18 down, 4 to go

... days of teaching placement that is.

I've spent the past 3 weeks with a year 2 class in a school near(ish) here. I've been teaching almost all of their literacy, numeracy, science and music lessons in that time so if they turn out to be illiterate, innumerate adults who have no idea how the world works and couldn't sing about it if you paid them then its probably my fault.

They're fun though. 24 6 and 7 year olds can make a heck of a lot of noise with very little effort! They ask a LOT of questions and don't do much listening which is why, when you send them off to their tables to do an activity, you spend the next 5 minutes repeating the original instructions 24 times.

They're creative - this week we wrote our own book and made the whole thing, including typing up the text (a big deal for a 6 year old) and all the illustrations. We've been reading a story called Owl Babies by Martin Waddell - a lovely story of 3 owlets whose mother disappears one night and how they feel scared until she comes back. Our new book was a new story about the owlets and what happens when they learn how to fly. Not sure it'll make the Mann-Booker just yet but its a start! If you want to see it, click here. If you are not a broadband user, pop round to a mate's house first - it'll be quicker that way.

I've also had fun trying to get all the aspects of my lessons in - mental/oral starters, introductions, word level, text level, sentence level, main activities and, of course, the dreaded plenaries that Ofsted love and teachers hate. Most of my plenaries this week have gone down the pan thanks to children disappearing off in all directions to various song practices for the Christmas assembly (which is, of course, far more important than their SATS at the end of the year.)

I think I'll miss them after I leave next week. I certainly won't miss coming home with a thousand child-voices saying "Mrs Warwick" ringing in my head (or Mrs Westcott or Mrs Woodcote or Mrs Whitlock or whatever else they've come up with!)

12 weeks of placements and 23 weeks of study left until the PGCE is over. This one hasn't put me off teaching yet... bring it on!!