My word, what an emotional rollercoaster this week was. And it’s only been 3½ teaching days! I’ve now met all my classes and I can see why this year is going to be a challenge. I have come home many evenings and cried, but I actually had a good day on Thursday! Perhaps it was because I had two Year 12 classes. I think my downfall is behaviour management. Take Friday’s lessons, for instance – they were nothing short of shambolic. Thank goodness I wasn’t being observed. It killed me when one boy said to me, “Miss, I didn’t learn anything that lesson.” I mean, I just don’t know what I’m supposed to do. KS3 practicals really do fill me with dread – thirty uncontrollable 13-year-olds is a nightmare. I demo activities, collection of equipment is fine – and then it goes wrong. I’m trying so hard to pinpoint what it is so that I can rectify it. I think I just get in a fluster because I anticipate it going wrong.
But it’s not just practicals. I had my GCSE Applied Science group on Friday as well and it was only a “textbook” lesson. It was disastrous. I was crying on the shoulders of both deputy heads of department by the end of the day. I think I’ve realised that the lessons that go wrong are the ones I’m not confident with even before I’ve walked into the classroom – if I have no faith in the lesson, there is no lesson basically. If there’s the slightest doubt in my head about the lesson, it seems to go wrong. So that means it’s back to PGCE-style lesson planning for me.
I’m being observed by SLT in the next week or so and I really don’t feel ready. I have no confidence in myself whatsoever. I think I was more confident as a trainee. I still don’t feel ready to take on classes of my own. Is that normal for an NQT?…
