Blimey!!! Year five is different to year 1. Gaining teaching experience...any tips.

[VanillaPumpkin]

My dd's school are being fabulous giving me some classroom experience as I apply for my PGCE. So far I have been doing Key stage 1. I have loved it and have learnt so much. Today I went into year five. Goodness, what a difference! The maths was mind boggling. We also did ICT which was fantastic, but totally new to me using something called Kar2ouche.
I know it seems overwhelming at the moment in part because it is so different, but how can I use this classroom time I am being offered to make the most of my experience. I can be hands on with the KS1 classes as I understand what they are doing. I can't do this with the year five class. Should I just observe and pick up as much as possible. I felt totally out of my depth but the children were utterly charming and showed me their work and explained what they were doing so I still got something from it.....
Waffling now so will stop. Any tips??

Don't worry too much about what they are learning. Observe the teacher and how she/he interacts with the class. Talk to the children.

Thank you. Teacher seems fab and I am amazed how well the class behave ...It is good to see .

Look at how the classroom is organised.How do the children move around the class and how does the teacher enforce rules, give rewards and sanctions? Classroom organisation looks effortless when done well but actually takes a hge amount of skill so if she makes it look easy then dig deeper and ask how. Teaching is all about being reflective and responding to needs.

when you've observed for a bit, it should still be possible for you to help with a small group. perhaps a reading group (would be discussion based rather than reading aloud) or maybe there is a group struggling with a piece of writing or with an area of maths and you would be able to help them finish off, come up with ideas or understand a stratgey.

Watch everything the teacher does and try to figure out how she manages to have such a well-behaved class!

Thank you. These are good tips and very helpful. Giving me a bit of courage .