Over the past few weeks I have really enjoyed getting to know my class better. I have had the opportunity to teach a number of different Numeracy and Literacy lessons and I have been very impressed with how the children have both listened and worked. As the International School of Poznań (ISOP) is a private school the children are expected to work hard, not just in school but also in the evening. The children receive a lot more homework than children of the same age back in Northern Ireland. As the school is a private school most parent are very involved in their child’s education. Fortunately for the teachers this means that children are really encouraged to work hard at home, although unfortunately some parents have very strong opinions about how their child should be run and may be regularly questioning the teaching methods used in the classroom.
Another observation I have made of the private school system for teachers is that they do not have to teach all subjects. Class teachers only teach Unit of Inquiry (which is equivalent to World Around Us in the Northern Ireland Curriculum), Numeracy and Literacy. Specialist teachers come into the class to teach the other subjects like Art, Music, Spanish, German and Physical Education. This allows the class teachers some free time so that they can mark student work, or complete paperwork, which like in all schools there is a lot of.
I am working with a class with twenty-one students of ages seven and eight, each child with very different abilities and needs. The class has eleven polish students and the rest are from many different countries and all have very different English speaking abilities. This school is obviously very diverse and is proud of this fact. It copes with diversity through encouraging children to embrace differences and celebrating special occasions from all around the world. On Friday we had the opportunity to celebrate the wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton. In school we made Union Jack, drank tea with milk, ate cucumber sandwiches and watched the ceremony using the projector. The children really enjoyed this historical day and I was very happy to have the opportunity to see the ceremony myself as I assumed, with the lack of TV, that I wouldn’t get to see it.
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| Our Royal Invitation! |
Within the school the children also have a wide range of extra-curricular activities. The school has just built a new multi-purpose sports court that they are making very good use of during after school clubs. They also have non sporting clubs, for example Spanish club, maths club, music club and English club. These are well organised as they are fun and interactive for the children. Last week in maths club we took the children to the computer room and played maths games over the network against the rest of the class. It was a lot of fun, a little competitive and I could really see the benefits of the activities that we were doing.
This weekend I also had the opportunity to visit Prague. We set off late Friday night and took the train through the night. It took us around eleven hours to get there and for most of it we didn’t have a seat, and had to sit on the floor. I can safely say that was not one of the best night sleep I have ever had. Also when we arrived there was some confusion with the hostel that we thought we had booked. They actually did not have room for us but we didn’t realise until we were there. So we took off to find another one. Unfortunately as this weekend is a national holiday is quite a lot of European countries, Prague was very busy, and we had to look in about seven different hostels until we found somewhere to stay. 
Prague is a very beautiful city. Most of the buildings in Prague survived through the war, meaning that everywhere you go in Prague you will see an outstanding piece of old architecture. We had a great weekend exploring the city, visiting the markets, enjoying the tours and taking a lot of pictures. Although there is not much to do in Prague there is so much to see, and as long as you get good weather you could easily just spend days walking through the city.
We also noticed in Prague that the Czech language is quite similar to Polish. We found that we just used polish to ask for directions of order things in shops we were generally understood. I am very glad that I visited Prague, it is a very beautiful city but I am not sure that it is the sort of city that you would enjoy as much if you visited again a second time round.
After a nice long weekend I am refreshed and ready to start back to university and school and I am looking forward to a few more adventures planned in Oslo and Krakow at the end of the month.Until next time,
Jeff
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