School ofPractice

Professional Education
3

102605 Professional Practice Community Engagement - Reflection

Pre-service Teacher Details

Pre-service Teacher Name: Pre-service Teacher ID:

Jennifer Seach 18795136
Pre-service Teacher Phone Number: Pre-service Teacher Email Address:
0432 877 568 18795136@student.westernsydney.edu.au

Placement Details: If you haven’t complete 60 hours face to face you must provide a detailed statement of
how your experience meets the outcomes for Professional Practice 3. Attach evidence.

Placement Name: Placement Phone Number:

Thomas Reddall Year 7 Learning and Support 4625 4404
Placement Address: Thomas Reddall H.S Placement Email Address:
Woodhouse Drive Ambarvale NSW 2560 Bernadette.perusco@det.nsw.edu.au
Contact Person:
Bee Perusco

Describe in 500-800 WORDS any features and benefits of the setting you attended. Consider number of
students, location details, age of students, types of educational programs offered and any other salient
aspects of the experience. Consider how this experience will contribute to your development as a beginning
teacher. (Remember theses can also be used in your Weebly so think carefully about your learning)

AITSL Standards

The criteria for pre-service teacher reflection focus, the first, second, third and sixth standards.
 1.3 Students with diverse linguistic, cultural, religious and socioeconomic backgrounds
 1.5 Differentiate teaching to meet the specific learning needs of students across the full range of
abilities
 2.2 Content selection and organisation
 3.1 Establish challenging learning goals
 6.3 Engage with colleagues and improve practice

Subsidiary questions:
What surprised you about your learning in your community setting?
What research about communities did you engage with before you commenced?
Why were you surprised about your learning?
What goals did you set for yourself in your service learning activities?
In what ways were you communicating with your community participants?
What do you believe the participants in your service learning project learned?
What did you learn? How will the experience shape you as a teacher in a classroom?
How would you help someone else learn what you discovered?

This form is to be completed and submitted to the notes/docs section of your profile within InPlace.
Students who do not submit on time (TBA on vUWS announcements) will receive an FNS.
Reflection
The Professional Practice Community Engagement Practicum undertaken at Thomas Reddall High
School, as part of the Year 7 Learning and Support Program, provided me with the opportunity to
experience the roles, challenges and responsibilities experienced by the Learning and Support Staff
within a secondary school setting. Reflecting the day to day practices of Learning and Support
teachers, my role as part of the Learning and Support program at Thomas Reddall High School, was
complex and constantly changing and evolving throughout the practicum.
The practicum involved spending one day per week at Thomas Reddall High School, in a voluntary
capacity, with each day spent working alternately with two targeted year 7 students. These targeted
students were selected due to their need for additional learning support both within and outside of
regular classroom settings. Student A, was diagnosed with ASD, which manifested in the need for
frequent teacher support, recognition and assistance throughout classroom teaching and learning.
For these reasons, when working with this particular student, my responsibilities included monitoring
the student’s completion of classwork, as well as on-task behaviours. In this capacity I would sit
alongside the student within the classroom and provide additional support, scaffolding and
instruction where necessary, to ensure that the student was able to participate and demonstrate
understanding to the best of their ability. Regular misbehaviour in the classroom meant that I also
fulfilled a supportive role for the classroom teacher by monitoring and redirecting student behaviour
that could otherwise lead to classroom disruption and distraction. The work undertaken alongside
this student was exceptionally rewarding as a developing rapport allowed me to engage with the
student’s needs in a responsive way and to provide a sense of support and consistency across a range
of teachers and curriculum areas.
The second student that I worked with during my placement at Thomas Reddall High School, Student
B, was a very low-level literacy student who demonstrated difficulties across areas of reading, writing
and comprehension. The extent of this student’s difficulties with literacy skills, meant that it was
difficult for teachers to adequately provide the extensive support necessary for this student to
engage with the teaching and learning activities within the classroom. Therefore, my role in working
with this student often involved withdrawal from the classroom to work intensively on developing
essential literacy skills in a one-on-one setting. Working with this student in particular, I found to be
both challenging and rewarding, as intensive sessions, focusing on the development of specific
literacy skills, allowed both myself and the student to observe improvements to their literacy skills as
these sessions progressed.
While this practicum was undertaken in an educational setting that I am familiar with, and one in
which I now work as a casual staff member, involvement in the Year 7 Learning and Support program
at Thomas Reddall High School, provided me with the opportunity to learn and develop my
professional capacity to engage with students to better support their unique learning needs within
the classroom. Furthermore, I believe that my experiences throughout this practicum have been
closely aligned with the requirements of Standard 6.3 of the APST, “to engage with colleagues and
improve practice” (AITSL, 2011, p.18). In addressing this Standard, I have engaged with my practicum
supervisor at Thomas Reddall High School, along with their team of learning and support staff, to
identify and discuss the specific learning and support needs of the two targeted students that I
worked with repeatedly throughout the course of the practicum. Extensive conversations with my
practicum supervisor, unpacking my own experiences with these students, observations, strategies
and any concerns, ensured that I was supported to constantly engage in the reflective practices that
are essential to teaching. In this way, this practicum allowed me to improve my own teaching
practices through engagement with colleagues, as I gained insight and experience into how learning
and support staff operate within schools, to support both students and teachers within the
classroom.