Firstly, apologies for taking this long to update, I am intending for it to be at least once a week in the future and will do my very best to stick to it.
For my first (proper) post, since I'm over a month into my time as an assistant, it seemed pointless to regurgitate the generic moving abroad, stressful first few days settling in scenario, so thought I´d go for a general overview of my school and teaching so far.
The school I'm working at is Institucio La Vall in Sabadell, a wealthy suburb of Barcelona. It is what is known as a concertado school, which is a bit tricky to explain but I´ll do my best... a kind of semi private school that receives public funding from the government, but has usually been founded and primarily financed by a private organisation. For many concertado schools, including mine, this is often a religious organisation/order.
The school is an all girls one and the staff consist of only women as well, which I found to be intriguing as well as quite strange, to be in such a female dominated environment. Having asked one of the teachers out of genuine interest and curiosity, she mounted an incredibly passionate defence of this separation of the sexes, which in this case lasts until the end of secondary school. Apparently, studies have shown that girls and boys thrive more, both academically and emotionally, in single sex educational establishments. While I don't pretend to be an expert on this topic, I am not entirely sure if this logic stretches to the teaching staff as well. I would have thought that young children require both male and female positive adult role models to learn from and aspire to, but as I said, just my humble opinion.
For my first (proper) post, since I'm over a month into my time as an assistant, it seemed pointless to regurgitate the generic moving abroad, stressful first few days settling in scenario, so thought I´d go for a general overview of my school and teaching so far.
The school I'm working at is Institucio La Vall in Sabadell, a wealthy suburb of Barcelona. It is what is known as a concertado school, which is a bit tricky to explain but I´ll do my best... a kind of semi private school that receives public funding from the government, but has usually been founded and primarily financed by a private organisation. For many concertado schools, including mine, this is often a religious organisation/order.
The school is an all girls one and the staff consist of only women as well, which I found to be intriguing as well as quite strange, to be in such a female dominated environment. Having asked one of the teachers out of genuine interest and curiosity, she mounted an incredibly passionate defence of this separation of the sexes, which in this case lasts until the end of secondary school. Apparently, studies have shown that girls and boys thrive more, both academically and emotionally, in single sex educational establishments. While I don't pretend to be an expert on this topic, I am not entirely sure if this logic stretches to the teaching staff as well. I would have thought that young children require both male and female positive adult role models to learn from and aspire to, but as I said, just my humble opinion.
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La Vall, exterior view
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The Institucio as a whole covers all ages from nursery all the way through to the end of secondary, but I am working at the Colegio (primary school) with the younger classes whose ages stretch from 4 to 7 years. In the process of applying for this job, I did actually request to work with younger students, since I often found the unwillingness to participate and attitude of older teenage students to be a challenge during my year teaching in France. However, that certainly does not mean that little ones do not present their own set of equal demands.
As I had thought, their enthusiasm is fantastic and very infectious, safe to say I have never had to really prompt my classes for a response. In fact I usually get a veritable sea of hands with kids straining out of their chairs to be chosen to answer. They are, for the most part, very sweet and I have quickly become accustomed to the choruses of "Hello Miss Lizzie!" that greet me around the school, which is often accompanied by them throwing their arms around my waist or leg (something else I have discovered, how tactile Spanish schoolchildren are, in a way that does not and probably would not be allowed to happen in English schools, not passing judgement on it though it was a little disconcerting to begin with, just an interesting comparison).
On the other hand, there are undeniable challenges. Getting a full class of 4 year olds to sit down in a state of relative quiet, especially when the standard "Miss Lizzie, you speak Catalan/Spanish? Me no understand!" starts and soon spreads round the class like wildfire, is the first and most frequent I encounter. The petty squabbles that naturally erupt between 5 year olds and result in hair pulling/bursting into tears, usually over something like a refusal to lend a coloured pencil, are difficult to police. As a generalisation, my first and second year classes are OK whereas my third years are more difficult ie. boisterous and downright rude at times, but everyone has their nightmare group(s) and I've quickly learned that a firm hand is definitely required for some classes and a softly softly approach for others.
I'm aware this has been a fairly long post, so I'll wrap up now. Apologies for the lack of pictures so far which is due to me having mislaid my camera usb cable in travelling transit, expect a slew of them in about a month's time when my Mum comes to visit and brings me a new one. In the meantime though, I'll still try to end each post with a photo and/or funny story as a sign off. My funny story of this week is a girl from one of my third year classes who came up to me and asked, with complete sincerity and innocence, "Miss Lizzie, please can I go blow my snot?" 1- impressive vocabulary for a 7 year old, but far more importantly, adorable and hilarious.
Any comments/questions are more than welcome, thoughts on anything discussed here ie. single sex education, challenges of and differences between teaching older and younger students. Equally, please feel free to read at your leisure without the requirement to comment or question.
As for my picture, limited options due to reasons already detailed, and while this one is not exclusively about this post's content, it's moments like it that make me forget the bad days at school with the bratty kids, rather I remember and appreciate how lucky I am to get to live in such a beautiful city.
As I had thought, their enthusiasm is fantastic and very infectious, safe to say I have never had to really prompt my classes for a response. In fact I usually get a veritable sea of hands with kids straining out of their chairs to be chosen to answer. They are, for the most part, very sweet and I have quickly become accustomed to the choruses of "Hello Miss Lizzie!" that greet me around the school, which is often accompanied by them throwing their arms around my waist or leg (something else I have discovered, how tactile Spanish schoolchildren are, in a way that does not and probably would not be allowed to happen in English schools, not passing judgement on it though it was a little disconcerting to begin with, just an interesting comparison).
On the other hand, there are undeniable challenges. Getting a full class of 4 year olds to sit down in a state of relative quiet, especially when the standard "Miss Lizzie, you speak Catalan/Spanish? Me no understand!" starts and soon spreads round the class like wildfire, is the first and most frequent I encounter. The petty squabbles that naturally erupt between 5 year olds and result in hair pulling/bursting into tears, usually over something like a refusal to lend a coloured pencil, are difficult to police. As a generalisation, my first and second year classes are OK whereas my third years are more difficult ie. boisterous and downright rude at times, but everyone has their nightmare group(s) and I've quickly learned that a firm hand is definitely required for some classes and a softly softly approach for others.
I'm aware this has been a fairly long post, so I'll wrap up now. Apologies for the lack of pictures so far which is due to me having mislaid my camera usb cable in travelling transit, expect a slew of them in about a month's time when my Mum comes to visit and brings me a new one. In the meantime though, I'll still try to end each post with a photo and/or funny story as a sign off. My funny story of this week is a girl from one of my third year classes who came up to me and asked, with complete sincerity and innocence, "Miss Lizzie, please can I go blow my snot?" 1- impressive vocabulary for a 7 year old, but far more importantly, adorable and hilarious.
Any comments/questions are more than welcome, thoughts on anything discussed here ie. single sex education, challenges of and differences between teaching older and younger students. Equally, please feel free to read at your leisure without the requirement to comment or question.
As for my picture, limited options due to reasons already detailed, and while this one is not exclusively about this post's content, it's moments like it that make me forget the bad days at school with the bratty kids, rather I remember and appreciate how lucky I am to get to live in such a beautiful city.
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| Surely needs no titular caption, beautiful night-time view. |
x :)
Lizzie - read your blog post and it is delightful! I will comment on the separation of the genders - it does help up to a point. In a literature class or a math class single gender classrooms tend to be less inhibited by the presence of the other gender. Boys can be boys and girls can be girls if the other sex is not there to make them feel uncomfortable. They tend to go deeper into the lit or ask more math questions if they are not worried about what the other sex may think of them. However, with religious schools I personally believe it is more tradition than research based. Just my opinion. Enjoy your time there, my Girl.
ReplyDeleteHey Bonnie! Thanks so much for reading and your comment, that's what I thought as far as the academic benefits of single gender schools, but you're right that my school is Catholic and the teacher I asked did talk about how kids get distracted by hormones in adolescence and end up concentrating on each other rather than studying, which sounds more like the fear factor over research based logic. I'm still sceptical about single gender staff though, we shall see if my opinion changes over this year. Thank-you again for getting in touch, hope you're well & continue enjoying my blog! x :)
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