This time last year, I was eagerly awaiting September which would mark the beginning of my teacher training. Having worked in a school for a number of years as a Teaching Assistant, I had a clear idea of what my teacher training year would entail: developing engaging lesson plans; implementing behavioural management strategies; differentiating activities; familiarising myself with the school curriculum; and forming positive relationships with my students.  My vision for January 2021 was full of these ideas. When I pictured where I would be, I imagined myself in a lively classroom, making use of the dialogic teaching strategies which were at the centre of the educational ideology I had developed during the Education Studies modules of my undergraduate degree.  The reality of January 2021 as a trainee teacher is much different. Of course, beginning teacher training during a global pandemic was always going to pose challenges and unforeseen changes to education. In the first term...

This has been a week, a term, an academic year like none I can remember.    I am trying to refrain from using the word ‘unprecedented’ as I know that we are all a little fed up of hearing it, but these are very unusual times.     What a time to be starting out with training for a career in teaching:    Schools have been turned upside down and inside out.   Our core purpose has been altered significantly by the sudden need to provide services such as COVID testing and home schooling.    Our assessment processes have been changed in a way nobody could have imagined just a year ago and our staff are having to support students, parents and each other with an incredible range of issues, sometimes with the kind of impact we would see only rarely in school.   The reaction to life-changing events can be incredibly varied, and this is a life-changing event, that unlike some, is affecting each and every one of us in some way or other.   ...