Reception teacher interview advice ... hellllllp please

[tak1991]

Hi

I am doing an interview in reception next week and I was thinking of doing fairies. I thought I could introduce a fairy door and dilemma such as that the fairies are on the run from pirates and looking for a safe place to stay. Then encourage the children to design new homes, pirate traps; potions to stop the pirates etc to help the fairies. I would have resources such as large paper in construction area to encourage the boys to design, paper to write letters to the fairies, design sheets, lots of different opportunities to design and encourage the children to all design and write sentences about their designs - as we will be wanting elg evidence at this stage. I have also got some other activity ideas so that I can show how I would set up the environment for other areas as well, not just literacy.

I am just really worried that it is an hour long observation and therefore I am not sure if I should be focusing on one skill specifically (basing myself at a table with an activity on that skill). and making sure all the children use that skill ie. measuring linked to jack and the beanstalk. From my research the school is very pro year 1 being adapted to the play based learning in reception rather than reception being more structured at this time of year to be ready for year 1. I envisage engaged children who come up with all these ideas that they could do before going off and doing it, the same as my class were last year when we did it but it could backfire in my face.

Suggest you post in Staffroom as more teachers hang out there.

No advice, good luck.

(though you seem to be trying to fit an awful lot in)

I would keep it simple if I were you. The observation will probably be focused on your teaching style and ability to control and lead the class. Ensure provision for inclusive tasks and expect to meet some pupils with very little understanding of English language and some in need of additional support. Avoid putting out too many resources and include some 'choral' activities (pupils love phonics and counting challenges in which a larger number of them can get involved or compete) and make it fun. REWARD positive behaviour. Look happy & enjoy! Good luck!

Thank you. I was thinking of having the following activities set up :- a table of fairy books and minute words and sentence strips with magnifying glasses; a playdough table with fairy pictures and prompts to get them to create the fairies; a table asking them to create a fairy house with small construction resources and prompts; a table with letter templates, design sheets etc so that they can draw fairy houses and write letters to the fairies ; a numbers table where i will put wands and ask them to thread number of beads on and then an extensions to be to choose two colours and write numbers sentence.

Then outside I planned to set up a potions lab on a table ( as I have all the stuff from an old interview ) and then hopefully they have a large construction area that I could put large paper, chalks etc out so the children can draw traps to stop trolls and pirates from trapping the fairies.

For the carpet session to start off the lesson I was going to have a fairy door and letter from the fairy saying that they have moved in whilst they are on the run from the pirates. Can they help them? and hopefully this would spark conversation about what they could do to help the fairies ie. create a trap , make a house for the fairies to stay in . Then we would have a plenary after tidy up time where they would return to the carpet and have the opportunity to share their learning that they did during the free flow.

I think your opener and plenary sound great but I think that there is too much going on in the middle. If it's only for an hour, I would cut it down to 3 or 4 activities to focus on. How many children are in the class?

There are 30 I think. I just thought a rule of thumb would be that I am expected to provide activities inside and outside using the areas that I know every reception classroom has- so that it reflects my ability to set up the classroom.

Why would you just encourage the boys to design in the construction? Is it a single sex class?

I wouldn't set up every area, you wouldn't normally theme everything as you want to leave some space for child-initiated learning. An adult led activity, something outside and then 2-3 other enhancements sounds good.

How you would set up a classroom is one thing but if you were to use the fairy theme, you would be carrying it on through a set of lessons so I doubt they will be expecting it all at once. The children will be confused or too excited to have any meaningful learning from so baby activities. Just my opinion. A few activities with lots to keep them occupied would be enough I think. The numeracy activity seems shoehorned in. If the lesson/activity doesn't have numeracy in it, and you can justify why, it should be ok. As long as you can explain why you have done certain things, it doesn't matter how detailed the lesson is. Good luck. I really like the fairy idea.

So many...not so baby..sorry!

Thank you so much . That is probably where I am struggling as at my current school we set up every area for the current theme/ topic.

I'm in Scotland so we have different classes but, as far as I'm aware, your reception is more of a transition between our nursery and primary 1 so maybe a little bit of a more structured set up would be good for an hour of observation. You hopefully have a chance to chat afterwards and can talk about where it would lead with regards to learning and skills development.