Diary of a Trainee Teacher: Week 5 (29th Feb to 4th Mar)

Hi followers,

Hope you had a productive work week -or, at least, as productive as mine-. You can't imagine how many things may happen around school in just 5 days. Some of them good, some of them no so good. Some will reaffirm on one's vocation to become a teacher whereas others will raise certain doubts about one's future. But funnily enough, at the end of the day the positive sack weights far more than the negative one.

On the one hand, during this week I witnessed my first COCOPE meeting. For those of you who are not familiar with
COCOPE, aka CCP, it is one of the five coordination bodies present in every secondary school. Its name stands for "Comisión de Coordinación Pedagógica", in English "Teaching Coordination Commission". It is chaired by the School's Director and Head of Studies and represented by each Head of Department. According to the law, the Commission shall meet at least once in each quarter.

Some of the matters that were discussed are as follows:

- Resit examination timetable.
- On-call calendar to cover any teacher who is on leave. Certain concerns have raised among the team because some leaves do not meet the conditions to request a substitute teacher from the regional government, hence it is becoming a burden for the rest of the teachers who must follow a substitution rotation system to ensure all groups are accompanied by at least one teacher in the classroom.
- Reminder about internal training course for teachers.
- Use of skates in the center.
- Use of mobile phones in the center. It is suggested to make the guidelines more accurate and include them in the RRI (Reglamento de Régimen Interno).

On the other hand, I had a session with the school's director about the school's "Set of documents". We reviewed the Annual General Programme (PGA), the Emergency and Evacuation Plan, the Transition Plan (from primary to secondary school), the Improvement Plan and the School-based Education Project (PEC), among others.

Click the image to download the PEC

My last meeting this week happened on Thursday during our Department meeting. This time we had an appointment with the area representative of Burlington Books Editorial. 

It was aimed at demoing and presenting new features and functionalities available in the latest edition "New Action!". Interactive Classroom (IC) includes extra materials and resources like flashcards, slideshows, video episodes, culture videos, grammar animation... Nice stuff!!

An online 100% interactive workbook looks like a pretty innovative option that it's worth exploring. It is a fact today that online tools are best valued than the traditional ones. They are more visual, attractive, closer to the kids' digital environment, and also include thorough monitoring/assessment capabilities.
However, we must ensure students' needs under the premises of equity, equality and inclusion. That means, all students should have computers and internet connection to do their homework at home. Now, the right way to proceed is to arrange a meeting with the School Council at the beginning of the new term to decide whether students will work on an online-based workbook or whether they will continue using the paper edition. What do you think??

Other than meetings we continued with our standard lessons, highlighting the lesson designed and prepared by me for 1 BACH. I lead the lesson from minute 1, and talk to them about the importance of acquiring solid skills on writing, of keeping an appropriate neat structure according to the type of text and its functions, and making use of connectors between sentences and paragraphs. About how important is writing in the PAU (University Entrance Exam). I suggest conducting a discussion about advantages and disadvantages of shopping in the mall or in the city centre. In pairs, they have a few minutes to prepare arguments for and against. Later we hold a debate, so they can express their opinion orally and in writing. 

In 2 ESO students sat for an exam. At this stage I realized that planned and deliberate distribution of tables is essential specially among the youngest ones. There are 7 students with ACIS (learning difficulties), hence they do a different exam that's been specially designed for them.

The other lessons of the week ran smoothly, without major difficulties or incidents...

Thanks for your time!! Talk to you next week!!