The Student Room Group

PGCE and NQT concerns

Hi everyone

I’m currently in my PGCE year, doing the primary school direct programme and am coming to the end of my first half term holiday (relief).

I’m really enjoying my PGCE at the minute and the process behind it, naturally I’m quite a lazy person but this seems to have brought the best out in me, I am organised and on task, being lazy though I do find some significant shortcuts to tasks, and won’t stick around unless I need to. I have wanted to be a teacher for some time, my dad teaches maths and is a huge inspiration to me.

AnywAy, I am super concerned for my NQT year (which I hopefully will make it to!), it may sound stupid but I’m worried that I won’t find enough lessons to fill a week let alone a whole year, how will I know what to teach and when? How do I know I am on time or ahead of time for the amount of lessons I’m teaching? It will sound so stupid but I’m worried by XMAS of NQT I will have taught everything I need to! We’ve not had much training on this area of things yet and maybe it is too early to get my head around, but it amazes me how teachers manage to be on task and have lessons ready for everyday, I’m worried I won’t be this good.

Any advice or thoughts from NQTs or teachers would be super appreciated.
Original post by Camer0nako
Hi everyone

I’m currently in my PGCE year, doing the primary school direct programme and am coming to the end of my first half term holiday (relief).

I’m really enjoying my PGCE at the minute and the process behind it, naturally I’m quite a lazy person but this seems to have brought the best out in me, I am organised and on task, being lazy though I do find some significant shortcuts to tasks, and won’t stick around unless I need to. I have wanted to be a teacher for some time, my dad teaches maths and is a huge inspiration to me.

AnywAy, I am super concerned for my NQT year (which I hopefully will make it to!), it may sound stupid but I’m worried that I won’t find enough lessons to fill a week let alone a whole year, how will I know what to teach and when? How do I know I am on time or ahead of time for the amount of lessons I’m teaching? It will sound so stupid but I’m worried by XMAS of NQT I will have taught everything I need to! We’ve not had much training on this area of things yet and maybe it is too early to get my head around, but it amazes me how teachers manage to be on task and have lessons ready for everyday, I’m worried I won’t be this good.

Any advice or thoughts from NQTs or teachers would be super appreciated.

3 words:

Schemes
Of
Work.

/thread.
I'm a secondary NQT but I'm guessing it's the same, but the school gives you a scheme of work to follow. the SOW tells me what I need to teach each half term
Original post by Camer0nako
Hi everyone

I’m currently in my PGCE year, doing the primary school direct programme and am coming to the end of my first half term holiday (relief).

I’m really enjoying my PGCE at the minute and the process behind it, naturally I’m quite a lazy person but this seems to have brought the best out in me, I am organised and on task, being lazy though I do find some significant shortcuts to tasks, and won’t stick around unless I need to. I have wanted to be a teacher for some time, my dad teaches maths and is a huge inspiration to me.

AnywAy, I am super concerned for my NQT year (which I hopefully will make it to!), it may sound stupid but I’m worried that I won’t find enough lessons to fill a week let alone a whole year, how will I know what to teach and when? How do I know I am on time or ahead of time for the amount of lessons I’m teaching? It will sound so stupid but I’m worried by XMAS of NQT I will have taught everything I need to! We’ve not had much training on this area of things yet and maybe it is too early to get my head around, but it amazes me how teachers manage to be on task and have lessons ready for everyday, I’m worried I won’t be this good.

Any advice or thoughts from NQTs or teachers would be super appreciated.

Your school will give you a scheme of work- usually broken down lesson by lesson/topic by topic, this is what you need to teach on x day and you can expand (or squash) the content to fill the time given. If you are really lucky, there may even be suggested lesson plans and resources for you to steal!

I'm secondary so it is a little different, but when you find yourself having lost 30 minutes here to a special assembly, 20 minutes there to a fire drill, lost a double period to inset day and so on, you are more likely to be behind than ahead!

You should get some training on medium/long term planning later in the year as well, as eventually you will be expected to contribute to schemes of work!
Hello I can offer some primary specific advice.

Firstly, I can assure you that you will not have taught everything by Christmas and you will soon realise that you'll be worried about not fitting it in! Your school will have a curriculum where it takes the National Curriculum and then decides what it is going to teach. For example, the primary curriculum for history is very flexible e.g. teach about the life of a significant individual for KS1. The school's curriculum will then decide which individual that is.

We call this the long-term plan. Your school should have long-term plans for each subject and each year group. The long-term plan for history should show how children will progress in history from reception to year 6. It is usually split in half-terms e.g. 6 topics for each year group. There will also be a long-term plan for the year to show what topics that year group will be doing in every subject. The long-term plans are usually produced by the subject lead. As the teacher, you are then responsible for creating the medium-term plan. This is where you would take the topic given for that half-term (6weeks) of work and then plan 6 weeks of work around that topic.

The only subject where it won't work like this is maths. The plan for maths is usually split into 12 weeks for the term as maths topic go by much quicker than other subjects. The maths lead will either create a long-term plan for maths as a school or use a scheme. The most popular is white rose.
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