The Student Room Group

Is SCITT meant to be this difficult?

Hi. For some context, I'm fresh out of university (I only just graduated last week), and I applied to this SCITT scheme about 10 months ago. I've just started in my placement (four days a week + one day of all-day off-site training).
Between signing up to the SCITT and the course actually beginning, I've had some really major issues with my mental and physical health.

Even before the course properly began, I've just been finding the layout really hard to understand, and just exhaustingly convoluted.

All our documents are compounded into I think three different apps, the main one of which is the most dreadfully organised Microsoft Teams group I have ever seen. I have also been given three new outlook email addresses, on top of my existing personal and student email addresses, and I'm still not sure what exactly separates these three new emails from one another, but I now have to check five emails accounts a day, which is stressful since if I miss something important it could have major implications on my performance outcome.

It seems as though a lot of the content of the course is based on filling out a Personal Development Record, as well as identical mini-documents called Professional Lesson Observations, which both use the exact same (I mean literally identical) writing prompts, so I often find myself either copy-pasting the same stuff or at least paraphrasing it. These both have to be filled-out weekly, which is fair enough by itself.
Alongside that, there are lots of other little compulsory documents hidden deep in the impossible to navigate depths of Teams and the other apps they use. It feels like, the longer I've been doing this, the more things I come to realise either should've been completed weeks ago or need to be completed by like, tomorrow. It doesn't feel very structured at all, and there are hardly any signposts of when deadlines are, etc.
To someone like me who's never had a proper office career before and doesn't understand Teams, finding relevant files in the hundreds of folders within folders within folders and then downloading them, editing them, and then re-upoading them into another random folder has been really aggravating, and whenever I ask somebody about it they don't seem to get the Teams layout either.
My SCITT experience so far has been about 20% teaching experience, 80% filling-out random documents and paperwork that nobody will ever read and I'll never look at again. We're expected to do this during our free periods, which are rarely long enough to get it all done in. Sometimes I'm staying back until 6pm after school, writing paragraphs about teaching methods I've never even heard of or used before.

In-between all this, I'm also expected to plan lesson segments, although I'm never given explicit instructions on how to insert them into existing teaching plans / powerpoints, so I'm often standing at the front of the class not really knowing how to link my mini-lesson back to my mentor's pre-set lesson. Plus it just doesn't feel like I have enough time to do this in the day. I don't remember anywhere in the SCITT inductions hearing that I'd be making my own lessons in my third week? It's making it way more stressful for me because I don't really know the curriculum off by heart, and, importantly, I'm not even a teacher yet!

My mentor is great, and they're really invested in giving me a good teacher-training experience. But it seems like they're the only person who is.
Furthermore, a lot of the time they themselves also seem to be too busy to give me the proper instructions I need for my work (not their fault of course - they're great). Sometimes it just feels like I'm getting in their way, and I'm not really qualified to help them with most things. My job so far just feels like a professional burden.

The Teams meetings we have two or three times a week are mind-numbing, too. They range from one to four hours long. All I get out of them is the occasional precious bit of information about what the hell it is I'm supposed to be doing this week, sometimes thrown in at the end or something. Just got an email from my lead mentor today asking me to remember to have my camera turned on for my meetings in future (even though I always contribute in other ways, answering questions where appropriate, etc), which I think was the boiling point that pushed me to write all this.

The only stress-free, actually fulfilling bits of the course have been when I'm, y'know, actually teaching. Most of the kids are really sweet.

I'm not really sure what I'm asking by making this post. Advice? Sympathy? Am I just being dramatic/lazy?

Reply 1

Original post
by PolarSpirit
Hi. For some context, I'm fresh out of university (I only just graduated last week), and I applied to this SCITT scheme about 10 months ago. I've just started in my placement (four days a week + one day of all-day off-site training).
Between signing up to the SCITT and the course actually beginning, I've had some really major issues with my mental and physical health.
Even before the course properly began, I've just been finding the layout really hard to understand, and just exhaustingly convoluted.
All our documents are compounded into I think three different apps, the main one of which is the most dreadfully organised Microsoft Teams group I have ever seen. I have also been given three new outlook email addresses, on top of my existing personal and student email addresses, and I'm still not sure what exactly separates these three new emails from one another, but I now have to check five emails accounts a day, which is stressful since if I miss something important it could have major implications on my performance outcome.
It seems as though a lot of the content of the course is based on filling out a Personal Development Record, as well as identical mini-documents called Professional Lesson Observations, which both use the exact same (I mean literally identical) writing prompts, so I often find myself either copy-pasting the same stuff or at least paraphrasing it. These both have to be filled-out weekly, which is fair enough by itself.
Alongside that, there are lots of other little compulsory documents hidden deep in the impossible to navigate depths of Teams and the other apps they use. It feels like, the longer I've been doing this, the more things I come to realise either should've been completed weeks ago or need to be completed by like, tomorrow. It doesn't feel very structured at all, and there are hardly any signposts of when deadlines are, etc.
To someone like me who's never had a proper office career before and doesn't understand Teams, finding relevant files in the hundreds of folders within folders within folders and then downloading them, editing them, and then re-upoading them into another random folder has been really aggravating, and whenever I ask somebody about it they don't seem to get the Teams layout either.
My SCITT experience so far has been about 20% teaching experience, 80% filling-out random documents and paperwork that nobody will ever read and I'll never look at again. We're expected to do this during our free periods, which are rarely long enough to get it all done in. Sometimes I'm staying back until 6pm after school, writing paragraphs about teaching methods I've never even heard of or used before.
In-between all this, I'm also expected to plan lesson segments, although I'm never given explicit instructions on how to insert them into existing teaching plans / powerpoints, so I'm often standing at the front of the class not really knowing how to link my mini-lesson back to my mentor's pre-set lesson. Plus it just doesn't feel like I have enough time to do this in the day. I don't remember anywhere in the SCITT inductions hearing that I'd be making my own lessons in my third week? It's making it way more stressful for me because I don't really know the curriculum off by heart, and, importantly, I'm not even a teacher yet!
My mentor is great, and they're really invested in giving me a good teacher-training experience. But it seems like they're the only person who is.
Furthermore, a lot of the time they themselves also seem to be too busy to give me the proper instructions I need for my work (not their fault of course - they're great). Sometimes it just feels like I'm getting in their way, and I'm not really qualified to help them with most things. My job so far just feels like a professional burden.
The Teams meetings we have two or three times a week are mind-numbing, too. They range from one to four hours long. All I get out of them is the occasional precious bit of information about what the hell it is I'm supposed to be doing this week, sometimes thrown in at the end or something. Just got an email from my lead mentor today asking me to remember to have my camera turned on for my meetings in future (even though I always contribute in other ways, answering questions where appropriate, etc), which I think was the boiling point that pushed me to write all this.
The only stress-free, actually fulfilling bits of the course have been when I'm, y'know, actually teaching. Most of the kids are really sweet.
I'm not really sure what I'm asking by making this post. Advice? Sympathy? Am I just being dramatic/lazy?

SCITTs are notorious and I advise a uni-based PGCE. You would find the course better organised and learn pegagogy before you get into the classroom. It's not fair to be teaching without guidance -

I would explain all this to your mentor - five e-mail addresses is crazy. Is there a course handbook?

Reply 2

Original post
by Muttley79
SCITTs are notorious and I advise a uni-based PGCE. You would find the course better organised and learn pegagogy before you get into the classroom. It's not fair to be teaching without guidance -
I would explain all this to your mentor - five e-mail addresses is crazy. Is there a course handbook?

Hi! The SCITT I'm with was sort of a university shoe-in if that makes sense, like it runs through the uni as a course. I'll have a look through the handbook again and see if I missed anything important.

Reply 3

Original post
by PolarSpirit
Hi! The SCITT I'm with was sort of a university shoe-in if that makes sense, like it runs through the uni as a course. I'll have a look through the handbook again and see if I missed anything important.

It's still a SCITT ie school based not a course with all the theory taught at uni in a block.

It's far better not to be teaching from day one ..

Make a formal appointment with your mentor - it is just not right what you are dealing with.

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