WE WUZ ROBED!!! PGCE Finale.

Well the last week of the course went by in the blink of an eye. I shall miss the kiddie winkies, they made me laugh. And I even got pressies - lovely bath stuff, Ferrero Rocher and a case for my iPod! Not forgetting a lovely card - can't show a photo of it as it has a photo of all their gorgeous little faces on it. The staff were great, too. I shall particularly miss Miss J., the Teaching Assistant for my class. We made a good team and had some laughs. I was not looking forward to the final sign off, sure that my evidence would be found wanting. But it came and went without incident. As anticipated, I had no energy for celebrations and slept a lot in the ensuing few days. Even the final profiling went smoothly along with the discussions for 'Transition Point 1', stage one of the Career Entry Development Profile (CEPD) - blimey! I've only just got rid of the Profile for Professional Development (PPD). More standards, more form filling...


Last Thursday saw the long-awaited and much envisioned graduation ceremony. It has to be said, the weather was - how can I put this - crap! It peed down all day. I spent ages straightening my disobedient hair and as soon as I got out into the air, it was a mad fuzz! I am considering patenting a business idea - offering a hair straightener service at graduations at universities all around the country. Let's face it, even the 'blokes' straighten their hair these days - the same type who wax and pluck their eyebrows. In the pre-PC era I would have called them 'tarts!'


The ceremony itself was fabulous. It was held at the magnificent Anglican Cathedral in Liverpool and the pomp was well up to standard. It was mainly teachers graduating on that day - BAs and PGCE. It was a shame that so many of the Post Grads had declined to attend. Generally speaking they'd done it all before and didn't see the point of paying out for the fancy dress. I think they really missed out. My first graduation was at the Philharmonic Hall in Liverpool. Now I am very attached to that building but the cathedral is in another league. The sound of the trumpet fanfares and organ music echoing around the cathedral and the solemnity of the procession made for an electrifying ambience. Not to mention that, with the loss of my mum still fairly fresh and a previous aborted attempt at a PGCE, I personally had an awful lot of emotion tied up in the occasion. We joined the end of the procession leaving the cathedral and when we got onto the cathedral steps, the 'big wigs' had formed a 'guard of honour' on the steps and were applauding us as we came out of the door. Amazing!

We went for a lovely meal at the Jabula in the evening. Now all I need is a job but there are none at the moment. I've registered with a couple of supply agencies so I will have to wait and see what comes up. I need at least term-long placements so I can complete my induction year. I can only do 4 terms worth of supply without that. But for now, let's have a bit of a holiday!

PGCE Final placement - Week 8 of 9

Well it's a funny time. Most of my PGCE colleagues have finished their placements now and had all their files and standards signed off and I have another week to go. This week has been quite nice really. I was doing a few more fun things with the kids and the good Lord has smiled on me a bit, too. Tuesday we had an African drumming workshop in the morning. I have this strange compulsion to get myself a djembe now. In the afternoon, about 10 of the class were out playing in a football tournament, so we did some more fun activities. Wednesday was my planning day so no contact with kids all day. Thursday I had to go into college in the afternoon for the final meeting and Friday was INSET and all the staff were doing tasks at home so school wasn't open. This was wonderful for me, not only because it was an unexpected oasis of peace before the final push, but also because I had my daughter's confirmation on Thursday night and it was my 27th Wedding Anniversary on Friday. Thank you God - it is so wonderful that you can operate outside of linear time and organise things like that!

The confirmation was lovely, actually. I may sound surprised at that but it is because it was done on a pastoral area basis. For administrative purposes we now have to do things with two neighbouring parishes which means it can lack the intimacy that doing stuff in your own church has. We had to trek out to St Winefride's in Neston. It's a lovely sandstone church - very picturesque but with the weirdest layout on the inside. We were OK as we were facing the altar. But a large section looks sideways on so it is not the most inclusive layout I've seen. The big downside of this pastoral area arrangement is that you can't invite your family as there is no room. As his Lordship was with us, he had to sit in the cheap seats at the side and didn't really see that much. The church was full so there was no chance of inviting grandparents. The pianist was excellent which assisted greatly in encouraging a bit of singing. We didn't hang around to say hello to the bishop as St Winefride's church hall was straining a bit to cope with the numbers and I was getting claustrophobic. We escaped to the calmer ambience of Pizza Express in Heswall.

Friday morning meant a much deserved lie-in and lunch at the Hinderton Arms in Neston. His Lordship and I then went to Ness Gardens to walk off the worst excesses of lunch before replacing them with a slice of home baked cake. Even Ness is not a safe haven from the recent infestation of superlambananas. Now, just time to replenish my energies, do a bit of planning and into the final push for week 9 of 9!

PGCE final placement - Week 6 of 9 -What a corker!

Well, this week was a bit more upbeat for me. But I must admit to being completely knackered. I am desperately trying to figure out how you can do a decent job and still have a life! 3 more weeks to go and I am counting down in every way possible - pairs of daily disposable contact lenses I need, marking off days on the calendar. By the time I have my next hair appointment I will have finished. I have purchased my last monthly travel season ticket. I have 15 more days in school, of which 10.5 are teaching days. If I could put as much imagination into my lesson planning it would be great!

Humour spot of the week this week:

Me: Can anybody tell me what this is? (holding up a champagne cork)
Pupil A: A cork!
Me : That's right, it's a cork! What is it made from?
Pupil B: Cork.
Me: Yes, well done, it's made from cork. But where does 'cork' come from?
Whole class (in chorus): From wine bottles!

From the mouths of babes, eh?

PGCE Final placement - week 5 of 9 Numeracy across the curriculum...

'Here I am' is the deadly boring and uninspiring RE scheme of work used by, I think, all of the Catholic Primary Schools in England and Wales. Whoever devised it wants shooting, seriously. What is even worse is that, considering so many teachers must have to use it, there is absolutely nothing on t'internet in terms of resources/ideas of how to deliver the scheme. But anyhow, we were looking at 'Building Bridges' which is essentially about relationships and reconciliation. I happened to tell the kids the story of when Jesus was asked by Peter how many times we should forgive someone, should it be seven times. Jesus responded with seventy times seven (according to some translations). I was so bored that I decided to use this as an opportunity for some cross curricular maths. I unashamedly picked on a young chap by the name of John. He is the maths star of the class. I cannot keep up with him workwise. He just eats up everything that you put in front of him (metaphorically speaking!). I gave it to him as a mental maths challenge. He had a little think about it and tells me its 490. OK, to an adult of average intelligence, this is no great shakes. But this little guy is seven years old. His classmates splutter their way through the 2, 5 and 10 times tables. Many struggle to mentally calculate something like 15-6. Suffice it to say I was well-impressed.

PGCE Final placement Week 4 of 9: Into the valley of death

I've just had the worst week so far. A crap observation impacted severely on my mood and led to a crap week. I have seldom felt so low. It brought back all of the horrible memories of my PGCE Secondary course (1st placement) which ultimately led to my jibbing the course. Please, God, the only way is up now. I can't express how much is tied up in this course for me and how desperately I need to succeed. The low point was midweek and admittedly it did improve before the end of the week. But I don't think I've ever felt so tired and added to this, the grief of losing Mum managed to surface - I'm having a little bit of difficulty putting that away again. Ever tried to get a tent back into its original container - then you'll get some kind of a handle on what I mean. As for the tiredness, I slept 12 hours on Friday night and 12 hours on Saturday night. I'm feeling a bit more human now.

Thankfully we have a week off now so I hope to get as much work done as I can to try to alleviate some of the stress over the final 5 weeks. As I missed 2 weeks from the Spain placement, I have to add these on to the end, which means I don't finish until 2 weeks after all my colleagues. I really don't understand how this will fit in to my infamous Profile of Professional Development. Am I supposed to meet the same standards as everyone else for the 3rd and 4th review points? And then slip back and only meet the standards for review point 2 at the end? It's all so messy!

Don't know if anyone else does this, I subconsciously sing songs which fit in with my mood at any given time. When I was going through my aborted attempt at secondary teacher training, my mantra was 'Gotta get thru this' by Daniel Bedingfield, which was a hit at the time. Last week I was apparently heard singing 'Every day is like survival' from Culture Club's Kharma Chameleon. This morning I was singing in the shower Labi Siffre's 'Somethin' inside so strong'. I'll try to harness the power of that one for the next few weeks. Will keep you updated as to any changes to the soundtrack of my life...

PGCE Final placement - Week 3 of 9

Well, 3 weeks down, now, 6 to go. I have never felt so tired in all my life and I'm not yet on full timetable. I ought to be job hunting but frankly I ain't got the time to fill in an application form! I am beginning to wonder if I want a post in September. If I were to get a job now it would mean spending virtually all summer planning and I'm not sure I want to do that! If I knew I could get some regular supply work for the first term, I might feel a bit more comfortable. Oh, I don't know...

The week did not have the most wonderful start. The school was under a bit of a cloud because a former pupil died in tragic circumstances at the weekend. I actually met the lad a few weeks back during my planning week. He and a couple of his mates were off, as their school had an INSET day, and they came in to help out at their old primary school. He struck me as a lovely lad, very bubbly, clever, likeable. It is quite unbelievable to think that a young chap so full of life and promise is no more. The staff in particular were very upset.

It's been a fab week weatherwise, really warm and sunny. Today, of course, it is peeing down! I am getting a bit cheesed off with the centre of town. It's like a building site. If anyone is considering coming to see what Liverpool has to offer as the city of culture, don't bother, it's a mess. I'd leave it for a year or two until the road works are finished and all of the 'regeneration ' is sorted. We are going to have more shops and apartments than we know what to do with. Personally, I can't see what shops have to do with culture. I would have flattened one of the big tatty areas and created a wonderful urban open space with snazzy fountains and benches. All the great cities have these spaces. As for 2008, I would have just cleaned up what we have, organised street entertainments, concerts and the like and done the building works next year. As for the organisation of the whole city of culture thing - well, the words 'p*ss up' and 'brewery' spring to mind...

PGCE final placement - Week 2 of 9.

Week 2 is over. Not without its ups and downs. It should have been a great week given that we had a bank holiday Monday but I had to still put a full teaching week in (full according to the requirements of my course so far, anyway). I had an observation on Wednesday which was not the most brilliant, I have to say. Not a good way to ease myself into my college tutor's observation on Thursday. The co-ordinating mentor at the school was fab. I had a bit of difficulty judging where I stood with her, as we hadn't had much contact. But she talked me through the shortcomings of my performance on Wednesday and gave me loads of great tips for how to improve things for Thursday. Thursday, as a result, went well.

The kids really take advantage when I am the only adult in the room, but there are a few who are clearly starting to get keen to please me. I am hoping that this will improve in the next few weeks. I do think they are lovely but I need to tame them a bit for me. They are fine with their class teacher. I am going to try to put a bit more order on morning routines. Every morning they are fighting to (a) give out the fruit, (b) collect the milk and (c) take the register back. I'm going to draw up a rota so that there is no fussing over these items and no charges of favouritism. I'm also going to abandon the traditional roll call type register in favour of going around the tables, chatting to the children and marking them in informally. At some point we will have some soft music to enhance the ambience. The next routines to tackle after that will be over drinking bottles and ad hoc toilet visits. But first things first.

PGCE Final placement - Week 1 of 9 Star of the Week!

Week 1 in the new placement school is thankfully out of the way. The children are a delight, I am growing quite fond of them but naturally, while the cat is away, the mice will play and they do take advantage of the fact that their own teacher is not there. I had to give them a bit of a talking to last week as they really were taking the mickey. But I want really to cultivate the approach of a teacher we can have a bit of fun with but we know that there are boundaries that we mustn't cross. My mentor is encouraging me to go for the positive approach to behaviour management, ie praising good behaviour rather than nagging about bad behaviour. She says that it probably takes longer to win them over in this way but that ultimately the children want to please you.

The high note of this week was that I had to get up and give the merit awards to three children in our class at the assembly on Friday. All of the class teachers have to do this. I got a lot of praise for my first 'performance' in front of the school and before I sat down, the Head Teacher gave me a sticker! I wore it with pride all day Friday!

Parting is such sweet sorrow - Part 4

Oh I do so hate goodbyes! Today, we finished the college component of our course and this is a photo of my curriculum studies buddies. There are six other similarly sized groups doing the PGCE. I started the course with no intention of connecting with anyone. After all, I wanted to get a teaching qualification, not make friends. But, well, I've kinda grown to love these guys. We've been through stuff together. There is nothing like a bit of solidarity in shared adversity to bond people. We've had so many laughs and now it is the end of an era. We will of course be in contact through Facebook/email and what have you, but it just ain't gonna be the same - boo-hoo!

On Monday, we're all off to school to start the final teaching block. God willing, we will all meet up again at the graduations in July, if not before for some celebratory night out.

(I'm the old, fat hag in the blue jacket. Diet tomorrow, defo!)

Shift Happens

We were shown this video as part of a presentation in a Professional Studies lecture this morning on global citizenship. It was preceded by the question, "Why do you want to teach?"



Actually, after watching it I feel that the teaching qualification that I don't yet have is pretty well obsolete.

On the bright side, after scraping the lowest professional level pass that you can get in my first assignment, I found out that I got a B at Masters level in my second. WOO-HOO!!! Suppose I'd better get started on the third now since it is due in on Monday...

Portraits, pole dancing and chocolate shredded wheat cakes.

Almost Easter. I can't believe it. We have only just handed the second assignment in and I've got the third one hovering over me like the Grim Reaper. The only one which has been marked was crap. I got a P2 for it which is like the lowest grade you can get. So God alone knows how I will do in the other two. I really can't be arsed with academic writing - I am too much of a creative (don't laugh, now!). I just hate the artificiality of academic writing and I can't stay awake long enough to do the academic reading. A girl on my course has just, in her mid twenties, had herself deemed dyslexic and is taking all the freebies going, including automatic extension rights. I asked her what her 'symptoms' were. She said she reads things but has forgotten the beginning of a sentence by the time she gets to the end. I'm seriously considering having myself assessed.



We have changed our foundation subject courses in the curriculum studies part of the course. I now do PE, Art and Music instead of Geography, History and RE. I have to grudgingly say that PE isn't as bad as I thought it would be. The PE tutor is off his head, which is fine by me, though I do still find myself doing what I did at school, ie find a corner to stand in and try to look invisible. Sadly, you can't sneak off to the loos for a smoke these days! I wasn't in last week, but the week before I fell over and really hurt my knee playing 'tiger tag'. You shouldn't have to undergo such indignities at my age! I had to sit all evening with a veritable plethora of ice packs on my knee, courtesy of his Lordship, which helped a lot. But the following week, I bent down to clean Alice the hamster's cage and felt a burning sensation go right up the front of my thigh. The next day the same thing happened to my other leg when I was bending down to put my nose in a hula hoop on the floor...don't ask...it was cross curricular Spanish in PE. I could barely walk afterwards!

In Art we have been doing portraits of our classmates. The picture here is the lovely Sarah's interpretation of me. I don't think it is bad for a first attempt. My one of her was OK, too. We also did abstract collage portraits of each other. She was off for an interview in her hometown yesterday. Everyone is panicking and applying for jobs at the moment but I just don't feel ready at all. I wonder whether a short stint doing supply would be a bad thing. I refuse to get caught up in the hysteria.


I've just done my third attachment Wednesday at my new school. Another student was doing a session on healthy lifestyles with our Year 2 class today. She was doing a brainstorm of types of exercise (yeah, I know the PC brigade don't like the term 'brainstorm' but who cares what they think?) We had all the usual suggestions. Then this little boy puts his hand up and says, "pole dancing". From the mouths of babes, eh? She looked surprised but they do actually do pole dance exercise classes in some places now so it went up on the board. Apparently another of our 7 year-olds (another boy) was able to enlighten the ignorant that, "that's when you swing around a pole in your knickers and bra." I wondered if we were all a bit confused. Just a few minutes before a boy had asked me if there was any such thing as Polish dancing. I said yes and he asked what it was like. I said I didn't know and he'd have to ask a Polish person. At this he seemed less than enthusiastic, saying that all the Polish people in his school could only say one word of English, that being 'Lewis'. Minutes later, we had the pole dancing suggestion. Surreal.

I decided to stay behind for the healthy club after school. There was a slight oversight on the healthy front in that we were making chocolate shredded wheat nests with mini eggs. Well, they do say that a little of what you fancy does you good!

Long time no write...

Such a long time since writing. Well, a lot has happened since my last posting. Then I was in the middle of my Seville adventure (well, adventure my my standards, anyway!) Halfway through I was called home. My dear old Mum's health had taken a sharp downturn and it was thought best that I cut my Spanish sojourn short. At 83, Mum wasn't in the best of health, though being of good strong stock, she stoically carried on as best as she could. She is pictured at our house on Christmas Day 2007, a month before she died. I arrived home around midnight on the Friday and was able to be with Mum when she breathed her last on the Sunday evening. There were nine of us around her bed when she died, and a tenth , a tangible presence called Love, was there too. In spite of our sadness, there has been a subtle joy to be had, too. A family, too long busy with their own lives, has been rediscovered. We have been learning how to love each other all over again. Not that we didn't love each other, but it is so easy to take each other for granted. Mum has brought us all closer.

So, a rather surreal few weeks and, of course, I have the problem of my course. College has been very supportive. Indeed, I cannot speak highly enough of my tutors both here and in Seville. I will be able to make up my lost days at the end of the course and, God willing, I will be able to graduate with my friends. I have been deeply touched by the support from friends and colleagues.

With an eye to the future, I start the attachment days at my new school. I am looking forward to it, as it is a contrasting experience. It is in the city centre, it has a high representation of children from minority ethnic groups. It received an outstanding report from its last OFSTED inspection and it comes highly recommended. I hope and pray that I can do it justice. I have a Year 2 class which, I hope, will be a lot of fun.

That's me, caught up...

Reign in Spain 2

Well, things have settled down here a little bit now. After the initial excitement, we are mostly tucked up in bed by 11pm. Being outside of Seville, we generally have to get a bus into town and another to our schools. So this means departure by 7.30am for most of us. This is a big deal for a lot, but it is actually a bit easier for me, since I was getting a bus at 7.10 when I was on my first placement. Monday was a university day - well we had a presentation on Seville University and refreshments. We met our compañeros again and mine was recovered from her illness. Lovely girl, but insisted on speaking English to me the whole time. Not sure what I get from the deal, really. But it was a buddy task to accompany us to the school. We were walking along this road in the town to our bus stop when I became aware of a terrible smell. I looked down to my feet to see what I rather suspect was raw sewage running down the pavement. A woman in a shop was brushing what seemed like gallons of the stuff out of her shop door onto the pavement. I felt for her but I felt for myself more. Suffice it to say my trousers were put into soak when I got back in case they had trailed through the stuff. Only in Spain! Thank God it wasn't the height of the Andalucian summer! Anyway, my buddy and I made our initial visits to the school and found out what bus I needed to get in to school. I won't see her again until Monday when she starts her placement at the school - she only does three weeks and then comes to the UK for a month

The lingo is so difficult to understand. The Andaluz accent drops 's' sounds all over the place and also the odd consonant when it feels like. I'd really love to know which bright spark with a warped sense of humour decided to partner up Andalucia with Merseyside in this project. Still, at least the challenge is equally weighted! I find myself nodding and saying "Sí, sí, vale.." all the time when I haven't got a clue what people are on about. It is bound to get me into trouble at some point! Mind you, my tongue is completely tied, too. One rather quaint thing which I remember from my time in Málaga is the tendency to add the diminutive ending 'ito/ita' to everything, so whatever you talk about translates as a 'little something'. So I am nurturing the habit of foregoing a cervecita (a little beer) in favour of a cafelito (a little coffee) and taking my toast golden brown with the butter blandita (a little bit soft - just like me!).

I haven't met my teacher yet as she is off with the flu. My school is a bilingual school. This means that certain lessons are delivered in English. I have yet to see how this works in practice. I saw an English lesson when the exercise was all about saying "I am going to do something". The class had to think up an example. One rather confused lad questioned why he had to do this, "Por qué? Es mas facile en español!" (Why? It's easier in Spanish!) Nice to know the Spanish come out with the same stuff as our, eh? I caught two boys throwing a ball to each other while the teacher's back was turned. Being a bit reticent to do anything and really not sure of what language to use, I looked at one of the boys and shook my head disapprovingly. The cheeky little bugger looked at me and put his finger on his lips, signalling to me to not let on to the teacher as if I was complicit in his little game! When they did it again, I confiscated the ball from the other boy (having rehearsed the Spanish for 'give it to me' in my head!) This has been an amazing culture shock for all of us. Our combined findings are that nobody really does dynamic and interesting lessons here. Everything is done from the book, to the extent that some teachers just read straight from the book. We haven't seen any evidence of stating lesson objectives. We have to fill in a log book during our visit including lesson observations. These ask things like, what sort of transitions do you see from one part of the lesson to another?, how does the teacher start the lesson?, how does the teacher end the lesson? The short answer is dunno. Does standing up and looking authoritative count as a lesson starter? Does the bell going and the children just putting their books away and going out count? It is all very laid back. I'm tempted to say that I don't think that is all bad. See, they don't sweat the small stuff - the kind of stuff that we in the UK can get embroiled in the name of discipline and end up blowing up out of proportion. The children call the teachers by their first name (saves them playing guessing games). They may or may not ask if they can hacer pis when they need the loo. There is always a toilet roll at the front of the class which they randomly just come out and use if they have a snotty nose. I haven't seen anyone told off yet. They certainly don't seem to fuss as much as our children. It is generally agreed that the schools are not as bright and colourful as our schools. There are displays but there is not as much effort put into making the environment look pretty. They're clean but spartan. They are years behind British schools in terms of investment in technology and mostly use good old fashioned blackboards. I think they spend money on books instead - perhaps we can learn from them in this! For all that the lessons are a little lacklustre in comparison to what we are used to, the general consensus was that the children still seem to learn. But unlike our kids they are not expecting to be entertained.

In terms of the teachers, they really do not arrive until dead on 9.00am and they are shooing you out of the door at home time. My school day, like many of the others, is from 9.00am until 2.00pm with a half hour break at midday. Other schools go on until 1.00 and have a 2-hour break, returning at 3.oopm for another couple of hours. The staff room, oddly enough, has the same motley collection of education journals, notices for staff training and union notices as the average UK staffroom. BUT NO KETTLE!!! Sorry, the kettle is the heart of community in a staff room. We haven't seen much marking done and nobody seems to take work home. I find the 3 hour morning a long time to go without a break but at least the work is over early and you can still do something with the day.

PGCE Day 70 - Parting is such sweet sorrow Part 3...But WOO-HOO I'm finished for Christmas!!

Well, tis done. My first placement is over now. I felt quite sad at the end. The kids had made this lovely card for me. There were flowers and choccies as well. Yesterday was my last numeracy lesson with them and we had been looking at 3D figures. I wanted it to be a bit of an easy ride for them (and for me!) so I had printed out some nets of 3D shapes. This kept them entertained in every spare moment yesterday and today. But the thing is they were all wanting to give them to me as presents. I have more little cardboard boxes than I know what to do with, now! It's a shame I won't be seeing the children again. It is a super school and not only were the children a delight, the staff were superb, really helpful, supportive and friendly. Another one I would work at, given a chance. This has been a far cry from my Secondary PGCE first placement. This school has clearly been my nice school - what will they have in store for me next? I shudder to think! Well there is Seville to think about first.

Just a quick posting - I am off out this evening. My uni curriculum group are meeting for a Christmas meal/end of placement celebration. Should be good to compare notes.

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.

PGCE Day 60 - School placement halfway mark

Two weeks into the first block placement. It has felt like the longest two weeks of my life. Getting up at 6:10 and going to bed at midight or beyond is beginning to take its toll. The past two Fridays have consisted of me having a relax on the sofa in front of the TV but before the opening credits of Eastenders, I've been giving it Zs.

School is great. The kids are a delight and already I'm very fond of them. I've found Spanish (my 'specialism', you remember) a nightmare. This school is a centre of excellence for the teaching of Spanish and the specialist teacher who teaches them and the native speaker are superb. But the style is very much rapid fire questioning, games and songs. Anyone who knows me will tell you that I don't do rapid fire - in any language. The cogs of my brain need time to grind around if I am so much as making a cup of tea. I can't do games, 'cos I always forget who had the last go, who scored the points etc. But I like the songs. I am getting there but it is heavy weather. The whole lesson is in target language and it is difficult knowing what Spanish they know in order to communicate with them. It is very much a a matter of learning the cues. The key is that it should be fun and not stressful for them in any way (it is allowed to be stressful for the teacher, though!)

One thing I have discovered is that you never get a proper lesson in primary. There are always kids going out for their peripatetic music lessons, choir, ad-hoc assemblies, hymn practice or transporting Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes to the hall. On Wednesday I was supposed to be doing English and Maths but the 'Legs Akimbo Theatre Company' were in doing a Macbeth workshop. I was supposed to be getting observed doing Spanish yesterday but then I was told that the Fire Brigade were visiting so Year 6 would not be doing lessons before break and after break they were helping move Christmas Fair goods. Part of me was relieved because it took the pressure off. But part of me wanted it over, since it now means I have to do two observations next week and the week after. Also I had spent until 1:00am Friday preparing my Spanish lesson. I could have had an early night! Next Wednesday my tutor from college is coming in to observe me doing literacy.

I find it is best not to be phased by anything and to expect the unexpected. I have been in Facebook contact with a lot of my colleagues and we are all finding it enormously stressful. I think tiredness has a lot to do with it. Many have been in tears at some point. Thankfully I have not been that low. The worst thing is the lack of resources. The thing about teacher training is that you have not built up a bank of resources and lesson plans. There is an expectaction that you spend hours creating your own worksheets/PowerPoints/card games/whatever. There is actually a wealth of stuff on the internet but it takes hours trawling through and invariably it is crap or doesn't do exactly what you want it to. I am also required to do two displays before I finish on 7th December. It matters not that this is one of the 24 tasks that teachers are no longer required to do, we have to put our stamp on the classroom environment.

I feel a bit bad about wishing this time away, since there are actually so many positives regarding the school, the staff and the children, but I'm finding the whole experience so draining.

His Lordship is being an absolute tower of strength and has removed so much from my shoulders to enable me to concentrate on this. I cannot praise him highly enough.

Roll on 3:20 on 7th December.

AT LAST ! THE BA*!£RD HAS GONE!!! YESSSS!!!

Forgive my rather aggressive joy. I have finally handed in the first assignment. I had to generate 3500 words loosely connected with the topic of learning theory, evaluating it critically (yeah, right) and drawing on lots of other boring books written by saddos with nothing else to fill their otherwise meaningless lives with. Oh, and my own experience. So which experience would that be, exactly? I am training to be a teacher, that basically means I have very scant experience. But I do have lots of friends and acquaintances who are. With this in mind, I approached couple I know from church with, "So, tell me, as teaching professionals, how does learning theory impact on your practice in the classroom?" They just laughed. OK, so it was a bit of an odd opening gambit, but all in the name of research. The more I thought about it, the less I felt capable of producing anything approaching an argument, critical analysis or anything else, for that matter. Anyway it is handed in now, the heap of poo that it is.

The problem is, forgive me if I bore you, the PGCE now requires Masters Level writing. If you don't get Masters level for all three assignments, the most you can get is a 'Professional level' qualification. I have no problem with having a professional level qualification - that is what the PGCE was until September. What I object to is that if you have a two level qualification, why not let the standard level qualification keep the name PGCE and call the other one something different? The higher one should be optional, new and have a different name. It's like saying, "GCSEs now require A level standard writing. If you fail to achieve
this, we will award you a merit certificate." But what worries me is that in the work place they just won't understand it. They'll think you couldn't get your PGCE therefore you are a poorer quality 'product' than last year's PGCE when it is exactly the same. IT'S JUST NOT FAIR!!!

Anyway, I might have some time for lesson planning now. Next week I start my 4 week block and have to teach a 60% of the timetable, teaching all the core subjects and Spanish. A wee bit scary then, considering I haven't actually taught anything yet.

Anyway, I can't sit here blogging my time away...I have work to do!

PGCE Day 39 - A brief foray into Assignment evasion

Wow! Is it really almost a month since my last hurried posting? Well, I haven't had a minute. That's probably not strictly true. I've just been messing about really, but I have felt duty bound to mess around only with stuff to do with the course. You know the sort of thing - check my college e-mail, check the date my library books are due back, check the college network to make sure nobody has posted any PowerPoints without telling me, check the course handbook to make sure I haven't missed anything, check the requirements for the serial attachment to see if I understand them any more clearly than the last time I checked them. But to be honest, not a vast amount of real work. I am off on reading week now, working on the 1st assignment. Or, more to the point, I'm doing anything I can to avoid working. It's not that I don't want to work, but I'm just not really sure where to start. You see, the problem is that they have re-jigged PGCE now. We have to write our essays at Masters level and I'm not really sure how to do that. You see, I've spent a lifetime training myself to listen to others' points of view. I read an article and in my head I'm muttering, "Good point, I've never thought of it like that before, I can see where you're coming from...". Now I'm told I have to question everything - who wrote it? What's his/her slant? Why did they write it? What can I read into the language they use? When was it written? Did publication coincide with a full moon? Fine if you are reading one boring little article ('cos let's face it, virtually all academic writing is mind-numbing) but they are asking for about a dozen sources. Chance!! I have trouble with all of this not least because I really just want to be a teacher. But apparently this will make me a more reflective teaching professional, up to date with current theory and well-versed with how it relates to practice. Hmmm...

So far I've really enjoyed myself. I've met a lot of really nice people and I like my tutors. I'm enjoying it so much more than my Secondary PGCE experience a while back. Initial suspicions and fears have been allayed. I've been sucked into Facebook, simply because I didn't want to be cut out of any loop. I'm still not 100% sure what the point of it is, though. My school is lovely and the class teacher and children are great. I'm going to be spending a full four weeks with them in a couple of weeks' time so I am a bit nervous about that.

My personal life hasn't been fully suspended in all of this frenetic activity. A few weeks back we had a big extended family weekend away in a centre just outside Lancaster. It was mad but great to catch up with everyone. And the weather was superb - it almost made up for the derisory summer we had.

Earlier this week we took advantage of non-contact college time to slip off to Tours to visit my eldest who is studying there at the moment. It is a lovely city and well worth paying a visit if you get the opportunity. We decided to take a direct flight from Stansted to save any Paris Metro-related stress. You know, it's amazing, we ordered flight tickets from Ryanair. The outward flights were £15 and the return flights were 1p. For 3 of us that is just a smidgin over £45. But by the time we'd paid the supplements for the little incidentals like foot space, oxygen, etc., it was just short of £200! Look Ryanair, if you had offered me return flights at about £70 per throw, I would have still booked - it's still a good deal. But to show a miniscule price but load it with hidden extras - well, I think that is a con.

We booked into a Travel Lodge near to Stansted. The room was filthy. I don't think they'd actually cleaned it. There was 'debris' in the bed, on the carpet, greasy marks on the mirror and the bathroom - the loo had somebody's recent calling card and the bowl under the water line looked as if it hadn't seen any loobrush/bleach action in weeks! There was some building work going on and two storey portakabins so I suspect it might have been used as a workers' digs. So that was a nice little job for the duty receptionist! By contrast, the hotel in Tours was lovely. We had a family room up on the 4th floor. The double bed was in a reasonably sized room and there were two single beds underneath the sloping roof on a corridor bit alongside the main room. It was like something from Heidi. The funny thing was that the Hotel Harmonie had a musical theme and the rooms had names, not numbers. Guess what our room was called? 'Do'. Any resemblence we may have to the Simpsons is purely coincidental.

The first night we ate pizza - yeah, I know it's not terribly French. But His Lordship and I went for the one with the local sausage on. Of course, we were assuming it was a bit like pepperoni or salami. After all, we had avoided the real nasties like snails and you have to take a bit of a risk. The local sausage is andouillette. Why did no-one warn me? It was filled with what looked like what I would expect sections of tapeworm to look like. I don't 'do' anything from an animal that looks tuby and rubbery. I tried not to smell anything and attempted some of the less rubbery contents. I felt let off when His Lordship declared that he couldn't eat any of it or he'd be sick. With that I moved all the andouillette off the pizza and to the edge of my plate and ate what was left of the pizza, all the time trying not to smell the pungent aroma which was emanating from my plate. According to that fount of all knowledge, Wikipedia, it is made from, amongst other things, pig colon. That explains the smell, then.

Another thing worth a mention is Tours Inernational Airport. It is amazing. It's so small, there is only one carousel for baggage reclaim and it is about a third or a quarter of the size of those in larger airports. It was like role play corner in primary school. I think the daily Ryanair flight to/from Stansted is the only one they have. Being small, they are sharp on security. After we had checked in our luggage, His Lordship was called on the tannoy. They did a security check of his suitcase (they do it about every few suitcases). The man put his hand in the suitcase and went "aagh" and then said "just ma leetle joke - I do eet avry tam". Surreal! That's all you need, a French airport security guard with a warped sense of humour. Still, apparently it broke the tension.

Ah well, back to learning theory.

PGCE Day 20 - Getting into the groove

The first week of proper College was quite fun. There seems to be a greater sense of camaraderie on this course than I recollect there being on the Secondary course. Of course, we spend more time together. Each week we have one lecture as a whole group. We have a seminar group which meets for a 2 hour block, a curriculum group which meets for 7 x 2-hour blocks per week and the special interest group which meets for a 2-hour block. This pattern continues from now until two weeks after half term so we will get to know lots of other people quite well. I wanted to keep myself very much to myself, since we will all be competing for the same jobs in a few months' time but already I have broken that vow to myself. I just like people (well, some, anyway).

I did say that people are mostly a bit older but there are one or two who have crept in direct from university. There is this one kid has that cocky self-assuredness. They are big on 'group work' here, so we were doing a little problem solving task in Maths. The problem was (now don't laugh, I'm not mathematically hard-wired so I find this hard!):

If everyone in the room shakes hands with everybody else, how many hand shakes would there be in total?

So, little Miss Cocky-Knickers immediately says "Everyone of us (25 in total) will shake hands with 24 people so (whips mobile phone out to calculate) 25 x 24 is 600. The rest of the group was happy to accept this like docile little sheep. I slowly said, "Is that right, though? Let's think it through - better, let's model it in our small group. I shake hands with the four of you, that's 4, the next person shakes hands with you three, but she has already shaken hands with me and so on,...do you see that each time the number of handshakes decreases by one...?" The bit we floundered on was turning it into an equation which always works but we finally managed it as a whole class. I can only gather that we didn't have anything vaguely resembling maths specialist among us!

The next day in Science, having established that newspaper rips differently depending on whether you rip it with or against the print, we had to check whether its weight bearing capability was different according to the direction of the stress. There was no guidance given but we were pointed in the direction of a load of equipment which we might find useful (this was apparently how not to do things). I had found myself, again, in the company of little Miss-cocky knickers. Earlier on, we had established that she was a Science (Biology) specialist. She came up with a super definition for Science to which I said, "Hey, she's not bad is she?". She responded with a smug little smile. (The tutor's definition was actually 'SCIENCE IS FUN' - funny really, apparently the definition for History is 'HISTORY IS FUN'. No doubt when Boot Camp starts next semester we will be told 'PE IS FUN', though I may need some convincing of that!) Back to the load bearing quality of newspaper. As far as learning styles go, yeah, I do a bit of kinaesthetic from time to time but I like to keep it as my very private pleasure, so at the instruction to set up apparatus, I decided to sneak off and have a play with the hand-held microscopes and offer advice if I felt it was needed. After all, things were in the safe hands of our Scientist friend. She wanted to use a bulldog clip to attach the paper to the stand. Unfortunately the bulldog clip slipped, so she wanted put sellotape on the paper to add some friction (why not just sellotape the paper to the stand and sellotape the weights to the paper? But then, I'm not a Scientist and you can have too many cooks...) I left them to it and went to look for some weights. When I looked back to the action, I noticed that the square of paper now had sellotape all around its perimiter. The others were standing around like, yeah, you've guessed it, docile sheep, so I was duty bound to say (gently, honest!), "Er, I don't think that's going to work 'cos you can't have the sellotape all around the paper..." Irritated at my interjection, she scowled at me, in a Who-exactly-is-the-Scientist-Around-Here kind of a way and carried on. Again, I interrupted, "Er, do you see that you'll actually just be measuring the strength of the sellotape and not the paper? You only need the sellotaper in the spots where the bulldog clip comes into contact with the paper. She looked up to the sky in just the way that my 14 year-old daughter does, snatched the paper off the stand, threw it down and stomped off to play with the hand-held microscopes leaving me feeling like a real mum!

I start at my first school on Wednesday. We just go in one day a week for the first few weeks. I'm going to be working in KS2 on this placement. It's a bit of a hike to get there but my own locality isn't big on Spanish. Apparently this school is a centre of excellence for the teaching of primary Spanish...PRESSURE!...Or alternatively it is a wonderful learning opportunity (that's my life coach head speaking).

But apart from all that fun, I have been busy reading children's books and swotting up on Piaget and his band of merry Constructivist chums. What with all of these stories of puppies and developmental theories I now have a mild craving for a bit of s*x and violence!

PGCE Day 14 - The Return of Goat Woman

I am trying desperately hard not to like any of the people on this course. After all, we will all be competing for the same few jobs in a few months time. But I am a relational creature and I do find it incredibly hard to keep up the aloof pretence. I start off well enough but then my facade crumbles pretty rapidly. So despite my best efforts, I now know a few people and have exchanged pleasantries with a number of different people/groups. So there is 'T', an Irish girl with strong opinions and a good sense of humour. "I get the impression you might have a bit of a struggle on your hands playing the game here", I joked to her. She agreed but said she was going to try to put her best diplomatic foot forward. There was something about her that reminded me of me. We agreed it was a case of jumping through the hoops for a few months just to get through the course. I broke my vow to myself regarding telling anyone that I had been there before. In the end I thought, do I tell people about my 'chequered' PGCE past and give myself a bit of colour or do I just keep making knowing comments about how they do things at the 'university' and come across as a know-it-all smartass with no justification? I decided to go with the former.

We have been given homework for next week's seminar - we have been split into groups and charged with the task of researching a psychologist and his contribution to learning theory. We have to come up with five points to sell our man and his theory to the rest of the group via a PowerPoint presentation. We were told that our man is Piaget to which somebody threw up a cheer!?? When Alison listed the psychologists, sadly "none of the above because it's all psycho-babble-bollocks" was not an option. So we have dutifully exchanged emails - well, everyone else in the group did, I just said, "someone e-mail and copy everyone and I'll pick up the other addresses from the message". It was as if someone had switched on a light in a dark room! We have agreed to meet on two occasions before the next seminar to show what good collaborators we are.

I lunched with 'S' a lovely girl, a real sweetie. We were comparing notes on the interview process. I asked her when she'd had her interview and she said February or March. I said I'd had mine on February 14th - I remembered 'cos it was Valentine's Day. She said she'd hers then, too. I was chuckling about the surreal experience of the girl with the goat under her arm when she said, "That was me!" Oh, how we laughed! "So you are Goat Woman?". Seems she didn't have to pay for it on the bus! I just have to track down Rainbow Fish Woman now.