To desperately ask for your help sorting out my life!! PGCE related

[toomuchmashaandthebear]

Ok I am currently studying my PGCE. I am doing a part time SCITT course and have just started my second term. I am studying just outside of London (don't know if that's relevant or not?)
I am on the verge of tears tonight because I just feel so overwhelmed and like I should just quit. It's completely my own fault. I have let childcare/busy family life take over my life recently and haven't focused as much on my studies as I should have done. We got our first assignment back just before Christmas and I only marginally passed it. I desperately need to kick my butt in to gear and catch up before I fail completely and waste all the money spent on the course so far!!

Even though I know I need to do this, I just don't know where to start. I feel like I am drowning in how much I need to be catching up with/doing. So I'm hoping an outside perspective will help me get in to some kind of order and I can get cracking!

Areas that I desperately need to work on:

Admin work (complete mountains of paperwork that I have written out but need to type)

Subject knowledge (I know this is a big area I need to improve but I really don't even know where to start, can anyone recommend any good books/websites ect that I can use to help me)

Timetable to keep myself on track with uni work, school work, and general family life.

Any help/advice or tips would be massively appreciated!!

I battled through mine and then got a normal job. I’d never ever teach. Ever.

What subject are you?

Primary

Hi OP, I have been a primary school teacher for 12 years and I’m an Assistant Head. My PGCE year remains the hardest year of my whole career. I love my job.

Do you like being in class with the children?

PGCE is a lot of hard work. I did it in my early 20s, pre children , and am always in complete awe of anyone who does it with children to think about too.

Not sure what SCITT is, is it a course you do before the PGCE?

What subject are you doing, people mght be able to recommend good websites if they know that.

How did your first placement go?

Are you on placement atm?

What year? Focus your subject knowledge on the kids you’re actually teaching right now. What areas are you weak in? I can probably recommend something.

I also recommend talking to your uni tutor/link advisor. You might be able to push some deadlines back and they can tell you what is most essential for you to prioritise.

And remember the PGCE is tough! You won’t be the only one struggling. Can you meet up with some coursemates and compare notes/advice.

Pgce is tough. If you are with a Uni have you access to any study skills sessions, eg. Through the library?

Marginal pass is more than enough so congratulations on having passed your last assignment- now forget all about it.

Cross posted.

For maths, I recommend the white rose scheme of work. Even if your school doesn’t use it, it sets out what the children need to know in what order so would probably help. All free. They also run (paid for) online training courses for developing pedagogy, but to be honest that’s the sort of thing I’d expect to be taught at the uni part of your PGCE.

Subject knowledge - identify what you need to know for next week, and learn that now. Use holidays to get ahead. You don’t need to know all of Year 3 maths in one go, just be a bit ahead of the children. I’ve Mastering Primary Science, and Essential Primary Science band both are great. One of the, has a series covering other subjects.

Organisation - plan what you will do in your non contact time in school. Stick to the plan as much as possible. If you are asked to do something else, try and decline “I’m really sorry, I’ve earmarked this time to plan my maths lesson/marks my English books/write my essay. Could it wait until my free time tomorrow.” Obviously this does not apply to safeguarding concerns.

Don’t do jobs twice - don’t make notes which you need to type up, just type it up in the first place.

Also make time for yourself. I refuse to do anything on Sundays after 11am.

Talk to people. Your mentor can help, your ITTCo, SCITT people.

Thank you for the replies. To answer some questions;
SCITT is school centred initial teacher training so I spend 2 days in a school and 1 day on my uni course.

The areas that I most need to improve are probably my English/grammar and maths.

I am currently working with year 2 children and I absolutely love the school side of things it's just the amount of work that is feeling overwhelming at the moment.

My two children are both under 4 so I kind of knew I was biting off more than I could chew but I am determined to finish the course and get my qualification

I agree that your pgce year is very hard - it won't always be such a balancing act.

Do you use a diary or planner? I write lists for every day onto each diary page as well as things happening that day and I tick them all off as the are done. I would write down things that you need to do towards assignments onto a specific day. Just helps me to organise my time.

Have you told anyone from your Scitt that you're feeling a bit snowed under? I support some of our student teachers and have been able to give more specific, practical advice if they are at a pinch point knowing exactly what is due when and what can be left a bit longer. It's hard to prioritise when this is all new. Would anyone be able to offer you some support?

PGCE is one of the biggest slogs you’ll do. It’s excellent preparation for the mountains of pointless paperwork you’ll have to do when you qualify.
For the assignment a pass is a pass, marginal or not. It’s a bit like a driving test. It’s still a pass whether you have 4 minor faults or none.

How did your placement go? That’s a much more important indicator but even then a pass is a pass whether you ace it or are ‘merely’ satisfactory.

Once you qualify then you’ll learn how to do the job properly, or will decide it’s not worth signing away your life to be demeaned by all and sundry and have to work 20 hours a week extra to keep on an even keel.

There are very few PGCE students who do not feel completely overwhelmed at some point this term. I've seen plenty about to throw in the towel.

Does admin work really need to be typed? Perhaps a low priority. If it needs to be in a file on your computer, download a scanning app, and scan it in. If you have an older child, or willing partner, delegate the scanning!

Subject knowledge - focus on the things you're teaching this term, but make a note of anything that arises, to look at when things calm down. If you're planning for something you're not so sure of, ask your mentor to point you at a good textbook/teacher resource.

Planning and marking will always take as much time as you allow them. Try and allocate time so that nothing gets squeezed out. Sometimes you need to accept "good enough" rather than perfecting every resource.

Don't reinvent the wheel - tweak others' resources rather than starting from scratch each time. Hopefully your mentor/department are good at sharing resources, and if not, ask.

Uni assignments - the important thing is that you did pass it. I don't know how your assessment works, but quite often you just need to pass each assignment, in which case you're just being efficient with your time!

Hi op I am a primary teacher and SCITT mentor. Have you spoken to your scitt leader, with my mentee they have been brilliant. Also as a school we identified pinch points for our scitt teachers and have been able to support them with some time out.
Also my scitt mentee isn't doing the pgce part of the course which helps so much with work load. Is that something you would want to look into?

Subject knowledge - you eat an elephant one bite at a time and will be building your subject knowledge for the whole of the rest of your career. So aim to be a week (or a couple of lessons) ahead of your pupils. Pick one subject and work on it for a week or two, then move onto another subject.

What year group is your current placement in and what subject do you want to start with? For maths you can’t beat Hwylock www.amazon.co.uk/Mathematics-Explained-Primary-Teachers-Haylock/dp/1446285871?tag=mumsnetforu03-21 plus accompanying work book. Aim to do one chapter plus the matching practice questions per week/ fortnight

I remember how hard going PGCE is, OP. I think @Greenandcabbagelooking's advice is excellent and sums it up well. Good luck. With the determination that is palpable in your posts I'm sure you will do brilliantly!

I'm so very sorry to be that person but as you even mentioned that English/grammar is one area for you to work on....... 'etcetera' is abbreviated 'etc', not 'ect'. I genuinely mean to be helpful by pointing this out and hope you don't take it the wrong way - it was probably just a typo anyway. I know this is not about the English curriculum but I do think little details like this can make a difference in terms of coming across professionally in written communication.

Good luck with it all

Thank you so much for everyone's comments, I am starting to feel better already. With regards to the subject knowledge, I'm so relieved to hear that it can be worked on over time. During my course I have been made to feel like it all needs to be known right now and it's just made it feel so overwhelming!
In regards to dropping the PGCE element I was advised that if I did that it would be harder for me to get a job at the end of my course?

@lavidaesuncarnival

I remember how hard going PGCE is, OP. I think *@Greenandcabbagelooking*'s advice is excellent and sums it up well. Good luck. With the determination that is palpable in your posts I'm sure you will do brilliantly!

I'm so very sorry to be that person but as you even mentioned that English/grammar is one area for you to work on....... 'etcetera' is abbreviated 'etc', not 'ect'. I genuinely mean to be helpful by pointing this out and hope you don't take it the wrong way - it was probably just a typo anyway. I know this is not about the English curriculum but I do think little details like this can make a difference in terms of coming across professionally in written communication.

Good luck with it all

Thank you for pointing that out, I honestly didn't even realise I had written that!! At least that is one bit of subject knowledge learnt tonight!

PGCE was hard but I have to say NQT year was harder and the year after was even harder with the extra NQT time out removed, having to lead a subject and having all expectations of ‘don’t worry about xyz’ as you’re just an NQT removed.

Honestly, the job is horrible at the moment and I wouldn’t recommend it to my worst enemy. I wish I’d got out after just a term whilst I still could! At least it was free when I did it.

Maybe the ECT thing prepares you better than NQT, I don’t know enough about it. Essentially, I found the workload unmanageable and much of it rather pointless! Sorry to be depressing, but I sort of wish someone had sat me down years ago, and told me what it was really like.

Firstly, a pass is a pass so put that behind you now! Secondly, If you are anywhere near Oxfordshire and have to have the notes typed, I'll do it! I love typing.

For Maths knowledge, try websites like mathsisfun for explanations. For English, sites like grammar monster can help. Just stay one step ahead of the class. With year 2, at least it's not dividing fractions or anything!

Make a list of everything that needs to be done. Colour code - red is it absolutely needs to be done straightaway to be able to function in class the next day, like lesson planning or marking (don't let marking get away from you!) - yellow is it should be done soon or for a deadline in the next week or so, like lesson write-ups or an intervention timetable - green for it can be done after other things are finished, so typing notes or finishing off a case study. Start with red, obviously and try and get something yellow done every day. Green things will move to yellow as deadlines become closer, but hopefully they'll be in your radar by then.

It does get easier!

There has been some amazingly helpful advice on here already but I just came on to say that I did a SCITT with a 3 and 5 year old and not only was it probably the hardest year of my life, but January was specifically the hardest moment in the year
My tutor had warned me that January is a killer but it still floored me- combination of higher expectations of you as a trainee, short dark cold days feeling like you never see daylight and the guilt of not having worked none stop over Christmas that you had told yourself you were going to do. Instead you will have quite rightly prioritised your own children to make the time magical for them.

It will get easier. You enjoy teaching, you are very aware of the areas you need to improve and you have passed your assignment. You have already achieved a huge amount- just keep on going

Just being in a lesson counts as contact time. From memory you need to do a certain amount of hours and build up. So if you need to do 4 hrs you could teach 2 and observe 2. Agree with pp just type up notes if they need to be electronic or buy a dictating app you can talk in to and it types for you. BBC bitesize does great quizzes/lessons for english/maths. If you aren't good at assignments then pay someone to proofread (maybe an English tutor) as SPAG will count towards your PGCE. Does your school have a shared area for lessons? If so, utilise this and adapt them to your own style. Or do 1 ppt for all of your lessons that week. Recall quizzes from previous lessons help embed prior learning and act as great starters. Cut down on planning by having sugar paper lessons at the end of a unit, so the students write/present everything they have learned. Get them to mind map and rotate around the class adding skills on. I also like giving students board markers to write on the board and have everyone copy it down. A really nice lesson was getting an extract and displaying on the board and giving them the pens to change one punctuation or word and see how the entire extract changed from the beginning - helps with their SPAG as well.

OP, I just wanted to agree with everyone who said, 'You passed!' Well done. You did well enough not to fail. So move on now.