Cheers guys, what also pisses me off is that he knows how difficult the year has been for me. My son being born premature and my wife being so ill post pregnancy that her case ended up being referred to specialist at kings college medical department as the hospital was at a loss as were the doctors.

Syph on the money. Just be calm, or at least try, and just ask him. Kill the fucker with kindness and professionalism.

I wouldn't even ask him. The guy has obviously got it in for you, so asking him about it isn't going to end well for anyone. You can't expect to be universally loved in life, but the good news is that now you know he's got it in for you, you can just give him a wide berth and get on with your life.
At the end of the day, you still have a job you enjoy anyway, a wife, and a new baby. A man doesn't need much more than that in life I'd wager.

be happy

g.man

Kettle surely?

That’s me on the train (and at ScotRail’s mercy) for the next six weeks of my life.

I have an incredibly bad feeling about this placement. They’ve asked a lot of me, and not been responsive in turn.

I have just clocked I fluffed my S3 module plan email by not CCing in the PT/Class teacher and vice versa on my S1 Class, so I am fully expecting another Dressig Down this morning about rigour, and professionalism, and putting in The Extra mile... despite the fact my time table from Uni says that I should be looking to primarily observe this week.

Small snafus that I feel anywhere else would accept as par for the course for an overwhelmed new student, but that this place will use as a beating stick

The whole thing fills me with absolute dread to be honest, I’m too timid to stand up for myself so it’s forelock tugging from here til Christmas.

Anyway, I am looking forward to teaching, just expected a slightly more receptive faculty.

That's going to be tough, but it'll be a huge character building opportunity in teaching you how to cope and problem solve within the rigours of the system.

good luck! you got this

g.man

Find the biggest kid in the room and punch them.

Meh, excellent interview last week, didn't get offered the position, thought it went really well, bollox to thought, it did go really well, feedback was great, just a better (read cheaper) applicant. Might not be cheaper I'm just being bitter

Diluted Dante wrote:

Find the biggest kid in the room and punch them.

Jack Reacher can teach us all sorts.

Aye that's it. Tbh I can't stand the stress of Xmas and whilst I'd love to spend a bit more time with my nephew who's 1, well, he's only 1. Not the end of the world.

I just wished for a slightly less shitty end of the stick.

Jaco wrote:

Haha, nice idea Syph.

Yeah Reg, you're an English teacher so you can definitely make that argument. The syntax of the sentence certainly lends itself to that. "Well it said that leadership was to retreat on Saturday and Sunday – so I tactically retreated to the pub."

My dude I've not been an English teacher for 3 years! Welcome back! I'm part of the management now...

Wait a sec. Reg is the Man now?

How long was I gone?!

That's me done my fist week of placement.

Planned and taught two lessons, and two half lessons and got lots of feedback. Managed to get in on time despite one day being out the door at 06:45 and not back until gone 21:00. Overall fairly positive, I was given a big hill to climb and I think I managed to get most of the way up. My lesson planning is still shaky, and I am not quite there in a lot of aspects but I think some of that is down to the PGDE explaining things. We've been doing the course for long enough that we could have had Learning Intentions and Success Criteria explained to us as well as my mentor just managed tonight, for example.

Sadly everything comes with negatives. The main one is ridiculous and I don't know how to deal with it well. For whatever reason, travelling to work and waiting for my first period makes me sweat like crazy. I have become fairly self conscious about this, and annoyingly I only have one viable suit jacket and one viable jumper at the moment, so I am going to have to go out and spend cash I don't have right now on more clothes after already spending £120 on a new suit/shirt/tie combo.

The other is that - and Jon and anyone who has ever read over my work will note - my scatterbrained writing style comes through in my lesson plans giving me some Learning Intentions and Success Criteria that are quite clunky, contorted, or have the occasional errant word left over from an edit. Had two bits of feedback on my mentor from that, so I have a bit of buckling up to do.

Weirdly I've made things hard from myself by being really good in my first two lessons, because the things I am not great at are the things that are really hard and making progress in them is going to be hard and I hope I don't piss of the department if I fail to make huge leaps.

Still, it could be worse.

The Daddy wrote:

Have you got an M&S outlet nearby? They’re great for workwear. Got a suit jacket for £8 last time I was there, proper decent wool one.

That’s a good point. There’s one out at The Forge. I picked up a decent black suit there a couple of years ago when I wanted one to fuck with for a Halloween costume.

Cheers folks. I dunno. I think I can do the walk and talk, but the back end of planning is really rigorous these days and it's like learning a new language, that's going to be the hard part.

I will check M&S Outlet at The Forge tomorrow too, that sounds like a great shout!