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

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

25.09.2012: Maths and a million things to do

Tuesday, my first Mathematics lecture. I'm pretty certain some people will not be successful teachers, not because they don't know their subject matter, but more because they know too much and seem to have forgotten that they are training to teach CHILDREN.... Proving through trigonometry might be fun, but if you present that to a 5 year old they would laugh, and an 11 year old would be scared from Maths for LIFE. (Little rant over)

I actually really like maths, its always been my strong suit, and I had really great teachers that made it fun. That is my aim for when I teach - to captivate the children's attention, and get them interested in investigating, and just being able to see the real-life applications. After all, how often do you hear adults say 'I never used algebra in real life' but they do without even realising it. And it is this generation of people that put children off the subject as much as those who expect too much/make it too number-y! Maths is FUN. Fact.

This afternoon, we had a lecture about everything we need for our first placement... which is basically a tree's worth of forms to fill in and read and understand and process and edit and print and sign. It basically means I have even more things to do (like another 20 things on my to do list) and less time than I thought to write my essay!

One good thing though, some of my books arrived today! Whoop. Textbooks to help me!

Best be off to do all my jobs!

S x

22.09.2012: No rest for the wicked. Or trainee teachers.

It is the weekend, and I get no time to rest. 18 things on the to do list, I hope for at least 10 to be completed by tonight... But lets all hope for more!

English subject knowledge test and Audit. Nothing will ever fill me with more dread in my entire life than those words. I actually feel physically panicked at the thought of having to complete them again!

So, after a day of sitting and typing, I have achieved nothing at all on my essay, but I have done a lot of other things! There are 10 things left on my list, so I achieved my goal, but I could have done more.... If the links I needed had worked (connected to the right thing or actually allowed me to download my documents!) For the rest of the night I shall be doing my background reading for my essay in the hope that I will digest it all in my sleep and be more than prepared to write it all tomorrow. It is a short essay - only 2000 words, which is good in some ways - I should be able to write it in a day (like tomorrow) but such a short essay does mean I am likely to spend a long time chopping bits out....

Today I have also invested in some books - some being the operative word as I can't afford them all!! Student loans wrote to me today to say I need to send back another form and then they will think about sending me my money, so fingers crossed that gets sorted for next week! I would recommend buying your books prior to the start of your course unlike me, because its amazing how quick the essay has come along (that is our first essay was given to us on day two of the course...) I think my library card will take a beating this year as I have to create a reading journal for English also - full of children's books for all ages. I hope to have at least 100 books read and reviewed for their learning potential by the end of the year.

I'm off to carry on with my reading... well if CamTools lets me log back in so I can link to the articles...

Have a nice evening - I am celebrating this long, tiring, exciting week (plus getting my degree results) with a Chinese Takeaway :)

S x