I know I'm like 3 days late. I had every intention of writing this Friday evening after school but I never found the time, so I will write my diary from last Monday to Monday, and I'll do another one soon!
Monday 28th April
I was at school, but regarding teaching I had a pretty easy day. I taught Maths first thing, and team-taught PE last thing and that was all! I spent most of the day carrying out observations, sorting out my folders, planning for my own lessons to be taught throughout the week and working with small groups! Monday evening the fun continued as I stayed at home and prepared for an interview that I had Tuesday morning. I was horrifically nervous for this as I knew the school would hold my dream job. I had previously visited and basically fell in love with the place, from the friendly faces to the positive atmosphere - and the school colour is my favourite! My boyfriend came round after dinner and the poor guy had to sit and watch TV whilst I sat and pored over what I was going to deliver the following morning, but it's nice to have his company whilst doing all this work and I appreciate the fact he takes time from his own evenings to come and give that to me! On the plus side for him, he had complete and utter control over the remote.
This sums up my face all of Monday evening and night.
Tuesday 29th April
(This is a long one!)
Interview day! I got up ridiculously early at 5:45am, after a restless night, still feeling like I hadn't prepared enough! My interview was to start at 9am, where I would be teaching a half hour lesson to a year group of my choice on a subject of my choice. Thinking I could take advantage of the fact I was clearly first teaching, I thought I would arrive at the school about 8:20am in order to get myself settled and get the classroom ready. Of course, my brain omitted the fact this would probably be unfair to other interviewees, and also it is morning rush hour in a school so the office and staff were incredibly busy! I never managed to be let in until about 8:55am and so I had to go in there and teach right away! I got it out of the way and finished just past 9:30am and had time to return home to wait for my personal interview which would take place at 11:45am. In this space, I managed to consume half of an Easter egg and made myself feel all the more sick before having to go back to the school! During the interview, although the nerves literally had my jittering in my seat, the staff who questioned me quickly made me feel at ease, heightening the hankering I already had for this job! When the interview came to an end, they informed me I would hear the outcome between 4-5pm. I was not sure what to expect when I heard from them, as ever the pessimist, I was focussing on the things that could be improved on from my teaching and interview. I also felt that some of the questions asked and my answers were not informative enough. However, not having time to dwell or rest, I had to rush straight to school where I was to be teaching a Science lesson on habitats. It was a fun and interactive lesson where I had the children playing 'hide and seek' for animals in habitats on the PC, so it went quite well!
Tuesday evening I returned home from school around 5.15pm, still not having heard from the school. I paced the house for another half hour when the phone rang and my heart jumped into my mouth! I heard the chirpy voice of the Headteacher who straight away offered me the position at the school! Words cannot describe how elated I felt. It was all I could do to remain composed on the phone, however I'm pretty sure I did let out a bit of a squeal when she broke the news! In short, Tuesday was a pretty amazing day. It has made the hard work feel like it is really paying off. It's taken SO much pressure off of the end of this PGCE course knowing I am going to be moving into a friendly school where I already felt welcomed even though I had only visited twice previously!
After this news, I rang various family members and my boyfriend to break the news, all of which just made it more real to me! After a view happy tears, I got ready and made my way to my boyfriends house for the evening where unfortunately I still did have some planning to do, however I quickly got this out of the way and we watched some TV!
This is my happy dance!! :)
Wednesday 30th April
My base class were to be going swimming first thing this morning, so I took the opportunity to go and view a teacher in upper Key Stage 2, where the class are older and more challenging. The teacher is also literacy lead and so it was a fantastic opportunity to go and view shared writing as class modelling in a higher Key Stage. It was a good insight into another class and to view other teaching strategies, and I was invited to come back any time and even have the opportunity to go and teach if there is time when I have finished my directed tasks within my current class. After lunch, I taught Maths and Music. Maths was OK, Music isn't my forte so I can't really say how that went. I can't sing for s**t and was teaching pitch, but the children didn't comment on it and seemed to enjoy it so there we go! Weds eve I was tired so I completed my work at home (usual planning, evaluating, resource making etc) and then went to bed!
Thursday 1st May
I taught English, and ICT today. In English I was to be informally observed prior to my formal observation to take place tomorrow (Friday). ICT was a DISASTER in short because the program I am using to teach the children databases is a crock pot of crap and decided not to work, so I had to blag a lesson and taught them to make their own databases (when this lesson I wanted them to practice browsing a database) most of which didn't save anyway! It went okay though, the children followed my instructions and all managed to save the work. As we all inserted the same information, I will make sure that it is available for each individual child to access for the next lesson. This will probably take up the entirety of next week, but that's the life of a teacher for you!
Friday 2nd May
THANK GOD IT'S FRIDAY!
Although, it was formal observation day :(
I taught maths first thing, then phonics and my formal English was just before lunch time. I taught the kids how to write a recount of their journey to their first ever swimming lessons on Wednesday. It went okay. Standard 'Good' grading. Still have a lot to work on as a trainee but I'll get there! Resources were lacking in this lesson (my own fault). Although my degree is in English Literature, I actually find the subject a lot harder to teach at Primary level than I do maths! Friday evening I spent with my boyfriend, and we watched TV and had an earlyish night as we both had work the next day!
Saturday 3rd May
I had work at the Sweet Shop today! Ye Olde Sweete Shoppe to be exact! Standard day, some nutty customers as per and a lot of banter with the work girlies! I like work at the weekends. It's the nice brain-numbing kind of work I can leave at the shop door when I'm finished, unlike teaching! Although, it's getting VERY hard work, as I'm in school 5 days a week and then in the shop over the weekends! Getting tired. On Saturday eve my boyfriend and I went out for dinner at Prezzo and enjoyed a lovely meal - myself with calamari to start and lobster pasta for main, and him with prawns to start, and a smaller portion of two pasta dishes as a main - he also went for the lobster, and also some concoction of roast veg, chicken and bacon which was lush! It was a late meal, so tired by the end of it, we went home, watched an episode of Pokemon or two, and fell asleep!
Sunday 4th May
Work again! Nothing much interesting to report from this day. Ate too much chocolate. Came home. Saw my family then went and stayed at the boyfriends again! We were going to go to a car show the next day, however he was invited with some friends and I had work to do so I decided to come home VERY early the next morning to start on this!
Monday 5th May
Bank holiday Monday! I worked most of the day (however getting really quite distracted in between by my beautiful baby brother!!) and spent the day mooching indoors and outdoors! In the evening I had to get all my bags and books ready for the week ahead at school! Due to there not being much teaching to be done the week ahead because of SATS, I was set a mammoth amount of planning on top of an assignment and all the other work I have to do in conjunction with my course. Woe is the life of a teacher.
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