Good Morning Thursday!

Back blip

I took this blip in the morning before leaving for school as I knew it was going to be a very full on day. It was! All morning lesson planning, helping trainees decide what to teach for week 4. We don't allocate material, but rather talk about what they need to consider - both for the students to ensure they're challenged, engaged and get a balance of skills and language; and for themselves, they need to make sure they choose lessons to complete the balance of lessons in their portfolio and we encourage the stronger trainees to experiment with something different. It can sometimes be hard work and my group of 6 didn't get the week planned by the end of the morning. They weren't working as a team and just trying to grab a piece of interesting material from the book. Ho hum. Sometimes it's easier just to allocate materials and we sometimes decide to do that and it's easier for us really. We thought this group could do it, but perhaps we were wrong. Lunch was a few bites of a sandwich and the marking of a resubmitted assignment (potential fail candidate, so had to be marked before the weekend and had been handed in late). The resubmission was a fail.

Afternoon of observing two good lessons: one solid and one 'above standard' to a well deserving trainee who's worked really hard. Nice!

Then, just when our energy was running after a 10 hour long day, we had to get all the trainees together for 30 mins to check all their portfolios were up to date and organized for our assessor's visit on Sunday. My colleague then helped the group I'd been working with in the morning complete their week's lessons for next week as I to prepare a stage 3 potential fail tutorial for one of the trainees. Not pleasant, but had to be done before the weekend. We then both conducted the tutorial with him as it's sometimes good to have a witness. He has a lot to work on next week and over the weekend has one resubmission to do, another assignment, as well as planning for Sunday's lesson. It's not looking good. You fail the course if you fail two written assignments.

Nice end to the end of the day when I was walking out the door and my colleague Ann was just finishing (I blipped her a week ago) and so we decided to go for dinner. Hello Hanna's Korean once again! Catch up, a beer and a new dish for me and one to introduce Bb to....it's the one with the egg on top Bb.

And it's the weekend....breathe!