11PrimaryLearning about the Jobs People Do - A child's view continuedNCGE NEWS Summer 2012The guidelines describe good practice and use a number of learning experiences to show what this practice might look like. While these learning experiences usually focus on a particular age group of children and a particular type of setting, many of them can be adapted to suit other age groups and other settings. A set of guidelines entitled Thinking about my practice include questions which help the teacher to reflect on what he/she does and says to support children's learning and development. There are many connections across the four sets of guidelines. For example, many of the learning experiences in an individual set can support practice in the other, including age appropriate learning about the world of work.'I have been using the Aistear programme with my Senior Infants class since September. The Junior Infant teacher and I have found this programme excellent. It has been extremely beneficial to the children's personal development. The children have had to learn to work as a team, compromise with others, listen to others, express opinions, practice sharing and turn-taking, consider other views and develop a sense of personal identity.All the subjects we explore in the Aistear programme are part of the Primary School Curriculum. At the moment we are looking at the Identity and Belonging theme. In part of this programme, we focus on people who work in the local community and people who help us. The children learn lots about the jobs people do. Every month we have a guest speaker in to tell the class about the job they do. This speaker relates to some aspect of the topic that we are cover. So far we have had a pilot, a farmer, a marine biologist, a conservationist and a physiotherapist in to tell us about their jobs. The children really enjoy this and it encourages them to think about their future careers and it exposes them to jobs that they wouldn't have known about.'

12About the AuthorKatie Fox is the Senior Infants teacher at Rathmichael National School, Shankill, Co. Dublin. She trained in Church of Ireland College of Education and has been working as a permanent teacher in Rathmichael since September 2005. This is her third year teaching Senior Infants. ReferencesThe National Lifelong Guidance Framework can be viewed in the National Guidance Forum report (page 15): Guidance for Life, An Integrated Framework for Lifelong Guidance http://www.nationalguidanceforum.ie/documents/NGF_Guidance_for_Life%20final.pdfCLICK toLINKAdditional InformationThe theme Identity and Belonging, referred to above, focuses on developing a positive sense of who the child is and the feeling that they are valued and respected as part of a family and community. Roles and careers within the community are explored as part of this. For more information on this theme, visit http://www.ncca.biz/Aistear/pdfs/PrinciplesThemes_ENG/ID&Belonging_ENG.pdfFor more information on the Aistear programme, visit www.ncca.ie/aisteartoolkitRathmichael National School has obtained the necessary permission from the parents/guardians of the children photographed in this article and provided NCGE permission to use same. CLICK toLINKCLICK toLINKPrimaryLearning about the Jobs People Do - A child's view continuedNCGE NEWS Summer 2012