11/03/2014

Today was week 2 at Lea Community Primary School. Today proved to be one of the most challenging classes to control, to date. With the permanent teacher being off work, a supply teacher was minding the class, which many of them so as an opportunity to 'act up'. During the session I spoke to the class for a short while regarding portion size's and different food groups, during this time the children were very disruptive and talkative. With the supply teacher being very little help managing the class, I asked them repeatedly to listen, along with the help of my supervisor, however it wasn't much use so I continued over the noise. I am now going to use The Framework for Reflective Practice (Rolf et al., 2001) to explain this issue I found myself in:

1. Descriptive level of Reflection (What):

The issue was my lack of authority in the classroom, the teacher at the time should really have controlled the class and reinforced my instructions for them to listen, however this was not the case. The consequence for me was feeling slightly embarrassed and for the students perhaps missing out on vital information intended to be learnt throughout the programme.

 

2. Theory and Knowledge Building (So What?):

This implies that I was not seen as an authoritative figure in this classroom. I carried on talking over the children as I didn't see it as 'my duty' to control the class, mainly because there was a fully qualified teacher in the class room. Looking back at the incident I could have stopped talking all together and tried that strategy for gaining the students attention.

 

 3. Action Orientated Level of Reflection (Now What?):

Upon reflection of this incident, I believe that I could have suggested to my supervisor having a word with the supply teacher and asking him to help control the class. For future reference it would be beneficial for me to research some other methods of catching the class’ attention. However it should be noted that this was only the ninth hour of twelve I had helped teach this particular class. I found it is very difficult to distinguish myself as an authoritative figure in the class, with such a short space of time to gain a rapport etc.

Rolfe, G., Freshwater, D., & Jasper, M. (2001). Critical Reflection for Nursing and the Helping Professions: A User's Guide . Palgrave Macmillan.