Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition

Yesterday evening, I went to the Royal Society’s Summer Science Exhibition. I looked on the website at what would be there and it looked pretty interesting, so I invited a few friends from my undergrad days along. And it was so much better than we thought it would be! The exhibitors were the leading people in their fields and could converse just as easily with primary school children as they could with us and our physical science degrees.

I’m going to surprise you now and say that my favourite stand was not the “Spot the Penguin?” stand about how software has been developed to identify the spots on African black-footed penguins, which are unique to each penguin. I really enjoyed the nanotechnology displays, which surprised me more than anyone!

The exhibition was amazing and incredibly well planned and thought out. It’s on until Thursday, so pop along if you can.

I don’t care if you don’t like it, it has penguins…

I observed possibly the most boring, uninterested Year 6 boy, who we will call Tom, today. He just sat there for ages with the most fed-up expression on his face. I was slightly disillusioned by Year 6’s Maths lesson which seemed to involve every fifth child sitting down, or something like that. It was the weirdest game but I did learn something from it – children will be delighfully quiet if they’re the rules of a game. So I’ve decided that, for KS3 children at least, I’m going to devise some sort of “game” that involves sitting silently and working. Their literacy lesson was slightly dull, I’ll be honest with you. Their teacher read half a chapter of “Kensuke’s Kingdom” by Michael Morpurgo to them. Tom looked like he was going to die. They were meant to be sharing the books one between two, but Tom didn’t look at a book the whole time. I’m not sure the class teacher noticed. If she did, she ignored him the whole lesson. I wasn’t really sure if not acknowledging his behaviour was the right thing to do – I would’ve certainly brought him up on it, even if it wasn’t in front of the whole class. But maybe that’s my inexperience talking. His teacher wants a copy of my observations tomorrow – eek! I’m worried that if I make it look like he’s a poor student, his teacher will take it as an insult of her teaching skills.

Just got back from the shops and I’ve spend nearly £45 on thank you presents for staff and pupils as tomorrow is my last day. (And yes, I did get the “Penguin” book for Year 1, even though I decided it was slightly too immature for them. But it has penguins, so it’s OK.) Tomorrow is sports day and, I’ll be honest with you, I’m dreading it as much as I did when I was in primary school. It’s always too hot, too boring, and there’s never anywhere to pee…

I like doing the computer. I like Ross.

My my my, how crazy Year 1 is. Their main task today was to write their self-evaluations for their annual school reports, commenting on their favourite aspects of the last year. It took me straight back to being in Reception class (many moons ago) when I had to write mine, which my mum still has somewhere. It read: “I like playing in the house. I like doing the computer. I like Ross.”  Some of the children were really special needs, or stupid (I couldn’t tell), and couldn’t spell words like when and the, but that’s by the by.

The morning started off with the most bizzarre thing ever. It was called “Brain Gym“. One of the songs from High School Musical was played in the classroom and the children unrolled their ears (to help them listen), did cross-crawls (to activate both sides of their brains) and rub their lips and throats (there are “brain buttons” there). I mean, really??

We walked to the local library as well, which took about ten minutes. The librarian read them a story about some boy or something and then one about a flying dog. I got really annoyed by this story but thankfully some of the clever dogs say: “Dogs can’t fly!” However, the book goes on to say: “Some dogs can and some dogs can’t.” Ah well. I just hope the children don’t grow up thinking that some dogs really can fly. It’s like the time I was in John Lewis with my better half – we came across a soft toy rabbit that had a pouch on its front with a baby rabbit inside. Now, anyone who knows me knows my classification of species is appauling, but even I know that rabbits are not marsupials. I hope children know that too. Anyway, that’s besides the point. What I wanted to say was that it dawned on me I could get Year 1 as a thank you – Penguin by Polly Dunbar. It’s most awesome book about a young boy called Ben and his friend, Penguin. Finally I have found someone who is of the right age group for the book!

I had really good fun with Year 1 today and I think they responded really well to me. They figured out I was nice but I wouldn’t be nice if they were being rude or disobedient. Their class teacher even commented on how well I was working with them. It did make me think about whether I should actually train to be a primary school teacher, as the thought’s been in the back of my mind for about ten years. But then I realised that (1) I don’t want to ever, ever have to teach art or PE and (2) it’s almost child-minding. So I guess it’s secondary school for me after all. And I do want to use my science degree. After all, I worked hard enough for it.

And just for your information, I’ve managed to eat 100g of pretzels while I’ve been writing this post. Someone’s going to be thirsty later on… And I’ve decided that if I don’t think about just how tired I am, then I won’t be tired! It’s OK, the boyfriend can treat me to dinner later…

Five days here? I reckon I could do that…

Wow! I can’t believe how much fun I had today, or indeed how tired I am. My first task was to paint rat-faces onto the faces of a group of Year 6 boys. I will explain. This morning was Year 6’s class assembly on racism, based on Heartstone. It involved lots of poorly-delivered lines and innocent dance routines to what I would class as inappropriate songs, such as “Toxic” by Britney Spears and “Candyman” by Christina Aguilera. Then I realised that these kids probably didn’t understand the lyrics as they weren’t the most savvy Year 6’s I’ve ever seen. They enjoyed themselves, so I suppose that was the main thing. The school has an incredibly diverse ethnic mix which is what made the assembly a real success and made it accessible to the children. Even the reception class children gained something from it, which is admirable.

After “extended playtime” (as a reward for their hard work), they spent what seemed a lifetime getting changed from their costumes from their assembly and I was introduced to my contact’s class, 6M, by my first name (which did surprise me somewhat). And they took a genuine interest and asked me questions! Have I always wanted to be a teacher? Have I ever had a job before? Which branch or science will I be teaching? That question surprised me as, to be honest with you, I didn’t really think about the different branches of science until they were taught separately to me in Year 7. This lead to a teacher-led discussion about which branch of science certain topics fall into.

After lunch, the two Year 6 groups (60 pupils) and four adults (including myself) went to a local park to do “landscape drawings”. Most of them resembled scribbles that looked like a three-year-old had drawn them but some were pretty good, even including concepts like perspective. And one child drew bits on a church spire that clearly weren’t visible. My boyfriend and I went to the Natural History Museum over the weekend and went to the Human Biology exhibition. There was a section about child development, and how children of a certain age will draw what they know is there, not what they can actually see. (However, the museum display said that children normally grow out of this by the time they are aged 7.) This explains why children draw belly-buttons on people who are wearing clothes!

The staff at this school are really, really friendly and I think I’ll be sad to leave on Friday. (That could all change, I know!) The staffroom is very well-stocked with teabags and mugs and there is an urn, so I’m sorted. Tomorrow I’m spending the day with a “difficult” Year 1 class but I’m really excited – they can’t be as disruptive as some of the boys in Year 6!

On the plus side, the staff were discussing a Year 6 trip to London Zoo next month and invited me along to be one of the supervising adults. (God I’m old…) You know what that means, don’t you? PENGUINS!