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As some have said above, the quality of your experience is often largely dependent on your particular school.
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As a PGCE, you lose out on the novelty of having your own classes. When I had to spend a half-term at other schools (which I'm about to finish), while they were valuable experiences, I missed my usual classes (who have had a cover teacher this half term), and I didn't have quite the same bond with the students at these other schools, because I knew fully well that after a few weeks I would no longer be responsible for their education.
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Planning-wise, I ended up only writing written lesson plans for lessons where I was being observed, which reduced the tedium/workload a little (this was actually advised by someone within my training agency). I find any slides and resources I produce are sufficient to dictate the lesson structure and general teaching skills are enough to fill in the gaps.
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If you ever visit TES forums, you'll see that the issue of 'Ofsted outstanding' lessons are somewhat contentious. Ultimately the priority should obviously be the progress that students make; innovative activities may be a key component in keeping students engaged and demonstrating some mathematical concept effectively, but the quality of your exposition and assessment of students' understanding are probably the most crucial elements of the lesson.
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I've been told on numerous occasions that not all lessons fall into the "starter-main-plenary" structure. But there's a variety of non-contrived ways you can utilise a plenary. For example - I've got a Powerpoint template I sometimes use where students can choose a question from 1-6, which (via appropriate hyperlinking) flicks to the appropriate question slide based on the particular topic - it works particularly well with an interactive whiteboard, and when dividing the class into teams! There's millions of things you can do that avoids a tedious "here's a slide listing the things we learnt today".
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Planning-wise, I ended up only writing written lesson plans for lessons where I was being observed, which reduced the tedium/workload a little (this was actually advised by someone within my training agency). I find any slides and resources I produce are sufficient to dictate the lesson structure and general teaching skills are enough to fill in the gaps.