Alrighty, where to start...
Last week was a fun one. I spent the majority of the week at a school in Hackney working with an Autistic child. He was incredibly sweet, smiley and pleasant to be around but did not speak at all. I sat with him in his own section of the room doing puzzles with him, matching activities, and that sort of thing. I was told to come up with some of my own ideas to see what he was and was not able to do. That was great, I got to pull out my own resources to see if he could write or draw anything, use scissors, recognize colours... I was amazed when I asked him to find the blue fish and he did! The next day he could find the red and green. The classroom teacher had no idea he knew his colours or could understand when people talked to him at all. That was absolutely amazing and I hope I enjoy all my work as much as I did in that school.
Friday I was told I was doing an observation at a school to see what the nursery is like and determine whether or not I want to apply at that school. I got there and found out that rather than observing- I was being observed. That scared me at first but then I decided it would be fine, went over the lessons and went with it. There were 2 fantastic TA's helping me as well. During the class I was being observed, I had no clue how long of a lesson to teach or what exactly it was supposed to be. My instructions were: role play Goldilocks. There were 2 different Goldilocks books and I wasn't sure what to focus on for the role play. I chose one and had student volunteers come up to do exactly what happened during the story- a different group each page. At the end I had them recreate the story as a whole. I had props pulled from the classroom to use for the entire thing. At the end of the day, I talked to the HeadTeacher and found out that the lead of the Early Years loved my lesson. I have another observation on Monday and if it goes well- a job offer and meeting the students parents in late December for a January start. It's a great school with amazing staff that is not very far away.
I'm not entirely sure what to do as of now. The nursery is nice but the students are 3 and 4 and still have accidents. My ultimate goal is to work as a special needs teacher and students are not recognized as having an exceptionality until generally year 1 or 2 at earliest. Therefore my experience would not necessarily match the age group or type of students I want to be working with later.
Another possibility is working as a teaching assistant with a child with Autism. The other teaching agency mentioned an opening that I can do a trial for. That is exactly the type of experience I am looking for- except the pay is half as much and I will not gain teaching experience, only teaching assistant experience.
Alternatively, I could continue to supply, apply for jobs in years 1 and 2, apply to a separate company dealing with working with special needs students... I'm just not sure which job will put me on the right path for the future. I'm hoping to talk to one of the agencies tomorrow before I get to the school. If anyone with knowledge of this sort of thing has some advice- I'd love to hear it.
Aside from the work week, Matt and I went grocery shopping the majority of Saturday and watched a movie in the evening. Today we went to the mall to browse and grab a few more things we needed. I got a watch for using at the grade schools and a pair of new dress shoes (mine have a hole in the top that is getting more and more noticeable). We had dinner afterwards and are about to shower, possibly watch a short show and get some sleep.
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