CORNWALL: DIAS 3 Y 5 DE OBSERVACIÓN

Wednesday, March 8^th, 2017.

YEAR 2A- WRITING

1. They do the register and order their lunch choices; there is always a meat dish and a vegetarian dish. Some kids take their own lunch.
2. They continue the writing piece they started the day before helped by a displayed writing piece in note-form with no completed sentences. They also go over different sentences and starters.
3. Once they’ve done this they get some quiet time to write what their character looks like, what their characters in the stories did and what they said.

BREAK TIME 1. 10 MINUTES

MATHS

Preparation for the lesson:

Teacher says: In my pocket I’ve got a shape. You need to ask me questions to find our which shape it is. They ask how many sides and the teacher answer 6. They ask how many corners and teacher says 6 again. Kids shout: Hexagon!

Teacher says: I’ve got a total of 1 Pound in my pocket in 4 coins. What are these coins? A student comes up with the solution: 50p, 20p, 20p and 10p.

After this they count in twos up to 50, then the teacher says some numbers, if they are multiples of 5 they need to stand up, if not they remain quiet.

-Multiples of 2, 5 and 10 are basics in their match classes.

-They break numbers into smaller ones so it gets easier to work with them.

Ex. 65-18=2 (20) + 20 (40) +20(60) +5(65)=2+20+20+5=47 so 65-18=47

-Practice time: The class is divided into 3 different level groups. The lower level works with the Teacher Assistant (TA), the medium level works with me and the 2 top levels work with the teacher and on their own.

BREAK TIME 2. 10 MINUTES

READING TIME

-Teacher reads a story aloud. Then they go write about the story following the ERIC technique. E=Explain R=Retrieve information I=Interpret information C=Choice (high level thinking)

-Once they finish writing, as a price, the teacher lets them watch a story in the interactive whiteboard before lunchtime.

Thursday, March 9^th, 2017.

A day at Illogan School.

Illogan school is a newly refurbished medium size school in the Redruth area, its particularity is that there is 2 schools in the same site, a regular school, and a school for children with Special Needs. Most of the time the kids are separated but they share the playground and some activities such us the cooking class.

There is a really impressive number of TA’s at the school, mostly because of all the special needs children they’ve got in the schools that shares ground with Illogan. The amount of TA’s makes personalize teaching much easier.

The slogan of the school is:

ASPIRE, BELIEVE, CREATE, DAZZLE.

SMALL GROUPS

The first hour in the morning is dedicated to help kids with difficulties in small grouping areas in a sort of hall in between classrooms. Kids are not necessary grouped by age but by ability. These groups are mostly focused on sounding words, spelling and reading comprehension.

WRITING LESSON 3^RD GRADE

They are preparing to write a composition about natural earthquakes.

1^st, they discuss the vocabulary they can use to talk about this topic and the teacher displays this vocabulary on the Word Wall.

-After the brainstorming they start writing their compositions about a natural disaster. The teacher gives them a rubric to guide them.

-They need to have a shaking title

-It needs to say what, when and where it happened.

PROS AND CONS OF THE BRITISH SCHOOL SYSTEM

PROS:

1. They most of the time have more than one adult in the classroom. Teacher assistants.

1. The effective way of teaching them quality writing, giving them lots of examples. Modeling for them and giving them practice time.

1. Their reading comprehension is far away better than in Spain mainly because of the amount of hours dedicated to it and the fact that it is a main focal point over here. Plus they have lots of books per classroom.

1. The inclusion of Science and Social Studies topics in reading and writing lessons, making this learning’s more meaningful.

1. The small breaks of 10 minutes between lessons help them to keep their brains active and awake.

1. They don’t use textbooks! The government provides them with notebooks and all other school supplies. What makes every student equal.

1. They don’t focus so much on spelling so the kids won’t stop writing creatively because of so much spelling correction, so their writing flows.

CONS:

1. In Spain, we dedicate more time to teaching and not only focusing on a test. In the UK students go through a lot of testing in their school life that ends up in categories of schools and rankings of students.

1. We give greater importance to subjects such us Science and Social Sciences, Foreign Languages, PE, Music, so our children education is much more complete and varied. 

Por Maria Josefa Gonzalez Roces, profesora del CEIP Moreno Espinosa , Cebreros, Avila.