Snow Day Musings
I feel slightly bad writing this, as I have only been teaching a full week for two weeks and I'm already very thankful that I had a half snow day (our school shut at midday). However, there were very practical reasons, obviously, for it shutting. Getting home was I think, the most interesting drive of my life and made me glad that I have been driving almost 6 years and am not a novice.
My week has been intense and manic and I'm finally starting to get what people say when they say that a PGCE is hard work. Last term was hard but manageable with enough time to feel human in between, this term on the other hand is a full on monster bearing down on me and leaving little if no time to do anything resembling a social life. Having said that, I am still managing to take my weekends off and it is mainly for this fact that my weekdays are non-stop work, but I would rather have it that way and have two completely free guilt free days of rest than worry about taking some weekday evenings off and then working a bit every day; never quite fully relaxing.
I am now on a nearing 60% timetable teaching, and 100% including observation and it is full one. I'm fairly speedy at lesson planning but it still means that, a long with eating, marking and other living necesseties; I have no choice but to work until 9 30 every night.
I know most of you will balk at this "9 30? That's early for a PGCE student" I hear you say, but in the case of this PGCE student, 9 30 is ridiculously late to be working I don't think I have ever worked past about 4pm before in my life. I was always the student to do the bare minimum because I could and I still got the grades, this year is a different matter. Having said all that, I love my job! Seeing a students face when they finally understand rebirth, or when you've planned a really fun lesson, or being called a 'legend' (that happened today!): these are the things we teachers live for. The students may not get why we work so hard to teach them but it really is one of the most rewarding jobs/lifestyles on the planet.
The key I believe, to this PGCE course, is to be insanely organised: get your lesson plans done a week in advance; get your marking done that night; give everything in your life its place or you will lose everything and , as I was told by so many people (and am still reminded every weekend by a certain friend), taking at least one day off a week to be human! We will see if this all continues for the next few weeks...
My week has been intense and manic and I'm finally starting to get what people say when they say that a PGCE is hard work. Last term was hard but manageable with enough time to feel human in between, this term on the other hand is a full on monster bearing down on me and leaving little if no time to do anything resembling a social life. Having said that, I am still managing to take my weekends off and it is mainly for this fact that my weekdays are non-stop work, but I would rather have it that way and have two completely free guilt free days of rest than worry about taking some weekday evenings off and then working a bit every day; never quite fully relaxing.
I am now on a nearing 60% timetable teaching, and 100% including observation and it is full one. I'm fairly speedy at lesson planning but it still means that, a long with eating, marking and other living necesseties; I have no choice but to work until 9 30 every night.
I know most of you will balk at this "9 30? That's early for a PGCE student" I hear you say, but in the case of this PGCE student, 9 30 is ridiculously late to be working I don't think I have ever worked past about 4pm before in my life. I was always the student to do the bare minimum because I could and I still got the grades, this year is a different matter. Having said all that, I love my job! Seeing a students face when they finally understand rebirth, or when you've planned a really fun lesson, or being called a 'legend' (that happened today!): these are the things we teachers live for. The students may not get why we work so hard to teach them but it really is one of the most rewarding jobs/lifestyles on the planet.
The key I believe, to this PGCE course, is to be insanely organised: get your lesson plans done a week in advance; get your marking done that night; give everything in your life its place or you will lose everything and , as I was told by so many people (and am still reminded every weekend by a certain friend), taking at least one day off a week to be human! We will see if this all continues for the next few weeks...
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