Day Two.. 17/3/2015

The first task I was a part of this morning was with a year 10 GCSE pupil who was at the end of finishing her mock exam unit. She had to complete a sketch book of all her development work, and two A2 sized paintings as a final piece relating back to her artist work and own photographs. She was a very quiet pupil and had the first impression that she was going to be a very timid character, I tried to give her help and advice on how she could finish of her project nicely, even though I did feel she was listening to what I had to say, I didn’t believe she was fully engaged with what I had to say. This was a challenge I hadn’t faced before but in the end did feel confident I had given her more ideas so that she could finalise her project by the end of this week ready to submit, knowing I had helped someone gave me a massive boost for the rest of this project.
This image below is one of her finished paintings that we did together, we worked into the painting with darker tones, making sure we were blending the colours more, just as her chosen artist was doing, we then went over the top of the painting with a fine liner to define a lot of the areas to give it a lot more detail.

The middle part of today I was with a double lesson of a year 10 GCSE photography class, a lot different to anything I had experienced before, I felt very negative after leaving the lesson and left feeling that I wasn’t much help at all , I felt nothing but in the way and had a very awkward vibe, from both students and teachers, after a number of times of walking around the classroom asking pupils if they were okay, needed help, or was just asking general questions about their projects I decided to give up and take myself to another classroom. I was confused with the environment of the photography classroom, as it was supposed to be a mock exam, a practice for their real one, with no talking and nothing but focus so that they could finish their work, instead I found the classroom full of energy and a lot of disruption, I felt a lot of help was needed of the one teacher, the main reason as to why I felt like I wasn’t being much use there, This surprised me anyway to start with as I didn’t think you were even allowed so much help during a mock exam.   

The last double lesson I was in today was a year 7 lesson, a very bubbly environment, a lot different to my previous experience this was the lesson that I found myself enjoying the most so far out of everything, not only were they doing arts and crafts which was something I personally enjoy, I felt very useful to both the younger pupils and the teacher, making and doing is the best way that I personally learn,  meaning it was great to see other people learning in the same way as I know best.
Building strong connections with the pupils, allowed my confidence to build from what had happened earlier on today, knowing that I was not only helping them complete a task and to a high standard, but becoming an impact to the children as well was a lovely feeling, as they were remembering my name and asking when I was next coming back, them warming to me was encouraging me to warm to my new environment, opening new doors as a brand new career plan. This helped me to start thinking about what age group I would prefer to teach, as todays challenges were becoming very clear to me. I was leaning much towards the younger ages rather than the older year groups.