The Year Begins

The year is off to a slow start for me. I am now officially a qualified primary school teacher, hurray! As of yet, I have not yet found a permanent teaching position. What has spurred me to write this post, however, is that I will be substitute teaching next week! After close to two months of anxious waiting, job-seeking and stressing, this opportunity to be part of a school environment is very welcome.

I will be subbing for a Grade 2 teacher for two days next week, at a local school where I interviewed for a post last year. All of the staff that I have been in contact with at the school seem wonderful, and I'm looking forward to the chance to stretch my teaching repertoire and pick up some new skills. As per usual, Pinterest and the various teaching sites I visit have showered me with useful tidbits about substitute teaching. I am nervous, yet also very excited. It won't be easy coming into an established classroom and having to follow another teacher's plans- but, it sounds similar to what my teaching practices were like. In a way, new teachers might be well-suited to substitute teaching.

Employment

My PGCE year has come to an end. All that I'm waiting for, from my department's side of things, is my results. I am confident that I have passed, I put enough work in and I didn't find the exams difficult, just grueling.

The big issue now, for me, is finding a job. I was holding out for a vacancy at one of the schools that I had my teaching practice at, but that seems to have fallen through. All of the vacancies that I have applied for haven't been successful. So, my only hope is sending my CV to schools and hoping that they are interested in taking me on as a volunteer, possibly as a relief teacher. To be honest, I feel that I'm a bit of a failure because I've been unable to find a job, even though I know that I can't be the only PGCE graduate in this position. It's early days yet (it's still 2012!), and I know that I have some time left.

I'm considering the possibility of investigating schools that aren't working in mainstream education, such as the many fantastic Waldorf and Montessori schools that are in Cape Town. I bookmarked some of them a while back, I think their principles are excellent and I admire schools that try to make learning as engaging as possible. While usually you need to have an education qualification specific to their educational philosophies, some schools offer on-the-job training for mainstream teachers like me. It's a long shot, but maybe one of them will be generous enough to take me on and let me show them that I can do this.

Pirates!

There's a brilliant giveaway series going on at Creekside Teacher Tales. What's great about this one is that the theme is: Pirates!

Click on the image to have a look at what's on offer and enter!

I love pirates, but I'm not sure why. Technically, they were/are baddies, and not good role-models for the developing child. But, as I saw in the Queenspark play a few days ago, sometimes it's really fun to get to play a baddie, even if you aren't one in real life. The pirate crew in the play had a complete blast, you could see it on their faces the entire time. Afterwards, I overheard a mum explaining to a teacher that at first, her extremely well-behaved son was devastated that he was picked to be a pirate, since he didn't want to be 'bad'. They had explained to him, though, that acting was all about pretending to be something you aren't. After that, he embraced the idea as a chance to be 'bad' without getting into trouble!

Go and check the giveaway out, and look out for the next one- I will definitely be! Even if I don't win any of the prizes, it's a great way to show you all how amazingly generous and creative the teaching community is.

Holidays

Pinterest is completely flooded with turkeys at the moment - it must be Thanksgiving in the US. From my non-American perspective, it's still easy to see what a huge deal it is for their country and it's considered one of their most important holidays. It's been making me reflect on South African holidays. According to the governmental website, we have the following holidays on our calendar this year:
 

1 January	New Year's Day
2 January	Public holiday
21 March	Human Rights Day
6 April	Good Friday (Friday before Easter Sunday)
9 April	Family Day (Monday after Easter Sunday)
27 April	Freedom Day
1 May	Workers' Day
16 June	Youth Day
9 August	National Women's Day
24 September	Heritage Day
16 December	Day of Reconciliation
17 December	Public holiday
25 December	Christmas Day
26 December	Day of Goodwill

Phew, that seems like a lot!  As South Africa is a relatively new country, we celebrate things like our Constitution (Human Rights Day), our first free elections (Freedom Day), and reconciliation (Day of Reconciliation). We also celebrate the role of various groups against apartheid- such as labour movements (Workers' Day), students (Youth Day) and women (Women's Day). I think these are all great things to celebrate, and it's even better since we get all of these days as public holidays*.

When I was growing up, I had very little appreciation for all of these holidays, apart from the fact that they usually meant a day off school. Our South African holidays mark important, often tragic, events which happened on our way to a democracy. I hope that students in schools today will have the stories explained to them, even if they are violent, to show our new generations how far we have come. I would like to explain to my students what each of these holidays are, and why they can be proud of their country.

In other news, I had my first job interview yesterday. The panel were lovely, and although I was a bundle of nerves I seemed to make a good impression. Sadly, I did not get the position, though the principal of the school told me on the phone that she thinks I will make a great teacher. While I'm a bit sad that I didn't get the post, her words did help to boost my confidence. For now, it's back to sending out CVs and hoping.

*Unless you work at a private school, which I found out while teaching at Queenspark. They pick and choose which holidays they take, since they don't operate on the government calendar.

Clip Chart: International

A teacher-buddy of mine in Taiwan has taken my Clip Chart fervor to his school. They are using a modified version of the Clip Chart, and it's adorable:

Taiwanese Clip Chart

Click here to go to Miscreant's blog to read all about their Clip Chart and how it works. Here's an excerpt:

"All students have their names written on pegs and placed on "Ready to Learn". When they are being good, paying attention and supporting their fellow students we move their pegs up. When they are being disruptive and uncooperative, we move their pegs down. Often I will call up a student and make her/him move her/his own peg down. This reinforces the idea that s/he's done something wrong and (as I teach second language students) it gives me a moment alone with the student to ask her/him if s/he knows why s/he's in trouble - sometimes there are communication problems, rather than students being deliberately naughty."

I love seeing how each teacher uses a Clip Chart, we really are a creative bunch. I love the variety of colours that were used in this one. The blue Uh-Oh is particularly cute. For the Think About It, they have a rule in place that if the student is still on that colour by the end of the lesson, they do not get to go out to break but instead have to stay inside, thinking about what they have done. It's great that those teachers are able to enforce their rules, many South African teachers are not allowed to do things like keep a student in for break-time.

Clip Chart 2.0

Today, I've come to show off my newest clip chart. It withstood 5 weeks of use at Queenspark School, my host school, without even a scratch on it, and it'll be coming along to my first teaching post (where-ever that ends up being!). As before, the design comes from New Management's ebook, get it here. I decided to mix the colours up a little bit, putting red at the bottom. I find that having a glittery, special colour at the top makes it something to aim for. I also changed some of the wording, "Good Day" became "Showing Pride", "Great Job" became "Excellent Effort", "Think About It" became "Make Better Choices". I'm still not completely happy with the wording on the bottom two, but they work as intended- first, the teacher gets to choose what happens to the misbehaving student, then the parents are contacted.  The chart is made out of coloured card, that has the labels glued on and then each piece covered with plastic contact. Holes were punched in each rectangle and then they were tied together with twine, with the knots hidden neatly at the back.

This clip chart couldn't have come into being without my dear friend, the Femme DM, who helped design and build it. Here is one of my Outstanding students, standing next to the clip chart. He was the first one to reach Outstanding and everyone was very pleased for him, including his fellow classmates.

The Clip Chart went down well in the classroom, the students responded positively to it and my host teacher said that it made a real difference with them. I have been keeping a daily behaviour chart to monitor their behaviour.

• The chart is just a simple spreadsheet, but feel free to grab it here: Click to download Clip Chart Daily Behaviour Record (Hosted on Google Drive) 

• If you'd like my labels, they are here (.pdf): Click to download Clip Chart Labels (Hosted on Google Drive)

I'll be turning my report of the effectiveness of the Clip Chart system into my research project for my PGCE. Hopefully my peers and evaluators will also see that the Clip Chart is a amazing classroom management resource.

End Times

So, aside from some marking (creative writing and numeracy), my teaching is finishing for the year.

Mostly, I'm really sad about that. I've had an amazing time at Queenspark, I've learned so much and hopefully have grown as a teacher. I'm going to be writing up some of the things I've been up to during the last month.

Tomorrow is the Junior Sports' Day, which I'll be helping out at and my students will be partipating in. I'm bringing each of them a lollipop, as well as a certficate of some way they have achieved while I was there- that idea was from my host teacher. As a side note, this site is amazing for creating kid-friendly certificates, it was no trouble at all to whip up one for each student. I'll also be bringing her a little gift to say thanks, there is no way I can possibly say how grateful I am but at least it'll be something.

From Monday I'll be back at university, frantically completing assignments and portfolios and research projects. To be honest, I'd rather stay at Queenspark and continue with what I've been doing there- I was honoured to be part of such an amazing team of teachers and staff, if only for such a short while.