PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

4 Week Block Placement - Report

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Pre-service Teacher Sally Mableson

School

Port Noarlunga Primary School

Mentor Teacher

Joshua Withers

Year Level: 1/2

School Co-ordinator Jo Rowell

Liaison
University

Coordinator
Dr Barbara Nielsen

Gwenda Cunningham

25

Number of days completed

School Context
School Sector, size and composition
of campus. (R-12, Area, Primary).
Particular features or characteristics.
Students

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30 June 15 August 2014

Student ID: 2096106

Please add a brief context statement about your school

PNPS is located in the southern region of Adelaide with

approximately 450 students from Reception through to Year 7.
The Early Years Sector has a strong focus on Jolly Phonics,
Natural Maths, Guided Reading and Natural Play. Our class is
comprised of 24 students from varied backgrounds including
trauma, ADHD and global delay.
Summary Statements: Classroom Teacher/Mentor

Professional Relationships
Professional &Collegial Learning
Teachers actively engage in personal
and collegial learning within the
professional community

Comments

Sally was receptive to her feedback following on from lessons,

whole school professional development and team-meetings. She
implemented these new skills into her lessons readily, which is an
area for further improvement.

Learner Respect
Teachers foster trusting and
respectful relationships with all
learners

Sally was aware of the challenging behaviours within the

classroom and did her best to manage these. She was able to
negotiate with students when confronted with challenging
behaviours. Her strength in this area will develop with further
experience in a classroom setting.

Parent/caregiver & Community

Partnerships
Teachers work effectively with
parents/caregivers and the wider
community

Sally was effective in working collaboratively in groups and with

the wider community partnerships. This included organising a
Nude Food Day, attending whole school professional
development sessions, observing parent/teacher interviews and
attending to early years meetings.

Professional Knowledge
Learning Processes
Teachers know about learning
processes and how to teach and
implement

Learning Content
Teachers know the content they
teach

Learner Context
Teachers know about learner
contexts and diversity

Comments

Sally delivered a unit on time and fractions. Her original planning

needed workshopping to ensure that there were assessment
aspects, differentiated activities and correlated within the
Australian Curriculum Framework. She learnt over her time, ways
to group students based on ability and structure a lesson. Her area
of improvement is to focus on on-going assessment and planning,
to inform her teaching and learning practice.
Sally developed confidence in her topic gradually and was willing
to test out lessons/activities. She developed an awareness of how
students were coping and was able to stop a lesson, should it be
ineffective. Sallys lack of confidence in her spelling ability and
grammar knowledge was a slight concern.
Sally was aware of the class behavioural needs and trialled a range of
behaviour management strategies. For example hocus pocus-time to
focus and macaroni and cheese-everybody freeze. The success of her
behaviour management was varied; Sally will further develop her
confidence and her behaviour management skills with further practise in a
classroom setting, over time. Sally gave the students a pre-assessment of
their existing knowledge and occasionally differentiated the curriculum to

suit their needs. With more experience I feel that this will become an
integrated aspect of her teaching pedagogy.

Professional Practice

Comments

Planning & Teaching

Teachers plan and implement
teaching strategies for successful
learning experiences

Feedback & Reporting

Teachers assess and report learning
outcomes

Learning Environment
Teachers create a safe, challenging
and supportive learning environment

Sally was able to deliver a unit on time that had utilised ICT, group work
and natural play. She adopted feedback and utilised it as best possible in
her lessons. Based on the final assessment and observations of the
students, more hands on practice of the core Australian Curriculum skills
for particular year levels would have been beneficial. Her success reflects
her current experience, which is as expected of her position as a preservice teacher.

Although Sally conducted pre-assessment activities with students,

she found it difficult to continue ongoing, formative assessment
throughout the unit of work. Familiarity with implementing and
assessing using the Australian Curriculum would have further
assisted her in this area.
Sally has a kind and friendly persona and the students found her to be
approachable. Although the placement length was rather short, she soon
began to understand the need for firm boundaries and expectations for
the class. At times the class did not respond to some of the strategies she
utilised, which will be imperative for her to acquire, prior to the completion
of her degree. Continuing to observe, teach and reflect in different school
and classroom contexts, will be highly beneficial in developing these
skills.

PRE-SERVICE TEACHER COMMENT

During my time on placement I gained unique skills, teaching methods and experience in daily routines from
being in the classroom. I was able to discover and develop my own individual teaching techniques and
pedagogies. From this I could identify with areas of strength and improvement. I had the opportunity to
experiment with and develop lessons plans and activities within the placement time. However, I am aware
some areas will need development through further experience in a classroom setting. Through staff meetings I
could interact and learn from other teachers and received the opportunity to undertake teacher personal
development days to work collaboratively to gain skills and knowledge of imbedding general capabilities in the
Australian Curriculum.

Date:05/09/2014
Summary Statement: School Coordinator/Principal
Sally certainly worked well I her time with us. She tried hard at all times and showed pleasing growth in her
knowledge and understanding of how a classroom works. We found Sally to be personable and friendly at all
times.

Date: 5 Sep. 2014

Summary Statement: University Liaison

I believe that Sallys Pre-Service Teacher Comment is an accurate assessment of her Professional
Experience in her Year 1 / 2 class. She took advantage of her opportunities to develop her teaching
individuality and from that to assess where her strengths are and what needs further development. The
students showed respect and enjoyed her relevant, well-planned lessons.

Sally demonstrated the teaching skills required to undertake her final year of study in 2015.
Date: 8 Sep. 2014
OVERALL ASSESSMENT

To be agreed by the Mentor Teacher and the University Liaison

In our opinion, the pre-service teachers performance on this Professional Experience has been:
Satisfactory

Not Satisfactory

And s/he is ready/not ready to undertake the final Professional Experience next year.
Verified by University Coordinator
Date