Thread 56 – Covid GCSE Cohort – Spring 26 – Yr 4 Uni and Graduates

[crazycrofter]

The old thread has filled up and no one noticed - I think we're missing @oblomov26 sharp eyes!

I've tried to tag in everyone I can think of, but apologies to anyone I've missed!
@shimy @endlessdistraction @justherewithmypopcorn @mummyinbeds @aslockton @oubliettebravo @craggyrat @anothernewname460 @ealingwestmum @ewwsprouts @seeline @piggywaspushed @nctdn @icanbewhatiwant @comefromaway @heifer @kingscotestaff @delphigirl @zebracat @cantonet @socks1107 @blinkbonny @anneofcleavage

Huge congratulations to DS2 @PiggywaspushedHe has played the waiting game so patiently and it’s all paid off.

Great news on the house share @NCTDNThat sounds a great deal and great it worked out for your DS too @Aslockton

DD has nearly completed à full week in the classroom and it’s so much harder than she could ever have expected. The children are so
hyped after a long summer off and only 5 and so she’s only trying to get on top of behaviour management - any tips from you teachers in KS1?
She’s already had to write an IEP and needs to do an EHCP by 3rd week Sept and she barely
knows the children well yet.
There’s been tears (not in front of the children) and her head said to her that year 1
is the hardest year but that he saw something very special in her at interview and knows she’ll be fantastic. She’s already saying to us she does not want to do another year in KS1 but I think she’s doing great and it’s such early days. I think it’s the emotional disregulation of some children that is getting her down as they just scream cry if something does not go their way and with 30 children that is nearly always the case.
Any suggestions and hints gratefully received 😁

Bless him @crazycrofter, but as a boyfriend, he sounds like a keeper :)

I have no words of value @AnneOfCleavage other than it really is such early days, and the fact that she intuitively feels and knows why the class room is so hyper charged, these first few weeks are the worst they can be. So it will only get better. And the more distraction she is able to deploy with all the good stuff they do in KS1, the more she'll be valued by her charge.

One day at a time...

Great news @Piggywaspushed

All hectic here for DD - she accepted her coffee shop job and was then offered an interview at a wedding dress shop (a dream job for a girl who has watched every episode of Say Yes To The Dress) and a job at the Job Centre where she's been signing on. She's sticking with the coffee shop as the hours suit her part time student status better but at least knows she is doing something right.
And then she got caught up in the air traffic control drama on Tuesday. After 20 something hours at the airport and a delayed flight eventually being cancelled she was back home and now faces a fight with Ryanair to make them refund the return part of the flight - they only cancelled the outbound flight so apparently she can still use the return 🫤 Hopefully her travel insurance will cover everything else.
And DS is mainly asleep 💤

That sounds hard @AnneOfCleavage but I imagine it's fairly typical for year 1 at this stage in the year? I have no words of wisdom to add (I quit my secondary PGCE half way through!) but she sounds very capable and the school has confidence in her, so I'm sure it can only get better. She just needs to get through to half term at this point!

It feels like the job offers are flooding in on this group now @mummyinbeds - good news for your dd!

@AnneOfCleavageshe needs to start really firm and then can back off. If it’s the other way round the children will know what they can get away with, even in y1.
Quite often it’s the parents leaving them in the morning that are the issue more than the children - do parents bring then to the door? If she has calming music on in the classroom as they enter that can help with any dysregulation. Clear routines for the children help massively.

@AnneOfCleavage
We had a tricky year 1 class last year at my school. The main thing is to be firm and prepared to wait for quiet, or lining up sensibly. Give everything extra time to install this discipline. Set off for assembly early and be prepared to go back to the classroom and line up again etc.

Our year 1 teacher put each table into teams and gave out table points for good behaviour. It soon focuses the mind when children are getting a table point for sitting nicely, tidying up, giving a good answer, helping another child. Praise, praise, praise the good behaviour and the other children will want some praise and reward too. Rewards can be extra playtime, taking a Teddy home, watering the plants, a sticker, a trip to the headteachers office for a well done, name on a super star board.

I made a catch-me-if-you-can poster of some of the good behaviour I expected. A photo of someone sitting nicely on the carpet, someone with their hand up, someone lining up nicely. I would then say, “well done Lucy, Aaron and Amol, I have caught you sitting nicely, go and get a table points. Oh David and Jaz I have caught you sitting nicely too. You may get a table point.” Then start the lesson!

It is exhausting and takes time. Good luck, a day at a time…

Use clapping in a rhythm and the children clapping back to get attention or everyone give me 5 and expect everyone to show a hand of 5 in the air and listen. Wait, wait, wait for quiet. Don’t try to compete with talking children.

Thank you so much. I’ve read out all
your suggestions to DD and this coming week she will trial them. She has started a cold already - cannot remember the last time she was ill - so I can tell she’s run down. Her graduation is on Wednesday and she’s worried she won’t feel
up to it or look well in her photos (paid for professional ones) and she’s due on now so has that coming too. At least it’s a day off 5yr olds 😁 I don’t know whose idea it was to do graduation
for teachers in September when they’ve mostly all started new teaching jobs. July would have been more sensible. I’m so excited for it though.

She is also in a swamp of germs which it will take her immune system a while to adjust to. I remember during the height of Covid when they told teachers that children wouldn't spread infections. How we all laughed.

Graduation in September for teachers is ridiculous!

'Please God, let the flood come my way'.

Congrats all with new jobs!

Graduation for PGCEs is a new thing , I think. Well, when I say new...we didn't have them 30 years ago...

I had a graduation, but mine wasn’t a pgce but BSc with QTS. It was a newer thing that BEd but not sure they really took off on that status!

I was BSc QTS and had a graduation at a cathedral in the July straight after final teaching practice. DH was BA then a PGCE (SCITT course validated by a London university). No PGCE graduation. I did not go to my MEd graduation, just got the certificate through the post and the masters has not made a jot of difference to my career. Luckily pre-student loans.

I did a SCITT too - at the age of 40 - and since there were only 38 of us, we skipped the Kingston Uni graduation and just had a massive dinner!

Where did you study?

Hoping your Ds will be next @Shimy !

Bishop Grosseteste College in Lincoln and Hull university. You?

Ah I was York St John. Guessing it would be similar years when the qts was a new thing.

Yes, 1994 graduation. I was supposed to go to York St John the previous year but my parents would not allow me to go to university and phoned up York, the week before I was due to start, to say I was not coming. They were old school, so believed university was a waste of time and I should be working not studying.

I had a gap year, worked 3 jobs (working 70 hours a week) and went the following year to a university closer to home. I paid my own way through university- no loans in those days. My grandparents dropped me off and I never went home again.

Ironically, my parents could not have been prouder on my graduation day and they were proud too of the teaching career I made for myself and the joy it brought me. (I got married the week after graduating and moved 150 miles away).

God, this is like therapy!!

Wow @Aslocktonyou were really determined to do all that on your own - very impressive! Did your parents accept your choice whilst you were at uni or not til later?

Wow @Aslockton what a story. What resilience! I was 1994 too. So glad there were no fees in those days as I don’t think I’d have gone if that was the case.