Welcome to my blog and the start of a lifelong challenge.

Welcome to my Teaching Blog. It is to help me evaluate my progress throughout the 2014-15 education year, whilst I train to be a Primary School teacher and I am using it to become a reflective practitioner.
At the ripe age of 30, I am embarking on a complete change of career. Not a lot of you will know this but I used to work in television and film - more of that to follow in the months to come - and now that I am settling down, getting married and thinking about the bigger picture, I needed to evaluate my career and take on a challenge that will not only affect my life but the lives of many others.

I enjoyed both primary and secondary school, but my own opinion is that primary school is where the children soak up the most experience and knowledge, and teachers can really make a difference as to how a child is to continue their path into higher education. They are more susceptible to change and more often than not are willing to learn as much as they can. There is also a lack of male presence in primary schools and from my own childhood I can only remember my year 5 teacher and headteacher at George Palmer Primary School now Palmer Academy.

My teaching career all began last July, when I took on a group of overseas students as Drama Director at Eton College. It was a 3 week summer school course and I taught 10 sessions in which the students learnt a variety of drama techniques. These were then applied to a final performance, that was displayed in front of other tutors and the Summer Schools Director. This was a role I relished as it involved: pastoral care, group outings, and organising sports activities - all of which can be applied to primary school teaching.

Soon afterwards and after much thought, I started applying to local primary schools in the Windsor and Maidenhead area, for some teaching experience. Via a contact at a nearby primary school, I was invited along to volunteer in year 3, and over the course of the autumn term I worked mostly in KS2.

As well as this, I was fortunate enough to also be invited to various other primaries and first schools. All of them were very different in their own unique ways (please see their separate pages).

After a few applications two interviews, I finally embarked on a new job role as Teaching Assistant at a primary school in Maidenhead. It is a CofE Collective Worship school and after spending the first few months from December to March in a year 5/6 class, I was asked to assist a 1-1 student in year 4 and this has certainly given me plenty of behaviour management experience to take forward into the profession.

I will be sad to leave the school especially as they were the ones to give me a shot at a paid position, however it is for the best that I train to be a teacher at a new environment. I am well known across the school and have had the pleasure with working with some outstanding teachers and great students. A lot of has been learnt with regards to how the timetable works and how quickly it can be adjusted to suit the needs of the school, the different teaching methods of at least 6 teachers, how to deliver PE lessons both with PPA cover and the classroom teacher, and finally the playground conundrum of keeping everyone happy despite the many friendship makeup/breakups.

Throughout this blog and on separate pages, you can also see links to recommended websites I am using for resources, and songs I have see being sung in assembly plus much much more.

Please add your own comments along the way to guide me and give encouragement.