Observation Sheet – School as text Secondary School Describe the school in terms of its demographics, appearance and resources (be general here and do not name the school). The school seemed quite old in terms of buildings and general exterior and I think it was built in the 1970’s. I didn’t get much of a chance to view other departments within the school, only really the area I was allocated to (Phys-Ed). The resources within this department seemed quite good and there had been a few new additions for the phys-ed department in the last few years, which included some new sheds that were built to cater for a table tennis area and an indoor gym. This school ran a specialist soccer program and they appeared to have quite good resources for all the soccer sessions which included coaching boards, new balls, training bibs, marker cones and marker manikins (in the shape of a person). I asked the head of department how many students were at the school and he said there were about 1200. What were the roles and responsibilities of the teaching staff you observed? My mentor teacher’s main role was to run and manage the specialist soccer program for the boys at the school. A female phys-ed teacher was in charge of the specialist soccer program for the girls. Along with teaching phys-ed most of the teachers within this department also taught Health and some even taught other subjects such as maths and science. Other than teaching, some of the other roles I observed my mentor teacher doing (and teachers within this department) were administrative duties such as organising soccer scratch matches and organising try-outs for next years year 8 group. As well teaching, I observed the staff undertake roles that included coaching, physical training, mediation, planning, being mentors to the students and motivating students. What did you observe nonteaching staff doing to support teaching and learning in the school? Some of the non-teaching staff I observed included administrative support workers, grounds people, canteen staff and cleaning staff. All of these people played a ‘behind the scenes’ role in making sure the school functioned and that teaching and learning could take place. Most of these non-teaching staff seemed quite happy and there was one cleaning lady in particular that I passed on my way out everyday that always greeted me with a smile and said hello. This was nice to see. Observation sheet – School as text: Secondary School, Zoe Kissane 1 Students You will have observed the diverse nature of your classes. How was this diversity supported? I didn’t really observe a lot of extra support for classes during my time at the high school. The only extra support I noticed was the existence of the Intensive English Centre that catered for students that had poor English or came from non-English speaking backgrounds. The general phys-ed classes that I observed were often two classes that had been combined into one and consisted of about 60 students in total. I felt like this was perhaps not the best idea, as the students didn’t seem to get any individual attention or extra support. Function of Schools Did you observe the connection of your schools with the broader community? How did this happen? The one opportunity when I got to experience the schools connection with the broader community was during an inter-school soccer match. This match was held after school one afternoon between the Year 9 soccer specialist boys and a visiting team from another school. I decided to come back after school and watch the match (school finished at 3pm and the soccer match started at 4.30pm) and I’m glad I did as I got a small glimpse into the connection the school had with the wider community. There were some parents and family members that attended the match along with some other students from the school. What do you think the function of school is? After spending a week observing the secondary school environment I felt like its function was quite different to the primary school. The focus of the learning and teaching I observed seemed to be on fostering selfmanagement techniques within the students and getting them to do activities that encouraged this. Granted I only really got a glimpse into one department (unlike the primary school which was a much more wholesome experience) and I’m sure there were other functions that I didn’t get to observe. It also seemed like the school had to work hard at keeping kids engaged enough to actually stay at school. Observation sheet – School as text: Secondary School, Zoe Kissane 2