Lots and lots of reading

Well I'm now into the 2nd week of the Primary Teaching course, and the reading is building up. I'm going cross-eyed this evening from staring at the computer screen, and am over my (self set) limit of PC use for the day so will keep this short. The course is going fine so far, although the uni is having a few IT problems (don't you just love computers?). We had no internet access, no access to blackboard (where all the lecture notes, etc are put for us) and no access to the e-portfolio, which has made some of the classes a little more challenging. It's gradually all being fixed, so hopefully they'll get it all sorted out soon!

I'm finding I'm printing lots of documents so I can read things offline and not be tempted to use the computer too much - I'm already on my 3rd ink cartridge for my printer!!! And talking of computers - don't you just love red tape too? To be allowed to use my ergonomic mouse in the computing labs at uni, I had to see enabling support, OT, another woman in Student Services (all extremely helpful and supportive) and now I have permission but - wait for it - I have to get an IT Technician to plug it in for me................. so I will avoid the computing labs whenever possible. And what happened to not forcing me to make it obvious to other students that I have "a disability"........... it's lucky that I'm more than happy for people to know, in the hope that I can give them some advice and prevent them from developing problems from too much computer work, etc.

Back to the reading - so many government policy documents are just so long, which adds to the panic when you see how much reading there is to do. Lots of different documents - and pages and pages and pages of them. One we were advised to read is 256 pages long - luckily the first 8 or 9 pages are a summary of the rest, so you can get the gist of it and then read in depth on the areas that particularly interest you. If you tried to read everything in such depth there's not a chance of you remembering it.

So far I've only had one subject session (maths, it was really good); the rest has been School & Professional Studies - topics such as Child Protection, Creativity, Psychology, etc and also introduction to our first placement which is pre-school and is in 2 1/2 weeks - eek! Over the next 2 weeks we'll be focusing heavily on early years education in preparation for the placement.

For the rest of this week the focus is more on subjects - Language, RME, Art, Social Subjects, Science & Technology. We're all wondering what the music and PE classes are going to be like - because they're not just lectures, they're practical classes.

That's it for now, but hopefully that will have given everyone a little more idea what I'm up to.