I have a student teacher interview (primary) in 4 days time. It will take a whole day and I have a LOT to prepare. Can you help?

[Showy]

I submitted an application last Monday and have a letter this morning stating I have an assessment day this Monday. I suppose almost no time to prepare is a good reflection of what I'll be facing day to day as a teacher!

I have to do the following...

A formal interview
Undertake a half an hour task (story sharing)
Undertake another half an hour task (mathematics)
Plus some observations/informal chats inbetween.

The story sharing I am quite confident about (my degrees are all in literature and English and I am okay re literacy stuff). I'm going to read a short story, few props, get them to help out and then do a few simple activities afterwards to show they've understood the key themes of the book. It will be a reception class.

The mathematics I have no idea. I know it will be Year 1 and I know the LO is "I can solve simple one step and two step problems involving real life situations". I must use resources. Any suggestions/ideas as a starting point?

The formal interview I guess I'm on my own. I'm generally okay with current issues in education but if anybody wants to share with me what is affecting them right now, I'd appreciate a RL, honest appraisal of issues in teaching from somebody having to cope with it. Otherwise, I'll wear my favourite 'Gove is a muppet' t-shirt with pride and hope it sums up my attitude.

Any other tips? What to wear? What not to say?

Oh dear lord I'm scared.

Go through the last ousted and school website. Ask about what level the children are working at. Ask if there are sn in the group. Differentiation is good!! Get a list of names if you can or ask for the children to wear name labels.
Don't rely on tool much technology- often lets you down. Visit the school gate at the end of the day. Watch. Have you visited and been shown round?

Clothes- smart but not dowdy! Good luck!

I haven't visited or been shown round. This happens on the day. This probably isn't the school where I'll be teaching in my student year, it's just where the assessment day is. RE asking about SN and the levels they're working at, should I contact the school now? I don't want to be asking for that sort of information in front of the class minutes before I'm due to teach them and it's probably the sort of information I need to prepare. Shall I email/phone the school and ask in advance?

For the mathematics, could I do something with money? That would relate to a RL situation, would that be acceptable for Y1? Show them which coins we'll be using, get them to 'buy' things from me such as items needed for a summer holiday, different combinations of coins, working out how to use the coins to buy more than one thing but using each coin only once? Extension work of adding up totals and perhaps an added challenge of working out how much you'd have left over (so introducing subtracting).

Would this work?

Hi.Yes ask for info re the class you will be teaching.quite legit-they may have to provide that for others if you have asked but it's a good brownie point.Helps you prepare. Ask nif there will be TA's etc.
OHH I said Ousted! blame the ipad.

Money is a great idea - but careful re pitching at the right level- have you checked re lesson plans etc from national cirriculum? BBC bitesize ideas?

Look at TES for latest issues-or try the staffroom here.

Thank you for that. I am going to drop into the school where I volunteer tomorrow and run my plan for the Y1 maths lesson past the Y1 teacher. I'm thinking of working with coins up to 10p first to test the waters, then extend to 50p or £1 based on how I think they're doing. I'm also going to try and bring in halving and doubling (half price and buying two of something) if I have time and as a challenge towards the end, bring in giving change.

I'm going to check BBC bitesize and NC stuff later and tailor everything to fit in alongside.

I really struggle with the TES website's layout but have signed up for a free trial of TES pro. I'm going to read through it in a bit and see what the current issues on there are.

showy it sounds like you really know what you are doing!
To give yourself an edge you could suggest how your activity in R could be carried through/support the class's continuous provision.

For year 1 I'd stick to 10p and below. Differentiate with the one and two steps. Subtraction will be a challenge. They could 'count on' to work out change.

A red sweet costs 3p and Billy pays with a 5p. How much change will he get? (one step, counting on)

A green sweet costs 4p. Jane buys two. (that's addition) She pays with a 10p. How much change does she get? (now two steps - will stretch the most able). Support the others to achieve it by using 1p or 2p coins to count it all out.

School may have plastic coins. If you have access to colour printer and laminator you could make a supply of your own printed - you'll use them when you are teaching!
displays.tpet.co.uk/#/ViewResource/id1403 are lovely quality images (and free!). Print 4 sheets to a page for big ones, or 9 for little ones maybe?

Getting them to do two step problems is pretty tough in just half an hour!

Good luck! :-)

Current issues - new curriculum

Like the money idea - playing shops and giving change. Also like doubling and halving idea. I would stick with 10p too. Giving change can be tricky for year 1. You could plan finding change from 20p for any g and t.

Youll, that's brilliant thank you. Having run through some stuff with DD tonight (Y2 but remembers Y1 well), I agree. Up to 10p (dd confirms up to 10 was expected, up to 20 was extension work when they did it and up to £1 was only done by a few), she also said they did doubling/halving in Y1 whilst doing coin work. DD also automatically used counting on to work out change so I'm going to encourage that. It's actually bloody hard to fit a whole lesson into half an hour, especially pausing to re-cap what we've done so far and all the introducing/summing up.

Have also nipped into see my NDN who is a primary teacher. She's going to dig out her pretend money for me. I'm going to print those flash cards too as I think they'll be handy for introducing and summing up and a couple of other things.

I have just had a few more emails come through. In addition to teaching a maths lesson, doing a story share and having an interview, I also have to do a 5 minute presentation. I then have another day of skills assessment a week today and will have various written assessments and planning and editing tasks to do, plus groupwork.

I've also had an email reminding me that I should familiarise myself with the curriculum online. All eleventy billion pages of it. I'll have it down pat in time for them doing away with it later this year

I'm doing The Hare and the Tortoise for the story sharing bit. I've drawn some cartoons to illustrate their moods. That's wasted an hour

And for the record, the missing apostrophe in the title is Gove's fault too. [tired]

Good luck Showy! You will be fantastic am sure

Bless you my lovely. I have The Fear.

Me too. But we will rock it and this time next year will be propping up our eyelids with matchsticks and wondering why we did it!
Go get em.

This time next year I will have taken up drinking. As a hobby. Or self-medication.

On a scale of 1 to Laughed Out of the School, how much will I be judged for making my own resources? The local council's entire network is down and therefore their lovely colour printers in the lovely library are not working. My resources are homemade, home-coloured and a bit, um, felt-tippy. My picture of a hare has a healthy dose of myxomatosis and the tortoise looks distinctly constipated.

Oh lordy.

Rustic and authentic is very now.
You will be fantastic, honestly.

How did it go?