Assignment Jitters

As you can probably guess from the post title, I'm having a bit of a stress out about my first university assignment. Having just come back off placement in Wales, its all been up in the air about what the assignment entails and how I need to set it out and stuff because obviously, I've never wrote a university assignment before. However, university haven't properly told us these things so I'm still crapping myself about whether I'll get it right or not.. I'm wanting to do well on this first assignment to boost my confidence for future ones. And yeah yeah, I know you'll all be thinking "well the first year doesn't account to anything, you just have to pass".. but I don't wanna be one of those people that only just passes. I like to exceed (I know that might seem big-headed haha). 

Well having missed a week full of lectures, I've been filling my time up catching up with those lectures that I missed while in Wales but also deciding what areas I will write about in my assignment. I need 3 areas but so far I've got 4 to read about: Inclusion, Observation, Assessment for Learning and Behaviour (I know only education students or teachers will understand these areas haha). To get ready I went to the library at 10pm last night and got a whole load of books.. I'm pretty prepared for it now :)

These are all out the library.. 12 books right there!

Then my own personal collection of books.. I'll be using some of these too!

So last night was quite productive for me.. I've now got all these books packed in a box ready to take home next week.. However, I've just realised I'll need a selection of other books too, to keep up-to-date with all subjects and here portfolio task.

My course just got a whole lot more intense very quickly!

Well in order to cheer myself up last night, I made some paper Christmas decorations for my room to make up for my limited time at home before Christmas. I'm not feeling that festive as I'm not going home until the 22nd so I literally have a day before Christmas Eve.. I've not wrapped any presents or anything.. It just doesn't feel like Christmas..

Well here's what my desk area in my room looks like now.. :)

  

As you can see I have paper chain, mini Christmas tree and single Christmas card. The card has a cute story to it though, its from ones of the children in the class where my placement is in Wales.. It was so cute when I got it from her.. and look its addressed to Miss Stallard!

So cute! (for confidentiality I've cute the name of the pupil off)

J

Life on the A55

So I was told my first year primary school placement would be in Flintshire, North Wales and I had to pack for 2 weeks away. However, I had no suitcases big enough for 2 weeks away as I hadn't prepared for this, therefore, one of my flatmates lent me his case for the duration. Well that was how big my case was (I know it was just 2 weeks but I needed a lot), in it was teacher clothes, day clothes, work and of course, my iPod speakers.

Well here's a few photo's of my time in the hotel in Wales. However, I cannot reveal any confidential information so this is all I can upload.

My hotel room ;)

Sheep view outside my room window; what I woke up to everyday and came to at night!

Luxurious soup - 2 course meals were paid for every night - curtsy of the university

Demon Sheep!

So yeah, I am actually looking forward to returning in January as I get waited on hand and foot.. No poor student food for me. I will return for 6 weeks in January and hopefully be placed near the same people I was this time as we had a ball! I made some awesome new friends and living with them for 2 weeks only made us all that more closer (ay Hails ;)) haha.

My degree is taking me on a tour of the country!

J

Being Reflective

Being reflective.. What does that mean?

For my university course, the aim of each section is to be reflective on your studies. Being a teacher requires the skill of being reflective upon everything you learn in sessions and any readings. It is an intense course and requires a lot of outside work on essential reads, being reflective (there's that word again) and creating journals. At the moment, I am doing the core subjects (Maths, English, Science, TTL and PPD) and my minor specialism (Music) as sessions, however I will be gaining more sessions after Christmas such as the foundation subjects (Geography, PSHCE, P.E, History, Music, Art, D&T, R.E and other I might have forgotten) and each of these require documentation of reflections of my studies. For example, in English and Music I am required to keep a personal journal where I can be as creative as I want (hopefully I will post some pictures of my progression in completing this) or a literal as I'd like. I'm not all that creative but as my chosen career is primary teaching, I'm expanding my creative side and attempting to make them as creative as possible, lets just hope they turn out okay.

So the idea of being reflective.. Still, to me, this idea is difficult to comprehend and I'm struggling to grasp the concept of it. However, I am trying my hardest and will make these journals as good as I can to gain the best marks I can.

I've found the following quotes from here which explains some aspects of reflective teaching which is what I'm aiming to be: a reflective teacher...

"Reflective teaching means looking at what you do in the classroom, thinking about why you do it, and thinking about if it works - a process of self-observation and self-evaluation." 

"This may then lead to changes and improvements in our teaching."

This has been a thinking post to any trainee teachers out there being asked to be reflective in their studies and teaching. I know this will not be useful to most of your reading this but the idea of being reflective has been confounding me since I began university so I thought I'd share it on my blog which is all about my life.

Hope your well

J 

First Month at Uni

I know I'm getting a little crap at posting regularly but the past month at university has just been jam-packed with different stuff! In the past month I've partied, studied, created presentations, made friends for life and been on my first exemplar visit in a school as an official trainee teacher.

So lets start with everything that not related to the uni course :)

Partying
Everyone always said when living away at uni, partying is a big part of your life.. well it really is. I love the fact I can go out into town during the week and clubs will be just as lively as they are at the weekend. Personally, I'm not a big drinker or partier but sometimes you do have to let your hair down and have a good time, but also, I don't do it that often. In addition, now being a trainee teacher, I have a certain image I must uphold of professionalism and decorum. In that sense, I have been told that when I go into a school to have a placement or become a qualified teacher, both the children and teacher will google me. So I have been googling myself to see what sites or photo's appear and nothing too bad comes up; therefore, nearing the end of my degree I will have to look into closing down this blog :'( but its all for the good of my future.

 

 

Sport
If you follow me on twitter you will have noticed that I am now a member of the Edge Hill cheerleading team which is a great source of exercise. This is another thing I am having to fit into my schedule which currently isn't as full as it will be after Christmas. I am partaking in cheerleading on a Thursday evening 6pm-7pm which is Edge Hill's display team; this is the competitive team.. Although I did attend a rehearsal for that and it was VERY intense and as I hadn't done gymnastics in a while I thought it would be better to stick to the display team this year which will attend football and basketball games.. Things like that. I've never really been a big sports person but since coming to uni I've wanted to try things I wouldn't regularly try because uni is a new experience in general and the more I can get involved with the better!

Weekly Tasks
There are honestly quite a few tasks you have to partake in weekly such as shopping and being social with flatmates and people on your course. Shopping is a necessity to think about and I'd recommend setting a day when you do go shopping; personally, I don't go into Ormskirk to go to Morrisons, Iceland and B&M every week as there is a decent shop on campus that I can get weekly essentials such as bread and milk, however I do set the time aside to go to the campus shop. I never thought about these until I got here and how often my mum has to go to the shops to stock up on food that in the fridge or cupboard. The social aspect of uni is something you have to keep up with to as you need to get your own new group of friends; myself, have made friends with people in my cluster flat and people on other floors in my halls as these are those I will be around for the next year.
Oooh.. Something I nearly forget.. Calling family and friends! This is a bigggg requirement when your at uni because you need to not lose contact with your friends back home so I've been calling my best friend who's also at uni a lot and skyping my family regularly.. You need to make time for this!

So my uni course; Primary Education with QTS

Timetable
Currently, my timetable is brilliant! Mondays are quite tiring though but I can cope because the rest of the week is pretty relaxed. If your wanting to know more about my Mondays; well my first lecture is at 8am (I am so glad I live on campus) and my last seminar finishes at 6pm.. A looooong day! Although it only equals 7 hours worth of lectures which is only one hour more than a regular school day. Thankfully, after Monday I have Tuesdays off which is handy because Kitty, my flatmate, also has Tuesdays off so we normally just laze around or head into Ormskirk for the day.. Wednesday and Thursdays are similar as they both start at 2pm which gives me a fantastic lay in. In addition, I also have Fridays off which is extremely helpful for me because if I'm wanting to go home for the weekend it means I have all day to do it as I face a 4 hour train journey back to Doncaster.

 

Observing snails in Science - yes my course is soooo much fun!

Directed Reading and Tasks
Primary Education is a quite an intense course and requires a lot of work out of lecture and seminar time.. even this little into the course. To help you understand how much reading I have to do I normal have a chapter in one or two books or journals to do before the next session.. and I currently have six different lessons. However, an ongoing task which will be throughout the semesters (love that word) is to keep a reflective journal in each of my lessons to develop as a teacher myself. This is a tiresome and frankly.. annoying task but it has to be done and I am determined to do it well.. My English journal requires me to put in inspiration for a children's book I am required to complete at the end of the year. That means I have to be creative and I want that to be good! I will hopefully post photos of it either on facebook or twitter or hopefully on here nearer to the finishing and handing in time of it.

First Exemplar Visit
Being in a school again was great! That feeling of helping out the children in simple everyday tasks was brilliant and really reminded me why I am doing this course and where it will lead me in 3 years time. As a means of confidentiality I will not disclose the name of the school I went to for my visit but I will comment on it anonymously. The school my tutor group visited was in the outskirts of Liverpool and was a junior school which was a new thing for my as I've always worked within Primary schools where all years were in one building. This was an outstanding school and was truly demonstrated while I was there why it has been rated that by Ofsted. I spent my morning in year five and the afternoon with year three; both of which were a pleasure to be with but at the same time I did feel like I was treated like a teaching assistant and not a newly trainee teacher. However, I know can't wait for my next exemplar visit (in November) and my preliminary placement (2 weeks in November) all before the big six week placement in January. I always learn best from experience within schools so I am glad that my course is fully packed with as much experience as possible; unlike some other universities I'd seen.

Feel free to message me with any queries about Edge Hill University or Primary Education in general

Thanks for sticking around readers!

J

Edge Hill Freshers!

I know its been quite some time since I last posted up and if your family/friends you'll be wanting to know how my first 2 weeks at uni has been going. Well, in a nutshell, its been awesome! This is such a new experience for me; living away from home and fending for myself, well in my opinion, I've been doing a pretty damn good job!

Firstly, lets discuss freshers week; a week full of partying and meeting new people.. Basically, just like my Kos holiday, just without the sunshine.

Monday 24th September

UV Paint Glow Party

From the name of this night you can probably guess what this was; its was a biggg glow party (thankfully, I had a little UV paint leftover from holiday too). It was held in the campus' own club 'The Venue' which was fully packed and for small people (like myself) it was pretty hard to move so if you have a major problem with claustrophobia, I would recommend not attending one of these. This was different from the one on holiday as instead of just painting your face with paint, they actually had paint canons! Yes, I know, pretty big deal, and they were! If you were aiming to keep yourself relatively clean, these did not. Paint just covered you from head to toe!



BEFORE





DURING




AFTER




Absolutely covered.. Thankfully, we returned back to halls relatively early to take numerous showers!



Tuesday 25th September

Jameela Jamil

The title is explanatory in itself really; Jameela Jamil, the T4 presenter and Radio 1 DJ came to DJ at 'The Venue'. Like many of your reading this, you'll all be like, who is she? Shes not very big.. and stuff like that but she was a good DJ. However, compared to the previous night 'The Venue' was pretty empty but on the other hand, it was nice to be able to move and have room to boogie!

Wednesday 26th September

Freshers Fair

Unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures at the freshers fair because I had to fit it in around my introductory lectures into my course but I can tell you what it was like. I heard what freshers fairs are like before going to this so I was eagerly anticipating all the free goodies and seeing all the societies and clubs Edge Hill had to offer me. It did not disappoint.

During the day I managed to sign up to the NUT (National Union of Teachers), which was something I had to do as a trainee teacher; I registered with the doctor in Ormskirk (although, I don't know where the doctors surgery actually is haha); I got a lot of free stuff like food, stress balls and pens haha. Onto the clubs and societies then.. Well I was quite surprised at the amount of societies there were and what they ranged from, some of them were really bizarre. To start with, there were the stereotypical societies like cooking, animé and political parties.. But there were also strange ones like Philosotea (they philosophise while drinking tea), Women's Rights and the Dr Who society (I do enjoy Dr Who and watch it when its on, but I'm not sad enough to actually join the society.. as Mum would ask haha). However, I did join the Edge Hill Cheerleaders :) - I am sooo excited about this, I've always enjoyed gymnastics and did dabble in a bit in my younger days but cheer leading is something definitely created to keep you fit and learning the skills required like jumps, gymnastics and stunts is just all part of the package. I've already been to 2 training sessions with the Edge Hill cheerleaders and although they absolutely killed my muscles as I'm not used to the intense exercise, I will be going back and hopefully attending their socials they have every Wednesday! Also, my flatmate, Kitty, got me signed up for the climbing/hiking society.. Now don't get me wrong, I don't mind a bit of hiking, but climbing was a little too far.

I'm excited for all the opportunities I'm getting here at Edge Hill as back home in Doncaster I would have never felt comfortable doing all the exercise I am doing because of my worries about weight and things. Hopefully now I will return to my original size I was 2/3 years ago, that was the perfect size for me.

Thursday 27th September

Ormskirk Town Takeover: Emergency Services Fancy Dress

Oh yes, we had one of those good old-fashioned dressing up events. I love dressing up as most of my family and friends will know from previous birthday parties and things. This was going to be a great event for me.. I'd already purchased an outfit for it in anticipation before arriving at Edge Hill so I was prepared. It was a good night that we all thoroughly enjoyed and we will definitely be heading into Ormskirk for another night out.. The only problem with the town here though is everything shuts for 2am, which is my eyes is a little early for clubs as they shut later back in Doncaster.

I hope everyone else has settled into university and making new friends and of course, had a brilliant time on their freshers week!

Lastly..

This is a picture Kitty tweeted when we'd made homemade Shepard's Pie :) - excuse the dress, wet hair and limited makeup haha!

Have a gander at me new photo wall I've finished in the past week; all my photo's on one wall, just behind my bed :)

I'll try and post as often as possible

J

Beginning my teacher training activities...

You may all be thinking.. What?! You've only just found out your confirmed onto the Primary Education course and your already doing work? Well, teacher training isn't something to be taken lightly. It is an extremely intense course and will require a lot of work and commitment.

Quite some time before results day and finding out I was into Edge Hill University, I received an e-mail with them sending me the 'pre-course information and tasks'. Both me and my mum wondered why I'd received the e-mail if they didn't already know my results or something but I got it into my head to not get my hopes up and not start any of the tasks before I knew for definite I was in. Now I know I am, I thought I'd share with you (especially those of you who are thinking about a Primary Education course) what these pre-course tasks are like and how I'm finding them.

First of all, this is the booklet I received through an attachment:

56 PAGES!

My first thoughts were of immediate shock that I had a 56-page document to read, take notes, buy books and complete all tasks. I had tasks that were specific to each of the core subjects: English, Maths and Science as well as some for the foundation subjects: Art, Design and Technology, Music, Geography, History, Physical Education and Religious Education. It was very daunting to think I would be studying all these subjects within my course but I thought, at the end of the day, teachers aren't expected to know everything about everything all of the time.

So here are a selection of tasks that I am required to do, I'm not going to list them all because there's like 3 per core subject then 3 for the foundation subjects...

Task 1: Build a library

Building a library of quality children's books is an amazing task! I am loving it! This meant I was required to read a range of children's books for the age range 5-12 years (the ages I will be teaching). I've been getting really into this task and majorly excited about purchasing and having my own copies of famous children's book such as: The Very Hungry Caterpillar (love it!), The Gruffalo (eek!), Percy the Park Keeper and We're going on a bear hunt (we're going to catch a big one..). So far I've purchased: Lost and Found, The London Eye Mystery, Private Peaceful and Skellig, all of which I found with the Bookfinder link Edge Hill sent to use with this task. Task 2: this goes hand-in-hand with the previous task as I have certain bullet points I have to write about for each children's book I read, bullet points saying things like describe the main characters, find underlying story lines etc.

Those two books were recommended by Edge Hill :)

Task 3: I am dreading this!

Torture!!!!!

This is one of the two tasks set for mathematics and it is honestly, awful! Although I have done A-level maths (and passed!), I have relied on my scientific calculator wayyyy too much over the past two years and now I'm struggling to complete these simple GCSE standard questions. I am determined to get through these questions though but it might not be possible to see but it does specify "Do not use a calculator in this test" :(.

Task 4: Science!! The subdivisions within..

So I have to research all the subdivisions within primary Science and grade how good I think I am at each of the sections. The first couple which are Biology related are quite good for me because I have completed (and again.. passed!) a full A-level course in Biology. The others, Chemistry and Physics based, are a little more iffy in my eyes because I've not really done any of them since completing my GCSEs two years ago.

Task 5: Make myself familiar and equipped with the above I.T skills

This is a relatively easy task for anyone of us who were brought up in this new technological era. Since being young I have been surrounded by technology, unlike my elder relatives who sometimes require and ask my help with computers etc, therefore, I have become accustomed to working on computers/laptops and with technology daily. For me, reading through this list gave me some laughs thinking.. "as if some people can't do this".. but then I thought to myself, some people actually can't. It did make me feel blessed to be able to do all of this and not need to teach it all before going to university.

Task 6: The last one.. Bring your attention to the bold writing above 'pre-course task 1'

"purchase an A3 spiral bound sketch book for the Art sessions" - OMG! Never in all my life have I been able to draw, sketch or do anything artistic. Some people have said I'm no creative and am more logical and intellectual than creative but I manage to play a musical instrument and progress in music to A-level standard which is pretty creative if you ask me. Well, being a primary school teacher, I am aware I'm going to have to be prepared to engage in some Art lessons but with it being this close to starting the university course now, its all become so real and I've realised people are going to have to see my 'artistic skills'.. If that's what you can call them haha.

AHHHH! 34 days until move in day to university.
My new address will be: Sarah Yelf, Founder Court, Edge Hill University, Ormskirk

J