Week 2 Round-up - "Expectations, Motivations, Inspirations... Pupilations?!"

Summing up a week in which so much stuff has happened is remarkably difficult. But, I'm going to have to get summarisation sorted if I want to be a more effective teacher, so here goes...

After the bank holiday weekend, we got back to the academy on Tuesday, and somehow over the three days I completely forgot that the kids started back on that day, too. While that made parking a bit of a nightmare, it also sent a bolt of realisation towards me - "Oh, look at that! It's all those kids you'll be looking after very soon!"

Hi, again, nerves. So glad you could join me after a long weekend off...

In spite of this, the class came together and you could tell immediately that everyone was getting into the swing of things. We put our initial abilities to the test in three ways:

• Presenting/"Teaching" a topic of our choice for 15 to a group of our peers
• Completing an "Emotional Intelligence" exam, and
• Doing a few GCSEs* (or SATs for Primary teachers)

I'm one of those weird people, and one of the ways in which I demonstrate this is by the fact that I actually like being assessed and doing exams. Maybe it's so I know where I stand; maybe I'm just a glutton for punishment. Either way, we were all able to assess ourselves and each other and I think everyone received some good, constructive feedback that we can take with us on our journeys (e.g. I found that I actually speak ridiculously quickly when I'm nervous, and I tend to rock back and forth on my feet when I stand up...).

We had our first conversations with our mentors, too. This was possibly the best thing I could have had right now, as my wonderfully helpful and smiley eliminated a number of fears I had, and reassured me that no matter how extroverted and boisterous some members of the cohort are, we're all in the same boat when it comes to our nerves. It was also great as we found out where we'll be teaching for our first placements. I'll be heading off to an academy that's a little bit of a drive away, but promises to provide some interesting challenges... such as only having about 300 people in the entire school. Watch this space!

I think it's also safe to say that we have had complete knowledge satiation this week; Teaching Standards, OFSTED, lesson planning, differentiation, professionalism with the roles, activity ideas... and we haven't even begun to specialise in our subjects yet! However, the amount of time and effort that the staff are putting into our development at such an early stage shows how much commitment they have to their roles, not to mention how much they must trust us to be able to take in and to adapt this knowledge for our own ends.

By the way, that's not to say that we're masters at teaching. (Yet.)

We had our first chance to socialise this week, and I think with our current links, we'll be socialising a lot more in the future! As I mentioned before, any barriers that were present last week seem to have dissipated, and our support throughout the mutual learning process so far has been great... even if we have had to do some pretty embarrassing things...

Aaaaaaand now for a weekend =]

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Last weeks' goals:

• Taking notes and asking questions - achieved!
• Learning to take things in baby steps - getting there...
• Improving my confidence around others - again, getting there...

This weeks' three achievements:

• Being able to relax more around everyone but maintain an academic mind
• Feeling a sense of direction after meeting with my mentor
• Finding and assessing feedback for the better and "not taking it personally"

My three new goals to work on are:

• Keep on trying to get involved with more activities and questions, especially ones where I take the lead
• Maintain reading around the subject at a level similar to before; don't let it slip!
• Find methods to improve confidence and reduce anxiety, particularly around livelier pupils and staff

* To anyone who believes GCSEs are getting easier - put it this way: a group of university-qualified students took these exams and not a single person got 100% on any exam. Arguably, the mark schemes are not the easiest things to follow, but they are by no means "easy!"

Week 1 Round-up - "I'm as excited as I am petrified"

Whenever someone asks me how I felt about going into teaching, this quickly became my default response. I have always enjoyed the aspect of teaching, and have been ‘teaching’ for several years in a multitude of ways.

But this was something totally different.

I remember looking at teachers when I was young almost as a different breed; there were us – kids, parents, families – and then there were teachers - beacons of knowledge and maintainers of tricky situations, who were as varied in their own styles of speech as they were in levels of strictness. I really enjoyed my time at school and I always enjoyed helping others, so teaching was really a natural vocation for me. So why am I nervous?

I woke up on Thursday morning, not feeling the freshest, thanks to a dreadful sleep and having to get up much earlier than I’m used to. Despite this (and getting completely lost on the drive) I was able to make it to the Academy with time to spare.  Walking over to the training room, I walked through a group of 30 students all eagerly waiting outside the main entrance to pick up their GCSE exam results. Even though this would have been me nine years ago, it felt very familiar and I could still remember the fear and elation when I received my GCSE results. It also verified my first reason for the nerves – soon, I will be responsible for the learning, outcomes and well being of pupils. I’ve taught adults for ages, but never kids. Whereas adult learning indeed has consequences, the formation, teaching and development of pupils seems almost polar opposite. A lot of weight is put onto GCSEs and A-levels, both governmentally and socially; my role is to make sure that the pupils do their best to get the best results they can, and therefore be seen in this positive light both by those who surround them and the institutions that will be observing their successes.

That’s scary. Achievable, but scary.

The ITE cohort for this year numbers around 24 people. We’ve all got our stories, our experiences and our shared desire to want to be outstanding teachers. Our tutor has obviously been teaching for a while; this is evident from his tips, tricks, and occasionally unusual tangents from his own experiences in schools (e.g. getting the pupils to understand why you are teaching a particular aspect of a subject, ideas on lesson structure and differentiation, areas for professional improvement, explanations of the seemingly endless amounts of acronyms in the profession…). Even though it’s only been a few days, I can already tell that I’m going to learn lots, not only from the course structure, but also from others’ experiences, historically and presently, and my own mistakes.

As optimistic as this sounds, it too carries another reasons for my nervousness. The coming year will bring a workload that seems like a mountain right now. You know; one of those mountains where if you keep looking up you feel like you're going to fall backwards and still not see the peak?! 

After speaking to NQTs and others in the profession, this year will be memorable, hopefully for the developmental reasons and not where I’m drowning under a sea of assessment criteria and lesson plans. Nevertheless, I feel like I’m going to have to rely on quite a few people to keep me afloat at certain times. Will I have enough time to complete my lesson plans effectively? How many extra-curricular activities are enough to gain QTS? Will I realistically be able to learn to become an outstanding teacher, whilst studying for a PGCE, on top of keeping up to date with my French and (rapidly) building up my knowledge of Spanish, and maintain enough time to have a social life?! Time to start getting better at time management!

I hope that the group all come around to supporting each other through more challenging times, too. As I mentioned before, we're all individual but we have a common goal in mind. It's always a little awkward when you're thrown into a situation with people who you don't know (and there's going to be a lot of that very soon!) but we seem to be getting on well. I hope that any initial tension will soon dissipate, and we'll be able to connect on professional and personal levels very soon... including individual quirkiness!

Overall, right now I am optimistic for my future, that of my future colleagues and of those of the pupils whose lives we’ll be playing a part in. 

The journey has definitely started! 

(We're gonna need more coffee...)

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My three biggest achievements for this first “week” are:

·      Being able to manipulate my daily routine to get up early, prepare things for the day and beat the traffic

·      Getting to know the names of people in the group quicker than I expected (about 50% in two days is very good for me!)

·      Being able to relate initial academic readings to concepts that Chris has spoken of, such as differentiation by outcome and formative assessment/assessment for learning

The three things I need to work on are:

·      Improving my confidence around others and ‘involving myself’ more

·      Learning to take things in baby steps, rather than viewing the entire year as one big impossibility

·      Taking notes and asking questions