Monday, September 17, 2007

PGCE Day 11 - The nightmare begins...


I spent Thursday and Friday of last week at my old place of work (which I left in July, if you recall) looking at Year 7 classes. It was very interesting to see some of the teachers in action. I have to say that I was very impressed - objectives shared, starters, plenaries, lots of ICT - anyone would think I was an OFSTED inspector! A huge thank you to all of the teachers who allowed me into their space, it was a privilege. What was really great was to see all of my friends. They gave me a very warm welcome and left me feeling very loved. There were one or two that I didn't get a chance to catch up with, which is a shame. Perhaps there will be another opportunity.
So today was the first day of college. I took in my Preliminary Attachment folder to submit, thinking "That should make a bit of room in my bag!" Of course, no surprises, I got rid of one thing and came away with lots of other things: Profile of Professional Development, Course Handbook, Professional Standards for Teachers booklet, phonics teacher's pack, Primary National Strategy Professional Development Resource Pack on DVD ROM and last but not least Primary Framework for Literacy and Mathematics DVD ROM!!!! I don't even manage to get rid of the Preliminary Attachment folder permanently - we get them back on Thursday when we do a bit of peer assessment (yawn!)
The most useful piece of information is the day by day breakdown of the course. It is useful to know when we are in college and when we are in school, especially since it is not as straightforward as the PGCE Secondary. The placements for primary seem to follow the pattern of serial attachments of 1 day per week in school followed by a block attachment of a number of weeks. Also I found out the dates of the Seville placement - we fly on 11th January (though school doesn't start until 14th - the flight to Seville is on the Friday) until 8th February. So at least now I can update the diary and calendar!

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