Graduation Cap Cupcake by clevercupcakes BY-NC-ND

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 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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

After deliberating I’ve decided to re-continue posting, I have no intentions of posting anything relating to my particular University or School, and all I want(ed) to do is to let other students know what the PGCE is like. With that decided, I’m going to try and post a summary post from September-now which will be hideously brief and incomplete compared to the reality but never mind.

The first less-important change is that I’m making the move from Manchester to Sussex. The lack of opportunities in Manchester wasn’t helping anyone and friends and family seem to have all migrated down south too.

The vastly more important change is that I’m going to be a teacher. I applied for a PGCE course in ICT at the University of Middlesex and got accepted. This is massively exciting for me and I’m really looking forward to it.

I’ve set a sparkling new category for documenting my PGCE (and beyond) progress as a prospective PGCE student I wish I could have read an account of the process to let me know what I was in for!