Surviving
Forget about your old job, where you could make the day easy if you were hung over and hide behind your screen if you were having a bad day. You're a student teacher now - everyones watching you, nit picking everything about you, analysing you and giving you advice.
This is student teaching and its awful and fantastic. The course is hard but not that hard - it's easy to pass if you know what you're doing and how to play the game.

The realism is that a lot of kids don't want to be in your class, if they are, they want to do nothing. Some love your subject and love to hear what you've got to say. Some will swear at you, others will listen and react to every word you say. Some will do nothing during a lesson others will do so much more than you planned for! You'll hate one lesson with every fibre in your body and love the next lesson so much you want to teach all day every day. You chose this course so lets get through it and pass it. The bad times become less and less and it gets better - believe me.

If this is your first term (Autumn) you'll be feeling a mixture of fear and loathing (Help, what am I doing!) and excitement but it's really important that your organised and healthy.

Yes, healthy. The first term you'll probably catch every single bug and germ going as your body and mind acclimatise to the school environment. I personally believe that if you're ill - stay at home - don't skive (you'll have to complete a set number of days - ask your provider how many exactly) but if you're under the weather stay away and recover. If you don't you'll get worse. You won't cope if you're unwell.

Surviving - This is what it's all about. Never forget that that it's only a qualification - you'll pass or fail, so the game is to get from A to B.
You'll be watching hugely experinced teachers who been doing it for years, making it look easy. You'll feel like a struggling novice with no time under your belt - everyone else will be masters of their art but it gets better, quicker than you think - believe me!


Documentation
Meting the standards - what are they
The Standards...well...it looks like a list that goes on and on and on. You have to meet the standards (or show you can hit the standards) to get a DFES number. There's many ways to do this but the most efficient way for PGCE is via lesson observations from your Mentor or via PDP Record entry sheets that you write yourself and get signed off.

PDP - So much paper about 1.5 Trees
A mammoth task but easily doable if you keep trickling bits in and making sure you write plenty of your own record sheets. A PDP record sheet outlines where you have hit standards, how you hit them and can be referenced directly in the PDP.

Assignments
Make sure you get someone to read a draft (ie...Mark it without marking it) and hand it in on time. That's all you have to do. You can fail and have it back but it's extra hassle and work. Get it done early on before work piles up.

Lesson observations
Performing Monkey? Well thats an easy job. Try having every concievable feature about yourself analysed and postively criticised. Voice too deep, talking too fast (really? Thats because I'm sh**ing myself) to quiet, talking to too few people, not talking enough. It goes on. Best thing to do is just breath it all in, go home and come back the next day knowing that whatever happens you'll always be improving. It goes without saying that you can't get any worse than your first lesson.
Lesson Planning

The Process
Subject Pathway
Vital - without this beacon of light and time out of school (only the liars say they find it annoying being out of school as it disrupts their teaching). Its the best way to meet and moan, get stuff off your chest, find out there's always someone worse off, and that gradually you're all getting better.

Mentoring
Totally depends on who is your man/woman. I've seen couples end up not speaking, rowing and even heard of one pair having a stand up row in the lesson in front of pupils. Just bite your tongue, learn as much as you can and if you get a good one(I did) you're laughing. Take his advice and lean from the pros.

Training managers
Pot luck. Some are top notch others make you wonder how they get to school without supervision. But always remember they mark you and have the final say!

Your provider
That was your choice, and it's probably too late to moan now.

Autumn Term
Gradually becoming Term 1 and 2 in our area but the worst one of all. Colds, germs, bad weather, darkness and few delights. It passes quickly and Christmas always comes sooner than you think.

Spring Term
Summer Term

The pupils

Dead poets Society and Harry Potter it is not
The only time you'll get them on the tables cheering is if you start/stop a fight. Unless of course you end up teaching private.

The playground - what to challenge and what not to
This is a tough one. You'll hear and see lots more than you need to act on. Don't feel pressured at this point to give a detention to the first person you overhear mumbling shit.
Think about the situation and work out where it's going when you challenge the kid.

This is sh** - I'm not doing it - pupils attitude to school
Think of something new. Try the carrot as the stick might nt work with this one. You've got to have more tricks up your sleeve than David Blaine and Paul Daniels.

Management - techniques, example situations

The Challenge - intellectualising it.
If you think of the classroom as an intellectual challenge then it's never going to be hard to forget about it and go home peaceful. All it is is you and a group of kids, and you're trying to persuade, coerse, lead them inot learning. Some you win some you lose. If you lose, then it's just a game of chess, come back tomorrow and try again.