Conclusions

Erin's Conclusion:

I have very much enjoyed this module. It was such an interesting idea to have us go out into the community and have real hands on learning, rather than didactic teaching for a whole semester. Furthermore, making us find our own project gave us an idea about the how many people within the community there are that we can learn from and can help. It does not take much time, it is just having the initiative to go out and actively seek for the types of volunteering opportunities that we have experienced.

Helping at St Mary’s Catholic school was lovely. It was interesting to find out about the gender gap between boys and girls as I never knew that this was an issue. It was also enjoyable to meet all the teachers at the school and to hear about how passionate they were to close the gender gap and to get all students into reading. Most of the teachers that we spoke to all had a reading corner with some books in their classroom as well as letting their class read in the library. The environment of St Mary’s was friendly and welcoming, the staff and the children were very warm and were very appreciative of the work that we put into the display which was lovely.

Overall the experience that I have had has been a good one. We were mostly successful in completing what we decided to complete, and we worked effectively as a team. The only downside was that the library at the school was a little bit chilly! 

Megan's Conclusion:

After 5 sessions at St. Marys Catholic School we managed to interactive with the children by reading with them, creating book reviews and creating a display board with their interests in mind.  For this project we were asked to help raise the achievements in reading for key stage 2 boys. I believe our display board attracted a big audience with boys so would convince them to read more to put their recommendation up their alongside others.

I have taken a lot of experience away from this project that I am able to use in future placements in schools. I would definitely recommended others to do a project that is similar to this, the children’s reactions to the display was amazing and made us feel proud of our board. 

Sienna's Conclusion: 

I have thoroughly enjoyed the module ‘Learning from and within the Community’ especially being at St Mary’s School and developing the display and achieving the outcome as a team. As the school it is Catholic school it works with the wider community. Often retired members of the church would come in and read with Key Stage one. The church also works alongside the school to fundraise.

I feel that we worked well as a team and supported each other. I volunteered to be the project leader and therefore, delegated the tasks and research areas. I found this challenging as I had not done it before, I sometimes felt that I was being bossy however, I feel it helped us organise the tasks and manage the project.

I feel during the task we realised that lots of things change and that it altered our plans. Reflecting was a huge part of this project and I feel it has helped me in being critical and reflective of my work.

As I aim to be a future primary school teacher I feel it has helped develop my skills of guided reading, raising achievement and encouraging children to read.