Week 14 4/04/11 – 10/04/11

This week on the placement course, School Experience, I had to present to my peers what I had learnt from and about the school placement over the last few weeks.  The two placements are so different that it was difficult to mention everything inside of fifteen minutes and give background information about Northern Ireland’s school systems for the other exchange students as well.  The little cultural different make so much different between the two countries.  For example; children are used to going to and from school on their own in the dark where as back home it is not the best thing to do as it is more dangerous.  Finland is a very safe country; the only thing that may happen is that you get your bicycle stolen, but this very rare.  As Finland is so quiet and safe it makes other countries I have visited, like Sweden, a bit wild although it is still a very safe country.  However the rest of the presentation focused on the differences between my main subject, Religious Studies.  Here in Finland it is more like religious instruction as pupils are split up into members of Orthodoxy, Lutheran Church, Islam and ethics.  The ethics classes are for pupils who are not part of a church or do not have anyone from their own religion to instruct them.  Parents are allowed to request that their child is instructed in their religion.  This provides difficulties for the schools as they may have to send the pupils to other schools for religious instruction.  The Ethics lessons are much more like the RE classes in Northern Ireland as they cover a wide variety of religions and ethical questions.  However there is not a focus to develop the pupils’ spirituality as there is in the NI curriculum.  However a lot of the subject content is similar.  As my time on the school placement has comet to an end I think that staying in Turku International School has helped develop my communication into a less ‘East-Belfastian’ dialect which pupils who have English as an additional language can understand.  I aimed to develop my skills of working with EAL pupils as there is an increase of pupils with EAL in Northern Ireland over the last few years.