Decided something work wise...

[Diagro]

Hey

I currently work in an IT Dept within a school as a Snr Tech.

I have decided to do Teacher training next year to be a Computer Science teacher. There is a placement at my school to do a year QTS training here which would work for me very well as i know the network and all the software that's installed, and i know a good chunk of the students. (well no chance of recalling their names but nevermind).

Anyone else here a teacher?

Is there any advice you can give?

 

[Diagro]

Honestly, my advice would be go elsewhere for any QTS training or the like. (Being a IT manager in a school).

We had a previous person go from Tech to Teacher, issue is he still gets asked to do various work around the school and still gets treated at times like support staff (from both over staff and students).

I had thought this may be the case.
But I also have more reason to do the training here as they are willing to support me in more ways than a new school would.

Shadowing teachers before sept for example.

 

[Diagro]

So my application has been accepted.
Now i just need to wait for the people to get back to me.

I have decided that if i get accepted on the program at my current work i will take it, because its an outstanding school with an outstanding in student behavior.

 

[Diagro]

What age group of students would you be teaching?

I did some teaching IT at a college whilst studying, 14-19 year olds (BTEC First/National in IT).

Be prepared for the fact that the job is 10% actual teaching, 90% classroom control...

I also found it extremely frustrating how the work was assessed. Not sure if this is just for BTEC, but the assignments were essentially a series of tick-box criteria which the students had to meet, e.g. if their assignment does/contains A, B & C they get a Pass, D and E they get a Merit, F, G & H they get a Distinction.

There were 2 problems I found with this:

1: There was no distinction (pardon the pun ) between the students who worked hard and produced quality work to meet all the criteria, and those who messed around for the majority of the lessons and did the bare minimum to get a tick in the box - what's the point in that?!

2: LEA funding is given per student in 4 parts based on attendance and achievement. The college gets paid a quarter of the student's funding for each of the 3 terms they are still on the course, and the final quarter if they pass. This means that the college is extremely incentivised to keep "bums on seats" for the full year; there are 2 results of this:

A) The students who don't give a **** get chance after chance to redo the assignments until they get at least a pass, because the college lose 25% of the funding if they don't pass. This basically means that the qualification is worthless.

B) The students who don't give a **** mess around constantly, disrupting the class for the ones who actually want to be there and learn something. The college wont do anything about it (e.g. kick them out), because they lose funding.

I'll be honest, I quit after I finished my degree because I found the whole thing a waste of time. I'm sure it's not the same in every educational institute, but personally I lost a lot of faith in the system after all of the above. :/

I'm looking at secondary.

yea I understand that college is like that, not fun for any teacher.

I have just been asked to interview at a far more local school for a placement. 16 miles closer!...

I may go... need to decide if I really want to leave this current school and go somewhere completely new or not. I know the staff here and I know the people I would end up working along side. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing though

 

[Diagro]

I'm being forced to take a skills test by the gov....

the maths one is crazy, 18 seconds to answer each mental arithmetic question. Lots of people complaining about it. The questions aren't even hard but require at least 30 seconds to answer...

really worried about it now as I have a working memory disability, I would need to hear the question several times to be able to answer it -.-

 

[Diagro]

If it's diagnosed surely there are exceptions?

Yea, dug out my paperwork for the diagnosis.

Seems i qualify for 25% extra time, but that doesn't apply to the mental section. still get 18 seconds.

There is an option to have it written instead of spoken at you, that will help no end because i can actually read the question 2+ times by the time the woman has read it once.

The English test is annoying me because i cannot spell due to my Dyslexia.
Have to ask for extra time on this one and also to have it non spoken, should help no end.

Should be fun.

I have put back the maths one till mid June, gives me plenty of time to learn some techniques

 

[Diagro]

Passed the English test! Honestly supprised.

very happy though.

 

[Diagro]

Well done, Diagro. Don't worry about Dyslexia -- plenty of teachers went over this hurdle before, and have made a valuable contribution to childrens' lives all over the country. Keep going.

KhanAcademy is always a good shout for arithmetic tests; but it's more skewed towards the US school curriculum.

For extra challenge and background: https://www.ukmt.org.uk/. But this is way over what the school curriculum requires.

Don't forget to look into speed arithmetic. Something like the Trachtenberg system could be picked up in a couple of weeks. Don't go wild with the "air abacus" you may hear about, though!

Practice, obtain fast algorithms, and then practice, practice and practice some more; tis how you obtain crazy speed. Best of luck!

Hello!

Thanks for this valuable advice, I will have a look at those.

the speed is what I'm lacking, I have it booked on the 11th of June, I will be practicing

 

[Diagro]

I have reached a blockade.
uni won't accept my English lit gcse. And my lanage is not a C grade.
Don't know to get around this

 

[Diagro]

Odd, as you've passed the English part of the selection test.

Ask them what would they accept as an alternative, if anything? Surely there's something on the qualifications framework that can save you both time and money. I know the requirements have been tightened. But if they aren't budging, you can probably sit the exam and get a C in the summer/autumn. Some may let you off with an OU module, but that used to happen in the past, not sure about now.

I have asked them, and they are going to get back to me.

I have also asked the exam officer at work if i can sit an exam and she seems to think i can. I just need the Heads approval and the Exam board to allow it.

The Head seems to think i have missed the boat on that, but the exams officer thinks there is time left to sort it.

If and that's a big IF they let me sit it, i will have to do a super quick crash course on the current English language GCSE framework!

 

[Diagro]

Interviews done.

Been offered a place at my current school.

Waiting to hear back from the second.


I'm leaning towards my current school. There are some negatives doing so but the positives far outweigh them.

The second school is part of a large trust and i would be covering 3-6 schools... Not ideal at all.
So not that happy about that one.