You mean we get paid as well?!

Well, I have survived over a fortnight of actual, proper teaching. I have not yet been exposed as a charlatan, and have not even been asked by any pupils if I'm a new teacher (one of the advantages of going into teaching at such an advanced age, I suppose), and now that I have received my first pay it finally feels real.

I am loving it so far, and wish I had done it years ago. I have a couple of challenging classes (who knew that fifth years would be so unfocused?) but I never expected it to be all plain sailing, and I have an astonishingly nice S3 class to compensate. My new department is definitely my favourite of the three I've now worked with, and everyone is very helpful.

It could, of course, all go pear-shaped at any moment, but for now it's great and I am so glad I have made this move.

Hurrah!

Four weeks and counting

It appears to be a long time since I posted in this; maybe I have been too depressed by being trapped in Call Centre Hell to motivate myself.

I went back to my last-job-but-one in the middle of June. Sitting in my old seat, tapping away on my old keyboard and wearing my old headset while answering the same old questions, I wondered if my PGDE had been some kind of surreal dream. It was as if I had never left.

A month later, I'm in a call centre in Erskine. I'm doing the same job, sort of, but in quite a different environment. The tattooed, gruff-voiced and frankly scary man who showed us round spent most of the time telling us what we weren't allowed to do, while assuring us that this is a great place to work and we would all be really happy here. Hmmm. When I read the notice on the wall saying "Only food given as incentives may be consumed on the call floor", I could not escape the image of Professor Skinner and his pigeons (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinforcement#Schedules_of_reinforcement) and wondered if the employees were strapped to their chairs, only being allowed to have a tea break when they had taken a certain number of calls or made so many sales.

Never mind, a week or so and I'm outta there, although that means I am much closer to starting my proper job and that is terrifying! I visited my school twice before the holidays and am pleased that my new colleagues all seem nice. I won't have my own classroom, but myself and my fellow probationer - or NQT, as East Renfrewshire likes to call us - will have a desk and a shelf in the English base, so that is better than nothing. They basically said to me "There's the book cupboard, pick what you want and put it on the wall in the base". Panicking, I picked novels for all my classes, including two I had bever read before. Having finally finished Lord of the Blasted Flies, I am now regretting at least one of my choices, but at least there are a lot of resources on the internet for me to steal/adapt.

I chatted briefly to my new PT and said what I always tend to say when faced with an intimidating prospect..."Ach, I'm sure it'll be fine". I was rather taken aback when she answered "No, it won't be fine, it'll be hell. You'll be in tears every day". Good of her to tell it like it is, but hardly encouraging! For the record, I have not been in tears even once thus far, but I shall bear her warning in mind and try not to feel like a failure if it all becomes too much for me...

Is that it then?

"Good luck then. You're a teacher!"

My tutor handed me a copy of my final profile this morning, stating that I have achieved 'The Standard', and off I went into the world (or rather, the coffee shop, for a final Jordanhill scone). There have been times that I doubted I would make it to this day - not because I thought I would drop out voluntarily, but because I wondered when I was going to get found out and booted off the course. So I can't quite believe I've made it, and will actually be starting work in a yet-to-be-specified school in my first-choice Local Authority in August. It all seems a bit too good to be true!

My presentation last week went better than I could have expected, although it was a very long day; sixteen presentations is about fourteen more than anyone should be expected to sit through in one day, especially if some people are allowed to overrun by 100%. However, it all seemed worth it when we got our results at the end. I've rarely felt so relieved (and also quite smug).

And now I can start worrying about my next challenge - appearing on stage at Eastwood Theatre on Sunday! I am doing a monologue and a Sonnet, which is quite scary, but surely it can't be any worse than facing a class of thirty first-years...

Getting my priorities right

Having finished my work yesterday afternoon, I had several things to do: research to be analysing, assignment to be writing and lessons to be planned. So I naturally decided to go and play my fiddle with the BBC SSO at the BBC Play It Again event in the Fruitmarket!

When I signed up for it a while ago I wasn't sure if I would make it, because of the timing. However I am very glad indeed that I went as it was the most enjoyable Saturday afternoon I've spent in a long time. It was extremely well organised, and all the strings players had a BBC SSO buddy assigned to them for the afternoon, to guide them in the right direction and give any help needed. It all culminated in a performance, which sounded fantastic (luckily there were many other violins to drown me out!). As it only took another couple of hours today to finish my assignment, I think I made the right decision.

So this is my last week at school, and the realisation that I have four more days / sixteen more periods / a little over fourteen more hours to practise on other teachers' pupils is terrifying. After that, the next kids I teach will be my responsibility.

Scary!

Wipe that smile off your face, young lady

So there I was, being as stern as I could be towards one over-chatty pupil, when another one said "Is that you trying to put your serious face on, miss?".

(Sigh...)

Sighs of relief and sighs of despair

It is slightly ironic that I started this blog as a record of my progress / struggle through my PGDE year, yet I have been too busy to write in it!

However, I have breathed a huge sigh of relief after passing my final crit (I felt physically sick, that's how nervous I was), and now have only my school report, research project, assignment, presentation, final interview....to worry about, not forgetting all the lessons I still have to teach. It has truly been the quickest year of my life and I can't quite believe that I am nearly there.

I have also waved goodbye to my two tutees, who sit their respective exams on Friday. It feels like quite a responsibility; I was mostly in it for the money but I would hate them to fail!

I may as well get a rant out of the way while I'm here. Was it a shambles, a fiasco or a debacle? Or just evidence that we are a nation of simpletons? I'm referring of course to the staggering 140,000 spoiled ballot papers from last week's election. Not only did we all get a helpful leaflet posted to us well in advance, there were clear instructions on the wall of each booth and a lady asking every single voter if they wanted any assistance. What's not to understand?! It's like a Standard Grade candidate who doesn't read the question properly and complains that they have been unfairly penalised. Unbelievable.

Drama Queen

"You need to improve your presence", they said.

"You need to remember it's all a big act", they said.

"You need to stop smiling so much", they said, more than once.

So when I saw an adult drama workshop advertised in the local paper, I signed up immediately, and went along for the first time last night. It was certainly an experience, and with all the prancing around, chanting and improvisation, it was right up there with the Glasgow Speakers' Club for biting-my-lip-trying-not-to-laugh-out-loud comedy value. However, unlike the speakers' club, I think I'll be going back to this, as I need all the help I can get. Especially with the 'stop smiling so much' thing (who amongst my former colleagues in the bank could ever have imagined that smiling at work would be something I would do to excess?!).

I am rather panicking about my APD research project; all my classmates seem to be doing straightforward questionnaires on internet use, reality TV and so on, while I am perhaps being a bit over-ambitious in my plan to analyse scenes from the two versions of Henry V. Sometimes I think my Shakespeare obsession has gone too far...