Lesson 2: organisational structures of primary schools.

Time to start post number two. Today we are going to talk about the organisational structures of primary schools. Here is a little esqueme to kick us off.

This lesson talks about the various governing bodies and governing positions we find in any school. It starts by detailing the objectives and funtions of each governing position, in other words, those of the director, head of studies and the secretary. Finally, it does the same with the governing bodies, the Teachers Board and the School Council. The preliminary ideas that I have about this topic are the different bodies that exist in the school. I knew roughly that the people working there were the Director, the School Council, the Head of Studies… I feel like everyone should know these at least as we have all been to a primary school before.

The things I have learned in this lesson are the following:

I have learned all the different people and bodies who are involved in the organisation and participation of the school. These people are the Director, the Head of Studies, the School Council, the Teachers Board, the Secretary, the Form Teacher, the Cycle Teams, the Pedagogical Coordination Commission, the Coordinator of Information and Communication Technologies, the Training Coordinator of the Centre, the Book Refuse Programme Coordinator and lastly the Equality and Community Building Coordinator. The next thing I learned are the various functions that each one of these people execute. These functions are various and sometimes hard to remember, but on a general scale you can understand what each person does. One last thing I have learned are the exact definitions and meaning of the vocabulary Gonzalo mentioned to us. I had a rough idea of what each word meant but after some research I now completely understand what each one means.

One of my main issues is not the fact that I don't understand what each body does, its the fact that I don't know the main objective of all of them as a whole. I found a website by Lee-Ann Collingridge who seemed to have the same problem. On here she tells us exactly the overall objectives of school governing bodies. Something which I believe should have been explained in the powerpoint. These functions involve the opening and maintaining one bank account for the school, paying for services, deciding on applications for exemptions from school fees and many, many more.

Collingridge, L. (s.f.). Understanding roles of principles and governing bodies. Recuperado de https://www.corruptionwatch.org.za/understanding-roles-of-principals-and-governing-bodies/

What I can generate to this topic is very little as in this lesson there is many different things to talk about as it only talks about the functions of the bodies in an educational centre. One thing I can generate is the group practice I did with my classmates about the functions of the different bodies: https://docs.google.com/document/d/10BzXWoFcxQPipSWVr4WFL8PKleZBhR83RdliGuGW_u8/edit I also read an article about the growing governing bodies in Sout-Africa: Bisschoff, T. (s.f.). Functions of School Governing Bodies in South Africa. Recuperado de https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/089202060001400304 This was just for me as a personal interest as I have always compared everything we have here in Spain to poorer countries, so I decided to do dome research on South-Africa. Obviously we are better developed as you can tell from the document, but from my point of view, the low time and effort they put in to achieve what they have so far is amazing. Spain has been going for a long time and to be hones, if Africa had the same time and resources we have, they would have better schools then we do. Just makes you think, doesn't it?

Wallace, C. (s.f.). Roles of a teacher. Recuperado de https://study.com › academy › lesson › what-are-the-roles-of-a-teacher

This is a website that contains a video that explains what roles teachers play in an academic centre. I chose this video because as I would hopefully like to become a teacher, this helps me understand the roles that I would have to execute. There are some thing that are mentioned which you wouldn't even believe were needed to be done by a teacher, it opens up your mind to how much effort they put in to abtaine the slightest improvement in children and schools in general.The only problem with this website is that you have to register, but I did and it was worth it as I can now understand all the vital roles a teacher must play.

Finally, I would like to leave you with a picture that I found while searching for info that reminded me of this subject. What do you make of this?

References:
Collingridge, L. (s.f.). Understanding roles of principles and governing bodies. Recuperado de https://www.corruptionwatch.org.za/understanding-roles-of-principals-and-governing-bodies/global description of functions of governing bodies.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/10BzXWoFcxQPipSWVr4WFL8PKleZBhR83RdliGuGW_u8/edit a little help from my friends.

Bisschoff, T. (s.f.). Functions of School Governing Bodies in South Africa. Recuperado de https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/089202060001400304  compare Spain to South-Africa.
Wallace, C. (s.f.). Roles of a teacher. Recuperado de https://study.com › academy › lesson › what-are-the-roles-of-a-teacher What you need to know to be a great teacher.