Monday 23 December 2013

Term One - SURVIVED!

It's Christmas eve eve and I've reached the end of term one!  The university gave us all an early Christmas present today, marks and feedback returned from our first assignment.  Luckily my Christmas is not spoiled- I passed at Masters level.  The assignment was to look into the theory behind one of a number of areas and then apply the theory to the schools that we're training in.  It's nothing like anything I've done before so it was hard, but it's over and done now, onwards to the next one!  The feedback the university gave was really useful and detailed too which I was really impressed with.

I've had my last week at my main school until February which was weird.  In January I'll be going to my contrasting placement, an all girls grammar school.  I'm only there for four weeks, but I'm looking forward to it.  The good thing about going to my second placement straight after Christmas is that it takes away some of the work load over the holiday, the school have piled me up with text books and they've let me know roughly where the classes are up to but until I've been there observing for a couple of days I'm not really going to be able to get on with any planning.  I'm using the time to get on top of paperwork and other such exciting things!

The scary thing about January being around the corner is that I will have to start looking out for jobs to apply for.  I've been told that jobs for September are posted in January so even though I've only been teaching for a term I have to start applying.  I'm mainly keeping my eye out for jobs near to where I live and in the area I'm training in but will look further afield too.  I've seen adverts for jobs at British Overseas Schools in places like the USA which really interest me, they're not an option for now but definitely something I'll keep an eye on in the future.

At the same time as the job applications and my second placement I have to be preparing for my Enhanced Studies placement.  The Enhanced placement is two weeks spent in a school researching an area of their school improvement plan before we write another 4000 word assignment on it.  I'm looking forward to doing something really different and to getting to see another school, but I know I'm going to find it difficult.  I've been in contact with a school that is happy to take me so that's the first item checked off of the list.

I cannot believe how fast this term has flown by, if time could slow down a little so I can appreciate my two weeks off that would be lovely!