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PGCE - Current Students Thread

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Original post by Sportycb
But if your placement schools have half term but you don't, are you back in lectures for a week or something? Find that quite strange that no everyone gets half term. We always got half term.


We go into uni for extra lectures.

Original post by Samus2
D'you not get reading weeks at all!?

The primary PGCE at my uni don't get half term but they do get reading weeks.


Nope, nothing
I had half term last week. Started a 3 week literacy and numeracy placement in year 6 today. Love the school and the class are great so I'm pretty happy :-)
Original post by qwerty_mad
Not on my PGCE. Every half term we were at uni but during the two week holidays there was no uni.


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Original post by alabelle
We go into uni for extra lectures.

Nope, nothing



Oh wow! I do not envy you at all! I need these weeks off haha
OMG, trying to plan lessons on telling the time and I've totally and utterly confused myself. I can't even remember which way is clockwise :tongue: Oh dear!
Original post by peony flowers
OMG, trying to plan lessons on telling the time and I've totally and utterly confused myself. I can't even remember which way is clockwise :tongue: Oh dear!


I taught time a few weeks ago and it went totally wrong! I got a lot of advice on how I could have done it better though, I can share it if you want?
Can someone give me a bit of insight to how pay works here?

So say you're a teacher on 22k, I know that is your yearly wage, and once tax/NI is taken away, that is what you get. But how does it work for non-teaching jobs?

For example I've seen a learning mentor job, which is 20k pro rata, term time only. So does this mean you will receive no income in the school holidays? So you get 20k minus all the school holidays? I just want to have a more clear idea of what yearly wage I would actually be taking home if a job says pro rata/term time only.
Original post by Airfairy
Can someone give me a bit of insight to how pay works here?

So say you're a teacher on 22k, I know that is your yearly wage, and once tax/NI is taken away, that is what you get. But how does it work for non-teaching jobs?

For example I've seen a learning mentor job, which is 20k pro rata, term time only. So does this mean you will receive no income in the school holidays? So you get 20k minus all the school holidays? I just want to have a more clear idea of what yearly wage I would actually be taking home if a job says pro rata/term time only.


Firstly, every job is advertised with its gross salary, before tax and ni is taken out. On 22k you would expect to take home roughly 18k minus student loan and pension, so probably about 1350 a month.

Term time only jobs mean you would only get paid for 4 weeks of holiday (legally everyone has to have this. So 20k \ 52 weeks = 385 x 43 (39 school weeks + 4) = 16538

After tax and ni you'd take home 14200 ish

Hope this helps
Original post by Sportycb
But if your placement schools have half term but you don't, are you back in lectures for a week or something? Find that quite strange that no everyone gets half term. We always got half term.


Well I am doing a SCITT (early years/ KS1) . We get Friday off, but the other days we have been doing training things. So Monday I had PE, today we had outdoor learning and tomorrow I have a thing on assessment.
Original post by alabelle
I taught time a few weeks ago and it went totally wrong! I got a lot of advice on how I could have done it better though, I can share it if you want?


That would be fantastic if you had time :smile: I've got Year 1 so it's still the basics!
Original post by Bobble1987
Firstly, every job is advertised with its gross salary, before tax and ni is taken out. On 22k you would expect to take home roughly 18k minus student loan and pension, so probably about 1350 a month.

Term time only jobs mean you would only get paid for 4 weeks of holiday (legally everyone has to have this. So 20k \ 52 weeks = 385 x 43 (39 school weeks + 4) = 16538

After tax and ni you'd take home 14200 ish

Hope this helps


Yeah I know you wouldn't take home 22k. Thanks for the info on what term time only means for pay. I'll know how to work it out now. Seems like it is a big disadvantage though. 20k reduced to 16538 THEN all the tax, etc, taken off. How depressing -_-


Thanks!
Original post by peony flowers
That would be fantastic if you had time :smile: I've got Year 1 so it's still the basics!


Ok well I was teaching Y2, so we had to do time to five minutes. Time is funny though. Your ability groups could be totally messed up up because some children are taught it by their parents very early, others never even look at a clock. So you might very well have children who have a watch, who are working at a y2 level because they're fab.

My problem with time was that I didn't break it down into enough steps. If I could do it again, I'd get the children to spend time looking at the clock, telling me things they notice. I'd break down exactly what I want them to do (which way does the clock go round, minute/hour hands etc.) and test them before starting the topic properly so I could reset my ability groups. I'd spend a lot more time covering the 'basics'.

Sorry if any of this seems obvious, I just had a hard time teaching this. The children had a great deal of misconceptions and because I didn't break it down into tiny, achievable steps, these weren't corrected. Good luck! I'm sure it'll go better than it did for me, haha.
Original post by alabelle
Ok well I was teaching Y2, so we had to do time to five minutes. Time is funny though. Your ability groups could be totally messed up up because some children are taught it by their parents very early, others never even look at a clock. So you might very well have children who have a watch, who are working at a y2 level because they're fab.

My problem with time was that I didn't break it down into enough steps. If I could do it again, I'd get the children to spend time looking at the clock, telling me things they notice. I'd break down exactly what I want them to do (which way does the clock go round, minute/hour hands etc.) and test them before starting the topic properly so I could reset my ability groups. I'd spend a lot more time covering the 'basics'.

Sorry if any of this seems obvious, I just had a hard time teaching this. The children had a great deal of misconceptions and because I didn't break it down into tiny, achievable steps, these weren't corrected. Good luck! I'm sure it'll go better than it did for me, haha.


Time is really tricky! Like you say, you never know until you teach it who's going to find it easy or hard. Some children just really struggle to get it regardless of their concepts of number, I think it's cause it's a kind of strange concept... The idea of going back to the beginning after 60 when our number system is decimal etc.

Xxx

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2000/4000 words done for this essay due next monday... This has been the only downside of the PGCE. Masters credits that I'm probably never ever going to use...
Original post by Samus2
2000/4000 words done for this essay due next monday... This has been the only downside of the PGCE. Masters credits that I'm probably never ever going to use...


That's more than me... I have 0/5,000 of an essay due Wednesday.
Original post by Samus2
2000/4000 words done for this essay due next monday... This has been the only downside of the PGCE. Masters credits that I'm probably never ever going to use...


Original post by alabelle
That's more than me... I have 0/5,000 of an essay due Wednesday.


I've just finished my fourth essay of the pgce today. Two more left to go. Sadly they are big ones that fall right in the busiest time of placement though. Not looking forward to them.

I hate trying to balance essays and placement. I'd like to just focus on one!

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Original post by alabelle
That's more than me... I have 0/5,000 of an essay due Wednesday.


As in due tomorrow!? How are you feeling about it? I've got a friend visiting thurs-sun so needed it out of the way really.

Original post by Airfairy
I've just finished my fourth essay of the pgce today. Two more left to go. Sadly they are big ones that fall right in the busiest time of placement though. Not looking forward to them.

I hate trying to balance essays and placement. I'd like to just focus on one!

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How many credits do you get!? We've only got the three essays for the year which are well spaced out.
Original post by Samus2
As in due tomorrow!? How are you feeling about it? I've got a friend visiting thurs-sun so needed it out of the way really.



How many credits do you get!? We've only got the three essays for the year which are well spaced out.


Next Wednesday, haha. I've done most of the reading but haven't really started writing it yet. Luckily the uni have given us 2.5 days to work on it from home, which is nice.

We've only got 3 essays too :smile: don't think I could cope with any more!
Original post by Samus2
As in due tomorrow!? How are you feeling about it? I've got a friend visiting thurs-sun so needed it out of the way really.



How many credits do you get!? We've only got the three essays for the year which are well spaced out.


We get the standard 60. The annoying thing is that three of our essays are formative, so they don't count. I do put less effort into those ones but I still find it irritating because it takes time and effort just to write something vaguely submittable, even if it isn't marked. They are on similar topics as the summative, but not similar enough to actually copy and paste the formative and edit it! :frown:

It annoyed me enough as it is, but I thought it was common. Now I'm even more annoyed that it turns out not everyone else has six essays :lol: .

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I'm terrified because next week I jump up from teaching 4 or 5 lessons a week to my full timetable (minus my 2 year 7 classes). Planning to use today to blast out my lesson plans, create my planner and start structuring my essay that's due Friday.

Original post by Airfairy
We get the standard 60. The annoying thing is that three of our essays are formative, so they don't count. I do put less effort into those ones but I still find it irritating because it takes time and effort just to write something vaguely submittable, even if it isn't marked. They are on similar topics as the summative, but not similar enough to actually copy and paste the formative and edit it! :frown:

It annoyed me enough as it is, but I thought it was common. Now I'm even more annoyed that it turns out not everyone else has six essays :lol: .

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I have two essays plus a mini research dissertation but that's for a total of 90 masters credits. We have formative tasks while on placement - 13 tasks in all. They're the worst part of it for me because it's things like find the SENCO and have an interview and critically evaluate the use of an interactive whiteboard and it's just little things that add so much time to arrange when I could be planning my lessons or observing.
Original post by ParadoxSocks
I'm terrified because next week I jump up from teaching 4 or 5 lessons a week to my full timetable (minus my 2 year 7 classes). Planning to use today to blast out my lesson plans, create my planner and start structuring my essay that's due Friday.



I have two essays plus a mini research dissertation but that's for a total of 90 masters credits. We have formative tasks while on placement - 13 tasks in all. They're the worst part of it for me because it's things like find the SENCO and have an interview and critically evaluate the use of an interactive whiteboard and it's just little things that add so much time to arrange when I could be planning my lessons or observing.


Ugh that sounds a lot! Interesting that you get 90 masters credits. Are you on a pgde?

Good luck with your full timetable. How many hours is that for you?

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