What A Year!

I’ve been thinking recently about getting back into blogging. I’ve found this year (my third year, out of four) to be the busiest yet and blogging sort of fell to the side line. Apart from my dissertation blog, the last time I wrote properly was back in September and so I thought a summary of my year would be a good place to start.

Back in September, I was invited to the Vice Chancellors Awards on the Hoe to celebrate Pete, Steve and Oliver getting an award that I had nominated them for. I had a great night and it made me think about how much I would love the Plymouth Education Society to receive an award this year – let’s hope we have done enough to get a nomination!

Just after the awards, I also attended my boyfriend’s graduation, again on the Hoe. He was graduating from his PGCE and so I got a little look into the position I will be in two years from now – scary and exciting! It was something that really made me realise that it isn’t a huge amount of time before I graduate and am hopefully in a full-time teaching position. These past three years have gone so quickly, but I am also so ready to get into teaching.

The academic year began and I was busy instantly with the Education Society. We managed to recruit about 150 more members than the year before which is fantastic. Over the year we have been able to offer lots of courses and opportunities to the members who are mostly from education courses. I’ve taken on a smaller role for next year as I’ll be on placement for so long, but I am really looking forward to getting stuck in again and creating and taking part in the opportunities we can offer. I’m particularly looking forward to doing the Makaton and First Aid courses to add to my CV and gain some more experience that will be valuable in my career.

In October I had my placement for the year. My previous placement was amazing and I had a great time, met some amazing people and learnt a lot, so I was hoping for the same from this placement. Sadly, I didn’t enjoy my placement half as much as the previous one, however I tried to make the most of the opportunities that arose. I am definitely looking forward to my next placement and find it difficult that we will have had over a year in between!

A HUGE part of this year has been taken up by my dissertation. It took a lot of time and effort but I am hoping to get a good grade for it… I’ll find out in a few days!

I’ve just been invited to go on a couple of school trips with a school that I was on placement with over Easter of last year. I was lucky enough to get to go to London and Escot with that school, and this year they have asked me to go to Escot again, and also to the Isle of Wight for a week. I am really looking forward to these – partly because I know how much fun they are, and partly for the great opportunities to develop my experience for the future.

I’m now currently working full-time at the University and am doing that for a couple of months. Today I got to meet a potential student for next year’s course and spoke to him about the course and about blogging. It really inspired me to get back into the blog writing and so hopefully I’ll get a few more blogs up soon!