How to Survive Your Teacher Training
Make friends:
The other trainees on your course are the only people in your life, right now, who know exactly what you are going through. They can share their plans with you, share tips with you, share your worries and share your successes. Create a network of friends that you can discuss your training with and you will have the best experts on hand to help you with whatever you come across on your training program.
Keep your family close:
Your family will be tested this year. Okay, you are the focus and this will be the toughest year of your career, but your family will come for the ride with you. They will be there for you through it all. Maybe you have friends or a partner at home who you will rely on too. Whoever it is, make sure they are aware of what you are taking on. Make sure they know that you may turn into a monster this year! Make sure they are available on the other end of the phone or for a hug at the end of the day, because trust me, you will need them. Treat them with the respect and gratitude that they deserve, because you won’t be able to do this without them.
Plan, plan, plan:
Soon after starting your teacher training course you will realise that planning is at the centre of being a teacher. Every lesson you teach needs to be planned. When you start to plan lessons, it might take you a whole Saturday afternoon to plan a one hour lesson. When you’ve done that a few times, the time it takes to plan a lesson will reduce. The next time you may be able to plan a series of five lessons in one afternoon. It’s okay if it seems to be taking you longer than your fellow trainees, everyone learns at a different pace and it might just mean that you are putting more detail into your plans. At some point, you will be asked to plan all of the English and all of the Maths lessons for the next few weeks. When I was first asked this I was in disbelief that it was even humanly possible. I did it though. I asked the other teachers for their advice, I looked at other examples and after a very long, gruelling weekend, I had finally planned a whole week of English and Maths (that’s one lesson of each, every day of the week, plus any topic lessons you may need to plan on top of that). It is definitely possible. It WILL get easier. Just keep planning.
Choose a time to switch off:
I slowly realised that working until 2 am in the morning and getting up at 6.30 am was not healthy. It made me slow and sluggish the next day, which meant I wasn’t at my best to teach the children that I so badly wanted to teach. I tried to make bed time a little earlier, by stopping my work at midnight, but I still found I wasn’t getting to sleep until 2 am. I was tossing and turning, thinking about all the planning and marking I had done and the bits I had left to do. Then, a fellow trainee suggested to me that I give myself an hour at the end of every day to watch my favourite TV show. She said that this had really helped her to wind down and switch off before going to sleep. The first time I tried it I stopped working at 11 pm, put my favourite programme on and was asleep by midnight. Gradually, I managed to make that time even earlier so that I was getting a good 7 hours sleep every night. This was a really valuable lesson for me. You cannot possibly complete everything on your ‘to do’ list. No matter how much work you do, you will always add something onto the end of the list and the list will never disappear. Just accept that. So it is imperative that you choose a time and switch off at the end of every day. You cannot teach those children if you are tired.
That fits in very well with my next point…
Chocolate:
Any teacher survival kit contains chocolate. If you don’t like chocolate (what!?) then choose your own treat, it may be a slice of cake or a bowl of strawberries. Whatever it is, make sure you treat yourself. You are doing a very hard thing. If you do a School Direct course, then you are basically doing a full time job and a full time degree course, so you deserve a treat once in a while! In the same way that you can’t teach the children if you are tired, you also can’t teach them if you are sad. Most children come to school every day excited to see you. If you’re not happy, it will have an effect on them. Don’t let that happen.
Make time for a hobby:
I started jogging with my flat mate when I did my teacher training and it kept me sane. It allowed me to concentrate on something other than plans, books and essays. Jogging was a brilliant hobby to have because it also kept me fit and healthy and allowed me to be happy about myself at a time when, sometimes, I just wanted to give up. It doesn’t have to be jogging, it could be playing your guitar, playing football, playing on your Xbox, going for a coffee once a week with a friend, swimming, anything! Just make sure you have one hour, once a week, for fun.
Listen to everyone and write it all down:
The theories you learn about in your lectures and workshops will help you to write your essays. The practical skills you are taught on training days will help you to manage behaviour and build on your teaching practice. However, the most valuable source of information you will have this year will be the teachers that surround you. Observe as many lessons as you can, take all the notes that will fit in your notepad and ask as many questions as you can think of. One of my lecturers called it a 'swag bag’. She said to take ideas from other teachers and put them into your own 'swag bag’. The idea is that if you take all of the best bits from what you have observed, then your skill set by the end of the year will contain the best of the best. I found this really helpful. Some of the behaviour management techniques that I will use in my NQT year were stolen from other teachers lessons. It’s what teaching is all about. You use the best techniques to enable you to be the best teacher you can be.
Your initial teacher training year will be the hardest year of your own education. It will be the first year of your teaching career. Don’t give up. It’s only one year and it will change your life forever. Good luck!