As summer draws to an end its time to take stock of what has changed since I first started university one year ago…

Reflecting on how I have changed as a student, a trainee teacher and a person as a result of my experiences over the past year has been insightful.

During welcome week I remember feeling nervous and excited. I was unsure if I could succeed at university and as a teacher. Had I made the right decision to leave the stability of my full time job to pursue a new vocation?

Lectures were a challenge and I felt like I was swimming out of my depth for the first few weeks. I hadn’t studied since leaving high school four years previously and I had forgotten where to begin.

The prospect of placement felt incredibly daunting. How would I, someone so self-conscious, stand up in front of a room full of people and teach?

Yet here I am one year on readying myself for my first day of MA2 feeling excited and incredibly motivated.

My placement was an amazing experience and I was given some excellent feedback. I feel as though I am returning to my studies with a solid foundation upon which to grow. I now have a context upon which to base all future learning. How will this information change how I teach? What could I do differently within my practice to better engage the learners? I shall constantly refer back to placement within my personal reflections because that is the point from which I need to grow.

I am incredibly excited to be studying the IB elective this year and have already begun to explore what this might mean for my future practice. The theory behind the IB excites me and cause me to reflect on my pedagogy. The ideas surrounding authentic inquiry caused me to reflect on some of my placement lessons and consider ways I could have adapted the lesson to allow the children to lead their own investigations.

I believe that MA2 is going to be an eye opening experience for me and one that enables me to find out more about myself as a teacher.

Good luck to everyone this semester!