Nijmegen 2012: Week 6 26th Feb - 3rd March (Professional)

This week has been successful in terms of developing my professional experience as a training teacher. My placement school is called Ulenhof College. I have found a number of differences between the Ulenhof College and the typical Northern Irish School. Firstly Dutch schools generally start earlier, for example my placement school starts at 8:15 am, whereas schools at home would usually start around 9am. However, the schools finish around the same time, usually around 3:30pm. In addition, most pupils would cycle to school in the Netherlands instead of getting the bus to school. Therefore, I found it odd that my placement school does not have a bus park.

My placement school also holds meetings once a month about every class. For example all the teachers across all subjects will meet to discuss the progress of each pupil across each subject area. I found this extremely interesting as most schools at home would not do this. It is clear that there are valuable benefits from such meetings in terms of discovering areas where pupils are struggling or need extra help. It is also valuable as it allows time for teachers to work together and learn good practices from each other. Another difference I noticed was that my placement school has a cleaning rota. This is where a different form class is responsible for cleaning the halls and emptying the bins each week. Perhaps this is something that could be useful to implement in Northern Irish schools to help pupils respect their school.

My placement school; Ulenhof College

This week, as part of the re-thinking education module, the whole class had a visit to a Waldorf (Steiner) school. Before the visit I read about the educational philosophy of Rudolf Steiner and how the Waldorf School was formed. I read about how the Waldorf approach emphasises the role of imagination in learning and focuses on developing thinking that includes a creative as well as an analytical component. The overall goal of the approach is to allow young people to develop into free, moral and integrated individuals.

The school we visited was called Rudolf Steiner School De Meander. Upon arrival we were greeted by the headmaster. He explained that the school wants the pupil to imitate what the teachers do, so if the teacher cooks then the child will also cook. Therefore, they treat the children like adults at such a young age. They also value the importance of children cleaning up after themselves. This helps each child maintain good habits, by showing respect to the environment and to each other. There are no plastic toys to be found in the school as they prefer to use objects from nature. This was visible when we visited the playground. Everything in the playground was made with wood and the basketball net was made with a basket with its bottom cut off.

The school had no computers and no interactive whiteboards. The headmaster explained that they do not believe in using computers for teaching, as it is the virtual world and not real. I found this extremely odd as computers are such a big part of today’s society, it is strange that a school would not want to do this as surely the pupils will need to use computers in future life. Lacking ICT skills may have serious consequences in terms of employability.

In the Waldorf School the pupil’s relationship with the teacher is very important and teachers would shake hands with each pupil at the start and at the end of each class. The curriculum is based on learning about things in the real world and therefore creativity and music are very important. The first two hours of school from 8:30 to 10:30 is usually a lesson on math or language. It was interesting to find out that the school does not use text books. The class will have a plan of what they have to learn but the teacher and pupils together will decide how they will learn this.

Rudolf Steiner School De Meander

The school promotes confidence in every child as they do not believe that anyone should tell you how you should live or behave. The headmaster explained that by the time each pupil is 18 years old they know their potential and know what they want from their life. They are equipped and ready to become a member of society. I found this point extremely interesting as I feel this is nearly opposite in Northern Ireland. From my experience, I feel that most people back home don’t recognise their full potential and a lot of students will leave school and university still feeling unsure of what career they wish to follow. I think the pupils are a lot more independent and confident in comparison to Northern Irish schools. I found it interesting that the headmaster explained how there is scientific research to explain how pupils who attend the Waldorf schools do not do as good in exams in comparison to a standard Dutch school child. However, he explained that research has also suggested that the pupils are more interested in continuing to learn, whereas at the end of school other pupils tend to be exhausted from learning. This is extremely interesting as it is clear that these pupils will have valuable skills in lifelong learning and will continue to learn more throughout their lives.

Below are a few photos of more exciting things we did this week