Tag: reading

And just like that, it’s September again!

I knew in my heart of hearts that my two months off would go quickly, but that didn’t stop the sheer panic I felt Sunday evening, knowing I would be starting a new job the following day. As I worked at this school during my first placement, I was grateful that I already knew the team fairly well – I had spent a few hours catching up with one of the lovely ladies on Sunday (she was incredible at calming my nerves… so thanks if you’re reading this!) and I knew I couldn’t do anything else to prepare for the job as I did not have my timetable yet.

Luckily we had an inset day Monday, so I was able to ease myself in. In all honesty, I was completely terrified and felt totally overwhelmed. I knew not much would go in so I thought I would be kind to myself and not give myself any more work than necessary! I found out I am going to be a tutor for a year 7 group, which is super exciting as I will get to experience helping out the newbies and hopefully become their first port of call over the year!

The one thing I knew I was going to have to get a grip on straight away was my own wellbeing. I have a tendency to throw myself completely into my work and think about the consequences of my own feelings later… which proved tricky last year. I am a workaholic but I know I’m going to need to try and minimise the amount of work I do at home (for my partner’s sake just as much as mine!). This week I have combated the anxiety by taking everything a day at a time and making sure I am not ‘reinventing the wheel’ by making use of the faculty’s amazing resources (my partner can vouch for how excited I get when I am looking through lessons on the shared area ).

I am also going to try and limit the amount of time I spend blogging – there were a few occasions last year when I spent well over an hour, because I was avoiding doing anything else. So I am going to trial just thinking about what has gone brilliantly and what I want to make a priority next week. I am hoping these small steps will help me to have a positive outlook on the week and give me focus for the next. There will be no doubt the odd funny anecdote included too… I have got a few um…. interesting characters in my classes that have had me in hysterics.

Things to celebrate

This week I have made a good start in building good relationships with my classes. My year 10 and year 11s are a tad painfully quiet at times, but I’ve got them working hard already so that’s fantastic. They were the two classes I was most nervous about, with the looming GCSEs in the summer. My year 10 this year couldn’t be further from my bottom set I had in my final placements last year, but I have a feeling I am going to like them just as much. My year 8 and year 7 classes are completely bonkers… which I love, but may become challenging at times. I also survived my first time on duty… which was on the first day the students were here!

I am also proud of how I have been dealing with the work load – I’ve even made sure I have time to do a bit of yoga and jogging this week (let’s see how long that lasts)! As I said earlier, the faculty is AMAZING and I know I could ask anyone anything and they will help me out with anything I need…no matter how ridiculous the question! The support I have there is the main reason I was so ecstatic to accept the job there. Most importantly the lovely head of department (who obviously has loads on her plate without adding me to it!) is my NQT mentor and I couldn’t ask for a better mentor. She helped me out a ridiculous amount last year, so I am looking forward to having her help me out this year too!

Things to focus on

During my first NQT meeting with my mentor, we discussed the targets we should make for me in my first term. The two main things that came out of our conversation were getting used to the KS3 curriculum, including how grading works, and becoming ‘warm but strict’ (she picked up on the fact that I can be a bit soft at times and I need to ensure I am using the behaviour policy correctly and effectively). As it is still early days, I am going to focus on RtL next week, hopefully getting to learn more of their names in the process (honestly makes RtL MUCH easier to use). In particular, I want to work on my year 7 group. I’ve only taught them once, but they were an extremely lively group and I need to ensure standards are set well, as they will be mixed up in the next few weeks and we will have slightly different groups.

I am also intending to continue to organise my classroom – note to self, bring my folders into school!!! – and I would like to have a look through at least the year 10 and 11’s books mid week.

The most entertaining job…

I’ve had a couple of face palm moments this week (often things I do or say oops). But here are a couple of great moments from my classroom this week…

Year 8

(Written on the board is the class’ definition of a ballad starting with ‘A ballad is…’

Me: Do we all think this is a good enough definition? Does anyone think we should add anything or change anything?

Student: Me! I think we should…. oh wait I’ve forgotten……………… OH! Yes we should put at the end ‘and it is a ballad’.

Tutor group

(I had been explaining the ready to learn behaviour system)

Year 7 student: Had this been checked out by a psychiatrist? Us year 7s have enough stress to deal with without having to worry about being in isolation…

Safe to say I reassured him that many schools were using ready to learn and that if he was concerned, maybe he should simply follow the school rules and not end up there.

Anyway, I have finished the week on a high – I am truly loving teaching Macbeth (the text I was most worried about teaching) and I am feeling more confident now I have met most of my students. Bring on next week!

Currently reading

The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories – Ken Liu (This is the book I will be reading during ‘drop everything and read’ at school!)

Jack the Ripper – Paul Rigg & John Bennett

Macbeth – William Shakespeare (Obvious reasons)

This is Going to Hurt: Secret Diaries of a Junior Doctor – Adam Kay

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine – Gail Honeymoon (Finally… late to the party with this one, I know!)

Week 26 – Inspiration is Everywhere.

Introduction

Another whirlwind week has gone by and I can’t believe that there are only 3 more weeks left in this placement! We had another university day on Friday, cutting our week short, so this blog will be less about the teaching and more about the other parts of my week!

EPS Presentation

I’ve finally done it and it went really well! All my feedback was lovely, so fingers crossed I’ve passed! It feels amazing to have gotten it over and done with, luckily, I didn’t go my standard shade of maroon (it’s happened with pretty much every other presentation I have ever done. The one thing I find most interesting about this is that I was a million times more nervous presenting to a group of 4 adults than I am for 32 students (or less!). I knew my project inside out – better than some of the lessons I have whipped together! But somehow, I still got super shaky, living through the ‘flight not fight’ response. 

World Book Day

After spending around a decade working with under 5s, it was definitely super exciting for me to dress up as one of my all-time favourite characters – Katniss Everdeen! (I nearly went Harry Potter, but felt that it’s a bit over-done). It was the easiest costume ever and I was super comfy all day… unlike some of my colleagues; my AT dressed as ‘sandman’ (had a big coat and a gas mask on) and another English teacher dressed as Mrs Havisham and looked absolutely fantastic!

I also made sure to do something World Book Day related in tutor time… only 2 students put their hands up to say they read regularly! Slightly disheartening, but not unexpected in a Netflix and social media dominating society. (I also think some of them read more often but were ‘too cool’ to admit to it.

Having all the teacher’s dress up is so simple but so effective. The school was buzzing with chatter about different books; students and staff alike guessing who was dressed as who, stimulating talk about favourite books and books we want to read. Simply magical.

Recall Day

We were back at university for another recall day on Friday, having an in-depth discussion about the old KS1 SATS and how it has impacted the way our current students feel about reading. We also got a chance to split up into groups with people at a similar stage in the curriculum practice assignment and then had a lecture about how, why and how our students should approach reading. It was super interesting and made me think about using a class novel – how much should I tell my students and how much should I get them to come up with?

I have done my best to ensure that my classrooms are a safe place, emphasising the importance of alternate opinions, both validating and expressing excitement at the more ‘out there’ suggestions. The idea that students feel like there is a ‘right or wrong’ answer to literature is definitely salient in the school I am at – most of my students (KS3,4 &5 alike) often start their sentences saying, ‘I’m not sure if this is right, but…’ and variations of this. I hate that this probably means that, at some point in their school careers, someone has shut down their opinions, saying it is wrong. 

Reimagining the Diary

Unusually, I am writing this on a Saturday instead of a Friday, mainly to mention this! My university tutor is undertaking research into keeping a diary to help teacher wellbeing, inviting the PGCE English cohort along to the launch event. I was the only student attending and, when I found this out on the Friday, I very nearly changed my mind and didn’t attend.

I am so glad I didn’t change my mind. The session was both empowering and inspirational. The children’s author Mimi Thebo came and we did a workshop on diary writing, with the emphasis of staying in the body for an enlightening experience as a writer. She said that in every one of us is a poet (creative, playful, getting words down on a page and not worrying about anything being right or wrong) and an editor (focusing on the rules of the English language as we know it, making sure our work is grammatically correct and is as good as it can possibly be) and great writers have poets and editors that work in harmony with one another. 

I won’t go into detail about the workshop, but I will just say that it was completely and utterly transformative for me; I aspire to be a children’s author one day myself – a fact not many people know about me – but I never find the time to commit to doing this. Seeing Mimi and hearing her astounding work (I ordered Dreaming the Bearon Amazon Prime there and then… will be beginning it as soon as it comes tomorrow!) as well as hearing her talk about how busy her life is, yet how she ensures she starts the day by doing at least 45 minutes of writing – just by cutting out some of the less important day to day activities. 

As part of this research, we have been asked to keep a diary; writing every day for at least a week. I have regularly kept (and promptly stopped for one reason or another) diaries all throughout my life for as long as I can remember! I am an extremely nostalgic person and love having diary entries, photos and videos to look back on. I am excited to see if I truly find writing on a busy week day as therapeutic as I do when I have designated time for a workshop on a Saturday – or doing this blog once a week! 

J

Currently Reading:

Bleak House – Charles Dickens

Animal Farm – George Orwell

Split Second – Sophie McKenzie

This book was rather odd – I cynically couldn’t put it down. The characters were ridiculously annoying and naïve, and it was the most ridiculously predictable plot with the worst possible ending – it was no Girl, Missing! However, it poses some interesting questions about radicalisation and is a stark reminder about how vulnerable children are at risk of getting involved with things they don’t understand – quite topical at the moment!

Our House – Louise Candlish