One month later...

I'm still alive. I won't pretend it has been easy teaching the last four weeks, but parts of it have been fun. At least I know the school, the staff and the students now, so can hopefully go about my business with a little more confidence than before. The lack of planning time is proving somewhat problematic, and although some lessons have been good, quality control is an issue of late. Key Stage 4 have been rather unsettled and I feel that I don't yet have all the skills I need to teach them as well as I would like. However, there have been improvements.

No picture today, sorry. Must get back to planning. Grr.

It Begins Again

So. Here we are once again. Next week the new term starts, and as this is ostensibly a blog focused on teaching rather than the ins and outs of my life (I have had a lovely summer, thank you for asking) it seems an appropriate time to commence again. We're going in slow-ish next week with an inset day on the Monday, which I am glad about. I'm a little concerned that I won't have my own transport to school until November when I scavenge a car from my retiring mother, and will be depdendent on lifts from my colleagues or public transport to get to my funny rural school. This week should be spent in planning and preparation, and some of it is indeed so allocated, but Half Life 2 has eaten into it already. And I need to make the Tempest appealing to 13-14 yr olds by next week. Am already considering drawing clumsy analogies with Lost in order to appeal to the Yooth crowd. Will let you know how that goes.

From ITT to NQT via QTS

I've been busy, ok? Not busy enough to justify posting nothing for three months but busy all the same. The PGCE is now over - the certificate conferring provisional 'qaualified teacher status' is in the post, and as of last week I now have a year's contract at a local school, which is a GOOD THING. Am enjoying relaxing at the moment and am therefore not going to write more at the moment. I will return with tales of the last couple of months soon enough.

Child Free Monday!

We near the end of term, and today we had an INSET day during which a funny man from teachit came and taught us how to do flashy things with word that can dazzle students and OFSTED inspectors at once. All rather handy stuff, I feel, and perhaps something I will incorporate into my teaching portfolio. It goes okay at the placement right now, I'm getting to know most of my classes and I think they're doing some good work. Still concerned about the lack of permanent employment, however. I have been firing off applications left right and centre, yet there is nothing coming back in my direction of yet.
I have perhaps foolishly volunteered to take year 7 on a field trip tomorrow, and have at this late stage developed a moderate sense of trepidation about so responsible a task. On the plus side, I'm sure this will generate an anecdote or two, and will rush back here to convey such tales as soon as they have come to pass.

The Pox Part 4

I am ill again! It first became clear that this was the case on Saturday morning, and I had hoped to be free of it by now, but I fear I will be insufficiently healthy to impart knowledge come 8 hours from now, when I must begin my day. I certainly haven't got the time or energy to be writing this nonsense.

More later.

Postcards from the back of the beyond.

Hello there. Two weeks in my new school and I haven't posted a word here yet, which is inexcusable. Well, I like it in my new hill village community college. The remote settlement has its own weather system (largely snow) and there is the intermittent cannibalism and fire worship to deal with, but they also have nice fancy stuff like a wireless computer network on site and data projectors in the classroom. I've only taught half a dozen lessons and I've already used more ICT than in the entirety of the last placement. I have some challenging groups, such as a relatively low ability sixth form English group (to whom I taught an appalling lesson last Friday, the poor dears) and some maniacal year 10s, who will be learning Romeo and Juliet at my hands. I have been discussing with the brilliant regular class teacher the use of a positive bribe system to banish the word 'boring' from the classroom, but this has yet to come to pass.

I'll also be taking a fair bit of drama, and a little media, but I don't have my head entirely in the placement mode right now as I have stupidly agreed to give a lecture to some Open University research group next Monday (the 13th) and have been trying desperately to throw something together to that end in any spare time I have, reading innumerable 19th century novels in the process. Things should become somewhat more normalised in a week or so, I guess.

Of course after that there are the jobs to apply for, but that's another story entirely.

A brief interlude

Back at University this week, and our evidence files have not yet been led to judgement. That is to come next week. For the moment we have had our upcoming assessments explained to us and have had a day of lectures on behaviour management. I'm not certain that today was very helpful - it was primarily a reiteration of theories I'd been exposed to already, albeit with some object lessons thrown in. Still, it is really good to see people again, even if there is some ill feeling about a few of the second placements falling through.
It is odd being back at University again rather that at school. While not entirely unpleasant I do feel rather like I am treading water and should be doing something else. Must apply for more jobs.

It occurs to me that the above post looks rather morose. I should pause to explain that I am, on the contrary, rather cheerful at the moment. I include a picture of a lovely grinning clown in order to provide evidence for this.