In order to make the transition from childhood to school age easier for first graders, teacher Branka Milićević held a carefully designed form-teacher class on the topic of Student responsibilities. The class lasted an hour, and the first graders and guests: the teacher’s asset manager, the principal and the entire professional staff – two psychologists and a pedagogue – had the impression that the great show had just begun.

None of the first graders, who have only been going to school for less than two months now, asked to leave the classroom, even though it was the last class that day. No one was sleepy, or moody, and no one wanted to do anything else other than participate devotedly till the very end in the class about student responsibilities! Everyone reading this is probably wondering right now if this is possible.

Well, it is! In teacher Branka Milićević’s class.

The motive for choosing this topic is last week’s in-depth story about children’s rights, and student responsibilities are a logical continuation of that. In this way, we successfully completed the puzzle, and the balance on the seesaw of childhood was established.

Through interaction with the children, the teacher revised the story about how we are all part of different groups, and how at the beginning of schooling we also become part of a new, school group. Through a series of useful and inspiring questions, she spontaneously led the children towards the fact that we are not alone in groups and that we must all respect some order. The children enjoyed exchanging opinions and experiences, thus strengthening the bonds with their new friends and teacher.

The story of “Maca papučarica”, which the children enjoyed, served as an excellent illustration of the lesson’s topic. Then they had great fun during a practical exercise – the teacher placed models of houses on the blackboard and the children connected them with the story they had just heard. In addition to practising memorising and perceiving in this way, the students also spontaneously connected the knowledge acquired in the lessons within the subject of Nature and Science, by talking about family relationships and the responsibilities of each individual within the group.

The most beautiful part of the class was the final exercise when the teacher, surprising the children, gave each of them a handmade slipper made of paper and felt, assigning them the task of connecting each pair. Each slipper had a specific letter mark, and some also had laces, so the children revised the alphabet in that way – material from the Serbian language classes, but also fine motor skills by tying the laces.

Preparation for the lesson, structure, way of conducting, achieved standards, results achieved by students, work methods, creativity, cross-curricular connection and everything else that characterises the work of this teacher, could easily be the subject of study by students of pedagogy and methodology.

The author of this text knows for sure that, in addition to experience, knowledge, creativity, will and skill, hours of preparation are also needed for this kind of class, and that’s why we give teacher Branka a straight A in the Observation diary.