Work experience at Rainbow Nursery

During my first few weeks at my placement at St Anns, I worked with year 1 pupils and nursery pupils.
My role at the nursery was to help the children with their school work and supervise them during
lessons and breaks, as well as tidying the classroom. My time at St Anns improved my effectiveness
as a career in three ways. It taught me how to behave around children. When I first started working at
St Anns, I was still incredibly shy and was not sure how to interact with the children but through
observing the permanent staff there. I learnt that you should always try to be happy around them, you
cannot bring any personal issues to work with you if you are working around children as they are very
intuitive and will quickly pick up on the fact that you are unhappy it will affect them and make them
upset.

I took part in PE classes with the year one’s with at St Anns. The teacher gave the children
instructions as how to move around the gym. For example, the teacher told them to walk or run slowly
around the gym like an animal or try and make different shapes with their bodies. Whilst the children
were taking part so did I and the teacher to make the activity enjoyable and to encourage the children.
Unexpectedly the children became over excited and started to mess around, I had to help calm them
down which was a little difficult as I was just a student in the class. This helped me learn how to be
authoritative and command respect by telling them how to quieten down and tell them why they
should calm down. Also I have learnt from this that you must always tell children why you are telling
them off, as they will start to learn to look at things from a different viewpoint.

I learnt that you have to be firm and persistent with children if they are to take you seriously and learn
to behave. Otherwise they will keep behaving badly and will not have any respect for authority.
However my work experience at St Anns brought me to contact with various different types of pupils
as every pupil is not the same, for example an autistic pupil. This taught me how to interact with them
the correct way.

While at Rainbow Nursery, I worked with children aged 2-6 for a block week work placement. The
experience complemented my time at St Anns, although I was exposed to different experiences such
as helping the children with French lessons. During the lessons I taught and helped the children say
and pronounce the words that were being taught.

At St Anns, the children do not learn languages until they leave the nursery and transfer to the junior
part of the school. In this respect, although I preferred working at St Anns, Rainbow prevents their
children having difficulty at learning languages in the future as I have heard that it is best to start
languages at an early age.

Furthermore, whilst working at Rainbow, I encouraged the pupils as they practised and preformed
‘Little Red Riding Hood’ play. I helped them remember there little lines and commanded them to be
quiet and focus when they started to lose interest. I also helped staff at Rainbow make the costumes
of the characters for the play by helping them cut out the materials and sew them. This was a
successful activity as the staff were thankful for my help and by working as a team we got the task
done quickly and efficiently. This activity also helped me develop my social skills which helped me
improve my self-esteem and confidence levels.

Working at both nurseries has also taught me how to care for children more efficiently. For example, I
now talk and play with children at play time, comfort them when they are upset.

Conclusion:

When I first started my work experience at Rainbow Nursery in the first year of my course I was very
nervous as I have not really worked with young children before and I was not sure if I would be any
good at teaching and helping them. I think this was because I was not sure if the children would like
me as I was a new adult in their class, however, I got used to the environment and as the children got
used to me, working with them helped me to come out of my shell and be more socially active. During
my days there I would read them stories and play with them in the playground.

Although, I enjoyed working in Rainbow Nursery, I benefited more from working at St Anns Primary
School. The staff at Rainbow were not as friendly and pleasant as the staff at St Anns and also the
school environment at St Anns is much better and comfortable. The children are all very well behaved
at St Anns unlike Rainbow. They also have a very strict ‘no bullying’ system which at Rainbow the
staff did not seem to enforce properly.

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