14.10.2012: One day till Placement 1a

Tomorrow begins placement 1a, and today I find myself wishing my printer was working.... As it is not, I have a lot of documents on my computer that should be in paper format. Guess I will be taking my laptop along with me tomorrow! Despite the lack of printed documentation, I am pretty much organised (for the first day at least!)

I am also in need of buying several hundred books... I could borrow them from the library, however all the copies seem to be constantly out. I know I can reserve them for when I get back into classes (odd system where by if someone else wishes to borrow a book your lease on it drops from one week to two days, and as I live so far from the university and my placement is ridiculously far away, any recalls will have to be patient!) but I would feel bad because I know if I want to take out a book for a week, it means I usually will take a week to read it, and I guess others would too?!?

So, Tip of the week.... I guess I have two:

• Make sure your printer works (at all times throughout the course)
• Save up a lot of money for books, or learn to read dry textbooks at high speed!

Wishing you all a lovely week, mine will be spent on placement with a 'difficult' class. What fun!

S x

12.10.2012: A week of little sleep

I've become a little bogged down in all the work, additionally illness and injury have taken their toll, so have not been able to blog in a while.

Today started out rather stressfully, almost to Cambridge (within 10 miles of our 40ish mile journey, we hit a stand-still. I'm impressed that we had managed this long without a major traffic jam, but today the luck ran out. We sat, with the engine off for over an hour, BUT we were only 15 minutes late for the lecture... All I can surmise from this is that we clearly leave home at least half an hour too early on the average day...

Today, was our last day in University before the first placement. I'm looking forward to being back in a classroom, but at the moment, I'm a little overwhelmed with the amount I need to prepare/sort/read/write/organise etc. We have a placement week, then a three week break before we go back to complete this placement in November. In the 'break' we have two weeks of classes - in which I have a group presentation, and a reading week - which I am going to need! We also have been set our first proper assignment: 6000 words on formative assessment in relation to a certain area of the curriculum. I have science to cover, but am required to make reference to specific examples I see within my placement, so I have background reading to complete right now, but am unable to think about the 'main body' of the assignment until I have started my placement.

There is basically very little time to do anything other than university work, and consequently, I am now finished blogging for today. Back to work I go.

S x

02.10.2012: Sickness and Books

I've spent the last three days with a sickness bug. I went into University yesterday (I had the essay to hand in) and spent most of the day running out of class. So I took today off. I feel somewhat better, but I'm still not completely there. So, I am reading. I have a wonderful reason for reading - its a requirement to create a reading journal... and I set my target at 100 books over the next year. Which actually could be really easy as tiny people's books can be read in 30 seconds flat. But I can't just read them, I have to read longer books for older children too. So I am investing in several book series. And today I have just started Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. What a great way to get over a sickness bug.

S x