Placement portfolio example - psychology PDF

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This is an example of how a portfolio for your placement should be set out. This received a first. ...

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Table of Contents 1. Overview of Organisation.....................................................................................................1 1.1

Background to Organisation........................................................................................1

1.2

Organisational Structure..............................................................................................1

1.3

Organisational Culture.................................................................................................3

2. Overview of work role...........................................................................................................3 3. Target Proficiencies Report....................................................................................................5 4. Placement Student Performance Evaluation..........................................................................8 5. Academic Evaluation of Work Role or Element of Work Practice......................................10 6. Reflexive Account................................................................................................................18 6.1 Evaluation of Learning against HCPC Standards of Proficiency...................................18 6.2 Critical Incident..............................................................................................................19 7. References............................................................................................................................22 8. Appendices...........................................................................................................................23 8.1 Job Description...............................................................................................................23 8.1 Placement Diary.............................................................................................................27 8.3 Curriculum Vitae............................................................................................................49

1. Overview of Organisation

1.1 Background to Organisation Goldsmith Infant School is a non-denominational infant school in Southsea that caters for 179 children (42.7% girls and 57.5% boys) from the age of four to seven years old, maintained by the Educational Department of Portsmouth City Council (Ofsted, 2013). The large majority of pupils are of White British heritage, with 72.3% of pupils speaking English as their first language. Goldsmith has a teacher/pupil ratio of 19:1, which is slightly less than average for schools in the UK (Goldsmith, 2017). The last Ofsted inspection was in 2013 and reported Goldsmith to be ‘good’ in all four areas assessed (Ofsted, 2013). The school has six core learning values incorporated into the running of the school (Figure 1; Goldsmith, 2017). These values were derived from Dweck’s research (2006), whereby he argued that through nurturing the correct mind-set, children can be taught that intelligence is not fixed but can be developed through effort. The curriculum of this school is guided by their school aims and learning values, the National Curriculum and Hampshire’s Living Difference Curriculum for religious education (Goldsmith, 2017).

Figure 1. The six learning values guiding teaching at Goldsmith Infants School 1.2 Organisational Structure The control of Goldsmith Infants School lies with the national government. The school’s organisational structure is largely hierarchal and decentralised, with many responsibilities 1

lying with the Local Authorities (LA), governing bodies of schools and head teachers (Goldsmith, 2017). Each school governor represents either the LA, parents, teachers or support staff involved with the school (Goldsmith, 2017). The responsibilities of LAs in relation to the structure of Goldsmith include being the employer of teaching and nonteaching staff and coordinating the school’s admissions processes. Governors and head teachers are in charge for what goes on within the school. For instance, how the school premises will be used; delegation of school budgets and monitoring of the school performance in relation to National Curriculum assessments (Department for Education and Employment, 2001). Figure 2 provides an outline of the organisational structure. National Governement

Governing Body

Local Authority

Headteacher

Site Manager

Premises Manager

Deputy Headteacher

Early Years Leader

Business Manager

Network Manager

IT Technician

SEND & ECAR Leader

Teacher

Admin Office

Attendance Officer

Data Manager

Admin Finance Officer

Admin Assistant

Teaching Assistant

Behavioural Support

Midday Supervisory Assistant

Lunch time assistant

Playworker

Figure 2. Overview of the organisation structure of Goldsmith Infants School (B. Bev, personal communication, March 1, 2017)

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1.3 Organisational Culture There exists a strong relationship between staff members at Goldsmith; this may be explained by the school being small in size, thus every member of staff is seen as an important asset. Also, the less than average number of pupils attending Goldsmith contributes to a good teacher-parent relationship. However, at times this close bond results in school staff gossiping about parents, pupils and other members of staff. Despite the hierarchal structure present in the school, a friendly and informal relationship exists between staff. This can be witnessed through the casual and uninhibited interactions in the school staff room. There is also an absence of formal dress code for all staff members and lenient rules for pupils with regards to their school uniform. The rules of the classroom for teachers and teaching assistants are also very flexible, for example staff are permitted to eat whenever they wish.

2. Overview of work role My work role at Goldsmith infants was as a volunteer teaching assistant, in which I was required to attend a minimum of seven hours a week. However, I attended further hours when additional extra help was needed. In my role, I was accountable to the teacher and headteacher, thus I was required to abide by the school’s code of conduct. The purpose of my role was to work under the guidance of the class teacher in preparing learning activities. Then, in working with small groups of pupils or on a one to one basis, I was to deliver these activities, adjusting the complexity of tasks depending on the pupils’ level of ability. Further to this, I took it upon myself to encourage pupils to take responsibility for their own learning and supported them in building self-esteem. Hansen and Hansen (2010) found that employers want graduates to have skills such as willingness to learn, self-management, communication, team-working, which are important skills that I had to show at Goldsmith. One of my key responsibilities was to observe that school policies, such as the School’s Equal Opportunities Policy was being practiced to prevent discrimination taking place within the school (Goldsmith, 2016). Initially, my role comprised of settling the children into the school routine by interacting with them through their ‘discover and do time’. This is where the children carry out an activity of their own choice. My role was to monitor pupils’ responses to learning to ensure pre-determined learning objectives were being met. On occasion, I was requested to supervise pupils in their outdoor play to ensure the manner in which they played 3

was safe and to resolve any issues arising during their play. I was also provided with the opportunity of carrying out one to one phonics work, whereby I would encourage pupils to practise the phonics letter they had been learning that day. With time, I was entrusted to take on the role of supporting a group of pupils for guided reading and mathematics. In this, I was responsible for supporting the pupils’ learning and supervising their conduct. Using my knowledge of each pupil’s level of development and ability, I was expected to guide and support the pupils in finding answers to assigned activities. The role also required me to provide objective and accurate feedback to the teacher on the performance of the pupil on each activity. Additionally, when pupils faced any problems or if any situation where pupils had fallen out, I was required to find the solution to the problem to ensure that the classroom was running effectively.

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5. Academic Evaluation of Work Role or Element of Work Practice Placement Background The role as a volunteer teaching assistant predominantly required practising with pupils, on a one to one basis, the phonics letter and complicated words being taught on a particular day. Through this experience, my knowledge of the United Kingdom (UK) education system, including relevant government policies was enhanced. The introduction of the National Curriculum, and the pressure to raise standards of teaching has resulted in the government finding alternative strategies to improve pupils’ reading and spelling. (Ofsted, 2014). How effective is the use of phonics as a single method in helping pupils to read and spell? This evaluation seeks to examine the effectiveness of phonics in teaching children to read and write at school. It provides an overview of whether the introduction of phonics has demonstrated positive changes in the way pupils learn. The term phonics can be “defined as an instruction in sound-letter relationship used in reading and writing” (Torgerson, Brooks & Hall, 2006). There are different phonics approaches, however in the UK synthetic phonetics is used. This method enables pupils learning to read to decode unfamiliar words by focusing on individual (or a combination) of letter sounds within words (Lewis & Ellis, 2006). Reception pupils at Goldsmith spend approximately five hours each week learning to read and spell using phonics. This includes a lesson on individual phonic sounds and guided reading to give the children the ability to apply their phonics learning. The role of phonics in teaching children to read and spell has been debated amongst researchers for some time (Willingham, 2015). The dispute revolves around two polarised perspectives. On one hand, there are educators and academics who support the phonic approach; on the other hand, there are those who support a whole-word approach (an approach that encourages to read by sight rather than sounding out words [Stahl & Miller, 1989] (Wyse & Styles, 2007). Despite these differences of opinion, there is some consensus within the academic community that synthetic phonics play an important role in assisting early readers (Erhi et al., 2001). However, the use of synthetic phonics as the single best method for pupils to become proficient readers has also been contested (Pearson & Hiebert, 2010).

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Despite this, the coalition government in 2006, made it mandatory for pupils to be taught predominantly using the synthetic approach (The Department for Education, 2010), proposing that it was the most effective way of teaching pupils to read citing evidence published in The Rose Report (ONS, 2006). The Rose Review made reference to the ‘Clackmannanshire studies’ to support the use of phonics despite the evident methodological flaws in the research (described below). The government was concerned that many children were unable to learn to read by the expected age (Department of education, 2010). Consequently, phonics was introduced as a strategy to increase reading attainment (Riddle, 2014). It therefore became incumbent to distinguish whether the use of synthetic phonics was the optimal means for teaching children to read. One of the major criticisms of The Rose Review was the findings used from the Clackmannanshire study to support the use of synthetic phonics. Firstly, the children included in the study had demonstrated advanced ability in reading and spelling (by seven to nine months) in comparison to those who were taught analytic phonics. Another criticism of the Rose Review is that by the age of seven years old, 14% of children that has been taught using synthetic phonics, were behind in reading comprehension by at least two years (Johnson & Watson, 2005). Rose himself acknowledged that one size does not fit for all children. However, he emphasised that schools should use a vigorous programme of phonic work in teaching pupils to read and spell (Rose, 2006). Rose agreed that phonic work is essential but there should be other variables to assist pupils (Rose, 2006). This questions the government’s initiative in using a phonics-only method in teaching pupils to read. Why is reading and spelling in English so much more difficult than other languages? In the UK, there has been considerable resistance to using phonics due to the inconsistency of the English language in both reading and spelling. This is an important factor that adds to the difficulty of teaching children to read, write and spell (Goswami, 2005). A further difficulty is the phonological complexity of the English language. In contrast to other languages, such as Spanish, Italian, Greek and Finnish, where there is a greater phonologically transparent orthography (Seymour, Aro & Erskine, 2003), English has quite a few words constructed on consonant and vowel (CV) syllables (e.g. shoe or cow) (Landerl, 2000). Thus, relying solely on the use of phonics may be less appropriate for English compared to languages, as only 56% of its words can be predicted by phonological rules due to its deep orthography (writing system) (Crystal, 2000). This was evident in the lower ability children from Goldsmith Infant

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School, where additional help and time was required in helping to understand phonics. Teachers at Goldsmith were required to do one to one tutoring during children’s free time to help grasp each phonic sound. In English, one letter or letter cluster can have several pronunciations; for example, the letter ‘c’ can be pronounced differently depending on the word (Downing, 1962).). The word ‘cat’ uses the same sound as ‘k’; in the word city it uses the same sound as ‘s’ and in the word church using the same sound as ‘ch’ (Berndt, Reggia & Mitchum, 1987). Additionally, a single speech sound can have multiple spelling; for instance, ‘bye’, ‘buy’ and ‘by’. As demonstrated, the complexity of reading and spelling in English makes it improbable that schools across England can adopt a universal method of synthetic phonics (Spencer & Hanley, 2003). This demonstrates the potential flaw in the government’s policy to solely use phonics. In other words, a purely phonic approach should explain complicated rules within phonics; which is not happening across schools (Dombey, 2009). Instead, teachers are required to invent another category know as ‘tricky words’ or ‘red words’ to get children to learn the high frequency words that do not fit in the phonics approach (DfES, 2007). These have to be learned as 'look and say'. However, many of the pupils at Goldsmith demonstrated a tendency to continue to attempt reading the tricky words using phonics. This highlights the potential for ambiguity and the pupils becoming confused. Do children understand what they are reading using phonics? Phonics has been criticised by many researchers for not equipping pupils with the ability to draw meaning from a text. There is a danger of pupils confusing decoding with reading, and in doing so failing to meet the purpose of reading, which is to make meaning (Lyle, 2014). Thus, phonics may be providing pupils with the essential skills to be able to read, but can be argued that it does not enable them to grasp the meaning of texts, which consequently makes reading rather futile (Willingham, 2015). Research has shown that word recognition skills on its own is the best predictor of reading comprehension (McCormick & Samuels, 1979) and also correlated to how well children read later in life (Fuchs & Fuchs, 2005; Oakhill, Cain & Bryant, 2003). This can be seen in the reception class of Goldsmith; many of pupils can identify the words they are taught, however when they are asked to put them into context, many struggle. Uribe (2009) goes on to argue that when pupils begin to read more complex text, pupils will be unable to understand the deep meaning and structure of the text they are reading since they 7

would be too focused on the phonics element. Moreover, Uribe (2009) concludes that phonics, as a single method of teaching to read, has no place in education since pupils get easily bored of phonics activities. This is evident in the pupils of Goldsmith, where when practising phonics sounds, pupils rush the work so that they can move on to a different activity. However, like other educators, Uribe (2009) agrees that some phonics are necessary for pupils to become efficient readers, as it can be used to help understand how to pronounce a word they may not recognise. This suggests that phonics aid pupils in the process of learning to read, and in becoming fluent readers, however phonics techniques are not intended to be used as a sole teaching method. Can one single method help young readers to learn? Many researchers have argued that using phonics as a single method does not lead to efficient readers. For instance, Connelly, Thompson, Fletcher-Flinn and McKay (2009) used a cross sectional method to compare pupils taught using a phonic approach in Scotland with children in New Zealand using non-phonetic text-based approach. The results showed that pupils were able to become skilled readers regardless of the method they method they were exposed to. In line with previous research, those exposed to phonics could decode words faster, but those who were taught the text-based approach showed quicker reading without losing accurate comprehension. This demonstrates that methods other than phonics can help children to read including text-based approaches. This evidence implies that the government should consider combining methods for pupils to become fluent readers. However, a number of factors have contributed to the government introducing phonics as a method to teach children to read. From a theoretical perspective, there is a definite advantage in pupils being taught phonics, one of which is reducing what pupils have to memorise. Gontijo, Gontijo, and Shillcock (2003) found that phonics can be categorised into 195 graphemes and 461 grapheme–phoneme associations. Therefore, regardless of discrepancies in grapheme phoneme correspondences (GPC), teaching phonic skills maybe a more effective method to teaching pupils to read and spell than learning individual words. GPC means that pupils are taught all the phonemes in the English language and how they can write them down. Although, schools are required to use a strictly synthetic phonics model to teach pupils to read, this does not usually happen. Teaching tends to use a mixed method approach, in which a variety of other methods are utilised to support the phonics teaching (Johnston, McGeown 8

& Watson, 2012). This can be seen in Goldsmith Infants whereby, reading schemes are used and the children are required to use the pictures to assist their reading. Therefore, it difficult to differentiate whether phonics alone is working as per the government statistics claim (e.g. ONS, 2010) or whether a synergistic effect of multiple methods is responsible. Therefore, the government is required to test phonics as a single method to see whether phonics is the effective method. This should be designed as a longitudinal study so that the long-term effect of this method may be examined. Conclusion The evidence provided shows that synthetic phonics can be effective in assisting children in their process of learning to read and spell. However, there is no evidence to suggest that a strict phonics-only approach will do any better in the long-term than the traditional methods of using various techniques ...