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Original post by TargetPoint
Have just received my welcome letter and checklist after confirming my secondary PGCE offer. One of the 'tasks' is to spend 5 days in a primary school before the start of the course. They've given 1 week in September to do this also. As I'm late to the game, it's certainly going to be difficult to accomplish, with the majority of schools breaking up in 2 days. Hopefully they're lenient on this for undersubscribed subjects with late applications.

I'll start firing off some emails tomorrow to all of the local primary schools!


Yay for the offer. I'm hoping for something similar. I've been told there's no chance I can go in this late in the year but plenty have offered me days in September. Get contacting them now with your information see if they'll let you arrange some days. Explain that you understand they won't be normal days and that you're willing to do pretty much anything and you should be fine. Good luck!

***

Pretty sure I'm going to have a meltdown before Friday's interview! The only uni to not get back to me yet is the uni I graduated from so the wait is killing me as I suspect they'll be lenient.

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Original post by cutebat
Congratulations on your offer! some schools break up on Wednesday- maybe you could try and fit in three days before the end of term and two days first week of Sept? Good luck!


Thanks, I'm going to email around tomorrow. :smile:

Original post by ParadoxSocks
Yay for the offer. I'm hoping for something similar. I've been told there's no chance I can go in this late in the year but plenty have offered me days in September. Get contacting them now with your information see if they'll let you arrange some days. Explain that you understand they won't be normal days and that you're willing to do pretty much anything and you should be fine. Good luck!

***

Pretty sure I'm going to have a meltdown before Friday's interview! The only uni to not get back to me yet is the uni I graduated from so the wait is killing me as I suspect they'll be lenient.

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I'm certainly willing to do anything! Just need to say I've been in a primary school for five days. Might start with my old primary school... a few of the teachers are still working there that taught me, 12 years ago!

My degree results are released tomorrow... my offer is for a 2:2 or above. Fingers crossed! :biggrin:

Good luck for Friday. I'm sure you'll be fine! As long as you stay calm and show you're genuinely interested in becoming a teacher, you'll get an offer! :smile:
Original post by TargetPoint
Have just received my welcome letter and checklist after confirming my secondary PGCE offer. One of the 'tasks' is to spend 5 days in a primary school before the start of the course. They've given 1 week in September to do this also. As I'm late to the game, it's certainly going to be difficult to accomplish, with the majority of schools breaking up in 2 days. Hopefully they're lenient on this for undersubscribed subjects with late applications.

I'll start firing off some emails tomorrow to all of the local primary schools!



Remember there are more primary schools than secondary and as far as I can tell from what others have said they have a lot more odd jobs so are more likely to say yes (I am a primary teacher and would always say yes to having a volunteer in, whatever time of year, as there is ALWAYS stuff they can do!).

xxx
Original post by kpwxx
Remember there are more primary schools than secondary and as far as I can tell from what others have said they have a lot more odd jobs so are more likely to say yes (I am a primary teacher and would always say yes to having a volunteer in, whatever time of year, as there is ALWAYS stuff they can do!).

xxx


Thanks, that's reassuring. :smile:
Got another offer to interview today for next Friday. I have all 3 interviews over the next 7 days and all have different tasks. I think my brain is going to explode! Most looking forward to the interview at Staffs as it seems quite casual but the Nottingham Trent and Keele ones seems interesting. Just hope I can power through.

Also hoping it's not too hot as without my suit jacket I have a visible tattoo!

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(edited 9 years ago)
Original post by ParadoxSocks
Got another offer to interview today for next Friday. I have all 3 interviews over the next 7 days and all have different tasks. I think my brain is going to explode! Most looking forward to the interview at Staffs as it seems quite casual but the Nottingham Trent and Keele ones seems interesting. Just hope I can power through.

Also hoping it's not too hot as without my suit jacket I have a visible tattoo!

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You'll be great. Best of luck. :smile:
Original post by TargetPoint
You'll be great. Best of luck. :smile:


Aww, thanks. I still haven't started my presentation though. I'm still trying to think it through - worried that I'm going with the obvious interpretation of the task and should instead be going advanced. And they've given me no indication as to what software is available tomorrow D:
Original post by ParadoxSocks
Aww, thanks. I still haven't started my presentation though. I'm still trying to think it through - worried that I'm going with the obvious interpretation of the task and should instead be going advanced. And they've given me no indication as to what software is available tomorrow D:


What's your presentation topic, and are you sure they're going to let you use a computer/interactive whiteboard etc? All of the interviews I've had have stated no use of computers, just a pen and whiteboard, due to time constraints.
Original post by TargetPoint
What's your presentation topic, and are you sure they're going to let you use a computer/interactive whiteboard etc? All of the interviews I've had have stated no use of computers, just a pen and whiteboard, due to time constraints.


All it says is to plan and bring it with me. Was going to throw a powerpoint together (my other two have asked for powerpoints) and take a printout of what I wanted to say so that if it's whiteboard then I have a chance.

It's on a current educational issue that has attracted my attention in the past 6 months. The change from IT should give me plenty to talk about but it feels too obvious.
Original post by ParadoxSocks
All it says is to plan and bring it with me. Was going to throw a powerpoint together (my other two have asked for powerpoints) and take a printout of what I wanted to say so that if it's whiteboard then I have a chance.

It's on a current educational issue that has attracted my attention in the past 6 months. The change from IT should give me plenty to talk about but it feels too obvious.


With that topic, I think you've got many avenues to go down. The obvious choice would be to go for the move from ICT to Computing, however that's likely to be what everyone else goes for also.

If you go for the change in curriculum, maybe concentrate your presentation on a single aspect of computing, i.e. how the implementation of computational thinking within the new curriculum will have a broad positive impact for the pupils...

I did my presentation on introducing binary to a group of year 7s. It was for five minutes and went along the lines of:


Introduction - Name/Presentation topic

Objectives - What I wanted them to take away from the presentation

Describing that computers only understand two things, 1 and 0

Why computers use binary (turn switches on/off)

Explained how data is represented via binary and switches

Decimal to binary conversation table

Quick summary - quick fire round

Recap



Whatever topic you choose, just remember they're not expecting the finished product. They just want to make sure you can stand and talk for a few minutes, while engaging an audience.

Let us know how your interview goes tomorrow. Good luck. :smile:
Original post by TargetPoint
With that topic, I think you've got many avenues to go down. The obvious choice would be to go for the move from ICT to Computing, however that's likely to be what everyone else goes for also.

If you go for the change in curriculum, maybe concentrate your presentation on a single aspect of computing, i.e. how the implementation of computational thinking within the new curriculum will have a broad positive impact for the pupils...

I did my presentation on introducing binary to a group of year 7s. It was for five minutes and went along the lines of:


Introduction - Name/Presentation topic

Objectives - What I wanted them to take away from the presentation

Describing that computers only understand two things, 1 and 0

Why computers use binary (turn switches on/off)

Explained how data is represented via binary and switches

Decimal to binary conversation table

Quick summary - quick fire round

Recap



Whatever topic you choose, just remember they're not expecting the finished product. They just want to make sure you can stand and talk for a few minutes, while engaging an audience.

Let us know how your interview goes tomorrow. Good luck. :smile:


I did the binary class for one of my final year projects. I'd be so happy if they'd given me that. Luckily it's computing week for TES so they've had plenty of things to say that'd make brilliant points to pick up on. There's a lot about trying to fudge computer science into other subjects. I definitely think going very direct about something is the way to go. I'm just hoping I can really stand out tomorrow.

Will keep you updated :biggrin: I have to get my train at 6.45 so suspect I'm going to be a stressed out mess before I get there! At least the 90 mins journey means I can rewatch the videos and reread my presentation a couple of times :smile:
I got the offer there and then! I almost cried!

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Original post by ParadoxSocks
I got the offer there and then! I almost cried!

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Congratulations! :biggrin:

Are you going to accept it, or wait until after your other interviews?
Original post by TargetPoint
Congratulations! :biggrin:

Are you going to accept it, or wait until after your other interviews?


They want me to reject my others and go with them and I really really want to but I have to investigate the practicalities first. New city and with girlfriend working elsewhere and us just having a new puppy means I have to work around things :frown:

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I've been offered a place on a Schools Direct ITT course in computer science. The school sent me the offer letter stating that a condition of the offer was that I needed to pass the SKE course before the start of term but this is impossible as all SKE courses in computer science have started or start in Jan 2015. However, then I recieved the offer letter from the university affiliated with this course and they didn't mention that the SKE course was a part of the conditions for entry onto the Schools Direct place. Which conditional letter should I follow; from the school or from the university? I hope this makes sense and any advice would be much appreciated. Thank you.
Original post by EFLCompScience
I've been offered a place on a Schools Direct ITT course in computer science. The school sent me the offer letter stating that a condition of the offer was that I needed to pass the SKE course before the start of term but this is impossible as all SKE courses in computer science have started or start in Jan 2015. However, then I recieved the offer letter from the university affiliated with this course and they didn't mention that the SKE course was a part of the conditions for entry onto the Schools Direct place. Which conditional letter should I follow; from the school or from the university? I hope this makes sense and any advice would be much appreciated. Thank you.


You need to contact both the school and the university to clarify the conditions of the offer. :smile:
I received an offer from Durham uni for September :smile: got it on my birthday which was an amazing present.
Original post by alabelle
I received an offer from Durham uni for September :smile: got it on my birthday which was an amazing present.


Congratulations! I'm really happy for you. Eek September is so soon now! Have you accepted the offer?
Original post by alabelle
I received an offer from Durham uni for September :smile: got it on my birthday which was an amazing present.


Congratulations!!! :smile:
Original post by alabelle
I received an offer from Durham uni for September :smile: got it on my birthday which was an amazing present.


Ooh exciting! Well done.

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