I’m Emma, 23 years old and last month I joined BBSCITT to train to be a biology teacher.
Before joining the SCITT I was a physiotherapist and I decided to change careers and train as a teacher because I wanted more variety and to get to know the people I am working with while following them through a journey. A month ago I had very little school experience but I currently feel really happy I did it and took the leap into a new career!
Over the first busy, busy month of the SCITT course I’ve met amazing, supportive, down-to-earth fellow trainees as well as qualified teachers. I’ve loved getting classroom experience and building rapport with the pupils in my placement school. I’ve just taught my very first lesson by myself and I’m feeling super proud and positive for the months to come (now I’ve got my head around all the new IT systems!). The SCITT course is well organised and prepares you to get involved really quickly with your placement classes and the wider school.
Check back again for my next update in about a month’s time!
Half Term 1:
We have made it to half term! It’s been an intense but most exciting 8 weeks learning from both the pupils and teachers at my placement school! I have also enjoyed helping out at science club with interesting projects such as ‘invisible writing’🍋🔥 and ‘balloon rockets’🚀🎈.
After half term we have a literature review due to be submitted as part of our PGCE through the University of Worcester. It has been strange getting back into the flow of writing in an academic style again, but made a lot easier by having scheduled days whereby University of Worcester lecturers come up to Barr Beacon to meet with us!👩🏻💻
We are now up to 4 hours of independently taught lessons a week (after half term). So far I have most enjoyed my lessons involving practicals, where you see the pupils become so excited by and engrossed with science!🔬👩🏻🔬 The week before half term we had ITP week (intensive training practice) focussing on modelling which I’m excited to implement further in my future lessons!
Half Term 2:
We’re three weeks away from breaking up for Christmas and I cannot believe how fast the weeks have gone since October half term!🎄We’re now teaching 6 solo hours/lessons a week and honestly it almost seems to be getting easier in some ways when teaching more hours as you can get into a better flow with a topic as opposed to just teaching one lesson a week of a certain topic.
My subject knowledge is rapidly improving from revising topics in such detail, plus even GCSE science seems to make so much deeper sense than it ever did before now I have ‘adult common sense’!👩🏻💻
Last week I went on an A-Level Biology school trip with my placement school to the University of Birmingham and really enjoyed hearing about the inspiring different careers and opportunities stemming from biology such as marine biology, cognitive neuroscience etc.🐳🪸🧠
Next week, for our PGCE we have a presentation due which reflects on the findings from our recent literature review and how we implemented our findings into our own teaching practice which has been incredibly informative📝
