LEARNING CURVE?

Q:  Why did you choose to study education?

A:  Teaching has always been a passion of mine. That’s why I decided to study education for early years at university. To help me make my decision in entering this field of studies I did my work experience at an infant school, where I helped with reception class.  Now that I have graduated and gained even more experience I am so happy to be going into this field of work and have enjoyed studying this subject.  Education in the early years is so important as that is when children start to develop their skills and they are free to explore different methods of learning.

Q:  What do you think about the educational system in England?

A:  I think that the system in England is working; however, I feel that there should be more teacher child ratio within the nursery setting. Also, I think that people underestimate the job of a nursery teacher because they think it is easy to just look after little kids; but in reality, the teachers have a large number of jobs that they need to do and they work very hard. I think that the secondary education system is pretty good, but the students may feel a little more pressured as the GCSE exams are currently earlier than they used to be. Having said that, I feel that the system in this country is more relaxed than the system in Germany. The children are under even more pressure there because if they do not reach their target grade in 1 subject they have to resit the whole year. As well as that, every year is equally as important as a GCSE or A level year because the children’s achievements and progress throughout the years are assessed to help teachers decide whether they are able to attend the 'Gymnasium' which is a school with high standards or 'Realschule' which has average standards. In England no matter which secondary school you attend, you always have the chance to get into university with your A levels, however in Germany there is a waiting list, and the opportunity to go to university is more of a challenge for the children attending 'Realschule'.

Q:  What do you think about the recent changes to this system?

A:  I think that the changes which have been made for the early years concerning the teacher child ratio are not the best idea. This is because there are so many different areas in which children develop, and in order to make sure all children are being given enough attention on all areas it would be easier to have more teachers. As I said before, the teachers have a lot of responsibilities as well as following the EYFS (Early Years Foundation Stage) for child development.

Q:  Do you think these changes could be beneficial to the children?

A:  I think one of the changes which will really benefit children in the future would be the increase of knowledge with technology as now we seem to be depending a lot on computers instead of manual work.  Right now interactive whiteboards are being used a lot in classrooms to help children learn, and from experience I think this is a great idea. Children in the nursery are focused on what they see on the whiteboard and when it comes to playing games they all make contributions building up enthusiasm in their learning.

Q:  What do you think education will be like in the future?

A:  I think expectations of grades will rise for secondary schools, so they will be a lot stricter. This can be good and bad for the children though. Some children may feel more pressured which then de-motivates them or children are able to reach their targets in all the tests they take.  ICT will be more of a compulsory subject.  I only say this because of how much computers are used nowadays. You need to be computer literate for most jobs now to be honest. With teaching you are going to need basic computing skills for the interactive whiteboards, at university lecturers depend on their power point presentations.