Well I'm back!
Geeze two posts in a matter of a few days ain't you folks lucky!! ;)
So updates! I left my last post discussing my teacher training and the fact I had an observation the following day well I guess that's as good as any place to start!
So my observation went really REALLY well: the group were fantastic as always and I was really impressed with their knowledge and the way they took to the tasks i set them and my observer thought the same too! I won't beat about the bush my last observation wasn't the best, it was my first formal observation though so I didn't expect it to all go smoothly or to get a good grade however I took away the feedback and worked on it for this one and it worked! My observer recognised that I'd worked on the feedback from the last one and said it was a great improvement! There are as always more things I can do but my grade was much higher than previously and I was (and still am!) over the moon!
So I've now managed to get 2 formal university observations done and I've cracked 3 mentor observations too! We have to have 4 of each through-out the course and the university observations are done by - you guessed it, university observers! Our mentor observations can be done by any member of teaching staff at our placement but it is usually the teacher/tutor we are working with the most :)
After a rather busy Saturday helping a friend move house and relaxing with them Sunday was spent doing nothing much at all - movie and tv day before the week began again!
Which brings us to today, Monday!
Today's been okay... I've been at uni most of the day and we're currently working through presentations on how we incorporate either English and Maths, Diversity and Technology into our subjects. We've each got one topic and must present it to the whole class. It links in with 3 of our tasks for assessment on how we incorporate each of those areas into our teaching. There have been some fantastic examples so far! Once home I've spent most of the evening clearing up my teaching file ready for a tutorial with my uni tutor in a few weeks and making sure I have everything in there so far and working on some materials for placement! Tomorrow will be much the same with uni during the day then I'm off to my friends house in the evening :D I have some placement work I need to do before I go over but I'm sure it will be an exciting evening regardless :D
Till next time!
Toodle pip!
K
Monday 29 February 2016
Wednesday 24 February 2016
That was a long break...
Hello Folks,
I don't know if there are still anyone out there that reads this blog - I wouldn't blame you seeing as it has quite literally been over a year since I last posted!
Well since the 9th of October 2014 things have changed a lot.... a lot a lot!! I left my last post on my first week of my masters degree induction, I was still working part time of an evening in my local supermarket and going to university during the day. The lady that I mentioned that I hit it off with in my induction week turned out to be one of my biggest supports through the whole degree - Her name is Melanie :) She has become a very close friend of mine and although we now live at opposite ends of the country we still keep in touch and I still know I can go to her with anything and she with me. So a not-so-quick overview of the masters then - it was bloody intense and at times incredibly lonely which I touched on in my last post, that is where people like Melanie are key - I couldn't have done it without her or my other friends spurring me on. So I took two compulsory modules in the first semester (From October to the beginning of January) which were Criminal Law (as I was on the Criminal Law and Procedure LLM) and then Law, Society and the State a compulsory module for all the LLM'ers. The Criminal Law module covered everything I'd already covered at undergrad so was a nice refresher but was also nice to discuss certain elements in more detail. The group was very small with only around 4 of us and then the lecturer so you had to do your homework! The Law, Society and the State module was very interesting indeed - each session covered a different area of law and it was a very wide range of areas! We had Animal Rights, Family Law , Sports Law, Human Rights, Education Law and a few more (which have escaped me!) so a vast range of areas but which all linked to specific staff's research interests. All in all a very good first semester and I came away at the end of January with a solid Distinction and high Merit! Yay!
Second semester (January to April) we, as a class, were allowed to pick our two modules however it was based on the two with the highest votes which did cause some fuss but you win some you lose some (My top two options were the ones picked however there was only 1 module I really didn't want to do and I wasn't alone in that thinking either!) So Legislative Approaches to Terrorism and A Legal Research project it was! Terrorism legislation is an area of law that has always fascinated me and having taken Organised Crime and Terror (OCT) in my final year at undergrad I was more than happy to build on my knowledge! The Legal Research project is just that - an individual research project on an area of law you find interesting, a mini dissertation as it was pitched to us (and was true!). I focused on the area of Cyber Terrorism and whether the current definition of terrorism is sufficient in protecting the UK from Cyber threats. I also compared this to US legislation and how they tackle Cyber threats. A fiercely interesting area however one deemed to not be sufficient enough to carry it through to form my final dissertation (drats!). During this semester I also applied to start a PGCE/PCET Teacher Training, at the same university, from the September onwards for another year, I was interviewed and received an offer the day after! So semester two ended on a big high with two solid distinctions and a place on a teacher training course for September...all going well!
Final semester (April to October) was a strange one as it involved the one thing I swore at the end of my undergraduate degree to never do again (as I'm sure many do!)..... a Dissertation. For our LLM this was the only grade that counted - it was 100% of the mark for our entire Masters Degree so every single mark counted and the others were almost redundant. For the dissertation we had two workshops on how to write and broadly structure our dissertations alongside having to write a plan for our potential supervisors to assess to see whether it would be a project that could work. As I said earlier I originally wanted to carry on the Cyber Terrorism theme however my supervisor was unsure and didn't think it was something that could be continued so we bashed heads and came up with.... Mars One: Crimes in Outer Space. I know...Cool right?!? I wont lie whilst it was very interesting to research and so many crazy things were thrown about with it however, it was still very difficult to write and required a lot of collaboration and meetings with my supervisor to make sure I was on the right track and also to keep my confidence up with it too - the second guessing you do when writing something of your own is huge and sometimes it just takes one person to say "your doing okay" for things to be back on track and I cant fault my supervisor on anything. So after a very long summer of dissertation works and still working my day job (SO many hours!!) September finally hit - The month where the LLM would end and another degree would begin (I am completely bonkers - I know this!) September was a very tough and intense month, I moved back to Sunderland in the second week of September and had around two weeks where I was completing my dissertation and also starting my new teacher training degree - Lots to take in! However on September 28th Melanie came up from down south where she was working and we handed our dissertation's in. Our Masters degrees were in the hands of the Awards Board now so we did what any respectable person would do and went out and celebrated!
It was around the beginning of November that we found out our grades.... I GOT A DISTINCTION! I now have almost as many letters after my name that are contained within it! (LLB, G.PLL and LLM) It was such a relief and with graduation only a few weeks away it was definitely something to celebrate. Graduation was on November 26th and was a lovely day although sad to say that only two of our lecturers could turn up and they had to leave quickly after the ceremony too even more sad to say that Melanie couldn't make it for graduation too. Still a good day!
So currently I am working on my PGCE/PCET Teacher Training qualification! I am a Trainee Teacher in Law in a local sixth form college and absolutely love it! Its taken so much hard work to get to this point (and undoubtedly more to come!) but I am so happy now - I cant wait to start teaching full time and be in a job I love! The amount of support I've received from uni tutors, the staff at the college and of course my family and friends has been overwhelming and I am now in the final stretch - Uni finishes in June and Graduation is not long after that (dates aren't confirmed yet!) so fingers are crossed for the next few months!!
I know I've said it previously but i will try to keep updating this from now on - fingers crossed the next post will be a good one too as i have an observation tomorrow!!
Thank you for reading
K x
I don't know if there are still anyone out there that reads this blog - I wouldn't blame you seeing as it has quite literally been over a year since I last posted!
Well since the 9th of October 2014 things have changed a lot.... a lot a lot!! I left my last post on my first week of my masters degree induction, I was still working part time of an evening in my local supermarket and going to university during the day. The lady that I mentioned that I hit it off with in my induction week turned out to be one of my biggest supports through the whole degree - Her name is Melanie :) She has become a very close friend of mine and although we now live at opposite ends of the country we still keep in touch and I still know I can go to her with anything and she with me. So a not-so-quick overview of the masters then - it was bloody intense and at times incredibly lonely which I touched on in my last post, that is where people like Melanie are key - I couldn't have done it without her or my other friends spurring me on. So I took two compulsory modules in the first semester (From October to the beginning of January) which were Criminal Law (as I was on the Criminal Law and Procedure LLM) and then Law, Society and the State a compulsory module for all the LLM'ers. The Criminal Law module covered everything I'd already covered at undergrad so was a nice refresher but was also nice to discuss certain elements in more detail. The group was very small with only around 4 of us and then the lecturer so you had to do your homework! The Law, Society and the State module was very interesting indeed - each session covered a different area of law and it was a very wide range of areas! We had Animal Rights, Family Law , Sports Law, Human Rights, Education Law and a few more (which have escaped me!) so a vast range of areas but which all linked to specific staff's research interests. All in all a very good first semester and I came away at the end of January with a solid Distinction and high Merit! Yay!
Second semester (January to April) we, as a class, were allowed to pick our two modules however it was based on the two with the highest votes which did cause some fuss but you win some you lose some (My top two options were the ones picked however there was only 1 module I really didn't want to do and I wasn't alone in that thinking either!) So Legislative Approaches to Terrorism and A Legal Research project it was! Terrorism legislation is an area of law that has always fascinated me and having taken Organised Crime and Terror (OCT) in my final year at undergrad I was more than happy to build on my knowledge! The Legal Research project is just that - an individual research project on an area of law you find interesting, a mini dissertation as it was pitched to us (and was true!). I focused on the area of Cyber Terrorism and whether the current definition of terrorism is sufficient in protecting the UK from Cyber threats. I also compared this to US legislation and how they tackle Cyber threats. A fiercely interesting area however one deemed to not be sufficient enough to carry it through to form my final dissertation (drats!). During this semester I also applied to start a PGCE/PCET Teacher Training, at the same university, from the September onwards for another year, I was interviewed and received an offer the day after! So semester two ended on a big high with two solid distinctions and a place on a teacher training course for September...all going well!
Final semester (April to October) was a strange one as it involved the one thing I swore at the end of my undergraduate degree to never do again (as I'm sure many do!)..... a Dissertation. For our LLM this was the only grade that counted - it was 100% of the mark for our entire Masters Degree so every single mark counted and the others were almost redundant. For the dissertation we had two workshops on how to write and broadly structure our dissertations alongside having to write a plan for our potential supervisors to assess to see whether it would be a project that could work. As I said earlier I originally wanted to carry on the Cyber Terrorism theme however my supervisor was unsure and didn't think it was something that could be continued so we bashed heads and came up with.... Mars One: Crimes in Outer Space. I know...Cool right?!? I wont lie whilst it was very interesting to research and so many crazy things were thrown about with it however, it was still very difficult to write and required a lot of collaboration and meetings with my supervisor to make sure I was on the right track and also to keep my confidence up with it too - the second guessing you do when writing something of your own is huge and sometimes it just takes one person to say "your doing okay" for things to be back on track and I cant fault my supervisor on anything. So after a very long summer of dissertation works and still working my day job (SO many hours!!) September finally hit - The month where the LLM would end and another degree would begin (I am completely bonkers - I know this!) September was a very tough and intense month, I moved back to Sunderland in the second week of September and had around two weeks where I was completing my dissertation and also starting my new teacher training degree - Lots to take in! However on September 28th Melanie came up from down south where she was working and we handed our dissertation's in. Our Masters degrees were in the hands of the Awards Board now so we did what any respectable person would do and went out and celebrated!
It was around the beginning of November that we found out our grades.... I GOT A DISTINCTION! I now have almost as many letters after my name that are contained within it! (LLB, G.PLL and LLM) It was such a relief and with graduation only a few weeks away it was definitely something to celebrate. Graduation was on November 26th and was a lovely day although sad to say that only two of our lecturers could turn up and they had to leave quickly after the ceremony too even more sad to say that Melanie couldn't make it for graduation too. Still a good day!
So currently I am working on my PGCE/PCET Teacher Training qualification! I am a Trainee Teacher in Law in a local sixth form college and absolutely love it! Its taken so much hard work to get to this point (and undoubtedly more to come!) but I am so happy now - I cant wait to start teaching full time and be in a job I love! The amount of support I've received from uni tutors, the staff at the college and of course my family and friends has been overwhelming and I am now in the final stretch - Uni finishes in June and Graduation is not long after that (dates aren't confirmed yet!) so fingers are crossed for the next few months!!
I know I've said it previously but i will try to keep updating this from now on - fingers crossed the next post will be a good one too as i have an observation tomorrow!!
Thank you for reading
K x
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