Meeting the children

My first class

Kathryn Munro guides you through five days in the working week of a probationer teacher. Primary Teacher, St Joseph's Primary School, Edinburgh

I sat in an empty dark staffroom on 14 August, ready to begin my first ever in-service day. Everyone else must be in the classrooms.

I debated with myself whether I should walk around the school and pretend I knew where I was going or wait in the staffroom and act like I was completely relaxed until someone came in.

As I was about to get up and wander, Mrs Robertson, the Learning Support teacher, appeared to greet me.

She addressed me by name, which I was surprised at, as I had met most of the staff briefly in June but names and faces were already forgotten.

Mrs Robertson showed me to my new classroom where I met and chatted with my mentor and job share, Mrs Goodwin.

At least that was the awkward stage over. The next two days seemed like a breeze, preparing the classroom, planning new timetables, becoming familiar with names on the register.

Meeting the children

The real challenge was "Doomsday", meeting the children! The plan was that Mrs Goodwin would introduce me to the new primary six class and leave me to it. In my head I was screaming, "don't go!"

But she left and I was on my own. I had 18 expectant faces staring at me. Time to put one intensive year of training into practice!

Everything I had learned temporarily vanished from my memory. I had to transform into a professional actor, putting on a convincing show of knowing what I was doing.

Thankfully, over the next few days and weeks techniques and approaches resurfaced from memory.

Everyone tells you the first five months are then hardest. For me, this was true. I had to get used to the class, timetables procedures, staff and the school. Everything I was faced with was completely new:

• forward plans
• assessment
• class mass
• class assembly
• parents' night

But I had so much support from my mentor, Head Teacher and from all of the staff that their encouragement helped me through.

Дата добавления: 2015-11-14