First Week at Harby!

Today ended my first week at Harby School, alongside thirteen Reception children. We have had a interesting week settling in, getting to know each other and the school!

I have found working in Reception a little strange to begin with, as both the behaviour and the pace of learning is very different compared to Westfield. Whereas as Westfield a lot of time was devoted to behaviour management and PSHE/SEAL type activities, at Harby this isn't required to such an extent. As we are just settling in there has been a greater focus on playing and getting to know one another rather than discrete "lessons", as in Foundation Stage learning through play takes a greater emphasis. This has meant I've had the opportunity to spend a lot of time with and observing each individual child getting to know them and their likes/dislikes. As a result I was able to choose our first theme "space" based around a common interest amongst most the children. After introducing the topic, we created mind maps in small groups to discover what we already knew about space and what we would like to learn. Today was mainly devoted to turning our "house" into a space rocket! The children had great fun turning our yellow helmets into space ones with silver foil, and making pictures of moons, planets stars and space rockets to decorate the shed. Allowing the children to take ownership in this way has already proved to be powerful, as they are all excited about learning more and have been coming up with new ideas throughout the day. 

Another highlight of the week: Experimenting with Ice Balloons and Salt.