15th and 16th Feb. First two days of working with year 5. In Mrs Withers class who is really nice and very experienced. There are about 30 children in the class. On Wednesday they were finishing off their projects so I was introduced to them and then went around asking them questions about what they were doing and just getting to know them. It is compulsory for children to learn Maori in primary school. They all write the date in Maori and when Mrs Withers wants their attention she says something in Maori. On Thursday the children were learning about brainstorming effectively. They were writing about something they did in the holidays and then using their brainstorm to write a paragraph on it. They also went through Maori sounds like words beginning with Ke, Ko, Ki. They then went out for buddy time. The buddy system is excellent as every child has a buddy no matter what year they're in as opposed to just year 6 and reception. Each child gets a new buddy each year so the children end up with friendships in every year and it really encourages a sense of community. The year 5s had buddies in year 3 and they went and played with them just before the end of the day. The past two days have been great experience and I've been recording useful tips I've picked up in class.