Wednesday 23 April 2014

Funny Stuff I've Heard Kids Says....

Although I'm only a NQT and in my first year of teaching, I have actually been in the teaching profession through my training for nearly 5 years now. From over this period, I have seen and heard so many silly little quotes that children have done and said. At my first ever placement, I was given a little bit of advice by my mentor who told me to keep a little notebook throughout my training of all things that have made me laugh. So today, I feel like sharing. Hope you enjoy.

"I brock my tooth and I had to get a feeling from the dentist." A Year 3 student explaining her trip to the dentist in her Early Morning Task book.

"My favourite subject is history, I like looking into the post to see what I can find." A Year 5 boy at the start of the year telling me about himself.

"My mum was a bit shock up yesterday because she had a dump in the car." One of my Year 3 students who oftens gets her b's and d's the wrong way round.

"Today I painted an octopus with big eyes and eight purple testicles." After teaching art to my Year 2 class, one little girl decided to write a letter to her mummy explaining what she did throughout the day.

"The North Pole is so cold that the people who live there have to live somewhere else." A boy in my Year 4 class getting a little confused with his geography knowledge.

"I saw some grillers at the zoo, they werr big and herry like my dad." A little girl in my Year 2 being very honest.

"My mum falled down the stairs, and was lying prostitute on the ground." The fact he spelt 'prostitute' correctly still amazes me today.

"In the field next to our house they think they have found the remains of a Roman fart." Just needed put the curl on the 'r' and it would of turned into a 'c' but he didn't and it still makes me chuckle.

I hope you have enjoyed reading these as much as I have enjoyed looking through my notebook and selecting my favourite few quotes. I've got loads more to share but these are some of the best I have witnessed. I would highly recommend if your starting out as trainee on a PGCE or a BEd course that you do the same. I often take a quick picture at the end of the school day of anything that has amused me. 

Anyway, as it is a new term I hope your all getting back into the swing of things. Over and out.

Mr. W

Thursday 10 April 2014

My App List

Being in a world that is swarmed by technology and coming from a teaching degree with a background of technology, I feel the urge to share with you my essential teacher app list. As I am writing this post, my current original iPad is on it's last legs and can't keep up with my constant usage of it, I hope this tempts fate and it dies forever so I can purchase myself a new one. Needless to say, I am still in love with it from the first day. So I though I'd share a few apps that are essential for my life and well-being. 

Google Drive (free) Google Drive is a free service that allows you to access all your digital files anywhere when you have an internet connection. This app is installed on my iPhone, iPad and Mac mini. Whenever I supply teach, I can access it easily on the school network and have all my supply resources at a click of a button. When you save anything to Google Drive, it automatically saves to all your devices. This app is a must.

GoodNotes 4 (£3.99) GoodNotes is like a digital whiteboard. This app allows you to take notes and annotate PDFs, which can sync to all other devices like Google Drive does. Microsoft Word and PowerPoint files are supported too. A easy-to-use user face is welcomed, you can type with the keyboard, insert images or draw perfect shapes easily. This app is very flexible to your needs and worth the price tag.

Flipboard (free) The social news magazine. A very popular way to gather all your news feeds in one app. Select magazines from the world of education and app news. Can easily connect to your social network sites. I use this a daily cup of tea moment and catch up all the world of news as well as reading the latest news of education. A very handy app.

Evernote (free) Evernote in simple terms helps you remember everything across all of your devices that you use. Your be able to stay organised, save your ideas and improve productivity. If you are fortunate to have an iPads or an iTouch in your classroom, children love this handy app to take notes, capture photos and record voice reminders.

PhatPad (£5.49) PhatPad is a note-taking App that opens with a plain white slate that allows you to take notes with a stylus. A great little gadget within this App is it gears towards inking and includes a palm rest rejection technology, which tells the App to record your writing and ignore the marks from your palm resting on the iPad screen. This App offers everything that you will need to express your ideas, enabling you to draw pictures, jot down notes and insert a mixture of drawings and images.

TagDisk HD (£3.99) If your school is like many and doesn't allow you access to YouTube then this App could be a life saver. For a small price, you can download any video from YouTube and download it straight within the App and can be played back either with WiFi or offline. There's no watermark either on the video which is a plus too.

TED (free) TED is an entire library at your fingertips of educational videos. Updated daily, watch videos from educational radicals and tech gurus.

Hope you have found some of these useful. I use all of these Apps religiously on a daily basis as they make my life as a teacher far more easier by using them.

Mr. W

Monday 7 April 2014

It's the Easter Holidays.... Another half-term

What a long term, yet it only feels like Christmas was last weekend. Anyone else agree? What started off as the odd bit of supply work here and there at the beginning of January, turned into a constant frenzy of numerous schools which turned into long-term supply cover at one infant school which in latter turned into another long-term post after Easter at another school. HAPPY DAYS!
So the holidays begin...
So the holidays have begun and I technically have a job for one term only, which hopefully will turn into a full-time post come September as I've heard from the head that they will advertise for a new class teacher. I need to keep my head down and shine like an angel. Furthermore, before I start thinking to the distant future, I need to plan for my near future - that means lesson plans!! 

Being a busy-bee that I am, I am going to try and update the blog as much as I can over the holidays as I plan to do a page about QTS help and have a post on Apps that I strongly believe can assist any teacher in my position. I'm still finding it hard to gain traffic to the blog, I've google'd many searches on how I can promote my blog using Twitter, Google+ and Pinterest, yet I'm still witnessing slight viewing numbers. If anyone has any suggestions on this topic, it would be greatly appreciated. 

Anywho, on a final note I would like to share a couple of books I've bought recently and plan to read over the holidays. The first is 'The Lazy Teacher's Handbook: How your students learn more when you teach less', not saying I see myself as a lazy teacher but I've heard good reviews about this book with lots of ways of shifting the emphasis off teaching and onto learning. The second book I've started reading is 'Jumpstart!: Literacy - Games and Activities for 7-14 year olds', I've seen this book on many teacher desks in classrooms throughout my supply teaching career and decided that me being the intrusive person that I am, I need to read this. Being a Pie Corbett book as well, I've already found numerous creative lesson starters and multi-sensory games I can use as soon as I'm back teaching.

Finally, to all those teachers out there that are used too marking books this late on a Monday afternoon or who are still school, I salute you. Let's enjoy these two weeks while they last. Happy Easter everybody.

Mr. W

Tuesday 25 March 2014

Teacher Portfolio

Professional Teaching Portfolio

Since I am currently applying for primary teaching jobs and waiting on call backs from the applications I have put in, I have decided to share with you my version of my Professional Teaching Portfolio. My lecturer in my final year at University suggested we make one that reflects our personality. 

So if you are unfamiliar with Teaching Portfolios, or looking for ideas, I thought I would post up images of mine to give you a little inspiration. I have organised mine in a way that suits me but you can tweak yours to your desire.

Being a primary school teacher here in England, I have included lots of visual aids, tons of colour, been super OCD on the format and style of mine, as well as laminating all my photos. 

Please find the 'Teaching Portfolio' tab above this post, which is located under the blog title. Hope you enjoy and find it useful.

Mr. W





Saturday 22 March 2014

"Do what you love and you'll never work a day in your life"

Trying to find my feet in a world of education


Welcome. If you are reading this then I hope you have already realised that I am a teacher, a primary school teacher to be exact. I have been debating whether to create a blog for a long time now but on Saturday 22nd March 2014, whilst lying in bed with a cup of English tea I have decided to go for it.

At this stage, I am unsure where this blog will take me but I do want it to express my views on the current education system here in the UK, provide teaching resources, teacher tips and pretty much anything else I come across relating to what I do and what I love.

So.... who, what, and where am I now?


This is currently me
As you can see from the above photo, I am currently a supply teacher. But before I got here I had 4 years at Plymouth University studying a BEd (Hons) in Primary Education with a specialism of ICT (now turned to Computing). I graduated last July with QTS and a 2:1 for my degree. Today, I am working for a teaching agency in the Westcountry, while it is not always full-time work it is providing me with greater experience and even greater confidence for when I do finally master that one interview and get myself my first teaching post.

I am currently a Twitter and Pinterest fanatic, the resources available on these platforms are endless and I have found so many useful and effective teaching materials whilst browsing upon them. Please feel free to find and add me as I am constantly pinning and tweeting what I find.

My Twitter account and huge MUFC fan
Find me on Pinterest

As I come to end of my first blog post, I feel I have started something which has the potential to be a great use to myself and anyone who comes across when browsing on the Internet. I will try and keep a weekly update at least about whats happens in my world. I also need to make decision on my next career move after the Summer term as I have had two offers for long-term placement. 1. is full-time at large junior school and 2. is 0.6 rota at a small village school. Both will count towards my NQT year and both have the potential to have a full-time job come September. However, I need to decide which school will support and value my contribution the most. Hopefully the next next blog I post, I would have made a decision and can sort of say "I finally have a teaching post" (well kind of).

Thanks for reading.
Mr. W