Thread by @GCSE_Macbeth

My NQT Year Did Not Go Very Well. Read This And Learn From My Mistakes.

Thread.

1/

I left uni at 23 with a BA and MA in English. Finished my PGCE at 25. Got the first job I applied for -- I'm pretty good at interviews -- at a big, high-profile, selective school.

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My interview lesson was a textbook case of Education in 2008. I divided the class into five groups, each of which did a drama activity based on a section of The Lady Of Shalott, a poem they had never read before.

That was a pretty good lesson in 2008.

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In my eagerness to say Yes to things, I ended up timetabled to teach a Year 10 class, an A-Level Lit class *AND* and A-Level Lang class.

Three exam specs that were totally new to me, from my first day as a teacher. You can see where this is going.

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The department was a big one, but its approach to planning and sharing was -- how shall we say -- "loose".

Basically, the assessment dates were HERE, HERE and HERE, and whatever youtaught in the interim was entirely up to you.

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There was no centralised planning, no structured resource sharing.

I was granted total freedom at the time I was least equipped to handle it, and not given access to resources at the moment I needed them most.

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What I *SHOULD* have done, of course, was instantly buddy up with my mentor and other teachers, get some resources, follow their planning and keep things nice and derivative.

Of course, I didn't know then that that was the optimal move.

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With the ink still drying on my MA certificate, I vastly overestimated my subject knowledge. Did I sit down and pick through my new set texts at the level of detail they really needed? I did not.

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With minimal input from my mentor or HoD, I set terrible coursework titles that were guaranteed to produce rubbish work.

Did I spend an afternoon reading other people's coursework to get a firm grasp of the style and standard? I did not.

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I had no firm grasp on what progression in English should look like, or how to teach students to get better at it, so I planned lesson after lesson of "activities" -- mostly glorified comprehension.

Worksheets. Oh, the worksheets.

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I blush to share with you some of the awesome "activities" I cooked up, but if I tell you that Year 8s spent time making a diamond 9 of ways in which Alfred Hitchcock created suspense in the film Rear Window, you will get an idea.

(It was 2008, folks).

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Meanwhile, of course, I was learning (or not learning!) A-Level Language as I went along. There was a truly expert and brilliant Language specialist teacher in the dept who shared stuff with me, and was a godsend, so that was something.

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Also meanwhile, my HoD was starting to get antsy about my marking. Which, since I was up at 5 and/or awake until 1am making awesome resources for no reason every day, was starting to suffer.

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Part 14: Behaviour.

In my youthful naivety, I allowed myself to be utterly charmed by the able, articulate, middle-class students of this big selective school. I lacked routines, I lacked firm expectations, and it will not surprise you to learn that they turned pretty soon.

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Imagine a classic behaviour management mistake, and I probably made it. The students, of course, played me like a three-dollar banjo. I don't blame them. I'd have done the same.

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Anyway, I had a one-year probationary contract, and with many a sympathetic smile my HoD informed me that the school probably wasn't going to offer me a permanent post, and in fact were going to advertise.

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As a HoD myself now, I'm not sure how I feel about that. I might not want 2008 me in my department, but I would never give an NQT the experience that I was given.

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So I went out and got a new job for the following year. I am, like I said, pretty good at interviews.

I do have some good memories of my NQT year, but mostly I wince to look back on it. And, of course, I'm still teaching now, so things turned out OK.

END.

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