The modules have been coming thick and fast, so I find I don't often have time to sit back and think about things - it's just constantly going forward, onto the next thing. Someone pointed out the other week that we're now one third of the way through the Masters, it's both a scary and exciting thought!
I submitted the second half of our Pedagogy 2 assignment two weeks ago, English and Irish. I thought I was on top of things, but I still ended up working away on it in the early hours of the morning before...I'm feeling so-so about the Irish assignment, I'm happy with the ICT part of it but less so with the lesson plan. Gaeilge plans are much longer than other subjects and have quite a bit of detail in them, so I felt like I wasn't quite doing it right. It's a learning process though so I'm sure I'll be a dab hand at Irish lesson plans once I've qualified!
Although we're still busy, it currently feels like somewhat of a let up from being constantly bombarded with different session releases, webinars and assignments. We have our Nua-Ghaeilge 1 assignment due in December, but the focus has definitely shifted to our placement happening in January, and there's not a whole lot of sessions being released each week anymore. Nice to finally have some time to sit down and gather my thoughts for placement.
I had naively left it late to start sorting my placement...luckily though I emailed a school at the end of October and they emailed back almost straight away to offer me a spot. I'll definitely sort my next placement sooner next time though, because a lot of schools told me they'd already sorted all their placements for the academic year. I'll be with 5th class in January for five weeks, and I'm equal parts nervous and excited for it! The school is only a 15min cycle from my house, just need to get a pannier for the bike to carry in my various bits and pieces.
With COVID-19, we possibly won't be having any inspector visits during our placement - I suppose that'd be a silver lining to doing placement during a pandemic! I'm worried though about managing with all the extra precautions in the school, and that it might be limiting in what we can do in the classroom. A few people have mentioned that voice amplifiers are helpful to ensure children can still hear you through your mask, so there's definitely some things to take into consideration that you wouldn't normally have to during 'normal' times!
By my next update, in December, I'll have submitted all my assignments for 2020 and will be officially on my Christmas holidays - exciting! I'm also hoping to be fully caught up on all my sessions releases etc by then, so I can start 2021 with a clean slate. Hopefully I won't be too buried beneath placement preparation...
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