My School Placement - Bladins International School

So I have just finished an amazing 15 days at Bladins International School for my school placement. I spent the 15 days in PYP 6 (Primary Years Program - IB) and was able to teach both language (English) and maths lessons which was lots of fun.

The class had 26 students which meant that there were a lot of students who took up most of the space in the classroom and not much room left to move around. They're hoping to move the school for next year so that they can have bigger classrooms which will make teaching a little easier. The students came from all over, with some from Greece, Italy, Japan, India, Denmark, Mexico, America, England, Holland etc ... you get the idea!!! So it was lots of fun listening to all the different accents. In the class I was in there were 7 EAL students which made it an even more interesting class to teach. These students, instead of taking Swedish lessons, had extra English lessons to help improve both their writing and speech. All the students in the class were so well behaved that it made teaching them so easy to do. It also allowed me to have some fun with them during the lessons as they still got on with their work and never got carried away or too silly.

Being an IB school, it was interesting to learn about the IB curriculum which is a little different to the VELS curriculum back home. The main difference was that they have 6 units of inquiry throughout the year where they are able to do their own study into certain subjects. While I was there, they were in the middle of their "A Better Future" unit of inquiry which also involves them putting together an exhibition for their parents. This unit required them to chose a global issue, either social or environmental, which was of interest to them and do research into how the issue came about, what effects it is having on the world and how they can help to fix this problem. It has been really interesting to watch the students conduct research into their different interest areas (the credit crunch, endangered animals, global warming, pollution, ocean pollution and animal cruelty). They also had to give an informative speech highlighting the research they had done so far. All of the talks were very good and showed that the students had really looked deeply at their issue and how it is effecting us. Their exhibition will be at the end of April and I am planning to go and see them all present their research to their parents. It will be interesting to see how far they've come and the finished product!!

I was very lucky in that I was able to take so many lessons. Because half the day was spent on the unit of inquiry, it was difficult to find lessons that I could take. But in the end I managed to take most of the maths lesson for about 3 weeks (which involved 3 maths lessons a week) and a series of language lessons in which I both conducted the lessons and also assessed the work. The work I did in the language class was one of the benchmarks and so their marks will go on their end of year reports. This was a great learning experience for me to have to come up with the writing activity of rewriting a fairy tale and then also create a marking criteria which I then used to mark all the students' work. All the students did really well on the task and it was great to read their modernised versions of Hansel and Gretel or Little Red Riding Hood.

I also tagged along to the PE lessons which were lots of fun. Quite fittingly, the main unit they were doing while I was there was dance and I had lots of fun joining in with them and watching them learn how to do the nutbush, the heel and toe polka and the cha cha slide.

The best part though was that I was assessed for this placement by one of the university staff, which I had to do in order to be able to do a rural placement next semester when I get home. This now means that I don't need to be assessed next semester so it's over and done with and out of the way. I always find it more enjoyable when you don't have to worry about making sure your placement folder is all up to scratch and your lesson plans and observations are all organised!!!

So now my placement is finished and while I'll miss the students , it'll be nice to have my days off again!! 5 day weeks with 7am starts gets rather tiring after a while. However, I'm going to have to wait at least a week until I can get a day off as this morning I had my final exam for my Global Children's Literature course, which I feel went well, but am glad to have it over a done with. Then tomorrow I have to present my picture story book which I created and was our project work for the course. Tomorrow evening however I am off to Stockholm with Valerie before heading to Prague from Sunday to Wednesday. I'll be back home Thursday for the night for the ICE HOCKEY match (my replacement for not having AFL here!!!) before leaving Friday afternoon to go and visit Lars, Åsa and Pontus in Göteborg until Sunday. I'm quite excited about this because I get to go and see a handball match...apparently Pontus is quite the pro!!! Then Monday I leave for Russia and Finland for 9 days. But it doesn't end there. The day after I return from Russia and Finland I'm off to Amsterdam. So I can bet that April will fly by and suddenly I'll be on the home stretch!!!! (which is a little scary to think I will have been here for about 4 months).

I'm going to warn you now that the blog will not be updated for about a month but when I finally get the chance to breathe, I will put up all my pictures of Stockholm, Prague, the Ice Hockey match, Göteborg, Finland, Russia and Amsterdam. So I'd also better apologise in advance because, knowing me, it'll be lots for you to read and look at...but I promise it'll be interesting!!!!

So until next time....I hope you are all well back home and I wish you a happy and safe Easter. Try not to consume too much chocolate over the Holiday!!! Oh and go CATS!!!!!!

Puss och kram,
Alice
xo