My story continued...

Thought flows in terms of stories - stories about events, stories about people, and stories about intentions and achievements. The best teachers are the best story tellers. We learn in the form of stories.

Frank Smith (2004)

Emma's PGCE story

Chapter PC3012

My PGCE journey started in Sept 2005, my life learning journey up until this point had been a combination of life experience gained in a full time career and acheiving my undergraduate degree. The early part of my PGCE story and development can be seen in chapter 1004 It seems like an eternity since these first steps as a tentative reflective writer but yet time itself seems to be flying by. Instrumental to my development and confidence as a reflective writer has been the dialogue, support and belonging to a community that I have experienced and shared with my peer group. We have been following the same path developing as teachers, peers and friends It has been in the supportive group environment that has helped me develop as a reflective writer and to share the good, the bad and the ugly of my teaching we've laughed, cried, talked, listened, wrote, reflected, wow, have we reflected, we are in fact a huge mirrored prism of a group now we are all so reflective! We have talked for endless hours day and night on the blog, we have talked in general, in metaphors, in pictures and in song and every minute of it has been great!

January was tough, the majority of my peers were busy teaching on block placement, so myself and my peers at BCFTCS were in a kind of teaching limbo as our placement college had no teaching in January due to a different exam timetable than the other colleges. So I kept myself busy in January working in and researching student support within my placement college, also seeing how exam invigilation worked and writing endless to do lists and action plans so that I was ready to take on the teaching world again at the end of Jan. I also got to attend some very cool staff development days and attend a learning and teaching conference.

It had been such a long gap between semester 1 and 2 that I was quite nervous when teaching started again but after a few sessions I was back in the swing (and feeling like I'd never been away!) I have really enjoyed teaching this semester, its been really hard work and involved many hours teaching, but it has definitely been worth it. I have been introduced to new schemes of work and taught on new modules which have brought both new challenges and rewards. I've spent a great deal of time lesson planning and building a bank of what i hope will be reusable resources. One of the most challenging times in this semesters teaching was the ridiculous amount of observation nerves I had, I was feeling more confident in my teaching but as soon as I was observed I turned into a 'high pitched, couldn't talk faster if I tried, nervous, emotional jelly' I am going into a profession filled with ongoing observation, if I didn't combat nerves now I could just see future Ofsted visits in my career actually causing me to pass out. Luckily as the observations went on I, with the encouragement and support of my peers managed to control my nerves (on the outside at least) it is one of my biggest achievements as I felt the teacher I was being every other every day was starting to show through on the scary observation days too.

I was really enjoying being in the classroom and the help I received from my mentors and BCFTCS collegues was tremendous, when one of my colleugues asked me if I wanted to do some of the formal marking on one of the assignments I was thrilled! this was an area I really wanted to have a go at, I think this experience along with the in class feedback I have been giving students has really helped develop my assessment skills. It was not only important to develop my assessment skills but to improve and monitor my general skills, when I first knew we had to monitor and improve our keyskills I couldn't help but groan, at the spelling and sums part anyway!

Perhaps you would like to see the edited for television version and share my digital story.

To make this chapter whole I have included work from my curriculum and analysing learners needs modules (analysing learners needs link requires a plug in and is not viewable on Uni network) it is time spent working within these area's simultaneously that have helped contribute to my overall development as a reflective practitioner.

Where now? It's hi-ho, hi-ho, it's off to work I go...

"no substantial part of this assignment has been submitted previously for the purposes of assessment to the University of Wolverhampton or any other educational establishment"

Emma Purnell: 0522771

Reflective Practitioner. PC3012

PGCE - PCE

Tutor marking: Julie Hughes