This weekend hasn't been particularly exciting, but it has been a chance to regain some degree of normalcy in my life. I feel rested and ready for the scariness that is tomorrow - three lessons, one observed by my STCC [who I am convinced is going to sit there like a hairy giant in the corner of my tiny classroom and basically put me off lol] and one which involves a serious battle with the shocking science resources available, as we look at electrical conductors and insulators.
Yesterday, I had a driving lesson that went really well. My instructor is really supportive and I enjoy my lessons. I used to dread them back when I first had a go [way back in summer 2010] but now they are a high during the week. My test is fast approaching, which is rather terrifying. I obviously want to pass - for one thing, I can't afford to take it again - but part of me will be a little sad to finish my lessons. The silly thing is, after my test, I won't be getting behind the wheel of a car for a rather long time lol [not until I have secured a job and have the money to buy a car]. I think I'll miss my trips around parts of County Durham I'd otherwise never have seen. But, passing my test will definitely make up for that loss lol!
I went into Durham. After a week out in Spennymoor, it was quite nice to head into town. Durham is such a small place that it is very easy to grow bored of the place, so that week long gap was beneficial. Plus, I timed my visit so I got to see the Chinese New Year parade. They filled the streets and it featured a dragon and lots of drum banging. Plus, I saw one of my pupils taking part - I'll have to ask him about it tomorrow. :)
Today, my flatmates were up at the crack of dawn, which should have annoyed me as sleep is so very precious at the moment. However, I was able to do my laundry before the Sunday-rush, plan some lessons, watch the full Australian Open final [even if the end result didn't go the way I wanted it to] and thus I feel very civilised today lol. Plus, my observed lesson is all planned and I have sent it to my teacher to check over. I've even "played" it out in my mind, and admittedly, out loud lol. My flatmates must think I am insane. Hopefully it will go well. Class 2 have been very lucky you see -they have received a letter from Grandpa Chatterji, who heard that they have been reading all about his trip to England. So, they are going to write their replies to him after a game of Blockbusters to refresh our memories of the story... Keeping my fingers crossed that it all goes well. Perhaps if I imagine my STCC as another child it will help - although he would be a very large, very hairy child. Or, I could just pretend he isn't there. After all, I am clearly not as bad at this "acting the part" business as I thought - especially given my eagerness to full different faces and poses with the class before our role-playing activity on Friday! Lol.
Sunday 29 January 2012
Friday 27 January 2012
Week One Done
The first week of this placement is finished.
The idea that I don't have to get up at the crack of dawn, head into school and teach, mark and reflect is amazing! Even more amazing is the fact that I don't have to plan anything tonight. I might - possibly - but I don't have to. Freedom!
It has been an up-down week. Tuesday was the pits. But, since then it has been okay.
Today's literacy lesson went down very well with the class. They were role-playing scenes from our novel and we practised pulling faces and using our body language to suggest different things before we started. In front of 24 children, I pulled different faces and "acted" a part. Madness. I don't do things like that lol. I guess I got caught up in the moment and the children really enjoyed it. One girl - who yesterday refused to do anything in literacy, until I worked with her one-to-one at break time - said she had really enjoyed it. Despite them being in groups, the children kept on task and we watched 5 out of the 6 groups perform. One group didn't, but that is fine. I didn't want any of the children to feel concerned - I would have hated to be set a task like that - so I just wanted them to explore the ideas and have a go. The group in question had worked really hard, so I saw no problem in letting them not perform - if that makes sense. Maybe, if we do something similar again, they will be ready to stand at the front and have a go. :) Another amazing side of that lesson - no marking! I was able to formatively assess and reflect on my planning etc, but I didn't have to sit and mark all the books. That alone was enough to put me in a great mood lol.
So, in short, first teaching week of this placement is done. Two more weeks to go and 5000 MA-level words to write and then it will be time to celebrate. I don't get half term, but by god, I am going to have a blast of a weekend on Feb 10th - not least because a friend is visiting from home. Yay! :D
The idea that I don't have to get up at the crack of dawn, head into school and teach, mark and reflect is amazing! Even more amazing is the fact that I don't have to plan anything tonight. I might - possibly - but I don't have to. Freedom!
It has been an up-down week. Tuesday was the pits. But, since then it has been okay.
Today's literacy lesson went down very well with the class. They were role-playing scenes from our novel and we practised pulling faces and using our body language to suggest different things before we started. In front of 24 children, I pulled different faces and "acted" a part. Madness. I don't do things like that lol. I guess I got caught up in the moment and the children really enjoyed it. One girl - who yesterday refused to do anything in literacy, until I worked with her one-to-one at break time - said she had really enjoyed it. Despite them being in groups, the children kept on task and we watched 5 out of the 6 groups perform. One group didn't, but that is fine. I didn't want any of the children to feel concerned - I would have hated to be set a task like that - so I just wanted them to explore the ideas and have a go. The group in question had worked really hard, so I saw no problem in letting them not perform - if that makes sense. Maybe, if we do something similar again, they will be ready to stand at the front and have a go. :) Another amazing side of that lesson - no marking! I was able to formatively assess and reflect on my planning etc, but I didn't have to sit and mark all the books. That alone was enough to put me in a great mood lol.
So, in short, first teaching week of this placement is done. Two more weeks to go and 5000 MA-level words to write and then it will be time to celebrate. I don't get half term, but by god, I am going to have a blast of a weekend on Feb 10th - not least because a friend is visiting from home. Yay! :D
Friday 20 January 2012
Literacy Planning Challenge Overcome [I hope!]
So, my teacher dropped a lot of bombshells yesterday, which didn't go down particularly well.
To recap: 1. A change to the school day timetable, meaning the lengths of the lessons had changed. 2. A change to the organisation of year 2, meaning I know longer have them for literacy 1 day a week. 3. A change to the topic - despite not objecting to my Indian theme before, she decided that I must change it all to fit with Ancient Egypt.
Well, this morning, I have been working on doing just that. And, I think I have managed to do it pretty well. I should enjoy teaching it too, despite feeling rather sad to essentially throw away all the work I had done on India [not leats because I think it would have been a very vibrant and interesting topic]. The teacher had said 'the children won't understand why they are learning about Indian culture'. That had annoyed me - after all, the topic was 'stories from other cultures' and the whole point is to allow them to see and read about somewhere different [yet similar] to home. Oh well.
I have sent the new plans to her, so fingers crossed she says they are okay. I don't think I could face replanning them yet again [especially when my STCC said they were fab as they were originally]... *fingers crossed*
Something that helped me get into the mindset: Horrible Histories Cleopatra Song. [I haven't used it, although I am using the Mummy Song in one of my History lessons on the period. :D]
To recap: 1. A change to the school day timetable, meaning the lengths of the lessons had changed. 2. A change to the organisation of year 2, meaning I know longer have them for literacy 1 day a week. 3. A change to the topic - despite not objecting to my Indian theme before, she decided that I must change it all to fit with Ancient Egypt.
Well, this morning, I have been working on doing just that. And, I think I have managed to do it pretty well. I should enjoy teaching it too, despite feeling rather sad to essentially throw away all the work I had done on India [not leats because I think it would have been a very vibrant and interesting topic]. The teacher had said 'the children won't understand why they are learning about Indian culture'. That had annoyed me - after all, the topic was 'stories from other cultures' and the whole point is to allow them to see and read about somewhere different [yet similar] to home. Oh well.
I have sent the new plans to her, so fingers crossed she says they are okay. I don't think I could face replanning them yet again [especially when my STCC said they were fab as they were originally]... *fingers crossed*
Something that helped me get into the mindset: Horrible Histories Cleopatra Song. [I haven't used it, although I am using the Mummy Song in one of my History lessons on the period. :D]
Thursday 19 January 2012
Art Therapy
Given all the stresses at the moment, and all the deadlines, Art was like a therapy session yesterday. After a talk on how to use 'flat clay work' in schools, we were set free to have a play.
I made the triangular box [I don't know why, but heyho lol] and Lyndsey made the wonderful tile of fish and the fantastic tile of a cooked breakfast lol. :D
I made the triangular box [I don't know why, but heyho lol] and Lyndsey made the wonderful tile of fish and the fantastic tile of a cooked breakfast lol. :D
Teaching File - STCC vs Class Teacher
Really struggling today to focus on the positives, as my new class teacher has left me feeling rather annoyed. Insisting that I change my literacy planning for all three weeks, despite admitting that she thought the class would love everything I planned, to fit with a different culture [despite her initially saying I could pick the culture to focus on]; informing me only today that the timetable has changed, meaning different length lessons and my having the year 2 pupils at different times [again, meaning more re-planning] and finally that they have dropped the ICT Smart Learning software, for which I spent over an hour last night planning to create lessons that hit three separate units [for my three separate year groups], so they too now need re-planning. All in all, I came away feeling rather upset and now I have to spend yet more time planning things that were fine and perfectly reasonable given the information I had. Urgh!
He did say that he struggles to read me though, and that I don't give anything away. It will probably stay that way, although I did mention to him that my teacher had sent an email a day or so ago with an end line suggesting I could 'change cultures' for my literacy. He said it would be unreasonable for her to expect me to do that, especially given all the planning and detail I have gone into with the culture I had chosen. Also nice to know that I am not the only one who thinks this late notice is rather poor showing from her. Not least because she wants to see the new plans tomorrow!
Oh my... :/
However, a positive. I can do that.
I had my meeting with my STCC today. He is responsible for signing off my teaching file. It was probably the longest I've ever spoken to him, as I tend to keep quiet in our group meetings. He said he was very impressed with my planning, the depth of detail and the general organisation of everything. He said it was one of the best he had seen and that his amazing yr6 teacher would love it - she was recently inspected by Ofsted [independent of the school] and was told she is in the top 1% of teachers in the country. That was really nice to hear. :D
I had my meeting with my STCC today. He is responsible for signing off my teaching file. It was probably the longest I've ever spoken to him, as I tend to keep quiet in our group meetings. He said he was very impressed with my planning, the depth of detail and the general organisation of everything. He said it was one of the best he had seen and that his amazing yr6 teacher would love it - she was recently inspected by Ofsted [independent of the school] and was told she is in the top 1% of teachers in the country. That was really nice to hear. :D
He did say that he struggles to read me though, and that I don't give anything away. It will probably stay that way, although I did mention to him that my teacher had sent an email a day or so ago with an end line suggesting I could 'change cultures' for my literacy. He said it would be unreasonable for her to expect me to do that, especially given all the planning and detail I have gone into with the culture I had chosen. Also nice to know that I am not the only one who thinks this late notice is rather poor showing from her. Not least because she wants to see the new plans tomorrow!
Oh my... :/
Saturday 14 January 2012
Teaching & Learning Conference
It has been a while since I posted here. I haven't forgotten about it, I just haven't really had anything to write home about. Except the time I spent at home, that is, which was fantastic and I made sure it was a real break from anything teaching/pgce related - it made me feel a hundred times better. But, I'm not sure ignoring the pgce really counts as a positive of a pgce year lol. That might be clutching at straws lol...
If I were to find a recent positive, it would have to be one connected to a negative. The past week and a half have taken the form of a 'Teaching & Learning Conference'. In real terms, that meant lots of lectures and long seminars with a mixture of academics, Geneva-international, secondary and primary pgce students. The conference itself was a bit of a drag. A lot of the topics covered seemed very removed from anything 'real' or applicable to the classroom - the theory was so detached from actual teaching. Furthermore, the people in my seminar group were very opinionated, rather aggressive and pretty arrogant. Often, our seminars would descend into shouting matches or confrontations. Given my nature, I quite literally sat in the corner and kept out of it. I have no desire to get involved in heated debates with people who are determined to look down on primary pgce students. A lot of people genuinely seem to believe we - primary teachers/pgce students - sit around all day colouring in. Some of the secondary pgce students kept going on and on about GCSE results and pressures they are under. I get that. However, primary teachers are also under a lot of pressure and we are responsible for the entire education of approximately 30 children for a full 12 months - in every subject, including ones that we are perhaps uncomfortable with. Furthermore, we are laying the foundations upon which secondary teachers rely. We have to overcome the problems faced by children who struggle to hold a pencil, let alone write with it. The idea that we are 'lesser' than secondary teachers grated, I must say...
However, being positive - as I promised I would be - the conference made me appreciate the course I am actually on. The 85-ish of us on the primary pgce are all pretty open and friendly. You can talk to anyone and we all support each other, as much as we can. We are not divided. Similarly, the lectures we had made me appreciate the lecturers we normally have and the forms our classes take. Whether I'll still be so keen on my course when I am running around in yet another 2-hour active PE session remains to be seen, but for now, I am definitely convinced that the grass is not greener on the other side, rather the grass is most certainly greener on the course I am actually on. :)
Now to go work on two 5,000 word MA-level assignments and finish my planning for placement, so it can be signed off this week. :)
If I were to find a recent positive, it would have to be one connected to a negative. The past week and a half have taken the form of a 'Teaching & Learning Conference'. In real terms, that meant lots of lectures and long seminars with a mixture of academics, Geneva-international, secondary and primary pgce students. The conference itself was a bit of a drag. A lot of the topics covered seemed very removed from anything 'real' or applicable to the classroom - the theory was so detached from actual teaching. Furthermore, the people in my seminar group were very opinionated, rather aggressive and pretty arrogant. Often, our seminars would descend into shouting matches or confrontations. Given my nature, I quite literally sat in the corner and kept out of it. I have no desire to get involved in heated debates with people who are determined to look down on primary pgce students. A lot of people genuinely seem to believe we - primary teachers/pgce students - sit around all day colouring in. Some of the secondary pgce students kept going on and on about GCSE results and pressures they are under. I get that. However, primary teachers are also under a lot of pressure and we are responsible for the entire education of approximately 30 children for a full 12 months - in every subject, including ones that we are perhaps uncomfortable with. Furthermore, we are laying the foundations upon which secondary teachers rely. We have to overcome the problems faced by children who struggle to hold a pencil, let alone write with it. The idea that we are 'lesser' than secondary teachers grated, I must say...
However, being positive - as I promised I would be - the conference made me appreciate the course I am actually on. The 85-ish of us on the primary pgce are all pretty open and friendly. You can talk to anyone and we all support each other, as much as we can. We are not divided. Similarly, the lectures we had made me appreciate the lecturers we normally have and the forms our classes take. Whether I'll still be so keen on my course when I am running around in yet another 2-hour active PE session remains to be seen, but for now, I am definitely convinced that the grass is not greener on the other side, rather the grass is most certainly greener on the course I am actually on. :)
Now to go work on two 5,000 word MA-level assignments and finish my planning for placement, so it can be signed off this week. :)
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