I recently spoke about my initial experiences studying teaching. It’s now a few weeks later, and my first placement is over, so it’s time for instalment two of the Postgraduate Teaching Diaries!
How the placement gets sorted
My university has a specific system used for placement allocation. You provide details like your address (it’s important that it’s up to date, because you might otherwise be allocated a very inconvenient school!), your Working With Children Check, and some preferences. The university then allocates your school.
It may be different at other universities (you may need to be more actively involved in sourcing your placement school, for example), but my experience was fairly straightforward and painless.
Preparing for placement
Once my school was allocated, I did a little bit of research, and got in contact with my mentor teacher. I found it useful making this initial connection to get information like dress code, expectations for the first day, and where to meet. It was a lot easier than rocking up on day one and trying to work it out in real time!
Preparation also included ensuring I had everything that I needed. This included a whole range of documents, but also things like appropriate clothes, whiteboard markers, a clipboard for notes and reflections - stuff like that. My advice - particularly for your first placement - is to organise these sorts of things at least a couple of weeks in advance, just to avoid a stressful last-minute rush.
The first day
I arrived a little bit early (I wanted to avoid the traffic!), and then went for a calming walk around the area before making my way to the front office at the pre-organised time. I signed in, and then waited to meet my mentor teacher.
Before school, my mentor teacher showed me around, and ‘inducted’ me by talking about expectations, where I could find things like toilets and the staffroom, and what was on the agenda for that day. I met some of the other staff, and felt pretty comfortable almost straight away (which is probably testament to the school!). This first placement was in a primary school, but where you’re placed will depend on your degree type (as I’m studying both primary and secondary teaching, I’ll have my first secondary placement later this year).
What’s actually involved day-to-day
My role over the two weeks was a little bit varied. In the first day or two, I spent a lot of time getting to know the students, trying to memorise names, and working with them one-on-one to help with their work. I was actively involved in the classroom, but not actually taking full classes.
As placement progressed, I became more involved in terms of full-class teaching. By the end of the two weeks, I had taken a number of full classes across areas of reading, writing, and mathematics. It was a bit scary initially, but was a fantastic experience overall - and my mentor teacher provided great feedback on how to improve. The school was really supportive.
Further to being involved in the classroom every day, I also participated in things like team meetings, professional learning, lesson planning, yard duty, assemblies, and cross country trials. These are all aspects of teaching, and the expectation is that you will be involved accordingly. I’m glad that was the case, because these aspects gave a much more rounded view of what the profession is actually like.
Hidden costs
You don’t have to pay anything extra to go on placement - it’s part of your course costs. But given that you need to block out full days for weeks at a time (you’re expected to be there before school, plus for after-school meetings etc.), it makes it really difficult to continue with regular work in a lot of cases. For example, I stopped working for the full two weeks, aside from some short shifts on Friday evenings.
For some, stopping work just might not be a financially viable option, meaning shifts would most likely need to be in the evenings or on weekends. Whilst this is theoretically doable, it requires a lot of flexibility and pre-planning. I found it useful not needing to think as much about work as usual after coming home from long placement days.
Different universities will have different expectations in terms of the total number of days you’re on placement, but I think it’s important to recognise that you will most likely lose earning potential over these placement periods. Depending on your circumstances, you may also spend more on things like petrol (I don’t usually drive much, but I certainly drove more than usual over the two weeks) and clothes (you may need to invest in clothes that are professional and in line with the school’s culture). You don’t need to pay anything extra to go on placement, but there are several associated factors that may cost you.
The main takeaways
I see what people mean about learning the most from placement. There are practical things I learnt - like how to deal with certain situations - that you just couldn’t fully appreciate in a classroom setting.
It was scary and a little overwhelming being back in a classroom environment (and on the other end of the teaching for the first time), but it was overall an enjoyable and rewarding experience. I’m interested to see what my first secondary placement will be like later this year!
If there’s one thing I’d do more in hindsight - and this is easy to say now, in retrospect - it would be to take more risks when delivering my lessons. I think it would be, overall, more useful to be as active as possible in the planning stage and the delivery stage. Mistakes are inevitable. As pre-service teachers, the more mistakes we make now, I guess the more we’ll have experienced once we actually enter the profession!
LANTITE
As an aside, I also recently sat the LANTITE: the Literacy and Numeracy Test for Initial Teacher Education Students. There is a literacy component and a numeracy component. I opted to complete both components online, meaning the tests had to be monitored via remote proctoring.
The LANTITE is designed to ensure new teachers are suitably equipped with skills and knowledge required to effectively teach. Each component runs for two hours, with questions covering a wide range of topics/skills from those areas.
There are practice materials and sample questions available. I personally think it’s quite difficult to study for these tests, but I do recommend doing these sample questions in advance just to get familiar with the structure of the format. Doing this prior (and completing the checklist of things you need to do/download if you’re completing the tests remotely) will hopefully make things a little easier on the day.
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