This assignment has been written in line with the school confidentiality policy.
My Role
Currently, I am employed as a HLTA at a three form entry junior school (ages 7-11), in South East London. It is an ethnically and economically diverse school and the ethnic diversity is reflected in the staff. My position is full time, with a combination of roles. I have worked at the school for 13 years; my hours are 8.30am to 4.30pm daily.
An integral part of all of my roles is the welfare of the children. Building secure relationships with them and being aware of any issues which may arise. If I have concerns for a child’s well being, the actions I would take include; relaying concerns to the class teacher, learning mentor, SENCO, …show more content…
They shared their ideas for learning their tables either in small groups or at the front of the class, as they felt comfortable. To help consolidate and apply their learning strategies the children were given a problem to solve, initially they were to find ways to solve the problem by themselves and in the next lesson they would be working in mixed ability groups. The problem involved all coins and notes being banned apart from 2p and 3p coins. The children were given a shopping list and had to find ways in which they could purchase these items using just those coins. I worked with two children who are currently below the expected levels of attainment for a child in year 6. Child A is quite outgoing and eager to learn. Child B is desperate for affection and approval but is also afraid to ‘try’ as she does not want to appear ‘dumb’. Child A was immediately able to see the connection between the problem and her recent learning. She began by applying her times table knowledge and then realised she also needed to use previously learnt addition and subtraction. Child A needed very little support/explanation from me outside of a recap of the plenary. I checked in with her at regular intervals to make sure that she was still on task and interpreting the learning objective correctly. Child B needed much more support to complete the task. I asked her precise target driven questions, which enabled her to think about