As I am only a few hours away from completing my placement I feel like it’s a good time to reflect not only on this experience but also my presentation and the module as a whole.

After so much hassle in getting my placement sorted it has definitely been worthwhile. I’ve reaped the rewards though as my confidence has increased due to the nature of working with large groups of pupils from a number of year groups. This was also beneficial as I was able to see how teachers cater to different concentration spans and levels of ability which was interesting. Furthermore during my time I was finding myself using skills that I had possibly not used since I done voluntary football coaching a few years ago. Overall I feel like the placement was a great experience as not only has it allowed me to work on my skills and develop as aforementioned but I’ve always aspired to be a PE teacher so I’m glad that I’ve enjoyed my placement this much. I am now more motivated that ever to make sure I achieve this goal which may be one of the most significant things to occur from this placement.

In terms of my presentation I feel like I was a bit unprepared as although I’ve been busy recently I could have used my time a bit better. I was also really nervous as for some reason I struggle with presentations despite being a confident outgoing person who is happy to contribute to group discussions etc. Therefore as you can guess I had an unconvincing start however as the presentation went on I began to feel more comfortable and my confidence grew. I took this as a consolation to my presentation not being the best but perhaps what was my most frustrating was that I missed out some important things I wanted to say as a result of nervousness throwing me off track. However I will learn from the da to be better prepared for my next one and hopefully in turn I will be do a bit better.

To conclude, I’ve really enjoyed the module as it’s gave me the platform to do my placement which has really benefited me while the presentation pushed me out my comfort zone and is something I will learn from. The seminars have also been helpful as a lot can be taken from them that being said though I think some could be done online.

James

Finally! I started my placement this week. I

went in to my old school 9-12 on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday thus meaning I have competed 9 hours. I am happy to finally have started after so much delay. It is also a relief that each day has varied from the other meaning I will have a good amount of topics to cover in my presentation which if you read my previous posts is something I was worried about.

I’ll save most of the content of my placement but this is a brief over line of what the 3 days consisted of:

Monday 04/11:

Period 1 – swimming 1st years going through relay races using diff strokes

Period 2 – Swimming 2nd years practicing diving

Period 3 – dodgeball with 4th years

Wednesday 06/11

Period 1 – warm up hoop game working on team work/communication & basketball with 4 year national 5s

Period 2 – classroom how social factors impact performance with same 4Y N5s

Period 3 – Sport Ed class doing netball

Thursday 7/11

Period 1 – PE studies S3 Football

Period 2- Higher class Badminton working on training approaches combination drills then games

Period 3 – Rugby with S3

I noticed a lot of positive changes in the school compared to my time there. I will go into more details about these also.

I look forward to the coming weeks and will keep yous updated on my progress.

luckily remembered to do this on my way back from terminal V.  Unfortunately there is not much to update on other than my mentor replied. Her reply was very brief  however she did say that she will get back to me with some sort of plan of how my placement is going to go. As aforementioned I feel slightly stressed as I want to do well in the presentation but may not have done a lot of placement between now and then. However I still feel optimistic and still plan to do as well as I can given the circumstances.

James Hunter

Not much has changed since my last post as I have not received a reply to the email I sent to my mentor. Thus I began to believe that she may have given me the wrong email as I would have expected a reply by now.

This has made me feel stressed as my placement has already been delayed enough due to the reasons mentioned in my previous blog post such as my own lack of urgency. Therefore I tried to make another attempt to speed up the process as I am now more motivated than ever to ensure I gain as many positives as I can from this experience.

A few days ago I was working in my airport job 6am-10am so I decided that I would go to my former school once my shift was finished. I drove there only to find the school closed with the shutters down leading me to the realisation that it was “October week” and the school was closed for both staff and pupils. This was frustrating as I was looking forward to speaking to my mentor in person in order to sort out the details of my placement arrangement. However on the other hand it also gave me clarity as to why my email has not been answered yet as obviously my mentor will not be looking at her school email during her week off.

Despite another setback in sorting my placement I plan to go to my school on Monday if I do not receive a reply to my email in the morning. While this may not give my mentor much of an opportunity to actually see the email I want to minimise any further postponement of starting my placement.

Firstly I would like to clarify that this post will be quite brief as I am yet to start my placement.

However I am making an effort to speed up the process. Today I emailed my mentor who is also my former secondary school PE teacher. This is the first time I have made contact with her since she agreed to help me with my placement. In the email I briefly explained what the placement should consist of in terms of the required hours etc. Furthermore I also asked my mentor what she thinks would be beneficial for me to do during my time in the school.  I feel like I should have attempted to sort this out sooner in order to be better prepared for the presentation however I continued to delay this unnecessarily.

Therefore this has made feel slightly anxious that I may struggle to complete enough hours between now and my presentation to get a good mark as I work part time as well as attend university. On the other hand I am also confident I will be able to make a good arrangement with my teacher as she was always helpful during my time in school. I am intrigued to see what her plans are for me during my placement while I am also excited to gain more experience in the career area I aspire to work in. I believe this will be a very rewarding experience for me and I look forward to acquiring new skills as well as building on the ones I already possess.

Overall I look forward to my mentors reply and plan to take action to make my placement as convenient and valuable as possible.