A Typical Day at Scoil Iosogain CBS Primary

My placement is at Scoil Iosogain Christian Brothers School Primary (CBS Primary) in Limerick City, Ireland. It is an all-boys Catholic school that serves students from second to sixth class (the equivalent of 2-6th grade) and has about 240 students.  Most schools in Ireland are Catholic school, especially in this particular region of country.  This school stands out compared to other schools in the area because many students in the school come from disadvantaged communities and are new immigrants, some attending formal full-time school for the first time. Most schools in Ireland have a very homogeneous population of students, white Irish and Catholic, but many of the students in this school come from Afghanistan, speak Pashtu at home, and are Muslim.  This sudden increase of immigrants in the school has only happened in the last 10 years, which means the school has had to adapt quickly to the sudden influx of immigrants.

8:00 am- Arrival
I take the bus for half and hour from University of Limerick to CBS Primary. I go to my placement on Mondays and Wednesdays.  After I arrive, I go to the staff room to drop off my lunch, have a cuppa tea, and talk with the other teachers while we wait for the morning bell to ring.

9:00 am- Maths
Class starts and students stream into the classroom after playing outside in the school yard.  The students line up behind their teachers as each teacher brings their respective class up to their room. The day starts for me in sixth class where I help the students with their maths.  There are three teachers who work with the sixth class maths subject and are in three separate classroom.  The students are placed with a certain teacher according to ability level.  The teacher usually presents a large group lesson and then assigns independent work for the duration of the class.  Sometimes the teacher adds in a little Gailge, Gaelic, lesson at the end or before starting maths.

11:00 am- Break
Tea Break!  The students bring up crates with snacks and the teachers go down to the staff room.  I was surprised the first time I saw all the teachers in the staff room while the students were in the classroom by themselves, but it seems to work fine for them.

11:30 am-Literacy
I move to one of the fifth class teacher's class for their literacy block.  I've noticed that the deputy principal, the equivalent of a vice principal in the US, is very involved with teaching the students.  I'm not sure if this is particular to this school because of its unique circumstance within the context of Ireland, but the deputy principal helps teach many of the students throughout the day and acts like a paraprofessional.  Literacy is usually done in stations so I supervise one of the stations, usually handwriting.  The students have to copy letters, words, and sentences into their copy books to practice writing legibly.  I haven't seen this done as much in the US, but I think that it is a useful skill to practice especially since I've noticed many students in the US have very poor handwriting.

12:30 pm-Lunch/Recess
The students start eating some of their lunch in the classroom before heading outside for recess and I head back down to the staff room.  The teachers alternate recess duty from day to day.

1:30 pm
I have been with different teachers every afternoon, sometimes I'm in one of younger classes like second or third class and sometimes I'm working with some individual students who need extra help in literacy.  Most recently I was with the English as an Additional Language class (EAL) during a Language Experience session where the students play games to practice using their English vocabulary that they have learned during the week. 

2:30 pm- Dismissal
The teachers bring the students outside to the school yard and the children are dismissed for the day to their parents or they go to an after school program at the school.  Many of the teachers leave school along with the students which I thought was interesting because teachers in the US usually stay at least one or two hours after school to finish work and preparing for the next day.