becomingmissfarrell

[becomingmissfarrell]

Excited to start teaching Gothic fiction in P2! My to-do list over the holidays includes re-reading Frankenstein and The Woman in Black next to a box of Quality Street 

[becomingmissfarrell]

Officially finished my first term as a PGCE student! While I have thoroughly enjoyed the course so far, I am completely shattered and need some time to chill and rejuvenate for Placement 2. 

Although I had such good intentions to use this blog as a weekly reflective journal, life as a student teacher is much busier and hectic than I imagined, and the reflective journal has been at the very bottom of my to-do list for the past 3 months! But as life has finally began to slow down, I thought I’d use my spare time to think about some of the highs and lows of Placement 1 before I catch my flight to Belfast!

Highlights

- For me, the highlight of P1 was a cover lesson with my Year 10 class. Although my behaviour management was successful in P1, I couldn’t help but wonder if students followed my instructions simply because their class teacher was in the room. During this cover lesson, I was pleasantly surprised that the students acted in the same way they always did. This gave me a confidence boost as I realised that they respected me as their teacher, not just in the presence of their original class teacher.

- Year 7 (Shakespeare’s Villains) - After allocating each student a role (Iago, Richard III, director), I asked them to imagine they were auditioning for the next Joker film. Both Iago and Richard III had to convince the director (the Joker) that they were the best villain, using evidence from their speech. All members of the class were thoroughly engaged in the topic and the scripts they prepared were brilliant (1 student even prepared his script in the form of a rap!). Each group acted out their script and the director decided who is the best villain and why? (This linked to their end-of-year assessment)

- Year 9 - Of Mice and Men (George on trial for the first-degree murder of Lennie) – This was quite challenging to run but the end product was worth it! All members of the class were engaged and learned a lot about the trial process, as well as using evidence from the text to prove their arguments.

- Year 10 parents evening

 Lows

- My first class with Year 10 wasn’t ideal – I found it difficult to find the balance between being strict and being friendly and ended up getting a bit nervous / frustrated which they picked up on immediately (something I’m a little worried about in P2 – establishing myself in the first class). Thankfully, the students settled, and things changed from my second class onwards!

- I had an awful Year 8 class (the 1 class that my PT observed). It was a reading class so I decided to do something a bit more creative and fun for the students; the speed-dating book activity we did during the first week of Uni. Unfortunately, they didn’t engage as much as I would have liked and I realised the lesson needed more structure and challenge in order to be successful. I felt a bit deflated afterwards as this was the only time my PT would observe me teaching but got over it after a few days!

 Overall, I had a really positive experience at Redland! In fact, I am so happy that I got the opportunity to work here for P1 as I was able to mirror the high-quality teaching that I observed from the offset (something that I hope to continue in P2). I developed great relationships with both students and colleagues and wish I could have stayed there for P2!

[becomingmissfarrell]

Bristol is definitely in my top 3 favourite cities - a weekend free of everything PGCE was needed

[becomingmissfarrell]

Placement 1 - Week 1

Diving into my second week as a student teacher at my placement school!

Absolutely delighted with the school that I got placed - both my PT and AT seem to be very helpful and approachable, the head teacher is lovely and not scary at all (a change from every other head teacher I’ve met), and the pupils seem to well-mannered, engaged and happy to be there which is a bonus! According to my PT, this is due to their behavior policy, Ready to Learn, which I feel is a bit extreme but if it works it works! As a teacher, I feel like our aim should be to keep young people in the classroom for as long as possible rather than send them out and detain them for a full day, although it does act as a good support system for teachers and I might be glad of it at some stage in the future!!  

Last week, I observed a total of 5 lessons, including one of the most engaging and interactive English classes I have ever been in. The Year 11 lesson was based around effective openings for GCSE English language whereby the students were given 10 of the most effective literary openings in history and were asked to annotate / evaluate why. Afterwards, students were asked to make their own 5 openings based on an image the teacher put on the board. The lesson involved a lot of peer assessment in that students had to rate their partners openings 1-5 and share the best with the class. I felt that this method accommodated those under-confident students who wouldn’t have spoken out or put their opening forward to the class. Behavior management was also effective in this class as the teacher showed her human side and treated the students like adults so that they felt obliged to comply!

I also watched a lesson whereby I felt the teacher limited students learning somewhat. My placement school have a lot of highly academic students which consistently challenge the teachers subject knowledge. Although this could understandably be somewhat intimidating, I feel like challenging questions should be celebrated and welcomed rather than shot down by the teacher. Watching this particular lesson made me aware that teachers can also limit students learning. It’s not the end of the world if we, as teachers, don’t know the answer to a question or feel like a topic is beyond our subject knowledge - its important to reflect, be honest and confident in our approach to challenging questions and encourage. Despite this, one of my goals over the next few weeks is to work on my subject knowledge which is a bit rusty as the moment!

[becomingmissfarrell]

Delivered my first lesson with Meg today as part of a peer assessment activity. We choose to talk about the development of contemporary poetry, drawing from Rupi Kaur’s work. Comparing Sylvia Plath’s highly acclaimed poem “Daddy” with the poem above, we explored whether or not contemporary poetry deserves a place in the English classroom. 

Overall, I felt the lesson went well! I thought that the opening (which was a clip of the slam poetry from 22 jump street) was so engaging and drew everyone in from the get-go, and the topic itself was very relevant and disputable. I did, however, feel that I lacked subject knowledge to truly develop and explore some of the points raised by peers so it definitely would have been helpful for me to do some extra background reading on the poets or the topic prior to delivering the lesson!

[becomingmissfarrell]

After reflecting upon my first week as a PGCE Student, I am feeling well and truly positive! Absolutely delighted with my decision to move to Bristol, and although I know it will be a tough year, I am excited to start my teaching journey and become Miss Farrell. 

I have learnt so much in the past week, particularly during the subject sessions with Lorna, Lucy and Paul (who are literally the most supportive and approachable lecturers I have ever came across throughout my time in education!). These sessions have mainly involved us taking on the role of their students, and evaluating and observing their teaching strategies to adapt in are own classrooms. Although it feels a bit strange taking on the role of a secondary school student, this method has been truly engaging and I have picked up so many tips, activities and observations on classroom management! E.g. use of lollipop sticks for names, asking students to repeat instructions, use of 3-2-1 to enable students to close conversations, speed dating activity (book recommendation), ice-breakers etc. 

On Wednesday, we had a lecture on safeguarding - particularly enjoyed the talk from Ross McGill on social media. Social media has become such a large part of young people’s lives so it’s brilliant that students and teachers are being educated on the risks associated with it! The talk reminded me how much I would LOVE to be a PSHE and/or a guidance councilor and truly help teenagers through the confusing, pressurizing and emotionally charged years of their lives!

Anyway, pretty positive experience so far!!