I was a bit taken aback writing that heading...is there really only 2 months left?!
I'm really starting to see the light at the end of the teacher-training tunnel. Yesterday I even agreed to going to something in June without checking my calendar. The idea of being able to do what I like with my time, without assignments looming or lectures to attend, is a real novelty! No guilt that I should be doing college work, no prioritising college over other parts of my life...pure bliss!
That being said, I'm trying not to get ahead of myself - still lots to be done between now and the end of April. I'm currently out on Advanced School Placement, so that's very much consuming my life at the moment. It should have been 10 weeks, starting in January, but the first 5 weeks were turned into subbing due to the subbing shortage around Christmas. This was a decision by the Department of Education, so Hibernia really just had to roll in behind. Needless to say, the college WhatsApp was only delighted!
We had to either sub, or attend our placement school to help out. As it happened, my placement school is quite big so they needed me to sub there almost every day! Over the few weeks I ended up subbing in Junior Infants, 1st, 2nd, 5th, taking 4th & 6th for a week each, and working in Learning Support. Some days it was a complete mystery walking in the door where I'd be for the day. It was a super experience though (getting paid is nice too...), plus it meant that by the time I started placement I had figured out important things like when lunch is, how to use the photocopier...
I have 6th class for this placement and started last week on Thursday with them, after 3 days of observation. I doesn't seem possible that I've only done 4 teaching days with them...a lot has happened! I had my first inspection, 9am on Monday morning for Maths. Very early to be getting an inspected, still hadn't learned all of the children's names! All seemed to go well though, and it's nice to have the inspection out of the way now for the rest of the week.
My class make their confirmation this Friday, so that's one less teaching day for me and then next week is midterm - the excitement is real! I'm living for that time, to be able to organise myself for the last 2.5 weeks of placement after midterm.
I'm also very behind on the thesis front, so will hopefully squeeze in some Thesis writing over the midterm too...amidst the 65 lessons I have to plan!
