Post 16 PGCE

[Bella43]

Hello,

I'm studying towards a post 16 PGCE. I'm finding a lot of teaching advice online about primary and secondary school teaching but hardly anything on post 16. The same goes for finding resources. I've had a look at the Twinkl website but, again, that's for schools, not for colleges/adult education. I'm currently on placement. The students are aged 16/18. I've started creating a few lesson plans for them but it would be great to source some ideas online as I'll have to create around 20 lessons from scratch and my ideas barrel is slowly drying up.

It would also be great to find a website or blog about post 16 trainee teachers. I can't seem to find anything and feel like I'm wandering around in the dark with all this. Most of my peers are already teaching in their jobs but I'm new to it all. This has been a complete career change for me. I'm loving it now but it was overwhelming to begin with and it'd be nice to read about others going through the same experience. I've seen school trainee teacher blogs and websites but they're not relevant at all. They talk about yard duty, glitter and laminating everything but the school hamster! It doesn't apply when I'm working in a college where students are 16 +

Thanks in advance

Have you got a mentor? Are they not pointing you in the right direction?

What subject is this OP?

My mentor is lovely but very busy with lots of classes. I only get to see her for 10 minutes before class starts. I dont think she has mentored before as she asked me at the start what I wanted from the placement. I had no idea as this is all new to me. I guess I'm there to observe and learn how to teach She has been helpful though in terms of getting me involved in class. I've built up my confidence and she praises me a lot. Yesterday my course tutor said I should've booked or even had my 1st TPO visit by now. I nearly fell through the floor! I haven't even taught a full lesson yet. To have a TPO I'd need to have developed a scheme of work, a polished lesson plan and resources. There's no way I can get all that done now so it'll have to wait a few weeks. I've told them this too. I'm done worrying about that now. It's happened and there's nothing I can do about it. The communication just doesn't seem to be there on this course. I did think of dropping out altogether last month because I'm finding the lack of information so trying but now I've started placement and I've come so far with assignments it'd be a shame to pack it all in. I want to complete the course now as I know it'll be the key to lots of doors.

The course is Maths, English and Digital Literacy. It's a great course and the students are nice to me! In that respect I've landed on my feet.

What Subject are you training to teach? Have you signed up to TES?