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It’s been a long time coming (no thanks to me forgetting to renew my domain) but I’ve finally sat down to write the last of the PGCE posts.

I officially qualified as a teacher at the end of June which was definitely one of the most relieving and proud moments. The year was a long tiring one but it certainly went quickly. Looking back on the whole year, there were points of great tiredness and workload but on the whole it’s not something that should put off potential trainees, it’s definitely worth it.

I’d love to give out some golden nuggets of advice for PGCE students but I think everyone copes in their own ways. The only thing I’d do differently if I had the year again would be to push myself in school a bit more and keep on top of the paperwork better. But as I’ve said previously, it really is a case of doing what you need to do to get through the year.

Moving forward, I joined my new school for the last three weeks of term, which is a fairly new Academy. It’s nice to be in an environment which removes most of the stress of working with computers, although it’s never that simple. From all accounts the Academy expects – quite rightly – a lot of the staff so I’m in for a busy NQT year, so I’m making the most of my summer!

I’ve a few interesting ideas to try for next year which if they are successful, and probably if they aren’t, I’ll write about on here.

Enjoy the summer!

As a filler until I get chance to write another decent post, here are a few question that people want to know the answer to.

Is it just pass or fail at PGCE?

Yes. The only difference between any student completing their PGCE is their reference given. Teaching and work is marked on the OFSTED scale (1-4) but this grade does follow you out of the course.

Is it hard to pass PGCE?

A difficult question to answer. If teaching is for you, no. If you are prepared to work, no. Is it hard to be a good teacher? Yes, but no-one said it would be!

Will teaching job be offered on interview day?

Yes. You can normally ask for up to 24 hours to discuss with family etc., but this is a courtesy and they are entitled to say no; if you’re not sure you want or can take the job, you shouldn’t be there.

Who is the interview panel for teaching jobs?

Again, this varies with school and position. For an NQT role, you would expect to see a line-manager at the minimum, and usually a member of SLT or other Head of Department, and sometimes the Headteacher. A lot of schools will expect you to face a panel of students too. It’s rare to have a Governor on the panel until you get to an SLT-level job.

Are you allowed time off for interviews in a teaching job?

You are allowed “reasonable” time off for interviews, this will be unpaid.

What to do in your last PGCE lesson?

If you are feeling brave, you could let your students complete a questionnaire on your performance over the placement to (hopefully) gain an insight into your strengths and weaknesses from their point of view.

The dust has settled on the last few weeks of excitement so it seems an appropriate point to update.

The two big events were the Monitoring and Assessment assignment, the final 5,000 word bit of work and my final University observation. The former was pretty hectic and my hatred of long essays is well documented. Despite this, it was actually one of the most beneficial bits of work in terms of professional development; the research into assessment was actually really useful. I was pleased I got it finished and actually got some sleep before the hand-in but as ever I wish it was a little better. As with everything on the PGCE though, it’s about getting the time/result balance: there’s no point not sleeping for a week to get a Grade 1 only for you to be a wreck in school.

The following day was my final observation from University. I’m not sure whether my lack of nerves was still due to being on a come-down from the M&A hand-in or just the fact I’ve had so many observations now it seems second nature. No matter which, it went as well as I could expect, gaining praise in particular from an area of my teaching which I consider something I need to work on so that was all I needed to feel like I’ve made progress.

I think that last sentence does sum up the PGCE year. There will be very few trainees (myself not included) that are natural teachers and by the end of the course are rated Outstanding, but that’s not to say the rest are bad teachers (although again, there will be some!). The key to being a good trainee in my humble opinion is all about reflection, taking advice and acting on it. I’ve been teaching for what seems like a good chunk of a year but in terms of actual hours, not really that many, especially compraed to that teacher who’s giving you feedback who has been teaching for longer than you’ve been out of nappies.

If you are capable of realising where a lesson was bad and how you could avoid it in the future, I believe you are on the way to being a good teacher. Good teachers are not born, they just learn from their mistakes quicker than everyone else.

A fundamental skill in the teacher’s arsenal, and one that seems effortless to the casual observer, is in fact the result of various iterations of trial and error. I’ve seen and practised a few variations which I explain below. These are from the ICT point of view which assumes students are facing away from you which obviously makes it slightly more challenging. I’ll update the post if I come across any new ones.

Request and named follow-up

• Issue a polite request for quiet: “Thanks everyone”, perhaps accompanied by a clap if particularly noisy
• Identify a few usual noisy students and add: “Thanks James… Thanks Simon… Thanks Sarah…”
• The students addressed will stop talking and the class will hopefully follow suit to avoid being named

I first saw this done by a teacher with a great deal of respect and presence, which are beneficial to the technique working. The downsides are it takes a bit longer than the others but it’s very low key and controlled and if you can master it you will probably save your heart and voice a fair bit of damage!

Three calls

• “First call for quiet”, “Second call for quiet”, “Third and final call for quiet”

A fairly simple technique which works pretty well. Designed to be used with a strike system (as below). After a while, students will get used to paying attention from the first request.

Shout and wait

• “Quiet please!”
• Stand, wait and stare

This usually only works if you have either an exceptionally loud voice or a massive presence, if students don’t respond to the first request, you run the risk of begging for quiet.

Three Strikes

• <Student continues talking>
• “Okay Joe, you’re talking after I’ve requested you stop, that’s your first strike; three and it’s a detention”

Whilst not a method in itself, it’s pretty effective when used in conjunction with others. Detention can be replaced with a smaller sanction such as loss of privileges, extra minutes after the lesson etc. Students tend to work well when on their second strike, for obvious reasons!

Yet another large gap since the last PGCE post, oh dear. Easter break came and went; it was split equally between doing absolutely nothing and panic-working after doing nothing. The following graphic (shamefully stolen from a Uni presentation) shows the “pressure points” of the PGCE year, the second trough being the Easter break.

PGCE Presure Points

I wish I had a better memory to enable me to remember things which would actually be useful to write about, the only thing that springs to mind recently is behaviour management.

As a teacher, behaviour management is a massive – some might say primary – area of learning and practise. As a trainee, it’s no less important, and probably more difficult. The infamous “don’t smile before Christmas” piece of advice for trainees/NQTs has its foundations in reality but obviously needs to be taken with a JCB-load full of salt.

No trainee wants to be a strict teacher, we all remember that teacher at school: always yelling and popping veins, dead poet’s society they were not. What we also forget is the teachers we thought were cool and fun, probably were also firm when they needed to be; there’s being strict and there’s being fair and consistent.

As a trainee, you’re (probably) young, you’re new to the school and if the students have their wits about them, they probably realise the fact another teacher is in the room means you’re not a proper teacher. For all of these reasons, it’s important that you aren’t identified as a pushover. It’s important to separate your personality (e.g. happy, serious, loud, quiet) from your behaviour management.

Now I’m not professing any great skill in this area, indeed the fact that the topic is fresh in my mind is it’s my main area of development right now, but it seems to me that you have to be clear about your expectations and be consistent in the application of those. If I ever discover the magic method I’ll be sure to let everyone know!

Despite Christmas still seeming not long ago, it’s time for a half-term break (edit: it’s now the second week after half-term, time has been short…). It’s been a fairly exciting week in my life as I went for an interview for, and was offered, my first job. Now my experience in getting teaching jobs is literally limited to one interview, but I thought I’d post a few thoughts about it anyway.

Application Process
I’ll not patronise you by telling you where to look, no doubt your University or Google can tell you all you need to know; I found my job on the TES website, the daddy of education jobs and I’m sure the job was up there a good couple of weeks or so before it closed. The application deadline closed Monday evening and I received a call Friday evening inviting me for an interview on the Wednesday. They followed up by email letting me know what lesson and year group I was to be teaching.

Contrastingly to non-teaching jobs, schools have to allow you the day off for interview but it’s even less of an issue as a PGCE student as they’re expecting you to be looking for jobs at this time of the year anyway.

The Interview Day
I was travelling by train so I was aiming to shoot about half an hour early, as sod’s law would have it, my first train was delayed so I only just made it there on time. Leave as early as you possible can! I met with the other candidates, had a chat with a few members of staff before being prompty whisked off to deliver my lesson.

I decided to take a risk and concentrate my lesson more on the school’s specialism than ICT, something which the Headteacher noted appreciation for during the interview, but obviously your mileage may vary here. The only thing I can stress during the lesson is to try and stay calm, smile and interact as much as you can with the students. Getting some Assessment for Learning techniques in there will go down well.

After the lesson came the student interview. This is a vital part of the process so be on your guard. I was expecting it to be more “tricky”, as in, trying to catch me out, but the questions were fairly reasonable. Make sure you know the history of the school though. Take any opporunity to ask/chat with the students; it also was mentioned that this part swung the job in my favour so it’s obviously an important part.

After the student interview it was on to the real interview. My panel consisted of the Head, and two members of the SLT. The questions were fairly standard, I would advise being well-read on current education policies such as APP and AfL.

I’m sure there’s much more detail I’ve forgotten, so should you also want some proper advice, I can recommend Doug Belshaw’s (as of yesterday) free #getthatjob eBook.

The Friday before last was the last day of SE1 aka the first placement school of my PGCE. It was a sad day given that I’d had such a good time not just teaching in the school but also with the staff and fellow PGCE students. Like anything in life it had to come to an end but it does feel like that first breakup with your first ever school boy/girlfriend. Perhaps I’m being a bit melodramatic.

We had a week back in Uni which was a blessing and a curse; it was good to catch up with all the students on my course again and swap (horror) stories and sound out what our prospective new schools were like. The downside to this however is the impending deadline of “Rhetoric to Reality”, a horrible 5k essay based on primary research in schools. Me and essays never got on, hence doing all technical/IT related subjects since GCSE but obviously I hated myself enough to put myself through even more essays. That’s not to say the content it particularly dull, but I’d be resentful to write 5k words on how awesome I am, that’s how much I hate writing essays.

Looking past the near horizon-blocking essay deadline to my new school (which I’ve already spent two days in), is exciting. Having previously been in an all-girls school, I’m really looking forward to teaching some mixed classes. There definitely seems to be a different atmosphere when it comes to ICT in mixed schools compared to all-girls. The department setup is different in a few ways too, so it’ll be good to get more experience.

Which brings me on to jobs. It’s coming up to that time when we’re all scouting around for jobs which is both scary and exciting. I’m currently in the process of applying for my first one which is a definite learning experience; I’ll post something further on jobs I think though.

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.
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Below is a post that I posted to the VLE of the school I am currently at. I don’t make any revolutionary claims here, I would imagine that all of the tools have at least been discussed, if not used, in schools already; this was just what I thought might be useful for this school.

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Don’t be afraid to wait for silence or attention. As a new teacher you might feel self-conscious about standing and not talking but it’s effective and the students won’t think it’s odd; most of their Teachers will do it.