SCHOOL: Coláiste na hInse, Bettystown, Co. na Mí
PRINCIPAL: Eilis Flood
ART TEACHER/S: Thelma Cunningham & Denise Kierans
CLASS TIMES/GROUP: 1hr single classes
Monday - 4ú (TY) 10-11, 1ú 11-12, 5ú (VS) 1.40-2.40
Wednesday - 2ú 11-12, 5ú (VS) 2.40-3.40
Thursday- 4ú (TY) 11-12, An Cuan (SEN) 12-1
Friday - 2ú 9-10, 1ú 10-11, An Cuan (SEN) 11-12
OVERALL EVALUATION OF 4Yr School Placement
Coláiste na hInse is a mixed LMETB school with a multi-denominational ethos and an enrollment of around 1200 students in the 2021/22 academic year. This school emphasises its love for the Irish language, with frequent use of an chúpla focail in the school’s everyday talk eg. Iníon/Máistir instead of Miss/Sir. CNI is dedicated to realising its mission statement “aimsigh do réalt eolais” (reach your potential of knowledge), operating around its three key words - Uaillmhian (ambition), Bród (pride), and Déarfach (positivity). Students come from all areas around this commuter town in Meath, some from Louth and Dublin, and many from the local towns of Laytown and Bettystown. The school offers state of the art facilities as it was recently built, with an art department of 2 practical rooms; laptop and ipad trolleys, computer rooms, and a newly built Special Needs Unit called An Cuan (the bay).
Over this year, my teaching placement has been the most rewarding and enjoyable experience of my degree. Being able to teach in person with many different groups of students has been great, as I had the opportunity to build a strong rapport with the students and develop my own teacher identity. I took full advantage of being in my host school, teaching Irish to several year groups, subbing for absent teachers, observing classes in multiple theory and practical subjects, and taking advice from every member of staff I talked to. My two host teachers were so supportive of me, as was the senior staff of the school, and provided me with an experience I couldn’t be more grateful for. In addition to being in my host school four days a week, my once a week classes with NCAD tutors provided me with the same level of support and guidance, and helped me along the way to adapt to challenges and successfully deliver my units of learning.
I have found that I have really come into my own in terms of my teaching style and delivery, having greatly improved my skills in classroom management and communication. I really enjoyed facilitating conversations and debates in my classes to discuss topics surrounding art, and have had no behavioural issues with any of my students, which I believe is in part due to developing a strong rapport with my students, and my own teaching philosophy of mutual respect. My planning and preparation has improved greatly, and I have definitely seen the effect of having strong visual aids, and discussing success criteria with students to motivate them and give them the most support in order for them to reach their full potential.
Requesting to teach a group in An Cuan is an experience in particular that I really enjoyed, and I have definitely improved in my overall skills of differentiating. Working in SEN is something I would like to possibly pursue to teach full time in the future. Incorporating all of the different teaching methodologies I have learned in NCAD like peer learning, using rubrics, evaluations and self reflections has been incredibly beneficial to all of my classes, and I have had a much more positive experience developing and delivering my units of learning, as I understand how all of these skills and methodologies combine and work together in symbiosis. Using learning layers to incorporate and discuss themes about the environment, social media, community, consumption and decolonisation has been a really fruitful experience, being able to teach topics that both I am interested in and that are interesting and engaging to my students.
Some things I would like to improve include evaluations and demonstrations. Using effective evaluations to lead to the next activity, and using different types of evaluations (formative/summative) like peer evaluations, questioning, reflective statements etc. have been used in my many units of learning, but through further experience I would definitely like to have these be more succinct. Using more rubrics in all of my classes would also improve my methods of student self evaluation. Demonstrating is another skill that I need more experience with, as during covid I have really relied on using online resources to guide students - using visualisers, demonstrating in groups and using visual aids to guide questioning have all been things I introduced during this placement and have been quite successful, and I would like to use these a lot more in the future.