Having little experience within the school environment and coming from a very different work background, it was important to me to spend my first week exploring the surroundings. I have concentrated on building relationships with staff, my mentor and successfully learning the names of the children in year 5. I have a good understanding of the ethos of the school and have built good relationships with colleagues and pupils. Reflecting on this, I feel the children now see me as a teaching adult whom they can confidently approach for further instruction, support with their learning and their personal needs. I have started to identify their strengths and weaknesses, personality traits and have promoted praise for their great efforts. Knowledge gained through inset days, training, observations and trainee/mentor discussions, I have been focussing on managing behaviour over the past few weeks. My mentor and I feel this is the most important aspect to practise and put right, if you can’t control behaviour, progress and learning will not happen. I have tried various techniques, the most effective thus far were suggested on an inset day I attended by a speaker called Jason Bangbala. He proposed that we should praise in public (PIP) and reprimand in private (RIP) reducing embarrassment, having less disruption within the class and to set an example for all. I have also used the technique 1 – stop, 2 – equipment down and 3 – eyes on me, this is consistent strategy throughout the school. I have been taking small steps over the past few weeks; taking the register, planning/delivering morning work, leading pupils to assembly, storytime, class briefing, I have also delivered a lesson to the class. At first, I had trepidation about not having adequate input and I was concerned about behaviour management, which ultimately made me anxious about taking small groups and the whole class. At times the children have taken advantage and they have pushed the boundaries even when in their small groups, this has been quite challenging. Reflecting on my experiences, it is only natural that children will push the boundaries with a new teaching adult, but as time has gone by the children have become more familiar and realised that my expectations are of the same as their more senior teacher. This shows it is vitally important for all teaching staff to be consistent in their behaviour management throughout the school. My focuses this week will be to reflect again on behaviour management and pupil progress involving observing nursery teachers and children in the Early Years setting, in order to compare this with my own year 5 class. Once back in my own setting I intend to use behaviour strategies suggested by Nicola Morgan to back up my own and I will concentrate on positive praise, giving house points for positive behaviour modelled well. This will encourage others to follow their peers. My experience so far has had many ups and downs, though my confidence is growing each day, the daily routine which involved a lot to take in, is gradually becoming second nature and this journey has certainly challenged me in many ways, on occasions I have questioned my own judgements but I can honestly say fulfilment and reward has given me confidence in my ability to succeed. All Stories