All entries for Thursday 08 December 2011

IAA really monotonous 2 weeks.

Internal Assessment Activities are the bain of my life. Now there is many a positive of having a subject specialism which is in short supply and high demand. Coursework is not one of them.

Having been earmarked to run all Physics internal courseworks at my school for years 10 and 11 who are doing GCSE, there was a murmuring from some senior people that that was unfair. So instead of doing it continuously with all 6 GCSE groups, it is now down to 5.

There has been an IAA rota in place for 2 weeks now, and I feel like that is all I have done. One thing I can say, I am getting much better and efficient at delivering the lessons, doing the practical, making the mock exam time beneficial so they are well prepared for the real exam they take at the end of the 4 hours I have with them. But it has been hard work. It has been pretty rough in that I am consistently setting cover work each day, and I won't have seen my year 12s for 3 and a half weeks...

And then there'll be about 135 exams to mark over Christmas. Which means I have to mark 7.1 papers a day to have them done for next term.

I best be on Santa's nice list!

In other news, had my second observation last week. Got a 'Good' with lots of outstanding on there, though progress was only 'good' so that was the best I could do. What I discovered on my GTP last year was one persons opinion did not necessarily replicate in the next observer. This is still true now. Acting on feedback from my first observation, it seems I went 'too far' with the challenge aspect of the lesson. Anyway, I was happy with it which I guess is the important thing.

I have also decided over the last couple of weeks I will start an MA in Educational Innovation, and make sure those 30 CATS completed last year during the GTP doesn't go to waste. The workload for the NQT year I am finding absolutely fine so far. This is solely down to the GTP last year and the endless lesson plans that I wrote.

I am lucky that my school are willing to pay for the fees, so I really should take advantage of their generosity, and I thank them here in this most public of forums for it!! Course does look good from the limited information available, and I love the idea of giving it a science specialism. Hopefully it would have a massive impact on my teaching practise, and my aspiration to one day reach the dizzy heights of an AST.

Enjoy the end of term, my year 7 form Christmas party is going to be awesome!

Steve x

Steve Essex : 08 Dec 2011 23:14 |  Tags: Coursework Masters Observations |  Comments (4) |  Close comments |  Report a problem