Typical Day in New Zealand

A typical day at the George Street Normal School classroom 2B consists of three blocks. During the first block, Mrs. Barnett teaches the students. They have a morning greeting and then break off into groups for reading. At 10:00am, Mrs. Barnett leaves the classroom, and a new teacher enters to resume the lessons while Mrs. Barnett works with students from a different classroom. After writing and tea time, Mrs. Barnett comes back into the classroom and teaches the rest of the day. This is a level of collaboration between teachers that I am not used to, but it is effective because Mrs. Barnett can work with students individually while the other teacher works with the other students in a group.

One challenge that I observed in a typical day at the George St. Normal School is that there are no art, gym, music, computer, or science teachers. Each classroom teacher is expected to incorporate these different specialties into their everyday lessons. My CT expressed that this was a challenge to her, and I can  imagine that it is very difficult to incorporate all of these subjects into the day even if you are not proficient in the skills they require. However, she manages to fulfill the requirements by taking 15 minutes of the day to bring the students outside and run around for fitness, or blending together art classes with content skills.