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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!

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.

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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This post is attempting the slightly infeasible task of a summary of about 10 weeks of life in the PGCE student.

Starting at the beginning, it’s a very different atmosphere to an undergraduate degree. I’m not sure whether its the perception, atmosphere or both, but its more focused and intense as you’d expect.

That said, it was a fairly gently introduction to postgraduate life. Its inevitable with anything new that it takes a week or two of admin-type stuff before you get into it.

That was fairly quickly replaced a sense of realisation when we were told that we would be in schools in mere weeks. Despite everyone signing up for the course to spend their whole lives in a school, there really is a feeling of, “what, now?!” about the swiftness of approach. The workload up until this point is fairly minimal, enjoy this!

Going into school is a strange experience, especially if like me, you haven’t much school experience prior to the course. I’m going to avoid going into too much detail as most of it escapes me and I will post more about it seperately. What I will say though, is that if you’re in a school that usually takes on student teachers, you’ll might be suprised by how ambivalent the students will be to your arrival. You might get the odd student asking but on the whole, it’s an order of logic less of an issue that it is for you.

I’m about 6 weeks into my placement now and things are finally “settled”. What I mean by that is, lesson plans aren’t taking longer than the length of the lesson and you spend the lesson itself worrying about the students rather than yourself. It’s a nice feeling to have that mental shift; it allows you to enjoy your experience all the more.