Year 6
I started my career teaching A Level and with age began to appreciate the challenges and rewards of teaching younger children, first of all in a traditional prep school and then at Chilton Cantelo.
The rewards lie in seeing a child grasp an idea, or suddenly understand a concept - in seeing them developing a level of maturity and self-awareness, and watching a sense of humour grow. Young people on the edge of secondary school need to be equipped with the tools to cope with the coming demands of their teenage years, to learn how to deal with some times of adversity and with success, and to begin to understand their place in the world and their relation to it.
In particular I love teaching English as children of this age are so ready to experiment with language, syntax and different styles of writing. Maths, too, is fun, especially when children grasp a concept. History, Geography and Science are also exciting to teach at this age, because they all appear sometimes to merge into one - a Geography lesson becomes a History lesson, as happened this morning...
Sport and Drama are two great loves of mine, and the opportunity to prepare the boys for matches and to pass on some rudimentary understanding of tactics and skills is so rewarding, and school plays offer a great chance to see children in a different light - discovering, for example, a really talented actor as happened a couple of years ago is thrilling, but more so is the coming together of a play and the confidence and sense of well-being that it can engender in children, especially in those who at first shy away from speaking up on stage.
Year 6 is not boring, and it is not particularly taxing on one's knowledge. If you like children and enjoy the company of the young it's a pretty fair place to work. It is particularly rewarding at Chilton, as the children don't leave at the end of the year, but move within the same campus, so you can follow their progress up the school. Most pleasing of all, perhaps, is seeing that many of each year's prefects have spent at least some time with us in the Prep, so maybe what we are doing is worthwhile!
Andrew James | Year 6 Teacher
