New 100 word challenge

It has been one of those weeks this week; not really quite sure where the time has gone.
My trainee teacher has heard that she has two interviews so I am keeping my fingers tightly crossed that one of them goes her way.
Funny that I am feeling so tired really because I haven't done a huge amount of whole class teaching. Somehow watching, feeding back and doing intensive support work with individual children has been more exhausting!
Great though- it isn't very often that you can get to step back from the class and really watch them ; I feel that I have learnt so much more about them by being able to focus on them. Something we should all have more time for in our classes. You also learn so much from watching another teacher; regardless of how much or how little experience they have.
My job share partner and I have watched each other teach, are doing so again straight after half term. I am looking forward to seeing how this helps us achieve consistency with the class. We are very different; something I see as one of the real strengths of working in a job share is the children benefit from two teachers who can bring different strengths and interests. However, I am aware that for some children (particularly those who have tendencies towards ASD) find any change challenging so it is with these children in mind that ways to make the classroom consistent across the week is important.

Anyway, this week's challenge was to use 5 prompt words within a piece of writing. (LIBERTY    EMPIRE    APPLE    YELLOW    ENORMOUS) http://jfb57.wordpress.com/2012/05/14/100-word-challenge-for-grown-ups-week-42/

 I had no idea to begin with and thought I would give this week's a miss. (I had been hoping that a piece I had submitted for NFFD might have been selected ; it wasn't! Back to the drawing board!)
But, I am determined to keep working on my writing and get something published somewhere (some day...some time...)

So, here it is:

“It’s Monday, it’s 6.30! G-o-o-d morning listeners!”

Endless yellow sands, her toes dipped in the gently lapping sea, the man of her dreams beside her…

♫ Wake up it’s a beautiful morning♫

Music blared out as Liberty’s dream was brought abruptly to an end.

She showered, grabbed car keys and an apple and set off.

No matter how hard she worked, how many enormous contracts she secured for the impossible-to-please Richard, did he notice?

No.

Too busy building his “empire.”

Well, he’d notice her when she’d gone.

She checked her inbox. Everything was set. Just one call to make and her dream would become reality.


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Mentoring trainees.

Less than three weeks now before my trainee finishes with us. After an interesting lesson today thought would reflect on the mentoring process.


I have been involved with trainee teachers for the last 15 years, with BEd, PGCE, GTP and SCITT. The role has evolved over the years and it is immensely rewarding.


Working with a trainee has made me evaluate my own teaching style and made me much more aware of the importance of teaching lessons with good pace. Being an effective mentor is crucial to support trainees through the nerves and the odd disastrous lesson! Spending time talking about lessons I have taught has really helped to build good relationships with trainees. In fact I have used video to good effect - the trainee will video me and we will watch it together and discuss the lesson, concentrating on questioning for example. This will be followed by the trainee being videoed and a similar discussion taking place. The idea not being "Watch me to see how marvellous I am" but "Let's look at this lesson and identify what works and what could be done differently/improved". Once the initial fear of the camera is overcome this is a very powerful tool indeed.


An effective mentor must be an effective teacher first and foremost, and have bags of enthusiasm. A mentor forced into the role is not the way to go.The amount of teaching experience is not key- a teacher in their 2nd or 3rd year of teaching can be a great role model for a trainee and the process can be useful for both.


Being a mentor has certainly improved my own teaching, as well as shown me a wealth of different approaches, resources and ideas. I hope to be able to continue as a mentor next year, but restructuring in the school leaves that somewhat uncertain at the present time. There are so many more positives than negatives.