Thursday 18 April 2013

Week 6 - Critical incident


This is the first week after the spring break and I am still enthusiastic to teach and learn. However, I had a situation on Wednesday that got me thinking about how to address children’s manners. I was busy planning for nest week with Ms. C while the children were in the ART class, then I was surprised by the Head of Deputy coming to tell me that a parent of a boy in my class called to complain about me because I gave her boy a time out alone in the playground under the heat and the sun because he hit his peer. None of this happened because I never stay alone with children anywhere and I shadow Ms. C. besides whenever I take a decision of putting a child in timeout I refer to Ms. C. and tell her the reason.
Purpose:
I need to know if it is convenient to give a child a time out after a series of bad manners. Because I have tried it through my T.Ps and it work well but I still have some doubts after this incident as I try to build a positive relationship with staff, children and parents.
Data:
The data about managing children behaviour in my previous journals indicates that I can use many strategies inside and outside the classroom. This is because children are spontaneous and they tend to challenge themselves as well as the teacher one in a while. I also have many feedbacks and complements from my mentors regarding decisions I made during lessons to control and minimise bad manners as well as challenging behaviour.
Analysis:
This incident show that children are reflective about what they did wrong at school. It also teach me to record any rewards or punishments given to students in order to avoid such situations in future.
Conclusion:
I talked to the Head of Deputy in front of Ms. C. and she was a witness that no such thing took place which made me confident to meet the mother if necessary.


Week 5 - CRITICAL INCIDENT




This is the final week in the first part of the 10 weeks internship and the only challenging situation I will face is the absence of Ms. Cassandra on Tuesday on words because of family commitments. My assumption was right and I faced a dilemma that I did not imagine that I would face. This issue was on Wednesday and I had to prepare children's honoring certificates, take children around the school workshops and activities because it was an open day. finally, I had to make sure that children received their meals, certificates and gift bags.

Luckily, The Arabic sub-teacher was with me but still I faced a problem when we took children to attend a story telling activity which went forever. As a result for spending ever after time in that session children became restless and hungry. Also, it was just the right time for the children who are known for being busy to challenge our patience .

I tried to tell the head of deputy that children need to eat and retreat to the classroom to do their usual stuff and after three tries finally it worked and the story teller finished his boring stories.

 I took children and their parents to the classroom where they had their meals and certificate, they also had the time to play freely around some corners of the class room and I took one group to do a focus activity as I needed to finish it with them. Children returned home happy and maintained but not their parents.

I remember reflecting on this event to the HOF who said 'that the event was organised within a week' , also I received a comment from tow parents of the children in my class saying that there is a lack of organisation in this event.