Thursday 21 October 2010

The Best Laid Plans

I have completed my first lesson plan.
On my own.
We were given a poem, "The Identification" by Roger McGough and we had to plan a lesson either a solo lesson or part of a longer scheme of work - something I now know is also called a medium term plan.
Get me and all that educational terminology.
I haven't even mentioned SEALs or ECM or PHSE - don't ask!
It is a poem about a father being shown his dead son's body and how he reacts to the personal possessions left behind.
I almost cried after I read the poem but I pressed on and created a lesson which we had to present to the rest of our cohort today.
Our tutor's final remark was "well done, nobody produced a lesson that would be a disaster."

Wednesday 13 October 2010

The Story So Far

Apologies for the lack of posts but it has been frantic.
So what have I been up to?
Well three weeks ago I completed my primary placement; three days with Year 6 at the school where my youngest is still a pupil.
I had a great time and worked on a special project to help a small group of pupils create a newspaper.
It was great fun especially as we had a visit from The Etherington Brothers (above) who have just produced a graphic story for kids called Monkey Nuts.
The following week we started at the High School where we will be slowly easing ourselves into teaching until Christmas and then teaching almost full-time between January and  February.
It is a challenging school with pupils from 33 feeder primary schools from across the whole of Merseyside.
I will be teaching English to years 7,8, 9 and 13 (A-level) and Media Studies to Year10.
I also have a year 8 tutor group to work with and have already begun taking the register.
We are at school Monday - Wednesday and back at Uni for the rest of the week.
And I have already completed three assignments with a biggie on planning looming.
I will be planning a scheme of work on Romeo and Juliet.
An assignment by any other name would sound as daunting!
Until next time.......