Dunmurry Primary School
My placement in Belfast is in a small primary school called Dunmurry Primary School. I say a small school because there is one class per grade level. Although this school is considered to be small, the classroom sizes are not what I am used to whatsoever.
I was placed into the P2 classroom, which is considered to be Kindergarten in The States. There are a total of 28 Kindergarteners... In Florida, the classroom limit for Kindergarten tops off at 18 students.
I had never seen, nor have I taught Kindergarten prior to this internship. However, I absolutely love teaching Kindergarten. My P2 class is so well behaved, which 110% comes from my Cooperating Teacher, Mr. Green, who has implemented such amazing classroom management and classroom behavior techniques within this class.
It is literally impossible to have a bad day after working with these kids for 5 hours a day because of their adorable accents, the silly things they say and do, and the amount of respect that they have for their teachers ( I could go on forever ).
I truly give Mr. Green so much credit for being such an amazing teacher to these children. They are so lucky to have a teacher that cares so much about them, does everything in his power to make his lessons full of creativity, surprises and so much more.
The school systems are split up into 4 Key Stages:
Nursery (3-4yrs)
P1 (4-5yrs) Pre-Kindergarten
P2 (5-6yrs) Kindergarten
P3 (6-7yrs) First
P4 (7-8yrs) Second
P5 (8-9yrs) Third
P6 (9-10yrs) Fourth
P7 (10-11yrs) Fifth