Early Years Teacher and Coordinator
St Philip's British School
Total years of experience :4 years, 6 Months
Working as a teacher in class of children from pre-nursery to reception (aged between two and four) with EAL; as well as, working as part of the team to run the British Curriculum. In addition, to develop children’s skill to speak the English language through planning and carrying out many activities, for example, creativity, literacy and numeracy, along with many other activities with links to areas of the early year’s curriculum. I also helped in the development of the school and building the resources for the classroom.
My duties are to actively develop interest and love for language, literacy and books through interactions with the children, both as one-to-one and as group. Moreover, I plan story-time with phonics, as well as, monthly assessments to assess children acquaintance of letters and sounds with alliteration, blends and words which cannot be sounded out. In addition, during my day-to-day work, I work with children who have speech and languages delays who I give extra time to extend their speaking and language. Finally, I design resources which engage children in language and literacy, interactively and creatively, when needed.
Placement as part of my MA dissertation. For the times when I am in this school I engage in many activities with the children in the reception classroom such as in their literacy sessions of Arabic and English, reading to or listening to the children read, deal with any behaviour issues if the children come to me as a person in authority, as well as, being playful with the children.
Worked in research project called “Looking, listening, loving, learning: Exploring understandings and uses of documentation in early years settings”. My role was to help the researcher in gathering relevant literature and analysing both the literature and the findings from the research to identify themes relating to the initial working title. I have gained the research skills: how to analyse, how to organise findings and how to search for relevant literature; as well as, knowledge and understanding about documentation and research in general.
Voluntary work just to gain experience and I have worked as a teaching assistant. I worked as part of a team helping the class teachers in carrying out activities planned by them, setting out the numeracy and literacy activities on the table for children to play with, and setting out the art activities planned by the teacher and carrying them out with the children. Along with helping to listen to children read their books as part of their reading. In addition, another skill gained was communicating with staff, children and their parents; as well as, dealing with SEN children. I also worked as a translator for one of the parents when needed.
Working flexible hours as a casual worker in Kids Camp. My duties were firstly to actively play, interact and be proactive with the children all the time. Secondly, to ensure the room is set up appropriately; set up and put away activities and lunches; as well as, to ensure there is water available for the children. Thirdly, to be aware of any medical/ behavioural/ dietary needs of the children. Fourthly, to give children choice and allow them to be creative in arts and crafts. Fifthly, to provide a positive role model for the children and to praise all desirable behaviour such as willingness to share; as well as, to deal with unacceptable behaviour. Sixthly, to follow the policies and procedures at Colchester Leisure World. Finally, to help the children achieve the five outcomes of Every Child Matters; also recognise and report factors associated with child abuse, i.e. safeguard children's welfare as paramount with respect and promotion to their rights. Above all, communicate effectively with staff, as well as, communicate and deal with our customers both children and their parents.
The modules and dissertations were flexible in that they enabled me to follow my interests. Topics studied include Early Years Pedagogy in which we started to design our own imagined pedagogy, my was "Pedagogy of Cultural awareness and Dialogue". Other areas covered include fostering positive identity, home-school partnerships, and the child in the social world. Finally, my dissertation looked at "how cultural diversity is portrayed, promoted and reflected in the pedagogical documentation of an Islamic school?" and this topic was chosen due to my interest in cultural diversity and my work in the summer studentship project which looked at "Looking, listening, loving, learning: Exploring understandings and uses of documentation in early years settings". Overall, I learnt how to assess children's learning and development; with the importance of teacher's being culturally aware to help them to meet the needs of the children and families.
Modules taken included an optional module on ‘special needs’ and ‘creativity’. These topic areas are of interest to me as like to develop my knowledge and practice in special needs; besides I am a creative person, and I like to be involved in creative activities.
