DACA: Day One

This week we started our placement at Darwen Aldridge Community Academy  (DACA). I went to Newyork with university and so I missed the previous weeks build up and had to go straight into the placement. This was quite a scary thought as all I could think about was what have I missed? Am I prepared enough for this? On top of the nerves about the placement I was also thinking about the collaborative aspect of Unit x after all, apart from the three of us hat went to Newyork the rest of the group had already met and been together for a week. I felt like I might get there and feel like an outsider.

The first time I met the rest of the group was at the train station as we were all there to go to the school. I was quite glad that this placement was a first for everyone and not just for the people who went to America. It was nice to have the forty minutes or so, on the train getting to know the educating group before we started at DACA. Getting to know the group settled my nerves for the placement and I was completely over-thinking what it would be like to join the group. Although I was apprehensive the overriding emotion I had was excitement for the placement.

Morning Classes

My first class I was placed was a year 7 top set art class the nerves hit me at this point and honestly I felt completely overwhelmed. Louise Klink the teacher introduced the MMU student to the class as miss and then began to teach the lesson. To the year 7 class I was in their eyes a new teachers helper, they wanted alot of attention and help and I wasn't sure what I could and couldn't do to help them. I felt pressured in the moment and found myself at the back of the classroom with my notebook taking notes. I looked at the other MMU students and they were doing the same. There was a student Demi who was on her PGCE year and she was just helping teach the students. It was at this point that I thought to myself, if this is the career I wasn't to pursue in the future then I need to bite the bullet and just push myself to get hands on experience and leave the note taking for dinner and breaks. After getting myself involved with the class I felt a lot more confident and ready to take on the day.

Year Sevens Work

Kurt Jacksons Painting

After the first lesson I had another year 7 art class, this aloud me to fully settle into the classroom and school as from the last lesson I had become familiar and comfortable with the age group. The second class also had the same lesson plan and objectives as the first and so I knew exactly how to join in and help the children. The lesson involved the children taking an artist painting of a landscape and recreating or drawing inspiration from it to create their own.

Louise Klink's Teaching Style (Year 7's)

One thing I thought was great about Louise Klink's teaching style was the way she gained the attention of the class. From when the children first came in it was clear there was a level of respect there. She used the 5 step countdown method in which involved her asking for a quality audience and then counting from 5 for the class to be silent. However there were a few times in which a child would talk or walk in slightly late to which Louis would automatically give them a detention. I personally felt this was quite harsh considering their age and to be quite honest I don't feel a child speaking for one second over the countdown should be punished with a detention. On the whole the method worked really well with this age group and I am looking forward to seeing how the other teachers discipline the classes. Another great thing about Louise's teaching method is that she made the work relevant to the 11 and 12 year old children as she asked them the question why are landscape paintings still relevant today? She brought in aspects of climate change and global warming and how that would or could change the landscape for the children as they grow up. This straight away grabs the children attention and  aloud them to think and put their thoughts into the paintings. They were creating personal paintings with thoughts and opinions behind them and not just because they had to.This was something that I found extremely useful and is something that I plan to incorporate when it comes to planning our own workshops.
However what i did notice that weren't great was that every child's sketchbook was exactly the same they were told how big and what colour to do the titles etc. There was no sign of any individual's artist hand print within their sketchbooks. Louise told me about a year 7 who was in her words amazingly talented she showed me her sketchbook and to be quite frank I couldn't tell it apart from any other sketchbook. I feel this is a big downfall of the art department and needs looking at.



Afternoon Classes

For the Afternoon I worked with Alevel Art and was assigned to a pupil being Ellouise. This was a nice change as the pupils all had different work and their own style of working. Louise Klink had a much more laid back attitude with this class and was hardly in the room at ll through the lesson.She had some problems linking her sketchbook work to her art pieces and so e spent the afternoon going back into her sketchbook making clear links. I also took inspiration from her work and told her what I would personally do within my field of textiles she wanted to have a go and so I taught Ella and Demi the TA some new techniques including cording an pleating both quite simple techniques yet in her years of textiles she hadn't been familiar with these. This was a shock to me and I am quite interested to see the textiles lessons and what they do actually learn.
The feeling I got after teaching someone something they hadn't learnt before was great and when miss Klink told Ella that she would be able to go for a merit now instead of pass because of the help she had been given was amazing. I definitely know that teaching is something that I want to go into now.