QTS Skills Tests - Triumph

Today, I took and passed all three QTS skills tests. I wasn't nervous before, until I read some things on the net about people taking them 8/9 times before passing. I suppose, at the moment, if it takes that many times, it is more a question of inconvenience than anything else. Until the rules change, you can take them as many times as you need and they are free to sit. :)

When I got to the test centre, I went through the usual procedure. Putting everything away - and being provided a tissue rather than being allowed one from a sealed packet - before signing to say I had read the rules. I must have shown my ID five or more times for each test lol - good job I got over my dislike for my passport photo lol. In the room, I was at computer 23, in the corner. The guy in charge of that room was called Jonathon and he seemed like a friendly chap. :)

I sat the ICT one first. It was very similar to the practice tests. There were one or two things I was asked to do, which I had not previous done on the mocks, but they were simple enough. I finished all four tasks [featuring four activities in each] in around 15 minutes. I thought about checking through it all but that was too dull a prospect to endure, so I headed out 20 minutes early and collected my result. A pass. Yay.

My literacy test wasn't booked for a full hour and fifteen minutes, as the centre slots were really spaced out when I booked it back in October. Thankfully, they let me start the tests one after the other, rather than hanging around. So, after signing to say I'd read the rules again and making sure I had nothing about my person, I went back to computer 23 for the test. The opening of the literacy test is a 10 question spelling test. Now, spelling has always been a huge weakness of mine, so I wasn't all that optimistic about it. A lot of the words made me think twice - I used the pen and board provided to write them out, sometimes 2/3 different ways, before deciding upon the 'right' answer. Irritatingly, I can't remember most of the words, so I can't check now to see if I was correct or not lol. The punctuation, grammar and comprehension sections were simple enough and again I finished early - this time with around 15 minutes to spare. I collected my results - another pass. :)

For the third time, I had to go through the procedure of showing that I had nothing about my person, showing my ID and signing to say I had read the rules. Back to computer 23 for my numeracy test. I had deliberately left this one until last, as the mental maths section had been very challenging online - mainly due to the limited amount of time you get to answer. As I have heard people say, the mental maths section wasn't actually as bad as the mocks online - on at least half of the questions, I filled my answer in before the lady finished reading the question a second time. The second section was at a similar level - lots of questions based on data, scatter graphs and tables. I finished around 15 minutes early again and made my escape, clutching three 'pass' letters.

Woo!

That's one more hurdle overcome and now I am planning to thoroughly enjoy Christmas.
Tomorrow marks a day out at the Christmas markets with two friends from Lancaster Uni - one is also studying a primary PGCE and one is working as a TA at the minute. And then Thursday marks a day at the North Pole with my college friends - hot cocktails, German food and lots of giggles no doubt. Finally, a hard earned rest. :D

PGCE Primary - History

Despite being 100 miles away from the history I enjoyed during my degree, making a Greek helmet today was pretty fun. Some people refused to attend the class in some sort of protest, but I think that is ridiculous. Did I learn a great deal? No. Did I get to make something I could possibly use/make again with a class? Yes. Why you would skip a class, so you can have a lie-in, on the last day of term when the work was as light-hearted as this, I'll never understand. Not least due to the attendance requirements to get your QTS status - why damage your attendance record when you could be making a paper helmet lol?!

A Sad, Elderly Looking Penguin

In Art today, we had to make 'clay thumb pots' and put them together to make hollow clay animals. I made a penguin, who ended up looking a little sad. Perhaps I will make him look a bit happier when we paint them next term. :) Oh, we also made the toadstool thing before it, with a mini-beast. I coped out on the latter and made a tiny ladybird lol. Ahh well, it is the end of term and I am shattered, so a tiny ladybird will have to do. :)

[15.12.2011]

QTS Skills Tests

I gave them a go tonight - just online, to see what stage I am at. I did them properly - I even muted Eastenders, so as to hear the mental maths questions lol. My scores were not brilliant and I would like them to be much higher. But, I am reasured that I passed both the literacy and the numeracy [I didn't bother trying the ICT as that was super simple back when I looked at it in Sept/Oct]. I got 82% on the literacy and 71% on the numeracy. Passes, without doubt. :)

I am going to try and have another couple of attempts, as there are three papers online for each, but it is looking promising. Fingers crossed I get them out of the way on Dec 20th, before finally having a rest and enjoying Christmas. :)

PE - Ministry of Silly Walks

Today has felt like a very long day and was rather depressing at times. For example, a 1 hour lecture on getting a job - the outcome was that we will be competing against some 100-150 other applicants per position and thus the chances of getting a job are slim. Similarly, PE over ran by 15 minutes - doesn't sound like a lot, but given the lesson was already 2 hours to begin with, you can imagine how unwelcome the over run was. Being in the department from 8.30am until gone 5.15pm is knackering, especially when you factor in the time spent travelling in before/after that and the stack of work still to be done now I am home.

However, this is meant to be a positive blog and I can definitely have a laugh about things - even if that laugh is essentially at myself. :)

Part of the focus in PE was on fundamental movement skills - how to ensure children know how to move efficiently, spotting problems and assisting them in putting them right. This involved breaking down skills like walking, running, running backwards and running sideways into the nitty gritty and practising those elements.
For example, when running, your arms should be bent at the elbow into a right-angle. You then move your arms in opposition to your feet, from the shoulder alone. Your hand should go from 'cheek to cheek' or [if you'd rather] 'lip to hip'. The speed will obviously increase as your running speed increases.
Another example - when running, your knees should be brought up high and your feet should also touch your bottom. Apparently we essentially did this, when left to run normally, but when we were told to accentuate this, along with the arm movements, you have seriously never seen anything so funny!

Needless to say, the Ministry of Silly Walks would have been proud of us today. So, here is a clip of just that, to enjoy. :D [Link]

Light Relief

After many nights lesson planning - with no guidance at all - I feel a little better prepared now. One of the teachers at my cluster school - a fantastic teacher who was graded in the top 1% in the country after some intense observations/interviews/inspections - pulled off some objectives for me, so now I know that I am going in the correct direction. :)

Whilst I think we all got something positive out of the session with the teacher, the majority of the morning was spent gossiping. When our STCC returned [he is the head of two schools and had to visit the other school for much of the morning], even he wanted to get in on the act! He sat there and listened to all the gossip off our course and was even more enthusiastic about hearing it than we were lol. Turns out, there is a slimy guy on the course. He has lied about his age, failed to mention he has a child and dated two girls off the course at the same time! All the while, he has been sending provocative and down right filthy text messages to an assortment of other girls...

The two girls he has been dating happened to start chatting yesterday, just in the common room, and it didn't take long for it all to unravel. Even when they confronted him, apparently he was trying to be swarve and squirm his way out of it. Tut tut... Given that there are less than 90 students on the course [as some have dropped out], and we have lectures together every Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, he certainly had a nerve dating two girls at the same time.

On of the lads in my cluster group was definitely impressed though - he said the guy must be doing something right to have kept it going for 10 weeks lol! In contrast, one of the girls in my cluster wants to put posters up around the department - something along the lines of 'beware' or 'get tested' lol. Obviously she won't - well, I very much doubt that she would lol, but she was very annoyed as she was friends with him... You can just imagine what the mood towards him [the slimy guy I mean] will be like on Monday lol! Eeck for him!

So, whilst the content of the gossip wasn't the nicest, I think the fact that we all sat around and chatted and for once didn't think too much about planning/school/pgce assignments - that was the light relief. :)

Enjoying A Topic

I am currently planning for my post-Christmas placement. [My STCC wants to see examples of our planning by Thursday and said we should have it all done by Christmas.] I did some brief 'weekly' style plans for my science topic, but now I am getting into the nitty-gritty of my literacy unit. I will be teaching stories from other cultures - the other culture being India [my choice]. :)

I've selected a novel to read and work on, along with a selection of folk stories. I have some general writing, speaking and listening, and reading tasks thought out and a general idea of what I want the children to have achieved when we finished the unit. The first two lessons are pretty much sorted - I just have to transfer the plan onto the proper uni format and make the resources. 13 more to go! [Plus all the other subjects lol.] :D

The situation has been made slightly complicated. I have just years 3 and 4 for four of the five weekly lessons. However, on a Tuesday, I also have some year 2 pupils. Whilst observing, the teacher used to set them something unrelated to do, but I don't think I should. So, I am having to ensure my year 2 pupils can engage fully with the topic, despite only attending three sessions out of fifteen. The folk stories come into this, as we can work on them in one lesson, all starting from the same point. Obviously, I want the year 3/4s to see patterns and links and gain an idea of setting and culture, but that doesn't detract from the work we can do with the year 2s. It might look a little random - to have a novel interjected with folk stories - but I am hoping it will work and that it will enhance the topic, rather than detract from it. :)

We'll see. :)

RE Trip To Durham Cathedral

We had an educational tour of the cathedral, where we were able to learn a bit more about the place and also discover the great range of activities you can do there when on a school trip. The lady mentioned the she had studied for a primary pgce, but that has worked there for 14 years as the educational tours manager and loved every second of it. I can definitely understand why - being able to develop some expertise on a magnificient place [like Bramall Hall] and working with children purely on the fun and creative things, rather than thinking about assessment and phonics, does seem a lot more appealing. :/

Anyway, some of the things we discovered included:


This stained glass window was donated by Marks & Spencers. It depicts the last supper, with Jesus at the bottom [the head of the table]. Judas is second on the left, marked by his slight distance from the table and darker colour. The green is the earth, the blue is the sky and the purple marks the royal/kingdom nature. The guide said people love or hate this window, as it is so dramatically different to the traditional windows in place, but that the children are always in the love camp. :)

This is the Statue of Annunciation. It depicts Mary receiving word of her pregnancy. The artist has tried to encompass women of all races, as the face features characteristics deemed to be African, Asian and Western. Her neck is tense and rigid and the waves across her chest depict the turmoil she faced upon hearing the news. The guide said this statue is wonderful for the children because they can touch it, due to its robust nature.

Innuendo

We were considering techniques to develop writing ability today.

In one of the classes, we were each given a Smartie. We had to look at it, feel it, suck it and then crunch it. Whilst doing so, we had to scroll down adjectives to describe our findings. It was so hard to keep a straight face! Every time the tutor said we had to pop it in our mouth and suck it, but not bite it, we burst out laughing - and he said it more than once lol. The descriptive writing we did as a result was pretty funny too - lots of eruptions and oozings in people's mouths! I know that probably suggests we are quite juvenile, but I think a little light-hearted relief is necessary on this course. Especially as tomorrow is the day our STCC grades our preliminary placement and, in my STC, we have a full on PE session with him. Fun times that'll be lol. :)

Snappy!

In DT today, we made a snappy crocodile. Our tutor said it is the sort of thing you can use when teaching about using wood, hinges and safe working practices with saws etc. Mine is, as a friend said, a bit goofy, but I think that is perfect fine. :D

Placement Display

I was charged with taking down an old display on France and making the preparations to replace it with a Jolly Postman display. The first job was to put up hills and a blue sky, before characters collaged by the children could be added. Below are some pictures from the start, although there is a huge pile of work to go up on it and we decided that some of the characters would need a bit more work. :)

At first, I was a little nervous. It is a huge display and is on the only corridor in school, outside the office and headteacher's room [one and the same], by the main entrance. The rolls of paper were huge and putting everything up meant standing on a tiny chair lol. Still, whilst the other pgce student in my school laughed a little as he stood observing an assessed writing activity, I think I had the better time. I mean, I love being in class and being with the children, but what is there to do when you are just observing a test? I mean, the teacher didn't want anyone to provide additional help, as she had given as big an input as she felt was justified given the fact it was a writing assessment, so doing something productive and creative with the time was far better. :)

Teaching Practice

My first lesson was a little difficult, as getting the children's respect was quite hard. I also lost all sense of time [there was no clock in the room and I didn't stop for a second to check my watch] and ended up failing to do a plenary. My third lesson was better structured, with a greater sense of pace and far more engagement by the children. I even managed to do my plenary, however the main activity I had created for my year 4s was a little too hard. An extra three questions on the classification table, leading to another three food items, confused them, so that was a bit of a disaster.

However, my second lesson was pretty darn good! :D
We looked at adjectives and characterisation within the Jolly Postman. The children seemed really engaged and each created some fantastic Venn diagrams, compairing two characters, which they used to write comparative sentences. The plenary 'guess who' game also seemed to go down well, as the children had to work out which characters I was describing from a completed Venn diagram I put up on the board. Despite the need to quickly replan the lesson, due to the unexpected absence of ICT, it went really well and the children seemed engaged. :)

I just need to make sure the 40 lessons I am teaching on my next placement, with that class, are like the literacy lesson and not my less successful maths and science attempts lol.

First Day On Placement

Despite a 2am fire alarm - the result of someone getting distracted by WoW when cooking eggs! - to disrupt my sleep, today has been a great day.

My placement school is lovely! The teachers are really friendly and the headteacher has already reassured us that we needn't worry about things like making it in for 8.30am if the weather is awful [quite possible around here, so I'm told].

The school is tiny. Some 78 pupils enrolled at the moment. There are three classrooms, a hall with incorporated ICT area and a cupboard in place of the staffroom. It is thoroughly charming, although the building is very cold due to the wooden walls. I've also discovered that I'll have to rethink my previous types of lesson plans in a big way, as there is no carpet area/room for that sort of thing, nor does the school have interactive whiteboards [something to do with asbestos in the walls preventing them from installing them]. Nevertheless, I have had a really wonderful day. :D

When I come home from my 9am till 5pm Mondays at university (which invariably include over 4 hours of science, an hour on core issues [like safeguarding] and then two hours on things like PE, art, music or DT), I can't face doing anything. Today, I got home at around 4pm and I worked until 7pm on PGCE stuff! I can barely believe it of myself lol. One of the activities I completed was to help with the school pantomime though. I wasn't asked, and there is no guarantee that they will use what I've made, but I spent an hour on it nevertheless. They had the music for one of the songs, but not the words - which they like to put up on a digital projector. So, now they have the full song, with the words perfectly matched [because I am OCD like that] and some animations for the instrumental bits. I hope they like it. :D

Inference

We looked at higher order reading skills today, in relation to language comprehension. One of the big things was inference and we did a variety of activities linked to encouraging children to infer from the text.

One of the tasks was to come up with a sentence, just a simple sentence, which could be used to launch a debate. It was quite illuminating and rather amusing, as our first resposes seemed to follow a pattern. Some people always thought the worst, some tended to go for a nicer angle and others tried to infer something particularly humous lol.
Our sentence was something like: "He ran swiftly along the road, carrying a bag." Some people thought he was theft, others that he was late for his train. Someone said he could be trying to return the bag to someone. Another that he was carrying ice-cream home from the supermarket and didn't want it to melt lol.
One of the other sentences we came up with was something like: "She stood alone on the street corner, on a dark, cold night." You can just imagine the first idea to pop into some heads lol!

I suppose, inference is something we all do without thinking about it. When you read a headline in a newspaper or a tag line to something, often they are not completely clear and yet we all make an assumption - a prediction or a judgement - as to what it meant. :)

I think sessions which bring in that sort of skill would be really interesting to teach. Once the children develop some confidence with it, I'm sure you could have some very lively exchanges and debates about something so simple as a short sentence. Pretty groovy, to me at least lol. :)

Nice Feedback

"Dear All

I just want to thank you for the enthusiastic and wholehearted way in which you have approached the course so far. Workshops and lectures are a pleasure and your contributions intelligent and well-informed. Attendance has been excellent and colleagues have commented on the high quality of this year's cohort.

We hope you thoroughly enjoy your time in school and take every opportunity to gain as much valuable and varied experience as possible. If, as I expect, you make the same impression upon school staff as you have on university staff, both your and our reputations will continue to be enhanced.

Have a wonderful time!

Best wishes"

Unexpected Planning Days

"Hi All,

Good news! Something has cropped up on Thursday that I cannot get out of. Options for the day include, contacting the placement school and organising a visit, get on with assignment, get to grips with paperwork for the placement or pub...."

We were good as well - we made contact with our placement school and they said they didn't need to see us before we start on Monday. So, a guilt free lie-in is definitely on the cards. After all, I'll be all the better when it comes to my assignments and planning if I've had a good nights sleep lol! :D

QTS Skills Tests

Definitely not a positive yet - that'll come when I actually pass them lol - but, still worthy of a mention.

I have booked all three tests now. I am going to take them just before Christmas back at home. If I pass them first time [fingers crossed], that'll be something less to worry about. If I don't, Christmas is just a couple of days away to take my mind off it.

Plus, booking them at the centre near home is a weight off my mind. I went to that test centre for my driving theory test. Subsequently, I know exactly where it is and how to get there. If I had booked them up here, I would have had to go to Newcastle. I haven't been to Newcastle since I was really small and thus it would have been rather stressful to take the tests somewhere completely alien. :)

So, fingers crossed they go well. I'll be sure to practise them online first - it'll be like a new hobby lol - and I'm rather chuffed that I've managed to get two positives out of just booking my QTS skills tests lol. Impressive I am sure you will agree! :D

Musical Instrument

Whilst watching Downton Abbey tonight and sorting some files for the morning, I realised that my hole punch was full to bursting with those little circles of paper. I emptied it out onto my desk and was just flittering them through my fingers when I got an idea. Using a small cardboard tube, I decided to turn this mass of paper into my musical instrument. Now I've got a percussion instrument, similar to a rain shaker, decorated with some paper I had left over from my bookmark for DT. It isn't going to win any awards, but I'm rather happy with it. Not least because it is made up entirely of odds/ends which would have otherwise ended up in the bin.

I get to feel green, whilst also having an instrument to take to my next music class [our homework was to make one]. Woo! :D

Jolly Phonics

My view of phonics is still a little murky, as it was never something I recall learning as a child. It has always seemed rather complicated, with digraphs, trigraphs, graphemes, phonemes etc. But, I am starting to get the hang of it.

In one of our workshops today, we were introduced to Jolly Phonics. A class of 30 people, aged between 22 and 50, and every single one of us seemed to have a big grin when we gave it a go. Some of the actions and stories relating to the phonemes [42 in Jolly Phonics although we have been taught that there are 44] are very funny and we watched part of a lesson with reception children and they seemed just as engaged and enthusiastic about it as we were. Having stories, actions and fun little things [like a toy snake when introducing 's' and a mouse when introducing 'i'] make the prospect of teaching phonics much more interesting. It has always seemed like a dry and rather tedious topic, but with a bit of imagination, and a scheme like Jolly Phonics, I am coming around to the idea that it could be rather good. :D

Surviving My First PGCE PE Class! :D

We were meant to how our first PE lesson some four weeks ago, but our lesson ended up being postponed. As a result, a sense of dread had developed amongst my friends and I about the lesson, not least because the tutor is rather enthusiastic, perhaps overly so.

Nevertheless, we survived and everyone seemed to enjoy it. We must have looked like lunatic asylum patients for quite a lot of it - moving in 'trains' by running/hopping/crawling/etc, at other times throwing up a ball and clapping as many times as we could whilst also swapping our balls with another 'trains'. Everyone laughed though and the tutor [thankfully a stand-in as the normal tutor was absent] made sure we all understood the purpose of the warm up activities we did. For example, she showed us the criteria for outstanding PE lessons and we could tick off everything on the list from the activities we did. :D

A few of the sessions to come are still a little scary - dance and gymnastics in particular - but the rest sound pretty good and it was quite nice to do something a little different on a Monday afternoon [3pm-5pm lol]. :D

Nicholas Allan

During one of my maths workshops, the tutor read Father Christmas Needs A Wee to us all. It is a rather humous story by Nicholas Allan, whereby Father Christmas eats and drinks far too much on his journey to drop off the presents and subsequently ends up desperate for the toilet. She said her class adore the book and she seemed rather keen herself lol.
I had a look on Amazon and Nicholas Allan has done so many books! I feel rather bad for not having heard of him before. They are all a little... risque, I think it would be fair to say. For example, Cinderella's Bum and Where Willy Went. This made me ponder... I mean, the content of the Christmas book is pretty good - lots of counting up and down, and repetition. But, I am not sure I would feel all that comfortable using one of these books in class. I suppose it would depend on the school and the children. I can imagine some of them would go down very badly if the school were quite conservative lol. Understandly so.
I guess the positive thing I am thinking is that I've discovered something new and something rather humous, even if they do create a dilemma over whether I would actually use them. I suppose the case for Father Christmas Needs A Wee is solved for this year - I am going into a year 3/4 class, so the counting style of the book is not really suitable. Still, an interesting idea, and one that gave us all a chuckle in our workshop. :)

My First Teaching Placement

Today, we found out where our first teaching placement is going to be. I'm subsequently rather excited! :D

I am going to a small school, which is in negotiation for a new building but is currently in a small blue building. It looks so... cute [for want of a better word].

This is my KS2 placement, as I requested KS1 for my 'long' teaching placement. So, I'm going into the year 3/4 class, although apparently there are a handful of advanced year 2 pupils as well. Split year classes seem very common here, but outside of small village schools, I hadn't heard of them before. That said, this school is a village school - they only have three classes! It'll be a good challenge regarding differentiation and pitching things at the best level for the children, but it seems to be a really pleasant environment to learn those skills in.

A couple of the schools in our cluster are a little... scary. I should probably say challenging, but you know what I mean. Two students in my cluster definitely had a sharp intake of breath when they discovered their schools, which just made our STCC laugh and laugh. He has previously said he tries to put people in a 'nice' placement and a particularly challenging placement to make up the two, so maybe I'll end up in one of those schools for my big placement. But, I'm not worrying about that. By then, I should be more confident and I'll obviously have more experience to draw on to cope in that environment. Plus, you never know, a few of us might be lucky and have two 'nice' placements lol. Regardless, I'm sure all the placements are going to have their own challenges and rewards - I'm just rather chuffed that my first will be in that adorable looking building, in a school that seems to be really good. :)