Visiting two different schools

Today I had the opportunity to visit two different schools in the area. Neville was able to set up this experience for me. I think it was a really good thing that I was able to see two different examples of schools in England.

The first school I visited was Neville's old school that he was the headteacher, Callington. I visited a year 6 classroom lead by teacher Mr. Nugent. It was different to see a school that had a class full of only one year group. Callington has about 400 students as compared to Trekenner, that has about 45. Each year group has two different classes.

It was an very special day for the students at Callington Primary because teachers from their exchange school were visiting from China. I was able to watch the students perform some Christmas songs from the performance that will take place next week and there were students who chose to play instruments. After, I was able to find out about the story maps the students were working on. It was a neat idea where the students read a long poem and to memorize it they created a story map with pictures. The students then performed the memorized poem, I was shocked at how well the story maps helped with this process.

I also found out about an international program where students have to think creatively in one of 5 different categories and come up with some kind of project that shows their knowledge of that category. When they are finished they upload it to a database and their work is corrected and commented on by students around the world (the only requirement is that the correctors speak English). This is a program that I may look into a little more when I have my own classroom.

The second school I visited was in Launceston, it was called St. Catherine's. This school was considered public but the church was responsible for 10% of the costs of the school. This school was a little smaller than Callington, with about 200 students, but still much bigger than Trekenner. St. Catherine's had only one classroom per year level but it was still a much different feel than Trekenner. This school seemed to put a huge emphasis on technology, I was amazed at the amount of technology in this school. They even had a radio station that was student run.

At St. Catherine's I was able to go into two different classrooms, a year 3 and a year 6. The class sizes were quite big. However, the classrooms were big and allowed for the students to be spread out.

While I am so grateful I was able to observe these other schools I will be happy to get back to my class tomorrow. I am excited to tell them what the other schools were like but I am also excited to teach again. It is amazing how much I miss it after just one day.