Firstly, just to be clear, this is not because of the school. I’ve been really lucky in my PGCE and have had two good/outstanding schools that have an amazing record in really quite tricky areas. No, my new school is different, but I don’t think it’s bad. But it’s different. And that, for me, is bad. Following?

What I hadn’t realised is how much my expectations and understanding of teaching had been formed by the wonderful professionals I’d been working with. That first placement sets your standards for, well, everything. Literally. From the size of the staffroom to the banter between colleagues to the size of the teaching rooms, and my new school is different in these and every other way. Obviously, these differences are small, but others are enormous. Teaching focuses (AFL v literacy), how pupils with ESL are taught, teaching resources, exam preparation… Everything is different right now. Everything.

So, I’ve been spending the week trying to readjust and make sense the mechanics of my new school – why is it like it is? And that’s why I haven’t blogged before now, either. I didn’t want to make any snap judgements without trying to understand things first. And I’m getting there, I think. Not quite on everything, there are still some things confusing/annoying/upsetting me, but a lot of things are starting to make sense, even if I don’t necessarily agree with them. As a result, I’ve been swinging all week between feeling up and down (as you may have noticed, if you follow me on twitter. Sorry about that.). I’d forgotten how emotional and unbalanced the PGCE makes me… “I don’t know if I should be doing this…” “I want to quit…” “I love this!” etc etc. Blimey.

Things improved today, when I taught for the first time. My new pupils seemed to enjoy my lesson and I think learned something. Plus, being back at the front of the room after 4 weeks off wasn’t half as hard as I thought it would be. *Relief* And being busy and active helps me; it means I’m more likely to focus on the right things: me, and my development as a teacher. But I’m still struggling to shake off some of the black clouds hanging around me right now and, if 100% honest, I don’t know how much I’m going to get out of this placement. (There. I said it. I didn’t want to. But it’s true. And no. I’m not going to say more. Not yet, anyway.)

Still, think positive. Just one week in the school has, I think, helped me become a lot clearer about the kind of place I hope to be working on some months from now. That can only be a good thing, right? So thank you. To all those who stated the obvious when I most needed to hear it and sent me messages and emails telling me: It’s experience. It’s not for forever. You’re right : )

ps. This blog post is all over the place and completely incoherent. Sorry. I wanted to just blog but there are also things that I don’t 100% feel I can write about openly, which doesn’t help the writing process. But there. It’s done now. Hopefully posts will improve from here on in!

But, just in time to stop those thoughts lingering, school experience 2 is coming along. School experience 2, in which I will learn how to teach boys and the value of being a 45 minute bike ride from home, as opposed to an hour and 15 minutes. Where I will find out what it’s really like to teach 5 days a week, hopefully spending some time with A-level pupils. Where I will master the art of questioning (ha!) and differentiation (hope so). Where I will put in to practise all of the things I have been thinking about, reading about and dwelling on in the last 3 weeks.

I’m nervous and excited. I’m remembering how rubbish I was after the Christmas break and I don’t want to go back there again… But I’m excited to be teaching again – it’s been ages and I do love it. And I’m looking forward to being in a new school, with new people and new kids, and learning a whole heap of new stuff from them.

Now. Time to google: how to learn names. Fast…

You see, in all of the preparation for my PGCE, in all of the lists I made of things that I absolutely needed to get me through the year, when I was doing all that shopping and book buying, I didn’t realise I had the one thing I needed to get me through it all. That he was sat on the sofa next to me, and had been for 10 years. For the purpose of this post, I’ll call him Mr Me. He has a proper name, of course, and a nickname, but for this Mr Me will do.

Reasons why Mr Me is AWESOME!

When I first said I was thinking of doing the PGCE he didn’t say anything other than: if that’s what you want to do, I’ll totally support you in it. At times this was frustrating because I wanted someone to make the decision for me, but he was right to say it. It had to come from me. And he was brilliant for saying he’d support me. In doing the PGCE I’ve halved our household income, taken a chunk of savings, stopped us going on holidays for a year and made most features of normal life near on impossible, and he knew all that, and he didn’t mind.

Since then he’s gone from awesome to even more awesome. I really don’t know if I would have gotten to here, halfway through, without him. Every night, he’s here. I abandon him to go up and work in our study until midnight, but if I need him, I wander downstairs and he’s here. When I crawl into bed quietly, trying not to wake him, he stretches out and gives me a hug. When I’m stood in the living room, crying and wondering if I’ve done the right thing, he knows exactly what to say. When I’m excited and high after a really great day, he listens with enthusiasm and tells me he’s happy because I’m happy.

And then there’s all the really boring stuff that he does and never once complains about. He cooks, he cleans, he washes, he irons, he tidies, he sorts out broken cars and washing machines, he takes out the bins. Often without me even noticing. But I do know I always have clean and ironed clothes. And I do appreciate it when I get home and dinner is pretty much prepared. It’s so boring for him and it’s so much more work, but he never complains or even tells me he’s doing stuff. I pretty much owe him for a life time.

And last, because you probably hate me and him right now, he’s totally gone along with my complete absorption into the teaching world. He never tells me I’m boring. He never asks me to talk about something else. He listen to me rant about Gove. He proof reads my essays. He discusses with me the ins and outs of difficult stuff and he cares as much as I do. And when I need to come out of it all and escape, he’s there. Suggesting we go for ice cream or a walk; prodding me to keep me awake in the cinema.

Mr Me: You’re AWESOME. I wouldn’t have got this far without you.

For all these reasons and about 1,000,000,000,000,000 more.

Happy 14 February. Happy every day.

Anyway, to get through the stress, I thought I’d take a leaf out of Ian Gilbert’s book, Essential Motivation for the Classroom, and do me some target setting. Because, well, I’m a geek. And because Ian says goal setting is important. And because basically I believe everything he says. One of the tricks Ian suggests for getting pupils to set themselves goals is the Magic Pen:

You have a magic pen. Whatever you write comes true. The magic only lasts for 3 minutes. Quickly write down your plans for the next year (he suggests 5 years). 

Here’s my 3 minute attempt.

I have a job in a school I love, and which isn’t too far away. It is a school where I am learning to teach rather than manage behaviour and where the pupils are interested in learning. I am teaching a whole range of different classes, from KS3 – 5, and I am really enjoying it. I have classes that I think of as mine, and I’ve been able to set in place all of the things I’ve heard of but not been able to try yet. I have my own classroom with an IWB that works! Which is fun. I’m teaching really interesting things and I’m more and more confident in my abilities. My pupils are really enjoying my lessons and are doing well. I’ve improved my AFL and formative assessment skills in particular and this has helped my pupils a lot. I’m still in touch with my fellow PGCE students and we’re still supporting each other, and I’ve made some new friends at my new school too. I’m still working all hours, but I’m still making time for important people and things are ok. I have a holiday planned too ; )

There! Look! My wishes, committed to cyberspace! (Ian’s right, by the way, writing in this way rather than in a list really does free you up to be more honest.) It’s nice to know what I’m doing all this for. Onwards!

ps. English teachers, have you stumbled across Michael Rosen’s blog yet? Have a look, it’s really very brilliant.

pps. Did I make it clear I was recommending Essential Motivation in the Classroom? Maybe not. Consider it recommended.

ppps. I know I won’t achieve all of those wishes. But shhhhhh. The pen was magic! Didn’t you hear?

I’d forgotten what life was like before school. I’d forgotten how great it feels when you’re getting 8 hours sleep a night, and how lovely it is to see real full-sized adults outside work. This week I’ve met friends 3 whole times! That’s more than in the last 3 months put together and gosh it’s been lovely. I hadn’t had time to notice, but I missed being with friends, people who I share a history with and who care, even when all I can talk about is Michael Gove… Most brilliantly of all, though, I’ve remembered what my husband looks like. Happily, he still looks good. This is a relief.

It’s funny though. Despite all of this brilliant stuff, my brain still hasn’t switched off. University is keeping me busy with readings and essays and case studies. I keep reliving lessons and moments and cringing over things I wish I’d done better, or differently at least. I’m enjoying reading things about setting and AFL. And I wonder, maybe this is it now. This is life now. You’d think this would bother me. But, actually, scarily, it doesn’t. And this, more than anything, is a huge relief.

It’s 2 weeks till I start my new placement school. I hope my optimism is still in tact after that…

Working with this teacher completely shaped my view of my teaching. It made me realise that’s the kind of teacher I want to be, something that had stumped me for a while. Looking back over my lessons I can see that I slowly did in fact adapt to this style and that, by the end, I was pushing other classes too. I don’t think I fully worked out who to be in front of my bottom set year 8s, but there’s time for that. I’m excited now about having a class for the whole year and really getting the chance to teach this way, right from the start.

(Note. I am still no where near having a class to teach this way, right from the start. I have made my first job application, but that’s it.)

That I had the chance to work with this teacher was complete fluke. I only ended up at my school because my original placement screwed up, and I only got to work with this teacher because out of the two timetables drawn up for the teacher student teachers, I got this one. I guess so much of the PGCE is down to chance, and whether you have a good time or not is up to the teachers you work with, the schools you’re sent to and the kids you teach. I just hope my luck continues in my new school and that I’m able to keep being who I want to be without my role model around.

I’m all mixed up about leaving. On the one hand, there’s no doubt that my body was about to give up. Since October I’ve cycled over 150km a week and, even though I’m far too proud to publicly admit it, I’m knackered. Maybe it’s the cycling. More likely it’s the getting up at 5.45am and working till midnight. But even though, yes, I’m glad of the break, I don’t think I could have asked for a better placement school: great pupils, challenges, supportive staff and a bloody brilliant timetable. I know I got lucky, and I’m sad they didn’t have a job coming up. I’d have taken it in a shot.

But there’s no use dwelling on that. I have 3 weeks “off” now, 3 weeks of paperwork and recovery. It started today, but no one told my brain so I was awake at 8am with a to-do list running through my head. I’d hoped I could quickly jot it all down and go back to sleep, but by the time I’d done that my brain had moved on to a job application I wanted to complete and then that was it. I was up. I hope my brain remembers how to stop sometime soon…

Among all the items on my brand-new-whiteboard-to-do-list (oh yes.) is a 1,000 word reflection on my placement. To which, I say, thank god for this blog. Whilst I’d like to just put a link on a blank sheet of paper, I think I actually do have to write the 1,000 words, thinking about my development, factors that have influenced my development and my future development on the PGCE. Where would I start if I didn’t have this blog to look back on? The highs and the lows? It’s funny. It’s just 4 months but so. much. happens in 4 months. So much changes. Some how, I became a teacher. How the hell did that happen?

I got a reminder of how things used to be in the staffroom on Friday. There was a woman in there, in her 20s, looking absolutely beyond terrified. And I thought: I know that look. It turned out she was an ex-pupil, going back to the school to get experience so she could get on a PGCE course. I talked to her a bit, told her (quite honestly) all I knew, and asked her how she was feeling about it all. She looked at me: “I have no idea if it’s the right thing to do”. Oh yes. I remember those days.

My new placement school, by the way, didn’t give me such a warm, glowy feeling when I went. I won’t go into detail here as I’m very much trying to reserve my judgement until I start, but I just didn’t feel like it was the kind of school I want to teach in. My induction day ended with a teacher advising me not to join the teaching profession. There’s not much you can say to that.

But, such is the nature of the PGCE. I will move on. I will keep some fingers crossed that a job might come up in my school. I will keep in touch with the teachers. And I’ll try to refocus on placement 2.

But I’m longing for a long term, permanent home already.

And I’m pleased to announce, ladies and gentlemen, that today we made a real breakthrough! We discovered what happens when a capable teacher (ish) is left in charge of a potentially very important classroom discussion, and it went like this:

Pupil 1: “some inarticulate and long winded point about something very relevant to an upcoming controlled assessment. Also, clearly completely wrong”.

Guinea Pig Sleep Deprived teacher: *Panic. I know she was talking. I heard enough to know it was wrong. I have no idea what she said. And she’s staring. Waiting for an answer.* “Interesting – would anyone in the room like to challenge that point?”

Pupil 2: “Well, I kind of agree with her”.

Guinea Pig Sleep Deprived teacher: *Panic* “In what way…?”

Pupil 2: “I’m not sure…”

Guinea Pig Sleep Deprived teacher: *Panic. Sees hands up. Randomly calls out names until the conversation moves on*.

It was an exciting moment, coming so close to the end of this great No Sleep Experiment. Now we just have to wait and see how tomorrow unfolds…

Poetry revision with year 11
Who knew poetry revision could be fun? And by fun I mean so fun that the kids were saying aloud in the lesson: “This is so much fun!” Not me! Not till I thought of playing the post it note game as a revision class.

You know the post it note game. Take a pack of post it notes, write the name of a load of celebs on them and then stick them on people’s foreheads. They then have to ask yes or no questions until they’ve worked out who they are. Well, in the lesson, we played that very game. Except instead of celebs the kids had the names of poems from the relationships cluster of the aqa anthology. They had to ask things like: is it a sonnet? Do I contain any metaphors? Do I have a regular rhyme scheme? And when they were feeling confident they got one chance to guess the name of the poem. The pupil who got the most right won a Crunchie. Competition was fierce. It was quite wonderful.

I followed the post it note with pupils getting into groups according to the poems they felt they were weakest on. They then had to write briefs for another group to answer in the next lesson, in explaining the poem.

Together, the two lessons worked brilliantly. I have to say, I was chuffed.

Unseen poetry with year 10
I wanted to do something relevant and interesting with year 10 so was excited when I saw Carol Ann Duffy had written a poem about the Stephen Lawrence case. Rather than just study it, I gave my pupils an introduction to the case, building on some of the knowledge pupils had from a Panorama documentary. Then I gave groups of 4 different newspaper articles from different key moments in the history of the Stephen Lawrence case. I had 7 overall, including when it first happened and the one from January 2012. Each group was then also given a pack of “fridge poetry” words, picked out from their newspaper article, and a heaps of blanks for them to add words of their own. They spent about 30 minutes constructing their own poems, and then we moved around the room in chronological order, hearing the poems of the case.

Next week we’ll look at the poem properly and I think the class will have a completely different take on it now. They certainly loved building their own poems – it was the most engaged I’ve ever seen a class.

I was pretty proud of both those lessons. They reminded me of the kind of teacher I want to be. They’re the moments I need to keep hold of.