So yesterday was my first day at my first placement. I feel it went well and I feel like I'm already learning. It was your typical teachers training day. I met the whole of my department, and there's so many of us (ten of us). We have a brand new office and even have my own desk. Most importantly of all I found out that the lady that was supposed to be my mentor had passed me on to the head of the English department and another lady who has just returned from maternity leave. I think I'm going to learn a lot from them both. After coffee and croissants we went into a whole school meeting where the headmistress was introduced to us, she discussed priorities for the year. She made a point that was particularly poignant to me and to my first assignment. She said that our girls are scared of failure and don't really know how to pick themselves back up from it. This is something that was true of me whilst I was at school, and I never really failed at anything until I failed my first driving test! I wish one of my teachers had taught me to be a little bit resilient, as failure is something I have had to face a lot of since leaving school and I've had to learn to deal with it in the best way possible. One thing I will endeavour to do in my own teaching, is teach my students to have bouncebackability!
Interestingly when one of the Assistant Headteachers started to discuss the exam results, the school that I'm going to be working at has the best exam results (GCSE and aLevel) in the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead. This has really boosted my confidence and I now believe all of those people that have said to me, you are very lucky to be working at Newlands as it is a very good School.
One thing that I think The Langley Academy (the School that I previously worked at) did have right was the house system and the house point system. This is something that the current Coalition Government are particularly keen on, as it is a move back in time to traditional systems of praise and reward. Newlands have just created a House Point system, which I think will take many of the staff including myself some time to get used to. The housepoints are rewarded for different things including: attendance, participation, reward and academic. Newlands also have the Newlands Awards where there are three levels of achievement bronze, silver and gold, and teachers have to write a detailed nomination form of why a student deserves a Newlands Award. 5 awards gets you bronze, 10 awards from 3 of the 5 categories gets you silver and 15 over the 5 categories gets you gold. Wow, it has just dawned on me how much I have to remember!
After break we had our first Curriculum Development meeting of the new academic year as a department. We discussed the set up of 'rough books' as opposed to exercise books. This means that these books are not marked. The only pieces of work that are marked are the pieces in a separate folder. I guess that is good news for me, as there won't be as much marking as I was expecting! The department has a curriculum map, which I think is a fantastic idea. This means that everyone is following the same curriculum at the same time but they're allowed to do it in their own way.
So lots learnt today and lots to remember for the future, but I'm happy to say I'm looking forward to going back into school on Friday. Tomorrow and Thursday are training days with the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead...
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