Katie's advice for next year's trainees






 

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Chloe reflects on how to manage stress during the training year

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I spent the last two years completing a full-time degree, working a full-time education job and being a full-time Mum to two under-twos. In lockdowns, with REAL second- and third-year degree examinations. I thought coming into teacher training I had it made, this was going to be an absolute breeze.   I was wrong.    I can’t express the multitude of emotions that are experienced on this course. I can’t express how worthwhile teacher training is, and how amazing the experience is, but reflecting now, I wanted to address those lows, and how best to deal with them effectively and productively.      Reaching the half-way point was a monumental moment in our training. Although we were online and together through Microsoft Teams (if you imagine that in time to Together in Electric Dreams, for those of us who are old enough), I remember the cheers and clapping as we celebrated this step. Outside of this though, I noticed across my fellow trainees a ripple of sadnes...
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To be or not to be a mentor…   I am not sure if there is any more important time in a te aching career than those formative first years as a trainee and newly qualified teacher. It is in our early careers that we establish our identity as a teacher, develop our good (and bad) habits and begin to become the expert in the classroom. I still use some of the resources I made in my very first terms as a trainee. I may have adapted and refined them but essentially the skills I was learning then have stood me in good stead and helped me build a strong foundation for what has turned out to be a successful and rewarding 30-year career in education.   I was lucky. I had the huge good fortune to train with an amazing mentor who hugely influenced the teacher that I became. To this day I will stop and think about what my mentor would have done in certain situations or how she would have taught a certain grammar point. I still look back in admiration at the amount of time and energy she dev...
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'Is anybody there?': Training to teach with virtual students

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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...
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