body changes etc. This system is based upon the Primary Years Programme (PYP) which is located around the world in different schools.
The lessons are then based around the attitudes and skills the children will learn (shown in the other pictures). These are similar to Northern Ireland Curriculum (CCEA, 2007) Thinking Skills and Personal Capabilities (p. 8-10), trying to equip children with life skills. I like that my teachers are very creative and find fun and interesting ways to teach the children the different concepts. It is also very strange to hear the children saying more complicated words like ‘inquirers’ and ‘communicators’ when they don’t understand more simple English. I did observe a number of strategies that were similar to those in the ‘Toolkit for Diversity: in the Primary School’ (2007) for example, picture displays, using multiple language labels and celebrating other cultures holidays. This has helped me form a better grasp of how to include children from multicultural backgrounds.

During the last hour of school all the children are taught Polish. This is important as 70% of the children are Polish and without these lessons they would not be at the age appropriate level of their mother tongue. In my class there are three pupils who come from International backgrounds and therefore cannot speak Polish, so are taught ‘Polish for foreigners,’ which I joined. It was embarrassing that I had the same level of Polish as four/five year olds but it was beneficial nonetheless! I have already learnt some useful ways of teaching the topic of life cycles and can see this will be a worthwhile experience!

Reference

·         CCEA, (2007) The Northern Ireland Curriculum Primary, Belfast, A CCEA Publication.

·         IILT and SELB, (2007) Toolkit for Diversity: In the Primary School, Dublin and Armagh, an IILT and SELB Publication.