Haven't been around for a while... no prizes for guessing why...

essay total currently stands at 5,707 words. And since the word limit is 6000 +/- 10%, I think that'll do!

Stil having a great time... looking forward to a little break over Christmas though. might actually be able to get some wedding planning done too...! :)

I'm feeling a little strange after glancing at a couple of TES threads talking about excecssive workload, and thinking of quitting PGCE. Being completely honest, the thought of quitting the PGCE has never ever entered my head. Am I weird in feeling like that? Since starting the course I have been completely 100% sure this is what i want to be doing, at least in the forseeable future. The workload isn't too bad (yet!), although I know it'll be much bigger when I'm in school full time, and I've really enjoyed the part-lessons I've planned and taught so far.

I wonder if I'm alone in loving being on the PGCE course?!

Had a great day at school today - it flew by! I had the class pretty much on my own for two chunks of the day, and had a chance to practice thinking of activities off the top of my head when i finished discussing a book with the children and the teacher hadn't returned from a toilet trip!

I'm really really enjoying being in school. The kids are great, and I'm really enjoying the activities I'm leading - looking forward to doing some 'proper teaching' after Christmas.

Right, off to plan another maths mental starter for tomorrow morning....

My masters assignment is due in in 22 days. I think I might start a tick chart counting down the days until freedom.

Actually, I might not... it'll only make me realise how little time I have in which to get this thing finished.

I'm on 3,910 words, and have been pretty much stuck around that mark for the past week. I've actually written quite a lot, but have also probably deleted as much old stuff as I've written new stuff. A little frustrating, but at least it's sounding a little better now, even if it's not any longer!

We have to do 6,000 words +/- 10% so I guess I only have 1,500 words to go until I reach my minimum length. But they're proving bloody hard to write! I've just hit a brick wall, and I really don't know from here.

Still, in 22 days I'll hopefully be looking back on this and thinking 'I did it'!!

And then I'll have to start thinking aboutbthe other 6,000 words I need to do after Christmas....

School today went well again. I did my 'maths wizards' starter activity and it went down really well with the kids. One of them told me later in the lesson that "that you thing you did early was really fun!" which made my day. I think they had a lot of fun with it, so didn't really realise it was helping them to revise their number bonds to 10! Next Monday and Tuesday I'm also going to do the starters, so need to come up with some more fun ideas. I've found a few good interactive whiteboard games that could be done as part of a starter, so I may use one on one of the days, but I feel like I want to come up with something 'active' too... well, my masters assignment is to do with active maths for lower attainers!

I really like the kids in 'my' maths set, and am looking forward to teaching them properly. Even though they're set 5, a lot of them are very enthusiastic at maths, and really do try their best. I think a sizeable proportion of them were probably just not engaged by maths at infant school, and will probably end up progressing up the sets over the next few years.

This afternoon the children were bouncing off the walls, and it didn't help that the lessons weren't really 'grabbing' them. I'm in on Monday and Tuesday next week, so it'll be good to see another day in addition to the 'normal' Tuesdays. Really looking forward to getting in full time afetr Christmas, although I'll miss my PGCE friends.

I really am still feeling very positive about teaching/PGCEing. I've actually found the workload to be less than I expected at this point! I know it will be very heavy when I'm in school full time, but I'm looking forward to being able to plan lessons. I think my sabb year, where I did a job that would normally have required 3 people, definitely helped prepare me for this. It was the most stressful and time consuming thing I've ever done, and I was working 9/10am until 10pm+ most days of the week, with a 9am to 2am every Tuesday trying to get the paper done. I had to deal with a hell of a lot more cr*p from students at the University than I do now from Junior school pupils, and the pressure of producing (and designing almost all of) a 24 page newspaper every week was akin to a masters assignment due in each week...

I guess that's why having lectures all day, then working most evenings and a day each weekend doesn't seem too bad!

I spent a sizeable portion of this weekend coming up with ideas for maths starter activities, so am quite looking forward to getting into school tomorrow where I'm going to try one of them out. It involves a wizard's hat and velcro numbers... hopefully my year 3s will like it (especially the Harry Potter themed-ness)!

I'm not 3,810 words into my masters assignment. The words I've written are going to need a good deal of re-hashing, but it's nice to think that theoretically I'm almost 2/3 of the way through. It's due in 4 weeks today, and I'm aiming to have it done in 3 weeks...

... well, i can only hope...!

Reasons to do a PGCE course at Southampton

136. You get to spent a rainy afternoon in an art lecture making a 'bunny chair'.



It may look like fun, but it was 'real work'... (ok, it was fun too). We were focusing on the Art QCA unit 'take a seat' (about the extremely riveting subject of 'chairs'... yes, seriously....) and for the last couple of hours of the day were let loose with cardboard, tissue paper, glue selotape...

Below are some of the artistic creations of Group D...