School Shoes

Phew! I have survived the first week and what a week.

It was probably the longest five days of my life.

So far!

We've had lectures on Teachers And The Law, Putting Together our Professional Portfolio, Behaviour Management, Assessments, The English Framework and much more.

At 8am on Monday I have my first tutorial with my course tutor and for that I have had to complete a comprehensive review of my (lacking) ICT skills, match up where I am now on achieving the 33 standards I will need to acquire qualified teacher status (a long way), audit my subject knowledge (six hours of misery to find out I knew a lot less than I thought) and compile a CV for my placement profile.

I have also got to finish reading "Stone Cold", a YA novel for next week which Iam thoroughly enjoying and read "Of Mice And Men."

Of course I couldn't get through the week (and the weekend) without a little reward so I have ordered a new pair of Clarks pumps (above)  and a skirt from the fab new online Zara.

I think I will be limited to online shopping only for the next 36 weeks.

Next week we find out which High Schools we will be working in for our first placement.

The First Day

My original timetable suggested a week of half days which made me mightily relieved as my dad is still in hospital and my childcare arrangements (mum) were well out of the window. However, the timetable was only a timetable of welcomes. The real timetable began after 10.30am.

A quarter of a century on from my last first day when a tiny speck of a man uttered a few inaudible words in a large lecture theatre we now have an all singing all dancing audio visual presentation from the “I’m a perfectionist” Dean. A speech that terrified the staff never mind the students who walked in late when he was discussing the lack of professionalism in those who turned up late.

More speeches,more audio visual presnetations (a power point presentation by any other name)and then finally into our subject groups.

Our course leader is a former English teacher with 29 years experience including a day when he fell asleep in the classroom during a particularly dull reading of a not so engaging novel.

And then the pleasantries were over. We were handed stacks of paper, booklets, calendars and reminded of  the tereminable to-do list which will dominate our every waking thought until July next year.

We have to book our QTS tests in literacy, numeracy and ICT. We have to audit our skills, we have to prepare for our first tutorial and we have our first assignment looming in the next few weeks. We also have to read a novel for a lecture for next week,four Shaekspeare plays and reams of professional documentation and much much more.

As we left the lecture theatre early (at 3.30pm) I heard a (young) fellow student says she was “shattered”. I didn’t hear what she planned to do for the rest of the day as I stil lhad to get home,feed my family and take my mum to the hospital to visit dad.

Interesting times lie ahead.

To Teach Or Not To Teach?

That is a question I have asked myself many times since I graduated with an English degree in 1988.
And here I am a 44-year-old mother of four about to begin a PGCE at the fourth attempt.
When I first graduated I began working as a journalist for a local newspaper.
It was a dream job for me and I loved writing stories, meeting people and seeing my name in print.
But after three years there were aspects of the job I could never come to terms with such as the "death knocks" in which a reporter is sent to the home of bereaved relatives in the event of a sudden death such as road accident, fire or murder.
It was around this time that I started visiting schools to talk about my work and I started to experience the classroom from a different angle.
So in the early 1990s I applied for a PGCE at Liverpool University and was offered a place.
Just before I took up my place I was offered a job at The Liverpool Echo - a massive step up from a weekly newspaper- so I declined the PGCE place.
As the years passed and the death knocks increased my family circumstances changed.
I was now a mum and loved spending time with my baby son and watching him learn.
Inevitably, my thoughts turned to teaching again and I applied a second time for a PGCE.
It was 1994 and I was all ready to start the course when I discovered I was pregnant with my second child.
Life as a mother of two was hectic and I was able to step down to part-time work which gave me time to help out in the classroom at my sons' school.
I loved the balance of my work and was able to accommodate a third child in 1997 and in 1998 I secured a much coveted place on the Features Desk - so much more creative than the newsroom where I had worked for 10 years.
By 2003 I was juggling a part-time job as a features writer with my role at home as a mum of four (my fourth child was born in March 2000) but it was tough.
So tough that I decided to leave and become a freelance writer.
This proved to be the perfect solution.
I won commissions to write for local, regional and national magazines and set up my own small PR company. I never missed a school assembly or sports day and even had time to help out in the classroom again.
As my older children grew I became interested with the way English was taught in High Schools.
I started to read many of the texts they were studying and felt myself drawn to teaching again.
In January 2007 I was offered a place on the Flexible PGCE course which meant I could combine my roles as writer and teacher.
But in May 2007 I saw a job advert in The Guardian for a "writer in residence" at a men's prison not too far away.
I couldn't resist. I applied and was successful.
And this proved to be the perfect transition role.
I mentored the magazine team, organised author events and taught creative writing for up to nine hours a week.
I loved the challenge of creating interesting workshops and tweaking classes to engage all participants.
Although the recession meant my freelance journalism was dwindling I didn't mind as by this time I was also an accredited Creative Practitioner and I was creating and delivering writing projects in schools across Merseyside and Lancashire.
The turning point came in August 2008 on the day I was told  I had won a travel writing competition in The Guardian.
That very same day I also heard that one of the prisoners I had helped write a play won first prize in The Koestler Awards.
I got more pleasure from the prisoner's succes than my own achievement and it was then I knew.
My contract was renewed for another two years but I had already made my mind up.
In October 2009 I appplied for a fourth time for the PGCE and here I am just days away from finally taking up my place.
On Thursday September 2nd I will teach my final class in the prison and on Friday September 3rd I will enrol on the PGCE.
I feel exactly the same as I did the day I walked into the prison - excited and terrified.