Three weeks worth of TES

Hello from snowy Germany!

After a week of internet absence and a lot of wonderful skiing in the

French alps I have reemerged to share some thoughts on what is going on in the world of education. I finally had the time to read the last three TESs on the plane to Germany the day before yesterday and, as always, it looks like education is doomed! Apart from the general primary school inspections, SATS pressure and abolishment, Ofsted devastation, inclusion and SEN, GCSE standards and the private school reform, the lasts week’s news are surprisingly relevant to what I am doing and will indeed closely concern a whole generation of newly qualified teachers.

Chancellor Alistair Darling announced that teachers will have their pay rise capped to 1 percent from September 2011 on. This is below the national inflation rate of 1.9 and I am sure will drive many teachers out of their profession. Ironically, just a few pages later, the TES also announced that 250.000 people who are trained as teachers do not actually work in the classroom. After working in schools for a while now, I know that teachers feel overworked, underappreciated and underpaid anyway- why make it even more difficult for them to stay in their profession? In another counterproductive move, after the TTA has met its recruitment target this year, it was decided a few weeks ago to cut the teacher training bursaries down in September 2010- in my case that would mean £3000 less a year. Now, you may ask: Why do teachers get paid to train if nobody else does? It is precisely because they won’t earn as much as other people and because there are not enough people who want to do it!

This applies especially to my area of teaching- languages. Language graduates are statistically one of the highest earning groups of people, after law and medicine but even before engineering. Every year, fewer and fewer linguists go into teaching and apply for jobs in the economy and industry which pay them three to four times as much as teaching! I have seen teachers get to school at 7am and leave at 5pm with a pile of 30 books to mark and five lessons to plan at home that evening for what I consider to be very little money in comparison. A lot of the PGCE trainees on my course (and mind you it is supposed to be the best in the country as we were told so proudly on our first day) have dropped out a few weeks into their first placement due to the workload. Students in subjects such as arts and music do not get any financial support and after the disaster with this year’s student loans I can frankly understand their option.

Personally, I am much divided between my career choices. Firstly it is very surreal that theoretically I would be able to go back to Germany next summer! By then I will have lived in the UK for six years, going from Boston to Southampton to Cambridge because of driven but ultimately random decisions. I am not sure if the PGCE would really qualify me to teach full time immediately, but there is definitely the chance to work in other positions. However, I do love England and most of my friends are here so it looks like my options are down to getting my NQT year out of the way and trying to get a teaching position which I like (eg teaching German and Film at A-Level), a PHD or maybe some event management work which will correspond to my film festival experience. The PhD applications are sent off now and I won’t have to apply for teaching jobs until spring so at the moment I am waiting for another ideal opportunity to come along.

Another idea which has also emerged recently is having a year abroad and doing some short time teaching work in homeschooling centres or private schools, especially in the states. At the AERO conference last summer I met a lot of people who were very interested in hiring a ‘European Ambassador’ who can teach languages and I might be able to get a working visa through aero if I tried. That would give me a year of flexible teaching and travelling which sounds very tempting. However, at the beginning of the year I decided that my first priority would be my friends so I am trying to convince my friend Holly to come with me and be freeee for a while :-) At the moment it looks like we are going to go to NY together again in June for my conference workshop and then travel down to Mexico city for a month or so.

But even with summer thoughts in my head (and a houseboat trip, Ireland holiday and much more to come in 2010), the reality at the moment is very much ‘home, family and snow’. On Saturday we are off to Switzerland to do some more skiing and that means I will have been in four countries within one week- talk about Carbon footprint! Unfortunately I have the feeling that the experience will pale in comparison the total happiness last week...

Bon Noel!

End of placement one and the launch of the NSFA

Today, my first school placement has finished. I have now been at Sawston for four full and five half weeks and can honesty say that I have learned a lot! This is what I wrote for my end-of-placement report:

"During my time at Sawston Village College I had the chance to develop a range of different skills and increase my subject knowledge. Although I still feel a little bit insecure about my Spanish, I have grown much more confident in teaching German and French. Visiting and leading a great variety of classes has given me the opportunity to get to know the Scheme of Work and topics from Year 7 to Year 11.

I found it especially enjoyable to see how the relationships with my Year 9 German and Year 8 French/German class improved over time. It was fantastic to be able to teach whole lessons in target language and engage the students through my references to German culture and the life of the pupils in Germany. I have started to plan for different levels within one class and now pay more attention to the learning of the individual student. In my next placement, I am looking forward to being attached to classes for a longer time, getting to know the pupils and their language levels and monitoring their learning closely.

One of my biggest strengths is my positive attitude in the classroom together with firm management, however, I need to make sure that all of the pupils respect me and listen to me when I want them to. I also have to focus on adapting my lesson plans according to how much progress has been made and targeting individual ability groups with differentiation. Overall, I found my time at Sawston Village College very valuable and look forward to experiencing more teaching and learning practice in my new placement. "

Sound very academic, doesn't it? :-) Overall, I had a really good time and did not find it quite as exhausting as I had feared. Thankfully, I had at least one or two lessons off a day in which I focused on my lesson planning and essay writing. Next Friday, the last one before Christmas has to be handed in. I am also very excited to work in Cambridge next term and be part of the MFL department of the Netherhall School. I have also asked to be able to teach a bit of Film and Media (yay!) and doing some A-Level work should be fantastic.

With regards to Alternative Education, I applied for a PhD in Democratic Education at Oxford last week. The decision about the place will not be made until mid January and in case I am successful the process could take a few months more in order to secure the funding, but I am very happy to get the paperwork on the way.

I also have some news regarding my film projects: This weekend is the launch of the National Student Film Association in Bristol, which should be extermely exciting! It will be so nice to see everybody again and I see the NSFA as an amazing platform for all student film makers in the UK. As an extension, a friend and I have started the International Student Film Association, the ISFA, which will do the same great things, just for students world wide! Although I am very busy with my studies, I have already set up the website and I am also in contact with students from all over the world so hopefully I will be able to delegate a little bit in the next months! :-)