This is why I wanted to go into teaching…

 Today the English trainees have spent the morning at Patchway Community College with a class of year 7 students. We had the task to plan an hour lesson based on Greek Mythology. I must say, what creative specimens we are. We were grouped into pairs or a three, and I think we can all say it was a success!

            My group decided to look at the story of Narcissus and Echo. We wanted to make an exciting lesson as we were completely alien and these “newbie’s” of the school had been pulled out of their class and brought in front of these three excited, smiling women who were fussing to make sure they were all ok. So we started the activity with the game of charades to “break the ice”, the moved swiftly on and read out the story. During the starter and the reading, one of the males of the group, didn’t want to participate. He was very shy and quiet, this may have been because he was a “cool dude” and didn’t want to look like he was enjoying education or we scared the living daylights out of him. Therefore, we suggested that he could join in whenever he wanted.  

            As a group, we divided the text into four scenes and then suggested that we were going to make a puppet show, which had an amazing response. All the children’s eyes lit up, even the introverted boy. So we started making puppets, the children chose which character they preferred and busily began creating their character. We had pipe cleaners, gems, tissue paper and feather, all over the place. Yet, the final pieces were phenomenal, the children were telling us why they were putting certain things on their puppet.

 

            Next, we started the show as a group; we chose which background to use for each scene. I now didn’t mollycoddle the boy because he was now excited, shaking his puppet around the class, but fully participated within the show. This really showed me how some children are sensitive to new people and situations. Once he understood what was going on, and got use to us, he really came out of his shell. He was so proud of his Zeus puppet because all the other children wanted to take theirs home, yet, he wanted me to keep his puppet and show all my other children, how well he had done. I was so pleased; this made me feel really proud of the boy’s work and how he showed he enjoyed our lesson.

What an amazing day!! Well done girls!!

What an emotional day!

Ok, I know this year is going to be a hell of a rollercoaster, but it is so reassuring to have such a brilliant team behind us! Today has really proven that for me, and I am so grateful for our connection. If there is a problem, you don’t face it on your own, but everyone comes together as one to help find a resolution. I love being part of the CLF family and I am so proud to represent the Federation. It is so nice to know we have Mentors and Leaders who can solve any teething problems that we face.

 

Thanks all. 

SO why do I want to become a teacher??

The job of a teacher means different things to different people. For some; a teacher is simply a person who merely informs students of the necessary information needed to pass the curriculum. Yet, I believe teachers give their students not only knowledge but also the passion to learn. Children are our future: Doctors, Lawyers and Politicians. How did they achieve their positions in society? No matter how high the position, people emerge from an encouraging teacher who provides instruction, time and direction. I believe this is one of the main reasons why I want to become a teacher, because you can change a young persons life.

So why do I want to become an English teacher? Well… Friends and family asked me the same question, with puzzled looks on their faces. Making comments like, “your brave!” and “your mad, teenagers with their uncontrollable hormones!”. Not the usual reaction you would expect from your nearest and dearest when you tell them your passionate about going into the teaching profession.

I ultimately want to become an English teacher because I love tearing texts apart, digging and delving into what the author, poet and writer was actually trying say. I enjoy looking at the historical, political and social aspects to determine how that text was affected. Looking at different critics and sources to determine an accurate understanding of the text. I want to try and “rub off” this passion on the children, like my Secondary English teacher did to me? My aims are to teach children a compulsory subject and actually make it fun. I believe a teacher can make a massive impact on a child’s life. Perhaps even change their initial mind about how much they dislike a subject. In my opinion, my role as an English teacher is crucial to a child’s life because we are providing a key (GCSE) to further education or professional lives. Without this essential qualification, employers are sceptical about employing that person because it is needed within every day life. On the other hand, within the English classroom other skills are being taught and developed; such as team building exercises, debating skills, identification of their own thoughts and feelings. Like Joan’s slanted pen, I want to be a physical tool that can provide; information, instruction, fun, enjoyment, success and emotion support.

Teachers have an enormous effect on a child’s life, some children do not have safe and secure homes. Therefore, I personally believe as a trainee teacher, another important role is to provide a safe haven for young people. I want to be an open teacher, so that children can confine their worries within me.  I have realised that I have not only got the pressures of providing a high standard of education, but to identify problems, children will be facing. My job title should include a councillor status because before I presume children are  “trouble makers” or “challenging students”, I need to read between the lines and see what is actually troubling that child. This makes me panic slightly, what if I give them the benefit of the doubt and their actually pulling the wool over my eyes? Or on the other side of the spectrum, I assume the child is just a troublemaker and shout at them unnecessarily, without actually looking into the situation. But I guess that will just develop with time and experience. I realise that probably the majority of my views and ideologies will change as I put the theory into practice.  But isn’t that what this whole reflection journal is about?

I am committed to ensuring that children can achieve their full educational potential and hopefully establish a fair, respectful and trusting, relationship with my classes and children around the school. I essentially want my students to demonstrate positive values and behaviours.

But it freaks me out, just a little how am I going to achieve that for the entire class? Maybe a couple, but thirty children? I have all these big ideas about what I will do? How I will react? But surely I can’t make these assumptions yet? Don’t I need to get stuck in; hands on and then reflect how I want to improve my teaching style and ideas? At the moment it is only a fantasy that my well-behaved children, will want to read Shakespeare and find it incredible like I do? That they will want to research different poets and look up their lifestyles to determine why they write in such a way? In reality, no, they are not going to care about these trivial components, which make up the English Curriculum. They are going to be more concerned with who is talking about who on Facebook? Who’s going out with Justin Bieber? And what is the latest fashion? So sorry Mr Shakespeare, the modern teenager is undoubting going to leave you on the shelf and Twilight is going to take your place.

Therefore, my job is to try and make this “boring” subject matter relevant to today’s society. How I am going to do this? I just don’t know. But with the help of technology, media influence and Facebook, I am sure we can try and bring these greats back into the minds’ of our young children. As a child, you don’t remember the boring subjects, but you remember that cool teacher, who jumped around the classroom trying to turn a boring task into something phenomenal. Hopefully, with a little bit of help and guidance, that teacher can be me!

Time flies when your having fun!

Ok it’s Wednesday and wow has the days flown by. What a productive and inspiring week so far. We have been in three schools in the Cabot Learning Federation … but let’s start bright and early Monday morning; we spent the day observing three different classrooms. I found this session very helpful, as we saw three totally different styles of teaching. Though the sessions were merely thirty-five minutes long, we had a sense of how a particular teacher “functions” and what their personal and school expectations were. With a partner, I discussed which style we preferred but honestly, I think until you actually step foot in your “own” classroom, I’m not sure what style you will adapt to, until your elbow deep. Funny idea I know, but how can we make that judgment until we have experienced the scenarios ourselves. I Would like to thank the considerate teachers’ at John Cabot, who allows us to observe them, on their first day back, after the summer holidays.

The Afternoon consisted of extremely interesting talks about SEN, EAL and CIC. Honestly, before this session I was nervous and terrified by these acronyms. I had heard of them before but not known exactly what they entailed, therefore I thought this session was extremely important for me, because the class seemed to know a lot more about the subject than I did. It was lovely to hear Patsy talk so passionately about the environments provided for children who had ADHD or behavior problems. Most schools find these pupils’ troublesome and hard work, yet we saw how these children were not becoming stereotyped but helped. I felt that every child mattered and JCA was not going to allow any child slip through the educational net. In the next couple of weeks, I will definitely visit the inclusion center and help in any way I possible can.

Tuesday- We ventured out of our head-quarters and had a “school trip” to the Bristol Brunel Academy. First impressions- WOW, it’s huge!! We began the day with really informative talks with Sue Palmer and Richard Goucher regarding behavior management and was introduced to the Blooms and SOLO taxonomy, wow what a concept, I am sure this will be prominent within our ideologies this year. Then had a lovely tour of the school, highlighting the different learning environments.

Wednesday- Day two of our school trips, yet probably my most anxious visit of the entire academies, Bristol Metropolitan Academy. As you may know, I am not from the area but I have been told horror stories about this particular school. Why was I so nervous? What a lovely learning environment, the school itself is spacious and light, the teachers’ seem extremely enthusiastic and the results, well they show how this school is determined to change it’s ways and build a new rapport. Kris Bridgeman provided an interesting talk on behavior and cohort profiling, where I picked up some helpful tips.

Technology isn’t my strongest forte, but I am now interested by new ways in which I can plan a lesson. I am determined to crack Prezi and other tools, which can improve my presentation skills. Chris Baker, I may need some tuition.

David Carter speech on his expectations of the class observations, gave me inspiration to try to establish a constant standard within my class. He spoke about knowing your children, whether with behavior problems or dedicated to learn. I think the Principal,Steven Taylor, who gave us a tour around the school and grounds illustrated how he personally wants to know his children. It was very moving to know that his team works with the local community to help the welfare of his students. The tour around the neighborhood made me realise that this direct community surrounding a school, would affect the learners. As a trainee, I should also become aware of my surroundings and before my placement investigate a little. Thanks for exemplifying this idea!

My Personal Targets Before Entering Placement A

We were set the task of what we would like to achieve before we set foot in the classroom. So here goes… 

1. Create my classroom rules/ expectations.

2. Be prepared- plan/ think about some lesson before hand. Prepare starters, plenaries and short activities. 

3. Create a “magic box” Thanks Zofs for the amazing idea. (Basically it’s a  a box which contains props, worksheets, quizzes, puzzles, games and activities which you can use if your lesson has ended sooner than you had thought. 

4. Read Richard III and Skellig. 

5. Brush up on basic skills and improve my knowledge of technology. ( Learn how to use new websites and presentation devices such as Prezi. 

Results Day!

Day 4- So today’s the day, I think my stomach had as many butterflies fluttering in it as the first day.  Why am I so nervous? Surely I can pass a GCSE paper? Of course I can, Claire gave fantastic feedback, highlighting my strengths, but also looking at my key areas, which I needed to improve. This has made me realise, just because I have a degree in English, does not qualify me to directly go and teach in my own class. There is a lot more to teaching than textbook, the emotional intelligence also makes a massive impact on the way we teach students.

So the tests’ came back and ironically made sense to me, even if they didn’t necessarily to Claire. They showed that I was a rounded person scoring more or less equal percentages in the four domains. It highlighted my weakest area as self-confidence and optimism. Claire was shocked by this result because she thought I was a bubbly, enthusiastic and positive person.  I suppose I am all of those things most of the time, but deep down I am nervous and shy at the start of new things. Has anyone felt like they own two faces? Not in a cynical way, but that the one face is your true emotions and the other’s putting on a show. I adapted these “faces” when I worked in the bank; an example would be, if an abusive customer would shout and swear at me. The majority of the time, there would be nothing that I could do; I had asked them to see my manager but some people just love to have arguments. I would never “bite”, instead I would turn off and put on the show. Hopefully this will help me manage my reactions with a class full of children.

Even though my initial reaction to the “tests” were a little uptight and anxious, I believe Chris has come up with a brilliant idea to let us know where we stand and what we can improve on. Without these tests, I think we would have glided through the course, not knowing our weakest areas. I don’t usually give praise for dishing out exams but I think it was very beneficial. Thanks Chris!

Role Play!

Day 3-

Bank Holiday- My friends called and re-called checking if I was certain that I wasn’t going to join them on a “girl’s night out”. I declined their offer, realising the partying and the nights’ out were a thing of the past, for now anyways. Instead I had a quiet one, caught up with an old friend, then “got down to it” thought about my lesson plan, brain-storming ideas and decided on a subject, similes. After reading everyone’s tweets and blogs, I think we all came to the conclusion, that we were all petrified. I have had experience within a classroom and taught small sections of a lesson, but that was in front of children.

Our task was to complete a twenty minute lesson, where we would teach a small group of trainees about a chosen subject. My lesson was third, so I had the opportunity to observe what the other’s had come up with. Wow, the lessons were phenomenal, I really enjoyed observing their different methods and techniques, which were used to try and present to the “students”. The topics were very interesting and I enjoyed participating within the class, (thanks to Russell, I now know what a googolplex is).

Our group was the only class that decided to fully participate in the “role play” element. Looking back, I’m not sure this was a brilliant idea as we all took on the roles of students who faced ADHD, EAL and hard to motivate, though it did make the lessons fun, yet challenging. Fair play, I’m sure the boys’ enjoyed transforming from intellectual grown men, to “challenging” young students. I think everyone will agree, I drew the short straw when it came to my lesson.

Within my description of the data of the children, I didn’t actually have any ADHD students within my class, but ended up having the majority. The ‘role play” situation had escalated and in the end I had to give one child three warnings, before I moved him to the front of the class. Wow… I had to move a grown man to the front of the class, I wasn’t expecting to do that, but what an experience. I now have an understanding of what I would actually do if a child misbehaved within my classroom. I kept very calm and gave the “student” clear warnings and then when he did not respond; he had to face the consequences of moving down the front on his own.  What would you have done if a child continually misbehaved and called an introverted child “ugly as sin”? In all fairness the challenging child was putting what we were learning in class, into practice, but at the expense of offending another fellow class member. Proud moment!

All in all, I think everyone enjoyed my lesson, hopefully understood the content, even if I was interrupted several times. I have learnt that I don’t need to stick to the lesson plan, if I need to, I can go with the flow. Classes aren’t robotic; things can crop up and change the situation. I thoroughly enjoyed our assessment and with the response from others, we now have a good understanding. Though I am a little worried about how much time we should spend planning lessons?

TESTS TESTS TEST!!

Ok phew!! One day under my belt, bring on the next… My first day at the Academy was a great experience, I have met some lovely people. I now feel re-assured that there are other people going through the same emotions and worries that I am facing. I feel so privileged to be here; part of this little community of trainees, supporting and connecting with one another. 

Though, it hasn’t been plain sailing, the CLF have kept us on our toes! Today, we were faced with GCSE mock exams. When Chris told us yesterday I thought, ok, I can do this!! But then I thought about it, Whoaa I haven’t done a GCSE pass paper in six years! … Panic set in and I thought about looking on the net at the AQA pass papers. Then I re- assessed the situation, let’s find out where I actually am? So let the test commence… 

D- Day- Ok my nerves are soaring. The idea of breakfast made my stomach turn… Why was I so uptight? Sixteen-year-old children have sat the same papers this summer? Honestly, I think that’s what  worried me the most; I am training to become a teacher, what if I can’t pass the GCSE paper?

So we began the day with Emotional Intelligence Tests? What on earth are these? It sounds so alien? Thoughts buzzed in and out of my brain, will they interrogate me? I imagined an army squadron leader sitting me in a dark room, with a cup of coffee on the table and a humungous light in his hand, shining it in my direction. 

It wasn’t so bad…. Just a computerised test about how you felt, how you dealt with your emotions and situations. Why was I worried?  So, one down, one to go! Chris kept comforting us that we wouldn’t automatically be kicked off the course if we didn’t pass, but deep down in my mind I had my doubts. 

Luckily my skills and knowledge came flooding back; where they have been hiding for the last year, I can not tell you! My brain felt so rusty, but my hand hit the paper and frantically started scoring the page. 

Shaking in my boots!!!

Wow I have officially started my new adventure!!! I have dreamt of this day since the first day as a year seven pupil. Ironically we are sharing the same emotions as these frightened young students. What with, packing your bag for school, meeting new people and having butterflies fluttering around your stomach, making you feel like you are going to projectile vomit. Though this new experience seems very daunting and problematic at the moment, I feel extremely enthusiastic and assured that this is the direction for me.
My first day within John Cabot Academy was a very interesting and exciting, yet also a tiring day. I thought “what am I letting myself in for?”, many friends and family have expressed their concern. Though in my mind I think how can they make these judgments without actually fulfilling the job themselves? Teachers have extremely difficult jobs educating challenging students and hopefully we will all learn how to cope and reflect our  interests upon our students. Its going to be a LONG rocky road ahead but lets  all inspire to Mo’s efforts in the Olympics and start this epic journey!!