#pgce advice

You’re now a good chunk into your first term, and, if you’re anything like me, you’re probably finding that the ring binder you obviously have for your first placement* is very, very full - or at least too heavy to carry, and possibly no longer fits in your bag. This was a problem I battled with until about the last month of my PGCE, so I hope someone may find my tips useful.

*I had a ring binder for Subject Studies, PP1, PP2 and Professional Studies.

The key thing to think about is what you actually need for each lesson. It normally boils down to four things: your lesson plan, any resources you are going to use, anything you need to give out for homework and any homework you are going to give back. The best way I found to manage this was through a profusion of plastic popper wallets. Four per class, ideally all the same colour so you can identify them at speed. You can use double-sided tape to stick two back to back - do that twice. Have once of those for “your stuff” - your lesson planner, homework to give back (or homework handed in and to be marked) - and the other for “their stuff” - lesson resources to give out and homework resources to give out. You can label these wallets with what each section is/what class it is/your name using a permanent marker. I’m sure something similar could be managed with folders, but I found this easier.

If you are offered a Teacher Planner, TAKE IT. I struggled through my PGCE, first with a beautiful ban.do planner, then a bullet journal. I started my NQT with another beautiful ban.do planner, which gave me enough space to have about one line to write what I was doing for each lesson. My Teacher Planner gives me as much space for each lesson as the ban.do did for a full day. And I can always make it pretty.

If you are using a laptop (and everyone is to some extent), keep resources organised. I had a folder for each placement school, with a folder for each year inside that, a folder for each class inside that, and a folder for lesson plans plus a folder for resources inside that. And, for god’s sake, back things up.

Try to have your timetable somewhere obvious; mine is stuck to the back of my teacher planner, which I carry everywhere. This makes it easy to check where I should be at any given time. I suggest also having it put up by/near your desk (if you work at home), to help with prioritising what needs to be marked and prepared.

Post it notes can actually be super helpful. Say you have a teacher planner. A child is ill, so hasn’t handed in their homework. Stick a post it note on top of that lesson in your planner, and write “email what’s-her-name” about when she can hand in her homework”. The key thing about this is that the post it note is INSIDE the book - on the outside of the book, it will become detached and lost.

Emails. Get your emails on your phone. You don’t have to reply to them, but it’s super helpful to be able to just check on your phone where you were room-changed to, instead of having to open your laptop or login to a computer.

Hello there! So pleased you are applying for a PGCE primary course and glad you are excited for it!

Here’s a post I previously wrote about general PGCE application tips. The personal statement part really should showcase the skills you have gained from your relevant experience (and why they would make you a good teacher), how your degree experiences will help your teaching/be an effective teacher and your statement should show your enthusiasm to learn, be a leader and have great team working and time management skills.

Draw from your previous experiences volunteering, getting involved in volunteering projects, working with children or working in the classroom as much as you can - most PGCE course value your past experience and what you have learnt from it more than anything else!

As for the interview side of things, most involve some sort of formal interview, presentation, additional tests, group work etc... but tbh as long as you answer your formal interview questions well, then you’ll be bound to get a place, as this part of the interview is weighted more highly than the rest.

It’s that time of year where teachers are madly typing out lesson plans, having a major tidy up and are organising their classrooms for the new academic year.

I’ve spent probably close to 10 days in school, tidying, sorting, printing, laminating etc to fully prepare for my class! But I know that not everyone has that amount of time, some teachers rely solely on inset days to sort everything out! Here are some time saving tips I’ve learnt/stumbled across for getting your classroom ready in no time at all:

Use ready made display packs - For every possible topic in the UK curriculum, someone else has already done/made a display for it, so save some time and download and print them off from the internet. My top display sites are twinkl, instant displays and sparklebox.

Have your display equipment ready! - Make sure you have a good, working staple gun, staple remover, scissors, blue tac and ruler before putting up any displays! Ideally have a collegue help out too, to get the job done in half the time!

Use plain backing paper and blue tac - Put up backing paper and boarders that are plain colours (using a staple gun) and then blu tac everything you want to that board, rather than staple it on. This way, you can peel things on and off and change displays quickly, saving you time and ensuring that your backing paper lasts (I made mine last the whole year, by being super careful!)

Staples should stick out at an angle - For stapling backing paper, or work to a board/wall, make sure you hold your staple gun at a slight angle so that the staple will stick out of the wall slightly - much easier to remove when you need to!

Laminate everything whilst watching tv - Laminating labels, signs, displays etc ensures that they last much longer and are more durable. I like to laminate things at home whilst watching something on Netflix - it certainly makes the job more enjoyable!

Guillotines are your new best friend - Screw rounded corners and using tiny scissors to cut out little shapes - try and print/make resources that can be quickly cut to size on a guillotine and put up instantly.

Ask colleagues for old resources - It’s worth an ask, or a look into the cupboards of other classrooms to see if they have anything you could use/adapt for your own classroom. I’ve managed to find some great boxes for my room and have donated lots of maths resources to a collegue for her maths area - sharing can really help you fill the space in your room.

Make sure the children can use it - Make sure that if you’re putting up a more ‘information’ based display, that the children will understand what’s been shown and will therefore use it. Otherwise, it’s best just to leave the space and have it ready for excellent work to be put up!

Uniformity works best - Try and have all your displays have the same font, sizing, amount of work on them etc. Save a template of anything you make yourself for a display so that you have the correct proportions and styles on hand. Uniformity also is less distracting to look at and so may also help the kids too!

ijfasco replied to your post “5 teaching targets for this academic year”

I start my PGDE in a few weeks. I'm petrified! x

Hi there friend :) It’s completely natural to feel nervous, teacher training is a HUGE commitment and it always seems like everyone else you meet on the course has a little bit more experience, or has done a little bit more preparation than you! But really, everyone is just as worried about messing up their first lessons in front of the children and is just as nervous about teaching as you, believe me! Here’s some advice and tips for surviving your first few weeks:

A PGCE is definitely a marathon, not a sprint - don’t work yourself until midnight in the first few weeks (I speak from experience here...) save some energy for later placements or important observations. Start off by concentrating on passing your first assignments rather than having everything perfect. You’re still learning, so it’s natural not to get everything right straight away :)

Discussing assignments, tutors and schools with your course mates definitely helps and my course mates have definitely helped me through a few problems during my PGCE (learning French was one such challenge a linguist course mate painstakingly helped me with!)

Exchanging your specialist knowledge with others on your course is really handy, everyone has a different background and making connections early on can help you with assignments down the road!

If you’re anything like me and your maths skills are a bit rusty, in preparation for maths seminars/lessons practising some mental maths/times tables definitely helps you feel more at ease during those times!

Don’t be daunted by the amount of paperwork/ dates/ assignments/ information you get handed to you in the first couple of weeks! It looks like an awful lot, but once you start tackling it a bit at a time and organising it, it’s a lot more manageable (I sometimes think they overload you with paperwork in the first week to prepare you for being a fully qualified teacher!)

After getting an ask about what to prepare for starting as an NQT, I thought I’d make a detailed starter pack/list of all the things you will need to successfully start the year in an organised way!

(Disclaimer: I have undoubtedly missed off a few things, but this is everything I used to start the year off with and I’ve been okay so far!)

Transition days - If your school is organising a transition day/afternoon then I strongly recommend attending. This will give you a great first introdcution to your class as well as a feel for your classroom and the school routine in general. Make sure you have some exciting transition activities too (here’s a link to what I did with my new class). If possible, ask to come in for additional days before the summer holidays to get to know the children, staff and general day to day routines of your new work place, it’ll help hugely for September. (I went in and sat at the back of the class making resources all day and supporting group work, it was so useful).

Class list and handover day - Get a class list as soon as you can so you can get learning names of all your children. They’ll be with you for at least a year so it’s essential to learn them all by the end of the first day, if not the second day of term. Try to get copies of recent assessments or assessment results too so you can determine the spread of abilities in your class too. Some school have an official ‘handover’ day or afternoon where the current class teacher cn discuss with you everything you need to know about the children you’ll be teaching and  ‘hands over’ all their classes results, groupings, files and other information about the children.

Classroom preparation - If you can come in over the summer, or early September, then do so to prepare your classroom. You’ll need to back displays, get working walls up and running, sort out pencil pots/staitionary, organise provision areas (reception/KS1), make classroom labels, create peg and draw labels for children, noticeboards will need filling, resources will need laminating - as well as plenty more bits to prepare!

Classroom organisation - This relates more to how you want your classroom to work, how to set your tables out (rows or grouped, horseshoe or islands etc),  to have or not to have a carpet area, areas of continuous provision, where to keep books, where your desk will go, places for children’s things (drawers, trays, fruit/water area etc..). Play around with the structure/furniture of the classroom as much as you are able to, you need to be teaching in a space that works for you :)

Teaching file - Buy yourself a nice, shiny teaching file (with plenty of dividers) ready for the start of the year. Start filling it with any class information, school information, assessment results and policies before the school year starts.

Assessment file - Have a seperate assessment file for all your class’s results. Divide it by pupil so that you have a section for each child’s results/examples of work. If you have any previous assessment results for your class, add these too as a year starting point.

Year long plans and curriculum - Check if your school has a curriculum/year/two year rolling long plan for you to follow. If they do, then use this to base your planning and topics off of. If not, then print off the relevent pages of the National Curriculum and highlight roughly which bits you plan on teaching in Autumn, Spring and Summer terms, to ensure you cover everything over the year.

Schemes and resources - Find out if your school plans from/uses any schemes (My school use Hamilton Trust and Mathletics a lot). This will save you a lot of time if you have these schemes ready to hand!

Medium term plans - Create your medium term plans from all the resources you have gathered so far. Or if you work in a school with 2 or more form entry, ask your collegues in the same year group whether you can split the planning and plan half the topics between you to save on paperwork!

School and exam policies - Not fun to read, but familirize yourself with school policies (and SATs ones if you teach years 2 or 6) to get a feel for the sort of school you are in. Definitely read the teaching and learning, curriculum, marking and feedback and behaviour policy as soon as you can as these will impact on daily teaching from the word go.

Behaviour management systems - Most schools these days have a policy that runs throughout school. Make sure you know it inside-out and it is clearly displayed in the classroom.

School familiarisation - I work in a tiny school, but even so, I am always finding new spaces, new places where resources are kept and more interesting things in the back of my predecessors cupboard! Make sure you know where things are kept in school and get familiar with the outdoor spaces, everyone’s classroooms, the hall and basically the entire building as soon as you can.

Tidying and new equipment - There will always be things in your new classroom to tidy, my predecessor left me a whole cupboard full of files which I am still sorting out! Whilst cleaners will clean, you will need to tidy the classroom and sort out any larger items that need throwing out or replacing. Before you start the year is a good time to get requests in for new equipment too.

Fun things! - Always plan for some fun things to do in your first few days of term. Whether it’s buying a class mascot soft toy for the children to bond with or getting heaps of stickers in to reward children with, make preparing for your new class fun :D

DON’T PANIC if you can’t do/get hold of everything on this list straight away! Most things can wait until summer term has finished and you may well have to wait until September inset days to be fully prepared.

If you have survived collecting all of this information (there was more to write about than I originally thought), here’s a list of all the useful blog posts I’ve previously written that will get your NQT year off to a flying start:

Essential stationary for any teacher

What’s in my teaching bag/s

Tips for making marking quicker

NQT advice and tips

5 Things I learnt as an NQT

How I plan now I’m an RQT

Reflecting after a day’s teaching

Strategies to help deal with parents

Also here’s a link to a post about classroom procedures whichyou may want to discuss with your new class on their first day. (it’s very long and ery American but has lots of good ideas you might like to borrow for your own classroom procedures).

Best of luck to all trainees who are very nearly NQTs, not long until you’re all qualified and finished with training!

Hi Anon, here’s a couple of links to previous posts I’ve written, but I go into lots more detail below:

6 behaviour management tips

Bonding with difficult children

I don’t think many teachers would say they are ‘good’ at behaviour management, but most would say they have a number of strategies that work a lot of the time. The most important thing though is CONSISTENCY AND FOLLOWING THROUGH.

If you say (for example) “next time you speak out of turn, you’ll be sent out for continuing to be disruptive” then be consistent and send them out. Kids will soon learn if you give empty threats and play up/push boundaries until they cross one. Sometimes the only way is to sacrifice a bit off break/lunch time - the children will soon learn the consequences and not do the same behaviour again.

In some situations though, either outside influences, home life, lack of sleep, lack of breakfast, bereavement or just plain end of term tiredness can cause even the best behaved children to be unruly and nothing will change their behaviour. In these cases, SLT may need to get involved or the children may just need some quiet time outside of the classroom before coming back to the lesson refocused.

Here are some strategies you can use, however once you’ve decided which strategies work best for you STICK WITH THEM. Kids have to be trained to follow strategies and most take a few days/weeks to implement fully.

Follow your school’s behaviour system - Most school’s have a behaviour system that is the same in each class, so the children always know the expectations in the classroom. We have every child starting on a treasure chest, and after 2 verbal warnings they move onto a simmering pot, then after another verbal warning they go onto a green rung of the ladder (loose 5 mins of break), then yellow (loose 10 mins of break, speak to parents), then red (sent out of class, headteacher phones parents). All children know the system and it’s very visual in the classroom. Other schools have a traffic light system or rainclouds and rainbows - whatever the system, follow it or make a similar one of your own that has clear expectations and consequences.

Use a musical instrument or claps - I used to use a tambourine to gain the classes attention, it worked well with younger children or larger classrooms where your voice might not carry across the whole room. Sometimes changing the instrument can alert the children to the fact that you want them to stop too (I liked to swap between a cowbell, tabourine or maraccas!)A series of claps that the class has to join in with, or echo clapping different rhythms can also grab a classes attention rather than shouting.

Countdowns - I love countdowns, they give children a clear expectation of when you expect them to have completed a small task, and gets them to focus on what you want them to do as well as time to do it. I usually start from 5 and go to 0, but I have been known to start from 20 if there’s a lot f clearing up to do in the classroom (for example). Make sure that children are clear what the expectations for them are by the time you reach 0 e.g. “I will count from 5-0, when I am at zero, everybody needs to be lined up by the door silently”.

Class treats - I used to combine countdowns with an extra incentive of a point towards a class treat if every member of the class followed the instructions before the countdown finished! Class treats usually involved having music on in class, sweets or watching clips from ‘The Worst Witch’ at the end of the day.

Sand timers are amazing! - I am a big fan of sand timers, they are a colourful and visual way of showing children how much time has passed and is left. I combine this with a countdown and if the children are not doing what I have instructed by the time I reach 0, then I turn over a sand timer until all children are complying and keep the sand time on its side when they finally all comply. The amount of sand to have fallen = the amount of time that gets taken off the children’s next break time. It works suprisingly well, I have frequent shouts of “SAND TIMER” from concerned members of the class who want all their break time and for others to hurry up!

The List - I keep a post-it note of all the children who have followed instructions well/behaved/done good work and these get to go out to break first. If I even mention ‘break time’ it’s almost always followed by “Miss, who’s on the list?” I often combine this with my countdown/sand timer strategy and any children who are complying with instructions by the time I get to zero automatically go on The List.

Have an extra incentive for good behaviour - Praising good behaviour is excellent, but for those children who are good all the time, an extra incentive gives them a treat and the other children extra reason to adjust their behaviour too. My classroom treat is that on Fridays, the best behaved/hardest working child gets to have Patrick the Puffin (our class mascot) with them on the carpet/at their desk for the next lesson. This puffin toy is the best behaviour motivater I have come across, and children respect that Patrick is always watching the class as they work and it is his choice of who he will sit with next lesson.

Carpet partners - this works best for younger classes, but I pair each of my year 3′s with a year 2 and they are ‘carpet partners’ and have to sit together on the carpet, as well as support each other in their learnin e.g. when we’re doing whiteboard work, whole class phonics or using talk partners. Pairing children can seperate the trouble makers and can encourage new friendships - I’ve had a few best friends/healthy friendships form thanks to some well placed carpet partners.

Copy me/follow my leader - If I want to get children’s attention, but not use anything loud, I play a game of ‘copy me’ and pat my head/clap handstouch my shoulders/click fingers and other elements of body percussion in a 1, 1, 2, 2, rhythm until everybody is copying me. Usually the most eagle eyed children get it first and then the rest of the kids catch on quick, not wanting to be left out!

Oh gosh this got long, but hopefully there are some strategies in there you can use. If you want further explanation, or more advice, just drop me an ask :)

Hello there, sorry for the delay in posting, but I agree time flies when you are teaching - I’ve been behind on several blog posts due to classroom commitments! Many congratulations on getting a job for September and almost being donw with teacher training, quite some feats indeed!

As for some tips for surviving the last term, I’ll give you a brief rundown of essentials:

Look after yourself - make sure you are eating, drinking and sleeping regularly (sounds obvious but I was a norotious meal skipper during my last placement and it does you no good for the kids as well as yourself).

Have an end point and work backwards - plan where you would like to be lesson/topic-wise at the end of your placement, where would you like the children’s learning to be? What learning objectoves do you want to have taught well? Once you decide where you want the children to be at, plan to be there and then work backwards with all your final term planning. It really helps to keep you on track in the final few weeks.

Keep on top of marking - Even right to the last week of placement, you want to ensure everything is marked/assessed and up to date for when you leave the class/school - and it sucks having to mark on your final placement day!

Have a fantastic all-singing-and-dancing final observation - at some point in your final term, someone from your course provide (a mentor/leader/former teacher) will come and assess you for your QTS. THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT OBSERVATION YOU WILL HAVE so it needs to be planned to the last detail, resourced wonderfully and engaging for all the children. Once you’ve had this nerve wracking observation, then you’re on your way to becoming a qualified teacher :)

Get all the information/assitance whilst you can - although you have secured a job for September, it is worth asking your collegues for job application advice, interview advice/lessons, medium term or topic plans and other sources of information to help get you up on your feet when you begin life as an NQT. All placement collegues ave been in your shoes before and will definitely give you tips, advice and share resources.

Enjoy spending time with your class - treasure the time spent with your class, placement classes always will have a special place in your memory and make sure you do some fun activities with them too before you leave!

If you follow all this, and keep doing what you’re doing, you’ll be absolutely fine :)

Hello Anon, congratulations on getting an interview!

I would teach how you would most feel comfortable/have been taught to teach during an interview. Interviews are daunting enough as it is without having to learn/teach a new scheme ontop of things! School’s won’t expect you to follow their exact scheme/methodology in interviews, but most would probably expect you to have heard or researched about it and are more likely to ask you questions about talk for write during the formal interview part of the day.

However I would definitely try and include elements from talk for write in your lesson input if you can, to show that you are able to adapt to the school’s way of teaching and show you have done your research. I would make your starter very oral, get the children discussing ideas with talk partners or in groups before feeding back to the class. Or even have plenty of whiteboards availible for children to write/draw their ideas down with a partner before beginning the main part of the lesson.

As for what to teach for year 3 English, you could have a class debate style lesson, introducing children to an issue, getting them discuss their opinions on it, debate their opinions in class and write up their views (though this may take a little while, it depends on how much time you have and whether you feel comfortable letting children take more of a lead on the lesson).

Alternatively, if you haven’t got much teaching time, then try teaching a grammar or poetry focused lesson - both these activities aren’t what people usually teach about in interviews (which will help you stand out) and they are quick to produce some good writing from. Make sure you have lots of grammar and poetry props to teach with, to really get the kids onboard with your lesson!

I previously wrote a post about teaching observation interviews which you might find handy here.