PGCE - Current Students Thread

Youll be fine, just stay calm and so your best.

I'm still not ready. I'm struggling with teaching 22 pupils at different stages of their projects in a way that's going to come off as a good observed lesson. I want to look as though I'm in control and collected but they're going to ask me a thousand questions a second just because they can.

I'm thinking


I was going to use a piratepad with them for the plenary but now that I'm being observed and formally recorded I don't want to risk them writing naughty things/me losing control/the system exploding.

Ok, so when ive been doing spreadsheets with my guys ive been differentiating by producing 3 seperate worksheets Bronze - fewer questions, more guidance on the task EXT move on to silver questions. Silver - more questions, less guidance but key words still highlighted, questions require slightly more thinking, short extension and if they complete that try the extension on the gold sheet. Gold - same amount of questions but harder, no guidance, more indepth extension task....
Plenary, ive been doing abcd quiz's with my y7's and 8's and they really respond to that, plus means you can check and consolidate learning on key words/definitions/actions etc

Oooooh! Thanks for that. Will see what I can add in

Went to bed last night, woke up early this morning and worked during my commute too. I then get on the bus that my pupils are usually on and they told me their IT lesson has been cancelled today.

I want to just cry.

Oh what?! I want to cry for you!! I hate it when things like that happen. Are they sure? Why wouldn't you have been told?

Posted from TSR Mobile

Can anyone please tell me just one important thing that I can't seem to be able to find out about anywhere - Can I fail my first PGCE placement?

I have been teaching for more than thirty years and was a subject mentor for two different universities for eight years and this thread makes me realise I would never pass a PGCE nowadays. I pity all of you, I sincerely do. Good luck to all of you.

I pity us all too . I'm 99% sure I don't want to go into teaching, I'm just trying to get the qualification rather than drop out. Every single extra day I complete on placement puts me off even more. And yet, for all the negativity surrounding people's experiences, I seem to be the only one on my course with all these doubts. Everyone else is finding it hard, but rewarding, and have no doubts about entering the profession.

Also, out of curiosity - do the school get some sort of incentive to take on trainees? It just looks like a lot of extra work for no reward.

I don't know what the system offers these days as I stopped doing it nearly 20 years ago and I just haven't asked the question lately, but there used to be a payment per student to the school for the school to spend as it liked. I was stunned to find at mentors' meetings that other schools paid the money to the mentor, since I was paid nothing for doing it. Still, that helped me give it up with a clear conscience when I got fed up with it. It became clear to me that I was essentially doing the university's work for them for no pay and when I finally got a student who both I and the central mentor felt should actually fail (there was only one, and she was a danger to children) and the university took no notice of our concerns, I felt that the job I was doing was of no value to them if I actually applied judgement to it. So I quit.

I'm glad that people still want to do the job. I've no idea why they do, when I've had a bad day, but thank god they do.

Oh that's interesting. Yeah, my mentor was telling me that they usually get their trainees from the other uni near me, but last year my mentor didn't feel that the trainee should pass, and the university blamed the mentor and now won't deal with that school just because she was honest about it. So I can totally believe what you're saying. I mean...feels reassuring for us knowing how hard it seems to be to fail, but I can imagine it leaves a lot of doubt from the point of view of the school.

Are you planning on teaching for much longer?

I don't know what the system offers these days as I stopped doing it nearly 20 years ago and I just haven't asked the question lately, but there used to be a payment per student to the school for the school to spend as it liked. I was stunned to find at mentors' meetings that other schools paid the money to the mentor, since I was paid nothing for doing it. Still, that helped me give it up with a clear conscience when I got fed up with it. It became clear to me that I was essentially doing the university's work for them for no pay and when I finally got a student who both I and the central mentor felt should actually fail (there was only one, and she was a danger to children) and the university took no notice of our concerns, I felt that the job I was doing was of no value to them if I actually applied judgement to it. So I quit.

I'm glad that people still want to do the job. I've no idea why they do, when I've had a bad day, but thank god they do.