Uh-oh... it's my first teaching lesson!

Aye, tomorrow morning, first thing with year 7s! Now what my school does which a lot of other schools don't do is NOT have registration first thing in the morning and instead, the pupils go straight to lesson 1 - hundreds of pupils all waiting to tell their friends what was on TV last night, what they think of Liverpool FC this year, have they done their homework, does Billy fancy Lily, blah blah blah. Sounds like the time of day when a phone jammer is gold dust to you - nice one Kevin!

My lecture tomorrow is going to be on e-safety; how to use the Internet, what info must you not give out etc and firstly, the children will be discussing in pairs, how they would go about using chatrooms safely. I'm thinking I'll kick the lesson off casually, quizzing them on emails and their favourite social networks, and eventually moving on to talking about the simple precautions they take and how parents help ensure their child's safe use of the Internet.

Am looking forward to the challenge but may have to get a few notecards ready as I could end up teaching for 45 minutes! Still, another lesson, my first observation from my mentor, another bit of evidence for the standards folder. Bring it on I say!

Back to school!

Into my second day at Orwell High School and the big challenges of this PGCE placement are now just around the corner. The school itself doesn't normally take on PGCE students and so we're all working hard in the ICT department to make sure that my placement goes smoothly! I am getting a good mix of KS3 and KS4 pupils as well as observing some A Level lessons, I have won the respect of most of the pupils I have met so far and am looking forward to teaching my first lesson. Yesterday, I came across two big, chunky folders with the teacher training standards work from a previous pupil and so have got an idea of just how much work I've got to do over the next year! I shall be keeping hold of any lesson plan, email, assessment sheets and school work I get hold off as I'm sure they'll be space in my folder for all. It already feels like my primary school placement was long ago!