Amisfield Primary School is a small village school with a friendly feel in Dumfries & Galloway, Scotland. The school has two classes, the younger class aged 5 to 8 and the older class are aged 9 to 12. (In Scotland there are seven years at Primary School Level)
Why
I felt that it would be really important to get some work experience in a Primary School to help in my understanding of my chosen subject.
As my trip in December had to be fitted around college and other commitments, I chose to do this experience in a primary school which is not far from my home town where I have previously helped out in the primary 1,2, 3 & 4 classroom. I felt that this would be a good place to gain experience as the children already knew me a bit and felt comfortable around me.
I also already have the backing from the teachers there, who also filled out my survey with some great feedback.
What
It was my task to complete the task which the specialist Art Teacher had been working on with the pupils the previous week.
The pupils had all began by painting a snowy wintery background as instructed by their art teacher and in order to complete the task, they were to create a silhouette in the foreground which was to be in black.
From what I had learned from researching my essay I knew that children would find it more engaging if they were allowed to make decisions within their work as they would feel like they had more ownership over it. Considering this, while preparing before the children arrived in the morning, with permission from their teacher I decided to allow the children to decide which medium they wanted to use to create the black silhouette and drew up a few different idea's of what they may have liked to do as a silhouette (as the art teacher had left only 1 example of what it might be) - always emphasizing that these were just suggestions and that the children could come up with their own idea if they wished. I knew from research also that instead of just saying 'do as you please,' that children require structure in order to get things done.
Experience
I was slightly nervous at first but of course in the end I thoroughly enjoyed teaching the children. I worked in the art space and the teacher sent children over to me in groups of three or four to complete their artwork. You could see that the children were excited about choosing and deciding on what they might paint or collage. Some children spent a long time on theirs being very accurate and others were more rushed but all pupils seemed to enjoy the exercise and were extremely excited to see their work up on the display wall when the paint or glue had finally dried.
How this has informed my research and understanding?
Throughout the day I gradually began to understand more about what sort of level children were working at, at what age. As I am writing in my project about how to encourage creativity it also helped me to see from a teachers point of view, what teaching is like and what it is like leading a creative task. It was beneficial to myself as working with children and art is something that I am particularly interested in, which is why I have decided to use this topic for my research project. Teaching the children in small groups meant that I could monitor behaviour and as the class is only a small number you get to know the children a bit and I could see that they were all well behaved for me and they all seemed to enjoy the task in hand.
Doing this visit has made me understand about childrens learning more than I would have understood if I had solely read books. Both forms of research have gone hand in hand for me and I feel like I know so much more now than I did at the beginning. I also feel like this is a field I am interested in working in after university.
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