ickle sarah's pgce weblog

2008-03-16T15:31:00.001Z

3 weeks until the Easter holidays!! Tomorrow we have the book fair in, but otherwise as normal, and on Tuesday we have a potty poet (sounds fascinating) and art all pm. Wednesday is final assembly (must give in my house star totals tomorrow!) and then Easter service in the afternoon. I need to have a practice with my kids who are reading tomorrow... I left it quite late to decide, but none of the reading parts are particularly long, and they don't have to know them from memory. The 4 kids I chose were over the moon... should be fun, anyway.

2008-02-03T18:11:00.000Z

Whilst teaching my class of 9 and 10 year olds about idioms, and literal/figurative meaning...

H: Mrs B, what does 'lose your rag' mean?
Me: Well, if I said "H, I'm going to lose my rag with you in a moment!", what would I mean?"
H: That you didn't have any clothes on?

Oh, how I laughed!! :)

The same chap also said to me way back in September "But Mrs B, I don't know how to do borrowing on a calculator!!" when using a calulator to solve subtraction problems...!

2007-07-14T17:22:00.000+01:00

Only 5 days left with 'Current 5B' - and 7 weeks until I start teaching 'New 5B'! It's all pretty exciting. I am looking forward to Friday - not so much because I'm leaving, but because I am beyond knackered and in desperate need of a holiday. Over the last week we've had drama such as 2 of my boys being in trouble for killing a pigeon, and 2 (different) boys being caught stealing things from my cupboard. I love my class, but they definitely haven't been easy to teach... I'm really looking forward to being in my new school, where I hope I'll actually be able to get more teaching done! I met my new class on transfer day and they're wonderful - I can't wait to be there full time.

2007-06-24T09:31:00.000+01:00

So, it's all change for ickle sarah on the teaching front - I'm moving 170 miles north to teach at a school which is about as different from my current school as you can get. I am SO excited!

2007-05-20T09:03:00.000+01:00

Last week my kids performed their class assembly to the rest of the school, and it went fantastically! now, drama is one of the reasons i wanted to become a teacher, so I wasn't going to stick with your traditional "in class this term we have been studying the ancient greeks...." type thing. After some brainstorming with the kids, I put together a script... and thus our 20 minute mini-play was born! Every child had a part, and they were all stars. The basic premise of the play was that 3 children from 5B managed to inadvertently summon Theseus from the past, and he took them on a journey to battle the Minotaur.

I managed to get a few comedy lines in there, which my kids pulled off fantastically. There's one chap in my class who loves drama (rightly so, he's very good at it) and I cast him as Theseus (after proper auditions)! He was very very good, and got lots of compliments from teachers and kids. I was SO proud of them, and it made my day to have loads of kids and pupils coming up to me and saying "Mrs B, your class assembly was really good. At the end loads of my kids said "can we do it again?" or "when's our next class assembly?" so it's good to know they enjoyed it.

Hopefully during residential week (when I'm staying back with the kids who aren't going) I'm going to do a play/musical with some of them, and I can't wait. Should be lots of fun....

2007-04-11T17:28:00.000+01:00

School starts in 4.5 days, and I'm definitely not ready. For some reason, doing the washing, paining the fuse cupboard and browsing the internet seems infinitely more attractive than battling 2 weeks of maths planning. *grumph*

2007-02-23T14:48:00.000Z

Phew, what a term! it's certainly been a baptism of fire - a tough Ofsted inspection in my 3rd week and a multitude of other issues to deal with. Despite it being over a week since I've taught I'm still feeling pretty stressed, and not particularly enamoured with the thought of going back to school on Monday.

Throughout my PGCE I never ever once doubted my decision to go into teaching. And I'm sad to say that over the past few weeks I've been seriously looking around at different post-teaching options.

I believe I'm not a bad teacher, but all the other &*%$ you have to deal with in teaching prevents me from doing what i really want to do (teach!) as well as I believe I can. There is an endless pile of paperwork, and I constantly feel like I'm not on top of everything. I've decided I'll aim for the end of my NQT year (December) and then reassess things. I don't want to leave teaching, but I'm not sure how long I can keep up the 60+ hour weeks!

I've been in contact with my small group of PGCE friends over half term.... out of 10 of us, 1 has already left her job, 2 haven't got jobs yet (despite being stunning teachers - the schools' loss!) and 2 have already handed in their notice to leave in the summer. There's something very very wrong with teaching for this to be happening.

2007-01-08T19:24:00.000Z

Started teaching my new class last Wednesday and overall I'm having a great time. They're a real bunch of charactersm, but we're getting along really well and I can already see them making huge jumps of progress in maths and English, which is great. I've introduced some new routines which are working really well, and I'm really enjoying myself.

However I am absolutely bloody knackered, and could really do with the weather forecast improving, so I don't have to deal with 26 post-wet-play ten year olds for another 3 days...!

2006-12-19T13:19:00.000Z

This afternoon I am heading into school to officially 'handover' everything for my new class... I'm preparing to be overwhelmed with assessment information etc, but I'm hoping that the excitement of finally having my own classroom will balance that out a bit.

I've been spending every free moment planning, and have now managed 2.5 weeks of maths... it's taken ages! I thought when I finished PGCEing that the days of detailed maths planning would be over... but, oh no! With Ofsted imminent, I seem to be putting even more detail into my plans than I did last year....

I suddenly realised earlier that 2 weeks tomorrow I start teaching my class. Why didn't I know that the Christmas holidays were so short?! With the time I'm spending in shcool this week and before term starts, I'll have a grand total of a week and a day off... ah well, could be worse, at least I'm looking forward to going back to work after Christmas; not many people say that.

2006-12-08T15:25:00.000Z

This morning I taught what i've heard referred to as 'the worst class in the school' and had a pretty good time. Lots of teachers are scared of year 6, but I really enjoy it - if it weren't for SATS then I'd love to teach year 6 properly. I'm feeling so positive about teaching at the moment, and absolutely loving my new school.

On Monday and Tuesday I'm in with my new class - really looking forward to getting to know them.

2006-12-07T15:19:00.000Z

I've been teaching in my new school again this week, and still loving it. I was beginning to feel very slightly negative about teaching after all the supply I was doing, but now I'm in 'my new school' and old positive Sarah is back! I'm loving it, even dealing with the difficult kids.

Having taught 3 classes around the school several times, and with my new class also knowing me, I can't walk anywhere in the school without getting "Hello Mrs B!!" from various directions. It's great, and I already feel so at home there, even though I only really started there 10 days ago!

2006-12-04T14:32:00.000Z

Just found a great website with all sorts of cool stuff to do with kids on it - problem is, i'm far more keen on teaching kids origami than literacy now! ;)

2006-11-29T16:11:00.000Z

Just finished my 3rd day of supply at my new school - and i'm loving it!! I've taught year 5, year 6 and year 4 so far, as well as having meetings with some parents of kids in my new class after school yesterday.

It's amazing that after only 2.5 days i'm starting to feeling really 'at home' there - I can't wait to get started 'properly'.

Comedy moment of the day: overhearing one kid telling another that their teacher's 'real' name is "Huge" - it's actually Hugh! Had us in fits. :)

2006-11-27T17:13:00.000Z

today i taught in my new school for the first time... is there a hidden message in the fact that hoodies are actually part of the school uniform?!

actually, i really enjoyed it, although most of the kids seemed to be on another planet for most of the day!

2006-11-23T17:31:00.000Z

I found out this afternoon that from January I'll be teaching year 5 at my new school! I'm very chuffed - it's been very slightly worrying waiting for confirmation of which year they want me to teach, and I am so happy to know I'm teaching the class I wanted right back at the beginning.

And on top of that, I'm going in to teach a different year 5 class for 2 days next week on Supply - looking forward to starting to get to know the school, although I'm a little bit nervous about it all. In an excited way though! :)

2006-11-17T16:43:00.000Z

Ah, one of the hidden wonders of supply teaching - the germs! it's well known that teaching, being that it's spent with children, can be pretty germ-ridden, but imagine teaching around 150 children every week... that's the amount of germs I'm subjected to every week!

I've managed to escape so far, but this week has been my 'ill week' - I started off with a tummy bug and had to turn down work on Monday and Tuesday... and then yesterday afternoon, whilst teaching year 3 I went down with a cold, so had to pull out of today's work, as I've been sneezing, coughing, dripping and wheezing all over the place. Lovely.

Ah well, at least it's almost the weekend!

2006-11-01T15:58:00.000Z

I didn't take up this morning's offer of supply work, as it was too far away to reach by 8.30am (it was 8am at the time - and it was 15+ miles away!) so this afternoon I popped 5 minutes down the road to visit my new school. I timed it on my walk there and it is exactly 5 minutes' walk from gate to gate - nice! I did my CRB stuff and health questionairre and chatted to the head briefly. They're still appointing a TLR post at the moment, so are not 100% sure which year I will be in. There were mumurings with the words "year six" in them, but I told the head I wouldn't be confortable taking on SATS half way through the year as an NQT (she agreed!), so fingers crossed that won't happen. I'll know by the 24th November whether or not I'm with Year 5.....

2006-10-18T17:28:00.000+01:00

I've just realised that 2 people who've started blogs to document their PGCE have linked to me - I'm really flattered! :) I'm looking forward to reading about other people's PGCE experiences, and am shocked to realise I started mine over a year ago. Time really does fly.

2006-10-16T16:47:00.000+01:00

Just got back from another afternoon of supply which went well - year 6 are working on a project on Boscastle, so we spent the whole afternoon on that!

Last week was a very busy supply week - I had a good time, and on Friday I'll be £350 richer - nice! Got nothing booked in for the next 2 days yet (that could change) and am back to a school I've done supply at (and used to be a TA at!) in the centre of the city. On Friday I'm with Foundation stage - had 2 days already with them and loved it, so I'm really hoping I'm with one of the groups I've been with before.

And after that?

HALF TERM!!!! :)

2006-10-06T15:09:00.000+01:00

I have a job! From January 3rd, I will have my own little handful of twenty-five 9 and 10 year olds at our local Junior School.

Back around February and March 2006, it seemed like everyone on my PGCE course, bar myself and one of my friends, started applying for jobs. We both decided, being career changed teachers, and having experienced our fair share of 'crap jobs', to hold back and wait for something we really wanted. By May many of my friends had applied for 20-30 jobs, and eventually I found one that I kinda fancied. I was one of 8 chosen for the teaching task (our of 91 applicants, can you believe it?) and then one of 4 who got through to the interview. I came 2nd in the end, and got the "there's nothing you could have done better, it was a very hard decision" spiel. I was a little disappointed at the time, but quickly became aware that it wasn't the right school for me - very successful and high pressured; one of my friends did a placement there and found it very stressful. I applied for one more job, but the school decided they didn't want an NQT for that post as it was a 'tough class'.

So, then came the summer - some of my friends, having put in many many applications, had jobs. Some were in the same boat as me. At the start of September, job adverts started appearing, mostly for maternity cover posts. I waited, and waited....

.... and then it came up! A year 5 maternity cover post at our local Junior School. Perfect! I visited the school, and the as I was the only one going round that day, chatted with the head teacher on my own for a while. She invited me back to spend a morning with a class, and I jumped at the offer. I had a great morning with a year 5 class, and became convinced that I wanted to work there. So I put together a killer application (tailored everything possible to the school) and on the afternoon of the closing date last week, got a call inviting me for interview.

The interview was on Tuesday, and 8 of us were called to do a 15 minute teaching task. It had to be based around 'sharing a story', and most people read a bit of a book to the class, then asked them questions. I made mine into a mini-lesson, with a starter, an extract from 'George's Marvellous Medicine' then an activity based around the characters, which ended with a freeze frame (complete with shawl for Grandma and cap for George). I was so pleased with it, and I don't think it could have gone any better - and one of the best things was when I walked into the room, it was the class I'd been with 10 days before, and they all recognised me! I was one of 3 called back for an interview in the afternoon, which was pretty relaxed and informal - just the head and deputy. I hung around in the staffroom to hear the result, chatting to one of the other girls who'd got an interview (the other one went home). Eventually the head and deputy came into the staffroom - and offered us both jobs, and the other girl!! There were 2 jobs going, but they decided to pull out of advertising a TLR post, and take on 3 NQTs instead.

And the really cool bit? I'll be teaching the class I spent the morning with, and did my interview lesson with. They're a lovely bunch and I am very very chuffed.

Well, that's my huuuuge job-hunting story. I thought I'd pop it down in case it helps anyone in my position next year. The moral of the story is: be choosy, and the perfect job will come up - don't settle for anything less than exactly what you want.

2006-09-15T10:44:00.000+01:00

Today i got paid for one day of supply work I did last week...

£99.37!!!!

Yes, it's not masses, but it's pretty good for only a day! Last summer when I worked at the playscheme, I got not much over that for a week's work! Definitely worth the rush to get down to Coasham for 8.30am - it's such a nice feeling to be paid £100 for doing something I really enjoy.

This week was a slow week - only one afternoon - but next week I already have three afternoons booked in. And I've got my eye on a maternity cover post in a school jsut over the road...

2006-09-08T11:02:00.000+01:00

On Wednesday I did my first day of supply teaching. I got a call at 7.30am from my agency, and I will still in bed, having been told that supply was slow in the first few weeks, and there was unlikely to be anything! The school was about a 40 minute drive from here, so I had to get ready very quickly - Ben was a star helping me out.

It was in a pretty deprived area just outside a large city, and I was teaching a year 3/4 class all day. I was left some vague planning, and no resources, so had to do a lot of improvisation, but I think I did really well. There were some children with behaviour issues, but they responded really well, and I didn't have any problems with the class at all. I completely made up a science lesson on light and shadows as the medium term plan was useless, and that went well - hopefully I dispelled a few misconceptions (such as 'a shadow is like a reflection but it doesn't have colour')! I also taught ICT in the afternoon, which was good.

I'm really proud of how well the day went - I'm now a proper supply teacher! I don't have anything booked in for next week (but it may come up) and have 3 afternoons for the following week - on one of which I will teaching a class I was a TA with 15 months ago!

2006-09-01T18:14:00.000+01:00

Well, I guess that officially this is no longer my PGCE weblog - I'm well and truly a qualified teacher! My QTS and PGCE certificates arrived a couple of weeks ago... My PGCE one, issued on 17/7, is under my married name, and my QTS one, from 1/8, has my maiden name on it...! I'm hoping to get the QTS one re-issued... not quite sure what went wrong, as the GTC got my name from the University...!

Today I got a call from my wonderful teaching agency with my first bit of supply work... granted, it's not for a couple of weeks, but it's a start! I quite like the buzz of supply work - when I TAed for them, it was really exciting to get phone calls telling me where I was going next, and I got the same buzz today. I'm really happy to be supply teaching - it was a definite decision for me. We may be moving our of the area at some point (fingers crossed!) so it's great for me not to be tied down. I made a definite decision to supply... the one job I applied for and was interviewed for was definitely not for me (high pressure top school) and in a way I was glad to be told I had come 2nd. I know that the right job will come up at some point, but I'm in no rush - until then I'm very happy to hone my behaviour management skills as 'the supply teacher'!

I've got a few things together to take with me when I go supply-ing. The main one is my 'teaching box' which is full of stickers, prizes (thanks to The Works) and a load of laminated cards etc that I made that can be used for loads of different lessons. I also have a kids' brainteasers book that I had when I was young, which has some pretty cool stuff in it, and I'll be popping some of my PGCE lesson plans into a file as a 'just in case' - you never know when you might get into school and find you've been left with nothing to teach!

My friends who have jobs (4 out of the 7 of us) start with their new classes very soon - in fact, one of them started today! Oddly enough, 3 out of the 4 are teaching year 5 - my favourite year, and the year my supply gig I got today is for. They've been in their new classrooms for the past few weeks sorting stuff out. I look forward to having my own classroom, but with so much to do to get the house ready to sell, the last few weeks have been really useful on that front. Definitely no 'lady of leisure' for me!

2006-06-26T15:39:00.000+01:00

The frequency of my posts over the past few months really reflects how crazily busy I've been. But as of Friday 23rd June it's all over - I've qualified as a teacher with a PGCE at masters level! Yes, after all that slog and worry, I passed both my 6,000 word masters assignments, and have the 'proper' PGCE.

I really enjoyed my final placement, and am missing the kids, my mentor, and my TA a lot. I haven't got a job yet... I've only applied to 2, and had one interview.... where out of 91 applicants I came 2nd. It was frustrating, as they couldn't say anything i'd done wrong, it just came down to 2 of us, and the other girl got it. She's a really nice girl on my course, so I was please for her. It was also quite a high pressure, very good school, and I've always said I want to work at a 'middle of the range' school, so maybe it wasn't right for me. 8 of us did the teaching task, then only 4 were interviews, so I'm pleased at how far I got. Unfotunately there isn't a single KS2 job being advertised within 30 miles of here, so it looks like I won't have my own class in September. I'm registering for supply, which I really don't mind doing - I loved being a supply TA, and feel that my behaviour management skills are up to it. I've an interview at an agency tomorrow, and one on Wednesday, so hopefully I'll have some work come September. The guy at one agency said that there are loads of KS2 supply jobs around at the mo - he even tried to persuade me to work this week!!

This year has flown by, and I've had a really great time. The PGCE is bloody hard work, and there's a lot of frustrating stuff you have to do 'for the sake of it', but I've met some amazing people, had some amazing times, and now have a really close group of teacher friends. I really love teaching, and can't wait to get my teeth into it properly come September.

And now, having spent the last 9 months in a teaching-induces haze, I have 10 days in which to organise our wedding....!

2006-05-04T14:41:00.000+01:00

I'm listening to Kelly Clarkson "Since you've been gone" whilst attempting to plan lessons for tomorrow and next week, and it's taken me right back to my first placement. Probably has something to do with the fact that I popped back to see my mentor and the class I haven't seen since February and it was wonderful. That song reminds me of the school, as during my placement 2 girls were planning the 'warm up' for our PE lesson, and they were in the classroom working out which music to use. They put on that song, and starting singing along at the tops of their voices, oblivious to the fact i was sitting in the corner writing lesson evaluations! It was hilarious, and will stay with me for a long time. "Since you been gooooooooone, yeah yeah!!"

It was lovely to go back and see al the kids - when I walked in the door they all went "Miss B*******!!!!!!" and cheered. I was so chuffed that they remembered me, and even more chuffed that they were so pleased to see me. They were a lovely bunch - challenging sometimes, but I loved working with them. Now here's hoping that maybe they want me back in September...! :)

I'm on the home stretch now.... final placement began on Tuesday. I'm in a school in Fareham, which is a bit of a trek from here, but I'm having a good time. I'm with Year 5, my favourite year to teach out of them all, and they're a real bunch of characters. I can't imagine becoming as attached to them as I did to my first placement kids, but I'm sure it will happen.

I love teaching. Lately I've worried that the constant paperwork and admin might end up pushing me away from the profession, so I must always remember the feelings I'm feeling right now.

And when I'm having a bad day, all I need to do is put on 'Since You've Been Gone' and sing at the top of my voice!