School of Education

Professional Practice 3
102605 Secondary PP Community Engagement
Self Reflection Form

Pre-service Teacher Details

Pre-service Teacher Name: Ben Morgan Pre-service Teacher ID: 16565832

Pre-service Teacher Phone Number: Pre-service Teacher Email Address:

0405599255 16565832@student.westernsydney.edu.au

Placement Details: If you haven’t complete 60 hours face to face you must provide a
detailed statement of how your experience meets the outcomes for Professional
Practice CE. Attach evidence.

Placement Name: Campbelltown Placement Phone Number:

Performing Arts High School 4625 1403

Placement Address: 90 Beverley Rd, Placement Email Address:

Campbelltown NSW 2560 sarah.wilson96@det.nsw.edu.au

Contact Person: Sarah White

Describe in about 500 WORDS any features and benefits of the setting you attended. Consider
number of students, location details, age of students, types of educational programs offered and any
other salient aspects of the experience. Consider how this experience will contribute to your
development as a beginning teacher.

AITSL Standards

The criteria for pre-service teacher reflection focus, the first, second, third and sixth standards.
 1.3 Students with diverse linguistic, cultural, religious and socioeconomic backgrounds
 1.5 Differentiate teaching to meet the specific learning needs of students across the full
range of abilities
 2.2 Content selection and organisation
 3.1 Establish challenging learning goals
 6.3 Engage with colleagues and improve practice

PPCE Reflection

During my time at Campbelltown Performing Arts High School I tutored and helped students of
varying academic abilities and diverse linguistic, cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds. I
mainly worked one on one with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students to help improve
their basic math skills through a program called QuickSmart. Having completed PP1 at CPAHS I
was quite surprised at the large number of Indigenous students at the school – many of whom I
had in my classes during PP1. This alone showed mw the importance of getting to know your
students, who they are, what their background is, or how they identify. How can teachers
effectively teach all their students if they don’t even know something as big as their cultural
heritage.

Through this one-on-one process I was able to get to know them better and find what strategies
helped with certain students and not for others. Not only was I teaching students these strategies,
but I was remembering old methods and learning new ones as I taught them. They even helped me
with new strategies by explaining the way they thought. I have been trained in complex
mathematics and something like basic addition or multiplication has just become second nature.
These aren’t things that I was taught during curriculum subjects, as we were being prepared for
secondary school. However, it is a sad fact that many high school students are not even at the level
of years 5 or 6 and still require help with simple multiplication.

I struggled during my first placement when students were visibly having trouble with simple
operations. I did not know how to explain it to them to provide them with a deep understanding.
All I could do was point them to the multiplication tables on the walls or tell them to use a
calculator. Both good strategies to finding the answer, but not very good to give them an
understanding of the basics. During this placement, I not only exposed myself to hours of practice
by conducting these QuickSmart sessions, but to many new strategies that could be best
implemented at the start of lessons to help all students improve their basic math skills.

While working with the ATSI faculty I also took over their numeracy tutoring sessions. During
these sessions I worked with groups of 2-4 Indigenous students from years 7-9 on mathematics
worksheets on algebra, measurement, and geometry. Again, I was working with students I had
previously taught, but in these sessions of small groups there was far less disruptions and many
were very eager to learn and di the best they could. Often one student would understand the
content much quicker and I would have to create new questions to challenge them, and other
times I would have to create similar questions to deconstruct and reconstruct to scaffold the
process.

Even in my short time with each student, I was able to see huge changes in their academic ability.
Towards the end, I was telling students the improvement they’d done, and I would tell them I
expected them to do even better today. Each time I would receive a lot of maybes, or “I’ll see”, and
each time they would exceed their own expectations. I believe that, not only does the program help
these students improve their basic math skills but having the one -on-one sessions made them feel
safe and free to say they don’t understand without receiving ridicule from their peers. I was able to
build positive relationships with most students and saw their confidence skyrocket each time they
came to do another session. My supervising teacher noted how some were even leaving with
smiles – not something often seen.

During this placement I also worked with the Learning Support team. At learning support, I was
also conducting QuickSmart sessions, but this time with low-achieving students. Whatever the
reasons were, students who came to do QuickSmart in Learning Support were eager to learn. I had
one student who came up to me in another class thanking me for helping him during our
QuickSmart session. He was able to do his 5x tables easily but struggled as soon as he was moved
to 6x tables. Knowing him and what he knew, I was able to use his knowledge of his 5x tables and
explain how use that in another context. He immediately excelled. This just goes to show how
important it is to know your students and how they learn. If you know that much you can explain
new content in terms they understand.

My last role at CPAHS was with Learning Support helping students in the classroom. I would walk
around helping individuals and groups whenever they were struggling or off task. Generally, if
they were off task it was because they’d already finished and needed extra work or were struggling
and didn’t know what to do. Just walking around and making sure everyone knew what they were
doing and had challenging enough work made a huge improvement with student productivity. I
was able to get a low-achieving student to understand a certain topic and soon she was finishing
work before the rest of the class, boosting her confidence.

Finally, during this placement I spent time with a wider range of teachers than I did last time. I
had a rather long talk with Learning Support head teacher who talked to me about teaching
Indigenous students or students with learning disabilities. He listed all the places most teachers go
wrong and various strategies I might use when I go back into the classroom as a teacher. I Learnt
more about the need for all teachers to collaborate with the learning support team at any school,
because they will be able to tell you things about your students that you didn’t know. This helps to
explain various behaviours teachers see in their classroom and inform them of strategies to
improve their behaviour and academic achievement.

Check Due Date accompanied by your Timesheet and signed Report.

Submissions after due date will receive an N grade. At the following HECS census date, if
the work is still incomplete, this will become an AF grade. This is University policy.
The AF grade can be changed when you complete the work. You must also keep a hard or
electronic copy of your assignment.

Submit this form online via InPlace. Your PPCE Report written by the Contract
Person, is mailed by them or delivered by you to the PP office in the SOE.