Singapore
I am a Year 3 student, currently pursuing a diploma in Early Childhood Development and Education in Ngee Ann Polytechnic. Passionate about early education, I believe that it is my responsibility to help children establish the right and stable foundation to lifelong learning. Furthermore, to build their personality. I want to make learning fun for children by educating them through the use of purposeful play. I am a bubbly, hardworking and committed individual who strives to give my best in all that I do. I am self-directed and like to push myself to the limits and out of my comfort zone to achieve greater things in life and things that I have set my mind to do. As an aspiring preschool educator, my goal is to mould every child to become the best version of themselves. During my 1 month practicum, I had the opportunity to work with the N2 children. Although it was merely a month, I have already learnt a lot. This practicum has especially helped me to hone my skills for routine care, classroom management and communication with children. During my practicum, I had the opportunity to plan, implement lessons and to set up a numeracy learning corner. I enjoyed this practicum as I finally had the chance to put the theory I have learned into practice. Furthermore, I also had very close guidance given by my mentor which was very helpful for my learning as an assistant teacher. With my good time-management skills and diligent attitude, it has helped me achieved the Director's List award. To remain committed to this industry and to gain more experience, I took up the ECDA training award when I was in Year 1. All in all, I hope that with my passion and enthusiasm with children, I will be able to touch their hearts and open their minds.
After practicum ended, I continued to keep in touch with the school's principal and occasionally helped them out when needed. I was allocated to any class (Playgroup - Kindergarten 2) that needed more assistance. What I mainly did was to help out with caregiving routines and preparing lesson materials for the teacher - Cutting of materials and gluing pictures into the children's activity books. By far, the most memorable task I had to complete there was to write a language development portfolio for each Kindergarten 2 child for an English enrichment class (MindChamps Reading & Writing program). I had to sit in their class for a couple of weeks, observe and take down notes, thereafter start writing their portfolios. Initially, when this task was given to me, I wanted to reject the principal because I did not feel confident enough to do it - Afterall, I am still a trainee teacher. However, after giving it some thought, I decided to give it a shot because we all have to start from somewhere. Furthermore, I was assured that help will be provided. That assurance gave me the confidence to take on this new challenge. After submitting the portfolio for check, the principal mentioned that it was good and no amendments had to be made. Looking back now, I was glad that I was able to step out of my comfort zone and give it a try. I believe that as I become a fully certified educator in the future, there will be many more challenges that I have to face and take on. I will just need to trust myself more and go for it. Please click on the link below to see the written documentation.
In my second year of study, I did my practicum at MindChamps Chinese Preschool @ Cecil Street for a month. While I was there, I was tasked to plan and implement a Motor skills, Language & Literacy and Numeracy lesson for the Nursery 2 class that I was attached to. With the guidance of my mentor, carrying out this 3 lessons has helped me to enhance my lesson planning and classroom management skills. Furthermore, I also finally understood that using the background information of the children while planning lessons can really help make them focused and engaged throughout the 45 minutes. Although this experience was not entirely a smooth sailing one, it has helped me to step out of my comfort zone and I found myself less nervous when I had to conduct my second and third lesson as compared to my first. Both my supervisor and mentor has taught me a lot especially when giving me feedback and suggestions for my lesson plans. These feedbacks has also allowed me to reflect and work on improving myself as an educator.
During my semester break in 2021, I worked as a bubble tea barista. As they were lacking in manpower, I was left to mend the whole shop independently after 1 week of training. The responsibilities included cooking tea & pearls, making different types of toppings, handling the Point Of Sale (POS) system, taking orders from customers and cleaning up. Through this experience, I got to hone my multi-tasking, communication and customer service skills. It was definitely not an easy experience however, I think it was a very valuable one. As an educator, there will definitely be many moments that I have to multi task and ensure that all children are being accounted for. The communication and customer service skills developed from this working experience will help me to feel more confident when I interact with parents on an almost daily basis in the future.
I went on a one week practicum in year 1 at The Little Skool-House @ Kent Vale in which I mainly assisted the teacher in routine care and observed how various lessons are carried out. This has helped me to work on my observation and analytical skills. The most memorable thing that happened during my one week here was how I got the opportunity to interact and care for a child with autism. I gained valuable insights from my mentor on how to interact with them - be patient, give them more time to process information, allow them to express themselves in varied ways and tell them the timeline for the day so that they know what they can expect. Especially with this opportunity of being able to interact with a child that has autism, it has boost my confidence in interacting with children of different needs and how I am able to impact their lives in different ways. This experience has also pushed me into taking modules in Year 3 that are relevant to helping children with needs. Namely Early Intervention and Teaching Approaches (EAINTA) as well as Assessment of Young Children (AOYCHI). In EAINTA we learn about various intervention methods and how we can use it in a preschool setting. In AOYCHI we learn about various assessment tools and how we can apply it in the pre-school setting if we were to identify children at risk of developing certain developmental needs. I am eager to put this expertise into practice and help as many children as I can when I become a fully certified teacher in the future.
This was the first job I took up after my "O" Levels in 2019. During my time working here, I had the opportunity to experience what it was like to be a waitress and cashier. These opportunities has helped me to further develop skills such as responsibility as I had to handle the Point Of Sale (POS) system when settling bills for the customers. I also learnt how to take the initiative to help others and be patient when handling customer's requests. I believe that these skills - communication, teamwork, interpersonal and multitasking acquired from working here will help me as an educator. As an educator, I would constantly have the need to interact with parents to understand any concerns/worries they may have about their children, and with developed communication and interpersonal skills, I would be able to maintain a good rapport with the parents and in turn, they will be able to trust me and feel safe to leave their children under my care.