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Hotwells Primary School

It was the 13th of September when we first time arrived in Hotwells. After a quick interview with the Head Teacher – Mrs Jenny Taylor – we went to our placement, Class 2 for our first Art lesson.

We were mostly responsible for helping the teacher of Class 2 in Art classes like painting, drawing, making sculptures. Besides we were had one-to-one reading classes, what is very important for small students' further education.

Art was definitely fun! Children are really creative and their heads are full of ideas. Their little pieces of art prove that children’s imagination is like their own, second world. Their every work was an amazing achievement, which made us volunteers proud.

Reading classes were quite challenging especially for me as a foreign student, whose mother language is not English. I was impressed with the level of some children. Fluent reading in age of 6 or 7 is something unusual in my country.

From time to time we were listening to pupils' play rehearsals, singing practices or helping with present issues. It is incredible how talented they are not only in one direction, but they are amazing in everything they do.

Supporting children and being able to witness how they are achieving their small goals was one of the best experiences in my life. When you see how good job they made and how proud they were because of it makes you as happy as they are.

Weronika Myck

*****

During the term I volunteered in a year one class in Hotwells Primary school. Throughout the term I was asked be the class teacher, Mrs Moore, to help develop and consolidate what the children had learnt earlier that day.

To do this in a fun and engaging way I was given the task to help the children that needed a little extra time grasping the concepts that were taught earlier through demonstrating it on a one to one level or simply playing a game that was related to the topic. After that I then supervised the children’s outdoor play just before they went home.

Although I was only with the class for 1.5 hours on a Monday I soon realised what a challenging job teaching young children is. Since children in year one are in the first year of the national curriculum it is important that you keep the children engaged and interested in order for them to learn anything at all; something I learnt from the first time I was with the children!

After realising that lessons for year one pupils needed to be fun and interesting for them in order to get anything out of them that resembled concentration at all I started to enjoy the placement a lot more. Working with young children is hard work, but knowing that you have contributed to a child’s education, even in a small way is also extremely rewarding.

Thomas Wainwright

*****

I have had many interesting experiences at Hotwells Primary school. When I first arrived at Hotwells Primary school, to be honest I thought I would not enjoy the teaching of philosophy and swimming. However I began to enjoy seeing the pupils and getting to know there teacher. It was interesting meeting new people.

The philosophy I found the most interesting. I would have thought the questions the teacher asked the pupils were just too difficult and advanced for there young knowlege. The questions were like, “why is there war and do you think it is right?” many of the pupils had heard and spoke about the people involved for example Sadam Hussain and Osama Bin-laden. This shocked me on how much they actually knew about the subject that not many their age would know.

The swimming was very fun to teach. The pupils reponded brilliantly and they were also very well behaved. There skill ranged from beginner to experienced and the experienced swimmers were great in the water. Teaching them was an honor as they were very good at listening and executing the technique. They were very fast learners.

Overall, i found my experience at Hotwells Primary school extremly good and fun. A very good experience that I would happily do again.

Andre Vakilzadeh

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