Today (and the previous two days) have been a first for me as a teacher, the equally revered and hated, snow day.
Longdendale Trail - CC licenced by thecrypt
Despite just having Christmas holidays, they went absolutely nowhere productivity-wise, so I’m taking advantage of the “free” time to catch up on the PGCE progress.
As a bit of context, this first week back in school marked a switch to five days a week in school at our Uni to complete research for “Rhetoric to Reality”, an essay we have to complete on comparing educational practises in theory with how they are implement in reality in schools. After this week, we only have two more weeks left of SE1 (School Experience 1) before we move to our next school where we remain until the end of PGCE.
School
I have been in a Outstanding-graded all-girls school in North London. The experience for me has been really good, the students are behaviourally and academically excellent compared to the norm for London schools, as the OFSTED report shows.
I have thoroughly enjoyed the experience; teaching is obviously why you join a PGCE, and it’s definitely the better part of the PGCE, I’ll discuss the Uni side later on. Initially, is it overwhelming. Convincing yourself you’re a “real” teacher, planning lessons, marking work, and working within a department are all things that you are immediately thrust into.
I have found though that you quickly find out if you’re cut out for it; the initial few weeks are very busy. Eventually though, you find that a couple of months have passed and you start thinking like a teacher. One thing I will say is that it really does fly by. Not in the Aunty “Haven’t you grown!” sort of way, “Where the hell has the time gone!” sort of way.
Most students before they are in school worry about behaviour management and how to control classes. Although I have been in a “good” school and I might be biased, I will say that I think most of the worries are unfounded. Students will test you, and there will be moments where difficult situations arise, but this is simply good practise for when you’re on your own! As a student teacher you (should) have a teacher in the room with you who will of course help you out should anything go really badly wrong, it’s this safety-net that enables you not too worry excessively.
Planning
Planning is, at least for PGCE and NQT years, essential. The most obvious type is lesson planning. When you start, lesson planning will take forever. It will likely take you longer to do a lesson plan than it will to deliver your lessons; this is normal, don’t worry. After a while it will get easier, especially with ICT as you will probably be doing project-type work where you know roughly what you need to be doing anyway.
I’d consider myself a fairly unorganised, lazy and a procrastinator. I suspect most people fall under this category and it appears to be at odds with being a Teacher. Despite this, I made sure that my lesson plans were done before the week started, and I normally created the resources, presentations etc., the day before.
I have no doubt that you could probably get away with doing it all at the last minute, but do yourself a favour and get yourself organised on at least this one thing. Don’t forget you might have something crop up at the last minute, my internet frequently decided not to bother just at the most important moment.
Uni Work
Uni is definitely the most frustrating part of the PGCE process, a view shared by most students on my course. That’s not to say that the University or Lecturers are bad, it’s just something you’d rather not have to do; teaching is way more fun. This might vary from Uni and subject though, but I suspect it’s pretty common.
The key to Uni and its work is just to get your head down and get it done. Essays, homework, tasks, reading, no-one wants to be doing this when they could be teaching! I suspect that come the end of the year, I’ll probably look back and appreciate the time in Uni more however.
I think an important point is maintaining the Uni-School(and home life) balance. Spending too long on either one results in difficulties. It’s good to keep in the back of your mind that the PGCE is a pass-fail course; I’m not advocating churning out bilge at Uni but as long as it’s a decent standard, there’s no need to go that extra mile and spend all your free time making it that little bit better.