Busy Busy Busy

After nearly two months away from a classroom, returning on Monday morning was weird.

I had a fairly restless night’s sleep on the Sunday night and I awoke early Monday morning being very nervous. I noticed a tense feeling in my chest and it was something I would have for the majority of the week. Stepping back in to the classroom and I immediately remembered the table names – Red, Blue and Yellow. The names sprung to mind quickly as it reminded me of the first three Pokemon games (although I sincerely doubt that was the logic behind choosing the names).

I had been in contact with the teachers for the class about what lessons I was to teach for Monday – a PE lesson. I went in Monday with a plan in hand for the PE lesson and observed the teacher in action. They took the time then to ask me about what I had observed and what I’d take from that and if there was anything I’d do a little differently. It was a very helpful conversation and helped calm me somewhat. The PE lesson, rather surprisingly went off without a hitch. I had set out five activities all related to throwing and aiming and had each station numbered to avoid confusion when moving groups from activity to activity. I also had a chat with the other teacher about targets for the placement, organising a visit from a university tutor, and what the areas of focus are for the term. All in all, Monday was busy but a nice start to the first week back. 

Tuesday did not go as well. I taught a writing lesson which I thought I had prepared sufficiently for but I had underestimated the length of time and the amount of instruction that was needed and suffice to say, I was very disappointed with it. I left the school on Tuesday rather annoyed with myself but went in to the university to use the IT facilities to prepare for what I wanted to be a great lesson on subtraction. I prepared a game on Powerpoint using hyperlinks with subtraction questions, making an effort to use some of the different words for subtraction – take away, minus, subtract, less. I was, in a sense, cautious of relying too much on a memory stick for  what I thought was a good method of teaching subtraction and so I made sure to save the Powerpoint on my memory stick, Google Drive and printed out the slides – just in case.

I was hoping the lesson on subtraction would go well on Wednesday and beforehand, that now familiar tense feeling was present. Thankfully, the Powerpoint game worked perfectly. It opened from my memory stick with no problems and the children loved the smiley face that popped up if they selected the right answer. Smiles all around and as a result – the tension dissipated for the day. The teacher told me they were very impressed with the use of the different words for subtraction as it was important that the children become familiar with them early on. 

Thursday I used a similar game as the subtraction lesson for a lesson on ‘br’, ‘cr’, and ‘dr’ words. I thought it had worked well but there appeared to be a little confusion on mixing up the ‘br’ and ‘dr’ words so I spoke to the teacher about this afterwards and they assured me that the lesson went well and that the confusion didn’t mean the lesson was the cause of confusion but just a sign that more work was needed in that area. I also took a mental maths lesson in which the focus was on counting backwards from 20. I used a large number line to count backwards with them first time round and then blocked the number line from view. We then played a number game show in which I would hold up a card with a number and they had to tell me the number before the one displayed. They loved it and I was pleasantly surprised to see some of the class’ quieter characters put their hand up to join in on the game show. To finish off, we sang Ten Green Bottles. I won’t lie, I found that terrifying! Obviously, I can give a virtuoso performance of Blame It On The Boogie and other similar classics when I’m singing into the shower head but I felt terrified by singing in front of an early years class. What made it even scarier for me was the class teacher returned in to the classroom when there was 8 of the bottles still on the wall! ‘Oh sweet Jesus’ I thought when I saw the teacher walk in. Thankfully, after hearing that another green bottle had accidentally fallen, they joined in with the class singing the story of the final seven bottles. The children loved singing the song and I think I’ll be more ready to sing in a class again. 

Friday I was taking another writing lesson and another PE lesson. Both lessons went very well and when the class teacher and I were discussing them afterwards, they told me that they thought the lessons had went well but gave me an area for improvement. They told me that they felt the class sometimes gets too noisy. We agreed that a noise-ometer would be an appropriate way to lower the volume in the classroom. All in all, I thought the week had gone well and so I relaxed sufficiently to allow myself a game of pool or two with a friend from work on the Friday evening and an episode or two of Scandal when I got home. 

I have a nice bit of work to do now for today, including a noise-ometer to make! One of the lessons i’m currently planning involved using A Bug’s Life (as gardens and mini-beasts is the topic for the term) to inspire us to write our own story for Flik. Admittedly, I’m looking forward to that lesson particularly. 

Anywho. That’s all my news I think for this week. so I’ll post this and close the tab, maybe share the post on Twitter and then return to planning for the week ahead. Busy busy busy. 

G’luck!

Calm Before The Storm

5 weeks of placement start tomorrow so I’d like to wish everyone starting placement the very best of luck. There’s a tough slog ahead but I’m ready to knuckle down and get some serious work done over the next few weeks. 

There is not a whole lot to report for the week before placement. We had one day of workshops during the week which were enjoyable but in terms of lectures, very little happened.

The workshop day started with a speech from David Cameron (@realdcameron) which was incredible. He spoke passionately about inspiring pupils which captivated his audience. The Real David Cameron told us that the most important thing for a teacher to do is to inspire a future for a child, not a destiny. That really hit home for me. It’s a theme I touched upon in my interview for the course over a year ago – I had told the interviewer that I didn’t want to become a teacher to inspire everyone to be doctors or rocket scientists but to inspire them to pursue their own dream, not someone else’s. He also showed us how we could use websites such as pedagoo.org to inform our practice and that is something I will be looking to do over the next few weeks. Mr Cameron and another guest speaker told us the best advice they can give us is to take our time at the beginning of our probationary year to get to know the children – what they like and dislike and use their strengths to inform lessons. The other guest speaker also advised us to get involved in absolutely everything you possibly can because everything is an opportunity to add a feather to your cap. Hopefully I’ll be organised enough over the next year to do that!

I also attended a guest lecture from a group of students who were part of an ASN group in a school. They told us about all the things they have done with the school that have changed their lives. It was incredible to see these students stand up and speak to us about how they used to be nervous in crowds and didn’t like to talk and here they were, talking to a room of about 30 adults. Incredible. The teachers involved spoke of their pride for what the group had achieved collectively and individually and I think those teachers should feel very proud of themselves for being involved with the group. 

I think it’s time for me to finish preparing this school experience folder and then put my feet up for half an hour to chill out and calm myself before what will be a whirlwind 5 weeks. I’ve no doubt there will be plenty to write about over the next few weeks so hopefully I’ll have my first week’s worth of reflections up for your perusal by Friday evening. 

Until then amigos. 

Absence

It’s been a while. I had a month off from placement and lectures so I used that month to work and to write my essay. The essay got submitted Monday. Hopefully I’ll get a better result than last time!

The essay ended up being about the use of cooperative learning strategies to ensure engagement in an early stages classroom. It was tough going but I just about managed it. I’d like to make sure I thank Fran because if he hadn’t told me about the originality report we had to copy on to the essay, I would have automatically failed. That would have been far from ideal. 

The few weeks at work was very enjoyable. I forgot how much I enjoyed that job before I started university. I used the work emails to send out ‘motivational’ emails to everyone in the morning. It was strange being back at lectures after going back to working full time temporarily. 

My brother also made it over for a visit before the end of the break. It was great to see him as it’s been a 3/4 months since I’d seen him. We began planning a trip to Spain for August time so that is something to keep me inspired during the tough few weeks coming up. 

Returning to the university Monday, I expected the tutor for our morning workshop to ask us about our essays and speak about the importance of the upcoming placement but not for the first time throughout this year, no tutor turned up. It was not an ideal start to the week.

The lectures were rather uninspiring and it still irks me that two weeks before a final placement which decide whether we go forward to be a probationary teacher or not, we were watching a Powerpoint about another theory. I understand that the theories are important and we will use them throughout our careers but for the hours we were in lectures and workshops this past week, only one hour was dedicated to planning. In that workshop we were separated in to groups and planned a lesson on hygiene. That was useful and gave us ideas for a lesson or two for our upcoming 5 week placement. We should get more opportunities to do that in the course. 

The previous placement was difficult and exhausting but I learned a lot about early stages and myself so I while I’m nervous about a 5 week block (and 3 weeks of continuous), I know what’s coming is a 5 week block of intense learning for myself. During the previous placement, I worked each Saturday which ate in to my preparation time so I felt I didn’t get a proper idea of what the workload will be like next year. Thankfully, I’ve arranged with work to have the three Saturdays off prior to each of the three weeks continuous. I believe this will be a better reflection of the workload and give me an idea of what next year will be like, particularly if I get an early stages class. When I was working with a later stage class, I seemed to manage the workload much more easily and working Saturdays didn’t effect me but obviously, the difference between those two stages is huge. 

Over the Easter break, I was informed that my visiting tutor for placement was changed so on Thursday I met my new tutor. They seem like a very nice person and was very encouraging about ”being yourself” and assuring me they were there as support and not to catch me out. Hopefully I’ll be able to impress them when they come out to see me teaching in the next few weeks. 

This coming week will be rather busy with lectures and workshops AND hopefully I will be preparing lesson plans for placement aswell, I’m going to go and make a start on tidying up my planning folder.

I should apologise for the absence of any posts for the last while. I haven’t had a huge amount to write about over the holiday period but I imagine that the 5 weeks of placement will mean I will have quite an amount on my mind to share with everyone here.

 

Thanks for reading again!

G’luck, g’luck, g’luck! 

TGIF

Wow. This week went well but it was far from easy. It’s not that didn’t enjoy it, it was just tough going. 

My laminator broke at the start of the week. As the placement is with the early years, the laminator is a vital resource. I shouted such a stream of abuse at that laminator. I’ve been using the laminator in the school so it hasn’t been a crisis here but it was a nuisance. My phone broke aswell. Naturally, the only way to fix the phone was to wipe everything off it. That was far from ideal. Oh ya, I also lost my memory stick at the start of the week too. I was feeling pretty sorry for myself. Some kind soul sellotaped the memory stick to the wall on Wednesday so I got that back!

On the teaching front, it was a very difficult week but I feel as though I am learning from the challenges but these challenges do come thick and fast. Teaching on St Patrick’s Day was weird. I’d never experienced a school day on St Patrick’s Day and my sister living in a different part of Scotland text me admitting she too felt weird working on St Patrick’s Day. 

On St Patrick’s Day I taught a spelling lesson and a gym lesson. The spelling lesson went well but my timing was a bit off. Not everyone got a chance to try each activity. One of the activities was a noughts & crosses style game with the new spelling words which was a cool idea. It wasn’t mine. The person who came up with that idea I know reads this so I’d like to thank them for that idea! The gym lesson…oh my… The activities, my observing teacher told me, were perfect for a gym lesson. The class’ behaviour was all over the place and the class teacher’s suggestion was to use a whistle next time round. I’ll have to! 

Tuesday I was looking at number bonds and then Victorian schools. The number bond lesson could certainly have gone better. It was planned that I’d do the lesson outside but it rained. Thankfully I had planned for that possibility. Obviously, I am on placement to learn but it is remarkable how many little things you learn and realise during a lesson. You wouldn’t believe how often during the course of the day I say to myself “Jesus, how did I not think of that?”. I write things down on my lesson plans to remind myself and then a child runs up to tell me that their working partner won’t share the eraser and these little things slip my mind. The lesson on Victorian schools was a disaster. I just couldn’t get them to focus. I felt terrible after. I’ve had lows on placement but Tuesday was a new feeling of low. My class teacher spent a while trying to cheer me up and gave me loads of tips to help with the problems I had. I left the school, bought a packet of Skittles, returned to the house and just started planning for Wednesday. I’ve mentioned it before but it sometimes surprises me how well I switch off from school. 

Wednesday went pretty well. I had a writing lesson – we were writing about pirates – yaaaaaaar! I used positive praise very effectively on a class I had struggled with the day before and it worked a treat. The standard of the writing was good and it was particularly difficult to select star writers for the day. I felt elated after going from such a bad day on the Tuesday to the writing lesson going very smoothly. I also took a number bond lesson after and that went well aswell. It was one of the children’s birthdays so I had a cake and candles display to learn about the number bonds of 6. The area where I fell down was I had not considered the different ways they could record what they were learning. I had a worksheet from the day previous but the children were mostly finished those but the teacher told me a few ways to record the learning and consolidate the learning and I appreciated that feedback. 

On Thursday I took the class for a drama lesson and a follow up lesson on Victorian schools. The Victorian schools lesson went well according to my class teacher but oddly, I felt it could have gone better. I think if I was to identify one area of my planning that needs particular development – it’s judging how much activities are needed and how long they take. That will only come with experience though so I just have to keep plugging away. The drama lesson was an interesting one, and one I learned a lot from. I wrote a short story about a Pirate called Pete. It went like this – 

Pirate Pete sailed on the sea. His boots were filled with sand.

When he looked through his telescope, he was looking for the land.

He wanted to stop and fix his ship. It needed a coat of paint.

Pirate Pete felt so tired, he thought that he would faint!

When Pirate Pete stopped on land, he found a treasure map.

He got his ship ready to sail, and put on his pirate cap.

Pirate Pete needed help. His helper’s name was Casper.

They found a treasure chest full of gold, and lived happily ever after. 

I had come up with a drama lesson in which we would do actions for some of the story. I thought it would be helpful to scaffold the lesson a little by coming up with some actions to go with the drama but I focused too much on that. The class teacher pointed this out to me and when they said it – I was bitterly disappointed. I had worked hard on coming up with an enjoyable story and I ruined the lesson by structuring it too much. I was proud of the story I had written and I will look to write more short stories for lessons but I will certainly be taking care not to make the same mistake with regards the drama lesson. It’s only after dawning on me now that I know someone who teaches drama to young kids on Saturdays so I really should contact them to bounce ideas off them for drama! How have I only thought of that now?

Today went well. I forgot one or two things with a lesson on patterns, but again, it’s an experience I will learn from. When I make these mistakes, and I normally recognise it myself when I do, it’s always a little kick in the teeth but I do feel wiser from these. The teacher told me that I did well today and this week and I’m moving in the right direction so that is encouraging! 

I’ll leave ye there lads. I won’t lie, I’m going to return to a Criminal Minds binge. Unconfirmed reports of apple crumble and raspberry ice cream in the vicinity but as I said, unconfirmed reports. 

 

G’luck, g’luck, g’luck!

First Week of Early Stages

What a week. Sitting at the computer with a million things to potentially write about but I’ve narrowed it down to a reasonable amount I think. First thing to say – placement is tough but I’d take that over sitting anonymously in a lecture hall; every time. 

Monday was my first day on placement in my new school. I had been out to visit the school the week previously so I knew where I was going but admittedly I was exhausted on the bus out there. The bus journey to Birmingham on the Friday and the return journey were far from ideal preparation for placement. I met one of the class teachers who teaches the class on a Monday. They were very welcoming and gave me loads of little tips to use with early stages and has checked up on my progress during the week which is nice. 

One of the first things I realised is that practically everything is an opportunity to learn for these little kids. They register themselves and then proceed count everyone to see if everyone is in. That doesn’t happen until about 15 minutes after the bell because it takes them that long to get off their jackets and settle in the classroom. It may be the case that that should have been obvious to me but I can assure you I have been on a very steep learning curve this week.

Tuesday was the first day I got to observe the class teacher that will eventually write a report on my progress. Another teacher who is very encouraging and approachable – in that sense – I am very pleased. One of the key things I learned was the incalculable value of laminating sheets. One of the writing exercises involved practising words by looking at words sealed under laminate and then writing over them, wiping out the ink and trying again. I watched each lesson with keen interest and I have a million and one bullet points written in a folder here beside me. The class teacher also had many activities prepared for number bonds. I was to teach the same topic the following day so it’s safe to say there was smoke coming from my pen with all the notes I was taking. After school, I went to a quiet computer room in the university and prepared my lesson and had all my resources ready for Wednesday by the time I landed back in the door. I spent the remainder of the evening writing up observation notes, doing a little bit of research on learning theories (which I am paying close attention to with regards learning theories for the early stages) and I continued with my James Rollins book. Something strange happened that night however – I slept. Sounds silly but I generally don’t sleep well at all. I tend to sleep for an hour or two (max) and then I’m awake for another half hour/hour. I had tried several different techniques to sleep but with the nature of the student lifestyle and the teaching profession (and generally working late nights prior to this university course) I’d tend to up until late on a computer. Tuesday however, I didn’t look at a computer after about 6pm. I woke up on the Wednesday at 6.30am, hopped out of the bed and I don’t think I’ve ever been that bright eyed or bushy tailed! I’m a delight every morning but Wednesday, if you can believe it, I was even more of a delight. That energy was to last throughout the whole day…but…

My lesson on Wednesday was terrible. When typing this, my first instinct was to say that the lesson was a word that begins with ‘s’ and ends in ‘hite’, and that would also be an accurate way to describe how I felt it went. The activities were fine but I kept the children too long on the carpet and I totally forgot to show them how the games worked on the interactive whiteboard (which I had prepared). I started bringing the kids around to each desk to show them the activities and it struck me – my inner monologue went something like this – ‘I’m a gobsh1te’. That was the long and short of it! You have to take those things on the chin though, don’t you? I said to myself and the class teacher afterwards that I wasn’t happy with how that lesson went but I was okay with that in the sense that there was plenty to build on. 

Thursday (yesterday) I took a literacy lesson in which we were practising finishing words by spelling them phonetically, Phonics is a very new thing to me so I’m starting to get to grips with it after a week. Yesterday the lesson went grand, it didn’t set the world alight – solid but unspectacular – for any football fans – I’d say it was a Claude Makelele type performance! Taking the reading groups helped me gauge the literacy levels of the students before I start my continuous and helps inform my planning for next week (which I have started already). 

Friday/Today was a day I was looking forward to – not because it was the weekend, oh no. Today I introduced this guy (pictured below) to the class.

 

His name is Benny and he loves good behaviour! Benny told the kids Goldilocks and the Three Bears and quizzed them on it to make sure they had been paying attention. It was nice for me to take a back seat on that lesson 😛 The lesson went quite well but I got a bit of a shock when the class finished the activities very quickly. I thought I had planned enough activities, at the right level of challenge to keep the kids busy but they flew through the activities. Luckily, the class teacher had left trays out with other activities (unrelated to the lesson) for me to use in such an emergency so that was a crisis averted AND a valuable lesson for me. Plan plenty for them to do, and then double it! Hopefully that should ensure you don’t run out of things to do! 

I’ve a bit of planning to do this evening now for this week, especially with another rather busy weekend coming up! 

I think I’ll let ye go here. Hope everyone is keeping well and enjoy your weekend!

Bye. Bye, bye bye bye bye. Bye. Bye, bye bye bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. 

Busy Weekend

This week’s post is a bit earlier. Thanks to Niall for reminding me that I wouldn’t get a chance to write a blog post during the weekend.

Today, the university Gaelic Football team sets off for the British University Championships which will take place in Manchester and Birmingham. We’re setting off fairly soon so I have the iPod library updated, movies and another James Rollins book put on the tablet. Hopefully that will be enough to keep me entertained! 

This week in university, all the talk has been either related to this weekend’s championships or to the fact that we are starting placement on Monday! 

Monday’s lecture was notable for it’s bluntness. The lecturer spoke about the potential shark infested water that is otherwise known as a staff room and that if we still had doubts about teaching that now was a good time to call it quits. We then had a workshop to finalise our essay topic for the next assessment. I believe my topic is good to go so I will hopefully be getting the research and reading done over the next few weeks! 

On Tuesday, there was no lectures so I took the opportunity to call back to the last school I was in placement for. I had to collect a Shrek DVD I had left there from previously but I also called in to the classroom in which I had been based. It was nice to see that when I knocked on the door and the pupils looked up, they all sprinted across the room and jumped over tables to come over to say hello. It was reassuring to know that I left a positive mark on the class. With regards a positive mark, do you remember me mentioning previously that I showed the head teacher that photo with the times tables stickers on the stairs? It was done. Here is the proof – 

On Wednesday I met my tutor for placement. They were most encouraging and told us what areas they will focus on especially, so that was appreciated. With Wednesday afternoon free, I decided to visit the school I am starting in on Monday. Thankfully it’s only about 15 minutes away on the bus so I can’t complain about distance to travel. The teachers I met were all very welcoming and again, I am looking forward to working with them. 

Yesterday (Thursday), we had two workshops with music being particularly funny and using songs is something I will try over the next few weeks, even if I sound like a seagull when I sing. I got a puppet to be my assistant for the next few weeks so I will just tell the kids that it’s the puppet who is a terrible singer and I will use the old excuses of “I’ve a tickle in my throat. The acoustics aren’t right, blah blah blah”.

I’ll have to leave ye there. There is a need to take the aul Shake N Vac to my sports bag and hoover it out. 

Mind yourselves.

G’luck, g’luck, g’luck. 

Brief – A Reflection

This week was tough. Not tough in any sense that you feel you’ve developed in a personal or professional sense. This week was tough because it felt like you were going backwards. I really struggled to write this week’s blog.

I have not hid my disapproval of series of lectures to ‘help’ you become a teacher and this week a lot of people spoke of the same feeling. When I say a lot, I mean nearly everyone. They all had the same rhetorical questions that I had – ‘Would it not be better to be in class?’; ‘Does anyone else think this is a waste of time?’. That is not a ringing endorsement of the way things are done. There is quite a high level of disgruntlement across the group and it merely confirms what I have thought for a long time. University is not the place to train to be a teacher; the classroom is. 

Monday morning we had our first workshop and we were left to our own devices for the majority of the time. The lecturer/tutor turned up in the second hour but we were all already in conversation about our experiences, swapping horror stories and success stories and tips. These conversations would take place over most of the week, and would be the highlight of the week. I always feel like I learn loads and I get plenty food for thought when the student teachers share experiences collectively. The second workshop towards the end of the day, we soon found out would not be attended by a lecturer/tutor so we all signed an attendance sheet, stayed for a half hour and scooted off. You would think that one your first day back to the university that lecturers/tutors would be eager to interact with the student-teachers… 

Another area of discussion during the week was the second essay topic. We have to come up with an area of research that interests us and research it. I’ve had a few ideas floating around my head. I was told to avoid my first choice (deeper integration of ICT in early stages) so I have been looking at two other areas recently – cooperative learning strategies and positive reinforcement. As my next placement is with early stages, the research will be focused on that. Any hints/tips/suggestions would be taken on board and greatly appreciated. 

On Thursday I had a meeting to discuss the essay I had failed. The tutor was very patient and went through everything with me – areas to improve, areas to pay specific attention to but what was most appreciated is the fact that the first thing they said to me was ‘Failing an essay doesn’t mean you’ll be a bad teacher’. Everyone had said that to me and even when I felt bitter about failing, that was the train of thought I had taken but it was nice for the tutor to say it and I made sure to tell them that after. I have the failed essay rewritten and resubmitted online and I have to submit a paper copy of the new draft tomorrow morning also but that is ready to roll and in my school bag. 

Friday in ICT we looked at making Powerpoints/Prezis more interactive and it is certainly something I had not previously considered but will look to weave in to my practice as an extra tool. 

I do apologise about the briefness of this week’s post. It reflects a week that was brief in what we learned about our future careers as teachers. The weeks I am on placement, I work hard to summarise my thoughts and reflections as much as possible to prevent a stream of consciousness; James Joyce I am not. The weeks of lectures and workshops, I mostly reflect on what the other student teachers and I talk about. A few of the student teachers mentioned the apprenticeship idea I had written about a few months ago on this – https://spellingitoutblog.wordpress.com/2013/10/03/the-university-process/ and all I have spoken with agree that this would be a far more productive way to train to be a teacher.

This coming week, I plan to start getting a mind map together for my essay so if I make a bit of progress with that, or even if I don’t – I’ll let you know how I get on.

 

Right so.

Bye bye. Bye. Bye bye bye bye bye bye. Bye. 

Some Things Are More Important

Well that’s placement done for a few weeks now. I’ll admit, I’ll miss the school I was placed in. I enjoyed it so much. All the staff were so helpful and encouraging so I made sure to thank them for that. 

I started the week in with a younger class as the teachers wanted me to experience the younger stages as they knew that my next placement is with a P1 class. Monday and Tuesday was spent with a younger group and it is certainly a far different environment than the one I had experienced for the last few weeks. It will certainly be an interesting challenge. If there are any teachers reading this who work with younger stages, I may need some help when I start my placement! 

Thursday and Friday were challenging in a positive way. The class teacher came in Thursday morning but was feeling ill so I offered to take them for the day. The class teacher was delighted I had offered and I was happy to do it. It was strange to begin with. I had come in thinking I was observing so I had only a few minutes to prepare to teach. It was great to see the class came in as normal and didn’t see it as a relaxing day because their class teacher was off. “Mr. _______ are you teaching us today?” was the only question posed! The head teacher came in and asked if I’d like for them to come in every so often to see how I was getting on. I said I was happy for them to call in but that I was fine with taking the class and I had no fears that the group would run amok. 

Thursday was the day the class were due to go down to the lower stages and teach them science so I had to assist them all to get ready for that. Thankfully that went off very successfully but I was very amused to see them all so quiet when we returned to the class with about half an hour left in the day. I asked them to put their hands up if they felt either stressed, exhausted or frustrated. Everyone put their hand up so I asked them what they found stressful, exhausting or frustrating. Here are a sample of the answers I got –

“We had to prepare so much for that hour”

“We didn’t have enough resources”

Student A -“They wouldn’t listen, it was so unfair”

Student B – “Ya, we worked really hard for them and they were just messing about”

Naturally, I found this fantastic. When everyone had vented their spleens, I said to them

“If you found that last hour frustrating, imagine how your class teacher feels when they are preparing lessons and resources for you to learn throughout the whole day AND some people then interrupt them or don’t listen because they are too busy messing!”

Silence. I’m not sure if the message sank in fully but I can tell you that Friday was probably the best I had seen them behaved. Even in music, a class they get a specialist teaching them but they traditionally spend messing, they listened intently, engaged, and ignored the pupils misbehaving from the other class. If that message DID sink in then I’d like to think it will be a very valuable lesson for them!

Leaving the school Friday was bittersweet. As I’ve said, I will miss the place and the people I was learning from. However, I leave that school with my head held high and proud of myself for working diligently and learning a lot.

I am very close to finishing my second version of my essay so I should have that done now soon. I’ll probably have to turn off the music I am playing at the minute. I don’t think I’ll concentrate sufficiently on the essay nor will the neighbours appreciate me too much  if I am singing/screeching Joe Dolan songs at the top of my lungs – “OH ME, OH MY YOU MAKE ME SIGH, YOU’RE SUCH A GOOD LOOKING WOOOMAN”.

Finally, I took a call from a friend during the week. As you do, I asked “How are you?”. They said they were fine but they didn’t convince me so I asked were they sure. The person burst in to tears and told me they weren’t in a great place. We chatted for well over an hour and I don’t think they ever really stopped crying until the last 15 minutes or so of the call. This friend admitted a lot of fears and stresses they’ve felt for the last few months and at one stage criticised themselves for being weak and admitting these things to me. I told this person, and I’d say the same thing to anyone – bottling up fears, stresses and problems is too easy to do. Talking about them is a sign of strength. It reminded me of Tony Soprano in his psychiatrist’s office ironically asking – “What ever happened to Gary Cooper…the strong silent type?”. Why should silence be a preferred option? It shouldn’t. Ever. My friend and I talked about ways to properly address the stresses and fears they had bottled up but they agreed that they already felt better for sharing how they felt with me. A problem shared is a problem halved. My friend reads this blog every week (thank you for that) but I want to tell you that I am so proud of you for making the decision to share your problems with me. To everyone else – if ever you are feeling low – talk to someone. If you know me then you would know how to contact me and I’d be happy to chat any time of day. Some things are more important.

 If I don’t know you then I’d still be happy to talk to you. I’ve just set up an email address for the blog – spellingitoutblog.gmail.com – this is set up so I’ll receive these emails to my phone. I may not ever receive an email to it but if I do, I’ll reply. 

Anyways, I’d say it’s about time to turn off Joe Dolan before I do harm to the neighbours’ ears. This essay would want to get done too.

Right so lads. G’luck!

Continuous Done

I’m typing this listening to the Mayo-Kildare match on Midwest Radio. It’s proving difficult and further proves that I can’t multitask.

The week went well so I was happy with the two weeks continuous overall when I walked out the school door on Friday evening. The picture above is how I left the room. You can see the Chinese Lanterns that we had made to celebrate the Chinese New Year.

Monday and Tuesday passed by quite uneventfully, there was no behaviour management issues really and they seemed to learn their lesson from the previous week, bar one. There was one child who did not like not getting their way and proceeded to throw an almighty tantrum – one they repeated each day of the week but that issue was dealt with Friday when I discussed the issue with their parent. It was the first time I ever had to do that so while I was nervous, I felt it was the right thing to do so hopefully we see a big improvement on the tantrums tomorrow.

Wednesday morning started with a listening exercise in which the kids were challenged to write down as many details as possible from the news stories they had listened to. I was very pleased with the standard of the work and how engaged everyone was. We then went on to make a display of the Eightfold path for Buddhism. I had given the children homework to research the Eightfold path but rather annoyingly, most of them didn’t do the homework. This is something I’ll expand on a bit later.

Thursday was a fantastically uneventful day. I can’t stress how grateful I am for the fact that Thursday was uneventful. It was the first time I had been put in charge of a class outing. I was assisted by the class teacher but she told me that it was me that was leading this so I had to make sure everything went well. We went on a trip to a university in the city so it was about a half hour bus journey. The bus journey was grand, the whole day in the university was grand and the journey back was peaceful. Everyone behaved themselves (I had them warned) and engaged with the work they did in the university.

Friday. As I had mentioned, Friday we celebrated the Chinese New Year by decorating our classroom with Chinese Lanterns (thank you to @zoe_m68 for helping me with finding that one). We also wrote letters to the people who invited us to the university to thank them for a fantastic day out. Everyone behaved themselves Friday to earn the last few minutes they needed to get a full golden time allocation. It was great to see them try much harder to do nice acts to earn the minutes they needed. Pupils who normally do the opposite you ask them to do – holding doors open, sitting quietly when their instinct would normally lead them to running around and causing havoc, etc.

The homework not being done annoyed me. They all heard me instruct them to write their instructions down into their homework copy/jotter. I repeated the instructions before they went Monday, repeated it Tuesday as a reminder and yet by Wednesday, only three or four had it done. The attitude difference between Ireland and Scotland is unreal regarding homework. The primary school I went to, (and I don’t think the policy has changed greatly recently, my sister is a primary teacher in Ireland), from an early age we got homework to do every evening Monday-Thursday. If I am lucky enough to have anyone reading this, and if you happen to be a teacher based in Ireland – is this still the same? While I may have cursed the homework on a fine September or April/May evening when I had a plastic football to be kicking off the roof of the house and neighbours to visit and other important things like that; I learned a lot from it. We all did. Here though, from everyone I have spoken to and everything I have experienced, it seems to be the norm to get one piece of homework to do during the week and they get a few days to finish it and most of them don’t even do it. Here is where I am going to sound about 105 years old but nowadays kids go home and play on video games ALL evening. Quite literally. I have asked the kids – they say they play video games as soon as they go home until bed time. What hope is there for retention of information and learning if everything the child has learned from the day is lost to Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto by the time they get home? Rant over. I feel like I aged admitting that.

I’ll love ye and leave ye there – I’ve this essay to get back to lads so I’ll be chatting to ye.

G’luck, g’luck, g’luck!

The Good, The Bad And The Ugly

What a week – talk about highs and lows! I think the order I’ll take on this one will be the bad, the good and the ugly – it’s the order I encountered each!

The Bad – Monday. The 20th. Blue Monday. I didn’t hear about Blue Monday until lunchtime but I wouldn’t have needed to be told. I had a pretty terrible day at the office. No matter what lesson I did and no matter what behaviour management strategy I used, the children would just not listen or do what I had asked. I found it so frustrating but at no stage did I doubt whether this was the right line of work for me. By the end of the day I just sat down in the classroom and stared in to space and thought to myself “That couldn’t have gone much worse”. My class teacher came in and could tell by the look on my face how my first day of continuous had gone so we chatted for a while about the issues that needed addressing. I suggested a solution. Normally, every week, every student in the class (and the school) starts off with 60 minutes worth of ‘golden time’ so they can attend the club they are involved with on a Friday. All the students love it. Misbehaviour however, would normally result in a loss of some of that 60 minutes. The more serious the misbehaviour or the more frequent you misbehave, the more time you lose. Some of them however see the 60 minutes as a currency they can spend – “I’ve only lost 5 minutes so I can get away with a bit more messing yet”. I turned it on it’s head and suggested that I’d make them earn their ‘golden time’. Which leads me on to 

The Good – Tuesday morning I walked in to the classroom and however lame this may sound – the mantra I was repeating in my head was “You won’t allow another day like yesterday”. The kids came in, I sat them down and I expressed my serious disappointment with the behaviour of a lot of the pupils. I told them that their behaviour was so poor that I had decided to change the rules about golden time. I explained how they now had to EARN their right to go to their golden time club by – doing what they were told to do, kind gestures (holding doors open, offering to help others, etc), putting in the effort during lessons and showing wisdom. We discussed what I meant by wisdom – it was things like walking away from arguments and choosing not to get involved in others misbehaviour. It worked. That’s the best synopsis I can give of the result of that chat. Behaviour improved greatly and it was wonderful to see the children who would normally be happy to lose 5 minutes here and there, being happy having gained 5 minutes for listening to my instructions or trying hard. 

Tuesday I also showed the head teacher a tweet I had seen online – here’s the snapshot of it – 

I believe that credit is due to @JasonElsom for both the photo/tweet and the idea.

The head teacher liked it so much that he challenged me to find a company that could do something similar for “our school”. I found a local company who would do it. It’s been measured and priced, and is penciled in to be done in two weeks time I’m told. I’m very happy that something like this will be done based on my suggestion (which again was inspired by @JasonElsom). It’s nice to think that even though I’m student, I still have a voice in the school. 

On Thursday, I happened to stumble across a fantastic behaviour management strategy for the class. I’ve no doubt but that I’m not the first person to have tried this but I never thought of it as something I could use in the placement I’m in. The class and I were learning about Buddhism and my eyes were drawn to the word ‘meditation’. I said to myself, “give it a shot, see how it goes”. It went down a treat. I told them before we started that this was in no way intended as a form of prayer, merely an opportunity to sit on the floor and switch off. I played relaxing music and they all closed their eyes and just sat in the serenity of the classroom. Everyone wrote down how they felt afterwards and the comments were all similar – ‘I feel relaxed’; ‘Calm’; ‘Can we do this everyday?’; ‘I don’t feel stressed now’, and other comments of a similar nature. I am going to persist with it and give them the opportunity to sit quietly after they come in from break and lunch. I thought they were the best times because normally the first five minutes after break and lunch is spent splitting up verbal arguments over a football or someone making faces at someone’s sister’s friend’s mother’s friend’s daughter. 

When I left school on Friday evening, I was feeling very good about the week. I felt like I had learned so much that I can carry forward. What could possibly bring me down after that week? I’m sure you can tell what’s coming next.

The Ugly – As soon as I returned to my flat on Friday, my phone was buzzing with emails coming in. I saw an email entitled ‘Re-submission’ from the university and I thought to myself that it was an email sent to everyone so I clicked on it to have a look but as it was loading I could see ‘Sent to: My name’ and that was all. My heart sank. So yes, I failed my assessment – the essay from before Christmas. I failed it ‘comfortably’ shall we say. It’s my own fault, I can accept that. Having read the feedback I can see that I completely misinterpreted the question and ended up with an essay that was a million miles away from where it should have gone and about as useful as a hole in a bag.

I know I have mentioned on a few occasions that I don’t like lectures but love the placement/practical side of it and how I think student teachers should be apprentices and not in university BUT the reality of it is – if I want to do this as a career, then I simply have to get on with it. Hopefully I can do myself justice on the second attempt and then move on from it. It has certainly knocked the wind out of my sails but nobody said the course was easy so…it has to be done. That’s the long and short of it.

Now, I must go planning for lessons for next week and planning for this second shot at this essay.

Right so lads, bye bye! Bye bye bye bye! Bye. Bye bye bye bye bye bye!

P.S. One of the best friends I’ve made since I moved to Scotland is returning home to India soon and I know he reads this so I’d like to wish him the very best of luck with it. I’m gutted he’s leaving but as someone who lives away from home (although not as far away from home as he does) I’m delighted for him at the same time. It gives me a great excuse to go to India now!