My first week as a trainee teacher
I’m Clare and at 26, I have decided to start training to become a primary school teacher.
I graduated with a French with Business degree in 2014 and decided to go down the business route and join a marketing agency. After almost three years, I was finding that the best parts of my job were when I was mentoring and helping others so I looked into teaching.
As it was a big career change, I didn’t apply for teacher training straight away but got a Teaching Assistant position at a local primary school for a year, just to make sure it was the right career path for me. And it was! So here I am studying for a PGCE in Primary Education.
Day 1 — Induction Day
The day has arrived! I woke up this morning feeling surprisingly calm and composed. Luckily, I left myself plenty of time to get to uni this morning; traffic was awful! When I arrived, I did have one of those awkward moments that you dread when you can’t see anyone you recognise but I took the plunge and asked to join a table of girls and we got chatting straight away. The rest of the morning wasn’t too testing (thankfully) as the course coordinators talked us through our timetables and we were given talks from the different services on campus such as the library and the learning hub.
Day 2
Another short but sweet day at university today. The first session was a talk about well-being and Hygge. I had never heard of Hygge before but it was all about those warm, fuzzy feelings that you can embrace to boost your well-being and the well-being of your pupils. I came out feeling very relaxed myself! We then had a talk from the Headteacher of a local primary school which was really inspirational. She drew on her wealth of experience to talk to us about the realities of teaching and what we can do as trainees to make ourselves stand out during our placements. That was all for today but it was a really inspiring morning nonetheless!
Day 3
I got a bit of a lie in this morning which was nice as my 6 am alarms have been a shock to the system! We were only in university for about an hour today but it was a productive hour. We have been given student handbooks which give us lots of important information and help for the year ahead, including assignment hand-in dates (gulp!). The session today was focused around the handbooks and we had a chance to ask any questions we had about the handbooks and the course. A lot of the training sessions start tomorrow, including P.E. so I’m excited about that.
Day 4
We got to come in our P.E. kits today while our coordinator placed us into our P.E. groups. Then, it was a jam-packed morning full of important training around Prevent, Safeguarding and E-Safety. As I have previously worked as a Teaching Assistant, I had done Safeguarding training before but it was good to have a refresher session and it was particularly interesting receiving in-depth Prevent and E-Safety training. And that’s it — first week done already!
Overall, I have found the short week really informative and it has been a great introduction to the course.
Safeguarding, Prevent and E-Safety training brought home the essential role teachers play in children’s welfare and safety and the well-being session and talk from a local Headteacher were really inspiring and showed the positive impact we will have on children as future teachers.
Meeting everyone on my course has been great; they all seem like a really friendly bunch of people. I’m eager to start the Subject Knowledge sessions next week and start preparing for my placements!
