Week One: Reflection

Week One

The first week at my school was both enormously stressful and invigorating. Getting to know the teachers and other practical students has been fun and everyone has been incredibly helpful and nice. I really feel welcome there and the busy atmosphere as well as the friendly attitudes of both learners and staff make going to school a pleasure.

Attending classes has been so interesting that it has inspired me and given me great ideas fro the classes I am planning to give, my first two are tomorrow.

How did everyone else enjoy their first week?

Problems and solutions

Week One

Day Three

The last two days have been quite busy, early starts and late working nights are beginning to take their toll. On the plus side a lot has happened and I've learned a lot. On Tuesday I made it my mission to find myself mentors for my other subjects. This may not seem like such a big deal, but for me to gather the nerve necessary to approach strangers and essentially ask a favour is quite a big deal. For this reason I really feel that the last days have helped me grow as a person and become more assertive and outgoing, something I will no doubt find incredibly beneficial in my teaching career.

I have also puzzled out how the subject Natural Science is divided between the teachers. What originally seemed strange to me I have come to think of as a relatively bright idea as it means that the learners have the benefit of teachers highly knowledgeable in their subject fields.

After attending an extramural activity yesterday afternoon I was touched by how amazing it is to watch people who work with passion work. I attended a play rehearsal held by one of the teachers and she was incredibly lively, comfortable and happy in the company of the participating learners while still maintaining her position as a teacher. On reflection I would love to be the kind of teacher that is so at ease with their students that I don't always feel the need to be stern with them, and to have the confidence to know that the students will listen to me.

Not the only one...

Week One
Day One

When I woke up this morning I was both incredibly anxious and oddly excited, today was the first day at my placement and I had no idea what to expect...
As I stumbled my way into the office (Yes stumbled! I tripped in the doorway...) for the 7:15 a.m staff meeting I found myself in the midst of a rather large group of other placement students, from many other learning institutions. A total of 14 of us would be there this term. This helped assuage the anxiety somewhat, I was no longer alone...

After a rather lengthy school assembly we shuffled back to the staff room to await further information, it was there that the liaison teacher assigned us our mentor teachers. After which I proceeded to set up a time-table, no easy task! I was assigned a Life Sciences teacher but as this only covered one of my subjects, I had to find myself teachers for the others.

My assigned Life Sciences teacher is extremely nice and has already given me useful tips and advice, he also pointed me in the direction of a Natural Sciences teacher whose classes I may be able to attend and teach during my stay, she further directed me to another science teacher. They have split the Natural Sciences so that the classes see different teachers on different days. I'm still getting to grips with this concept and will need to gather more information in that respect tomorrow.

Hopefully I will also manage to find a Mathematical Literacy teacher to take me on, as many of the students placed here do Mathematical Literacy and the teachers appear to be in short supply. Tomorrow I will attempt to gain entry to one of their classes and gain permission to teach...

All in all I felt very welcome and had a pretty good first day, and I hope you all did too! :)