Monday morning yet again…Miss Milne was away this particular Monday morning so I had to take form on my own, well with a cover teacher in the room as with being a PGCE student I am not allowed to be in a classroom on my own yet. I have been in school for a month now so know quite well how form is run on Monday mornings. Silent reading, check they have had their planners signed and read out any announcements. It all went quite well although I am finding that when Miss Milne isn’t there they tend to act up a bit and don’t always respond when I ask them to be quiet. I think they are aware that I am not technically a teacher so seem less bothered when I tell them off. Silent reading therefore was not so silent but they didn’t behave too badly and would quiet down when I asked. I then went off to the year 8s again as always on a Monday morning where they were finishing off their pop-up books. I was asked to give them a quick demo of how to safely use a Stanley knife for cutting card. The class were then just getting on with their books and didn’t really need any help so Chrissy asked if I would like to try out some marking. She gave me coursework from two year 11s, one was of a high standard and one of a low standard and whilst referencing to a GCSE leveling sheet she asked me to mark the first two sections. She had already marked them so when I was finished we compared our results to see if I was doing it right. There were fairly close although I seemed to be too harsh in parts and too generous in others, it was good practise though.
Tuesday started with my form having assembly with the theme being Remembrance Day and the importance of the Poppy. I then had a year 7 lesson where Yazz asked me to do another demo. My previous demos for the year 7s had gone pretty well so I had gone into the lesson feeling confident…mistake. I should have listened to Yazz, no two lesson are the same and always be prepared. My demo went horribly wrong with my biggest mistake being not prepared. It should have been easy and taken 5 minutes however due to my mistakes I confused the students and talked for about 20 minutes eating away at their practical time. The silver lining from this epic fail is I now know first hand what not to do and can greatly learn from this. Tuesday afternoon, Yazz and Chrissy were off timetable so had organized cover teachers for their lessons however I asked if I could still go along and take the lessons anyway. I had Year 9 first working on their children’s toys in groups. They had been moved to a different classroom and knew they were having a cover teacher, a recipe for bad behaviour. I gave them their tasks to do and tried out my behaviour management skills as the class where playing up from the start. I sat one student on his own after he was persistently being distracting to other students and was impressed when he spent the rest of the lesson getting on with his work in silence. The lesson didn’t go too badly I left feeling I had much work to do with my behaviour management skills but feeling quite proud of how I handled the situation. I then had the Year 10 class also being covered. They were in their normal classroom, a small and really nice group. I had the lesson for them well prepared and it all went smoothly.
Wednesday I decided to get my form to do silent reading again as they had failed to be silent for me on Monday, this seemed to make them realise that although I am not technically a teacher I can still enforce rules and punishments. They were quieter than I had ever seen them. I then had my second textiles class where I was now more prepared to deal with the students with SEN as I had looked up their needs. I was still just observing so the lesson was spent helping out where needed and speaking to students about their work. I had professional studies that afternoon about school councils and how valuable they are to schools, I will take what I had learned from the session and make sure I work on the importance of ‘student voice’ in my form. I then decided to take the year 7 class again who I had the bad lesson with the day before. I don’t usually take this lesson but felt I needed to redeem myself. Yazz let me take the whole class from start to finish and told me to focus on my time management bearing in mind the class tend to be quite slow in packing away. The lesson went much better than the day before but there are still areas I need to work on, preparation still being my problem so I have organised time to work on this when Yazz is free.
Thursday I spent some time with Yazz who showed me how to change the blades on the three different scroll saws she has in her workshop and spoke to some of the year 12s about their projects. In the afternoon Chrissy had asked if I would do a short presentation for the year 11s about social and environmental issues when designing products so I whipped up my first Powerpoint which took me about 6 hours to do 6 slides due to my slight OCD in regards to choosing a suitable font and making sure all the images where the same size and in line with each other. My presentation went pretty well and the students actually took notes which was great to see. I spent the rest of the lesson helping students out with their projects and coursework.
Friday, back at Goldsmiths we played about with 2D design, another programme schools use as it is free but is so outdated and actually really annoying to use. However 2D design links really well with laser cutters which is what the session was all about. We learned a lot about the laser cutter and I now really want one of my own in my flat shame they cost rather a lot of money! We made a small design on 2D then sent the file to be laser cut. I decided to make a little present for my boyfriend who I’m sure is getting a bit sick of all the stuff I keep bringing home from the workshops. It is really cool to watch the laser go and the results are brilliant. There is a laser cutter at my school that the students are currently doing a project where they will be using it, I feel a lot more confident in teaching the students about it now. We were then shown the 3D printers which I am quite familiar with already having used one at University where I printed off a model I had made on Maya but no matter how much I already know about the process it’s still pretty impressive what you can do.
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