Teaching............ magic moments included!

Just before the summer mid term break my pupils had completed their end of year assessment papers in reading, writing and maths and over the last couple of days they had been asking me to tell them their test results.  Today we had a window of opportunity so we all sat on the carpet, me armed with my huge assessment folder.  My teaching assistant loves being part of this and will leave what ever she is doing to join us.  Now many of the children have made significant academic progress, some encouraging progress and some have made smaller steps of progress so I have to be very careful how I feed back to them.  You see my focus is not just on the raw progress, rather on the whole child and so in feeding back I use carefully chosen words and phrases so that I build each child up by highlighting their strengths and successes first before moving on to points for improvement, all wrapped around their actual test scores.  It truly is a magical moment, to see the beams on their faces, for themselves and each other.  They even applauded one another.  I always end by telling them to share all I have said with their parents.

Being given the job of caring for children in my capacity as a teacher is a privilege (I knew it was what I wanted to do from about the age of 8) and today (day 179) I am most humbly thankful.

Be blessed this weekend in all that you do.................