Friday, November 30, 2007

PGCE Day 65 - It's almost over - so soon ????

Yeah, I know, I've been moaning about this placement and now that I'm a week away from finishing I'm getting ever so slightly sentimental about it. To be fair, it has been the most knackering time I can remember. But the kids are great, I fit in really well with the staff and it is a shame to be leaving that behind never to return.

This week has been a good week. I had two formal observations. The first was on Monday and it was Spanish. It went well. I am getting my pace sorted out and I am organising the lesson better (even if it does always take me an eternity to plan it out!) but the fact that it was the class teacher observing helped. He is a really sound, laid back guy and makes you feel as relaxed as you can, under the circumstances. I think he is also very kind and lenient!

The second observation was the biggie. It took place on Wednesday and was observed by the SBT (School based Tutor) and the CBT (a tutor from college). It is a bit weird because I had never met my college tutor. We had spoken on the phone briefly to arrange the date but that's all. Anyway, I was getting off the train on Wednesday morning and I spotted a woman getting off further down. I glanced at her and noticed she was wearing a badge which looked like my college logo. Sure enough it was. I thought "I bet you that's her." A closer inspection confirmed my suspicion so I just said to her as we walked down the platform, "Hello Barbara, I'm Carole!" So I got a chance to break the ice as we walked down to the school. She was lovely so that made me feel a bit better. Anyway, my SBT and CBT both waxed lyrical about my lesson, a poetry lesson about surprising, amusing and surreal imagery. Acting on the target to include more ICT in the lesson (we have to entertain children these days) I had a PowerPoint of surreal art - I figured Magritte had good strong images which the children would find easier to appreciate. I was running through what I was doing with Mr B. the class teacher. I was bemoaning the fact that I'd wanted to use the Beatles' "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" to run with it for the surreal feel to the lyrics but I don't have that on CD and that it is unavailable for download (unless you include cover versions by William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy?!!!). MR B., bless him, reaches for his iPod and lo and behold rummages through for Sgt Pepper and promptly comes up with the goods! The previous evening His Lordship was cutting up lists of random nouns and adjectives for me and sticking them in envelopes - the idea being that the kids would randomly match up nouns and adjectives as a stimulus to write their own surreal poems. The kids were superb, I was so proud of them. Both observers were highly complimentary generally, so I've been on a bit of a high since.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Carole

Wanted to say Hello to you on your page - Sarah from asbojesus here.

Just to say Hello lots of love

Sarah

Holy Famoley said...

Hi Sarah,
Lovely to encounter you in a different context.
Carole x

Anonymous said...

Thanks mate!

Sas x

hand doing well x

Sonrisa said...

Wow, wish I'd been there! I feel so proud! See you in less than a week! xxx