First Week of Student Teaching in England!

When I arrived in England, I actually had two weeks before student teaching started in which in the fist week I learned about the curriculum and grade levels I may be working with, got the know a lot about Brighton University

and got to know my fellow study abroad students, and got look at my school and started to learn about transportation in England. I can say from experience that transportation in England is MUCH different than what it is in North America. I am so used to driving my own car that when you start to learn about bus routes and train routes, learning how to map and time outline your route, it can be a bit tricky, confusing, and even frustrating to figure out! In my second week in England, the week before school started, I did a lot of traveling and sight seeing around the town and other places within Eastbourne and Brighton. I will post many of those in the coming posts, and my last post, on my trip to London, was a wonderful and exciting trip that I had really enjoyed during the weekend just before my first week of student teaching in my school in England! 








During my first week at the school, my biggest goal was to get to know the school in general, the daily/weekly schedule of my class and the rules and procedures of the school and within the class, as well as to get to know my students and the cooperating teacher I would be working with through the semester. On Monday, November 3rd, I had many first day jitters that made me feel excited and nervous about starting school. I was worried about getting to the school without getting lost, for when I did meet the teacher and visit the school in the first week of staying in England, I got lost on the way back to the train station. So I was hoping for the best when I left Monday morning, but prepared for the worst situation, in that I would probably be late arriving the first day and prepared to be brave enough to stop and ask someone how to get where I needed to go! 


I got terribly lost not only the first day but two days in a row, because each time I took the bus from Eastbourne to my school, the bus took different routes because bus routes here change and do not go to all the same destinations like I had thought. On my second day to the school, I ended up walking about two miles to get to the school because I had been dropped off at a different bus stop! The entire week I dreaded public transportation and felt that I was never going to find  way to figure out how it all worked or be on time for school, but by the end of the week I had decided that the best thing to do was to get through the first week, learn as much as I could about the bus routes and train routes, and decide which one was more efficient to take to school. After cursing to the world and wishing for my car back, I learned that through all this experience and adventure of traveling, there was nothing better to do than to learn how to deal with the new environment I would be in fr the next six weeks and accept that it would be different from home life. After doing a bit of research and getting assistance from the school administration, I found the train was faster, easier to navigate, and closer to my destination. I was determined that walking to the station and taking the train and then walking to the school would allow me time to arrive easily and give me a little exercise each day! So I have been walking about four miles each day and even though it may rain sometimes, I can always take the bus, now that I have figured out how to navigate them and where to look on how to get to certain places.

The first week at school was exciting for me because I felt that it was my opportunity to get to know a lot of the school's procedures, policies, and rules, and see how my class was scheduled each day, the teacher's routines and strategies, and get to know my students through interaction. I spent most of my first week observing, taking notes, and assisting the teacher and some small groups, and then also finding ways to become more involved and take initiative as son as I could. I started doing this by volunteering to help where I felt I was needed, and communicating my ideas, opinions, and thoughts on certain projects and lessons my teacher was wanting to do or working on in the class. One thing I did get to do throughout the week and jumped right into was an art activity of building a life-size rocket with the children to decorate and then display to the whole school at their bonfire event. 

The bonfire event was in honor of the holiday in England that is celebrated every year on November 5th, which recognizes Guy Fawkes(April 13, 1570-January 31, 1606) 

who fought in the Eighty Years' War on the side of Catholic Spain against Protestant Dutch reformers in the Low Countries. He travelled to Spain to seek support for a Catholic rebellion in England but was unsuccessful. He later met Thomas Wintour, with whom he returned to England. Wintour introduced Fawkes to Robert Catesby, who planned to assassinate King James I and restore a Catholic monarch to the throne. The plotters secured the lease to an undercroft beneath the House of Lords, and Fawkes was placed in charge of the gunpowder they stockpiled there. Prompted by the receipt of an anonymous letter, the authorities searched Westminster Palace during the early hours of November 5th, and found Fawkes guarding the explosives. Over the next few days, he was questioned and tortured, and eventually he broke. Immediately before his execution on 31 January, Fawkes jumped from the scaffold where he was to be hanged and broke his neck, thus avoiding the agony of the mutilation that followed. Fawkes became synonymous with the Gunpowder Plot, the failure of which has been commemorated in Britain since November 5th, 1605.

My school holds a bonfire event on the weekend following November 5th every year for each class to build something to represent their class that can be burned in the large bonfire. Families and the community are invited to celebrate with the school and are encouraged to bring donations for school funding, which is all set up by the school PTA council. This year, the school chose for each class to build rockets, which needed to be life size, build from scratch, and decorated with something from each student. Then the school holds a contest and has a school-wide vote on which class has the best display. Unfortunately, I did miss this event because I was in Paris, France for the weekend, but I did get to help build the rocket with the children. I heard that the school raised almost 5,000 pounds from the event. 

When I started making the rocket with the children, I had groups of four children come up to help me start putting the structure together. First I had each group help me hold the bamboo sticks while I taped the round willow tree circles I made that would make the outside of the rocket. After getting them all together, I had students help me hold and place other willow sticks to make the sides more durable and make the top part of the rocket. 

Then I used strong glue and sponges to dampen and cover strong white tissue paper that we layered the rocket with, to create the walls and top of the rocket. After letting it dry and putting lots of glue on it, the structure was very durable and did not break.

Students could easily place their pieces that they decorate onto the rocket and draw or  

decorate the entire rocket without it getting damaged. We also added a class logo on the rocket and some flames to make it look cool.

It was a lot of fun for me because it was my first solo interaction with them, my first time that I got to really model and guide them in an activity, and share my knowledge with them by showing some skills of art, creativity, and engineering. And it turned out beautiful! Stood on its own and was decorated on all sides!