I found a job for the summer term that I really really really want. It's an LSA for the Reception class in my local infant school, for 25 hours a week (as full time as you can get in school). I visited the school on Monday and was very impressed by everything, and I've sent off for an application form and information that should arrive today.

The scary thing is, they're not interviewing unitl the last day of the Spring Term.... i.e. 2 1/2 weeks before the Summer Term starts.... so it's going to be a tight one!

Fingers crossed...

Woo yay.... my 'internet teaching buddy', Liz, has just found out she's got a place at Southampton - I'm really happy! We met for the first time on Friday after her interview and she's very cool - we're gonna be coursemates! :)

just waiting to find out how the other people who had interviews on Friday did...

Well, there's no backing out now - I've accepted the offer from Southampton!



On Friday (18th) several people from the tes board had interviews - and I met my first 'internet person'! Liz (Chelli from TES) popped into my office afterwards to say, and it was really great to meet her - she's just as cool in real life as on the net! Fingers crossed that in 2 day's time she's celebrating like I was last week! :)

After nigh on 4 months of personal statement writing, worrying, interview preperation and waiting, a few minutes ago I finally found out that.....

... I have a place on the Primary PGCE at Southampton for September!



I am so so happy - I can't believe it's finally definite! Now I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that my online friends Liz and Lizzie who have interviews on friday (and everyone else!) get places too...

Well, nothing on the gttr site yet....!

I've come down off the high I was on throughout Friday, but am still feeling pretty positive about how the interview went - but I just want to know...

I'm still ending every PGCE-related sentence with ".... if I get on the course" - it'll be so satisfying to be able to do away with that.... if I get on the course!

It's been a busy old week, preparing for my interview, so I haven't even had a chance to write about Tuesday in school yet. But I had my interview today and it went really well. My brain's still spinning, so for now I'll pop my post from the TES board on here....

~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~

I arrived at 2 minutes to 9 (one advantage of working over the road from the school of education!), and went into a room full of about 30 people - just managed to find a seat before the admissions tutor came in and dimmed the lights. She gave us a half an hour presentation on the course - pretty basic stuff: it's tough, you'll have to travel, stuff about masters accreditation...

Then our groups were called out, which seemed to be generally alphabetical - I was the 2nd person to be called out! There were 6 of us, and we went into a room with 2 people, a member of staff at the SoE and a local headteacher. The room was very classroom-like, with displays on the wall and everything!

The first person did her presentation, and when she put her first OHP up, my heart sank - she was doing a talk on the problems faced by music in primary schools! It ended up alright in the end, as I took a slightly more cynical view of the music manifesto. The other talks were on sex education, workforce agreement, enjoyment in education and the problem of the falling birthrate and closure of smaller schools. Everyone was really good - some used OHPs, one other person did as i did and used a handout, and one person did it all from memory with no aids and was very good!

After our presentations we had a 'group discussion' which we had to initiate, and we talked about almost all the presentations. The two staff members were observing us throughout this, and making notes. Then we moved back to the main room, and picked up our maths and spelling tests and IT audit sheets. There was noone supervising us, so it was quite informal, but we all stuck to our own sheets and didn't chat about it.... til we'd finished! The spellings were generally ok - my tip is to read the word quickly then write down how you think it's spelt, as opposed to reading it and trying to work out how/if it's misspelt. The maths was basic - long multiplication and division, meltal multiplication and percentages, mean mode median, shape and a couple of 'investigative' ones. I had to wait quite a while for my interview, so I chatted with the other people on my table. I think I was one of the older people there, which was interesting...

I was called out to my interview just before midday, and was interviewed by the guy who's the IT coordinator. He asked me about my degree and musical background, and we talked about jazz, Eric Clapton etc for at least 5 minutes! The he asked me why I wanted to be a teacher, what qualities make a good teacher, about my school experience and things like that. Then he gave me two scenario questions, which were generally ok. I had to give him photocopies of my GCSE and degree certificates, and we discussed if I had any disabilities. I think the whole thing lasted about 15-20 minutes, and I came out feeling really positive. - it was really informal and relaxed.

I didn't get a chance to ask any questions, even though I had two I really wanted to know the answer to, but if I get in I'll be emailing them about it.

I finished at about 12.15pm, handed in my test sheets, and headed off!

I spent the weekend working on my presentation for my interview on Friday, and it's actually going really well... so much so that I'm quite looking forward to doing it! It's only got to be 5 minutes long, which is nothing really, so it's hard to fit all the information in, but I've just gone for the basics really. I was a bit worried what to do for visual aids, but I've decided on a handout and a couple of main points that I'm going to stick up with blue tac if I can.

I can't believe that in a couple of weeks I'll know whether I have a place or not. The more I think about teaching the more I know this is definitely what I want to do - I just hope I do myself justics on Friday! I'm generally ok in presentation and interview situations, but i'm not getting overconfident... fingers crossed....

I've started looking for TA vacancies for the summer term, and have written to loads of schools around Southampton, so let's hope something comes from that...

I've arrived!

edit: i don't think the link works any more, but just for posterity... when you typed "pgce interview" into google, my website came up as the first result!!

i'm turning into a teacher... i'm starting to dream about 'my' class!!

a week today i have my interview, and that means that theoretically in around 2 weeks i should know which direction my life is taking for at least the next 18 months. i guess i'm trying not to think about quite how life-defining next friday is. i haven't thought too much about what i'll do if i don't get in... i want to be a teacher, so i'll have to find another course. i really don't want to wait another year... there'll be fees, (although i'll be 25, and (hopefully/maybe!) married by then, so an 'independent student' (grrrr) so would be assessed purely on Ben's income) and i don't want to delay it any longer... i know what i want to do, so i want to do it now. well, all i can do now is do loads of preparation and a stonking presentation, and keep everything crossed!

Yesterday was school afternoon - and I had a great time (again)! It was parents' evening yesterday, so we spent the first 20 minutes or so sorting out trays, putting away work, tidying the classroom etc - I also did a bit of filing for the teacher, putting reports into the file which has a section for each child.

Then I took the children to get their coats and we walked up to the IT suite at the Juniors. They had done a survey of what pets everyone had, and what type of houses everyone lived in, and they had to use a sort of children's version of excel to put in the statistics and make a graph. I helped out a bit with that, then after break did some library skills with the children, using their funky computer system for checking in and out books.

The last part of the day was the best by far - I got to read a story to the whole class! I love reading stories to children, and it's one of my fondest memories from my early work experience when I was 15/16. I read them a book by Nick Butterworth (no relation) and they were all so wonderfully behaved - even the ones who normally wander around/talk whilst the teacher is talking! I guess it's because I'm someone different to normal, but I really enjoyed it, and I think they did too.

At the end the teacher was talking to them about who would be teaching them for the next 2 days (she works part time) and one of the girls turned to me and said "can't you teach us tomorrow?" - Awwww! I had to explain to her I hadn't passed my 'teaching exams' yet, but maybe I'd teach them in a few years.

They're a wonderful bunch - I live for Tuesday afternoons!!

Wow, Tuesday again... and I haven't even written about my afternoon in school last week. I went in on Wednesday to see some different lessons, as I normally just do IT. It was a bit of a mixed bag really - tasting space food, history (toys, again!), reading, and helping out the teacher with some paperwork. It's really good to be able to see different sides of teaching (i.e. paperwork, preparation, record keeping etc) as it's helping me to be mroe informaed about the profession I am planning on entering. As ever, I had a great time - the children all know me well now, and I got lots of "why weren't you here yesterday? you're meant to come on Tuesdays!" from them. And I've only been going for 4 weeks!

It's my PGCE interview a week on Friday - it's really come up fast. It seems only yesterday that it was 8 weeks away! I started on my presentation yesterday, but when writing ideas down it ended up more like an essay, so I'm trying to think of a different approach. I've done loads of research - started right back before Xmas - but need to get it into some sort of coherent and interesting presentation. I'm not worried about actually doing the presentation, as I've done a lot of public speaking, more about making it interesting and relevant.

I can't believe that in 2 weeks I will be back to frantically checking the gttr site to see if Southampton have accepted me. I really don't want to think about what i'd do if they don't. Moving isn't an option, as we've just bought a house in Southampton, so I guess I'd have to look at other Unis in the vicinity, and SCITTS - there aren't any in Southampton (apart from one Catholic one) so either option would involve quite a bit of travelling.... but let's stay positive - I will get a place....!